#it’ll be mentioned eventually in the story but for the impatient

[sarroora]

This family talks with their hands all the time and it’s lovely

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Since the Fearless Year of shadow wouldn't be complete without my contribution lol, I'll be publishing my fanfiction, Takotsubo, on AO3 on December 19th, one day before the movie's release. Make sure to check it out!

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Summary:

An accident happens, leaving Maria in the sickbay, and Shadow distraught.

And Gerald finds himself in the very familiar seat of being the parent to two distressed children.

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[writeforfandoms]

Warrior Song 9

Find the series masterlist

In which we learn that old adages still hold true. Or, medic is a terrible patient. Fortunately, she has good friends to help her. 

Warnings: mention of blood, mention of injury, swearing, Spartan cuddles. 

Word count: 2.8k

The next 48 hours proved to you and everyone around you that those old stories about medics being awful patients were all true. 

You scowled up at John, impatient with your own limits and frustrated with the sheer lack of anything to do. “I’ll keep off my leg,” you promised.

“No.”

“Just let me go sit and snark with the team! That won’t impact my healing at all.” 

“No.” 

“John–” You sucked in a breath when he sank to his knees next to your bed, putting you two closer to the same height. 

“You need to rest.” He frowned ever so slightly at you. “The team is not restful.” 

Well. You couldn’t actually argue that, much as you wanted to. “John. I’m losing my mind.” 

“No. You’re just bored.” He moved slowly, one hand cupping your cheek, his other covering one of yours. “You’ll be fine.”

You blew out a breath but nodded, a little grudgingly. “I could be better,” you muttered, half-hopeful. 

His lips twitched minutely. “If there’s something else you want…” He trailed off, almost teasingly. 

“Kiss me?” You tipped your head a little, watching him to make sure you hadn’t overstepped. 

Instead he complied, leaning in the rest of the way to kiss you, gently at first but with slowly building heat between you. For someone who you would bet had very little experience kissing, he sure learned fast. It took almost no time for you to reach up, scratching lightly at his stubble. The soft noise he made against your lips was entirely worth it.

Eventually, though, he pulled back. Far too soon for your liking, and possibly his, based on the way his gaze dipped down to your lips. 

“You are trouble,” he rumbled, though the way his fingers brushed over your cheek belied his words. “I have things I need to do. I’ll come back at dinner.” 

You pouted. “Since you can’t stay, can Joy share whatever information you’ve gathered with me? Maybe a fresh set of eyes will help.”

John hesitated, thinking it through. You gave him time - pushing wouldn’t help, not with him. Not with this. Then he nodded. “Behave,” he murmured, almost teasingly. And he was gone. 

You gave yourself a minute to just grin stupidly at your own hands, which were still tingling a little. And your lips. And… other parts of you.

Then you picked up your tablet. “Okay, Joy. Let’s go over everything from the top.”

“From the top?” She sounded faintly confused, shimmering blue hologram peering up at you from the tablet. 

“From the beginning, basically. We’re going to go over everything.” You smiled and shrugged. “I don’t know that I’ll have anything useful to contribute, but it’ll keep me in bed.” 

Joy grinned at you and started, as requested, from the beginning. You were not at all surprised that she had more information than Fernando did, as well as a deeper understanding of the Halo itself. 

“So this Harbinger knew what was on this Halo,” you murmured, tapping your fingers against your good thigh. “And she was looking for them, too.” 

“Right.” Joy shrugged. “We never found whatever she was looking for, though.” 

“The Endless.” You tipped your head back, frowning up at the ceiling. “The way she talked about them is… It sounds like the Forerunners were scared of them. They locked the Endless away, but why? What did they do that was so bad?” You huffed out a breath. 

“That’s what I’ve been wondering, too!” Joy perked up at having someone share her curiosity. 

“Unfortunately, I doubt we’ll get any answers without finding these people first,” you grumbled. “And that sounds like a bad idea, honestly.” 

Joy sighed. “You’re probably right. Despondent Pyre tried to tell us more, but…” 

“Right.” You hummed a little. “But we know that the Harbinger wanted to get to the, uh, what was it called?”

“Silent Auditorium,” Joy provided helpfully.

“Yes, that. But we don’t know exactly where that is.”

“Right.”

“And at this point we just have to assume that nobody else is trying to release the Endless.”

“Also right!”

You sighed. “No wonder command wants answers,” you grumbled. “Do you think there’s actually enough information in the Halo to help you find all of this?” 

“Probably. Somewhere.” Joy shrugged.

“Well. No pressure, then.” You snorted quietly. 

“Something like that.”

You jumped and then swore when your thigh pulled tight with the motion. John was next to you a moment later, moving your tablet to the side. 

“I apologize,” he murmured, one hand landing on your knee. 

“It’s fine.” You breathed slowly, willing the ache to go away. “Just didn’t hear you coming.” 

“Let me see.” John pushed up the hem of the loose shorts you were wearing until he could examine the bandages for himself. There was no blood, fortunately. (Yesterday he’d very calmly freaked out when he discovered you nearly bled through a gauze pad because you tried stretching out your leg.) 

“I’m fine,” you told him, warmly exasperated. “No need to fuss.” 

He gave you a look that very clearly disagreed with that statement, but he smoothed your shorts back into place anyway. “Are you hungry?” 

You shrugged. You’d been too busy to think about food, and your appetite had been… finicky while you were stuck in bed. “I could eat,” you hedged. 

“Fernando is bringing food.” 

“Oh so you finally decided I’m well enough for some company?” You smiled at him to take the sting out of your words, putting a hand over his.

“I was overruled.” The words were completely deadpan, but you could see the humor in his eyes. 

“Ah, he finally staged a rebellion.” You nodded wisely, fighting to keep your expression neutral. “Good man.” 

John huffed his soft laugh, fingers tickling your thigh just under the hem of your shorts. “Behave.”

You squeaked and batted at his hand, but it was too late. He’d already noted your reaction. “Don’t you dare,” you threatened, pointing a finger sternly at him. 

“Hm.” He left you guessing for a few moments before he carefully eased his hand back. “Not until you’re healed.” 

A knock on the door interrupted things from devolving any further, and Fernando stepped inside carrying three trays carefully balanced in his arms. 

“A little help, big guy?” he asked, stepping forward carefully. John stood to take two of the trays from him, and Fernando heaved an exaggerated sigh of relief. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” You shrugged, taking your tray from John and carefully settling it across your lap. “Still going stir-crazy, but less so since Joy and I talked.” 

“When are you going back to medical?” Fernando snagged the chair before John could, sitting at the little table. 

“Tomorrow.” You huffed out a breath and pushed your food around. “I’m not sure if they’ll clear me to go yet.” You swallowed around the lump in your throat, the weight of words you couldn’t say lodging there for a moment. You should go without me. You need to keep working on this, before something else happens. It’s not worth waiting for me.

Fernando waved a hand. “Not everybody heals like these guys,” he said, nodding to Chief. “Not a bad thing. He’s too quick to throw himself off things.”

“Off things?” you repeated, raising your eyebrows. A quick glance at John showed him eating mechanically, refusing to rise to the teasing. 

“Oh yeah. Called me for an extraction once and just threw himself off the tower. Had to catch him in the back of the Pelican.” 

“Seriously?” You looked at John, incredulous.

He shrugged. “It was falling apart.” 

You shook your head, snorting. “Well. I guess that’s one way to evac.” 

Fernando smirked, mischievous and amused. “We could always find something to throw you off of,” he teased.

“I can still go find more cuddle pollen,” you threatened. “Don’t think I won’t.” 

“That was an experience,” Fred said from the doorway. “Definitely worked on Chief.”

John shot the other Spartan a quelling look, but Fred merely smirked and found an open space on the floor to sit. Kelly and Linda followed him in, leaving your room absolutely crowded. Linda ended up perched cross-legged on the end of your bed. 

“What, are we having a sleepover party?” you asked, grinning. “I can probably find a good movie, but I’m afraid I’m fresh out of nail polish and gossip rags.” 

“I’m not explaining why we’re hauling blankets in here,” Fernando immediately said. “One of you can do it.” 

“Dinner first.” Linda gently jostled your foot on your uninjured leg. 

“Yes ma’am.” You rolled your eyes but obediently started eating. You almost missed Fernando snickering and nudging John with his foot. Almost. But you didn’t press for now, just watching with a smile as everyone relaxed and ate their dinners. 

You’d been joking with the sleepover comment, but Linda and Kelly gathered up all the empty trays and left, while Fred and Fernando (mostly Fred) moved the table and chair to make a tiny bit more room on the floor. John only moved to gently nudge you a little further up and then sit behind you on the bed. Confused but more than willing to roll with it, you leaned back into his warmth. 

It didn’t take long for Kelly and Linda to return with arms full of blankets and pillows. Linda just threw her whole armful at Fred, and for a moment you wondered if your room was about to become a warzone. But John cleared his throat, rather pointedly, and they settled down. 

“So, what’re we watching?” Fernando eyed the Spartans for a moment before he shrugged and sprawled across the floor, taking up as much room as physically possible. 

“I’m torn between a terrible old sci-fi movie and a terrible old romcom,” you drawled, subtly snuggling back into John. One of his hands landed on your hip, warm and comforting. 

“Is the terrible old sci-fi something I can laugh at?” Kelly asked, shoving one of Fernando’s legs out of her way. 

“Sure, go for it.” 

“Then we’re watching sci-fi.”

“Kelly, you are the only person here who has not been in charge of Blue Team,” Fred grumbled, casually manhandling Fernando into behaving like a normal person and sitting up with the others. 

“Guess I’m in charge tonight.” Kelly shrugged, looking pleased with herself. 

You ignored the minor squabble breaking out on the floor to take your tablet, picking an old sci-fi movie you knew Kelly would have fun making fun of. It took a bit of doing, but you got it projecting up where everyone could see it. 

You paid attention to the movie… for about the first five minutes. Then John tucked his nose behind your ear, nuzzling gently against your skin, and you were lost. A gentle kiss pressed to the skin there made you melt, eyes closing in near-bliss. 

And, really, you were warm and comfortable, with the familiar sounds of the movie in the background. The gentle kisses were soothing more than anything, the weight of John’s hands reassuring. 

What else could you do but fall asleep?

You woke over-warm to a very full room. Fred, Linda, Kelly, and Fernando were all sleeping on the floor, and you were still reclining against John… who had fallen asleep sitting up against the wall to keep you comfortable. 

Your heart absolutely melted and you very carefully started to wiggle your way out of his arms. 

“Where are you going?” His voice was extra rumbly first thing in the morning, and his arms tightened around you, just a little. 

“Bathroom,” you muttered, patting one of his hands. 

He grunted softly but helped you stand, holding out one arm to help you hold steady while he stood. 

“I’ll try walking on it,” you murmured. “Just. Carefully.”

John nodded but still boosted you over the pile of snoozing bodies on the floor so you wouldn’t have to navigate that on your own. Which, admittedly, was probably a good idea.

But you were able to do a hop-shuffle down to the bathroom and back, which you counted as a win. And very definite progress.

“When are you going down to medical?” John asked as he helped you back to bed. 

You sighed, rubbing a hand over your face. “Any time, I suppose,” you grumbled. “Doesn’t matter too much.” 

John nodded, giving you a few moments to get situated again. “I’ll go with you.”

That earned him a smile. “Thank you.” 

Fernando groaned from the floor. “Too early for this,” he grumbled, even as he pushed himself upright. 

“You are in my room,” you pointed out mildly. 

“Shared property now,” he grunted back. “Think they still have coffee?” 

“Probably.” You grinned at the way he perked up almost immediately. “Go on, go get some. Shoo.”

Fernando gave you a mock salute while the other three Spartans got up, and all of them trooped out together. Too cute. You tried to hide your grin, probably unsuccessfully. You couldn’t help it - all of these people had made room for themselves in your heart. 

“John?” 

He blinked at you, one hand resting on your knee. 

“Don’t delay the mission for me.” You swallowed hard. 

“I’m not.” He squeezed your knee gently. “We’re still assessing the best way to proceed.” 

You eyed him for a moment, worried he was stretching things. But he met your gaze steadily, so you nodded. 

“Okay. Good.” You let out a slow breath, battling back the low-key anxiety. 

“Ready to go?” John asked quietly, watching you closely.

“As I’ll ever be,” you agreed with forced cheer. “Let’s get this over with.”

John nodded and helped you to medbay, making sure you didn’t injure yourself further. But the biofoam had done its job, as far as you could tell. 

At least, your thigh hurt less than it had after you’d gotten shot, so you were figuring that was a good sign. 

Of course, that didn’t stop the chief medical officer from scowling at you when you came limping in, using John as a crutch. 

“Sit, in there.” She pointed down the hall to a room, and you wrinkled your nose at her tone but obeyed. John stayed quiet and out of the way as you got settled. 

It took no time to get the bandages off, and you breathed a sigh of relief to see almost no blood on them. The wound was still tender but it was healing fast. One of the benefits of biofoam - it helped to get tissue rebuilding faster than it would on its own. 

“Well, you’re in luck,” she told you, sounding only a little sour. “Looks like you’re healing well. Keep weight off of it for another couple days if you can, and you’ll be fine.” She stripped her gloves off and tossed them. “You know where we are if you need more help.”

You clenched your jaw at the subtle dig but managed to not respond, instead focusing on getting to your feet. Well. Foot. You happened to agree with the assessment of keeping weight off of your leg for a little longer if you could. More time to heal could only be a good thing in this case. 

Wordlessly, John offered you his arm again, and you squeezed his forearm gently in thanks. 

“That was about as close to an all clear as I’ll get from her,” you said, walking carefully back towards your room. “I was planning to keep off my leg as much as possible anyway, at least until it’s more healed.”

John nodded, looking thoughtful. Something about that look caused you some concern. 

“You know, if you were happening to be thinking anything along the lines of leaving me behind because this is dangerous…” You let your words trail off into a vaguely threatening silence. 

He huffed softly. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he murmured, dry as dust.

“Good.” You nodded your satisfaction, tightening your grip on his arm as you very nearly tripped over some bits of rubble. “Because otherwise I’d have to figure out how to kick your ass with one working leg.” 

He huffed again and wordlessly scooped you up into his arms. Ignoring your soft swearing, he carried you the rest of the way to your room. 

“Joy will update you after today’s meeting,” he promised. His lips twitched, gaze warm as he lowered you into bed. “Behave.” 

A quick kiss and he was gone, striding out of your room again like a man on a mission. And, well, he kind of was. He kind of always was. Or. Almost always. 

Maybe you could get him to relax more, give him more nights like last night. Some times where the mission wasn’t the only thing on his mind.

[curiouswanders]

Eris' Story Ch 3

DISCLAIMERS:

I've never formally written stories of my own so there will be many mistakes (so I apologize but practice makes perfect right?)

I took bits and pieces of details from ACOTAR but it won't be accurate or super aligned with ACOTAR because I'm just putting my daydreams into words.

What to Expect:

Ayne discovering who she really is

She fell first but he fell harder trope

Love triangle!

Spice (not immediately but eventually)

Click Here to Read the Previous Chapters:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Ayne's POV

Gasping, my eyes shoot wide open and above me is Elida, straddled on top of me with her hands wrapped around my neck. The menacing smile on her face widens as her grip tightens.

“Did you think you could run away from me?”

My hands fly to her wrists, and I use all my strength to pry her hands away from me. I fail each time my hand slips away as I pull her wrists, and Elida doesn’t falter when my nails dig into her.

Purple and black dots sprinkle my vision, and my mouth is wide open, choking for air. Her hold on me was so unnaturally tight, I couldn’t even inhale for air. Tears well up my eyes, my legs kicking as if it’ll help, and it’s as if my heart is racing and slowing altogether.

“I. Hope. This. Teaches. You. A. Lesson. To. Never. Disobey. Me.”

One of Elida’s hands winds back and slaps me across my face repeatedly and falls into beat with each word. Short and clipped cries come out of me with each contact and the burning pain with each blow grows incessantly.

“You,” smack! “Bitch –!” Smack!

My body intensely twitches and I breath tightly in through my nose. My eyelids tremble when I open my eyes. I’m lying on my side, my body practically sinking into the soft bed and I can feel my rapid heartbeat and heavy breathing slow when I realize I’m in Eris’ room and Elida hurting me was just a dream. I sink deeper into the warm bed and inhale the deep sweet cinnamon smell of the bedding. I wondered if Eris carried the same scent.

I scrunch my nose and slightly shake my head as if to shake away the thought. With the current circumstance I was in, there was no time for me to for me to think of such things. Besides, I still knew nothing of what Eris is like – what his intentions are – what he wanted to do with me.

Eris didn’t give me a clear reason why he gave up his room for me last night.  All he mentioned was that he didn’t want to answer questions from anyone in the Forest House – that’s what he called it – if I were to be seen. I didn’t feel like a burden considering he probably had hundreds of other rooms he could sleep in.

The sound of three loud knocks fills the room. The initial knock made me flinch and I quickly push myself up from the bed and sit up completely. I let the silence take over the room again, not quite sure if I should open the door considering Eris didn’t want me seen, or if I should open the door if Eris stood behind it.

Three loud knocks could be heard again, this time pairing with a raspy and slightly deep female voice that sounded… impatient?

“Unless you plan to remain in those horrid clothes forever, I suggest you open the door. The High Lord placed a shield so only you and him can enter.”

The High Lord? As in the High Lord Beron?

I push away the heavy blankets and get out of bed. Making my way to the door, I feel a slight tingle once my hand rests on the doorknob. I’m assuming it’s the magic of the shield.  The door clicks as I twist the knob and slowly open the door to see a rather petite woman, dressed in a modest dress. The muted red color of the dress complemented her brunette hair that was in a loose braid which hung over her shoulder. Her sleeves ended at her wrists and the border of her hem and neckline were lined with a deep gold color. She looked older but not old enough to be frail.

She looked me up and down and sighed.

“You look as bad as you smell,” she said flatly with her nose scrunched.

I wasn’t sure if I should find offense to her statement but as I opened my mouth to respond, she walks in the room and shuts the door behind her.

“But why would you need to tend to me?” Was the first question I could think of asking amongst the numerous questions that still weighs on my mind.

“Dear, I’m just fulfilling whatever the High Lord asks of me. Please just cooperate,” she says hurriedly.

I turn to observe her as she walks towards the washroom.

“If you’d rather, do it yourself, take off whatever that is draped on you, I’ll draw you a bath,” her voice echoes as she enters the washroom. Shortly after, the faucet handle squeaks, and the water begins to run, drowning out her voice.

She comes back out of the washroom and seems confused as to why I hadn’t moved an inch. Her hands rests at her waist and she sighs in frustration, “Look, if you’re going to spend your time being confused and curious, nothing will be accomplished. You never get clear answers around here ever so please, just do as I say.”

So, it wasn’t just Eris who doesn’t like to give answers. It was this whole entire court. Frustration begins to build in me, but I hold it in and mentally conclude that if I wasn’t going to get clear answers from anyone here, then I would have to get better at asking the right questions.

I walk into the washroom and strip off my clothes. Staring at the steam coming off the milky water in the porcelain tub, I’m reminded that this would most likely be my first time ever to have a luxurious bath. Shared washrooms were all I’ve ever known and if I was lucky, the water would still be hot by the time it was my turn to bathe. Carefully, I put one foot in and then the other, slowly submerging my body in the water.

With both hands propped on either side of the tub, the heat of the water envelopes me while I lower myself in, the sensation causing me to inhale deeply. Once fully submerged, I let out a long breath and close my eyes to memorize the feeling. My body fully relaxes as I lay my head back against the tub and feel my legs slightly float under the water.

The woman comes in with a basket filled with various kinds of soaps and scents which causes my body to tighten slightly at the sudden intrusion.  I’m reminded of the opaqueness of the milky water and sigh in relief knowing my intimate parts are hidden under the water.

As I observe the woman shuffle through the assortment of soaps, I clear my throat and prepare my first question – reviewing each word in my mind first.

“Why did the High Lord Beron shield the bedroom? Where is Eris?”

The woman scoffs lightly, “Oh Dear, you shouldn’t address our High Lord by his name so openly if you don’t want punishment coming your way. Never…” she hesitates for a few seconds and whispers, “Eris,” then her volume rises again, “It’s High Lord Eris. Forgot you’re not from this court.”  She finishes matter-of-factly.

If Eris is the High Lord, then what happened with his father? Was I that sheltered at the mansion that the news never reached our servants’ quarters?

I didn’t notice how tight my face was in confusion and curiosity until the woman rolled her eyes and kneels behind me. “What did I say about that look? It’ll get you nowhere so whatever it is you’re thinking so hard about, just leave it be. Now let me wash your hair.”

“Why is it that answers are hard to get around here?” I snap.

She chuckles, “Dear, it’s not that we don’t want to give you answers, we simply do not have those answers unless given directly from the High Lord or his family.”

I let the topic die out – simply because I began to wonder about the Autumn Court’s hostile and intimidating image and yet, with all my interactions with Eris so far, he didn’t seem to be hostile at all. In fact, he seemed rather gentle.

Despite my initial reaction to the High Lord, he’s done nothing but assure me of my safety. His choice of words are crude but never threatening. But then again there were so many questions that went unanswered. How does my burn mark indicate I’m of the Autumn Court? Why did my body change and how I was able to shield myself? How am I now supposedly high fae when I’ve been lesser for all my life? And if this woman was so careful of her words, what side of Eris had I not yet seen?

“What is your name?” I ask finally, realizing how long we’ve been in the room together and I haven’t gotten her name.

“Callie – but you can just say, Cal for short.”

At least she gave this answer willingly.

I look forward at my toes peeking through the waters as Cal massages my scalp, lathering the soap in my hair. The pressure of her fingertips rubbing in circular motions causes me to let out a soft hum in satisfaction.

“Cal, will I be allowed out of my room today?” I say, wiggling my toes now for entertainment.

“The High Lord wants you in here until tonight when the party starts. But don’t worry, there will be things for you to do for the time being,” Cal responds as she pours water over my hair to wash out the soap.  

“A party?” I ask curiously.

Cal sighs, “Our High Lord has a thing for music and dancing. Always had and now that he’s the High Lord, it’s quite common to have parties on the weekend to maintain the morale of our court. It’s the only time all the town is welcomed in the Forest House. He’s been working hard to earn the trust of his people.”

“And what do you think of it so far?” I dare ask.

Cal’s words pauses but she continues ringing out my hair and reached for a towel. She wraps my hair first and then speaks.

“There’s not much for me to say other than it’s been different,” she said without much emotion – as if hiding her true opinions.

Different how? This would be another question I would have to revisit with a different approach.

Cal twists the towel gently on top of my head and stands up.

“You’re all clean now. I’ve laid out your clothes for you on the bed. Dress up and I’ll bring in breakfast for you,” Cal directs and exits the washroom.

I stay in the tub for a few more seconds until I hear the bedroom door shut. I get out of the tub and wrap myself with a towel and exit the washroom.

After putting on the dress that was laid out for me, I go the mirror to inspect it. The dress was a burnt orange color that went all the way down to my ankles. The sleeves were short and slightly puffy at the shoulders and the neckline was square shaped that rested right over my breasts. The dress sinched at my waist and tight enough to keep it from twisting – the fabric made of chiffon.

It's strange seeing myself in Autumn Court colors instead of Winter Court, but I couldn’t deny at how it complimented my auburn hair, hazel eyes, and the warm undertone of my pale skin.

I jump at the knock on the door and Cal’s voice muffled, “Breakfast!”

I quickly go to the door to let Cal in and follow behind her as she carries the tray to Eris’ desk.

“The High Lord doesn’t prefer food in his room, but you are the odd exception, I guess,” Cal says with rough tone. I would find offense, but I’m starting to understand that this was simply how Cal speaks.

“We’ll let you eat first and by then your hair should be dry enough for me to fix up,” Cal adds on while laying out the silverware in a neat array.

I sit down in Eris’ desk with reluctance – feeling like I shouldn’t be sitting here. But Cal doesn’t seem to react to it as she uncovers the plate of bacon, roasted potatoes, and two boiled eggs split in half, sprinkled with salt and pepper. She then uncovers a smaller plate that was filled with three slices of toasted bread and stirs the small cup of jam right next to it. On the corner of the tray was a glass of water, and a glass of milk.

I felt quite overwhelmed by the amount of food in front of me that all I could do was look at the plate in awe as my mouth slightly hung open.

Cal snaps her fingers near my face to grab my attention – my head jerks back and my gaze goes up to Cal apologetically.

“Only in this room can you look like a beggar, now eat up and I’ll be back to do your hair,” she gently scolds and leaves the room.

The moment Cal is out of the room, I don’t hesitate a second and quickly dive into the food – even moaning at how salty and sweet the bacon tasted and how the potatoes were so warm and soft. I couldn’t recall having such a decadent meal before, but I could feel the pinching feel in my stomach, telling me I was eating too fast. I reach for the water and slowly wash down the food.

“If you were this hungry, I should have just served you the whole pig.”

Mid-gulp, I accidently inhale, causing me to choke on the water. I pull the glass away, coughing out the water and quickly reach for the napkin to clean myself.

Patting myself with the napkin, I shoot my head up and glare at Eris in annoyance.

“You know, normalcy is entering through the door,” I snap at him.

He stands right in front of the desk with his arms folded across his chest. He was dressed in dark brown leather pants, and a cream tunic that was unbuttoned at the top. His orange-red hair was brushed out of his face with one strand that hung down his forehead as if it refused to be pushed back. His lips were slightly quirked to the side – not a fully smile. It was the cunning smile that was undeniably beautiful but also puts me at unease from not knowing what that kind of smile means.

“Are you ready for training today?” he ignores my reprimand and asks me this question.

My eyebrows furrow and it was my turn to fold my arms across my chest. I notice his eyes glance down at my bare chest for a quick second before meeting my gaze again. Heat pricks at my cheeks and the small hairs stands at the back of my neck but I refuse to let this rush take me.

I scoff, “Am I going to be sent off to become one of your soldiers that will storm the Winter Court?”

I hadn’t forgotten what Eris had told me last night. How he came up with that thought, I couldn’t tell but I also didn’t think Eris was going to execute this plan.

Eris lets out a soft laugh and props his hands on the desk, slightly leaning forward, letting his tunic hang low again. I caught a glimpse of his bare chest and quickly shift my gaze realizing how hypocritical I was being.

“I don’t plan on fighting anyone, and I most definitely do not let women of my court fight,” he responds.

I roll my eyes and huff, “So that we can stay sheltered and be ready to birth children whenever they’re demanded to?”

Eris doesn’t seem offended, but his cunning smile widens into pure amusement.

“I believe the women of my court can do whatever they please, but I find the women of my court far too valuable to let them into a place that is too… uncertain,” Eris responds rather calmly.

It was hard to find offense in that response, so I soften my stance by undoing my crossed arms and resting my hands on the edge of the desk. I look up at him with some uncertainty still because I still don’t know what Eris could possibly want from me.

“Then what is this training for? And I thought I couldn’t leave this room?”

“I didn’t want you out of this room to roam the Forest House, but I plan to take you to a close friend of mine so you can practice creating your shields,” Eris responds willingly.

“Then how are we going to get there if I can’t leave through the door?”

Eris laughs softly again, “Did you hit your head that hard to remember how you got in this room initially?”

After a few seconds of thinking, my mouth opens slightly and I slowly nod my head, “Oh that’s right, your powers.”

Eris grabs a slice of toast and stands up straight, taking a bite of the bread.

“I’ll let Cal do your hair and we’ll leave in about fifteen minutes,” he announces and leaves the room.

--

Eris winnows us in front of the doorstep to a cottage. Looking around, the cottage is on its own without any neighbors but surrounded by fields of red, yellow, and orange plants that rose up to hip length. The area was hilly and from afar, what I assume was the Forest House could be seen at a distance – standing on the tallest hill and surrounded by pine trees and trees of reds, yellows, and oranges.

The cottage itself is surrounded by wooden fence as if for aesthetic purposes and not quite security. The cottage is made of a cream-colored stone, and the windows and roof are a dark mahogany color which complimented the walls quite well.

My head turns to the sound of Eris knocking on the door and within seconds, faint footsteps near the door. The clink of the door unlocking crack first before it opens to woman who has a similar facial structure as Eris. Her medium length hair is the same orange-reddish color as Eris but wavy. She wore a casual and modest cream-colored dress with wide sleeves and when I focus on her face, she is smiling brightly – stepping aside to welcome us inside.

“I wasn’t expecting you today High Lord, I’ll call for Finn,” she says warmly and looks over to me.

“And who might this be?” She asks kindly.

A part of me wanted to be cautious but her kindness was overwhelmingly whole – influencing me to believe all of who she is presenting herself to be.

I smiled, “My name is Ayne,” I answered and left it at that, not sure what information I could disclose.

“I found her toward the border of the Winter Court a couple of days ago. She also bares the Autumn Court mark but has been in the Winter Court all her life,” Eris says so openly – like this place was safe from anyone.

Also? Were there more?

The woman’s expression saddens as she sighs deeply, “I do hope this isn’t as big as we are imagining it to be,” she says, fully focused on Eris.

A few seconds of silence passes to mourn the news and the woman’s lips tightens into a straight line, “I’ll fetch Finn for you,” she announces and goes up the stairs across the entry way.

I didn’t ask, but Eris gave an answer anyway, “She’s my aunt – my mother’s sister.”

Eris was beside me, but I keep my gaze forward and toward the staircase. I didn’t know what to say in response, allowing the little information spoken sink into my mind. If this was Eris’ aunt, then Finn was his cousin. And if the Forest House is a place everyone seems to be cautious in, then this cottage must be a safe place for Eris – a place he trusts.

Shuffling of feet echoess from the ceiling and I see a rather tall man – whom I assume is Finn – walk down the stairs with heavy feet and his mother behind.

Finn’s face comes into full view, and I silently gasp – my mouth slightly open. Finn had to be the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. Finn’s hair was the same color as his mother and Eris, but his hair was pin needle straight and silky. The fringe of his hair hung over his forehead, stopping right above his eyebrows and it was so silky that his hair shifted whenever he moved his head. The sleeve of his tunic was rolled up to the middle of his muscular forearm and although the remainder of his sleeve was loose, there’s no doubt his biceps were probably muscular and toned. He stood just a few inches taller than Eris and a was tad bulkier than him.

He smiles widely, walking past me and without permission, he grabs Eris by the shoulder – pulling him in for a tight hug. Eris laughs and hugs him back for a quick second before pulling away.

“Well, what an honor it is to have our High Lord grace the very room of our home,” Finn says in a teasing tone – arms splayed open gesturing to the living area.

“If you stop calling me by my name, I just might forget your very existence,” Eris retorts with a smile still on his face.

Finn looks over to me –his smile slightly fades but not completely. He folds his arms across his chest and tilts his head.

“Another one?” he asks Eris while keeping his gaze on me.

Another one? How many have they ‘found’?

“Except she’s the first one that possess some kind of power. It’s nothing major but enough that she will need some training to control it and wield it, when necessary,” Eris explains.

Finn scrunches his eyebrows – processing the information.

“If she possesses power, how does she not know how to wield it?” He asks.

“My assumption is that they probably have given her some kind of blocker for years and years. Once it wore off, she got so red I thought she was going to combust,” Eris answers.

My eyes traveled back and forth to Finn and Eris as they conversed – confused as to why it seems like they didn’t know I was there.  I huffed out a breath to insert myself into their conversation.

“So, is anyone going to tell me why I’m here?” Both stop talking and peer at me as if I shouldn’t have interrupted.

The bite in my tone came out stronger than I had anticipated but it earns a smirk from Finn and turns to face me.

“I apologize, where are my manners?”

Instead of extending his hand first, he reaches for mine – pulling my hand upwards then dipping down to kiss the top of my hand. The warmth of his lips over the back of my hand sends a jolt of electricity up my arm. The sudden intimate gesture should have made me pull back, but the confidence he portrayed captivated my entire being – completely in awe of his perfection.

Shamelessly, I replied “No need to apologize,” in a breathy tone.

The falter in my stance causes Finn to laugh softly as he brings my hand back to my side. Our gaze still locked on each other. I was certain Finn was flirting to just flirt but my knees remained weak while my heart beats faster.

My focus on Finn is broken by Eris’ scoff. I snap my head up to him – slightly frustrated by the interruption. Eris glances down at me with a facial expression that screamed, “You’re wasting time.” His glance was short and then it goes to Finn.

“Can you help her with her mental shields first? I have some business to tend to and I’ll be back by noon to come get her,” Eris asks Finn.

“Of course, anything for my little cousin,” Finn grins and looks over to me again.

“I think we’ll have a lot of fun,” he adds on.

Eris rolls his eyes, “Good thing your mother lives with you,” he retorts.

“Good thing she’ll be out for the day,” Finn teases.

The response rises the temperature in my cheeks, and I’m grateful for the amber necklace that absorbs the heat. Looking up to Eris to anticipate his response, I could have sworn his jaw flexed but it quickly disappears, and he grins, “Just do as I ask.”

Finn chuckles while nodding, “Sure thing.”

I watch Eris turn to the door but stops after a few steps. He turns back around, his back facing the door and he looks at me – a hint of hesitation as his mouth opens but closes again. He takes a step back first then turns back around to the door and holds onto the doorknob.

“Don’t embarrass yourself. I’ll be back later,” he announces while opening the door.

The subtle jab makes me jerk my head back and when I open my mouth to argue, Eris winnows and he’s gone.

I scoff in disbelief. This was a habit of his that I was starting to catch on to. I take a few seconds to steady my breath before turning back to Finn.

He shrugs, “That’s Eris for you.”

“So, I’ve realized,” I respond – surprisingly comfortable with his presence but awkward silence begins to fill the room, well, awkward to me at least.

Finn grins and extends his arm towards the living area, “Shall we?”

[lorebite]

             𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄 ⸻ 𝐒𝐌𝐎𝐊𝐄 𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐙𝐎𝐍

        𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: original characters galore (don't worry; this is still an x reader story). explicit sexual content so strictly 18+ minors do not interact and all that. this is mainly a plot driven work of fiction so expect lots of mystery besides all the smut. the format of the series follows two non-linear timelines which will eventually merge into one overtime; putting this here in case you find this type of storytelling distracting. other non-exhaustive tags which will be either revealed with each chapter or never at all, in order to avoid major spoilers; however, this does not include sensitivity tags. this is not a slow burn series; we get right to the meat of it, lads.

        𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: 18+ minors dni. cursing. fem reader. very graphic sexual content. reader has a racer nickname which is what she's sometimes referred to as. descriptively written history with a past lover that isn't Jason. mentions of existing tension with said past lover due to... reasons. daddy issues? daddy issues! y/n might have a liiittle too many problems. reader is fwb with Jason. sex might be a distraction but is it really the solution?

            early spring of ‘19

The faint wisps of last year’s winter caressed your cheeks and raised goosebumps down your spine as your thighs landed gently on the warm vibrating hood of the black Mustang in the garage, your body pressed tightly against your boyfriend’s. Your fingers coiled within the threads of dark hair on the back of his neck, his lips moving slowly upon yours.    

His hands remained on your thighs long after he sat you down. They gingerly slid down over the rough fabric of your jeans until they were gripping your calves and winding them around his waist. His lips slipped from yours and down the side of your neck they went, hips rolling impatiently against yours as his low growls trembled into your skin. 

You tugged on his hair and he lifted his head. His lidded blue eyes peered into yours through the sheer veil of his unkempt fringe. A soft smile curved his wet plush lips and you found yourself beaming in return.

“You’re gonna be late.” You whispered, fingers running through his soft tousled hair. 

He pressed another kiss, a chaste one, to your lips and heaved a deep sigh. “It’ll be fine.”

“Come on, Nate,” you argued gently, a giggle rumbling in your throat. “The show can’t go on without its star.”

His clear eyes glimmered, lip rolling back between his teeth as a soft huff of laughter escaped him. He shook his head, tutting playfully at you.

“What would your dad think, sweetheart?”

You rolled your eyes even though a hint of a smile remained on your lips. He didn’t fight to hide how much you flattered him, his cheeks beginning to glow with a faint flush as his lashes fluttered shyly, eyes suddenly avoidant.

“We both know he can survive a little bit of competition.”

He clicked his tongue again, the timidness quickly gone and replaced by that familiar playfulness you knew and endeared to all too well.

“Well, I don’t wanna make it obvious I’m coming for the crown if I wanna keep seeing his daughter, you know?” One of his eyes dropped in a coy wink and you scoffed a laugh. “I gotta play my cards right.”

“You’ll be fine, Nate. He will be fine.”

“Let’s hope cos I’m not planning to leave you any time soon.”

You wrinkled your nose as your smile broadened and sat a hand on the side of his stubbled face. He leaned easily into your touch with a content sigh, eyes fluttering shut, before he pressed a kiss to the heel of your palm. He lifted a hand of his own to cradle your wrist between his long fingers, his thumb caressing the back of your hand. 

“You’re gonna do great – my big gorgeous shining star.”

He hummed, low and drawn out, and his lips were back on yours again. Greedy and unyielding. His fingers dug indents into your legs, his broad chest pressed so close to yours, it stole your breath. He leaned his forehead against yours, lips pulling away far enough to speak his next words, hoarse and breathless.

“If you keep saying things like that I don’t think I’ll make it to the race.”

You giggled mischievously and reached for his collar to pull him back to yourself. He reciprocated eagerly, lifting his knees atop the hood and climbing over you. Your arms circled his neck instinctively and tugged him even closer, pulling his waist tightly upon yours with the firm coil of your legs around him. He moaned softly into the kiss as he began grinding against you.

“Fuck, I need to stop—” he rasped with a breathless chuckle but his lips refused to stop moving upon yours, continuing to pepper you with warm kisses and wet brushes of his tongue. “I really need to fucking stop. I’m so fucking hard right now.”

“Need a hand, baby?”

You slipped your fingers down between your bodies and palmed him over his tight pants, feeling his promised to be firm bulge through the fabric. His head lolled down as he groaned before his eyes rose back up to meet yours heatedly, jaw becoming visibly clenched. 

Nate took hold of your wrist and pinned it by your head on the hood and away from himself. The cloud of lust in his eyes grew soft and adoring as he stared down at you. He smiled fondly at the stubbornness of your other hand sliding down the side of his neck. Your ringed fingers danced languidly across the swell of his throat, just barely wrapping and pressing themselves on his fevered skin.

“(Y/N)…” he croaked, eyes falling shut as he gritted his teeth, struggling against the tempting warmth of your touch gliding so invitingly across his skin. “Please.”

The small desperate plea made you pause in mercy. Your thumb sat on his lip as you silently admired his face and the flickers of many emotions across his features. Lust giving way to affection, desire to silent admiration. He sucked your digit into his mouth, teeth clamping down gently as a muffled laugh bubbled up his throat to reflect the small giggle on your tongue.

“Alright. Okay.” You finally relented, freeing your thumb from his mouth with a pop.

Nate clambered down the hood of the car and helped you to your feet before finally pulling away from you. He combed his fingers through his disheveled dark hair and pushed them away from his vision, a gentle sigh rushing through his kiss swollen lips. 

He was soon searching for his helmet and keys, offering you a smile before walking to the driver’s seat of the Mustang and yanking it open. You frowned inquisitively as the engine died down and his face appeared back above the top of the car. You were barely able to catch the key once he tossed it at you.

“What’s this for?” You questioned, eyes pinned down to the glimmering silver horse etched in the key.

Nate stepped back in front of you, helmet held under one arm while the other lifted your chin with two fingers until your eyes met again. The black crow on the back of his hand matched the one on the bright colors of the helmet; that always caught your eye whenever he put on his gear. He cupped the side of your face and pulled you in for one more kiss.

“I’m gonna make you a star, baby. Just you wait. When I’m back tonight—” he jerked a thumb at the Mustang you were still leaning to, “Mercury’s gonna be all yours.”

“You—what? You’re really doing this?”

He made a happy “mhm-hmm”, beaming at the loud look of awe on your face and the joyful sparkle in your eyes.  

“But on one condition,” you cocked your head, confusion tugging, once again, at your brows. “I need you to do me a favor.”

You sighed, stealing your gaze from him. You knew this was a long time coming. A promise you had made him. No. A deal. 

Nate sat a finger under your chin, brushing gently back and forth over the skin as if he was scratching the face of a purring kitten.  

“Come on, sweet girl. We talked about this—”

You interrupted, “information for property. I know.” A weak smile pursed your lips. “I know.”

“Okay. Good. Do you need a map?”

You nodded silently and Nate walked away once again to fetch the large roll of paper from a desk drawer. He spread the piece atop his desk, tapping an undesignated spot with two fingers, urging you to move closer and, at long last, reveal your treasured information to him. He offered you a marker as soon as you were standing across from him, his eyes following your movements intently.

Your fingers began to glide across the map, bringing forth every last bit of detail to the forefront of your mind and then down on the thick paper, highlighting every key location, your unmatched guesses, your discovered facts. 

Nate watched you with sparkling eyes, a barely there smirk sat in the corner of his mouth. The look on his face sent a cold tingling sensation down the back of your throat once you finished talking and peered up from the map and back at him.

“That’s everything I found.” You mumbled. Suddenly bashful.

“Good fucking girl,” he rasped, circling the desk to come engulf you in his arms again. Warmth filled your cheeks and you smiled. “You’re so good to me, baby. What would I do without you?”  

            late fall of ‘22

The window felt cool against your fingers as you drew a haphazard circle on the fogged glass. You peered out of the small revealing, taking in the jagged skyline that stretched along the thin veil of softly hued peaks perched upon the horizon. The sun had come up hours ago and yet the warmth was sunken far behind the leaden overcast of clouds.

Jason grunted softly from the bed and you turned your head to smile at his sleeping form in the dark of the bedroom. He had an arm thrown over his face, his bare chest rising and falling slowly under the duvet. You contemplated briefly and eventually decided to flicker on the coffee machine, letting its obnoxious drone fill the studio apartment. It slowly stirred him awake.

“Good morning, gorgeous.” You cooed, a bright smile taking up your face. 

“Morning,” he responded coarsely through a yawn, kneading his eyes with the back of his knuckles. “Any reason you up this early?” He lifted his head to frown with sleep-ridden squinted eyes. “And what’re you so damn chirpy for?”

You gave a one shoulder shrug, turning your head back towards the little circle you traced in the window, its fringes now weeping down to the window sill as the golden streams of sunlight seeped through the cracks in the clouds. You actually hadn’t caught a blink of sleep that night. Your mind raced without a moment’s break. So, chirpy wasn’t the first word to come to mind to describe what you truly felt.

“Just excited for the tournament.” 

A lie. You weren’t. You were anxious. The tournament wasn’t due until at most a week.

A crooked grin curled the corner of his mouth as he pushed the duvet away and slid out of the bed, making his way towards you as soon as his feet touched the carpeted floor. 

Jason was still naked from last night – all but the delicate chain around his neck remained; the small silver pendant, a bow and an arrow to savor the memory of you, caught the dull early morning light. His smooth skin glowed temptingly, his usually combed hair now fallen in disheveled strands in his eyes. He flipped his head in an attempt to push away his rogue fringe, giving you a knowing smirk as you eyed him up and down, lip hooked between your teeth.

He stopped behind you, weaving his arms around your waist and pulling you against his chest. His lips found the crook of your neck an instance later. “I’ll never get tired of you looking at me like that.”

“Hmm?”

He lifted his mouth to your ear, hot breath tickling the skin. “Like you wanna eat me right up. I fucking love that.”

His nose nudged into the hollow of your throat and promptly, you let your head back on his shoulder. He pressed a slow wet kiss to your neck, dropping a hand to tease the thin waistband of your panties.

“Don’t think I can last till I see you again tonight,” he paused to brush his warm lips along the shell of your ear and coax a quivery breath through your teeth. “Mmm, fuck, you look so damn sexy in the morning. My pretty little superstar.”

You bit your lip as a grin broke upon your face before a sharp gasp tore out of your throat when Jason suddenly pushed into you, offering you a generous feel of his growing firmness. You furled your fingers into fists against the wet window as Jason’s hand slipped under your panties, two thick fingers hooking around your clit. 

“You’re gonna win for me again, aren’t you?” He rasped in your ear as his digits continued to caress you between your swollen lips. “Of course, you fucking are, baby. You always win. You’re my sexy little winner – fuck, sweetheart. So wet for me already?”

His tone was desperate. A melodious whine that sent shivers down your back. You moaned breathlessly as Jason’s fingers glided through your folds with ease. His satisfied groan vibrated against your neck, teeth scraping harshly along every tender inch of skin he took to his mouth last night – now all raw and sensitive to his touch. 

“I need you to cum for me, baby. I fucking need it,” he growled through teeth. “Just—fuck—bend over. I gotta taste you.”

You obeyed, gripping your fingers to the window sill as Jason lowered to his knees behind you, his hands already tugging at your panties before they were slipping down to your ankles. Jason claimed you with a delirious moan, his mouth finding your sex as soon as his face was buried into you. However, once you sank in the binding throes of pleasure, you were startled by a ringtone buzzing from the nightstand across the room.

Your eyes only briefly flickered to your phone before you felt the cold absence of Jason’s mouth when he pulled away from you. You could see the vague colors of the faces that showed up on your screen – your father’s held fondly against yours. You were both smiling. Full and bright, eyes wrinkled and glowing with the soft sunlight. That was so long ago.  

“You don’t wanna get that?”

Jason was already standing up and moving towards your phone, picking up his shirt from the floor along the way as well. He held the device out to you, wriggling his fingers when you hesitated, his brows twisting high up on his forehead.  

You blew out your cheeks and took your phone, shooting a stern glare at Jason. His eyes held yours defiantly, mouthing “answer that” as he walked backwards to the bathroom, noticing your lingering doubt. 

Your lips pursed into a tight line, eyes skimming the vibrant picture lighting up the phone screen. Your chest was heavy with many a brewing emotion, roiling the once calm that sat comfortably in the pit of your heart. Oh, who were you kidding? It had been years at this point – peace was a concept that had stopped making sense to you for a while now.

As your thumb hovered idly over the phone, the buzzing finally died and the screen turned black. You blinked, throat constricting dryly as you bit the inside of your cheek. 

Your head perked up as the bathroom door creaked open, eyes blown wide. Jason’s face peeked through the gap, his cheek full with the head of his toothbrush. 

“How’s Freddie?”

You nearly rolled your eyes. He was so damn persistent – so adamant to fix whatever fissure that was cutting deep between you and your father. Sometimes you had to bite your tongue. He couldn’t grasp what you had. The notion that not everyone got along with their dear ol’ dad was difficult for him to wrap his head around.

“Fine.” You spat, tone more cutting than you had intended. You swallowed, letting a tight smile pull your lips before you started again, “he’s alright – just seeing if I could visit him today.”

He hummed questioningly, his head disappearing behind the wall and the water tap began to gush. A small scoff flitted through your nose. Even a noise that miniscule sounded as though it was challenging you. As if without making a blatant show of it, he could see through your façade. 

“We should go together.” Came the echo of his disembodied voice, sealing your suspicion. “Is he still taking his sessions?”

Panic began to web rapidly in your mind. You stammered, voice catching futilely in your throat as you searched for anything to respond with. 

You had only gotten the news of your dad through other people. You were too frightened to see him yourself. It’d been years. It really had been. And you should’ve moved on. But every time you caught sight of his face, it reminded you of what happened over two years ago – of what you had done. You couldn’t promise yourself you weren’t going to do anything stupid now if you saw him again.

“You with me, Achilles?”

Your eyelids flickered as you came to the expectant look on Jason’s face. He was walking out of the bathroom with a towel against his face, his eyes boring deep into your head. The longer it took you to say anything, the cracks etched deeper and deeper into your façade. A vague hum caught on your tongue as you tried to piece your wit together.

“I said—” He began slowly, stepping back in front of you with his towel now hung around his neck. His fingers sat on the side of your face, his thumb gingerly caressing your skin. “You know you don’t have to do that with me, right?”

A frown knitted your brows close and you pulled away from his touch, teeth becoming tightly clenched. You didn’t have to do that. What did he even mean by that? 

“You don’t gotta pretend shit’s alright. I know it ain’t,” he murmured. As if he just read your mind. “You’re hurting and that’s okay, darling. But let me help you.”

I can’t, you nearly blurted out. But you merely shook your head as a response, biting your lip in fear of your own emotions spilling out of your mouth and giving you away.

“I’m fine.” You gave him a strained smile and a bashful shifty look from the corner of your eyes. Jason opened his mouth, brows drawn close in worry before you heaved a defeated sigh, stopping him before he had a chance to protest. “Please.”

His lips pursed in visible objection and for a moment, you thought he was going to protest again but he only nodded instead, muttering an almost inaudible “okay”. He smiled weakly, the lines of anxiety still etched deep in his face but he didn’t give any more voice to it. 

He wound an arm around your shoulders and pulled you back towards himself, engulfing you in his soothing warmth and the clean soapy scent of his skin. His lips met the top of your head in a firm kiss and his grip tightened lovingly around your frame. 

“Okay.” He said again. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Let’s just go and get it over with.”

When you glanced up at him, he still had that inquisitive look in his eyes, a question burning on his lips. It evidently ate at him that you were keeping him out of this. He looked so very worried and you wondered if it were only because he felt like you were estranging him. 

He was dying for you to give him even the smallest glimpse into that nook inside your head that kept him so insistently at bay. But you merely brushed it off, deciding you weren’t going to let that unspoken question get in between you today. All in due time. Someday, you were going to open yourself to him. But now, you wanted to hold onto what comfort you had created for yourself. Though small it may have been.

Right now, you were owed some damn peace…

However, that was something you found to be difficult to find as you walked through the tight hallways of the hospital in search for your father’s therapy room. You’ve been here time and time again; mere steps from looking into his eyes for the first time in years before you managed to psych yourself out and go back home. 

On most of those occasions, you were by yourself, loitering by the closed hospital room and pacing anxiously to and fro along the tiled white floor. That was until you heard the voices on the other side creep closer to the door. Panic then would quickly swirl like a toxic brew in the pit of your stomach and will your feet to motion before you could stop yourself anymore. 

But today, Jason was with you. Even though his presence proved to be somewhat comforting, your stomach still stirred with nausea, your ears ringing with silent curses at yourself – of why you chose to do this to yourself today. You slowly fell behind as he continued to walk ahead, only stopping briefly to turn slightly and give you a questioning look when he noticed the pause in your steps. 

“You coming, Achilles?”

His voice took you aback. Suddenly, you were unable to answer. Your lips fluttered wordlessly, eyes blinking, words hooking futilely into your tongue. 

“Sure—yeah. Just need a moment.”

Jason’s eyes roved your face, brows twisting close and lips falling ajar as if he meant to say something – to protest again, maybe? But saved by the newly budded chatter filling the hallway as the door to your father’s hospital room fleeted open, he turned away from you with one final, albeit concerned, glance. 

You cowered behind the corner of the wall, one eye peeking out from the smooth edge to take in the same group of three people you’ve always only watched from afar: Jason’s dad, your old friend who now looked after your father on occasion and then of course, your own dad. 

They all looked happy. Well, happy for a bunch of people in their position – all fussing over another man who had to use a wheelchair for a long time now. The same man who skipped every other one of his physical therapy sessions. And, well, this man was your father. The miserable looking slouching figure curled up in his seat as Finn – that old friend of yours whose bar you once frequented before all this – wheeled him away. 

Jason, almost as if knowing you were hiding and where, turned his face to look down the hallway at the half of your frame that peered over the edge of the wall. His face was unreadable as he motioned with his head for you to come out. And so, you did. Tucking your hands inside your pockets, you made your way to where he stood with his father, the pinprick of a humiliated warmth spreading into your face. 

“You’re late,” said Jason with a soft smile, reaching out a hand to curl around your shoulders. “I told you the time, didn’t I?”

Coal’s attention was on you now as you swallowed thickly, his hooded eyes lighting up at the mere sight of you, his sudden burst of overflowing excitement not giving you enough time to fully register the fact Jason saved your skin from having to explain where you’ve been.

“(Y/N)—oh, lord! Is that really you?”

Jason chuckled as his father held your cheeks in his bony fingers, a smile so full and bright taking over his worn face. He pressed a fatherly kiss to your hairline, sending another whirlwind of heat crawling up your neck before he pulled away to stare adoringly at you.

“I missed you, too.” You said, voice laced with a faint laugh.

Coal’s face distorted into a stern look of disbelief. “Definitely not enough to come visit me.”

“Achilles’ been pretty damn busy these days. Barely got time for the likes of us.” 

You watched Jason from the corner of your eyes as he spoke for you, a small smirk playing across his lips. Coal seemed awestricken as he looked between you and his son before his eyes were back on you again.

“Is that what they’re calling you now – Achilles? My little (Y/N) is moving up in the world.” 

“You should see all the things she does behind the wheels, too. She’s a real big girl now.”

You rolled your eyes at Jason even though a ghost of a smile lingered on your face. Coal’s eyes suddenly turned downcast as his grip eventually fell from your face with a sigh. 

“Freddie would be proud.”

“He would lose his shit,” you corrected, playing off the burst of anxiety in the back of your mind with a weak laugh. “He hates I’m stepping in his shoes.”

“If you stick around for a while, you’ll see for yourself.” He smiled. “You should come see him sometime. He misses you.”

You shook your head – not really disagreeing with Coal. Quite frankly, you didn’t know what exactly you meant by it. It seemed like a gesture to yourself more than anything, disagreeing with the voice of rationale screaming in your head that he was right. That you had to get over yourself and listen to him this once.  

“He’s shit at telling you that,” Coal continued. “Then he’s with me and he won’t shut up about you. But that’s Freddie for you – can’t say the right words to the person who needs to hear ‘em.”

“It’s fine, really.” You muttered.

Your poor attempt to escape the conversation proved to be in vain as he met your gaze with a hard look. He huffed a dry laugh. 

“Is it? Tell you what; I’m dying to see us together again–”

“Pa—come on.” Jason interrupted, his tone urgent as he sat a hand down on his father’s shoulder, his eyes briefly flickering to your face and the darkened lines along your cheeks where your teeth had been clenched. “Just leave it, alright? She’s got enough to deal with.”

“If you wanna make an old man happy, (Y/N),” Coal carried on, promptly ignoring his son’s plea. “Come have dinner with us this weekend.” He pressed a tentative hand to your arm, fingers weakly squeezing your skin. “He really misses you.” He repeated himself. As if that did anything to ease the binds of guilt tightening in your chest.

“You don’t know how he can be—”

He interrupted, “oh, I know him, sweetie. Just as much as I know you. You’re both thick in the head,” he flicked a finger lightly at your temple. A gesture, albeit less than pleasant, managed to draw a faint but bitter smile to your lips. “No sense gets through to this damn brain of yours. I just hope—” His voice grew weak, hardly able to escape his throat now. “—I just hope there won’t come a time one of you regrets not doing anything about this. I’m too old to fix another damn heartbreak.”

Those words crashed over you like a harsh wave. Regret not doing anything. You swallowed. Your pulse raced as an uncomfortable heat spread like wildfire under your skin. The syllables rang in your ears, echoing far through those corners of your mind that had sat dormant for so long. You were suddenly so fucking terrified.

You backed away a step. Jason instinctively reached a hand out to hold onto you, his eyes ridden with worry as he silently took in the vacant look on your face.  

Coal sighed, kneading the space between his brows with his eyes squinted shut. “Think about it. Finn’s been looking after Freddie when you’re—god knows where you are doing what. Have you even talked to him?”

You haven’t. Not as often as you should’ve, at least. Besides Jason, you had refused to open your doors to anyone else. Most days you didn’t feel safe inside your own head. He was the only person who was able to draw you out of your shell. 

“I think that’s enough.” And as always, it was Jason who came to save you again, gentle yet commanding as he spoke the words. He gripped Coal’s shoulder again, coaxing his frail frame to step ahead and down along the hallway. “She heard enough, Pa.”

He sighed again – this man who took care of you as his own. Fed you from the same hand he did Jason and loved you, if not less, but just as dearly; you had never seen him raise his voice at you but now, he was the angriest you’d come to know him to be. And all that burning emotion was directed at you.

But to your surprise, Coal stopped to take you into his arms, his chest heaving with a long quivery breath, his fingers smoothing the ends of your hair. 

“Please, (Y/N). All I’m asking is one dinner together again.”

And with that, he was gone before you could respond. 

Jason met you in your car minutes later, his grey shirt spotted with raindrops and his long lashes wet, cheeks already flushed from the sudden waft of cold in the afternoon. 

You sat in silence, listening to the rhythmic back and forth swipes of the wipers scraping across the windshield as rain pattered on the glass in heaps before you finally spoke. 

“I’m gonna go see Finn.”

He paused as he was reaching for his jacket in the backseat, eyeing you for a moment before resuming his movement. 

“Well, you’re full of surprises today, aren’t you?”

“Will you come with me?” You asked, sounding too hopeful for your own liking.

A warm smile lit up Jason’s face. “Sweetheart, you know you don’t gotta ask.”

“Okay.” You beamed. “Just making sure.”

Your eyes were drawn to the doors of Bredfin for the dozenth time that day as they rattled open, welcoming yet another patron swallowed by the layers of their wool coat. A small sigh flitted through your nose as you drummed your nails on the chipped wooden bar table where Jason persuaded you to sit at together and wait for Finn. And you were waiting anxiously.

Any attempt Jason made to comfort you; his words of affirmation, his gentle hand on the back of your neck, his soft smile, all proved to be futile. You hardly even heard him as your mind raced with the storm of things you were going to say once your friend showed. You were only hoping – praying he could forgive you for not being there much more.

When he finally appeared behind the bar through the fluttering kitchen doors from the back, you were caught off guard. He was your Finn but the few years had sure changed him; his blond hair had grown past his ears, gaunt pale cheeks strewn with what looked like the week’s worth of stubble and dark crescents that sat under his once bright eyes. He seemed to have aged decades in that short while of not having seen him.

He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw you, lips pursing into a thin line. Tossing his small towel over his shoulder, he trudged over to where you sat, sending Jason a smile before turning with a blank face to you. Your heart sank at the fixed hard look in his eyes. Fuck. This was going to be much harder than you realized. 

“You look like shit.” He muttered, almost inaudible, but the venom in his voice was there and it did the damage it intended to do, making you cringe internally at the words.

“I definitely don’t feel much better either.”

The lighthearted jab at yourself fell on deaf ears as Finn’s face remained expressionless. You swallowed, fidgeting with the hem of your sleeves, eyes falling down to your trembling fingers. His gaze flickered to Jason – as if he was silently begging for his help before he sighed, eyes almost rolling up in his head.

“What do you want?”

“I’m sorry,” you blurted out, head shooting back up to look at him again. “Fo—for not answering your calls. For not coming to visit. And now you’re taking care of my dad – I’m so fucking sorry, Finn. I was just – I was going through some things.”

“Sure, you were.” He gibed, tone full with mocking incredulity. 

“No—I swear. It wasn’t like that. Things haven’t been easy since – since, well, you know.”

“Trust me, I know what you’ve been up to… Achilles.” Your eyes widened at the mention of the nickname, jaw growing slack with unspoken shock. Finn scoffed, a sneer tugging his pallid lips back. “Yeah. News gets around pretty fast, doesn’t it?”

He started to walk away and you leapt from your stool, weaving through the cramped space and following him as he hastened to tend to a customer, a visible attempt at ending the conversation. You ignored Jason’s strained voice calling after you, slipping from his fingers before he could catch you in his arms. 

“Finn. Please. I wanna make things right.”

You watched, literally bouncing on your heels, as Finn calmly took orders and flashed his bright smile. Then his eyes met yours again and the dirty glare within them was back. 

You didn’t let him walk away this time. Quickly lifting your legs over the tabletop, you slid yourself across the surface and landed on the floor in front of him. The exploit garnered a few heads turning in your direction and Finn’s own eyes blowing wide with alarm. But you didn’t care. Couldn’t. Your mind was only focused on one thing right now.

“What the hell are you doing?” He hissed, not so kindly shoving your shoulder, his eyes shifting nervously around at the damage you had done.

“I’m not letting this go until we talk.”

“Fine. Fine. Christ. Just—behave yourself.”

Not a few minutes later, you were sitting down next to Jason again with Finn now across from you. He had his arms folded over his white uniform, eyes narrowed into slits and brows pulled close, mulling over unsaid thoughts in his head after listening to everything you had to say. Some excuses. Sure. Some weak justifications. Definitely. But you had to try to get your old friend back somehow.

And at long last, he heaved a drawn out sigh. But when he looked at you again, his eyes had turned soft, a faint trace of a smile ghosting over his lips before his arms slowly came undone to hang at his sides again.

“You’re impossible.” He shook his head. “You’re goddamn impossible and a pain in the fucking ass.”

You gave an apologetic smile, shoulders shifting into an almost shrug. Finn was smiling at you again and you managed to remedy some of the cracks in your relationship. That’s all that mattered right now.  

“So, you two—” He jerked his head, motioning at you and Jason. Finn’s eyes wandered up and down his form as a slow smirk crossed his lips. Jason fought not to squirm under the sudden attention that had centered on him. “I guess I can see why (Y/N)’s been so distracted. What’s up with you two?”

“Nothing,” you jumped to respond, stopping Jason who opened his mouth to speak. You could see the frown pulling at his brows from the corner of your eyes. “We’re just friends.”

“Just friends, ha? What a waste.” Finn mused, letting a long oppressing silence settle on the table as he looked between you with an amused smirk. You didn’t dare glance at Jason but you could see his fingers flex irritatedly around his beer, whitened nails digging into the glass. You bit your lip, picking at the loose strings of your sleeve. After what felt like minutes, deciding he’d allowed for you both to marinate enough in the tension, Finn finally changed the topic. “So, what’s the story behind your name?”

It took you a second to register the question and still, you stammered as you gathered an answer. “Um—I—uh—” You cleared your throat before trying again, albeit still much more shyly. “I broke the speed record on my first tournament.”

“And she was the youngest person to do it.” Jason added. 

When you looked at him, Jason was smiling proudly at you, the previous marks of agitation gone from his physic. 

Finn hummed. “Damn. So, you’re kind of a big deal.” All of a sudden, his face contorted into a scowl, his eyes staring ahead over your shoulder. “Speaking of big deals. I’ll be right back.”

You turned to look at the entrance with a confused frown. The door swung open and a burst of cold wafted from the damp streets inside. 

A tall husk of a man ducked under the door frame as he stepped in, his broad shoulders squeezed in a tight leather coat. His sharp face was fixed into a vacant stare, glistening skin donned in an almost sickly glow from the dull light of the bar. As he lifted his fingers to rake through his wet fringe, the stark black tattoo of a crow on the back of his hand caught the pale florescent lighting and then your eye.

Your heart began hammering in your throat, making your pulse thrum loudly in your ears as you took him in. What was hedoing here? No. You knew eventually, you had to face him again. But you weren’t prepared for it. You weren’t ready for the burning rush of emotions that suddenly took of hold of your body. 

You could practically feel yourself vibrate as you craned your neck to search frantically through the grease stained bar windows only to surely and definitely find that wretched red Lamborghini parked outside. You cursed under your breath and peeled your gaze away. 

“He’s really going in with the territorial pissing.” Jason scoffed a laugh, lifting the rim of his bottle to his lips. His playful stare found yours briefly from the corner of his eyes as he took a swig. “Racers and their god be damned giant egos.”

Jason wasn’t aware of the history you shared with that big name who had just walked inside this small and quite hardly known bar in a city this huge. It was almost as if, intentionally than anything, he was here looking for you. And that notion was less than comforting as you sank in your own collar, heart pattering feverishly against your ribcage.

You flinched when Jason slapped the back of his hand to your elbow, the crooked grin on his lips dying immediately at your reaction.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m gonna…” You hopped off your stool, your voice tapering into silence as panic momentarily took the place of your wit. “I’m gonna head out for a bit.”

“Looks like Crowley isn’t just terrorizing the rookies.”

You shivered at the mention of his name. But then you stopped and turned back to face Jason again.

“How do you know him?”

The question came out much more accusatory than you had intended and you watched as the man before you quickly turned red in the face. 

“I’d know Crowley,” he croaked, his voice exceptionally deep. “I’d know a guy like that.”

Your frown deepened. “Don’t give me that, Jason.”

His lip quivered, the blush spreading rapidly over his nose. You stared at him expectantly, waiting for whatever explanation – if you could even call it that – he was going to come up with now.

“Your car isn’t the only one I work on, sweetheart.” He tried to reason calmly, his eyes locked with yours. “Nor is Freddie’s.”

You narrowed your eyes at him, still doubtful. But in the end, you resigned. Waving a vague hand at him, you muttered a “whatever” and started the way you had meant to go many seconds ago. 

Stuffing your hands inside your pockets, you took long impatient strides out and across the parking lot, paying no mind to the mud crawling up your boots as you stomped angrily into rain puddles on your way to Mercury. Flipping the switch between your fingers, you unlocked your car before you were startled to a stop upon a loud call of your name.

“Achilles!” Jason’s booming voice echoed across the vicinity, his rapid footfalls thundering in your ears as they drew closer and closer to where you were.

You released a deep sigh, turning around to tell him off until you calmed down enough for a proper conversation – and oh, this was going to be a much necessary conversation once came the right time. But all sense failed when Jason’s body crashed into yours, his hand moving quickly to pull your face to his. A noise of surprise caught in your throat upon impact, becoming immediately muffled against his lips.

The momentum propelled you back against Mercury, trapping your body between Jason’s feverish one and the cold wet metal digging into your skin. He pushed into you with great need, his small sighs of desperation weaving in and out of each brush of his tongue over yours. His hands clung to the collar of your jacket, yanking you closer to himself if that were even possible. 

“What are you doing?” You managed to murmur against the frenzied kisses. “Fuck—what’s gotten into you?”

“I’m sorry. I’m fucking sorry. Please don’t be mad at me.”

You hardly managed to pull away for a gulp of breath before his lips were traveling down the length of your neck, his tongue claiming every inch of bare skin, teeth biting the tender territory. 

“And that’s your idea of making up to me?” You laughed breathlessly. “Get in the fucking car.” 

Jason pushed your shoulder as soon as you opened the door and you fell back on the seat. He wasted no time in joining you in the backseat, shoving you down on the lush leather as he climbed on top of you before slamming the door shut behind him.

His mouth returned upon yours, one hand toying with the hem of your sweater. You hissed at the caress of his cold fingers across your skin. Jason ventured lower to the front of your jeans, tugging the zipper down, lips not once leaving yours. He tapped your thigh, cueing you to lift your waist for him to slide your jeans down.

“Shit. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this needy before.” Your chuckle waned into a sharp gasp as Jason trailed a finger along the crotch of your panties, barely even grazing your clit over the fabric.

He lifted his head to look at you. You could still see his eyes in the low light of the car, lidded with lust and glistening mischievously. He let down his other hand to palm himself on top of his jeans, letting free a choked moan through gritted teeth.

“You don’t even realize what you to do me, do you, sweetheart?”

His usually patient demeanor has grown wickedly fast; fingers already hooked under the waistband of your panties to pull them off of you. Hanging your legs over his shoulders, his face pressed against your pussy without another moment’s pause.

You arched your back as his lips closed around your clit and sucked it loudly into his mouth. He moaned, slurping up the slick leaking out of you. His hands gripped tightly at your thighs, long fingers pressing deep into your skin. You dug your nails in the cold leather seat beneath you, head pushed back as your moans left you quickly before you could hold them in.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” You sobbed helplessly. “Slow down. Slow down.”

Jason only pulled away to press his mouth to your inner thigh, knowing fully well he had to gradually build you up. His lips dragged across your sensitive skin, his stubble prickling and trailing a path up to your knee. But no later than a good few seconds, your breath hitched again as he lifted a finger to your dripping cunt.

His fingertip glided with ease along your slit, another finger smoothing your swollen lip as his mouth hovered teasingly close back over your clit. Your body writhed, each heavy uneven breath you drew fanned the pleasure across every fiber and every bit. Jason plunged a thick digit inside you – so slowly, your walls peeled away as the delicious heat erupted in your core, opening and loosening for more to receive. 

He pumped his finger. Slowly in. Slowly out. Then back in. A steady rhythm accompanied by the chorus of breathless moans through your lips and the soft squelch squelch of your juices. 

“God, you’re so fucking sexy,” Jason croaked. “You like that, don’t you, baby? Bet you’d like it better too if I just—” he trailed off, taking a quick moment to press his long finger to that soft beckoning spot within you and you arched your back with a loud moan, fists coiling tight against your own thighs. Jason cooed. “Does it feel nice, sweetheart?”

“Oh, fuck. Yes. Fuck, yes.”

He hummed. “Such a needy little girl.”

“Jus—just fuck me already. Dammit.”

“You’re so cute.” He chuckled. The low vibration of his voice carried a dark, teasing tone. Three simple words which meant he wasn’t going to relent that easily. A plain rhetorical rejection. “You want my cock? I better hear you beg me better than that.”

You gritted your teeth, the last shred of your pride tipping dangerously close to the falling point. Jason watched you expectantly, an eyebrow raised above his sharp eyes, waiting patiently for your response as his finger continued to slide slowly inside you. In and out, in and out. No sign or anything that showed he was going to be the one giving up first. But your resolve, on the other hand, was successfully falling apart. 

“Please—Jason. I need you to fuck me. I can’t take it anymore.”

“That’s more like it.”

Jason slowly pulled his finger out, a thick thread of your arousal trailing from your pussy to his hand. His gaze traced the translucent string glistening in the dim light, throat bobbing as he swallowed, tongue worming out to wet his lip before that same finger disappeared inside his mouth. He moaned, sucking showily on the length of his digit.

“Fuck. You taste incredible, sweetheart.” He moaned. 

Your feet landed back on the hard leather seat as Jason moved a hand to his belt, fumbling with the buckle before he managed to finally pry it open. He hissed as he freed himself from the confines of fabric, his leaking flushed cock sitting heavy and throbbing in his fist.

He pushed his tip against your clit. Gently at first. Then he lifted his length and let it fall on your cunt, the weight landing with a wet thud. You choked down a grunt when he repeated the action. Again and again until he had picked up his speed and joined the cacophony of your moans and skin falling upon skin. He would only occasionally slow down to rub himself up and down between your lips, heaving groans and pants, his swollen tip gushing with precum all over you.

“Jason—” You called hoarsely. Tone demanding. Your fingers wrapped themselves around Jason’s cock, stilling him in place. “Fuck me. Right now.”

He swallowed a few gulps of breath before he finally nodded. “Wanna get on top?”

He didn’t have to say any more to get you to start moving. You landed in his lap as soon as Jason shifted to a sitting position, your sopping pussy hovering just barely over his cock. He held your hips and guided you slowly down his length. Head thrown back against the seat, he moaned heartily as inch by inch, he slithered inside, his nails practically digging into your skin.

“Oh, fuck, baby. You feel amazing. Mmm, shit. Yeah, that’s it,” he encouraged, his hands holding you steady as you began to push yourself up and down along his shaft. “Keep going like that. Keep going – god, you’re so fucking beautiful.”

His words fueled the already burning flame that licked and pawed at your core; more so, the way he arched his back and his chest rose to meet yours at times when accumulated pleasure erupted and spread like malignancy throughout his body. 

His moans escaped loudly and freely. To the point he looked embarrassed and flushed at what little control he had left over his own will. And his attempt to muffle those noises didn’t slip your attention when he raised a hand to press against his lips.

“Don’t hold back,” you panted, slapping Jason’s hand away from his mouth. “I wanna hear you. I wanna hear everything. And don’t you dare hide yourself again.”

“I can’t—baby, I can’t. It’s—I’m too fucking loud. I can’t help it.”

A mischievous grin curved your lips and you slowed down, coaxing a long whine out of him. “Are you worried somebody’s gonna hear you?”

He only stared, chest heaving and cheeks flushed deep, his lips wet and slack. You tilted your head as your fingers glided over the span of his tight stomach and then his chest until they wound carefully around his neck. 

Jason closed his eyes, swallowing dryly as he took in the warm sensation of your hand pressing into his skin and the whole and dire attention it demanded from him. He nodded quickly to your question, biting his lip to smother a whimper as your grip tightened on his throat.

“Then let them.” His eyes shot open, peering shocked and wide into yours. “Let’s put on a show for them, what do you say?”

The only thing his voice could manage was a low muttered “fuck” as you began moving again. Making well on your end of the promise, you bounced on his cock with relentless speed, hands gripping his shoulders to support yourself. 

Jason didn’t hold back anymore. He couldn’t. He bucked his hips into you, meeting each deep pump of your pussy with a thrust of his own, hurtling towards breaking that taut pull of arousal winding tighter and tighter within him.

Your sweet praises and filthy encouragements filled him with spiraling heat; the ascension only growing much faster when he saw you begin to touch your neglected clit feverishly. Your head lolled back on your shoulders, mouth shaped into a circle for the piercing moans to flee and the soft frown on your face – all telltale signs of your approaching climax – finally tipped him over the breaking point and he came with shaky moans and curses on his tongue.

Warmth filled between your walls as Jason’s cum spurted inside you and then you were with him beyond the point as well. Your shuddering moan filled the cramped space of the car and you held onto him as if he were your lifeline.  

He caressed your thigh as your high began to slow, your rapid pulse growing calm with each ticking second. His other hand smoothed your hair before it cradled your face and pulled you in for a soft kiss. He was still shaking, his fingers trembling on your skin. It made you grin against his lips.

“What’s so funny?” Asked Jason once he noticed your lingering smile when you pulled away, beaming himself.

“Nothing. It’s just – you’re so fucking adorable.”

He scrunched up his nose as if the compliment left a sour taste in his mouth but he was still smiling when his face relaxed. His fingers combed absentmindedly through your hair as you sat in comfortable silence until that dreadful thought returned. That thought.

“Don’t think I forgot about what you said.” Jason’s hand took a pause on your temple at the comment, a frown forming between his brows. He almost managed to speak when you did instead. “About Crowley—”

He interrupted with a roll of his eyes. “Please don’t start now.”

“You will tell me, Jason. I need to know.”

“What’s it to you, ha? I know the guy. Big fucking deal.”

Jason gently pushed you off of him. He was trying so desperately to run away from the conversation. That much was evident from the way he fumbled nervously with his jeans and avoided looking at you before he slid out of Mercury. You let him have it this time. You would get that information out of him sooner or later.

Right now, you had something else to focus on… or rather, someone. 

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Yandere Eddie Munson (4/13)

Word count ; 4.2k

*Edited.

We eventually made it home. It was almost like he knew where my room was, but after a long, playful argument about how it was creepy he never mentioned knowing my address before, he defended himself by reminding me it would be weird to show up just to see me. I told him to wait by my bedroom window since the house itself was one story and very small.

I walked up to the front door and opened it. I was quiet, hearing the television run advertisements. The household was dark and silent except for that, and I realized mom was sleeping in her chair beside the door. I held my breath and didn’t bother taking off my shoes. I instead snuck past her, successfully leaving her undisturbed.

The entire house was dark, but once I entered my room, I shut the door behind me. I exhaled sharply, but I jumped when loud knocks came from the glass. Eddie was tilting his head and waving wildly. He stared at my expectantly and impatiently. He kept pointing at the window.

I rolled my eyes and smiled slightly. I sent him a middle finger as I went over to my beside table and flicked on the lamp. I stood in front of the window tauntingly and sent him a grin.

He pouted before clasping his hands together pleadingly. I playfully reached toward the lock above it before withdrawing my hand.

He grinned, and it was like he had a ‘eureka’ moment. He suddenly cupped his hands together, and while maintaining eye contact, made damn well I could see him licking it obscenely.

I scrunched my nose in disgust and felt my face darken. I caved, flicking it open and lifting it. The moment I raised it, though, he clambered inside awkwardly. He was laughing loudly and I was quick to panic.

“Shut up! My mom will hear you,” I hissed. “And fuck you. You’re so gross.”

“You’re the one who was quick to let me in when I did it,” he argued with a wink.

I shut the window, my heart beating erratically in my chest. I locked it again and sat on my bed, watching as Eddie pulled himself to his feet. Immediately, though, the atmosphere shifted into something sad and demure. He noticed my frown as my gaze flitted around why bedroom and he sat next to me.

“Heh,” he started, clearly trying to lighten the mood. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been in your room, you know.” I opened my mouth but he held up his hand. “Wait, wait. But not in, like, a, uh creepy way. Just when I’ve been over and Dustin steals something from your room and, uh, I’m obliged to follow.”

“I’m sure,” I hummed in vague amusement.

Silence fell over us and it was clear we were still digesting the events of tonight. Not even a few hours ago, my only concern was Eddie Munson and my brother being pricks about my boyfriend. And now… I was witnessing supernatural events unlike any other.

I suddenly sighed and stood up. “Just… come with me. We need to, like, get cleaned off.”

“What? At the same time? Not that I don’t mind —“

“I mean our faces, moron,” I groaned playfully. “And god, who knows how long it’ll be before you can actually brush your teeth again. For all we know, the police could be hunting us down starting tomorrow.”

Eddie sighed, trailing behind me. I opened the door quietly, and it only let out a soft squeak. My mom was still fast asleep, quiet snores emitting from the living room. She must’ve woken up momentarily to turn off the telly. Luckily, the bathroom was adjacent to my room, so we slid inside with ease even though it wasn’t the largest.

The moment the door shut, I let out a sigh of relief. Mom was always very picky about people. She didn’t approve of Chance entirely, too, even though we’d been together for about two years. I would rather go to prison than face her wrath.

Eddie immediately started going through the cabinet. He looked over every bottle, and it was clear he was just snooping, because his expression betrayed that he didn’t have anything in mind.

He grabbed at one of mom’s medicine bottles in intrigue while I just stared at him and crossed my arms. He felt my stare and paused, sending me a grin.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Are you always this prone to snooping?”

“Only if something, uh, interests me,” he answered instantly, getting the hint. He set the bottle back and closed the cabinet. He rubbed his hands together, and I took the chance to get my toothbrush ready.

While I was doing so, he washed the grime off of his face. Underneath all that dirt was a very good-looking man, despite the dark under-eyes. He even took the liberty of washing off his neck and general upper chest at the expense of soaking his shirt a little.

I nudged him, indicating for him to let me spit. He was almost startled and did so. After that, I did the rest of my night routine. If it wasn’t for Eddie Munson being in here with me, I almost would’ve forgotten what had happened and thought of this as any other night.

A yawn escaped my throat and Eddie was staring expectantly. “I’m surprised you can sleep after what happened,” he mused. “I don’t think I’ll get a wink in.”

I hummed,” Well, you can at least try. Otherwise, although our interests differ, I’m sure you could find something to occupy yourself with.”

“Such as?”

“Listen, I don’t know off the top of my head. Let’s just… come on.”

I grabbed his wrist and flicked off the bathroom light. We reentered my bedroom, my mom’s snores echoing through the entire house. I locked the door behind me, even if that wasn’t normal. I just couldn’t risk Dustin waking me up at an ungodly hour and finding Eddie Munson in my bedroom.

Eddie didn’t wait a second before snooping again. My room was average. The bed was twin-sized and was in the center, with one cutely decorated bedside table. I had a dresser against the wall next to it, and the mirror had polaroids tacked onto it. There was a jewelry box and my clothes were neatly tucked inside the actual dresser. I had some fluffy pink and purple carpets and some trophies on my bookshelf and study desk from cheerleading. My closet was shut, but when Eddie skimmed through it, he found the various dresses I had. He pawed at them with interest.

His eyes immediately returned to the dresser, though. He skipped over and I only watched as he glanced over the dresser. He giggled gleefully as he scanned the various photos.

And then my mind went blank as he let out a quiet ‘oh?’.

“What?” I asked in confusion.

“When did you take this?”

I hopped off the bed and walked until I was beside him. What I came face to face with horrified me. In the corner of my mirror, almost overlapped by a photo of Chance eating a burger, was a blurry polaroid of Eddie Munson, leaning against his locker while talking to a friend. 

I clearly took it in the hallway, and since he was rather short, I knew it had to have been taken during my sophomore year. It was when…

“That, uh, was from sophomore year,” I stuttered. “I was trying out for the photography club.”

“You, uh, hung it up.”

“It must’ve been from years ago. Don’t read too much into it. I don’t like throwing things away.”

Eddie grinned, maintaining a twinkle of disbelief in his auburn orbs. I nudged him aside and opened the drawer, pulling out my fluffy animal onesie.

“Adorable,” he hummed, still watching me. 

“Is that sarcasm?” 

“Not at all, sweetheart. I swear, I’m a genuine guy.”

“Tell that to your guitar,” I quipped. “How would she feel if she found out about us?”

“I didn’t realize there was an ‘us’.”

“There isn’t, but you wish there was.”

“Touché.”

I turned around, staring expectantly. I tilted my head and motioned to the pajamas. We stood there in silence for a moment. 

“Oh! Uh, yeah. Right. Sorry.”

He went as sat on the bed, back turned to me. My eyes were glued to his figure as I slipped off my skirt and pulled the onesie onto my bodice. I plucked off the upper half afterwards and enveloped my body inside the pajamas. 

I stretched my arms before walking over to the closet. I pulled out a blanket from the top shelf and dumped it onto the floor by the bed. Eddie kicked off his shoes and I grabbed a pillow from the bed. 

Eddie took it from me, though, and I quirked a brow. I watched as he sat down on the carpeted floor and stretched, feigning an obnoxious yawn.

“Hey, that’s where I’m sleeping,” I complained, stomping my foot slightly.

“I am a gentleman,” he mused. “The only reason I’d sleep in your bed is if it was with you.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. That’s enough for tonight.”

I flopped onto the bed and flicked off the switch. The moment darkness fell over the room, a bout of sleepiness washed over me and I only grumbled in annoyance when he exclaimed a boisterous ‘good night.’ We fell silent, though, and as I drifted off into nightmare land, all I could think about was Chrissy.

~~~

“Good night!” Eddie exclaimed with full knowledge that Y/n was more than ready to pass out.

His eyes adjusted slowly to the surroundings and he lay on his back. There wasn’t an ounce of tiredness in his body, so instead, he looked at the cute star and moon stickers on rather bland, cream-colored ceiling. Eddie heard Y/n’s breaths even out, but even so, his erratically beating heart wouldn’t quiet down.

He felt terrible about what happened to Chrissy. Truly, he did, because she was his potential friend and she meant a lot to Y/n. But, even so, as he glanced over toward the towering bed, he almost felt grateful. It was stupid to think that way, seeing as someone died in his own home, but here he was in Y/n’s room. And she was letting him be.

He’d been in her room before - and not just because of Dustin -, but to have permission, to feel her doting eyes on him as he explored, it was heaven to him. To be right beside her as she slept was heaven. So, if anything, at least there was one ray of positivity in his life.

And then he thought back to the polaroid she had of him. How embarrassed she became. Eddie knew everything about her. Everything from her favorite song to her first semester schedule. And he was almost certain that she never had an interest in professional photography or the club concerning it.

He remembered the day he realized he was in love with her vividly. They were vague friends during eighth grade and he’ll admit that he had a small crush on her. He thought it was cool how flexible and athletic she was, because he could never. And, despite her popular status, she was sweet and kind and never once stole his lunch money.

It was the first day of high school. He’d been so very determined to start a DND club, even though he anticipated the ridicule. He noticed her out of the corner of her eye. She’d grown during the summer and was even a few inches taller than him. However, he ignored her. They weren’t that close.

Then, as he attempted to peg the poster onto the student billboard, Chance and Jason sauntered right up to him and slapped it out of his hand. That was when the rumors of him being a cult leader started to emerge. Because of Chance and Jason.

But Y/n, being the gentle soul that you were, walked right up to them and slapped each classmate upside the head. Y/n looked furious as she scolded them, and even a crowd started to form. They were scared shitless and were begging for forgiveness, and she even fired them to peg the poster up themselves.

It was like she glowed in Eddie’s eyes. So perfect and kind and gorgeous. Someone that, even if she didn’t know it to this day, was destined to be with him. His friends thought he was weird and kind of creepy with how obsessed he was, but he was but a man in love. He kept his feelings hidden until late sophomore year, where he invited Y/n to the dance only to be shot down because she had a boyfriend.

And it was Chance.

And yet, his heart didn’t break. It only made him more convinced to win her heart. Y/n was perfect for him because opposites truly did attract. His friends constantly thought he was stupid for being so earnest, though. 

She didn’t even play DND or know anything about it.

She preferred cute and lovey-dovey songs to rock.

She was an athlete and Eddie could barely pick up a dodgeball properly.

She was loved and adored, and Eddie was feared and hated.

What wasn’t to fall in love with? Eddie was obsessed with everything about her. When he thought about his future, all he knew was that she was a part of it.

He was suddenly awoken from his stupor by a loud snore. He tensed, but realized as the snoring continued, that Y/n was fast asleep. He couldn’t help but sit up, slowly, as to not disturb her. Maybe his friends were right and he was a little creepy and obsessed, but he was a man possessed.

As Y/n’s bundled up form came into view, completely swallowed by her blankets, Eddie’s heart only beat faster. It was so hard to focus on the tragedy that happened not even two hours ago when she looked so cute. He couldn’t help but get on his hands and knees and scoot up to the mattress, eyes glued to her figure. The only thing visible was a tuft of hair that shrouded all but her cheek. She was curled on her side, snoring quietly.

Eddie would never admit it, but one night, he snuck into her room and recorded it. He used to go to bed to his favorite bands, but now he went to sleep to the sound of her. It made him feel like he was beside her. And now, he really was.

His hand, trembling with anticipation, reached to her face. She was so close that he could touch her. His fingers ghosted over her warm flesh bathing in the moonlight. If he reached out just a bit further, he could feel her.

But, he didn’t. Instead, he pulled away, biting his lips.

He’d never admit it, but he was always shaking in his boots around her. Whenever she was in the room, he became dazed. He seemed confident, but that wasn’t real. He wouldn’t truly be confident until she became his.

Eddie shakily rose to his feet, only then realizing that he’d held his breath. And, as captivating as the woman before him was, his eyes flitted back to her dresser.

He was still having a hard time keeping calm when she willingly kept a photo of him that she took on her dresser mirror.

He walked over, his bare feet sinking into the carpet. He stopped in front of the dresser, eyes scanning over the various images. There was a corner for her boyfriend on the right top and his photo was buried underneath. However, in the few photos she had of herself, she looked so adorable. She had such an infectious smile.

There were some large and official ones, like the school yearbook photos of the cheerleader team with each passing year. He already had those at home, stowed in a box. She were her school pictures. He never thought people were capable of taking good school photos, but Y/n proved Eddie wrong.

There was a corner dedicated to Chrissy, too. His heart fell and he felt bad for being so self-absorbed right then. For trying so hard to make light of her death. Whatever was going on was supernatural and he worried for them. Was it a disease? Was it contagious?

All of his thoughts silenced, though, when his eyes drifted over to the most perfect photo of all. It was a small polaroid, clearly taken by her. She was in her cheerleader garb. He could tell from the white hoodie around her neck. She had her hair done up and she was lying back on her bed and was doing a peace sign while winking charismatically. 

He couldn't help it. Before he could stop himself, he removed the pin holding it there and and slipped the picture into his jean’s back pocket. It felt so right in his own hands. Eddie knew it was taken recently because he never noticed it the last time he was here.

He pressed a hand to his beating heart, his rings clacking quietly against one another. If Max had seen them… they’d have to go somewhere else tomorrow, and the only place that seemed safe was Rick’s. The man was constantly in hiding in another house, so he’d never know Eddie was there in the first place. 

Yeah. That sounded alright.

Eddie went back to the makeshift bed. He let his body fall back onto the floor, once again staring at the ceiling. 

And it was like Y/n was magical. Somehow, he managed to drift off to sleep to her obnoxious snoring.

~~~

Bang bang bang!

I shot up, and Eddie reacted just the same. I gasped and tossed the comforter off me. I tripped on Eddie’s panicked body, falling right into the wall. Someone was knocking on my bedroom door very loudly, and I could only hope it wasn’t the police. I use the wall for support. 

“Fuck,” Eddie hissed, voice deeper than usual.

I motioned at the things on the floor. He crawled off and started pushing the blanket and pillow underneath the bed. He kept cursing under his breath while I began fiddling with the lock on the doorknob.

“Y/n? Are you in there?”

I sighed in relief the moment I recognized Dustin’s voice. My panic subdued and I unlocked it. By then, the blankets had mostly been stuffed underneath and Eddie clambered over to the closet, shoving himself in. The door shut with a bang, leading to the knocks resuming.

I swung the door open. I clearly looked distressed. My hair was a mess and I was panting slightly. I came face to face with Dustin, standing there in his pajamas and holding two pop tarts. He was munching o one, but the moment I opened the door, he outstretched the other toward me.

“Uh… good morning?” he greeted in confusion. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, uh, I was just getting dressed.”

“…Oh.” He shook the pop tart, indicating me to take it. I did, although I quirked a brow. Dustin never brought nor made me breakfast. He noticed my confusion, clearing his throat. “I, uh, I’m sorry about yesterday, I guess. Like, you know if…” He suddenly squinted, pushing past me into my room.

“If?” I challenged, shutting the door behind him.

“If mom found out… like, she’d totally agree with me! She’d, like, make you see a doctor, or something. Suzy told me that when people go through trauma, they don’t really know it, and —“

“Chance hasn’t traumatized me, Dusty,” I sighed, ruffling his hair. 

“I’m not talking about Chance, sis.”

I was already frowning, but just from the implication, my frown deepened. I took an obnoxious bite out of the pop tart. An awkward silence fell between us. Dustin was staring at me with guilty and pleading eyes while I tried my best to feign disinterest.

“Uh, sis, why were you really at our campaign last night?”

His words were more deafening from the previous silence. I couldn’t help but sputter. Dustin was a smart kid. I wasn’t sure what to tell him. With each unintelligible stutter I gave, he only raised his eyebrow further.

“I’m kinda sworn to secrecy, little bro.”

His face fell, but he knew not to pry. He rubbed the back of his neck and stepped toward the door again. “Oh, okay. And, uh, sorry again.”

He left, shutting the door behind him. The moment it closed though, I let out a loud groan, only muffled by hand. The closet door slid open, and I jumped forgetting that Eddie was there in the first place. He cleared his throat and his mystic eyes were asking questions I didn’t and wouldn’t answer.

I let out another groan, handing the pop tart over to him. He slowly took it, and we maintained a daring eye contact. I dared him to ask what was on his mind and he dared e to be honest.I kept my lips sealed, though.

“What was Dustin, uh, talking about, sweetheart?”

I gulped. We were but a few feet apart, and his eyes bore into mine expectantly. I took a step back, expecting him to realize he wouldn’t get an answer. But, instead, he took a step closer. He had a coy grin as he kept backing me up against the wall.

“That’s not important,” I tittered, feeling my heart kickstart. I could try as I might, but the close proximity made me… uncomfortable.

He tilted his head, eyeing me up and down in amusement. I curled my nails against the wallpaper, arching my back to meet him. He was so tall in this moment. So cooky and confident. Perhaps he was attempting to be intimidating, but his dark orb pooled with warmth and he was still smiling. The only indication that he was serious was the crinkling of his eye creases and how his actions were so cat-like.

“It is to me, sweetheart.”

I opened and then closed my mouth again. I had no doubt that I was blushing, especially when he tased his arms to cage me against the wall. I raised my arms to his chest, gently pushing. I felt bad for how I was reacting to the man. I had a good boyfriend and I couldn’t allow him to be this close in good conscious —

“What the fuck! Get away from her, you murderous freak!”

I screamed out of shock, and I heard the house outside of my room start to stir out of surprise from the commotion. However, Eddie pulled away, fear washing over his expression. I could finally see that, holding a rock and ready to burst it open, was Chance. 

I squealed as he brought the rock crashing into the window. The glass shattered and Chance reached in, red in the face with anger and fright. Eddie let out a girlish squeal, grabbing my upper arm and retreating further into the bedroom. 

“Chance!" I called furiously as he thrust the window open, sliding through with ease. 

He interpreted that as terror, and as he continued to hold onto the rock, he met my gaze. “It’s okay, babe, I - I’ll save you from that freak! H - he killed Chrissy and —“

“I don’t know what you’re on, man, I didn’t kill her!” Eddie exclaimed.

“Let go of my girlfriend, you psycho!” 

The bedroom door burst open, and there was Dustin. Mom must’ve left for work, but Dustin looked horrified. Confusion swirled in his eyes, and his shouts and questions left unanswered.

Chance suddenly chucked the rock at Eddie. He screamed again and ducked, releasing my wrist. However, the rock still collided with the dresser mirror and it shattered. I couldn’t help but scream again as the shards shot out across the bedroom one of them even slicing my cheek. I crouched to the ground.

Eddie let out an aggravated - but still afraid - battle cry. He managed to avoid most of the glass thanks to his thick clothes, and he grabbed the rock. Chance looked almost regretful, trying to scoot in my direction. He beckoned me over, but as a natural reaction I shrank away.

Eddie picked up the rock, gritting his teeth. He used what strength he could and hauled it at the man. Chance scoffed and dodged with ease but clearly Eddie wasn’t planning on aiming correctly. He then tackled the man to the ground, causing his head to slam into the wall. 

“Eddie! No!” I cried, still paralyzed in place.

[7oji]

━━ same deep water as you, first part.

toji fushiguro is an unstable private investigator that takes on a case for an equally unstable family. when you have decided to throw everyone in your life away, you meet someone at the dinner you work at.

◞⁺⊹ 💭 toji fushiguro/fem!reader. no curses au, slow-burn ish, reader has a family, angst, age difference, grieving, eloping, protective toji, pet names (bunny/princess), eventual comfort.

╭ cw for light-voyeurism and stalking (not yandere), toxic families, alcohol use, mentions of organized crime, eventual nsft. 1.3k word count.

The old furniture in the office was uncomfortable. The place felt cold and reeked of cigarettes, which made people stay for short amounts of time like Toji preferred.

“After finding her, I just need you to follow her around and tell me what her routine looks like.”

Toji sat across an impatient-looking woman that looked out of place.

He loved desperate clients. Worried husbands, estranged fathers, or cunning wives were all dollar signs to him. And this time it was an obtrusive sister.

“What are you looking for, exactly?” His sharp eyes never left her when she pulled out a cigarette and lit it up.

“Well, we talked from time to time, but after the notice for the funeral, no one can get a hold of her,” the woman paused to take a long breath off the cigar, polluting the air with her anxiousness. “The school could only give me what I gave you. So, my guess is she got together with someone, got knocked up or something.”

Toji nodded at her summary, focusing on the discharge forms from the college she mentioned.

“Okay. Just know, if you are going legal, I can only take evidence on public spaces.” He leaned back into his chair to start his usual spiel. “That's the reason I asked. I try to cather to all needs, so if you’d like more, it’ll be a little bit more pricey for you, but out of record.”

“I know, that's why I came here,” she barely avoided rolling her eyes. “Our dad is just so worried, you know, with his own dad dying too. It’s his little girl and he could never be tough with her. I want to give him something before deciding what to do with her.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry for your loss,” Toji muttered in an attempt to skim over the sob story.

“Thanks. I know you knew him, but his friends better. You come... recommended,” she gave a critical glance across the neglected room.

“You mentioned that on the phone.” Toji flipped through her contact details to find what else to discuss. Both of them knew to keep that topic brief.

“Anyway, after finding her, which I hope will be no issue for you,” she puffed the smoke in his direction. “I'd like you to be with her for up to a month, depending on what comes up.”

He kept nodding mindlessly, getting ahead of himself to daydream about how easy this would be.

“I would prefer that you only focus on this and drop any other case, if possible. Money is not an issue.”

Oh, he’d almost squirm at that.

“I can imagine that,” he agreed, failing to contain a grin. “I do charge hourly and you’ll have to cover the expenses of my current projects to drop them, but we’ll set the payment details later on.”

They were done after the woman insisted on starting that same weekend.

“Have you ever gotten involved with the people you investigated?” was her last inquiry.

“That blows my cover, so, no.”

“But would you be willing to act? Like if someone needed to test if their wife was faithful?”

Toji had been offered similar deals a handful of times, easy to imagine with his looks, but the only one that went through was for a store owner looking to see if the girls at the counter would steal for him. Which they did.

He grinned after giving it a thought.

“Sure, for its right price.”

A chime filled the dimly lit dinner in the last minutes of your shift. It was dark outside when the cooks handed you a plate of tomato soup from the small kitchen.

The two tried some small talk when they held the door open for you, only to receive the usual quiet smile.

You couldn't bring yourself to be mean to them, but this way, it would be easier when you finally disappeared from the face of the earth.

Letting your hair down you exited the restaurant and walked over to the bus stop. Moving through the dark streets was easy now with your pepper spray gripped inside your pocket.

Your edge had gone down a few weeks ago, but the hairs on your neck were up that night, even though nothing seemed out of place.

The first sight when you finally opened the motel's door was of a full trashcan. Room service hadn't passed by that day, but you figured it was better if no one was snooping around your stuff when you weren't there.

When you found a place cheap enough in the next town over, it was too good of an opportunity to let it go. It made sense when one of your sisters called to let you know grandpa had passed away. Your grandfather wasn’t a good person and had always treated the kids and the wives roughly. For him, a man of questionable ethics, there wasn’t any sadness from you and you wouldn’t bother saying goodbye. So, you took it as fate and paid for a whole month in cash.

The urge of flopping face-down into the bed was great, but a reflection in the mirror caught your attention.

The hair color so unnatural to your own popped out in front of you. You inspected that your look was as unrecognizable as possible, like you had intended, before resuming your routine.

There was something specific about people who came to a private investigator for personal affairs. Toji would argue it was either craziness or lack of character.

When taking on a case for crazy, one had to be careful of them interfering in the jobs, so he would make sure to provide juicy information here and there, but not enough for them to know what his next move was.

Cheating husbands were his favorite. He was skillful at consoling a grieving wife, exclusively the ones that could afford him. For lack of excitement and transparency, he would not take any insurance claims or child custody cases. He was careful enough to avoid people from looking too deep into his practice.

Missing people were unusual cases, mostly because if the police couldn't do anything, those were people that didn't want to be found.

And for a moment he thought finding you would be harder than he thought. When he helped your sister file the missing person's report, he could go to the school but with no luck. You had dropped out with all necessary forms signed.

He moved over to the side of campus where most of your classes would take place, but asking around casually for you wasn’t giving him anything either. It seemed that you were hermetic enough.

“Excuse me,” he had heard a small voice when he was close to giving up. "Are you her family?”

Toji turned to find a girl too embarrassed to look him straight in the eye, but the mention of your name was enough for her to approach him.

“Yeah,” he said with a little smile. “Are you friends with her?”

“We were,” she hesitated. “At least I thought so, she didn't really talk to anybody, but we were in most classes together.”

“Did she say anything about where she was going?”

“I was going to ask you what happened to her,” she had finally seen him for a whole sentence, eyes full of surprise. “She… didn't really talk, and the last day she came to class, she was pretty nasty to everyone.”

Her slight lip quiver made Toji realize the girl really meant everyone. You were a little brat, weren't you?

It took a lot from him to not giggle at the thought.

“Sorry to hear that,” he gave his honest attempt at an empathetic smile. “How about we go to the cafeteria and you can tell me more about what my cousin did?”

Her fluster was all the answer he needed. That was his way in.

After that, it didn't take him more than a week to be at the front of a makeshift motel on the side of the road.

“Hi, little bunny,” he whispered to himself when he got his first glance at you locking your room's door. Seems like you changed your hair and wore some glasses, but you couldn't fool his sharp eyes.

SECOND PART TBA.

note. ahhh this is inspired by a dream i had with this man. i plan this to be a short-chaptered series and to update in 1+ week. thank you for reading 💗

[nemeseos-noctua]

God I love your work so much?? You guys are amazing .

Can I request how Albedo, Xiao and Diluc react to their s/o pushing them away in attempt to keep them safe from danger? (Eg they may be the traveller who is connected with the fatui and the abyss aand therefore fears for their s/o's safety.

Tysm!! I love your guys' writing style. requesting this specifically bc it's not fair Xiao gets to be to edgy one all the time in the fics🙄 how does it feel to get pushes away now loverboy? (/j!! I love him just thought this prompt would be a neat inversion).

𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: albedo, xiao, diluc (separate) x gn!reader

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: not proofread, blood, mentions albedos story (spoilers), xiao story spoilers, reader is not traveler

𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒: hehe tysm!! ALSO 100% haha i LOVEEE xiao but yk he be a lil stingy when it comes to safety! i want to tuck him in and tell him it’ll be alright 😔😔

during your travels across teyvat, you have encountered far more fatui and abyss mages than you’d care to count

and some of which— had some, err, not so kind grudges against you

these grudges were so serious that you began to worry for albedo’s safety. you personally did not care for blood staining your hands nor soul—but if that blood was albedo’s... oh boy

so, coming to a conclusion... you decided on the inevitable: keep albedo at arm’s length—for your heart and his

and, it worked. for a month, it worked. your visits to his camp in dragonspine lessened, your chaste kisses and morning voice left his life like... regrettably, his master

Staring up at the whirling winds of Dragonspine, Albedo’s teal eyes trailed over the ice, wishing to see a familiar silhouette among its blizzard.

He had been counting. It has been five days, two minutes, and 54 seconds since you last visited him—

Hah, just kidding. He didn’t count—but it has been five days.

Where were you? Maybe you were busy—the alchemist knew you had a life outside of—well, him. 

It was unfair of him to be impatient, for you had been nothing short of patient towards him. But still, his heart longs and yearns for your touches, his head feels cold without your fingers twisting through his silky blonde hair. 

Dragonspine was cold, but without you, it was colder.

he’d eventually head back down to mondstadt, solely for the purpose of finding you

his mind got the best of him as he spiraled into a brief insanity. maybe he did something to make you mad? maybe you were injured, recovering without his aid? so many questions spinning around his head he almost missed the sight of your [e/c] eyes

“[Y/N]—“ Albedo’s voice cut through the crowds of Mondstadt as the alchemist rushed forward. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, desperation taking over him as he reached a hand out for you.

“Albedo...?” You stopped in your tracks, taking in the sight of your boyfriend’s unruly hair and tired eyes. His lips were still purple—as if he had come back down from Dragonspine recently.

“Where were you?” The alchemist asked, his gloved hand wrapped around your wrist delicately, his eyes scanning all over you as to check whether you were injured or not.

“Ah... I was—adventuring,” You sweatdropped, the coldness of his gloves stinging your wrist, your eyes wide at how cold he was.

he doesn’t believe you—hah. of course he doesn’t, albedo is a genius in fields he wishes to study

he knows you too well to fall for your mindless responses or excuses, he knows your eyes too well to succumb to the smile on your lips or kindness in your touch

he knows, he knows he knows he knows—so why? what are you hiding? why are you hiding? from him of all people?

everyone has secrets—albedo is aware, for he has his own share. but please, can’t you spare his heart? just this once?

“Tell me the truth, [Y/N],” Albedo asked—no, begged. He wanted to know what kept you so far from his reach, what stopped you from visiting him or loving him or just being with him. Was he the problem? Was this the end of your love?

“I...” You looked away, tugging the alchemist against the current of the crowds, seeking an area for just the two of you.

And once you found it, you pulled the blonde into a hug. The coldness of his coat didn’t faze you, nor did the way his eyes widened or the way his arms hesitantly wrapped back around you.

“I don’t want someone like you to get involved with me, Albedo. You’re...” You looked away, your face still buried into the alchemist’s shoulder. 

“... A weakness. You’re a weakness that’ll be used against me.”

albedo is in utter disbelief

he—you—what?!

he’s... your weakness?

albedo doesn’t know whether to be flattered or hurt. he knows you have a dangerous job, he knows about the amount of letters you receive threatening him or you, he knows what you’re doing is for the better...

but—he cannot allow it. he wants to hold you without regrets, he wants to kiss you and eat lunch with you at good hunter...

“[Y/N],” Albedo breathed, cupping your cheeks in the palm of his hands as he stared violently into your eyes. Gaze softening, he couldn’t bring it in himself to scold you for all the worries you brought him to.

“I promise you—that even if Fatui and Abyss Mages disrupt my alchemy, I promise that I want to get involved with you—I, I want to be with you.”

His heart, it wants so much, it wants to have you, it wants to love you.

So please—won’t you let him do that? 

xiao also has many people out for his throat

well, i suppose... the difference between those ‘people’ and your ‘people’ is the fact that xiao’s debts are owed to the dead

the whispers, the screams, the agony. it plagues every part of his mind, like a melody with no beat, like an endless tune that he will hear for the rest of time

and you—you’re like, the charm. the ward and sigil that scares away all of those demons. you’re the sunshine that seeps through the cracks of caves

and now... you’re drifting. like a ship at sea, he wonders... will you be back?

regrettably—you think—maybe, maybe... you won’t return

What is this? The third week Xiao has sat atop the roof of Wangshu Inn? Hoping mindlessly to hear your steps up the staircase?

Hah. Is this who he has become? An adeptus who waits for a mortal like you to come, an adeptus who should be defending Liyue, and yet, here he is.

he’s a bit... put off

like. who are you to make him feel this way, mortal? (derogatory) 

he doesn’t want to admit it... but... he misses you. there! he said it. he misses you. now can you come back, please?

he knows, he knows he is not the best lover... that he is blunt, enigmatic, and sometimes... rude. but— but you, you accept him for that

and he ponders atop the roof of wangshu inn—perhaps, was this ignoring scheme long overdue? have you finally grown tired of him and all of his karma? have you found someone better—someone you can love you, hold you, and care for you like you deserve?

he hopes—the answer is no

but he knows... the answer is probably yes

“Oh, [Y/N]! You’re back!” Verr Goldet’s hushed voice ran through the adeptus mind as his form shot up almost instantly. Staring down from his position on the roof, his yellow eyes stared over at your familiar form, your [e/c] eyes and vision that dangled from your hip.

“Haha, sorry about that.” 

You smiled, but Xiao didn’t miss the way you winced upon doing so. Your arms and legs were wrapped with bandages, dried splotches of red and clothing as messy as could be.

“Your room is upstairs, sleep well,” Verr Goldet nodded knowingly, a bittersweet grin on her face as her mind flickered to the thought of Xiao and his shortening temper.

once you step out onto the balcony, you do not need to look to see who has appeared beside you

“Hello, Xiao!” You say openly, arms outstretched for a hug as the adeptus merely stared at you. Three weeks. Three weeks without you, three weeks too many—and here you were, opening your arms like you had just returned back from an hour long trip.

“ . . . “ Staying silent, Xiao could only cross his arms, glaring at you with mixed emotions. He was relieved to see you back and ‘happy’, but still, he was frustrated and irritated at the way you behaved so recklessly.

“You owe me an expla—“

“—nation,” You finished for the male, an exasperated smile gracing your features as you turned over to the balcony, the setting moon and proud stars soaring like the birds of Mondstadt.

“I was... dealing with some encounters,” Your tone was laced with a malice even he wasn’t expecting, the number of bandages scouring your skin finally making sense as his eyes narrowed into slits.

“Fatui? Tell me where they are, I wi—“

“No.”

Turning over to him fully, Xiao’s breath hitched. Ugh, again—you and your pretty smile and charming features. The simplest things you do made him go insane like the karmic debts that flourished through his mind.

“You can’t get involved, Xiao. They will only go after you. I returned here today to tell you that I’ll be going off for three month—“

“What?” The Yaksha breathed in disbelief. Did he hear right? Were you seriously leaving again?! 

“I said, I am leaving again... Xiao. It’s not you—Celestia no... it’d never be you. It’s just...” You looked around, to anywhere, anyone but him. If you glanced at him now, chances are you’d succumb to his sunny eyes and stay back at Wangshu Inn. 

“... The Fatui. I got on their wanted list and—I don’t want them to use you against me. So I’ll go out and get rid of them, and I’ll be ba—“

“No.”

It was his turn to decline, for he didn’t want to hear anything you had to say. You got on the Fatui’s wanted list?! What?! He...

He was going to kill them. 

“Do you think I am weak, [Y/N]? Eons of slaughter and—“ 

“Xiao!” You facepalmed, raising your voice slightly at the male as he blinked, taken aback that you, a mortal would ever thing of committing such a heinous crime towards a divine being like him.

“You’re not weak! It’s just... I’m weak. And if they find you, they could just threaten me with everything they’d do to you! Even if nothing happened at all...” Your voice died down, your heart hammering against your chest as Xiao’s eyes softened.

Xiao was—speechless. He didn’t know what to say, what to do. Nobody had ever thought of him so kindly before, neither have they ever treated him as something other than a weapon of war.

So, he vowed. Like the night Rex Lapis found him all those millennia ago, like the night he broke free from the chains of manipulation—he vowed, time and time again—

“I will protect you, [Y/N]. For there is no need to protect me.”

[internal screaming]

diluc, of all people, no longer is afraid of ‘grudges’ or ‘debts’ owed to the fatui or abyss order. he dances with evil, masquerading each night for his life

and now, the only light in his world full of darkness, the only fire in the cold icy winds...

left

you left. you left with a little note saying you’d be back in what—five months?

a part of him was... shocked. it was surprised at how abrupt it was. one moment, the two of you were laying in bed, cradling each others’ forms. and the next? you were gone

the other part of him was... worried. did you want to leave him? what was this about? did you owe debt to the fatui? you could’ve told him, he would’ve payed for it all in a heartbeat

but diluc of mondstadt—hah, he was not known for stepping down so easily. so until he figures out why you left so suddenly, he is not stopping his search for the truth

and once he so happens to run into lumine and asks the traveler where you’ve been—he’s shocked

at first, he thinks lumine must me mistaken. what? what do you mean “[y/n] is heading out to fight the abyss herald”, you’re kidding... haha...

(lumine swore she saw her life flash before her eyes when diluc wrapped his head around the news)

diluc feels a bit... guilty. he feels guilty that he didn’t know sooner, he feels guilty that the abyss order is bothering you like how it bothers him, he feels guilty for everything

Wiping some blood that spilled from the corner of your mouth, you grimaced at the metallic taste. 

What was it? Err... day five? This was the first Abyss Herald you have encountered so far, and you could only assume it was the first of many.

Standing up, you sheathed your weapon. Your vision glowed brightly in the darkness of the ruins, the moon illuminating the way out as you sighed, pulling yourself across the stone cold floor.

As you trudged outside and into the moonlight, a twig cracked under a foot that wasn’t yours, prompting you to reach out and materialize your weapon, charging it with power from your vision.

“Who?”

Stepping out from the trees, your eyes widened at a sight you hadn’t expected to see—at least, expected to see this soon.

“Diluc?” You breathed, heaving a sigh of relief as the male took no notice to your words, instead, his vermilion eyes traced over your battered form, his eyes worrying even more with each glance he spared.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked, rushing up to you as he pulled out some bandages, wrapping them around your wounds so he could get you back to the winery.

pushing yourself away from his grasp, diluc watched in hurt as you kept him away from your figure

“i couldn’t—i didn’t want you to get involved,” you mumbled guiltily, looking away from the male as his eyes seemed to berate you silently

“me involved? what do you mean?” diluc asks in disbelief. he of all people should be the one telling you that

“the abyss. i got in a tumble with them and now they’re after my blood,” you murmured, only causing diluc’s heart to pound even louder in his chest, his brain flickering to unpleasant memories as he rushed up to you, securely placing his hands on your shoulders

He’s... speechless. He doesn’t know what to say, what to do. He’s usually the one keeping people at arms-length—yet here you were, stealing his lines and his worries.

“I...” Diluc paused, trying to form words, and yet, nothing came to mind.

“...”

Silence. It filled the ambience and your hearts, yet, it was not the same silence in the abyss, nor was it the same silence before a nightmare.

It was a silence of awe, a silence that you’d hear before a firework would shoot up in the sky—it was calming, a relaxing wave like a seashell pressed against your ear.

A silent love—like the one you and Diluc shared. An unsung melody that played in the beat of your hearts, the breaths of the wind...

A silent promise, like a marriage or a confession, a promise to—

“I will be by your side, [Y/N]. No matter what.”

Through thick and thin, cold and warm, there is nothing but you two, two lovers against the darkness, dancing with ghosts and evil.

— constellations! 💫

[star-going-supernova]

I don’t know if it’s appropriate for me to ask this, but I would like to see what happened to the Vanny suit after “I had strings”. I imagine destroying it would be next on Vanessa’s list after the wires, not to mention the cathartic release everyone would feel.

I certainly don’t see anything wrong with asking that! Since I’m an impatient “need to share writing NOW” kind of author, I’m doing this as a lil medium-sized ficlet instead of a big ao3 story, since this comes way after the current plot/timeline. It might eventually make its way over there, too, but for now… tumblr exclusive, lol!

Y’all might notice the tone/voice in this little ficlet is pretty different from everything else that exists so far in the strings ’verse! It’s ’cause this bad boy takes place a year after the implant was removed, so Vanessa’s in a way better headspace, and she and Gregory have settled into a familial relationship somewhere between parent-child and siblings. 

Milestone

Vanessa stared at the calendar on her phone, seated at her kitchen table. She scrolled back a bit and counted for the third time. She got the same number as the past attempts. Shocked, she leaned back in her chair and gazed unseeingly at the far wall. 

She hadn’t moved by the time Gregory’s footsteps approached from the hall, stopping where the carpet became tile. “Uh. Are you okay?” He tread closer like he was approaching a bomb, and Vanessa knew him well enough by then to know his hesitance wasn’t from fear that she’d regressed. 

It was probably more because the last time she’d ended up staring at a wall, he’d wandered in just as she muttered, “Did I have sex?” 

(“Context!” she’d shrieked after him when he went speeding away far faster than he had ever run from Vanny. Cheeks burning, she had run after him, waving the questionnaire she’d been given to fill out for her first appointment with a new doctor.

With the question of where the implant came from still up in the air, Vanessa hadn’t been willing to risk herself on the off chance her previous doctor had something to do with it. And even if he was innocent, the fact he’d somehow missed both the implant and the mind control really didn’t inspire confidence in his abilities. 

Regardless, the form had asked if she was sexually active. The mind control aspect of her last two years made that an extremely uncomfortable question. She was pretty sure the answer was no, though. 

If Gregory’s loud “Nah, nah, nah, I can’t hear you!” was an indication, her attempts at explaining all that were… unappreciated.)

Instead of saying something that would mentally scar him, Vanessa merely pushed her phone in his direction. 

Gregory did little more than glance at it before casually saying, “Oh, hey. It’ll be a year since we met soon.” 

He didn’t sound surprised, the little turd. Whereas she was. Holy hell was Vanessa surprised that she’d made it—survived—a whole year of Trauma City. With how never-ending it had felt in the beginning, it was a shock she even passed six months. 

Once in the privacy of her room, she’d probably break down about it. Have a nice cry, contemplate what her life would be like if Gregory hadn’t pulled back the curtain surrounding her mind, probably abandon the privacy to go blubber all over him in thanks for refusing to let her curl up and die in a hole. He’d take it like a champ, and then he would have a turn at getting all sniffly about never having thought he’d find such a wonderful family after the death of his parents. 

Communication was vital, and they were masters at it. Look at how healthy her silly little brain was now.

Gregory took a deep breath, drawing Vanessa out of her self-congratulatory thoughts about not being a zombie anymore. “I kind of have something planned,” he said. “I thought about doing this at the six-month mark, but… I don’t think you were ready, then.” 

Vanessa turned to face him, offering him her full attention. “Even though I don’t know what you’re talking about, you were probably right.” 

He snorted. “Okay, so. Basically, did you know the pizzaplex has an incinerator?” 

“I did not,” she said evenly. “Why the hell do you?” 

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to. Follow-up question.” He hesitated a moment, which gave Vanessa enough warning for her to brace herself. “Did you ever wonder what happened to the Vanny bunny costume?” 

She made the logical leap. “You incinerated it?” 

“Not yet,” Gregory cheerfully corrected her. “I figured you’d want to do that. I asked Freddy to hide it until you were ready.” 

Ready, in this case, meaning “until you could stand to look at the suit without having a complete mental breakdown.” And, whaddya know, Vanessa found herself agreeing. She was ready. 

• • •

The whole gang—minus the pets, because, wow, that was a game no one wanted to play—gathered around the incinerator door exactly one year after Gregory ripped a wad of wires out from Vanessa’s neck. 

Gregory stood on one side of her, Roxy on the other, and the rest gathered around in a circle with her at the head. Vanessa stared down at the suit in her hands. The fabric was pretty nasty after a year of being tucked in some dusty storage room where she was practically guaranteed to never wander across it. 

It was exactly as she remembered it. Exactly as it was in her nightmares. 

She hadn’t been wearing it during their final confrontation at the end of that night, so long ago. She’d changed in and out of it during the chase, as if Gregory wouldn’t connect the dots between Vanny and Vanessa. For that reason, of all the victims who faced her, Gregory was the only one whose blood would never stain the suit. 

He survived it; now, he’d outlive it. She could think of no better middle finger to the purpose of this costume.

Vanessa considered making a speech or something, but she didn’t want this to be a funeral. This was more like… a public execution. 

“Good riddance,” she decided on, stepping forward to the incinerator. 

Freddy obligingly opened the door for her, the heat making the air waver. Even in standby, it was unpleasant. 

Roxy flipped the suit off, teeth bared, as Vanessa wadded it up and tossed it inside. 

“It won’t be missed,” Chica said. She was holding a cake topped with a bubbly candle shaped like the number one. 

Monty didn’t offer it even a speck of his attention, and based on the rips in the fabric, Freddy had already said his piece. 

The incinerator hummed as the flames kicked in, ready to consume the last remnant of Vanny. 

Though, that did remind her of something. Turning around, Vanessa asked Gregory, “What about the head?” 

“Oh, I took a sledgehammer to that ages ago.” 

“I supervised,” Freddy added, which wasn’t the reassurance he possibly thought it was. 

Roxy snorted and threw her arms over Monty and Chica’s shoulders. “Now that the trash has been taken out, the DJ’s waiting for us.” 

“Dibs on the first song!” Monty hollered, leading the charge down the hallway to the elevator. 

“No!” Chica cried, carefully passing the cake to Vanessa before running after him. “You’re just going to ask him to play that stupid meme song again!” 

Monty cackled. 

“Monty!” 

Roxy pulled ahead, flashing Vanessa an attempt at an apologetic look. “You guys cool catching up? You know I can’t miss an opportunity to watch Chica throw down with Monty over something.” 

Freddy sighed long-sufferingly, and Gregory snickered. 

“Go,” Vanessa said, rolling her eyes. “We’ll be right behind you.” 

“So,” Gregory said, once it was down to just the three of them walking down the hall. He eyed the candle’s flickering flame. “Do you still get to make a wish?” 

“I’ll defer to the expert on that one.” She peeked up at Freddy, beseeching. “Does this count for a ‘make a wish and blow out the candle’ situation, or is that strictly for birthdays?” 

“I think you are very deserving of making a wish, birthday or not,” Freddy replied as they all paused so she could blow it out.

Vanessa thought for a moment, the background hum of the incinerator not quite able to cover up the shrieking coming from the floor above them. 

Once upon a time, she would have wished for something big. Something abstract. For happiness, or to have a good year, or to continue to recover. But even though those things didn’t feel unattainable like they would have a few months ago, she didn’t. Some of the most important lessons she’d learned in the past year, both from Gregory and others, were that baby steps were necessary, setting small goals kept her from feeling defeated, and wishes were meaningless if she couldn’t fulfill them herself. 

There was no magic spell or fairy godmother or shooting star that would solve her problems. Every step she’d taken from the starting line had been under her own power. With a hell of a lot of help, sure, but still. 

She wouldn’t waste this on something that would require a genie. Not when she could grant her own wishes.

“I wish,” she said, ignoring Gregory’s protests about not saying it out loud, “that we’ll get another pet. Maybe a dog. Or a cat. Or a ferret. Not a raccoon, though.” And with that, she blew the candle out. 

Gregory sighed exasperatedly. “Adults are so weird,” he muttered to Freddy. 

“What would you have wished for, superstar?” 

“Another reason to use the incinerator.” He grinned when both Vanessa and Freddy made disapproving noises. “All right, all right, I won’t turn to a life of arson.” Then, to Vanessa, “I take it we’re going to the shelter this afternoon?” 

Vanessa laughed. “Would you look at that, my wish is already starting to come true!” 

[primasveraas-writing]

"Kent v Linebacker" -Ted Lasso

Roy's knee is fucked. This is well known.

His fucking monster child, who he loves, accidentally fucks it up more. Such is life.

Part 2 // Accompanying AU

WORDS: 2631

XXX

Their first son is “built like a linebacker,” according to Ted Lasso. Roy shows his usual disdain at the reference to the wrong type of football, but Keeley wearily agrees- she was, after all, the one who carried then delivered their 10-pound baby.

Most people see their son and suggest rugby instead of football, even as they pile tiny Kent jerseys and footballs onto the new parents. Roy insists he doesn’t give a damn if their child wants to play rugby or football or join the damn chess club, but he also tears up the first time Keeley puts him in a tiny (or maybe just small) Richmond jersey.

Because of the way Roy and Keeley are, they balance each other out. Marriage and parenthood come to them relatively smoothly, save for typical growing pains and bumps in the road. But they figure it out, at least for the most part.

One of the more persistent bumps is Roy’s knee. Because, while he was forced to walk away from playing football, Roy is reluctant to accept other limitations. He’ll run or dance or carry around the baby’s new crib, and then swear and pop his knee back into place as needed. Doctors eventually find this out and inform him that this is, in fact, bad. Roy Kent tells them to fuck off. He doesn’t echo this sentiment when Keeley suggests that they’re right.

Because, as usual, she seems to have a point. It doesn’t always take a miles-long Christmas day walk or a rom-com style sprint to Ted Lasso to fuck up Roy’s knee. Somedays, it’s going down the stairs one too many times. Or standing up long enough to make Keeley a fancy dinner. Or jumping around in the coaches’ box after a Richmond win. So Roy concedes this matter, and anyway, he doesn’t particularly enjoy moving his kneecap around or Phoebe’s and Keeley’s face when he does so.

Roy scales back, reluctantly and unhappily. He does modified yoga with the moms and they suggest stretches to help him. Roy doesn’t push himself nearly as much, and so the pain in his daily life decreases.

Then Roy becomes a father, and then his son becomes a toddler.

Oliver is a fucking ray of sunshine. He’s inherited Keeley’s bubbly personality, something evident from his first dazzling smile and the peals of laughter that soon follow. When he starts to talk, he does so incessantly, and he puts every ounce of his energy into babbling and running literal circles around his parents. Even Keeley- even Ted Lasso, occasional babysitter- struggle to keep up. But Roy and Keeley and the Richmond team do their level best to entertain and supervise him, and it works.

Then, because they’re fucking daft, Roy and Keeley decide they want another fucking monster to turn their lives all upside down.

Oliver is three when they tell him he’s going to be a big brother. He’s overjoyed, then he cries, then he’s comforted, then he’s overjoyed again. Roy is the happiest he’s ever fucking been with his son, and Keeley pregnant, and then life comes along and fucks it all up again.

Father and son are just home from preschool, Oliver restarting his long-winded recap of his day when he sees Keeley. Roy hobbles through the door behind him, grinning at Keeley for half a second. She beams back at him, then returns her attention to their child, brows furrowing as she tries to decipher his somewhat senseless story.

Roy’s standing by Keeley’s side, hand on her shoulder as they listen the best they can. Oliver reaches a part of his tale that’s especially exciting- something about cupcakes and a classmate’s birthday, and he gives a shout, then springs up with his arms spread wide, and-

-forty pounds of force collide with Roy’s bad leg. He hears Keely gasp, which is what registers first, then his vision goes white as pain overtakes him, and he feels himself falling.

He opens his eyes a moment later, and Keeley is crouching at his side awkwardly, the swell of her stomach hindering her. Oliver gives a noise that indicates he’s probably about to cry, and Roy shushes him through a groan.

“Fuck,” Roy says, his voice strained. “I’m okay.”

Keeley purses her lips, which indicates she’s well aware of his lie, but she draws Oliver against her side, rubbing circles into his back as she takes Roy’s hand.

“It hasn’t been this bad before, has it?”

Roy shakes his head. “I think I’m fucked,” he confesses, trying to keep the uncertainty and pain out of his words.

“ER fucked?”

“Fuck no.”

“Can you get up, Roy?” Keeley would sound impatient if not for the way her tone wavers. Roy shifts, babying his leg, and Keeley watches as he winces, cringes, and swears again.

Keeley whispers something to Oliver, and he sniffs loudly before scampering off into the kitchen. His wife stands, unsteady and off-balance, and reaches down to help him. Roy uses only his left leg to rise, trying not to knock Keeley over, and he staggers before grabbing the back of the couch to steady himself. Keeley holds onto his elbow and guides him around so he can sit.

“I’m fucked,” Roy reiterates, and this time, Keeley just nods.

-

In the end, there’s no ER visit- just a few pulled strings to get Roy into the doctor the next day. Rebecca stops by to deliver crutches and a few bottles of painkillers once Keeley realizes that Roy can’t get to the bathroom- or anywhere else, for that matter- on his own. More reluctantly, Ted is called, and he promises to give Oliver the “best darn sleepover since the movie Sleepover.” Roy isn’t particularly keen on Ted being privy to this particular moment of weakness, but Ted leaves with Oliver quickly enough, and Keeley’s pretty sure that even just a few minutes of exposure to Ted is enough to force some positivity into Roy’s outlook, and for that, she’s grateful.

Roy sleeps on the couch that night, as stairs are out of the question. Even if he could manage to struggle up them, he can only imagine coming back down via a painful fall. He’s alone, too, because, despite Keeley’s protests, he’s not about to let his pregnant wife sleep anywhere but a proper bed.

He lies awake long after kissing and texting Keeley goodnight, and he contemplates the quiet of the house and the apparent severity of the situation. The doctor had wanted Roy to come in today, but she didn’t throw a fit when he insisted he could wait. Instead, he’ll see her tomorrow, first thing, and Ted will take his son to school, and Keeley and Roy will both miss work for Roy’s least-favorite type of doctor’s appointment.

-

“You dislocated your kneecap again,” Doctor Patel explains, gesturing to an x-ray of a very fucked up knee. “The first time, you twisted it.” She points to a slightly less fucked up x-ray. “But continually dislocating your knee weakened the ligaments. So, when Oliver collided with you, your ACL and meniscus tore completely.”

“That’s why it hurt so damn much.”

Patel nods, then sighs. “You mentioned chronic pain worsening over time- you did everything right, trying to keep it at bay, but this- along with additional trauma- can worsen a knee injury.”

Roy grunts. He expected as much. The first doctor he saw after his final match had warned of this, along with things like arthritis and all sorts of complications. His main worry was that his football career was over, and there was nothing he could do about that, so any accompanying outcomes seemed unimportant.

He was wrong, apparently.

“It’s not unusual for these injuries to get worse over time. Especially when you’re not gentle with yourself. But, your symptoms are indicative of severe tearing. I’m also worried about nerve damage.”

“So what do we do now?”

Keeley is the one who asks, gripping Roy’s hand. He glances at her, then squeezes her hand.

Patel hesitates. Roy likes this doctor- her knowledge and honesty have been extremely comforting to both him and Keeley over the years. She doesn’t take bullshit, not even Roy’s, and he appreciates that about her.

But it’s unusual for her to hesitate.

“I believe our best option is open knee surgery,” she says, and her eyes soften when Roy’s jaw clenches. “There are other routes we can pursue, but we’re at a point where they may not be as effective.

“What are they?”

“We can do more tests and try an arthroscopic surgery or other minimally invasive options, but-”

Roy tunes her out. He’s the last football player of his generation- he’s seen everyone he played with at the beginning of his career retire, and the various injuries that forced this fate upon his fellow footballers. Open knee surgery is a big fucking deal. Especially since he’s not a fucking grandma.

“It’s a long fucking recovery time,” Roy says finally.

A nod.

“We have a baby due in three months.” This time, Keeley squeezes Roy’s hand.

“If all goes well, you’ll be walking unassisted by then. Enough for midnight diaper changes, so long as you don’t sprint into the nursery.”

“And it’ll work best?”

“I can say with reasonable confidence that your case is severe enough to warrant this surgery, and that the other surgeries aren’t typically successful in similar cases.”

“Fuck. Let’s do it.”

-

They schedule surgery for a few days later, which is a quick turnaround, but it’s enough time for two Richmond matches to take place. The first falls on the day after Roy’s doctor visit, and the second one is the day of the surgery. This gives him pause- Roy’s first and longest love is football, and he’s loath to step away, even for a week. But he thinks of Oliver, hesitant to hug his father when they get home, and Keeley, sneaking glances at him as if expecting him to break when she’s not looking.

Roy trudges- or limps- forward. He stays home for the first Richmond match and tries to ignore Keeley scrolling through Twitter with a worried look on her face. They had debated what would be worse- to miss the match with no explanation, or for Roy to show up on crutches and in obvious pain. In the end, the desire for privacy (and maybe easing Roy’s discomfort) won out, and Keeley and Roy and Oliver watch the match from their living room. Roy and Oliver shout at the TV, and Keeley livetweets, and it’s okay until the post-match conference.

“Coach Lasso! Roy Kent was missing from the coaches’ box tonight. Can you explain why? Has there been a professional change or has something personal occurred?”

Ted holds up a hand, stemming the reporter’s flow of questions. He smiles at her easily, but Roy knows that no matter what Ted says, there’ll be speculation. A nonanswer is still an answer, but they decided as a team to keep the public in the dark as long as possible, to maintain any privacy Roy has.

“Roy and his family are jus’ fine, thank you. As far as I know, Roy hasn’t decided to leave our coaching team, so we’re all good there.” Ted clears his throat, and Roy wonders if his mentor is uncomfortable telling half-truths to the press. “Roy needed some personal time away, but I expect you’ll be seeing him back again shortly. Thanks.”

“Well, that wasn’t complete shit,” Roy muses in near-approval. Keeley hums noncommittally.

“No,” she agrees, pleased. “And I livetweeted the whole thing so nobody thinks one of us is dying.”

“Perfect,” Roy says, satisfied. So long as they don’t get hounded on the way to the hospital. He looks down at his lap, where Oliver is curled against him, fast asleep. Roy moves slightly so that he can wrap his arm around his son, and sighs.

Keeley looks up at them and grins as she takes in the sight. “Look at my boys,” she says softly, and Roy’s heart melts just a little.

-

Surgery goes well, and Roy leaves the hospital the same day. His memories of the event and the hours after are fuzzy, but Keeley informs him that he watched the Richmond match while the anesthetic wore off, and proceeded to shout an absolutely incomprehensible mix of words and swears at the TV. Richmond lost, but it was hard fought, and it’s days later when Keeley confesses to Roy that he actually cried once the final result was clear. Roy would be less concerned by this if he could remember it at all, but at the same time, he’s reassured that his plan of being totally unaffected by major surgery and attending the match in person didn’t pan out.

Roy quickly decides he’s utterly useless on crutches, instead letting Oliver expend his energy by fetching things like water and painkillers and phone chargers for his dad. There’s plenty for him to do; Oliver thrives with given purpose, and under the extra attention Roy has to spare. He hates being unable to carry his son, but he can still cuddle with him, and draw with him, and even though Keeley is burdened with bathing and chasing after Oliver, Roy can still fucking help here and there. Like telling Oliver to eat his broccoli or clean up his shit, because vegetables are fucking important and his son isn’t a slob.

His return to Richmond is less smooth. He doesn’t want anybody’s fucking pity, least of all from the boys on the team, or from Ted Fucking Lasso, but instead of the fearful reactions Roy’s used to, Roy’s treated with a gentleness he absolutely fucking despises. Nobody wants to push back against his heightened grumpiness (a side effect of knee surgery is that it fucking hurts and this makes Roy very unhappy), and Ted somehow feels obligated to hang back with him as he limps up to the field each day. His fellow coach also launches into several tirades about his and Beard’s and his great uncle Roger’s various injuries over the years, and Roy ends his first week back feeling, unfortunately, closer to all three men, including the one he’s never fucking met in the first place.

Keeley’s made sure to officially announce that he’s had surgery, explaining away his absence and all the speculation that went with it. The press will likely hound him anyways, but Roy already has his response planned (“Fuck off!”).

The crowd cheers him during their next match. He hobbles slowly behind the rest of the coaches, using one crutch even though he really should be using both, swearing under his breath at the soft terrain and his shit balance and fucking kneecaps for being so fragile in the first place. Keeley would say all this support is sweet, and he catches a glimpse of her beaming at him from the stands, Oliver bouncing on her lap, and the agony and humiliation dulls.

Richmond plays a great fucking game. It’s not their best match ever, but they win and celebrate accordingly. Roy makes his excuses earlier than usual; he knows he’s put Keeley through the wringer in the past week, and Oliver keeps rubbing his eyes, and there’s nothing more that Roy wants than to read his son a fairytale then cuddle with his wife in bed.

So they go home, and do exactly that.

Roy’s last thought before he drifts off that night, having tucked Oliver into bed and kissed Keeley quite thoroughly, is of how fucking perfect his life is. And, although he echoes that thought many more times, one of the more poignant occurrences is when his daughter is born, and he holds her in his arms for the first time.

Yeah. Pretty fucking perfect.

[messymusingss]

valeria ‘val’ jazmin navarro 

thirty four » bartender » emeraude toubia.

unapologetic, bold, cynical, untrusting, shameless, spontaneous, honest to a fault, protective, impulsive, lustful, impatient, avoidant

content warning: mentions of mental illness/ptsd

from the quote/unquote wrong side of the tracks and doesn’t really give a fuck who knows it - and although she doesn’t permanently live in little fortune these days, it’ll always be val’s home. 

val was born and raised in magnolia, but her family hails from jacksonville, florida. the story about how the navarros found themselves here is long winded and not exactly something val enjoys talking about. the short version? back in 1967, val’s father was on a roadtrip with her grandparents and uncles. they were on their way home from a short outer banks vacation when something strange happened after crossing into magnolia’s township line. they call it “the encounter”, but val just calls it bullshit. the stories her grandmother used to tell about the incident sent shivers down her spine as a child, but now that she’s older, val’s become a bit cynical toward the entire topic of conversation. in the eighties, her father relocated to the scene of the incident with nothing but the clothes on his back in a desperate attempt to get some closure about what happened to him. besides his mother, who passed away five years ago, he’s the only one in that vehicle who retained any memory of the night of march 5th, 1967. or, at least, he’s the only one talking about it.

val and her siblings came into the world shortly after the move, their home life usually chaotic and stressful. their father was suffering mentally and although he had his good days - even his good months, sometimes, the other shoe would always drop eventually. he had trouble keeping a job and their mother needed to stay home to take care of the kids so they moved around a lot from one rental to the next. it wasn’t ideal, but the navarro family made the best out of their situation. as he aged, val’s father got better at coping with his inner demons - or, at least he got better at hiding it. 

unfortunately, the navarros haven’t garnered the best reputation and val doesn’t really help things by being absolute chaos on high heels. she does what she wants and doesn’t really care about stepping on people’s toes in the process. a mid-thirties wild child that never really grew up all the way - in some people’s words. arguably, her personality is far too big for magnolia but she’s never quite tried hard enough to get the hell out. for now, tending bar (and sometimes dancing on top of it) and her downtown apartment is enough for her. besides, despite the stressful situation involving her family, they are the most important thing to her - and unfortunately, they need her here.

plot hooks;

some navarro siblings: i definitely like the idea of val having at least two other sibs, all of which are open gendered! i like the idea of her being the middle child, or the oldest would be fine too! family is super important to her so having her siblings on the site as well would be actual heaven!

an absolutely chaotic friend group: like legit from the sandbox, found family sort of shit

co-workers at bar: val is a bartender that’s likely worked there a good long while tbh. i’d love it if we got a good group of workers going that just have a blast every night...so what if a bar fight almost always breaks out? if anyone has a dive bar type of business, i’d love to throw val in.

some messy past/current flings: as you know, if you’ve read this whole thing (wow congrats) val is quite chaotic in all aspects of her life - probably most of all in her love life. she’s been in tons of different kinds of relationships - flings, fwbs, one night stands, possibly even a semi-longterm thing or two. she’s just not great at settling down and is pretty shitty at commitment. she’s likely been a cheater once or twice, probably has been the other woman. im literally open to all things.

navarro cousins: val’s father had two other siblings in the car that day in 1967 who likely also had kids of their own. it’d be neat if they somehow ended up in magnolia too! jsjsjs

[fantastic-rambles]

The Snakes’ Deception

Fandom: Haikyuu!! (@aikk00's Racing AU)

Characters (in order of appearance): Kozume Kenma, Kuroo Tetsurou, Yaku Morisuke, Sakishima Isumi, Daishou Suguru, Fukunaga Shouhei, Yamamoto Taketora, Haiba Lev, other Nekoma members (not mentioned by name)

Warnings: Physical Violence, Language

Word Count: 2.2k

Summary: When the Snakes, led by Daishou Suguru, come to challenge Kuroo for the title of Drift King, the Nekoma Crew isn’t going to take that lying down. But when the Snakes start to play nasty, the stakes are raised even further, and Kuroo has to fight to stay calm and prove that he’s the undisputed champion.

[A/N: RIP my dozen other drafts for other stories. I actually was planning to write this a few days before the Daishou art (also by aikk00), except I knew practically nothing about drift racing so I needed to do research, lul. I watched Tokyo Drift, some Initial D, some Grand Tour, and did a lot of reading online on drift racing and drifting in general, but tbh, I still don’t quite understand the mechanics (I don’t drive stick and I can’t go out and learn how to drift), so I apologize if this is horribly inaccurate. :P]

"The road condition looks good today, but it's still a little wet from earlier. Watch yourself going into the turns so you don't end up spinning out. The Snakes will probably do something though, especially since they asked you to race with Sakishima before Daishou. It should be okay when you're in the lead, but be ready to take defensive measures when you're chasing. My guess is that they'll try to take advantage of your skill at closing the gap and your power-over drift to orchestrate some sort of accident," Kenma commented quietly without looking up from his laptop, his fingers tapping away as he inputted a continuous stream of data. He seemed oblivious to the roar of the crowd outside the car, and Kuroo reached over to tousle his black-and-gold hair affectionately.

"Got it, Kenma. Anything else?"

"I know you won't listen, but you should just go all-out from the start. Not your usual way of racing. But if you do end up chasing, just do a normal drift and keep space between you and Sakishima. If they are aiming for an accident, it's more likely to happen when you're on the outside, so it'll slam into your side and Sakishima will be safe. But your numbers look good. I'm just going to tell Yaku-san to put a little more air into your rear tires," Kenma replied, closing the lid on his laptop and pushing open the passenger-side door, letting the sound of cheering and taunts into the vehicle. After he'd left and closed the door, Kuroo rolled down his window to light a cigarette, letting the smoke drift out into the night sky. Kenma hadn't said anything that he hadn't expected--especially with regard to the Snakes--but it was always reassuring to get their analyst's perspective before a race. Kenma wasn't the type to get fired up like the rest of the crew, but that cool-headed analysis was part of the reason they were able to climb so high in the rankings despite not always having the best cars or the best drivers. The ridiculous title of "Drift King" that he'd somehow ended up with was the result of Kenma's work as much as his own.

Still, Kenma was right. Even if it meant getting into an accident, Kuroo didn't intend to change the way he drifted. Part of the thrill of these races was the pure adrenaline high from going fast, especially when there was the risk of injury or even death. It was the reason why he'd mastered the power-over drift so that he could keep accelerating through the turn, and swung close enough to his opponents during his chases to make them panic. Even against the Snakes and their underhanded dealings, he'd show them that his way of fighting was still better, no matter what they threw at him.

He looked up when a shadow fell over him as Yaku leaned over his open window, the electric pump in his hand.

"You're good to go, Kuroo. Go ahead and show off," Yaku shouted over the din. Kuroo nodded, flicking his cigarette out the window and rolling up the glass. Yaku stepped back as he revved the engine, pulling up to the starting line where Sakishima was already waiting. Unlike most racers, Kuroo preferred chasing from the start to throw his opponent off his game. Before he'd inherited the title of Drift King, he'd been known as the Comeback Kid for his knack for overcoming what was traditionally seen as an unfavorable position. But the psychological benefit of overtaking the opponent and the pressure it put on the other racer, in addition to his skill with his clean lines and sharp angles that allowed him to do so consistently, had eventually shot him to the top of the Tokyo drifting world.

At the signal, Sakishima peeled past the starting line, and Kuroo quickly shot after him, staying close to his tail as they sped down the course. Even though his heart was racing, his head was completely clear, every sense focused on the view just beyond his windshield. Both he and Kenma were confident that Sakishima wouldn't try anything until the turn, but that was no reason to relax, especially at the speeds that they were going. Still, nothing happened when they reached the first clipping point, and Kuroo's eyes narrowed as he quickly estimated the distances and speeds between their cars, making his calculations swiftly and throwing himself into a drift just a heartbeat after Sakishima.

And it was perfect. His hand rested casually on the wheel as his tires squealed, sending up plumes of smoke as the tail of his car whipped around the curve, flying nearly parallel to Sakishima. The Snake seemed rattled as he spun into the next turn, turning slightly wide as Kuroo effortlessly stuck to him, their cars nearly touching as Kuroo grinned. It was pretty clear already which of them was the better drifter, not that it had ever been a question.

He let the car carry itself into the third point with just a few adjustments on his side, almost laughing as Sakishima had to drag on his own wheel to make the turn. The perfect chance presented itself almost immediately, and he aimed for the gap in Sakishima's barely controlled swing. But then, suddenly, the other car was spinning out as the Snake overcompensated, an out-of-control, two-ton wrecking ball flying toward him.

Kuroo jerked his wheel, pulling himself out of the drift and spinning out himself, the two cars making donuts on the road until he couldn't tell left from right. But the ominous crunch of metal never came, and when his car finally screeched to a stop, Kuroo slapped himself out of the harness and kicked his door open, stepping out onto the asphalt and casting his glare out at the spectators, looking for one specific slit-eyed face in particular.

"Daishou!" he bellowed, stomping toward the crowd and seizing the Snake by the collar, dragging him over the barrier. "What the fuck was that?"

But the other man just stared at him, all wide-eyed innocence. "'What the fuck' was what, Kuroo-san? Isumi made a mistake. Everyone saw that. He's not used to wet roads, but that's why I asked you to run with him so he could get some practice, because you're the only one good enough to not get hurt if he really fucks up. Like he did."

"Don't give me that bullshit!" Kuroo spun and slammed Daishou onto the ground, making the Snake wince as his back made contact with the asphalt. "That trick had your slime smeared all over it. You wanted to use Sakishima to take me out so you'd win the next run by default. If I hadn't been expecting something like that from you, I'd probably be in an ambulance on my way to the hospital right now."

Sakishima had caught up to them and was now clinging to Kuroo's arm, trying to pull him off while babbling insincere apologies. Kuroo shrugged him off impatiently as Daishou's hands landed on his wrist, trying to make him let go, but Kuroo shook him like a terrier with a rat, the adrenaline and testosterone giving him an incredible high.

"Really, Kuroo-san. Ask anyone. They would all say that it's a normal accident," Daishou protested. "You know these kinds of things happen all the time. But you're okay, Isumi's okay. No harm, no foul, right?"

The crowd was murmuring in the background, but Kuroo couldn't hear what they were saying through the blood pounding in his ears. He was just drawing his fist back to punch that smarmy smile off the Snake's face when a deluge of water crashed over both of them. Sputtering, he looked up to see Shouhei holding an empty bucket, Kenma standing beside him.

"Cooled off, Kuro?" Kenma asked in his deadpan voice as he approached them. "Or should I ask Fukunaga to get another bucket?"

Kuroo grimaced, shaking the water out of his eyes and hair as he leaned back slightly, still not letting Daishou go. Kenma crouched beside him, speaking softly, so that the crowd couldn't hear.

"You know that the Snakes are just like this. To everyone else, this does look like a normal accident. If you go any further, you're the one that's going to get a bad reputation. Right now, we can still pass it off as the heat of the moment. Let him go, Kuro."

"Yeah, listen to your girlfriend, Kuro," Daishou taunted. Kuroo's expression shut down, and he drew back his arm again. But this time, Kenma clung to it, still hissing in his ear.

"Stop it, Kuro. You know that everyone says that. They've been saying it for years. It doesn't mean anything. Stop letting him get to you!"

Kuroo grimaced again, but he listened to Kenma, letting his friend quietly talk him down until he was calm enough to shove Daishou away and get up. Accepting a towel from Shouhei, he tousled his hair dry while glaring at Daishou, who got back to his feet with as much dignity as he could muster.

"Sakishima-san forfeited the run," Kenma continued, still talking in his flat, measured tone. "So you'll be up against Daishou later. Are you up to it?"

"Fuck yeah, I'm ready to beat his ass," Kuroo snarled, and Kenma nodded at Shouhei, who ran across the asphalt to retrieve Kuroo's car. They'd probably replace the rear wheels to be safe, and then Kenma would have to run his checks again, but when they were done, his car would be better than new and more than ready to run the cheating bastard into the ground.

He reached into his pocket to pull out his pack of cigarettes, bending over to accept Kenma's offer of a light, and took a deep drag to steady his nerves. Being emotional during a race was the fastest way to get a ride to the morgue, so he needed to re-center himself. By then, the rest of his team had caught up to him, and Tora's particularly heated spiel about Daishou and his team helped bleed away most of the anger as they walked back to the starting line. Kenma had slipped away at some point, and Yaku was nowhere to be seen, so they were probably working on the car while he settled down. Really, he didn't deserve his friends.

By the time they arrived back at the beginning, the cool night air had washed away the rest of his irritation, which was probably Kenma's intention in making him walk back with the others. Shouhei and Yaku had just finished installing new tires, and Kenma was hunched over his laptop again on the curb, only looking up briefly when Kuroo sat down next to him.

"Thanks."

Kenma shrugged, his face bleached by the light from his screen. "I'm just doing my job."

"I mean earlier."

Kenma shrugged again, and a comfortable silence settled between them, broken only by the clicking of the keyboard. The rest of the team was huddled around the car, making checks and occasionally bringing Kenma more numbers, gradually shifting to sit around their captain and his brain, filling the silence with their chatter as other drifters made their runs.

"Hey, wait! You're playing a game, Kenma!" Lev protested, peering over Kenma's shoulder. "What about the race?"

"Kuroo will be fine," Kenma replied calmly as Kuroo looked over at his screen too, which seemed to be displaying the view through a sniper's scope. "His car's fine, and Daishou wants to beat Kuroo. If he tries the same thing, it'll be suspicious, and even if he did, if Kuroo doesn't spin out again, then Daishou will lose. And Kuroo is better than him, so if he does try anything else, it'd be more likely that he'd mess up and Kuroo would still win. His best chance at this point is a fair fight, and that means Kuroo could drive laps around him all day."

Kuroo grinned, standing up and stretching. "Well then, I guess that's my cue to get ready. I'll see you all at the finish line."

He walked over to his car, standing by the driver's door and just running a hand over the shining, red exterior for a moment. Then, taking a deep breath, he got inside, strapping himself down. The familiar feeling of exhilaration that he got just before a run made him smile as he pulled into place behind the next pair of cars, watching out of the corner of his eye as Daishou pulled up next to him.

And then, soon enough, they were flying down the road, Kuroo chasing again, keeping the pressure on his opponent. As Kenma had said, there was no way for Daishou to beat him, and he proved that as he took the lead at the very first bend, hitting the edge perfectly while gunning his engine through the whole course, making the best run that he'd probably ever done and leaving Daishou in his dust. If it was possible, he was even sharper on the turns than he had been against Sakishima, pushing himself and his car to the utmost limit. And there was no better feeling than watching the Snake come up to him to shake his hand after his loss, smiling like it hurt his teeth.

"As expected of the Drift King. But it won't last forever. Someday, someone will knock you off that throne."

And Kuroo had smiled back, the smirk that he knew infuriated Daishou more than anything else.

"Come at me whenever you want. I'll beat you down every time."

[A/N2: This isn't KuroKen. They're just really good childhood friends, so Kenma knows how to calm Kuroo down because they've been part of each other's lives for so long, and Kenma in particular is good at paying attention to people. Kuroo gets pissed at Daishou for calling Kenma his "girlfriend" not because of the implication that he's "whipped" (because Kuroo is perfectly secure in his masculinity), but rather because I have a headcanon that Kenma got teased a lot for being "girly" (weak, thin, kinda androgenous, etc.) growing up, so Kuroo still gets upset when that's used to insult his best friend (even though Kenma honestly doesn't give a fuck). But they're not in a romantic relationship; they just spend a lot of time together.

Of course, if you wanna interpret it as KuroKen, that's your prerogative, but that wasn't my intention in writing this.]

[lizzyverydizzyyo]

D.E.A.N | Chapter 2 - Persistence

Masterlist and overall summary of the whole novel is here. | Prompt on trope-appreciation-tuesdays that inspired this is here. | @whumptober-archive

Fandom : Original Work

(I) (II) (III) (IV) (V) (VI) (VII) (VIII) (IX) (X) (XI) (XII) (XIII) (XIV) (XV) (XVI) (XVII) (XVIII) (XIX) (XX) (XXI) (XXII) (XXIII) (XXIV) (XXV) (XXVI) (XXVII) (XXVIII) (XXIX) (XXX) (XXXI - END)

AO3

Wordcount: ± 2842

TW: Mention of Murder, Graphic Depiction of Violence

Their captive informant is acting oblivious. Or is stubbornly protecting his criminal comrades. The team isn’t accepting of that.

Whumptober 2021 Tropes:

Day 1 — All Trussed Up and Still Nowhere to Go | Bound

Day 3 — Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones But… | Taunting + Insults

Day 12 — It’ll Be Fun, They Said | Torture

Day Alt. 13 — Threats

Day 14 — Under Pressure | Beaten

Day 20 — Lost & Found | Solitary Confinement

Day 22 — They Made Me Do It | Obsession

Day 31 — Hurt & Comfort | Prisoner

This story is set in the last half of 2016.

------

Luke, Angie, and Mark pull away the rope from the lock mechanism quickly, as the man, or more like the boy—a sniveling one who tries too hard to be grownup and just fucks shit up, keeps staring at them in fear.

“Get up.”

The boy ignores Anna’s harsh command as she steps in front of the opened compartment, in favor of just staring at all 10 of them surrounding him.

“You, I said ‘Get up’, are you fucking deaf?” Anna says impatiently.

“Anna, he can’t. Three of you are blocking his exit. He can’t stand in there,” Lena corrects her carefully.

Anna just rolls her eyes and takes a step back, followed by Luke and Mark himself.

The boy with the black long sleeve shirt still trembles and stays put.

“What’s your excuse now? Get up here,” Mark finally impatiently snaps as he bends down to the compartment’s height and reaches out an arm to grip the boy’s wrist roughly. After that, he just yanks the unknown young man to the point he almost faceplants onto the concrete floor of his hiding spot.

He hisses quietly and crawls out eventually.

“Where…where are the others?”

The boy says with extremely gravelly voice.

Luke chuckles bitterly.

“Your precious degenerate group? The bounced and left you here to deal with us on your own. What a great and loyal bunch, huh?”

Strangely enough, the boy actually surreptitiously sighs almost in relief and looks less scared at Luke’s words.

Huh.

He probably thinks now that he has a chance to snitch as a protected informant, he’ll be safe and sound.

Well, good fucking luck with that. Mark and the others aren’t going to be as nice as he thinks they would be.

As the sense of familiarity of the boy gets stronger in his mind, Mark immediately turns him around before he can even think and uses the rope that Luke brought to tie his hands behind his back.

“Wha—”

“Shut the fuck up. Only talk when we ask for information. You’re coming with us,” Mark interrupts harshly, taking inventory of his past collisions with some of Helga groups to figure out at which time he saw the boy.

“But I—”

“Look, kid. You can irritate us as little as possible or you can risk being our punching bag if we’re pissed. Hmm? Which one do you want?”

Looking at Don’s hardened look and tone, he immediately shuts up. Some of his fear even comes back to his face.

That’s right, asshole. He better realizes by now they didn’t immediately shoot him on sight once they found him in his hiding place not out of kindness or anything like that.

“Here, boy. We’re called D.E.A.N for a reason. It’s because our job is to neutralize the threat. If not, we would be D.E.A.R, instead. You know, Division of Extreme and Atypical Rescue. Or Rehabilitation. Whichever it is.”

Mark recalls their fallen commander, Jackson, telling him months ago before…

Well, that.

Remembering those words, he feels a lot angrier again, almost as fresh as the day the team lost Jackson.

The more he looks at the young man, the more he feels emboldened to embody the wisdom parted by their fallen leader.

They are going to neutralize him, indeed. Whatever it takes.

***

To the young man’s credit, he is, in fact, absolutely capable of being minimally irritating and remarkable. He keeps quiet and looks down, not complaining a bit about the uncomfortable feeling of his hands being tied behind his back and the sensation of hot and rocky ground they walk on while not wearing a single thread of foot covering.

Still, Mark keeps a tight grip on his wrist behind his back just in case the guy gets any idea. Once in a while, he looks at his face where the two weird-colored and terrified eyes rest, wondering where exactly he saw the guy before as his strange sense of familiarity grows.

Who did he see before that has that weird iris swirl color of dark blue and brown? Has he ever met someone with that kind of unique heterochromia before? But where, exactly?

He can tell the boy knows he is being stared at, but he doesn’t react along the time they walk back to their vehicle to go back to their current makeshift headquarter, only occasionally blinking as he steps on particularly sharp gravel.

“Get in.”

Mark shoves him to the vehicle after Don opens the back door.

He stumbles for a bit but immediately does what Mark told him to do. He gets in, as complicated as it is to get in without his hands helping him, and squeezes himself almost as small as possible.

Which in any other circumstance would make Mark laugh, considering he is around six feet, just a few inches shorter than himself. He is naturally tall even if extremely slender and almost bony.

After that, he and Luke cage him in on the middle of the left side seat. Anna sits beside Luke, and across them sit Anderson, George, Mary, and Lena. Angie and Don get into the front of their black and tinted-window van as Angie is usually their chosen driver. Horace sits on the middle front seat facing the back of the van and all eight of them.

There is brimming excitement and relief that blanket all of them, except maybe for the almost-black haired new addition to the passengers. All ten of them have never been this close to a breakthrough in figuring out Helga’s plan or defeating them.

This is gold, Mark thinks.

All of questions that they, including himself, want answers for are brewing in his head, and he can’t wait to squeeze those answers out of the young man.

Including why he so easily complies with their command, even going as far as crawling into himself mentally and being as unmoving as possible, almost as if he’s been…

He doesn’t know what the right word is. Trained?

Well, trained to keep quiet and comply with any command given to him.

He doesn’t even look at any of them, maybe just to familiarize himself with who have caught him and now has his fate in their hands.

He just… cowers and looks down, almost submissively.

Mark, or any other of his team, doesn’t even tell him to do that. He doesn’t even fight them at all, or beg for his release, saying he doesn’t know anything or that he’ll give up any information as long as he’s let go or spared.

Maybe it’s his tactic to get him some mercy or leniency.

He has to admit he doesn’t really have that much experience with dealing with ex-crony informant. After all he’s only had specialized federal training for 6 months after graduating college before Jackson pulled some strings to get him into D.E.A.N another 6 months ago.

He's not going lie, he doesn’t know if that kind of behavior is normal for captive informant or this one is just particularly extremely easy to deal with.

The guy almost looks forlorn and surrendered.

Still, his unique heterochromatic eyes just scream familiarity to Mark that he is still itching to figure out.

If he is this docile and non-combative, it’s highly unlikely that Mark or any of his offensive team agents has fought him face to face before. He might be the defensive tactical member of that Helga group that’s hidden away in safety to make sure he is still alive to help them behind the scenes.

Which means that Mark has probably never met him on any battle before.

But his team has never been close enough to the tactical or behind-the-scenes members of any Helga group before, so where the hell did Mark see the guy before?

He doesn’t even look combat-ready with his bony stature that has not the slightest musculature and his apparent nonexistent fighting instinct.

Oh, well.

They’re going to interrogate him, anyway.

Maybe then he’ll find the answer.

***

They don’t waste time treating him gently and just pull him haphazardly into their makeshift interrogation/holding room, something that they seemingly are eager to finally use.

Luke pulls out a handcuff as he undoes the rope on the young man’s pale and skinny arms and immediately locks his bony left wrist into one handcuff metal while locking the other end to the metal bar in the back wall of the room.

The whole time, he just… accepts it and immediately backs himself into the back wall. Again, he just looks down demurely without a single cell in his body having any impulse to fight any of them or look at his arm while being handcuffed to the metal bar.

Mark and Don are in the room on either side of Luke, while the rest of them just lounge around on the corners of the room, staring at him from a distance. Anna and Lena are comfortably leaning against the doorframe, except Lena almost has a soft look on their face while Anna looks smugly intimidating at him.

Even if the young man isn’t really looking back.

They all wait for a moment after he is securely locked onto the metal bar, almost expecting him to start begging to be released or offering to trade in his comrades in Helga for his own freedom or safety.

He doesn’t.

He just… stands there. Unassuming. Obedient, almost.

Horace finally gets sick of his silence and walks in front of him, and says simply, “Talk. Now.”

Finally, he takes charge for once since becoming the commanding officer, Mark thinks before focusing back on their captive would-be informant.

The young guy, again looking strikingly more like an older teenager, slowly looks up and faces Horace, even if surreptitiously without completely raising his head.

He gulps and blinks almost nervously while still staying non-combative.

His face looks slightly fearful and acquiescent still as his lips almost tremble while he’s about to talk.

“I—I don’t—I don’t know… what you want to know,” he says lowly and almost whispering.

Luke rolls his eyes.

“About Helga, of course, dumbass. Where they are, what they’re planning, who keeps feeding us information but always too late, specifically.”

“I don’t know,” he whispers again with still gravelly voice.

Anna loses her patience too and stalks up to him, wringing his chin up sharply when she reaches him. Even if she is half a foot shorter than the guy is, she manages to make him look small and weak with their juxtaposition way of carrying themselves. Anna looks fierce, while the guy looks cowered in.

“Cut that shit out with your submissive act. You can’t fool us into treating you like a fine china just because we want information from you. You are all a fucking menace to society, remember?”

The boy—Mark decides to call him—now looks more in fear and slightly desperate.

“I really don’t—”

The slap comes out of nowhere that even Mark himself doesn’t realize he’s done it. Their captive’s head is swinging to his right quickly and painfully, yet he doesn’t turn his head back to face any of them.

“Shut the fuck up. ‘I don’t know’, my ass. You were with them god knows for how long. You must know something.”

Far cry from his demure demeanor before, he starts to look genuinely confused and scared.

“I wasn’t let in on anything, I swear.”

“Then, what do you know? About them, that you learned along the way?” Lena quips in almost gently.

“I don’t know, I really don’t,” he starts to sound desperate and rushed.

“Well, why don’t you start with your name, hmm? Or are you too stupid to know that too?” Anna takes charge again, this time wringing his head sharply to face her again.

He looks down at her in genuine fear this time, almost surprised that his submissive act didn’t grant him gentle reaction.

He gulps and his heterochromatic eyes flit around the room to take in all of them for once.

“I guess you’re too stupid, huh?” Luke quips.

Mark, still drowned in anger due to their incessant failures in the past, can’t take the guy’s act anymore and just grip both of his shoulders to bend him down and knees him in his abdomen in quick succession.

He immediately drops down, wheezing quietly, while holding his abdomen with his free right hand.

“You’re still gonna be too stupid now?”

The guy coughs for a bit before Anna grips the collar of his shirt and pulls him back up again.

He quickly blurts out, “Nick, it’s Nick.”

“Good boy,” Anna says sarcastically with a saccharine smile.

“Now tell us the important stuff,” Marks tells him fiercely.

***

The adolescent guy, now referred to as Nick in his mind, is curled up in fetal position on the cold concrete floor while wheezing and coughing, smear of blood on the corner of his lips visible.

“You’re gonna drop the oblivious act and tell us what we need to know, or what?” Mark says while nudging Nick’s head gently with his heavy boot.

He doesn’t need their captive to have concussion to the point of amnesia, so he just settles on kicking and punching his abdomen, back, and legs. And maybe pepper in a little arm twist until he screams.

“Please, I don’t—” he coughs again, spluttering a little bloody spit on the floor, “—I really don’t know. They never—” he wheezes this time, “—never let me see any important document or—” he winces, “—any important information.”

He coughs again as his face scrunches up in pain.

Understandable. They’ve been at it for what? 20, 30 minutes?

He thinks that maybe at 15 or something minutes mark, they all have lost their patience and start incentivizing Nick to talk with violence in increasing intensity. Even Lena, their forever gentle soul in the team, is starting to look annoyed and stops telling any of them to hold back.

“You know kid, they’ve all betrayed you, left you for dead or getting caught. I don’t understand why you’re still covering for them,” Luke bends down while gripping Nick’s bruised jaw to yank his face towards him.

“I’m not! You have to believe me,” he says desperately this time with scratchy sound.

“Didn’t you say you’ve been with them for over three years?” Don says as he is squatting near their unwilling informant.

“I didn’t want to,” he says again with squeezed eyes.

Luke chuckles darkly, as his contrasting dark hand is still gripping the pale, bony, and bruised skin of Nick’s jaw.

“Right, you didn’t want to, but you stayed with them for three years.”

George, who has been an observer this whole time with his pensive non-emphatic look, walks up to him and squats down too.

“You’re too much of a coward to get out because you know everyone who ran from Helga is killed? Is that it?”

Nick is about to open his mouth again, presumably to lie that he doesn’t know anything, but Anna beats him to it.

“Don’t worry, my guy. We’ll kill you instead if you stay having no use to us. D.E.A.N has different parameter and limit than FBI, you know. So we can do that for you, how about that?”

For the first time, something akin to anger flashes across his blue-brown eyes, and he boldly spits, “Kill me then. See if I care.”

Out of instinct, Mark moves his leg quickly until his thick military-esque boot connects with Nick’s abdomen again, and he begins his wheezing anew with another splatter of blood on the concrete.

“Don’t fucking tempt us.”

What he gets as answer almost makes him laugh.

“Fuck you all. You’re all just like them.”

Well, at least D.E.A.N is fighting on the right side of the battle, not the coward, kidnapping, drug-trafficking, and corrupt-politicians side.

Lena sighs from their position near the door and peels themself off the wall to walk up to the crowd.

“Guys, maybe we need to continue this another day. If you all kill him for real, we’re not gonna get any lead for a while. Don’t feed into his taunting.”

For a while, all 11 even of them are at a tense standstill with Nick showing defiant look for the first time, but they finally sigh and face away to walk back to the door.

With no word, they all file through the door one by one until Horace walks out as the last one, firmly and harshly slamming the metal bar gate behind him. It immediately locks in, until someone decides to unlock it from the outside.

Before leaving, they all turn to have one last look at their bloody and battered captive repeatedly coughing blood onto the floor, right arm clutching his abdomen while his left arm is dangling lifelessly from the handcuff.

Still, Nick returns the look just as defiantly as before.

Guess he hasn’t got enough of them.

Don’t worry, we’ll deliver, Mark thinks darkly.

***

(I) (II) (III) (IV) (V) (VI) (VII) (VIII) (IX) (X) (XI) (XII) (XIII) (XIV) (XV) (XVI) (XVII) (XVIII) (XIX) (XX) (XXI) (XXII) (XXIII) (XXIV) (XXV) (XXVI) (XXVII) (XXVIII) (XXIX) (XXX) (XXXI - END)

[calcifermovesthecastle]

SO SEEING AS HOW I SEEN THAT POST (the story one) I AM HERE TO ASK FOR A DOM GYRO X FEM READER dear god thank you for existing

Yes so sorry this took me so long I’ve been so stressed lately

Warnings: Pregnancy mentions, cursing. 

Word Count: 1500

18+

“Are you going to invite me in, or am I going to have to just stand here and watch you bathe without me?” Gyro grinned, crossing his arms and leaning against the door frame. 

“Who ever said you needed to ask your wife, who you married, to share a bath in the bathtub that is in your house, that you bought?” You closed your eyes and stretched out. The tub was easily big enough for three people. 

“Nyo ho ho! I love you better when you’re pregnant.” Gyro grinned, stepping into the room. “You’re more willing to just do what I tell you to.” 

“Oh, fuck off, Gyro. Now you can’t join me.” You opened your eyes, glaring at him, a smile eventually breaking through your annoyed façade. He laughed and undressed- always a pleasant sight to see- and slid into the water, snaking his arms around you and pressing his hands against your tummy. 

“What do you think, doll? Girl or boy?” 

“I dunno. I hope it’s a girl.” You tilted your head back and grinned at him. He groaned, tossing his head back. 

“Noo! It’ll look just like you, act just like you, and have your garbage attitude, and I only want to deal with the you you.”  

“Oh hush. You love me and you know it.” You grinned again and pecked his cheek, and he leaned into it, tightening his arms around you. 

“Ah, you caught me. Red handed. No matter what.” 

You sat in a comfortable silence with him for a while, appreciating the way he massaged your tender muscles. After a while, he grabbed your shampoo, pouring a generous amount into his hands and massaging your scalp. You groaned, pleased with his ministrations, your brow relaxing as he pressed his fingers into your scalp. 

“Christ, that feels good.” 

“I will be expecting you to return the favor.” There was a smile in his voice, but his voice was soft nonetheless, telling you that he really didn’t mind either way. You couldn’t help but tease him.  

“There’s always some ulterior motive with you, isn’t there?” 

“My goods and services don’t come for free, Doll.” He pulled your head back into the water carefully, rinsing the soap out of your hair. You opened your eyes to look at him, and he grinned at you. His grill wasn’t in tonight, and seeing his teeth bare was always strange, but enticing. 

“If you lean down and give me a kiss on the lips I might be inclined to return the favor. 

“Oh ho ho, is that so?” His green eyes glinted, and he leaned down until his mouth just barely ghosted over yours. “How are you expecting to do that?” 

“If you kiss me like I just asked you to, maybe I’d show you.” 

 You nipped at his bottom lip. “You know how impatient I am right now.” 

He grinned once more before pressing his lips firmly into yours, quickly taking control of the situation. you groaned softly into his mouth, and he took the opportunity to slide his tongue into yours, one hand gripping at your hair and pushing you deeper into the kiss. You reached a hand up to cup his cheek, mouth working against his until you came away breathless. 

“Jesus, you’re always so intoxicating,” His lips caught yours again, hungrier this time, and when he pulled away again, you were left pleasantly fuzzy. 

“Gyro, would you be a dear and sit on the edge of the tub for me?” 

“Oh, you’re making me get out? Is that what you had in mind the whole time?” He tsked, but indulged you, sliding up until he was seated on the ledge, his back against the tile. You grinned at him, resting your head on his inner thigh. He stared at you, annoyed for a minute, before sighing, rubbing his face with his hand. “Christ, I can’t stay mad at you when you’re looking at me like that.” 

“I was waiting for you to say something like that.” You reached a hand up and grasped his cock, pumping it slowly in your hand. He hissed through his teeth. “I expect your words to be nice when my mouth is about to be nice to you.” 

“Fuck, dolcezza. Se è quello che avevi in ​​mente, le mie parole saranno le più gentili che tu abbia mai sentito.“ He watched you, biting his lip when your lips sealed around his tip and you swiped your tongue along his slit.

You took him fully in your mouth, then, closing your eyes and relaxing your throat so his whole length would be inside you. His breath hitched in his throat, and he began murmuring curse words in Italian when you started bobbing your head. 

“F-Fuck, you always treat me so well, Dolcezza. What did I ever do to deserve you? Jesus!” 

You placed your hands on his thighs, opening your eyes and meeting his. He looked down at you, the corner of his mouth twitching up in understanding. You were ready to give up control. 

“You let me know if it becomes too much, okay?” 

You tapped his thigh with your hand twice to let him know you understood, and he took a deep breath, gripping the hair at the back of your head before bucking his hips into your mouth at break neck speed. 

He marveled in the cute squeaks and little gags you made, The way your throat bulged every time he thrust in, the way your fingers dug into his thighs. Your eyes slipped closed for a millisecond, before you opened them and locked onto his gaze, just the way he liked. 

He slowed his pace when your eyes started to glaze over and your grip on his legs slackened, and pulled himself from your mouth with a wet pop. 

“Too much, Doll?” He rubbed your back while you coughed, saliva and precum dripping from your lips. You shook your head, your voice hoarse. 

“N-no, I’m okay.” You wiped the tears from your eyes with trembling hands. 

“Come here.” He beckoned you up to where he sat, and you obliged, leaning your head against his shoulder as you straddled him. It was a little difficult, with the way your stomach was swelling, but you managed. He stood, lifting you in his arms, and you held on for dear life. 

“I’m going to fuck you now, okay?” 

You nodded, your head still leaned against his shoulder. He lifted your hips just enough so that he could catch the head of his cock on your entrance, and slid in with little resistance with the help of your slick and the bath water. 

You let out a quiet moan when he bottomed out inside of you, burying your face in the crook of his neck when he started to move. 

“Fuck, Gyro,” Your voice was quiet, and he let out a breath, speeding up ever so slightly. 

“Doll,” He murmured, pressing his cheek into the top of your head. You lifted your head, and he caught your lips in a kiss once again. You moaned into his mouth when he angled his hips and hit a spot inside of you that sent electricity to the very edges of your being and made you clench around him. 

“Are you close already?” He laughed softly, kissing your forehead. You flushed, grinding your hips down against him. He sucked in a breath, speeding up until all you were able to do was cling to him and beg him for more, finally clenching around him once again and spilling your release. 

The way you milked his cock had him cumming as well, and he cursed softly as he spilled inside you. He pulled away from you ever so slightly, cock still twitching inside of you. You leaned back against the wall, shivering. 

Silently, he set you back down in the tub, draining the bath and turning the shower on. You hugged him from behind, your eyes closed, feeling pleasantly tired after you had come down from your high.

“Here, doll, let me clean you up.” He grabbed a washcloth, kneeling to wipe off the cum dripping down your thighs. you weaved your hands into his hair, your legs trembling. 

“You always know how to make me feel so good,” Your murmured softly. He grinned up at you, kissing your stomach and leaning his cheek against it, grinning when he felt the baby kick. 

“Well, it’s way past your bedtime.” He stood, washing himself off with his soap, turning the water off and wrapping the both of you up in towels. 

Once you were dried, and he had stood over you as you drank the hot tea he made, He pulled you against him in bed, pressing kisses into your hair. You nuzzled against him, relishing in his warmth and closeness as you drifted off to sleep. 

Yes, Gyro always knew how to make you feel appreciated. In whatever way you needed. And he was always true to his word. He was yours and yours alone, and you were gladly his. 

[agapaic]

tianshan drabble. 💞 created for Fay @nightfayre following her matched donation to Communities United Against Police Brutality. see here for more information. thank you so much to @fantasiapegasus for proofreading! 🌸 synopsis: guan shan receives an unexpected birthday present.

-

���We’ll be late,’ He Tian says, the reminder only a little impatient.

Guan Shan’s lip curls. ‘I’m not rushin’ anywhere,’ he says. ‘Not today.’

He Tian holds his hands up, like catching his fingers on a burner, and says nothing. He’d bought them both bubble tea from the café in the apartment’s lobby that morning, and now he watches Guan Shan finishing his, which is cold and sweet. Guan Shan gives it a shake. Small tapioca balls drift around at the bottom, the colour and shape of pomegranate seeds, strangely tacky on He Tian’s tongue when he accepts the proffered remnants of the cup and tips his head back. He Tian puts the empty cup on the side of the kitchen counter.

‘Now can we go?’

Guan Shan narrows his eyes. ‘You know I fuckin’ hate birthdays.’

‘I know.’

‘You know I fuckin’ hate bein’ told what to do.’

A wry smile. ‘I’m very intimate with the concept.’

‘Bein’ told what to do or me hatin’ it?’

He Tian says, ‘Yes.’ He hands Guan Shan a light jacket; the day will be warm, but the mornings are still cool, and He Tian had bought the jacket for Guan Shan’s twentieth birthday a few years ago and still admires its fit.

The café they’re going to for brunch doesn’t take bookings, but they’ve made an exception for He Tian, and Guan Shan’s mother will be meeting them there. Ordinarily, they would spend the morning fucking and He Tian would fetch a box of hot sweet bread and fresh baozi from a breakfast stall down the street. They would watch Li Ziqi on Weibo for half the day, pretending they were somewhere beautiful in Sichuan, and Guan Shan wouldn’t mind if He Tian got crumbs on the sheets.

‘We can go there,’ He Tian would say. ‘Right now—I’ll take you.’

And Guan Shan would explain, in his own way, that there was no real desire in him for it; the want was brief and insubstantial. He wanted to live Li Ziqi’s life like he wanted mushroom jiaozi instead of shrimp, a bland preference. He wouldn’t mind either way which he got.

Today, He Tian hasn’t allowed for the simple pleasure of sex and food. Today, after a year, he can offer something more. He checks his messages on his phone as they ride the elevator down to the lobby, and Qiu has sent him a thumbs-up emoji. They’re good to go. He Tian feels a little sick, and his smile feels warped on his lips when Guan Shan catches his eye in the ceiling mirror.

‘What?’ Guan Shan murmurs. They’re alone in the elevator, but the need to lower their voices is instinctive. ‘You look funny.’

‘I’m just happy,’ He Tian says. ‘It’s your birthday.’

Guan Shan looks away. ‘Fuckin’ weirdo,’ he mutters, but the corner of his mouth is tight, like he’s holding in a smile.

‘You’re not excited to see your mother?’

‘We see her every week for dinner.’

He Tian shrugs. The elevator dings; the doors slide open. They walk out into the complex’s underground car park, and He Tian’s black sports car bleeps as he raises the keys. It doesn’t fit his emaciated salary of being a nightclub bartender, but the car is an element of He Tian’s family wealth to which Guan Shan doesn’t object.

Guan Shan argued once that it defeated the point of the underprivileged image He Tian has been working on cultivating since his father struck him off—which is true, in a fashion—but money still leaks from somewhere, and He Tian wears the marks of it like an oil stain.

They get in the car, and He Tian pulls out from the car park and into the bright mid-morning air, busy with gnats and birds and the muted twang of far-off city construction work. A blackbird flits across the windshield, and He Tian is careful as he eases onto the street.

‘So,’ he says, ‘if you could have anything—’

‘Have we gotta do this every fuckin’ year?’

‘—anything, Mo Guan Shan, what would it be?’

Guan Shan sighs. ‘A pony. Buy me a fuckin’ pony.’

‘Where would we keep it?’ He Tian asks, laughing.

‘I dunno. Where do the rich fuckers in this city keep them?’

‘In stables out of the city.’ Grimacing, He Tian adds: ‘They go riding on weekends, but hire an ostler for most of the year.’

Guan Shan’s expression is comical. ‘Tell me you haven’t.’

He Tian laughs again. ‘I haven’t, I swear. I only know ‘cause friends of the family used to have horses. Still do, I suppose. It’s the kind of thing you never leave, right?’

‘Like working for the mob?’

There’s a collective pause, and then He Tian says, ‘Wow, you really do hate birthdays.’

He catches Guan Shan wince, a token of regret. He hasn’t lashed out in a while, and they don’t talk about He Tian’s family—or its business—unless they can help it. Usually, it’s He Tian remarking on some old pastime he had to endure on his father’s orders. On even rarer occasions, Guan Shan mentions it when he's indulging in a particularly foul mood and their disparate upbringings become a tool only to set them further apart.

They drive for ten minutes in silence, and Guan Shan chews on a hangnail and flicks through radio channels before switching the system off entirely.

‘You know why I hate them,’ Guan Shan says. And then: ‘Sorry.’

He Tian knows. It was only revealed to him on a night out for Guan Shan’s eighteenth birthday. Guan Shan had been drunk, and cried in the taxi on the way back to his mother’s apartment, then threw up onto the pavement with his head hanging out the doorway after the driver stopped the car.

The story went like this: it had been his birthday when his father was arrested for fraud and associated gang activity; his parents had planned to close up early and make him a cake together in the kitchens, which they’d eat slice after slice until they felt sick. Instead, police had swarmed into the restaurant in riot gear, and Guan Shan had hidden under a table in a cleaning cupboard, memorising the labels on bottles of bleach until he had a headache from the chemical fumes and a uniformed woman with a face visor pulled him out by the wrist. He’d been five, and didn’t see his mother for four days. After everything, she’d known nothing.

‘Seriously,’ He Tian says. ‘Tell me what you want.’

‘Brunch with you and my ma.’ He Tian doesn’t look at him; he sounds frustrated. ‘I’m not gonna say I want him there ‘cause he’s not gonna be there.’

He Tian checks his mirrors. ‘Guan Shan—’

‘Yeah, yeah. Don’t wish for things you’re never gonna get. I’ve learnt my lesson, whatever.’

‘Actually, sweetheart, I was going to say we’re here.’

Guan Shan blinks. Gravel crunches beneath the tyres as He Tian eases the car into a parking space in the city hall’s car park. He pushes the pedal for the parking brake, and the engine turns off automatically. Obviously, they’re not at the café.

‘I don’t understand,’ says Guan Shan, and then he looks at He Tian. ‘I swear to fuckin’ god, if there are marriage papers waitin’ in there…’

He Tian laughs loudly, startled. The thought hadn’t occurred to him, but now he wishes it had. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Not today.’

Guan Shan glowers at him, and He Tian opens his car door. ‘Come on,’ he says, nodding his head. ‘Quick detour.’

He can hear Guan Shan muttering in furious debate with himself as he unbuckles his seatbelt and gets out the car, slamming the door a little too hard. His grip is white-knuckled in He Tian’s hand when he reaches his side, and He Tian smooths his thumb across Guan Shan’s knuckles.

‘You’re sweating,’ He Tian says.

‘I don’t like surprises,’ Guan Shan grinds out, then swipes at the sheen on his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. ‘What the fuck are we here for?’

‘I told you—’

‘That was bullshit.’ Guan Shan only looks ahead, approaching the steps with a vague grimace of contempt. A woman and man stand at the entrance in bullet proof vests, cradling guns in their arms. ‘Sorry, but it’s bullshit.’

He Tian shrugs. He flashes a badge to the officials standing at the main entrance, and says, ‘Magistrates’ hearing.’

They’re allowed in.

‘What the fuck,’ he hears Guan Shan whisper, and then pulls him through when the officials step aside, wearing sunglasses and looks that are equal in severity. Inside, the glossy hallways are cool, and He Tian becomes aware of the swiftness of his own pulse, a staccato metronome. Guan Shan looks sharply at him as they head towards a part of the building that is marked out by signs on polished chrome stands that read ‘Magistrates’ Court & Legal Offices’. Everyone they pass wears a suit; the click of women’s heels on the marble tiled flooring is loud.

Eventually, they walk through a final hallway and out into a brightly lit atrium. Mid-morning sun filters down like they’re in a church, and it makes Qiu’s hair look bright and see-through.

‘The hell is he doin’ here?’ Guan Shan asks, voice wavering with nerves. ‘He Tian—’

‘It’s alright,’ He Tian soothes. ‘Trust me.’

He Tian nods at Qiu, who is standing before a huge set of closed wooden doors with metal rivets studded down each side. Briefly, He Tian entertains the possibility that Qiu is the gatekeeper to some celestial doorway, and he squeezes Guan Shan’s hand tighter.

‘They’ve just made the ruling,’ says Qiu. ‘It’ll only take a minute.’

He Tian nods.

As a three, they stand in silence. It is the silence of men who know that something is about to happen, but don’t know exactly what. Beside He Tian, Guan Shan is shaking. He Tian has lost some of the sensation in his hand, and his pulse aches at his wrist. When he glances at Guan Shan, he can see a bead of sweat run from the crop of red hair at his temple, and down the soft slope of his ear.

Please don’t throw up, He Tian wants to say, jokingly, but then he thinks that might trigger it.

Eventually, there’s sound behind the doors, like the scraping of chairs, and a man’s voice. The three of them stand to one side as they eventually open, and a strange breath of air flows from the room, cool and hot all at once. Inside, the courtroom is disappointingly small, and there are only a handful of people: a jury, the judge, the necessary legal representatives, and a man in a suit that might once have fitted him.

He can take the jacket off, He Tian thinks, and roll up the sleeves. It’ll do for brunch.

‘Oh, you fuck,’ Guan Shan says, the words an exhale. He’s not looking at He Tian. Really, the words could be directed at anyone. There’s a bubble of hysteria welling in He Tian’s throat, and he’s not sure if he wants to laugh or cry. He does nothing, and lets Guan Shan’s hand fall from his.

‘We got him a lawyer,’ he tells Guan Shan, standing at his shoulder, speaking quietly. ‘A better one. They won the appeal.’

Guan Shan nods, but He Tian knows he’s only half listening. His mouth has fallen open. There’s a taut line between his brows where they’ve drawn together and made a ridge. He looks like he’s in pain, and He Tian supposes he probably is. How many years has he looked at his father behind a grate, or smeared glass? Fifteen? Sixteen? He Tian knows it’s more.

He watches the moment Mr Mo’s gaze meets his son’s. There’s fear there—shame, too. Mr Mo’s lawyer whispers something in his client’s ear, pats a hand to his shoulder, then walks from the hall with his briefcase and a courteous nod in He Tian’s direction. His job is done; in an hour, he’ll send an invoice. Alone, the space between them some unchartered territory, Guan Shan takes an uncertain step forward.

Like a child, He Tian thinks.

After a moment, Guan Shan takes another, and another. He’s started crying. When they’re only a foot apart, he and his father stare at each other. It lasts a few seconds, until they both smile at the startled realisation: they’re the same height. Staying where he is, He Tian watches the embrace; he can’t hear the words that follow. Their mouths move the same; their eyes are deceivingly soft. He Tian presses down his envy. He catches the words birthday and red. Mr Mo’s hands gesture to Guan Shan’s hair, appraise his clothes with pride and something like fear.

He Tian waits a few minutes before he begins to move forward. He expects Qiu to hold him back, but Qiu doesn’t. Up close, the similarities between them are unnerving.

‘Dad, this is He Tian,’ Guan Shan says when He Tian reaches his side. He Tian doesn’t touch him, but he wants to.

‘I know,’ says Mr Mo, his voice gravelly with disuse and too many cigarettes. ‘We’ve already met.’

-

🌸 in the footsteps of @nightfayre ‘s wonderful initiative, i’ll be filling any drabble requests following a donation to help the fund for george floyd, the black lives matter movement, or any similar cause. please read here if you would like more information! ✨ 

[unseeliefaelass]

Darksiders: Origins

Chapter 4: Growing Up Fast

Ale worked extra hard to aid in the growth of the infants. The others grew into toddlers within months, and Ale of course wanted to let them explore the world more at this time. Absalom being ever loyal however, asked Lilith about the matter. She agreed upon it, but only so that she didn't have to teach them the basics.

Lilith did give one condition though, "Ale will not teach them to walk or speak. I'll only entrust this important task to you. As their growth is becoming faster each day, I'll need to prepare for when they're big enough for training to begin."

"Of course Mother, but..when will they be 'big enough' as you say?", Absalom inquired.

"Don't worry my child, time is moving fast for them and us. They will be ready soon. Though admittedly I'm surprised the littlest one is still alive. Much more that you keep trying despite the much slower progress he's making."

Absalom stood up from his seat, "Ale has said to keep up faith in him. It's hard sure, but I have seen progress. That's good enough reason to keep trying for now."

Lilith snickered, "Ehehmhmhmhmhm. Be at ease now, I could never cause you grief."

Nodding, Absalom headed away to see how Ale was managing things. She already had Menahem out for the day and was trying to encourage him to crawl around. He was mainly interested in the Limts sniffing at him though.

Absalom nearly pulled out his axe upon seeing them before Ale raised a gentle hand, "Steady now. These Limts won't hurt him. They're just little rodents is all, besides there's no dragon crystals around for them to eat and go feral over."

"What?"

"Oh nothing. Just know Menahem is safe and fine. I've been trying to teach him to crawl, but he's been wanting to say hi to the Limts." Ale assured him.

Absalom looked down at the diminutive creatures, "Very...fluffy. Though, why are they here?"

"My kin and I make our clothes from their fur. To obtain it we keep domestic groups and sheer them when it's appropriate. Their fur grows back quickly too, so there's nothing for them to worry about in the cold climate here."

"Uhm...well...I see. May I try coaxing him to crawl?"

"Of course. Just bare in mind he's a little slow to respond. Wondering if maybe it's a sensory overload." Ale tells him.

"Well..we'll just have to work on that then."

Absalom then crouched down and tried getting Menahem's attention. Snapping his fingers when speaking didn't work much. Ale cocked her head at his impatience but let him keep trying as best he could. Eventually he waved his hand in front of Menahem's face. Finally the child looked toward his older brother curiously. After a nervous few moments Menahem finally slowly made his way to Absalom. Crawling slowly but steadily as he moved forward.

Absalom scooped him up once he finally made it to his hands, "There we are, not so hard now is it?"

Menahem only cooed in response before yawning. Absalom just shrugged and handed him to Ale. She giggled, then stood up to return Menahem to his pod to sleep. From there she worked on getting his pod and the others into tip top shape. Absalom helped where he could, having been taught to by Ale.

Once Menahem was put into his pod though, Absalom warned Ale, "Be careful how long you keep them out for. She is..watching very closely you know."

"I know, but I truly feel it's been helping. At least with Menahem anyway. I'll admit I'm a little excited about teaching him things like walking."

"Actually Ale....Lilith has asked me to handle teaching them to walk and talk. She doesn't want you involved in that process."

Ale's eyes quickly widened in shock before they settled just as fast. Ale knew Lilith already didn't like her much. Her spending all this time around the little ones likely wasn't helping things either. Whilst she could understand Lilith's reasons and that Absalom would likely do fine enough, she was still a bit upset. Her ears barely drooping as Ale fought to force them to stay perked as she gave the same smile she always had, "I see...well I'll still attend to my duties as needed. Even if I'll be missing out on an important milestone. But I understand Lilith's...concerns, and thus I shall abide by her wishes. I was commissioned after all, and as the provider of service I'd best do as was promised."

Absalom was certain she was hiding something, but couldn't be sure. He ultimately chose to speak to Llildan about it. The old rabbit only sighed heavily upon being informed of the situation. Approaching Ale later that day whilst she was caring for the Limts outside. Feeding and grooming them all for their excess fluff. She didn't trim them this time, only brushed them thoroughly.

She was on the final Limt as Llildan came up, "I warned you to not look too useful."

"And I have abided by that much. Lilith just isn't fond of me, though that is putting it lightly I'm sure."

Llildan's eyes narrowed, their red glow intensifying a slight, "I've no doubt she'll kill you one day if you keep going above and beyond as you are now."

Ale's eyes glanced his way, "I'm remaining alert."

"Not nearly enough girl. Not if she's continued to notice you and is simmering over it. I'm serious Ale, you're overdoing it. And you're really REALLY pushing your luck."

"I'll be fine. I'm aware she doesn't want me teaching them to talk or walk, probably other basics too. And I intend to follow her wishes. I just know the smallest one needs the most attention as of this time. Hence why I bring him out often, to ensure he's doing well and growing as best he can. Is that truly so wrong if I have proof it's helped him?"

"Atari I beg you please, reconsider this."

"Don't worry Ceiser, I'll be as mindful as possible. That said I still have a task at hand." Ale expressed as she let the little critter on her lap down.

Llildan sighed as she walked away, but ultimately returned to his own work at his main console inside. He tried working without worry, but overtime things became overwhelming. His hand instinctively moved for the dial on his head, but paused halfway in hesitation. The hand shook as he tried to force things, but in the end gave up. After a moment of quiet, yet heavy breathing; Llildan glanced at a hole on the console's rim. It was shaped as a crystal, and he knew for what crystal specifically. Sighing under his breath, he looked throughout the room before finding it. A plain, clear crystal with not a single chip or imperfection upon it. He held it to his chest for but a moment before seemingly reconsidering his current choice. Yet again he hesitated in placing it back down, but his heart won once more. He brought the crystal to the hole and placed it carefully within. Upon that placement, the console whirred to life before displaying a projection of his memories. This crystal in particular holding the ones of his wife, Shel and Ale as a little girl. He watched each image and passing memory silently, as what emotions he seemingly had left began flooding in. Llildan didn't know when the tears had started, but was unamused at finally noticing them. His hand once again went to his dial, stopping just short of it.

This time Llildan whispered to himself as he saw Shel's face appear in the final memory he had of her, "I often wonder moya lyubov', if perhaps she grew up too quickly...like you had to. I can only hope...that she doesn't meet the same end as you too."

With that he turned the dial a slight bit clockwise. Upon doing so, the tears that had been flowing so freely ceased just as quickly as they seemingly came. At least from Llildan's perspective on the matter. He then heard someone coming, and grabbed a towel to appear as though he was wiping sweat away instead of tears. Almost furiously rubbing them away before grabbing a bottle of vodka. He about poured himself a glass, but decided not to. Instead popping it's cork and drinking it straight. Though he did also think to turn off the crystal's projection. Just in time too, as Lilith came into the room.

"My my, there a special occasion? Or are you just in desperate need of a distraction?"

Llildan actually gave off a slight growl, "I just like it's taste, and it's hardness."

Lilith propped herself beside him against the counter, "Ah yes. The cold, chilling bite as it travels down the throat. The near pure and perfect alcoholic aftertaste after the smooth and creamy texture soothes the chill. Hitting you with a mix of flavors depending on the make and brand. Definitely among my favorite alcohols, though I've always...always felt it needed more than being drank straight."

Llildan ignored Lilith as much as possible. For with each word she began letting more of her true nature arise. The lustful, sex addicted freak of a succubus that would kill you either before, during, or after. All depending on her mood and whether or not she favored you as a 'toy'. He'd heard all the stories, he knew full well what she wanted right now. Her body language, her tone, even the blatant yet somehow still tasteful removal of things like a strap here, or her belt there. He turned the dial again, if only to ensure his emotional response was deadened enough to escape the dreaded musk. The stories of how it brought just about all men to her beck and call was enough to warrant the dial being moved again in his opinion.

He then looked at the bottle in his hand again before just putting it down a bit forcefully, "I've had enough."

"Oh? But you've only just started on the bottle. Imagine what it'll be like once you've finally drank it dry." Lilith complained with a very faint pout.

"It already is dry for me, perhaps it was too dry to begin with anyway. If you want a 'drinking' partner, go pester someone else. I've more important matters to attend to, not to mention a need for a rest."

Lilith hanged her head backward in annoyance, "Uuuugh, no wonder it tasted too dry. You're just as dry down there I'll bet."

Llildan shook his head, "Try harder Demonness, I know better than to lose my nerve so easily."

He then tightened his grip on the crystal before leaving the room in silence. Lilith just drank the bottle's remnants, of which there was plenty, in a mix of barely contained fury and sexual frustration. Growling and muttering to herself in the now darkened room.

[ollieofthebeholder]

leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

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Chapter 20: Jon Prime

Jon had been worried, before they had come back in time, about how well he would adjust to being in the past, pre-Apocalypse. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to handle the lessened level of terror, or the need to eat and sleep completely again, or being, essentially, less than he’d been, or for that matter the urge to storm the Institute and throttle Jonah Magnus in his office. He’d fretted about a lot of things.

As it turned out, none of them were things he needed to fret about.

His body reacclimated to human needs quickly enough, and it actually felt kind of good to feel the rumble of hunger or the drag of exhaustion again. It was definitely good to get back to cooking, which he’d sorely missed doing even if it felt odd to be cooking for more than himself and Martin. Martin had been right about his statement fueling Jon for a while, and his younger counterpart had taken to bringing home any real statements he came across; it was enough. And with Martin there, he didn’t feel less.

As for storming the Institute, that urge had been surprisingly easy to resist. Tim had managed to convince them to stay at his house longer by asking them to keep an eye on Past Martin while he healed. His excuse had been that Jon knew what Past Martin was going through and Martin knew what his past self was like, so they could keep him from doing anything stupid. Jon guessed there was more to it than that, but he didn’t want to pry into anyone’s minds, so he just let it go and agreed. It seemed simpler.

Martin had adapted well, too. Granted, he’d still been human—as far as Jon knew—before they came back, and he’d had two weeks to adjust to being blind before they were reunited, but he’d picked up on the cane Tim bought him fairly quickly. He didn’t seem to need it around the house, though, and when Jon questioned him about that, Martin said that he had a pretty good sense of direction when the world makes sense, Jon. And, honestly, Jon couldn’t argue with that. Tim spent a Sunday afternoon reorganizing his cupboards, then showed Martin where everything was so he could feel more independent in the kitchen while Jon watched from the doorway with a grin.

Past Martin got stronger by the day. At first, he mostly slept, which was fine with Jon, since it meant he could spend time with Martin and not feel guilty. He’d accidentally fallen asleep with his head on Martin’s lap one afternoon and woken to soft laughter, which is how he found out that Past Martin and Past Jon had apparently discussed things and Sasha was the only member of what Tim insisted on referring to as Team Archives who didn’t know they were together. After that, they’d dropped the pretense and just been themselves. It had been a huge relief to Jon. It had also been a relief—and a surprise—that Tim didn’t tease them mercilessly, but when he mentioned that to Martin, Martin just laughed and shook his head.

They’d all fallen into an easy domesticity. It was honestly the most surreal thing Jon had experienced in probably his entire life. Sasha and Past Jon were still staying with Tim—Jon had no idea what argument Tim had used on them, but it seemed to be working—and Jon delighted in watching the three of them, together with Past Martin, draw closer together into a cohesive unit that would be harder for Jonah to manipulate. Often, he would come out of the spare room from recording a statement, tape recorder in hand, to find them sharing stories or playing games and laughing. Some nights he joined in on the games, too, but mostly he just sat back with Martin and watched, grinning.

There were arguments. Of course there were arguments. They were all human beings with their own personalities and quirks. Nothing was going to be perfect harmony. Thankfully, they were usually made up fairly quickly. It felt like home, in a way, something Jon hadn’t experienced in he didn’t know how long. He knew it couldn’t last, but he was determined to enjoy it while he could.

Several weeks passed like that. Jon could see the signs that Past Martin was getting restless and impatient to be back at work—he listened hungrily to the team’s tales of what they’d been up to, ventured tentative suggestions on avenues of research or possible connections they might have missed—but he was, ultimately, a far better patient than Jon had been. Not that that was difficult.

As Past Martin’s recovery progressed, the three of them began taking walks in the afternoon, Jon letting the two Martins go ahead of him and following just behind. Partly it was that there really wasn’t room for them to walk three abreast, but mostly it was him giving them the opportunity to see what they were capable of on their own while he watched their backs, literally. At first they were slow circuits of a single block, and then Past Martin needed to sit down for quite a while, but within a couple of weeks he was walking easily and seemed almost back to normal. The scars healed better than they had for Jon, partly because Martin’s skin was fairer than Jon’s but mostly because Past Martin was better about both following doctor’s orders and not picking at the healing wounds. Tim’s had healed about the same, Jon remembered, a thought which still sent a lance of melancholy through him. And finally, the day came when he returned triumphantly from a check-up with the news that he’d been cleared to return to work that Monday.

“We’ll be glad to have you back,” Past Jon said sincerely, actually smiling in a way Jon couldn’t remember smiling until the too-brief time he and Martin had had in Scotland. “It’s all kind of…I won’t lie, it’s odd to sit around and keep working like nothing has changed. Like we don’t know what’s going on. But we’ve managed. There’s a lot more than can be easily done with three, though.”

“I’ll do whatever you need,” Past Martin promised. “God, it’ll feel good to get back into things.”

“Kind of surprised you didn’t try to get us to let you come back earlier, actually,” Tim teased him. “Don’t think none of us saw you chomping at the bit.”

Past Martin gestured to Jon and Martin. “They wouldn’t let me bring it up.”

“How long did you wait before going back?” Past Jon asked.

Jon grimaced. “A month. I should have stayed out longer, to be honest, and I ended up needing substantial physical therapy. But I was already obsessing over who killed Gertrude Robinson, and I didn’t handle being alone with my thoughts very well. Tim was out longer.”

“How long?” Tim asked curiously.

“Eight weeks, give or take.”

“So we can be away from the Institute? I thought you said…” Tim trailed off.

Jon paused, knife suspended over the cutting board. “I—I never thought of that. God, how did I not think of that? Our Tim seemed fine when he first came back, and he never said anything, but…”

“You can be away from the Institute, just not for good,” Martin said. “When you’re out…convalescing, that’s one thing. Even if you’re on an extended vacation, that should be okay. It’s if you try to leave, if you just up and walk away with the idea that you won’t be back, that you’ll have problems. As long as you really intend to come back at some point, it’s fine.”

Jon turned around and stared at Martin. “How long have you known that?”

“Since Elias told us we were trapped there?”

“My God, that was…” Jon rubbed his temple with his free hand. “Why didn’t you say anything? And please don’t say ‘it never really came up.’”

Martin actually smiled at that. “Honestly, Jon, I assumed you knew. I mean, you were away for ages, and I know Basira kept going off on…excursions. She might not have been gone long, but I just…I thought you’d figured it out. Especially when nothing really happened to us in Scotland.”

Jon hadn’t thought about that, either. But yes, at the time they had meant to go back to the Institute eventually, hadn’t they? Or maybe the Eye had let them go because it knew what Jonah was plotting. Either way, Martin was right, he really ought to have figured that out sooner.

He sighed, turning back to his meal prep. “I can, as we have established, be a bit oblivious at times.”

Sasha gave an overly-dramatic gasp. “You? Never.”

“Oh, shut up,” Past Jon grumbled.

Tim snickered. “Hey, does that mean you two have to come back to the Institute, too?”

“That’s…more complicated.” Jon scraped the contents of the cutting board into the pot. “I’m bound closely enough to the Eye that I’m not…dependent on the Institute, I don’t think? As long as I’m taking statements, feeding the Eye, I’m fine. I believe. And Martin is cut off from the Eye entirely. But it’s a rather moot point, as we intend to move into the tunnels beneath the Institute anyway.”

“You can’t seriously be planning to do that,” Tim protested. “Come on, they can’t be comfortable—”

“They aren’t. But that’s not the point, Tim.” Jon sighed and reached for the spices he’d selected. “We are putting you in very real danger by being here. Besides, we’re not in a position to assist like we would be if we were closer to the Institute. I don’t particularly like them, but it’s the best option for everyone.”

Tim reached past Jon to get plates out of the cupboard, his expression mulish. Jon braced himself for whatever arguments Tim might throw his way and resolutely shut his mind against prying for it, but before he could say anything, Past Martin came up and put a hand on Tim’s shoulder.

“You can’t fix everything, Tim,” he said quietly. “And I know that’s rich, coming from me, but…we have to trust them. It’s not like we won’t ever see them again if they’re not living under your roof.”

Tim’s shoulders slumped. Jon caught his eye and offered him a smile. “It’s certainly no reflection on you, Tim. It’s just…we need to do this. I desperately need you to trust us.”

“I can give you that.” Tim managed a smile in reply, then turned to set the table. “You’re not planning to move in tonight, though, right?”

Jon was about to answer, then froze as a rumble of thunder sounded from outside. It was low and gentle, but the sound sent a shudder of horror running down his spine that he couldn’t explain. He had to stand, perfectly still, until the sound stopped.

“No,” he said as soon as he felt able. “Not tonight.”

He went back to what he was doing, or tried to, but there was obviously a storm building, and the next peal of thunder brought his breath up short. The spoon slipped out of his hand and into the pot.

“Are you okay?” Sasha’s voice seemed to be coming from a long way away.

“Fine,” Jon lied automatically. Really, this was ridiculous. There was no reason for this. Thunderstorms had never bothered him before; why were they suddenly an issue now? He retrieved the spoon and returned to cooking.

The others shifted the discussion to the logistics of smuggling Jon and Martin into the Institute and the tunnels beneath them without being spotted. Since Martin was already explaining about the other entrances, Jon didn’t feel the need to jump in. They would still need to figure out which entrance to use, or find one in the first place, and how to get there surreptitiously, but at least there were options beyond “hope to avoid the cameras mounted around the Institute when sneaking into the Archives and subsequently into the tunnels”. That would be the fastest way to tip Jonah off that something was going on.

Another roll of thunder sounded from almost directly overhead—not a sharp crack, but a long, rumbling bass growl. Jon felt it to his core, and he gasped, leaning over to catch himself against the counter. Suddenly he was in the spare room in the cabin in Scotland, the words being torn from his throat against his will: I…OPEN…THE DOOR!

“Whoa!” someone shouted.

“Shit, that’s—how is he—” someone else stammered.

“Get his hand off the burner!”

“Jon! Jon, it’s okay, I’m here, I’m here.”

Something brushed against him, and he jerked away, but then a hand wrapped around his arm and tugged him away from the counter, and then someone was wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him close. There was a confused babble of voices around him, but Jon couldn’t focus on it, couldn’t focus on anything but the thunder and the static filling his mind and the fact that for some reason his hand hurt, why did his hand hurt…

“Jon,” the voice said again in his ear, and it was Martin’s voice, he sounded upset, he sounded scared, and Jon couldn’t let him be scared but didn’t know how to fix it, so he looked up desperately and saw Martin’s face close to his. “Come on, let’s go in the other room, it’s okay. Come on, I’ve got you. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Jon couldn’t speak, could barely breathe. He just let Martin lead him out of the room they were in and into another, keeping his eyes fixed on Martin the whole time, and then they were sitting on something and Martin pulled Jon into his arms, onto his lap, and wrapped him up securely. One hand came up to cup the back of his head, the other rubbed his back in slow, soothing circles.

“I’m here, Jon,” Martin murmured, his voice low and gentle despite crackling with emotion. “You’re here. We’re both here and we’re safe. We’re in London. The world isn’t ending, Jon. You didn’t end the world. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

How, the small part of Jon that wasn’t numb with terror thought, did Martin always seem to know the right thing to say? It was a ridiculous thought, of course; Martin didn’t always know the right thing to say, any more than Jon did, and they’d had more than a few arguments over one of them saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. But when it was a situation like this, when Jon panicked or got lost in his own head or was hurting, Martin always seemed to come up with the right words. Jon fisted his hands into Martin’s shirt and buried his face in his chest, focusing on the heartbeat that always soothed him when things got too bad. One of his hands, in a distant way, hurt, but he didn’t let go. He couldn’t.

Of course the world wasn’t ending. It couldn’t be. How could the world end with Martin there? That was just ridiculous. If the world ended, he’d be all alone.

“You’re not alone, Jon,” Martin said, and shit, had he said that out loud? “I’m here. I will always be here. I won’t ever leave you. I promise. I’m here. I’m here.”

“You’re here,” Jon whispered. The words felt raw in his throat, but it felt good to say them. He whispered them again and again, and Martin whispered them back to him. They passed the words back and forth, you’re here, I’m here, you’re here, and slowly, slowly, Jon felt the terror recede.

The storm didn’t lessen. If anything, it got worse, but oddly, that helped, too. The sharper the thunder got, the calmer Jon grew. A mighty thunderclap rattled the windows, and the power went out, making someone yelp from the other room, but Jon was able to take his first full breath. He slowly eased his grip on Martin’s shirt and sagged against him with a heavy sigh.

“Better?” Martin asked, rubbing his back.

“A little.” Jon tilted his head back and rested his chin on Martin’s chest, looking up at him. There was only the barest amount of light in the room, but it was enough to see the outline of his boyfriend’s face by. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Martin pressed a light kiss to Jon’s forehead. “How’s your hand?”

“Hmm?” Jon became aware that his hand still hurt a lot. He eased it away from Martin and stared at it. It was red, almost raw, and he could see a couple of blisters on the palm that had miraculously remained intact, despite the grip he’d had on Martin’s shirt. “Oh. I—did I put it on the stove?”

“Apparently. Let me see.”

Jon managed a smile. He turned his hand over, palm up, and laid it in Martin’s. Martin hovered his thumb just over the top of Jon’s palm. “It’s still warm. Hold on, let me go find out what Tim’s got in that medicine cabinet of his.”

“Plenty,” a voice said from the doorway. Jon started, then relaxed when he realized it was his own voice, and that was still weird to hear. He looked up to see Past Jon coming in, a torch in one hand and a small handful of supplies in the other. “I was going to just leave it on the table for you, but…”

“Thank you,” Jon said sincerely. He didn’t leave the comfort of Martin’s embrace, though. The panic had left him a bit shaky and he wasn’t sure he could really sit up on his own, but more than that, he honestly didn’t give a damn if it made him look weak to lean on Martin. That was part of what love was, right?

Past Jon set the things in his hands on the table, then lined them up. “Cool compress, lotion, gauze, bandages. Paracetamol on the end if you need it for the pain. I—do you need a spare hand?”

“We’ve got it, but thank you,” Martin said. He picked up the compress, then pressed it gently to Jon’s hand. It was obvious he’d done this before, in some capacity.

Past Jon nodded and straightened, then hesitated before leaving the room. Awkwardly, he asked, “Can I…are you sure you’re okay? That looked a lot like, well, a panic attack.”

“It was,” Jon said softly. He hesitated, looking up into Martin’s eyes. Even though he knew Martin wasn’t really looking back at him per se, that he couldn’t actually see him, he could feel his attention, and they’d learned in the last few weeks that they knew each other well enough that they could still communicate wordlessly, to an extent. Turning back to his past self, he explained, “It was—the last thunderstorm I remember came up while I was reading…Jonah’s monologue.”

Past Jon flinched. “Ah. Well, I’ll, erm…I’ll leave you to that, then.” He gestured at the supplies and retreated back to the kitchen.

Jon and Martin sat in silence for a long moment. Martin kept applying pressure to the compress on Jon’s hand, his other hand securely supporting it, keeping it elevated. At last, Jon said, “I—I never asked if it was actually storming. That day. If it was…real thunder I heard or if it was just…the impending end of the world.”

“It was. I was on my way back. At first I thought I’d grab an umbrella, but then I thought…I thought I’d just stay downstairs until you finished your statement, then bring you a cup of tea or something. And then…” Martin trailed off and shook his head.

Jon bit his lip. “At least you made it back before…the Door Opened.”

“No, Jon,” Martin said softly. “I didn’t. I was still a good five minutes’ walk from the safe house when it happened.” He tried to laugh. “Ordinarily, anyway. I ran, as soon as I realized…I don’t know that I realized what exactly was going on, but I knew it was bad, and I knew that it was probably coming after you.”

“My God, Martin.” Horror ran through Jon’s body, and he reached out with his free hand to grip Martin’s shirt again.

“Hey, careful, I need room to work.”

“You were outside when—you c-could have been killed. God, I could have lost you and—”

“But you didn’t,” Martin reminded him. He leaned forward and rested his forehead against Jon’s for a moment. “I’m here, Jon. You’re here. We’re both here. We survived the end of the world. We made it. Together.”

Jon took a deep, steadying breath. “Maybe one day it won’t be so hard to remember that.”

“Well, I’ll always be here to remind you.” Martin straightened up and lifted the compress, then checked the heat of his palm and set the compress aside.

Jon glanced at the next item on the table and grimaced. “Of course the next step is lotion.”

“Do you want to do it yourself?” Martin asked. “You’ve got to keep things from drying out, but…I understand if someone else rubbing it in might be a bit much.”

At least that was something Jon had known he had an issue with before. Just not something he’d thought he would ever have to think about. He started to say yes, then shook his head, despite knowing Martin couldn’t see him. “No. No, will—will you do it? Please? I trust you.”

Martin’s face softened. They both knew what Jon was asking for. “Of course, Jon.”

He poured a little bit of the lotion into Jon’s hand. Jon tried hard not to flinch at the feel of it pooling into his cupped palm. Martin replaced the cap and set the bottle back on the table, nearly missing it, then took Jon’s hand and began gently massaging the lotion into it. Jon focused on Martin’s face and tried to regulate his breathing.

“Tell me something,” Martin requested abruptly.

Jon cocked his head, slightly off-balance. “What?”

“Anything. Your favorite play, your earliest childhood memory, your most embarrassing uni story. Anything.”

“O-oh, okay,” Jon said, surprised. He tried to think for a moment. “Ah—I’ve always been fond of The Duchess of Padua.”

Martin smiled encouragingly. “Yeah? I don’t know that one. Tell me about it.”

Jon launched into an explanation of the plot. The more into it he got, the more wildly he gesticulated with the hand Martin wasn’t attending to. Martin listened to Jon ramble the way he always did, with a smile and a look of genuine interest as Jon went on about a topic he knew nothing about and honestly didn’t care all that much about. He’d even told Jon, simultaneously not long ago and an eternity ago, that he’d always hated the theater, yet here he was letting Jon describe in technical detail the plot of a play he’d had no good reason to fall in love with.

“—staged very often, or studied for that matter, but I always thought it was fascinating,” he concluded with a sigh. “I actually rose a bit in a professor’s esteem because I used that one as the basis for our term paper on one of Wilde’s works rather than The Importance of Being Ernest or The Picture of Dorian Gray.”

“Yeah, I know how that goes. Best grade I ever got in school was on a paper I wrote on The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” Martin set something on the coffee table. “How’s that?”

“I—” Jon looked down at his hand. The lights were still out, but his eyes had adjusted, and he could see the stark white bandage looped neatly around his hand, securing the gauze without being too tight. “Oh. You’re done.” He gave his boyfriend a slightly accusing look. “You were distracting me.”

“You were panicking,” Martin told him. He wrapped both arms around Jon again. “I really was listening, though. I love listening to you talk about something you know a lot about. Or even something you’re just pretending you know a lot about.”

“Hey,” Jon protested, but without any real heat. He tucked his head into the crook of Martin’s neck and sighed, curling into him. “Thank you. For taking care of me. For knowing me so well. For being here.”

“Where else would I be?” Martin kissed the crown of his head. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

How many times had they passed those words back and forth, Jon wondered? He could probably Know the exact number, with a little effort, but it didn’t matter, because it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. They could say it with every breath they had left from now until the end of time, and it still wouldn’t be enough. Jon had made a vow, kneeling in the remains of what had once been his boss’s office and pressing futilely against the gaping wounds in Martin’s chest, that he would never leave an opportunity to say them unsaid. They didn’t need to say it for each other to know, but it was important to Jon that they did. And while Martin never said as much, Jon knew it reassured him to hear confirmation every once in a while.

They sat in silence for a while, Jon letting Martin’s presence and the secure feel of his embrace soothe away the last of his lingering terror, or at least his lingering immediate terror. The fear would never go away completely. He’d grown to accept that. But at least now it was just the usual hum of background terror that was his everyday life, rather than the sharp, immediate panic of a flashback. Here with Martin, he was as safe as he ever could be.

At last, he sighed. “We should probably go back into the other room before the others eat everything.”

“I’m sure they saved us some,” Martin said. “But sure. You’ll have to get up first.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re sitting on my lap, Jon.”

“Oh. Right. I knew that.” Jon managed to get to his feet. Martin chuckled as he stood, too.

Tim had lit several candles and was apparently mid-debate with Sasha over whether or not he should add another one to the mix. Past Jon rolled his eyes in Jon and Martin’s direction when they came in. “Please make them shut up.”

“Impossible, I’m afraid. They’re both breathing,” Jon said dryly. Tim snorted and Sasha stuck her tongue out at him. “It smells good in here. Have you been baking?”

“Electric oven. Jon barely finished cooking dinner before the power went out. It’s the candles,” Tim admitted. “One of the kids in the neighborhood keeps selling them to raise money for school trips and the like, and I’m apparently one of his best customers.”

“Well, if you add any more, the smell might be overpowering. Or you might set off your smoke detector.”

“Point. Okay, then, sit down and eat. We saved you a couple plates.”

Jon didn’t have to look at Martin to see the I-told-you-so look on his face.

As they ate, Sasha slid a piece of paper towards him, covered in neat, still-unfamiliar handwriting that Jon presumed to be hers. “Can you think of anything on here we missed?”

The lighting wasn’t really adequate to read the paper clearly, and Jon was tired, despite Martin’s presence and support; the panic attack had drained him a bit more than he’d expected. He was going to need something stronger than a couple of old statements to recover,  but he had no idea how to go out and get it. It all combined to make him forget himself a little. He reached out with the Eye rather than his own eyes to skim the paper. Sleeping mats, camp stoved, tinned food (ANYTHING but peaches)…

“What’s all this?” he asked, picking it up to see a bit better.

“Supplies,” Past Jon said brusquely. “You didn’t think we’d make you stay in those tunnels without some way of being comfortable, did you?”

Actually, Jon hadn’t thought about it. He picked up the list and studied it more closely, with his actual vision this time. It seemed like a fairly comprehensive list. There were a few things on it that he recognized as bearing his boyfriend’s hallmark, unexpected items that nevertheless might, in certain circumstances, make a huge difference. He angled the paper towards Martin. “Anything you have to add?”

Martin raised an eyebrow. “Unless that’s written in Braille, I don’t think I’m going to be of much use there.”

“Oh. Right.” Jon was thankful that the combination of his complexion and the low light in the room would probably hide his blush from anyone whose eyes still functioned.

Tim looked back and forth between the two Martins. “Wait, you know Braille?”

Past Martin ducked his head, looking mortified. Martin, however, simply nodded slowly. “Mum had one of those pill keepers, you know the ones. I taught myself Braille so I could know which pills to get ready for her without turning on the light before she was ready to be awake.”

The look on both Tim and Past Jon’s faces made Jon slightly glad, and also slightly disappointed, that Martin’s mother was dead. Then he remembered that she’d died while he was in his coma, so she was currently still alive in a nursing home in Devon refusing her son’s visits but accepting, even demanding, his money, and it was very difficult for him to swallow his own anger and uncharitable thoughts. He wasn’t a monster and couldn’t act like one, no matter how good his motives seemed.

Instead, he covered the moment by reading the list aloud to Martin. Martin listened and nodded and smiled when Jon hit the last item on the list. “I don’t think you need to worry about a tape recorder, honestly. They turn up on their own.”

“So I’ve noticed,” Tim said dryly. “But you said the tunnels blocked stuff at times. I figured, just in case…”

“Might be a comfort,” Past Martin suggested softly. It was the first thing he’d said since Jon and Martin had come into the kitchen.

“The tunnels don’t stop the recorders,” Jon said. “But…thank you. It’s thoughtful of you.”

Sasha nodded and took the list. “We’ll get everything together tomorrow, then, and you can find another entrance to the tunnels.”

“Will you be able to find the Archives?” Tim asked. “Through those tunnels, I mean? They’re a mess, honestly.”

“We’ll manage.” Jon actually wasn’t a hundred percent sure how easy it would be. He’d had a map made at one point, but that was after Leitner had manipulated things for him, and the tunnels were shielded from the Eye, somehow. He’d be lucky not to have to live with the ever-present…fuzziness he’d dealt with when they’d been staying with Georgie and Melanie and their inadvertent cult. But they really and truly didn’t have a choice.

“I suppose if we have to, we could put a—a beacon or something at the foot of the stairs under the trapdoor,” Past Jon said uncertainly.

Tim grinned. It looked slightly diabolical in the flickering candlelight. “Ooh, or one of those electronic gizmos they use in hunting to attract prey.”

“I’m very sure random deer calls would have the opposite effect than luring us to where you want us to go,” Martin said with a smirk. “Have you ever heard those things? They’re terrifying.”

The conversation devolved into a slightly silly discussion of the weirdest animal cries they’d ever heard, and Jon was able to breathe and eat his dinner without too much trouble.

That night, though, curled into bed with Martin, he said quietly, “What if it’s a bad idea? What if being down there…what if I fall apart again? What if it’s like at Salesa’s, but worse?”

“It won’t be,” Martin said. The confidence and assurance in his voice was almost a physical force.

“How can you know that, though?”

Martin ran a hand through Jon’s hair, gently untangling a knot that had probably got there during his panic attack in the living room. “Did you know that if you lose sight in one eye, you only lose something like twenty percent of your overall vision but all of your depth perception?”

“No?” Jon could have known that, if he’d wanted to, obviously, but it wasn’t something he’d ever consciously set out to learn. He also didn’t see how it was relevant.

“I mean, you can sort of train yourself to compensate for the depth perception, but yeah, twenty percent of your vision. Mostly peripheral. It makes it harder to see people coming from that side of things.” Martin’s fingers caught in another knot. “The Beholder really had two eyes overlooking the Apocalypse, Jon. Jonah and you. He saw from the heights and you saw from ground level. He oversaw, and you…experienced. I’d even go so far as to say you were the dominant eye, so to speak. Of course you were weak when you were cut off from it. It’s like a phantom pain. That won’t be an issue now. The Eye isn’t as…strong. You said yourself, you’re still…you, just not quite as…all-powerful?”

“Hopefully I’ve still got enough power to do what needs to be done,” Jon sighed, but Martin’s words were a comfort.

After a pause, Martin added, “And you have me.”

“And I have you,” Jon agreed. “And we can probably get fairly close to the Archives. All right, I know I’m probably worrying unnecessarily. It’s just…” He trailed off, tracing his fingers over the three puckered holes clustered just above Martin’s heart. Jonah had known what he was doing, far too well. “I can’t lose you again, Martin. I can’t. And I’ll never forgive myself if it happens because I wasn’t strong enough.”

Martin covered Jon’s hand with his own. “It won’t. You’re strong enough, Jon. I trust you. And you know I’ll be right there with you the whole time.”

“I know.” Jon snuggled into Martin’s chest, then leaned up to kiss him. “You know I can’t do this without you.”

“I wouldn’t want to see you try.”

Jon yawned and adjusted the covers over the both of them. Martin rolled onto his side and buried his face in Jon’s hair, and Jon sighed with almost-forgotten contentment as he drifted off to sleep, Martin’s heartbeat thudding steadily in his ear.