#it's me again with my thing with rings and the ocean metaphors

[hazyletter]

Kei had always liked wearing rings. Though he couldn't quite determine as to when he specifically started collectingㅡit doesn't change the fact that they're there because he wants them to be there.

He liked how pretty his hands looked. He liked how it bought weight down to his wrapped fingers whenever he moves a joint. The clanking sound of his hand holding onto railings whenever he goes to the train station, echoing with the bustling crowd, him melting in the middle.

Kei doesn't have any specific brand he likesㅡprice as well. He just wants them to be stainless steel, and mixes of gold and silver, two clashing colors mended into one above his sugar-like skin.

With volleyball coming to mind, he removes them, of course, leaving them in a small packet in his locker in which he'll immediately wear after showering. He wears rings at home except when going to the bathroom. He wears rings when asleep. He wears rings when styling his hair. He wears rings as the main point of his mirror selfies.

It's the little things that counts, he thinks. He doesn't mention it a lot, clearly not interested in speaking about it any further than, "I like wearing them" with a faraway look to anything else beside who asked. He doesn't need a specific fidget ring. It already keeps him at bay.

Makes him feel like he belongs, having something that he likes and he likes only, with the exception of strangers. It's like a second skin for Kei. He doesn't wear any accessories more than it besides a watch and a bracelet from Natsu that he still kept after all these years. (Can't blame him. It's really pretty.)

But to see Tobio suddenly take interest specifically in his collections of rings, it brings Kei's thoughts to a place that morphs his supposed-to-be at bay feelings.

(It's the little things that counts.)

It echoes in his mind as Tobio fiddles with all the rings he'd owned for almost a decade, unorganized in one wooden box colored with rugby, the slight smell that had made Kei pay attention to Tobio's scrunched-up nose with an affronting sound.

"This is pretty impressive. I never expected for someone like you to be into this stuff." Tobio hums to himself, eyeing one silver ring that has a golden leaf in the middle in fascination, like he'd never see anything like it ever again.

""Someone like me"?" Kei raises a brow.

"Yeah." Tobio simply nods. "Someone like you. Because you play volleyball. And I know you hate anything clinging to you at all times."

How do you know? "And what makes you so sure about that?" His eyes follow the way Tobio's fingertips guide another golden ring in his hold to his left ring fingerㅡa much simpler one than the others. He remembers buying it from one of his trips to Kyoto, flashbacks of the vendor telling him it represents harmony of the mind and heart, taking effect when both the wearer and the one who bought it are bonded.

Ridiculous, Kei thought at that moment. And yet he still politely smiled at the vendor and handed them his payment.

Now, it seems as if he may be getting corrupted by Tobio's idiot disease as well for how it looked beneath the late afternoon sunset from his tall windows.

The thought almost felt as if it made his heart do a flip, something that made Kei silently curse to himself, whilst his eyes grew distracted, everything Tobio is saying going inside to one ear and exiting the other.

It's distracting. How it looks like it had always belonged to be right there around Tobio's finger as he raises his hand to take a closer look at it, humming to himself with a song that is definitely not recognizable to Keiㅡbut all of it takes his breath away all the same.

His eyes finally catch sapphires, and Kei feels something burning inside of him, static on his fingers as if he had just been electrified.

But the rush didn't prepare him at all at the calamity that is the stare of Tobio's which speaks a thousand words it leaves Kei overwhelmed. Kei's breath hitch without his own accord and without warning, he is a witness of Tobio tilting his head in confusion, bound finger by the golden ring shaking left and right in front of his face as he slightly registers Tobio asking him if he was okay from the depths of his mind.

It echoes all too well, like how it first did on Kei's own hand as he touches the bell he had just used when he made his new year's wish, lost packaging already inside a trash can that is a hundred stairs away from where he was at the temple in front of him.

A voice seeps through and suddenly, his nose is getting pinched.

"Ow, fuck!" Kei's voice is nasal when he hears it and finally, Tobio lets go of his now slightly red nose with an accusing grunt.

"What the hell were you even thinking about for you to look that lost in thought."

Kei blinks, now a distance far from the epiphany he had had, nostalgic feel of the new year snow on his face now warmed up by the spring sun from outside of his apartment.

He lays out a lazy grin, "Too complex for an idiot like you to understand, don't worry about it, King."

Tobio's glare directed at him only sharpens, companied by the click of his tongue, and Kei merely shrugs with a sly look.

Tobio moves from where he was sitting on the floor, in front of Kei's dresser inside his room, closing the box of rings and laying it beside him. He then looks back at Kei again, sitting away from him with enough length that it's not too far but not too close either.

A gnawing itch in his skin tells Kei it doesn't feel enough.

"Hey. Can I keep this?"

Pointing at the ring with his other hand, Tobio casually asks Kei.

Feeling rigid, he looks at Tobio's face then down to his hand then back and forth. Finally, his voice, though wavering, lets out, "W..why?" Inside, Kei curses to himself once again.

"It's pretty." Tobio shrugs. "I like how it feels. You already have a lot of them so.." Considering for a second, he pauses. "I just like it."

For the second time that afternoon, Kei couldn't think immediately. Fog cogs up the gears in his brain and he falters in his breathing, conscious but not feeling how he looked. Kei gulped, and shit, he would for anything his life, swore that Tobio's gaze followed it before returning to his stare once again.

The fact that it's not at all shocking leaves him overwhelmed, questions automatically getting answered without hesitation in which he never knew he could have ever felt.

(It's the little things that counts.)

"I-" Kei's eyes open for a moment. He searches, and searches, not even absolutely sure as to what he wants to say or show. "Well, I guess-" A strangled sound. "It's fine."

Not even a moment later, Tobio's eyes light up, and his expression turns soft, even just lightly with how bad he was at showing that kind of reaction. His lips shake at the corners, as if unconsciously stopping himself to break into a smile, even somewhat small, but he grows unsuccessful as a sound that almost seemed to be a happy exclamation escapes his still-shut tight lips that looked to be curving nonetheless. "Good."

The next wave crashes down on Kei with warmth, unfamiliar from what he knew to be an unbearable chill on his skin. This one glides through his messed-up hair in a swift motion, making contact with his face that doesn't make him want to yell to nothing in annoyance.

It's... it's bright. And gold. And... And-

Tobio clears his throat in the middle of the silence, "Does it.." Something changes, Kei doesn't know what, but he's fine, and alive, and all is well when the sun's glare from outside picks up and envelops Tobio in a stunning halo, forming around Kei's earth. "Does it look good on me?"

It was the calming sea. One he remembers that filled his summer long ago. The one that feels like he's floating and not complaining about how the sand is piling under his clothes. It grows from afar and yet on the shore, it doesn't splash him. It rocks him with a gentle tug on his fingers, pulling him close to the cool feel of the waters.

Far from it, the city still lives from stories below them. Murmured sounds of trains and cars pass along the backgroundㅡno amount of its loudness silences the thrums of Kei's heart.

Kei breaks into a smile that feels fond, unforcedㅡjust like his hobby. It feels nice on his lips, just like the bands of metal covering his fingertips.

He feels ridiculous. An abnormality at most at the top of his mind.

But if this is what it feels to be an idiot, then Kei sees why Tobio had always been one.

"Yes. It looks good on you, Your Highness."

Kei didn't know being an idiot would feel this exhilarating.

[burts-baked-bees]

Okay?

OPLA Sanji x Fem!Reader

{masterlist for OPLA Sanji ongoing story}

Tags: Slight angst to fluff, slight pining, Sanji and reader are close friends and have truama bonded, Sanji has no clue he's in love with reader the poor sap

CW: Launguage, mentions of abuse, slight WCI spoliers, mentions of drinking

“I swear I’m one shift away from throwing myself in the godforsaken ocean.” Sanji huffed angrily as he threw himself down in a nearby booth. The Baratie had cleared out for the night leaving the cooks to clean the line and the waiters to clean the dining room, but halfway through the dreaded cleanup Sanji had both metaphorically and physically thrown in the towel. The dish cloth he had been holding went flying across the room as he put his feet up on the booth he was in and groaned indignantly.

“That old shitbag won’t so much as let me breathe on the line! I’m a cook! Not a fucking waiter!” He yelled, turning his head back towards the kitchen, as if Zeff could hear his complaints.

“You think maybe it has something to do with the fact that you call him an ‘old shitbag’?” A voice came from the other side of his booth. A small smile curled his lips as he sat up some and peeked over the rounded edge of the red leather seat.

“Oh I’m sorry, did I interrupt your nap time madame?” Sanji laughed as he took in the sight of Y/n laying on her back with her eyes closed in the opposite booth. “So sorry for the inconvenience, but aren’t you meant to be cleaning tables?” He teased as Y/n cracked an eye open and glared at him.

“Aren’t you?” She asked with a sly grin, earning an eye roll and angry huff from the blonde.

“Seems the only thing I’m meant to do is slowly die from boredom in this trash heap of a restaurant.” Sanji sighed as he fell back into his seat, pulling out his lighter and messing with the lid. Y/n laughed softly before sitting up and resting her arms on the dividing seat. She placed her head atop her arms and looked at him with a mock pout.

“Awww is the best chef in the East Blue all bummed that his dad doesn't like his cooking? Again?”

Sanji snapped his lighter closed and raised a finger at Y/n, pointing aggressively at her with a snarl.

“I am the greatest chef in the East Blue. Even if that geezer can’t see it.” He stated, earning a chuckle from Y/n as she sat up and raised her hands in surrender.

“Easy now, no need to shout at a lady.” She cooed as Sanji chuckled and gave her an angry smile, hanging his head.

“How dare you throw my own principles back in my face.” He chuckled as he began fidgeting with the silver ring on his finger. Y/n sighed and rested her chin on her folded arms again, smiling softly at the mop of blonde hair in front of her. She reached over the divider and brushed some of his hair from his face, earning a soft hum from Sanji as he closed his eyes.

“I think we both know he’s only doing and saying these things because he wants the best for you. Though I’ll be the first to admit, his way of going about it is absolute shit.” She laughed as she watched his lips curl into a smile. He looked up at her, her fingers brushing against his cheek as he moved.

“Yeah, I know…” He sighed as he leaned his head back against the wall. She pulled her hand back and looked at him with sympathetic eyes. “But you're a stowaway as much as me.” Sanji joked, “And yet I’m the one being treated like a sniveling child every fucking time I step foot in that kitchen.” He huffed as he looked over at her through his bangs. She chuckled as she hung her arms over the back of his booth and cocked her head to the side.

“My dumbass thought I could be a pirate and got stuck here paying off a debt cuz’ my ship damaged the hull of this ‘trash heap of a restaurant’.” She fired back, using his own words. He opened his mouth to speak but soon closed it again as he shook his head.

“Yeah that was pretty dumb.” Sanji joked as he pulled his jacket off and tossed it to the seat beside him. Y/n gawked at him before laughing and reaching forward to hit him softly on the shoulder. He leaned away from her and shouted

“Oi! Don’t damage the goods!”

She looked at him with mocking wide eyes and barked a laugh,

“Both Patty and I would have to disagree with you on that one, lover boy.” She snarked as Sanji rolled his eyes. A calm silence filled the space as Y/n sat up on her knees and looked at Sanji. She could see something was going on inside his head, and she knew him well enough to infer that he wasn’t going to say a damn thing. She studied the way his brow furrowed and noted how his eyes seemed more gray then blue in moments like these.

There was a profound sadness in him that she had only caught glimpses of in her three years aboard this ship. A profound sadness that he had more or less shared with her one drunken night in the bar when they should have been sleeping. A profound sadness that she wished every single day she could lift from him. The two sat in silence as the ship rocked softly under them; Y/n felt compelled to speak, to do anything that might help ease his overactive mind.

“Still, knowing what I know, having Zeff treating you like this can’t be good for the ole’ psyche…”

Sanji tensed up slightly at her words and Y/n mentally kicked herself for making that insinuation. She wanted to help him, but after the words left her mouth she felt a heavy guilt fill her bones. She watched as he shut his eyes and took a deep breath before smiling ever so slightly.

“Trust me, love. I may complain like this from time to time-”

“Almost ninety-five percent of the time."

“Ooookay. Almost ninety-five percent of the time, but nothing is worse than… what I came from.” He gave her a somber smile and pulled out his lighter again, flipping the lid open and closed in an almost rhythmic pattern. She returned his sad smile and pushed her baby hairs from her forehead.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned that.” She spoke softly as she looked out at the empty dining room; the tables were cast in an eerie candle light and the china adorning the tables glimmered like stars. Sanji looked at her, as her attention was placed elsewhere, and smiled fondly. He felt a warmth rise in his chest as he took in the curve of her profile. The slope of her nose, the length of her eyelashes, the round of her cheeks. The candle light of the empty room cast dancing shadows on her face that made her look otherworldly; he felt his smile, and eyes soften as he looked at her.

“Y/n I wouldn’t have told you about my shitty past if I didn’t trust you to check in on me like this every now and again.” Sanji spoke softly as Y/n turned her gaze back to him. She was almost stunned to see the expression on his face. The look in his eyes was, most of the time, reserved for the elegant ladies that entered the restaurant day in and day out. And yet here he was looking at her like that. She brushed the fond gaze off and swayed her head back and forth while giving him an apologetic look.

“I know, but it’s still not my place to dredge up old memories of abuse when I don’t even know the full story.” She responded, playing with the ends of her uniform shirt.

Sanji smiled at her and leaned forward in his seat, one hand braced himself on the seat top while the other reached forward and pulled her towards him. Y/n closed her eyes as she felt his lips press against her forehead.

“I appreciate you checking on me. It shows that you care.” He said softly, his words muffled seeing that his lips were still connected with her forehead. She smiled softly as he placed a loud exaggerated kiss to the skin there before pulling away and holding her face in his hand. “Okay?” He asked with a huge smile. She laughed at his theatrics and moved to stand up, leaving Sanji sitting alone in his booth as he looked up at her standing form.

“Whatever you say-” She began as she reached out a hand to help him up. He took it with a laugh and allowed Y/n to pull him to his feet. “-My favorite Baratie waiter.” She finished as she dropped his hand and started walking away from him, stifling her laughter. Sanji stood there with his jaw dropped as she walked away from him, his shock soon turning into a smile as he watched her shoulders shake from holding in her laughter. He let a chuckle slip out as he pushed up his sleeves and made a beeline for her.

“How DARE!” He yelled as he grabbed her from behind and lifted her off the ground slightly laughing as she yelped and then dissolved into laughter when she broke free. She began running to a nearby table to put distance between herself and him as she pointed at him,

“Not fair!” She yelled, watching as Sanji pointed back at her.

“Don’t you dare get me started on ‘fair’!” He responded as he laughed.

____

Zeff stood in the doorway to the kitchen watching as Sanji ran around tables with that wannabe pirate waitress. He observed in silence as the pair laughed and threw dish towels at each other instead of cleaning tables.

The small boy he once knew, terrified of making connections with those around him due to some dark past he kept to himself, was smling and laughing as he chased around what could only be discribed as a friend.

A small smile curled his weathered lips as he shook his head and walked away, the sounds of youth fading into nothing.

“Not bad, little eggplant… Not bad…”

[emmyrosee]

He was bored.

No, more than that. He was lonely.

Bakugo knew what he was getting into the minute he decided to sever what little bit of rope you’d tried to keep weaved between you both, but in his mind, it was unavoidable. You were a hazard to a man and his job, all he’d worked for and all he’d succeeded to get to where he was.

But god damn, you were so hard to shake.

You’d found him broken, and you took the time to mend him back together, giving him all the love and patience you could give him, all the care and attention, when he couldn’t give two shits about giving you the same kind of love.

What Katsuki didnt take into count was how baron his house looked without your shitty little plants. How big it looks without your shoes scattered around. How cold his floor was without your clothes draped over the hardwood.

He didn’t take into account how boring the fan was to stare at.

How quiet it was with just the tv on.

It’s too fucking quiet in this goddamned apartment.

He knows it’s selfish to want you to come to him, he knows damn well he should be on his knees, begging for you to cave for him, but his ego would never let that happen.

Not when he could have you search him out on yours.

Calloused hands paw at the side table for his phone, the sudden brightness of his lock screen blinding him for a second. What used to be a picture of you is now one of some generic ocean scene- prior to that, and after you were changed, it was him, Kaminari and Deku, but rumor was Kaminari was making you happier than Katsuki ever could, and the last thing he’s in the fucking mood for is to see the blonde bimbo trying to build you back up after he tore you down so roughly.

No need for extra reminders.

He has your number still, which he sometimes regrets. It’s tantalizing for his thumb to hover over your icon on a good day, let alone tonight when he’s about to ruin your life all over again.

The angel on his shoulder begs him, pleads him to reconsider and leave you alone, while the devil reminds him that if he’s gotta suffer, he’s gonna take you with him. The angel screams to let you heal, let your heart mend, while the devil prevails and his thumb hits the call button.

It rings once. Then twice. Then a third, and he’s hating the way his second thoughts echo in his head. But he knows if he’s going to destroy your heart all over again, he’s gotta hold true- not bail out and leaving you with the wonder of why he called you at one a.m..

“Katsuki?”

He sinks his teeth into the bottom of his lip as your voice quivers over the other side of the phone, partially in sleepiness and partially in distress he assumes. He hums in acknowledgment, “hey babydoll.”

Your breath catches in your throat, “what do you want?”

You’re cute, trying to be stern. He sees right through you, he always has.

“Can’t I call to make sure you’re okay?”

“Not at fucking two in the morning,” you snap. “I’m not in the fucking mood for this.”

“You wound me, momma.”

“Stop,” You snarl. He smirks, but he does metaphorically step back from the line. “What do you want.”

“I want help changing my oil,” he says flatly. You don’t laugh, though he’s not surprised. “I want you, baby. Thought that was obvious.”

“You had six months to want me,” you say, and he hears your grit. “Six. Months. You don’t get to booty call me at one in the morning and say you just ‘want me.’ You’re full of it.”

He sighs, “this isn’t a booty call. Can’t I just miss you?”

“No.” He almost flinches from how angry you growl. But that angry facade doesn’t last- he hears a sob catch in your voice when you try to speak. “No,” you choke, and he fists his hands so hard they ache, always trying to calm himself from your defiance. “No. You told me we weren’t going to do this. I told you we were done with this.”

“Yeah?” He husks. “Since when do you ever listen to what I say? Looks like we’ve both got listening problems.”

“I’m hanging up-“

“Come on, baby,” he says, a rasp his throat. “Just… just tonight. Please.” He hates how weak he sounds, he knows he’s pathetic to manipulate you to come back to him after all he’s put you through. “I hate… this. It’s too cold, and I know your ass can’t sleep either.”

You’re silent on your end, and he’s almost ready to give up, but you croak when he finally moves the phone away from him. He brings the receiver back to his ear, “what was that?”

“I don’t want to miss you anymore.”

His heart sinks to his chest once he hears your watery, unsteady voice. He can practically see you, bringing your hoodie-clad hand up to cover your mouth to muffle your sobs. He hates this, hates himself for doing this to you, he’s such a fucking asshole.

Fuck, he needs you in his bed.

He needs to caress and love and hold you like the fucking creep he is, dangle the littlest fish in front of you before yanking it away to leave you broken.

“You don’t have to miss me anymore.” he sighs. “Come over.”

He knows manipulating you back into his arms is the most cruel thing he’s ever done, but it’s what he needs. You are.

“Katsuki, please stop-“

“I can come get you, too.”

“We’re bad for each other-“

“We’re not good for anyone else, either.”

You go silent again. Even on the other side of the phone, he knows your wall is crumbling, the wall you’d spent weeks building to protect your heart from him again, and he smirks. You never really were able to say no to him.

“I’m not… I don’t think it’s a good idea, Katsuki…”

“We don’t have to think it’s good,” he scoffs. When you say nothing, he licks his lips, “do you want me, too?”

“That’s not fair and you know it.”

He chuckles in spite of himself, “have I ever played fair?”

Okay. That one hurt- he’ll be the first to say that one felt dirty. He hears the slight shift in your throat, the way your noises catch, and the angel on his shoulder is about to apologize for ever bothering you when you finally pipe up.

He’s always known that if he lets his harsh, albeit true, words hang in the silence a beat longer than any non-manipulative person should, you’d always answer back.

This, apparently, has not faltered since he broke your heart.

“I’m driving,” you sniffle. “I have a meeting at 8 tomorrow. I need to be able to go to work first thing in the morning.”

He pokes his tongue in the corner of his cheek to keep the sound of his excitement from bubbling over, “see you soon, babydoll.”

The phone clicks off while he sighs happily, and he brings a massive paw up to his hair to card it back.

He’s an asshole. He’s the scum of the earth, he’s the worst man to scrape the face of the earth for all he’s put you through. But you’re his addiction, and the only dealer he can rely on, and he’ll be damned to let you go over one heartbreak he caused.

And he’ll drag you to hell just for one taste of heaven.

[bloodyknucklesforme]

Carnal | Ch. VI | Tell Me If I'll Ever Know a Blessing in Disguise

Carnal (adjective): relating to or given to crude bodily pleasures and appetites

Simon was born with what his father called 'The Curse'. A wanton craving for taboo meat. Since meeting the similarly cursed Johnny, the two had formed a bond. They didn't just fight together, they ate together, slept together, and shared everything.

When a favor to Price reveals another cursed person, Simon worries she could destroy everything.

A horror AU inspired by Bones and All and Raw among other works. TW: Blood, gore, cannibalism, smut, violence,

Masterpost | AO3

Title Credit: The Curse - Agnes Obel

Price told Garrick and Ghost to take his car. He’d take Arthur’s car. He’d already made peace with getting blamed for this if it all went to shit.

MacTavish would stay at the house with Nina.

Nina.

He didn’t know what to do with her sometimes. She was a sweet girl. The world had just not been kind to her. She was always strange. Fidgety and anti-social with a far-off look on her face. She haunted that house before her father ever died in it.

He’d been happy, initially, when she met Arthur. Good job, good education and he was good to her at first. He’d pick her up for lunch and she’d spend the whole meal blushing about him. He was gone for a couple of months and she was different. Arthur had moved in and grew in like mold.

It was never a happy house but with him there it was rotted. Price didn’t know when the degradation began but Nina had been swallowed up by something.

He didn’t blame her. He’d tried his best to split them up, scare him off but she said she loved him. Poor thing didn’t really know what love was.

He’d tried his best to show her. Be there for her in some familial capacity. He fit the awkward role between brother and father.

Her actual father wasn’t prepared to raise a child. Price had served under him for almost two years before he knew he even had a wife in the past. Captain Edmund Irons was a great leader and a horribly neglectful father.

Middle of a debriefing when his mobile started ringing over and over again. He finally excused himself

“It’s my daughter’s nanny.” No one in the room knew he had a daughter up until then. He stepped out but everyone could hear him arguing with the woman on the line.

“If she says she’s hungry just feed her! I’m busy! Fucksake Emily, if you can’t take care of her when I’m gone I’ll find someone who can!”

Nina had always been a sickly-looking child with a ravenous appetite. She was always small, with more bone than skin. In the brief time between her father’s death and Edmund’s arrival was when she finally perked up, filling out her face. Resembling a young woman rather than a skull. Her father had described her as ‘cannibalistic’ in his letter. Price had found it in his office and stashed it away and finally burned it after reading it. He thought it was an exaggeration, some metaphor about how her ‘emotional disturbances’ ate away at him till he blew his own brains out.

Nina had said she’d never hurt anyone before. Yet he was thinking about hte nearly dozen nannies he’d met in half as many years. A boy who went missing a couple towns away back in ‘14. Arthur.

Audrey

Another poor little girl.

Nina didn’t hurt her. She couldn’t have. She was too young. That stream had always been dangerous. She wouldn’t. Audrey was her friend. They were inseparable. Audrey’s death is what started all of this. That was the reason.

Nina was his sweet little girl. The closest thing he probably would ever have to a daughter. He’d watched her grow up. He was the one that taught her how to drive. How to fish. How to ride a bike.

How to hunt. How to kill.

He left Gaz and Ghost by the cars as he dragged the body toward the ocean. He cut open his stomach so he wouldn’t float back up and dragged him toward the end of an old pier and pushed him off. Crabs, fish, and whatever else was in the water would take care of him.

They stripped the plates off the car, removed all personal effects, and poured petrol over the inside.

“Soap will be upset he missed this part,” Gaz chuckled as the SUV began to burn.

It was morning by the time they got back to the house. Price’s eyes burned in the light.

Nina had fallen asleep in the guest room. MacTavish was in the dining room where they left him.

“You lot take my car back to base. I don’t know how long I’ll be. MacTavish, I’ll call you when I need a ride back.” The tired Scotsman gave him a nod before heading back to the car. “Garrick, wait a moment.”

“Yes, sir?”

“You said you were able to access the cameras in the house?”

“I was. I turned them off and deleted all the old footage.”

“Good,” Price nodded. “I need you to turn them back on and give me access.”

“Sir?” Kyle knew when to question his judgment. It’s why he liked him.

“She needs help, Gaz. She just won’t accept it. I just need to keep an eye on her. Just the ones in the common areas. Any in the bedrooms or bathrooms, leave those off. I’ll take them down.”

“I’ll set it up.”

“Good man,” He clapped Gaz’s shoulder before sending him off as well. He watched them drive off.

Nina kept most of the cleaning supplies in the cellar. It’s also where the chest freezer was. It sat against the far wall. He thought about opening it to just to make sure.

“John?” She called from the top of the stairs. “I made coffee.”

Sweet girl

“I’ll be up in a moment, lamb.” An old nickname. Proof of innocence.

He grabbed the bleach and headed upstairs.

Price loves saying "Good man" after asking someone to do something totally unethical. Next chapter is gonna be a small time skip, like month-couple weeks. Plus bonus jealous Ghost.

Tag list: @gogh-with-the-flow @queen-ilmaree

Comment or DM me if you want to be added.

[hope-to-hell]

A Fairytale in Silver and Glass: part one.

in this place an endless rain.

Once I had a casual acquaintance with my impending doom

Years ago she promised me someday soon

But how? I've moved from room to room

—Cory Branan, The Corner

AdhemarxReader, slow burn, eldritch Adhemar, all the metaphors. This is an indulgence, an extravagance; this is haring off into the wilds without map or compass. This is ash and sin, oceans and islands. This is a shadow of a memory of a dream.

This is a story told again and again, and though the details may change, the core of it remains the same: once upon a time, in a fearsome castle, there lived a Beast.

The book in question is Italo Calvino’s if on a winter’s night a traveler.

There is silver in his beard and in his hand; he turns the ring this way and that to catch the light. It’s a relic of another time, when he still believed he could be kind. When he speaks his voice is dry like ashes; he says sit and the only thing for you to do is settle at his feet. I know you think I have been cruel. He has been cruel, but that is not the point. The point is him in the here-and-now, not humbled by time and trials but rather hardened. He bears the years in the grooves cut deep at the corners of his eyes, and in the whisper of fingertips that stroke absently down your cheek.

Even the sons of lords must scrap for their living, whether by fists or by strange alliances born in back rooms. Adhemar is measured not by the city that has grown prosperous under his care, nor by the bones that molder in the deep places where he sowed his secrets, but by the cut-crystal glass at his elbow, by the many eyes that try not to meet his own, by the way his steps echo on marble floors. So many years of war, of humiliation, of vengeance— and here he is. He has fallen to the deepest pits of hell and clawed his way back out, remaking himself a thousand times over. His success is evident in the view from his high window, looking down on steel and glass and all the insignificant dramas of the people below.

They are his people, his charges, and however he might feel about them he fulfills his responsibility. And they, in turn, pay tribute with averted eyes and folded hands. They leave their offerings of letters and drawings, loaves of bread, little jars of sand. Now and then they leave their finest gifts: companions with chilly fingers and uncertain faces, eager to please and just the slightest bit afraid. And you: you are the latest in a long line of— what? Objects? Bedmates? Lovers? There are stories, of course, whispered on cold nights.

(I heard he chains them to his bed until they starve.

I heard he takes their hearts.)

It’s all tall tales, scary but with the fantastic slapped on with a heavy hand; it’s less Evenson and more Goosebumps. The truth of it is that no one really knows what happens to them. The Adhemar who sits at state dinners and smiles a polite half-smile is not the same as the Adhemar sitting here in the light of a low-watt lamp, his gaze clear and keen. There is unease in the space between you and him, stemming from the way he watches in silence as you weigh his words.

He has been cruel, he has; for hours and days you’ve had no companion save for the echo of your own steps and the meals that are always somehow ready just when your hunger begins to surface. You’ve been taken care of, yes, but that’s not the same as being cared for. It’s sharper than you meant and there’s a moment where you simply stare at one another. I—

You feel I have been neglectful. Yes, but that is not the point. The point is the way he presses his lips together, thinking, and then says come with me.

There are no horses here, no green fields, no quiet stolen moments where he could breathe his troubles into the open air. But he has his rooftop garden, cased in glass against the cold; he has a comfortable chair and a little table and a key he places gently in your hand. When I am away, you can still find something of me here. It’s not a comfort, not yet, but it is a kindness and that is something unexpected.

The next time he leaves, he does not look back but only brushes his fingertips against the doorframe. Perhaps there is a pause in his step, but then again he is a man of firm decision. He does not waver in anything, and surely not when parting from someone he barely knows. Yet the image lingers; it slips between your thoughts like watered silk and in the dark of night you stand before the greenhouse door with his key pressing its negative image into your palm.

Rain slides down the greenhouse walls; it pounds against the roof and all around is a cold grey emptiness, but inside the great room it is warm, the air perfumed with violets and moss. It smells like him. His chair is leathern, softly worn in the shape of a man. Perhaps he broods here in the evenings, head resting in his palm while those dagger-sharp eyes see the pieces to a game known only to those who understand the weight of power.

There is a book here, stuck between chair and cushion; its pages are soft with wear around the edges, its cover creased; it falls open on the words This is what I mean when I say I would like to swim against the stream of time… Perhaps there is something of him in these pages, if nowhere else then at least in the way the corners are curled from the absent stroking of his thumb.

It’s hard to imagine him relaxed, though he is often still; there seems to be something sharp-toothed in him, something that shines through in glances that cut through you to the bone. And yet he must have been here in moments past, reading and re-reading, listening to rain on glass.

(He’s got to be some kind of monster, hiding in there all alone.

Don’t be stupid. Monsters are monsters and men are men.)

He is there in the morning when you wake, his face a little greyer and more haggard than before, but the crinkles at the corners of his eyes speak to some private amusement. Perhaps it’s the sight of you curled in his chair, all tangled limbs and sighs as you rise from sleep. I read your book. It’s soft, quiet, like the sharing of a secret. He waits, unmoving, his very stillness drawing the words from your lips. It was—.

(It’s an answer that leads to another puzzle, and I wish I knew why I’m here.)

Where was he, in the depths of the night? Was he sipping from the bloodied throats of innocents, or howling at the moon? Perhaps he met with others— not quite of his station, because truly there is no one like him, but with humorless faces floating above bespoke suits, giving counsel and taking their cut. Wherever he might have been, the strange sharpness of ozone clings to him, seeming to fall in wisps from his shoulders as he bids you to rise. And when he offers you a hand his palm is warm.

[silvaurum]

spiritually my pantheism and animism are intertwined or perhaps one and the same but hard to explain with the language i have, but i essentially think of it like: the universe is alive and is god and each individual consciousness is like a cell in the whole and also a recurring fractal of the universe, unaware of the curves around it expect in vague terms. we feel like individuals but it's less that our souls are separate from each other and the divinity of the universal whole, and more that we're like pieces of holy dark-warmth twisted into little containers. like a balloon animal i guess but full of life-water-soul and in the infinite or near-infinite parts it takes to make a single balloon look like a breathing cosmos. every individual star and planet and forest and tree and mole and fruit and chitinous plate and cell a fractal of each other growing into galactic clouds in a universe that expands and contracts like a heart. it's all alive, from the magnetic core to the planetary rings to the amino acids mutating in the comets that rain. there is nothing separate in the universe, the things i can't sense are not really outside of me and the things i can sense are not outside the universe. i cannot control most of the holy body of god which is the universe within and without, from my perspective, because my perspective limits me to an "i" and a "not-i", a "you" and "we" and "them" and "it". useful constructs for a physical, material, biological body which is my only certain anchor in time and space from this perspective. i love my body and i love my universe which is my body in a sense, and i love that there is no "my" "mine" or "not-mine" because ownership is a construct too and there is nothing really separate or more important than anything else. my arm does not think my brain belongs to it, my gut doesn't believe it owns my earrings, and so the universe doesn't have any concept of ownership. the facets look different and separate from our perspective as animals in this one tiny area of space-time. it's useful to think of them that way.

but anyway i think expanding my sexuality out to the seemingly inanimate universe is a natural part of all this, so i would like to ask if anyone has experience asking the cosmic-sacred if it's down to fuck. i think ego death could be sexually stimulating. being caressed by the molten hot core of the planet and the burning arms of the flaring sun and the depths of void space and the pressure of the birthplace of earth's life in the deep ocean. i think merging my animal ability to feel pleasure as a bio-material sensate being, which is one of the main purposes of biological life in my opinion, with an opening of my spirit to the reality of connection and wholeness of the universe, just a small dose of recognition of egoless selfless existing, as a drop of water in an ocean isn't really a sphere of water untouched by others but a metaphor for something that can never be put into the same configuration again, would be fun, nice. i want my back blown out while my mind dissolves into the universal consciousness. hopefully just in a dream state so i don't have to explain myself if someone wants to know what the hell is going on

[crispycrimebrulee]

HI! Can i request chrollo with prompt 12? Thanksssss <3

Prompt #12: "I Miss You" "Don't Lie, I Know She's With You." [Angst!] [TW: Cheating] [Also Available on AO3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/31658609 ]

Absence Makes The Heart Grow...Fickle.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Indeed, a statement that every relationship comes to meet, a milestone, a test of faith across miles of land and oceans, for if your love can withstand distance, surely it can withstand time, turmoil, and anything else.

And yet…

You find yourself, staring out of a raindrop riddled window, the soft hush of rainfall on adding fuel to your thoughts, watching your worries become realities as a pattern emerged from his constant actions…

Or lack thereof.

Could you blame him, though? Chrollo Lucilfer, feared among thieves and civilians alike, ruthlessness without bounds when he’s set on getting what he wants, going to any distance, metaphorical or physical to obtain what he wants most. You couldn’t really fault him for his distance; his distance in miles, being thousands of miles away gallivanting with his spiders on yet another quest, continuously building his legacy. You couldn’t blame him for his emotional distance either. He was an intense man to reach, to truly reach and understand and get close to. It would take ages of hard work and commitment to get him to share even a fraction of a clue of his own troubles to you. Not to mention, he always had something on his mind, a new quest, a new artifact, a new theory from his books, a new gang to silence, debts to collect...oh was he a busy man. You couldn’t blame him for being so far away, so distant…

And yet…

In the past he’d always made time for you, always called and made sure you were safe and taken care of while he was away. You’d been his top priority, his ultimate treasure, all quests and roads lead back to you at the end of a day or the end of a month, it was always your heart he returned home to and you welcomed him time and time again, how could you not? Everything about him was captivating, you’d be a fool to not let him in and have all that you are, albeit slowly and carefully, weary of what he was capable of.

Not weary enough, it seems.

You’d let him in, opened your doors to him and allowed him to gaze at what you thought was everything he wanted. Sure, it was everything he wanted, more than that by far. But as thieves go, they take without bounds and leave the door ajar, only a little so that they may slip in and steal whatever is left whenever they please, and you can do nothing to stop them seeing as only a fool lets a thief in their home.

He’d taken valuables beyond obtainable prices.

Love, time, faith, gentle smiles and gentler words, secrets of hopes and dreams and fears, all of it. He’d taken all of it without remorse on the basis of ‘your love could never be replaced’ promising he would only and always come back to you…

And.

Yet.

You already knew his heart and his eyes had wandered, from missed calls to missed dates to missed events to ‘forgetting to tell you he’d returned home’, to hearing whispers from shop owners mentioning they’d seen him with Her, his hand resting on the slope of Her hip, his eyes resting on Her hands as She held gifts from places he’d been, places he knows you could only dream of visiting, gifts that were seldom for you. He’d already tested the waters with another, already given in to a special kind of temptation, a one sided selfish temptation. What had you meant to him? Were you only someone to play with, something to fill a gap in his desires, desire for a sense of stability? Had he only spent years with you to play house with a docile routine only to put you on the shelf when the gap had closed, a new one opening where you did not fit? Were you another object he had to have, something to join a collection of used dolls, a worn out plaything, a gemstone now frosted and without luster, something to be given away with lesser value?

Of course, you little fool. What else would he want with you?

Only souls with stars in their eyes and hope in their hearts think ruthlessness with no bounds have bounds in regards to another, and that they’ll be the special one, the one that gets spared and cherished. Do thieves cherish? Do thieves find things special beyond monetary value? What monetary value did you hold?

Not enough, not enough, not enough.

You could only think about what She’d done to coax him away, or what She hadn’t done at all. You thought about it as you would walk to the store, the park, the bank, and glimpses of Her would cross your eyes clear as day, the scent of Her perfume, the clatter of Her bracelets, the sound of Her shoes on the pavement going to wherever Chrollo was, wherever he wasn’t with you, the place he said he would always return to. And at first, it was merely suspicion, something you talked yourself out of on nights where he was home but away from you, nights where he failed to call, night where you’d caught glimpses of them out late at night as though you wouldn’t notice.

Ruthlessness without bounds.

Suspicion only lead to confirmation by others and by your own eyes, accidentally of course, when he would come home and find Her earrings in his pocket, love letters in his jacket no longer addressed to you, Her perfume lingering on his shirt and pressed to his skin, catching the notes of sandalwood and citrus as he dared to sleep beside you on nights he could not sleep beside Her.

You could blame him.

And you did.

Your caring, your desperation and sorrow and attempts to reach out to him while he was wrapped up in satin sheets with Her only added fuel to his ill willed fire. You simply stepped back, two can play at that game.

You stopped wearing the foreign gifts, stopped reading the dull love letters, stopped sending calls and messages to someone who clearly did not care to receive them or not. To lose power, leverage, the damage it does to know what the ruthlessness of an old lover can do.

Being so easily let go, like the treasures he sells, was too much for him it seemed.

So much so, that your phone rang, his name lighting up the screen. You looked at it, letting the ringing pass through you as you considered if you should leave him wondering and falling apart.

Wondering too long, the call fell, the abrupt end to the rings bringing you out of your thoughts as you went back to watching the rain fall.

No more than 5 minutes, it seemed, before the phone rang again, Chrollo seemingly desperate to reach you now, more so than he ever had.

Once, twice, three times your phone rang before you picked it up slowly, a somber hello drawn out from you.

“Y/N… I haven’t heard you in some time-”

“I know.” you cut him off, your voice soft but stern and unamused.

He was silent for a moment, the sound of rain on both ends prodding at your thoughts again.

“You’ve been well, I hope? I’ve sent some things over to you from my recent trip.”

“Mmm… I never got them.” you lied, of course, knowing the small packages remind untouched, sitting outside on your balcony getting soaked by the rain.

“I’m sure I sent them, y/n, a few things I know you’d enjoy.” he hummed as he seemed to be lacing his words with sweetness, too much for his own sake, really.

“I’ll look out for them.”

Although you knew you wouldn’t.

He sighed, a rare sign from him, the sound of him sitting down from wherever he is, making the audio crackle.

“I’ve been gone a while, y/n.”

“I know. I know more than anyone.”

“I haven’t called as much as you’d like me to, it’s my fault my love.”

“It is your fault, Chrollo.”

Silence.

“Y/n…”

“Chrollo.”

“I miss you.”

You tilted your head to the side, watching the raindrops race down the window as Chrollo lied his finest lie.

“Don’t lie, I know She’s with you.”

Although you couldn’t see him, you could sense the shift in the atmosphere, was the shift from losing his chance to reconcile? Losing his chance to explain? Or from being caught like a rat in a cage of his own making?

“Y/n there's-”

“Tell me, Chrollo...do you miss me when you run your fingers through Her hair?”

“...”

“Or when you kiss Her hand and walk Her home?”

Deathly silence from someone so brazen...

“Do you miss me when your lips brush against Her skin, do you think of me then?”

You didn’t give him a chance to answer as you ended the call, knowing the damage on both ends had been done. You wouldn’t answer his calls, late or early, for the next few days as you planned to find a new place to stay, somewhere he wouldn’t find for a little while. His gifts provided ample financial help when traded in pawn shops, allowing you to gather yourself quickly and vanish in the same fashion that he did.

Your doors were closed, now, less of a fool for a thief with no bounds.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it leaves the rest of you lonely.

[morihaus]

Apotheosis

Winds howl outside of the Imperial Palace. Belharza, son of the Emperor Alessia, sits alone in his chair in the chamber of the council. The weather has not been the only thing weighing on the city of Rumarium; for days now the Emperor has been poor of health, the toll of all her life's toil and struggle finally arriving to meet her on her deathbed, the somber hand of Arkay, the bitter kiss of Kyne.

Twelve hours hence, she has been dead. Her son survives her as only child and heir to her throne. The city mourns her, and as word spreads, all of Cyrod mourns its mother, its liberator and caretaker, its Emperor for 23 years- just 23, such a pittance when stacked up to the tyranny of the Ayleid hegemony, which to men seemed to stretched beyond the farthest point of remembrance, so many lives ago that the time before exists only in myth. The First-crowned Queen-ut-Cyrod deserved better than this. Belharza's mother deserved better.

He feels a breeze blow in from behind him, a wind coursing through the marble halls of the palace, blowing his long dark hair over his shoulders. It is only wind, and then, footfalls on the floor, slow and heavy, in stark contrast to the flight of the wind. Belharza lifts his head and glances over his shoulder. A massive minotaur fills the doorway to the council chamber, long hair waving and curling down his shoulders like a sky of black clouds. His horns are tall and proud, wrapped with rings of gold and ebony, strung with strings of hawk's feathers. Two large wings are folded on his back. The cold wind blows behind him.

He regards his son with deep blue eyes, clouded and gray, belying his true age. The old bull looks weary. "Belharza." His voice is deep, carried and reverberated by the chambers even as he addresses him gently. He steps forward, his armor of fur and iron the only noise apart from his footsteps, and the gentle wind that surrounds him.

Belharza stands up from his seat. He meets the eye of Morihaus- he can see now why his mother has often remarked their resemblance with a melancholy smile, although his own hair does not roll like the clouds do, his own eyes do not hold the dangerous glimmer of lightning, nor does his form hold the foreboding rumble of thunder. He did, however, sprout a small pair of wings from an early age- too small to be useful, but just enough to be there. It is among the only things his father has ever given him.

"Father." Belharza speaks flatly, his mood dark, unfit for this meeting he had always dreamed of. He never knew Morihaus growing up, he'd taken flight from the Imperial City before he was born, something his mother had never been bitter over, and for the most part, he'd followed her line of thinking. He had often wondered, though, speaking with the clan of Morihaus- for he was a great uncle to many war chiefs and soothsayers- and hearing tales of his greatness, his good humor and passion for song, and he wondered too while speaking to the Paravanics who had fought alongside him and his mother, who spoke of him as a great general, savior of men, one who could clear a treeline with his voice- he wondered what it would be to meet his father, this mythical figure of his boyhood who so many grownups seemed to know.

He wondered, but he had never pictured the meeting like this.

Morihaus walked so that there was only a small distance between the father and son, and then bowed his head- in sympathy, in apology, in reverence, Belharza could not say.

But he says this: "She is gone." And when his father does not move, he continues. "She has left us. Gone to join you, I suppose." His words are without venom, he states them as a fact he wishes to grow used to. His father raises back up to meet him. His features are set in a worried frown. "I am sorry, Belharza." He breathes into the room as a whisper. "For my loss?" He asks plainly. "Or, do you wish to amend your own absence from my life?" His face does not change. "I should like to apologize on both accounts, dear Bel."

"Did you come to see her?" Belharza asks, neutral once again.

Morihaus nods. "I felt her time approach and made haste." The face of a minotaur is not extraordinarily emotive to a man, but to a man-bull, like Belharza, he can interpret the subtleties, the shame painted on his face, the guilt in his eyes. "In service to my Mother Kyne, I have carried many souls of great warriors on wing to her realm, or to the realm of Shor... it was understood between us, your mother was a great warrior, an ardent follower of her ways, and she would have her place there. But when I arrived..." He becomes quiet, his full and melodious voice withdrawing back down his throat, filling his lungs up heavy with bitter words.

Belharza makes no motion to speak. He only looks at his father, expectantly. He continues, eventually.

"What I witnessed is... difficult to explain. You were present- did you see? As she passed?" Morihaus asks. Belharza nods. "I was there." He pauses. "...I may have seen, something. I see many things that others do not. Mother always said you were to thank for that, your divine blood." The old bull nods at him. "Aye, that is the truth. The mortal and the divine, they see things differently. On that balcony, at her side... he arrived before me."

"The Crusader." He says, half-questioningly. "Pelinal."

A huff of hair blows out from Morihaus's snout. "It looked that way. But Pelinal is dead. He was torn asunder in this tower, he spoke to me as his spirit passed into a place I could not follow. And this... apparition, in it, I did not sense his spirit. Did you hear?" Belharza nods quietly, Morihaus continues. "What he spoke of, the et'ada, the beginning place, the movements of the heavens... in life, he never did say much of the gods. He served them, and I knew him as kin, but he has always held a distaste for spiritual matters, spoken in mortal tongues. I cannot fathom why he came to Paravania, nor what he meant to say."

"He took her," Belharza says, glancing to the floor. "I saw- I thought I saw. It looked as though he carried her up, up into the heavens."

"He steals mine own honor." Morihaus snorts, almost laughs. Then, again, he grows serious. "My uncle was never one to covet in life. He hungered, he wanted, but he did not covet that which was another's. He would have nothing to do with Perrif's soul, nothing before my mother and I."

His son looks back up to him. "Where... where did he take her? To the halls of Shor?"

Morihaus shakes his head. "I have been myself- Pelinal's spirit does not reside there. It cannot reside there. I would have carried him myself if he could." He hangs his head some, recalling the passing of his uncle, and finding himself on complicated ground betwixt mundane and immortal once again. "I have thought on it in these past years. At times, I blew through the great fields and forests, delved into the deep oceans, soared to the highest points in the clouds, hunting his spirit, without luck. I am wise enough to confess my stubborn nature, for divine I may be, I am still a bull, and I hunted for long on my own before thinking to ask my mother."

Belharza tries to conceive of what his father says- the shape of a bull with the wings of a hawk, darting throughout all of creation to find a departed soul. He suspects it may be more complicated than that, some divine metaphor twisting around it, but then again, he recalls fondly-remembered stories his mother would share of Morihaus, his willfulness and the strange places it could take him- times he would cross over the Jerrals, travel half the continent while meant to be petitioning in Skyrim, to return to Cyrod and meet with her at night.

The image of his father, flighty and wild, turning over logs and stones searching for the lost Pelinal, it's almost enough to lighten his expression. But this is just his own mind wandering. Perhaps they are more alike than he knows.

"Understanding my mother is no mean feat," He says, regarding his son. "Strange as I must seem to you, know that to me, my divine parent is just as alien. I am her, but as am I my mortal mother, my mortal people, my mortal self, and some of her perceptions are all but lost on me. She told me little, she told that Pelinal had done what was needed of him, and to die with the revolution's victory was a good end... but as to his whereabouts, she said he was not her soul to keep." "Then whose?" Belharza asks. He is met with silence, frustrating silence. He asks more forcefully. "Whose? Where is my mother's soul? What did he do to her?" "He pulled her up- made her from mortal to spirit, so she might lay among the heavens forever. Queen-ut-Cyrod, brighter than the stars-" "I don't care for your poetry-" Belharza loudly asserts, his own voice now booming in the hall. "I don't care for your god-talk- dammit!" He turns to one side with a huff, boots clattering against the tiles of the chamber. He paces away from his father in no particular direction, approaching a column and glaring into it.

Morihaus looks on, forlorn. He sighs, and the breeze almost wraps itself around Belharza's shoulders as it tussles his hanging braids, like some form of comfort. "I'm sorry. This... is what I hope for, Bel, but whether it is the truth, I cannot say."

"What do I care?" Belharza shakes his head, clenching his fists at his sides. "Whether her spirit is in one place or another- she's gone, that's what has happened today, and that is the grief I will carry for the rest of my life. What is the point in wondering where she is? The realm of Kyne, of Shor, of Akatosh, it makes no difference, she is gone to me any way." His voice grows ragged as he chokes with tears, his eyes stinging with bitter sorrows. Though a grown man, he feels helpless like a child in the face of such a loss- his mother had been his world, and now the shadow of death had ripped her away from him, and she was gone, forever.

His father approaches him, but leaves a fair distance, just slight enough for his whispering voice to carry to him. "Do you remember what she told you, Bel, about me? When I was gone to you?" Belharza does not reply, only taking a breath as he remains fixed on the pillar in front of him. "...I am a spirit, Bel. I am more than my body, more than a man-bull. I am the skies and storms, the thunder; I am movement, I am the movements in the hearts of men, I am their battlecry; I am the wind in the rolling hills, blowing the grasses and flowers; I am the breeze in the canopy of the forest, swaying the branches; I am the gale upon the sea, the scent of it in your lungs, I am the very breath that you take." Belharza finally turns to face his father again, without expression, with tears on his face. Morihaus is not shaken from his words. "When a mortal dies, their spirit is released into a vast cosmos. They are gone from their lives, from their loved ones, but from there, there are many roads, countless paths that a soul can take... do you understand?"

He only receives an expectant look. Belharza's face lightens somewhat. There is hope in the winding words of Morihaus.

"Though I was forced to leave you, and could no longer walk this world as I had, I found my ways to you- to both of you. It has been, and will be forever, a great pain that I could not stay... but there are some ways in which my presence could be felt, some ways in which I was there all along." Morihaus steps forward, slowly raising his hand to brush Belharza's hair from his face, as gently as the breeze, as his own mother's hand. "Your mother will be gone as I was. You will feel her. She will still be with you."

---

Belharza was anointed Emperor before the Elder Council and the citizens of the Imperial City, including his divine father, who could not stay for long, but was pleased to see and know his son as a man, and content to answer the questions of the citizenry to the best of his ability, or at least his want.

The new emperor spends the first weeks of his reign still in mourning, but more hopeful for having spoken with his father and his other relatives, who gave him heart to imagine his mother at peace. He spends much of his days outdoors, honoring her memory in the gardens and outside the city walls, even beyond the shores of the Rumare and into the jungles. On one occasion, which would be a moment only for him to know and remember, he stumbles upon a field of flowers below a small hill. He finds it a good place to say his piece, and there he would speak to his mother, expressing his deepest affections and tearful goodbyes. All of the sudden, he feels drops of water landing on his bowed head, and he looks up to see a spring running from the rock, a spring which had most definitely not been there before. As though the land of Cyrod itself were weeping for him.

At this, Belharza only smiles knowingly.

[palladiumfragments]

Before the coffee gets cold let me tuck in a mellow Sunday morning in your hair for my unsteady fingers to comb through from time to time. Let me press my cheek against the palm of your hand and tell you nothing has changed, that your touch still feels like that one December night, that if you peered at the spot where my defenses are weakest, you’ll find us sharing long, slow, deliberate kisses in the dark. Your lips, as soft as a pond’s surface, my lips creating the ripples.

Last night I was thinking of giving peaceful poems a try. But there’s a tugging in my stomach, the crippling fear that delicate words won’t flow naturally as they are strangers to the skin I often wear, molasses to a throat in desperate need of water. I’m afraid my fingertips might recoil when confronted by an unadulterated bloodstain and might never again brave to sail uncharted waters. And like any other creatures Apollo did not bless, my words might wither like chrysanthemums soaked in Tuscany sun. But then, there’s a part of me that dresses in linen and stardust, the girl who has summer for a head and owns a yellow thatched-roof cottage at the foot of a pine tree-dusted mountain. Maybe I can write dulcet poems after all, and all of them are my love poems for you paraphrased. It must be why every word I weave out of love has the shadow of your name and the remnants of your smile. Won’t it be lovely for you to be the current that will smooth my serrated metaphors, turn them into angel wings?

The skies are beyond my words, my darling, but I can promise you safe shores at all times. Believe that there will always be eggs in your plate in the morning and a blanket for you at night. I’ve said this a thousand times but your brown eyes flecked with midnight colors do look good in the butter sun, and I wonder which planet’s song do I have to know by heart to create wrinkles in those heavenly pools. I know I once deemed romantics cliché, but look at me now, eager to collect Asteria’s falling stars from the bottom of the ocean to adorn your night sky. Will you promise to keep this fire burning, engrave the verses in Saturn’s rings?

So while the morning light creeps across the floorboards, while a lobby jazz plays from the radio in the hallway, I will turn to the seventeenth page of this journal and write an entry; I have composed a prose in my head while staring at you. I have imagined you eating breakfast in the sun-lit kitchen of my dream house. I have imagined seeing you singing lullabies to my children. I have seen the seasons change from the corners of my eyes, all faint and blurry. The only thing that didn’t change was you standing before me, an image as crisp as the autumn air. The calm among the chaos is here at long last.

Before you I used to tire myself dodging bullets in the dark. I thrashed, screamed, and fought― but there was a part of me that stood still. And that was the part of me that waited for you.

― autumn artemis, Before The Coffee Gets Cold

12.15. 2020

photo from: pinterest

[comfy-whumpee]

Kieran

TW: discussion of abuse (partner and child), slavery, inferred noncon.

Sequel to Ash’s post Queen of Underland, here. Savvie and Izzy are her characters. No extended Silver Chair metaphor in this one, sorry!

Dad Jax Taglist: @iaminamoodymoodtoday, @wildfaewhump, @ishouldblogmore, @lektricwhump, @that-one-thespian, @raigash, @burtlederp, @rosesareviolentlyread, @whumptywhumpdump, @eatyourdamnpears thank you all for the amazing commentary.

He’s not been around long, and Jax shouldn’t really, but fuck it. He needs someone. He needs to talk about this. And clearly… It’s going to be a thing, with him, going forwards. He needs to explain.

So he makes arrangements, and after the kids are in bed, he steps outside in his jacket and sees the simple silver car. After one glance up and down the street, and a check of both the number plate and driver, he gets in. He leans across the handbrake and drops a kiss on the waiting cheek of the man inside.

Kieran O’Leary-Ahmed is a gorgeous man. Jax loves the light tickle of his shaggy hair, the gentle softness to his smile and the light that sits in his eyes like a shaft of sunlight on a deep ocean floor. He always wears simple, loose clothing, like today: black hoodie, black T-shirt, back jeans; the only accessories are his watch and his septum ring. He’s perfect. Jax is nowhere near good enough for him.

But Kieran likes him anyway.

“Hey, love,” he greets Jax with a soft, slightly high voice, tinged with a Dublin childhood. “How’s things?”

Jax settles back into the car seat as Kieran pulls away, heading for one of his countless green spots around the edges of Manchester city. Jax doesn’t know where they’re going, and for once, doesn’t feel the need to find out in advance. He’s safe with this man.

“Some trouble at school today,” he says after a long moment. “Izzy apparently shouted her head off in class.”

Kieran’s eyebrows rise. “Izzy?”

“Right?” Jax agrees with his disbelief, chuckling weakly. “I don’t know what happened. Apparently one minute she was working as normal, teacher steps out, and when she comes back Izzy is swearing at this kid.”

Kieran doesn’t ask why his nine-year-old daughter knows how to swear. It’s obvious enough. “And…are we proud of her?”

Jax blinks, looking again to his boyfriend. It’s a good question. “Yeah, we are.”

“Good,” Kieran smiles. He knows, of course, how Izzy struggles with letting things out. Jax has talked about it before. He’s even met the little girl a few times.

But he doesn’t know the story.

“So, what happened? How did she get to that point?”

Jax sighs slowly, rubbing at one of the scars on the side of his thumb. Kieran pulls up at the edge of a car park, a tiny gravel affair with no marker lines, abandoned at this time of night. All around them are trees.

Quiet falls as the overhead light slowly dims itself to black. Leaves rustle softly outside, and there’s nothing else to disturb them.

He breaks the silence like a man stepping off a ledge. “You know their mother?”

“Of course.”

“And she was… She was abusive.”

“Mhmm.”

“I didn’t tell you much, I know, but… Well, she was – she wasn’t great to Izzy either. A lot of what she’s like…comes from being raised that way.”

Kieran turns to him in the evening light, resting his temple on the headrest. “That makes sense.”

“Yeah…” But that’s not the story. Jax looks down at his hands and rubs his thumb along his bare ring finger, remembering what sat there. Never again.

Kieran didn’t look him up. He said he wouldn’t, when Jax mentioned people had. He said he didn’t care about anything that didn’t come from Jax himself. Jax almost wishes now that he had.

Five years, and it didn’t get easier.

“When I was, uh… Twenty-one. I got abducted into modern slavery.”

Kieran doesn’t reply. Jax waits for the reaction, and all he gets is a slow nod.

“The guy who…sold me. Uh, I was – auctioned. My ex, she – her uncle bought me for her.”

There is, maybe, a soft inhale, hissing through Kieran’s teeth. He’s smart, smarter than Jax. The pieces come together quickly for him.

The words feel so small for how big it all was. They’re all he has. “For the first – the first time, I mostly cleaned, and… She treated me like a captive best friend. I got out, I – escaped, got a message to my dad… That’s when she went to prison. But after she got out, not long after, she – her family, they work as, as slave catchers. She had them take me back. And that time, she decided I-I was her – her t-true love.”

He can almost feel how much Kieran wants to touch him. He can imagine the hands moving towards him in the dark to rub circles on his back or take his hand. What Kieran actually does, though, is turn and look out of the windscreen at the shifting shapes of trees in the dark.

Jax glances to his side. The doors are locked. Safe.

“She kept me there for…years. With the, you’ve seen the…” he gestures at his neck. His hand is shaking. “…It was a shock collar. I couldn’t, if – if I left, she said she’d kill my dad, and I was still trying, but…”

It’s the most he’s talked about it since court. His heart is beating too fast for sitting in a car. The way the shadows move make his teeth itch and his mind spin shapes.

“Sh-she… She got pregnant,” he forces out, voice cracked.

Kieran breathes out, slowly, as if the breath he took had been trapped in his lungs.

“I couldn’t, after that, I couldn’t – I couldn’t. Maybe she would have – if I’d escaped, maybe she wouldn’t h-have kept it, but, but there was a – a chance she wouldn’t sh-she’d keep it as a-a punish-ment or t-to get m-me back—” He tries to inhale, and the air clogs in his throat. He jerks slightly, and it’s not quite a sob. It’s something mistakable for the shudder of an aftershock. They all are.

He covers his face with his hands, and Kieran doesn’t look. Not looking helps.

“When I… I saw how sh-she treated Izzy, I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave. And then Jamie… F-Four years, till I managed to get us out. And Izzy, she – I-I couldn’t keep her safe. She doesn’t kn-know how to be safe, really, even now, so…”

A really bad aftershock. Consistent tremors through him, twisting up his breaths. Kieran must be able to hear, but he just listens, nods occasionally, and lets Jax speak.

“Today,” Jax says, finding the point amongst all the chaos in his head, “t-today, she heard these boys talking about kissing a girl when – when she didn’t want to. And she’s s-seen that happen, to, t-to me."

The light that glimmers in Kieran’s eyes disappears as he closes them. He understands.

“And then they talked about me, and her, and her in prison and all of that and Iz yelled at them, and, so, I’m – I’m so fucking p-proud of her, b-but, she – she shouldn’t, sh-she shouldn’t have to do that, do a-any of it.”

He swallows. He needs a moment, needs a moment to breathe, he can feel it in the rising panic in his head and the tightness of his chest, even though nothing more is happening than words and glimpses of Savvie standing outside the car, pale skin and dark hair in moonlight, telling him that he’ll always be hers.

When the silence has stretched for minutes or more, Kieran opens his eyes and brushes a hand over his cheek. He turns his head back to Jax. His voice is the same steady, soft tone as before. “It’s not your fault.”

The words pierce straight to his heart, and finally, a sob breaks clear of his self-control. He buries his face back into his hands, and Kieran’s hand settles, finally, between his shoulder blades, and stays there, his anchor in the depths.

[novantinuum]

Fandom: Steven Universe

Rating: Teen Audiences

Words: 700~

Summary: A series of shorts detailing what might’ve happened in the moments after I Am My Monster, told from six different points of view.

Connie time! Apparently I really love writing phone calls. I’m not sure why that’s a constant trope in my stuff, ahah.

If you read this and enjoy, I’d greatly appreciate your support through reblogs here, or kudos/comments on AO3. Thank you! <3

(This is chapter 4/6.)

____

Chapter 4: Connie

Connie paces the shore a good few yards away from the base of the beach house, clutching her phone to her ear in a grip so tight it’s left her fingers trembling from muscle strain.

The line rings once. Twice. Thrice. Every pause between those high pitched trilling tones carries yet another rush of anxiety, filling her basin ever fuller against her wishes. Her head thrums with the aura of migraine, a side effect of her stress that’s become disconcertingly common as of late. (It’s the tension, she reminds herself with a quiet sigh. She’s clenching the muscles of her face and limbs rigid far too often.)

“Mom?” she says when the call finally goes through, her voice strained with indescribable exhaustion. 

The sheer unprofessional urgency in which her mother responds honestly stresses her out even more... so, so different from her usual levelheaded demeanor. It’s obvious, then, that she must have been fearfully expecting this call.

“Connie? What’s—“

“Mom, y-you know how you said to let you know if there were any more incidents? With, uh... with the swelling?”

“Oh. Oh, goodness. Is he okay?” she asks. “Are you okay??” she quickly adds before her mouth can bob open to reply to her first query. The question probably stems from blind parental worry more than anything. In her mind, though, it should be obvious she’s physically okay if ‘I’m hurt’ isn’t the important detail she leads with.

“Yes, he’s—“ she shifts her phone to her other ear, her right hand shaking too much at this point that she’s afraid she’ll drop it— “no one’s hurt. We’re fine. Well, not fine, but... not in immediate danger, I guess.” She swallows hard, her throat growing progressively more narrow as she attempts to stammer out a somewhat useful explanation. “Things got messy, though, a-a-and I still don’t know how to feel about it, or what to do, and I-I’m—“

“Kahaani, love. Take a deep breath for me. You’re safe, yes?”

Initially struggling to wrest control of her respiration’s sharp pace, Connie pauses for a few moments. She distracts herself from her swarming anxieties by watching the tide wash in, its motion constant and reassuringly cyclical. Recent memories— of that creature thrashing, clawing, and roaring amidst the water, only held back by the Cluster’s might— almost threaten to overwhelm her, but in the end it’s just a thought. It can’t control her, right? It... it can’t control her.

“You’re okay,” the voice on the other side of the call affirms. “And I’m listening.”

The world’s still standing. The sun still shines. Despite every living nightmare today has offered, she’s still here. 

“Now,” her mom leads gently. “What happened?”

She swallows hard.

“The swelling, it... well, it kinda got worse,” she says. “When he came home, he was pink again, and at first he kept swelling up like before, but then... He kept saying all these really negative things about himself, that he’s a fraud, a monster, and—“

“And... what?”

Her words sinks into a hoarse whisper as she desperately tries not to relive this horrifying reality all over again. “And then he just... exploded, and turned into one.”

“You mean, he—“

“I mean it literally, Mom!” she interjects before her mother can try to rationalize her words in terms of human medical knowledge, a futile activity. “I’m not just being metaphoric, here! He grew taller than the entire hillside. He was covered in scales, and spikes, a-and he seemed to barely recognize us.”

There’s a long, nauseating pause as her mother drinks in this information.

“Is— he still in this form?” she eventually manages, her tone strained.

“No. Thankfully, no. We got him back. I don’t know how we managed it, but he’s safe. He’s resting now. But some of the others are worried about how this might’ve impacted his health, since he’s half-organic. I think...” Connie closes her eyes, inhaling briefly before continuing. “I saw scarring, when we were moving him back to the house. And honestly, I don’t really know what I should do now. About anything.”

“Connie, I’m coming over the second my shift ends, okay? Just... hang in there for an hour longer. I’ll bring some equipment so we can check on his vitals, and we’ll go from there.”

“Okay,” she replies, and wipes relieved tears from her cheeks. “See you soon.”

“I love you, honey.“

“Love you.”

[solesurvivorpaigeargot]

HOLY HELLO, friends and followers! It's once again that time, time for...

SKETCHY SATURDAY!

This week, we're bringing back one of my favorite types of prompt-- the Quote prompt!

This one is pretty simple, but I still gotta lay down the rules. Follow me past the read-more if you're wanting to participate this week!

This week is all about the dialog-- requesters may select a character and a quote to send in, after which I'll do the rest. If you're an old hand at this event, this is exactly the same as previous quotation prompts, just with an updated quote list.... buuuuut you can still validate my time spent writing the guidelines every week by reading them anyway XD

For the rest of ye, ONWARDS!

To send a VALID request for this week's Sketchy Saturday, send an ASK to my ASKBOX containing the following:

The CHARACTER you'd like sketched ---- Canon? Yep! OC? Hell yes! Everybody's welcome so long as they're from the Fallout Universe! ---- One character per ask ---- Sending an OC? Send your request ask FIRST, and THEN send reference info to my Tumblr IM ---- Don't have a reference image? Text description is fine! Going from text lets me flex my character design muscles!

The NUMBER of your selected quote ---- Numbers help me find things faster, but you can transcribe the quote, too, if you wanna. ---- Got more than one favorite? List up to three, in order of preference. If someone else has used your first choice, I'll move on to your second [or third]. ---- Still can't choose? Send me 'Dealer's Choice!' and I'll pick one... or maybe make up something new on the spot ;3

As always, I'd like to remind everyone that the artist is a singular human, managing this event to try and give people some joy during a time when there seems to be a dwindling supply. Please remember to be polite, say please and thanks, reblog the art after it's finished, make 'oooo' noises in the tags, all that good shit.

Kay? M'kay.

And with that all outta the way... THE QUOTES!

CW for a lot of colorful language, implied violence, and general vulgarity XD

“Excellence knows no age.”

"Whoa, whoa, calm down-- my metaphorical dick can only get so hard."

"Like... a broken clock is right twice a day, but I feel like I'm insulting the clock with that comparison."

"You know, people in this town have a habit of getting in over their heads... like at the bottom of the ocean."

"What the fuck is that look for?"

"Shhhhh.... the adults are talking."

"I did NOT just spend six days in a hole to NOT get drunk at the first opportunity."

"And whether you believe that... or you're correct, it makes a nice hot take."

“Goddamnit, we fought a revolution so we wouldn’t have to pay any attention to the FUCKING British!

“We plan ahead; that way, we don’t do anything right now."

"If you don't stop smirking at me like that, I'm gonna have to kiss you."

"Shenanigans! I'm calling Shenanigans!!"

"Fuck you guys, I'm going home."

"That would imply some kind of agency-- I assure you, I did not CHOOSE this in any capacity."

"On a scale of one to ten, I think I'm hanging out somewhere in the concept of infinity."

"Got the short end of the stick, so I started beating people with it."

"That was so low on the list of things I expected to happen, it was in another state."

"BALLS TO THE WALL, BOYS!"

“You put a whole new shine on the word overkill.”

"Above my paygrade."

"I'm surrounded by assholes..."

"Besides-- in my professional opinion, the change is an improvement."

"A lifetime of preparation... and I end up a REFUGEE?"

".... are you not wearing pants right now?"

“I want a man with a tattoo on his dick! Have I got the right man?”

“I’m short for my height.”

"This isn't a joke, you shit-sucking asshole!"

"Count to... ten."

"Well that's just recockulous."

“So where the hell is the goddamn golden oldie coming from?”

"I always take my own advice under advisement-- you, on the other hand, should pay a little more goddamn attention."

"Listen, babe-- we've been attacked, chased, shot at, poisoned, and blown up! HOW could it get any WORSE?!"

“It will get colder and colder until we all have to go to hell just to warm up.”

“Broke into the wrong goddamn rec-room, didn’t you, you bastard?!”

“When you need it, and don’t have it, you sing a different tune.”

“I only speak two languages; English and Bad English!”

"[sigh]... 'Yer face' is NOT a numerical value."

“Nothing is impossible, only mathematically improbable.”

“I mean, [insert your faction of choice] offers to give you anything you want and you ask for just two cases of dynamite?”

“People keep giving me rings, but I really think a small death ray would be more practical.”

“Or, or, and this is the really important part, we might not die.”

"Tch, amateurs."

"Violence isn't the answer, it's the question-- and the answer is yes."

As always, this will be going online just as I'm crashing for the night, but the askbox is open and ready to collect requests right now! So get yours in, and I'll see ya in the morning when I start arting things up! :D

-Loor

[angst-fairygodmother]

Cliche prompt 48 or grumpy-affection 13 for Barba x reader? Plz. I need him.

A/N: Thank you so much for the prompts Nonny. I hope you enjoy the result! Word Count: 1785 Content Warnings: Panic attack/anxiety attack described in detail

Your hands trembled as you fumbled for your phone, tears blurring your vision and making it difficult to find his number. You felt like an elephant was sitting on your chest as you finally managed to make it to the right place in your contact list and click to dial. You pressed the cool glass of the screen to the side of your face and listened to it ring once, twice, three times.

“Come on, pick up,” you whispered desperately. “Please, please pick up.”

“Y/N?” he asked, voice distorted as it passed over the speakers but still undeniably, comfortingly him. “I did pick up.”

He sounded sleepy and with a glance over at the clock on your nightstand, you realized why. It was two in the morning, and he worked such late nights and long hours that he was probably just able to fall asleep before you disrupted him. Guilt twisted your aching stomach.

“Rafi!” you gasped, the thudding of your heart slowing minutely just hearing him. “Oh thank god.”

“What’s wrong?” there was a spike of panic in his voice and you could picture him as he sat up swiftly, sheets tossed aside and boxer-clad legs swinging down over the side of the mattress.

“I...I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called. I shouldn’t have woken you up. It’s just...I didn’t know who else to call.”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Just talk to me.”

“I have no right to ask, but could you...would you come over? I just really need somebody right now.” You shook your head, even though he couldn’t see it. “No, not somebody. I need you.”

There was a long pause. The world seemed to be spinning and you could hear the rush of your blood in your ears, crashing like the ocean but louder. The muscles in your neck clenched, practically screaming under their own tension. 

“Rafael?”

“I’m on my way,” he assured. “It’ll take time for me to get there, though. Will you be okay until then? Do you need me to stay on the phone?”

“No, I’ll be alright. Just focusing on getting here, okay?”

“Of course.”

~

About half an hour later, there was a knock on your apartment door and you forced yourself to stand on legs like over-cooked pasta to answer it.

“I got here as fast as I could. I even offered to use the tip feature to bribe the driver to ignore the one-way signs so I could get here faster, but he wouldn’t do it. Are you okay? Are you hurt? What happened? What’s wrong? What can I do?” he asked.

His statements and questions were more rapid-fire even than the worst grilling you’d ever seen him give the team, all of it spilling from his lips barely as soon as he had passed the door, a door which you clung to for support. He carefully hung his coat and scarf on the hook, knowing how particular you were about such things and turned to face you. 

“Y/N? Please talk to me.” His hands reached out, hovering, waiting for you to speak, to consent, to tell him something before he dared to actually touch you. “Whatever it is, whatever happened, we’ll get through it. I’ll do whatever you need.”

“You’re talking too much,” you sighed, biting your lip. “Just shut up and hold me.”

Taken aback, he gaped momentarily at you before doing as you asked. Still a little hesitant, he placed his hands on your shoulders before rethinking it and sliding his arms further around you, pulling you close against his chest. You breathed in his sharp, clean scent and let it break down the last of your walls. Like cutting strings of a tangled marionette, all of the tension leached out of you and you all but collapsed, his strong arms and firm grip the only things keeping you off the floor. A soft sob wrenched from your lips and you clung to the soft fabric of his sweater, balling the no-doubt expensive fabric in your fingers tight enough to leave an impression.

Moving awkwardly, he guided you to your couch, never letting the space between you grow wider than an inch. You shifted to sit beside him and felt him tsk with a shake of his head, the only warning you had before you were pulled into his lap and your head was tucked beneath his chin. You felt yourself being gently rocked as he hummed a simple melody, running soothing strokes up and down your spine and for the first time in hours, you felt like the blackness might leave and things might be okay. 

There was a click, somewhere in the background, and it startled you, making you jump.

“Oh! I forgot,” you said, pulling away slightly to look toward the kitchen. “I made a pot of coffee, since you were coming over and it’s so late...early…” 

You moved to stand and go make him a cup when he stopped you with a hand on your arm. His eyes were crinkled with barely restrained laughter. 

“You know me too well. But you stay here, I’ll get it myself. Do you want a cup?”

You nodded. Now that the panic part of your night was over, you were feeling completely drained and the little jolt of warmth and caffeine sounded perfect, just to keep you human until you could sleep. He shifted you gently off his lap and stood, leaning back over to place a kiss to your forehead and then headed into your kitchen. 

You twisted, leaning your chin on the back of your couch to watch him as he expertly navigated your apartment, smiling at the implication held in his familiarity and comfort there. He was wearing jeans and a soft fleece pull-over. His hair was uncombed and stuck up at amusing angles, tales of his own restless sleeping before you called and his rush to come to your side. It took a rare person to be allowed to see Rafael Barba anything less than put together, and yet here he was, letting you see it all in high definition. 

“At least you’re smiling now,” he observed as he set two large mugs on your coffee table and resumed his seat beside you. “Smiling is a lot better than crying.”

You felt a blush heat your cheeks and you bit your lip as you turned back to him, tucking your knees up to your chest as you faced him. You hadn’t realized you were staring, or smiling, until he pointed it out, but of course you were. Rafael was your rock, your anchor, your life raft, whatever metaphor you needed at any given time to say that he was the best thing in your life and the thing that made you feel grounded and whole and okay no matter what, and you loved him.

“Now that you’re feeling a little better,” he said, hesitating, taking a sip and then a second of his coffee to stall and work up the courage to ask. “Do you want to talk about it?”

You sighed, sipping your own drink — perfectly made to your preferences of course — while you gathered your thoughts, and then cradling the mug in your hands.

“It was just...I get anxiety attacks sometimes,” you explained hesitantly. “Especially when the cases are really hard. But it’s never been this bad before. I felt like I was actually dying and I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You thought you were dying and your first thought was to call me?” he asked, softly tilting his head and looking at you, with that gentle, comforting warmth in his green eyes that you knew he only reserved for you. 

“Well...yeah. I lo...I mean you’re you. It just made sense in my head.”

You wanted to tell him the real reason you had thought first to call him. You wanted so badly to say those words that were poised on the tip of your tongue every time you looked into his eyes or saw his face or heard his voice. Instead, they died on your lips and you made do with what you could get out.

“I’ve never had them, so you’ll have to walk me through what I need to do,” he offered, “but I’ll help however I can. This time and any other time they come up.”

“They come and go so irregularly, and each one is a little different. I don’t know if I can teach you or explain it right.”

“Then start with right now. How are you feeling?”

“Okay. Better now. A little nauseous, and exhausted, but that happens a lot. I think the worst of it is behind me.” You felt guilty again and frowned. “It might have been ending on its own before you got here. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have dragged you out of bed.”

You didn’t admit that it was the knowledge he was coming that helped you calm down. You had already come too close tonight to saying something that it wasn’t the right moment for, you didn’t need to risk it again. 

“Y/N, shh,” he soothed, plucking the mug from your hands and setting both aside to hug you tightly again. “There is nothing to apologize for. I don’t care what time it is, or what I’m doing. I want you to call me when you need me. For anything.”

“Rafi, I...thank you.”

“So, the acute attack is over. What do you need? What happens next?”

“I should set up a heat pack for my neck, since I tend to get stiff muscles after and don’t want to be sore in the morning. Then I should try to sleep.”

He nodded, committing the information to memory for the future. “Where do you keep the heat pack? I’ll get it for you and then leave you to rest.”

“It’s in the bottom drawer of my night stand. But...you don’t have to go.”

He paused, halfway out of his seat and nearly fell back to the couch cushions. 

“I mean, you came all this way, and it’s late. We both have to get up in the morning. I don’t know if I’ll have a second wave. It’ll be better for everyone if you just stay, right?” you smiled sheepishly and he answered with a soft grin of his own.

“If that’s what you want, I would be happy to spend the night.”

“Good,” you smiled, standing and taking his hand. “I could use a cuddle after that. And Rafael?”

He hummed in question, prompting you wordlessly.

“Really. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For coming. For being here. For being you.”

[bangtanreadingcorner]

all my tomorrow’s • min yoongi

plot – yoongi gets it in his head that you wouldn’t stand by him through just about anything, so you help him remember.

words – 2.6K

“Hey, can we talk?” Yoongi asks when you two walked out of your ensuite bathroom, having just taken a shower together. You were going to make some tea and then cuddle in bed, watching a movie or a series.

“Yeah, sure, what’s up?” You grinned at him, towel drying your hair over your shoulder.

“So, my surgery is coming up in a few days.” He started, clearly nervous, sitting on the edge of your shared bed in a shirt and flannel pants.

You frowned a little, not sure where exactly he’s heading with this conversation, but you nod anyway. “I know. Three days, to be exact.”

He hums, then looks at you, gripping the sheets. “What I’m trying to say is, these next few months, they’re not gonna be easy, so, I’d understand if you want to take a break.”

You looked at him, watching as he lowered his head, wondering how he could have possibly come up with this ridiculous idea. Maybe he was joking. When he didn’t say anything else, and you realised that he was being dead serious, you scoffed.

“You’re a real fucking idiot, you know that?” You said, completely serious. He looked up at that, eyes widening in surprise but there was relief on his face too.

“I’m just giving you the option.” He defended.

You clicked your tongue at him, offended. “Well, I never asked for it.”

He sighed gently, voice low when he spoke. “This isn’t what you signed up for.”

You turned away from him, trying to suppress the urge to scream at him. Maybe you could get one of the other members to beat some sense into him. Definitely not Jeongguk, the maknae would take it a bit too literal.

You sighed, taking a deep breath before turning to face your idiot. “Yoongi, why do you think I’m with you?”

“Because you love me.” He answered without hesitation and you felt relieved that he knew at least that much.

“Great, so you know.” You deadpanned, the smile on your face edging on sharp. “Now, can you please explain to me why I would want a break from our relationship when you would need my support most?” You glared at him slightly.

“Because I will be in pain, and difficult and I will need to do P.T and I will probably be short tempered.” Yoongi blurted and you felt anger starting to stir inside of you.

“Did it ever occur to you that I might want to be there despite that? That I want to take care of you while you heal?” You asked, voice a little heated.

His silence was more than enough of an answer.

“Jesus Christ.” You felt a little defeated, anger washing away and tears stinging your eyes. “Five years, Yoongi. Five fucking years we’ve been together. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“I’m sorry, I just thought you might want to sit this one out.” He shrugged, looking a little guilty.

“Heaven and hell, good and bad – that’s what we promised each other. Do you remember?” You looked him in the eyes, hoping the memory flashed to the surface for him as it did for you.

Two years ago:

“I want to marry you.” Yoongi said while you two were walking hand in hand on a secluded beach somewhere in Turkey. You couldn’t remember the name.

You tilted your head at him, a warm smile on your face, skin golden under the light of the setting sun. “Are you asking me or telling me?”

“I’m telling you.” He said firmly. “Let’s get married. Tonight.”

You wanted to laugh, but one look at his serious face had you stopping in your tracks. “Are you insane?”

“Insanely in love with you, yeah, but that’s besides the point.” Yoongi waved you off. “So, what do you say?”

“What about your fans and your members?” You asked, throat feeling dry and your heart beat speeding up because the longer you thought about it, the more you wanted it. Yoongi being your husband.

Husband.

The thought was a little dizzying.

Yoongi stepped in front of you, taking hold of your hands. “We don’t have to make it public. It’s just a piece of paper anyways, and it’s not like your surname would change like in other countries if we did sign papers, so what’s the point? Marriage is more than a piece of paper. Years ago, people didn’t sign any papers and they were still married, so why can’t we do it? As for the guys, they know. They’ve known since I looked at rings in Hawaii a year ago.”

“A year ago?” You echoed, grip on his hands tightening. “You’ve really thought about this.”

“I have.” Yoongi nodded in agreement. “I asked the others earlier and they’ll be witnesses for us. We can do it right here.” He gestured to the beach you were walking on.

Tears welled up in your eyes as the looks on the guys' faces suddenly made sense when Yoongi asked you to go for a walk on the beach earlier. “Well, I mean, I do have that white dress Hoseok bought for me as an early birthday present yesterday.”

Yoongi smiled at you, eyes twinkling as he gave you a pointed look. You gasped, tears finally rolling past the brims of your eye banks. “Oh my God, that was actually from you?”

When he nodded, you let out a half-laugh, half-sob. “I know it’s not exactly what you’d consider a traditional wedding dress, but I thought it would do nicely.”

“It’s perfect.” You assured him.

His eyes lit up, “Is that a yes?”

“Yes, I’ll marry you.” You nodded, another tear rolling down your cheek.

He pulled something out of his pocket, a ring. An engagement ring. You gasped again, "Where did you even get that?"

"My mom bought it for me a few months ago." Yoongi admitted with a shy smile. "I would have done it myself, but then I would have trended on Twitter five minutes later." He said, taking your hand and slipping the ring on your finger.

The next few hours went by in a blur as you showered, did your hair and then pulled on your dress, forgoing shoes because it was a beach wedding, after all. You felt so giddy at the thought that you let out a squeak of happiness. Finally, there was a knock on the sliding door that lead outside to the beach. You opened it and grinned at the person at the other side.

“Hey Hoseok.” You stepped aside and let your oldest friend in. He was wearing a white button up and white dress pants that were rolled up to his ankles, also barefoot.

“Wow, you look really beautiful, Y/N.” He gave you his sunny smile and you felt a little less nervous.

“Thank you.” You told him, sincerely. “For everything.” Because he was the one who introduced you to Yoongi. Sure, it was to the whole band at the time, wanting them to know his best friend in the whole world. You and Hoseok grew up together in Gwangju, next door neighbours and best friends from the first play date your mother’s arranged. “If it wasn’t for you, I would have never met Yoongi.”

“Ah, it was nothing.” He waved you off with that cheery grin of his. “You two did all of the hard work, nearly killed each other too.”

You rolled your eyes fondly, “We weren’t that bad.”

“Yes, you were.” Hoseok said with a serious look on his face. “Yoongi-hyung thought you weren’t interested and you thought he hated you because he almost always left the room the second you came in, when he was just really shy around you.”

“We figured it out eventually, didn’t we?” You pouted.

“Only because we locked you in a room together and wouldn’t let you guys out until you talked to each other.” Hoseok pointed out.

“Eh, semantics.” You two giggled and when you called down, you looked at him seriously. “Hoseok-ah, can I ask you a favour?”

“Anything.” He said and meant it. Yoongi often joked and said that you and Hoseok were like Jimin and Taehyung – soulmates. He also said that you’d probably murder and cover up a murder for each other.

Personally, you like to think that neither you or Hoseok are that violent.

“So, we’ve known each other since we were six months old, we went to school together and did everything we could together and if there is any truth in soulmates like Jimin and Taehyung believe, then I’d like to think that you are mine. So, Jung Hoseok, partner of my soul and best friend of my life, will you walk me to the beach and give me away?” You looked at him.

“Yes, I’d be honoured.” He nodded, eyes shining with tears like yours did. And so he did, he walked you down the makeshift isle to the beach where Yoongi was standing with the rest of the band.

You’d have like your parents to be here but it’s okay, they are here in spirit, having given Yoongi their blessing long ago.

Yoongi and the rest of the guys were dressed exactly the same as Hoseok, white button up and dress pants, rolled up to their ankles.

“I’d say take care of her, hyung, but that’s all you’ve ever done.” Hoseok said with a bright, teary smile as he gave your hand to Yoongi.

Namjoon would be ‘officiating’, so he stood with his back facing the ocean, while the rest of them stood on the other side of you and Yoongi, looking at the ocean and you and Yoongi looked at each other, holding hands.

“I’m not exactly sure how this works, but I’ll try.” Namjoon said, causing all of you to chuckles. “We are all here to celebrate the union of Yoongi-hyung and Y/N. They didn’t have the easiest road but they got here, with hard work and being dedicated to each other. Yoongi-hyung said they wanted to do their own vows.”

Yoongi nodded, smiling at you. “Ladies, first.”

“I didn’t have time to write something, so I’ll just speak from the heart. Yoongi, my love, my heart. There is so many things I could say to you, comparisons I could make and metaphors I could use but in the end, they could never fully explain everything I feel for you and they all add up to the same thing: I love you. And I will love you for as long as there is breath in my lungs and even after. Heaven or hell, I’ll pick whatever road you take. Good times and bad times, I’ll be by your side. For all my tomorrow's.”

Yoongi was smiling that gummy smile at you, the one you fell for the first time you saw it. “Y/N, that was beautiful and I loved it. I hope you like mine. I’ve been thinking about vows for a while now, knowing that I’d want to say something to you. And in the end I realised that there is nothing I could say here, today, that I haven’t already said and will say again to you, so instead I’ll tell you a secret you’ve always wanted to know – how I fell in love with you. The first time I saw you, I knew there was something about you. It wasn’t until a few months later, when you came over for dinner and laughed with Hoseok about something Jeonggukie did, one of those belly deep laughs, and I couldn’t take my eyes off you, that it finally hit me. I was falling in love with you. And everyday since then, I’ve been falling. And like you said, heaven or hell, good or bad, I’ll always love you and I’ll always be by your side.”

You both turned to Namjoon, who smiled at you, dimples showing. “I guess asking if you’ll always be there for each other is kind of moot now, huh?” You laughed a little, feeling so full love that you might actually combust.

Namjoon looked at you, “So, Y/N, do you take Yoongi-hyung as your husband?”

“I do.” You grinned.

“Yoongi-hyung, do you take Y/N as your wife?”

“I do.”

“In that case, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride.”

Present Day:

You looked at him, eyes searching desperately to see if he could still remember your vows from your wedding.

“I’ll always remember.” He looked at you softly, and so full of love, like he always does.

You walked to him, until you were right in front of him. His eyes followed you. Your voice was quiet and full of hurt when you asked him, “Then why would you tell me something like that?”

Yoongi took your hands and pulled you closer until you climbed onto his lap, straddling him with your knees. He rested his forehead against yours. “Because I’m an idiot who is hopelessly in love with you and I’m still terrified that one day this life is going to be too much for you and you’ll leave.”

“At least we can both agree on that – you’re an idiot.” You told him in a whisper. “But you’re my idiot.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, but if you ever say something like that to me again, I will withhold sex for a month.” You threatened seriously.

“Just a month?” He teased. Both of you’ve gone longer without physically touching each other when he’s been on tour.

“There’s only so long I can resist you.” You admitted, cheeks heating up a bit. “Especially when you are in my immediate vicinity.”

“Like that time you jumped me when I stepped through our door after a world tour?” He gave you a smug look.

You sighed, “Oh, not this again. I didn’t jump you.”

“Okay, fine, you didn’t jump, you leaped into my arms.” He snickered.

You pouted, “To give you a welcome home hug.”

“And remind me again, what did we do right after that hug?” He raised a brow.

“As far as I remember, you were a very willing participant.” You grumbled.

“Never said I wasn’t.” Your husband said. You glared at him.

Yoongi chuckles, the sound making you melt as he leaned closer and kissed you. You kissed him back, not hesitating. You loved being kissed by him. His tongue asked for entrance and you granted it, moaning into his mouth when he thoroughly explored your mouth with his tongue. When you pulled apart for air, Yoongi went for your neck, kissing, biting and licking wherever his lips touched, setting your skin on fire, blood roaring through your veins.

His hands moved up your bare thighs, fingers nudging the seam of your pyjama shorts.

Something occurred to you in your desire filled mind, want slowly drowning out any coherent thought.

“How’s your-” You cut yourself off as he gave a particularly hard suck on your pulse point and you knew there would be marks.

“How’s your shoulder?” You finally asked – gasping in pleasure when his teeth scraped the sensitive skin, eyes fluttering shut – the knowledge of Yoongi being in pain would be enough to douse the fire inside you.

The next moment you were on your back, eyes opening to see Yoongi looking down at you with wicked grin, a hand on each side of your head. “It’s fine. I haven’t had any pain today, you know that.”

“Just checking.” You said with a pointed look as you wrapped your arms around his waist, slipping your arms beneath his shirt. The look was to remind him of that time when he didn’t tell any of his members that he was in pain during a practice and passed out from pain.

“Yes, mom.” He rolled his eyes.

You pinched his waist with a light huff, “Fuck you.”

“Oh, trust me,” Yoongi smirked, eyes full of intent. “You will.”

the end.

[iwantitiwriteit]

Love Lockdown - Part 5

Back to December - Part 1

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader

Summary: In the December prior to the pandemic, you spend Christmas with Chris in Boston, a first time meeting between you and his extended family. You struggle with implications of seriousness this milestone has on your relationship with Chris.

Warnings: Angst, Pandemic backdrop, Profanity, healthy dose of Fluff, sprinkle of Sexual suggestiveness

Notes: So much was really working against me getting this up for y’all lol, but nothing worth having comes easy, right? Anyways, tried some new stuff I learned in some articles I read, more showing, less telling. Allusions and metaphors. We’ll see how it comes across. Christmas in October anyone? Read the previous part here!

The ding DONG of the doorbell echoes so exaggeratedly, it had to have been your imagination. No, I’m really here now. With your blood pumping loudly in your ears, you stare straight ahead at the barrier to entry,  and seemingly to your happy future. 

A Christmas-covered front door shouldn’t cause you this much stress, but here you were, feeling mocked by smiling snowmen and delicate, origami snowflakes. 

You try to focus instead on one of the many thoughts flurrying your mind.

What if they hate me? Valid question, but sooo not the vibe right now. You go for another.

What if I hate THEM? Nice. None of these thoughts are stilling your rapidly beating heart.

“Ow! Loosen up the vice grip, will ya?”

“Oh,” you look down at where yours and Chris’ glove-clad hands are joined, releasing them almost instantly. “I’m sor—“

“It’s alright, babe,” Chris chuckles. As if you could muster a strength close enough to hurt this man. He’s sure not to let your hand get too far, taking it back into his and bringing it up to his rosy lips for a chaste kiss. 

You wish you could feel it, the warmth of his lips on your knuckles, but that would mean braving the Boston blitz without a piece of your knit armour. You’re not sure you’re ready for that. You’re also not sure how he does it. He’s wearing significantly less layers than you, yet he’s perfectly content as if it’s a Summer’s day, while you are, quite literally, quaking in your boots.

He notices your shivering shoulders, knows it’s not just the cold getting to you. With his right hand in your left, and his left hand wrapped around a gift, he nudges you with his words. 

“Hey,” he starts, but sees the opulent wreath on the door still has your attention. “Hey you,” he tries again. You finally look up at him. You lock your widened eyes with his ocean calm ones as he scans your face. Your brows could almost touch with how deeply furrowed you have them and your lips are fixed in a tight line.

“Typically it takes a lot to get my girl all nervous and whatnot,” he states, but you knew it was more of a question of what's up with you.

“Yeah, well… I’m not nervous, Chris.”

“Really? Cos the bruise on my hand would say otherwise,” he jokes.

You roll your eyes at him trying not to laugh. “Even if I was nervous, which I’m not, could you blame me? This is a lot. This is big. This... This is your family.” Your features soften and voice drops in volume. “I don’t wanna fuck it up.”

“Impossible.”

“You sure? Think I already did by taking this long,” you mumbled. You look away, unable to hold Chris' intense gaze anymore. Being in front of his childhood home, for the first time since you’ve started dating over 2 years ago, you can’t help but feel… guilty. 

No use in taking the conversation there at this moment. Especially knowing that lately it led to some sort of shouting match. The ‘I can’t’s’ and ‘next time’s’ didn’t suffice anymore. 

Chris only responds with a sigh as he rings the doorbell for the second time. He looks back over to you, a snowflake floating then landing on your lash. You’re unaware of how whimsical you look to him. How well you’re going to fit in with his family and friends. 

He takes his thumb to brush the snowflake off and cup your cheek. Watching as you swallow thickly, Chris moves his thumb to your throat to massage away the lump you try to move on your own. You relax into his touch, and he flicks his eyes down to your gently smiling lips then back up to your eyes. You know what he’s silently asking. Placing your hand on his wrist was your silent answer. He leans in slowly, and you wish you could stay like this, just for a little while longer. But all good things...

“Uncle Chris!” a youthful voice exclaims as the door swings open. Chris swiftly removes his suggestive hand from your neck and himself from your personal space. He prays there’s some mistletoe hanging inside.

“Hey Kiddo!” Chris huffs out as he picks the child up, replacing her spot on the floor with the present in his hand. She goes to wrap her small arms around his neck as he asks her, “Did you grow since just last night?”

“No!” She giggles as he pinches her cheeks. “I missed you Uncle Chris! You weren’t here when we woke up,” his niece pouts. You look at Chris to see him with matching puppy dog eyes and poked out lip. 

“Oh, Kiddo, I’m sorry. I--”

“It’s ok,” she cut him off, causing you to chuckle at her brashness, “I saved the gift from you and your special friend to open last!”

“Well, speaking of...” Chris pulls you in closer to him by your hand, “This is her! I went to get her from the airport,” he beams down at you. The little cutie in Chris’ arm has turned more shy when speaking to you as you exchange names and a quaint handshake. 

In a not-so-quiet whisper, she tells Chris, “She’s really pretty. Good job,” with an added thumbs-up and shoulder pat. You can’t fight your giggle and the heat that rises to your face, and Chris can’t fight the laughter that erupts from himself.

Chris is joined in a chorus of laughter, the foyer now filled with Evans’ of all ages, tickled by one of their youngest and no doubt happy that Chris is home… and brought company. This is it… you think.

It’d been a long while since you’d ‘met the family’, having not made it that far with the relationships leading up to this one with Chris. You wonder if it’s like riding a bike, or if you should’ve read an article on how to during your last minute flight.

In the crowd of smiling Evans’, you spot Chris’ mom and brother. You’ve met them on numerous occasions, all in L.A., and know them pretty well. However, everyone else you knew from a picture, a story or would be meeting for the first time this afternoon. There was going to be a lot of meeting, greeting, questioning, explaining… 

You steel yourself for the day ahead. Chris looks at you and gives you a reassuring smile and squeeze on your hand. You reciprocate, tension releasing only the slightest as you look at his sunny face, your reminder of why this must go well.

——————————————————————————

The first couple hours you were sure would be the hardest. It was a time of first impressions, and you only get one of those. Tasked with making the rounds to about 30 or so aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, in-laws, childhood this and that, Chris wanted to make sure you met every. Single. Body. And as soon possible.

“That way, we get you comfortable faster!” He rejoiced. Chris’ excitement was always infectious so you try to let wash over and enthuse you. 

You lost count of how many times you fake laughed at ‘Chris has finally brought you home! We were starting to think you weren’t real!’. But with Chris by your side, the worn out joke was just bearable. He found new ways to respond each time, no doubt to at least keep you entertained. ‘Who do you owe money, then?’ or ‘When you find a treasure, you try to keep it to yourself as long as possible *wink*’ or ‘She’s not even here… she’s a hallucination’ never failed to make you laugh or make your cheeks burn.

It’s actually really endearing to know that there was some anticipation for your arrival. Unbeknownst to you, Chris had been hyping you up to his family. Telling them your accomplishments and aspirations in your writing career, which apparently impressed them. He told them your hobbies and other passions that sparked conversations about their own, and prompted advice on your life trajectory. 

All in all, breaking the ice was more delightful than you thought it would be, and hoped that by sticking by Chris’ side the rest of the day would go in that way. But the universe had other plans.

At one point, you get whisked away to the kitchen by Chris’ mom, Lisa, under the guise of needing help with some dishes for dinner. You quickly realize that it's a set-up of sorts, with most of the women of the Evans family gathered around the island putting finishing touches on their dishes and slyly sipping spiked eggnog. These are the people who you feel you have to impress.

Their chatter and laughter came to a halt as they eyed you cautiously crossing the kitchen to the spot Lisa designated you. It was only a matter of time before the interrogation began.

“So… we’ll cut straight to the chase: why is it we’re just now meeting you? You’ve been with our Chris how long now?”

“Vicky!” Lisa smacks her arm warningly. “Have you no filter? You’ll scare the poor girl off before dinner!”

Chris has told you about his infamous Aunt Vicky. “A true cream puff; soft and sweet… once you get past the tough outside,” you remember him telling you.

“It’s fine,” you start, not willing to cower from the inquiry, “Chris and I have been together 2-½ years— 3 in June. And we’ve been happily taking things slow.”

“Good on you for taking things slow. Most women would— and do— jump at the chance to lock down our Chris. But not you, you’re a woman with her own sense of self. We like that,” you’re affirmed with a wink.

Whew.

“You are as pretty as our kid spy said; thought she was exaggerating.”

“Um thank you…?”

“She’s pretty, but can she cook?”

“Carole!” Lisa warns another woman and apologizes to you with her eyes. Chris also told you about his aunt Carole, Vicky’s ‘side kick’. The two of them made for a dubious duo.

“Yeah, what’s Chris’ favorite dish of yours?” Aunt Vicky prodded.

“I can cook, but not that often for Chris,” you respond, to which you’re met with crickets and cock-headed looks. You add, “He’s out of town a lot, and when he is in town, he’s the one doing the showing and proving of why I should stay with him,” you joke (kind of), and to your relief, they find it funny.

“Oooo I like her!” Vicky and Carole say in unison, causing the kitchen of women to laugh. You really did try to keep your expectations low for this visit, not necessarily wanting to seek Chris’ extended family’s acceptance, but you can’t help the relief you feel in this moment.

The next couple hours pass of helping out with dinner dishes and dessert, giggling over glasses of cocktails and family stories. You’d narrowly avoided questions about marriage and babies, but that’s to be expected. For the first time today, you’re able to forget your worries and your boyfriend and actually enjoy yourself. Speaking of...

“Hey you,” Chris is waiting by your seat that’s next to his which he pulls out for you when you arrive at it. An early Christmas dinner is about to be served, and you and Chris are reunited at the table for the first time in hours. “Missed you,” he says with a kiss on your temple. “Can’t wait to hear about your day,” he adds. But there wasn’t much talking between you two throughout the meal, though. 

No, the Evans’ family theatrics don’t allow for it. All of them talk with complete genuineness, laugh with their entire beings, opine with their whole chests, and you see where Chris gets it from. Turning to your boyfriend, you find him smiling and laughing along with the rest of the table, looking full of warmth and love. Completed by his family. Your heart gets a little heavier thinking about how he doesn’t have these moments as often as he’d like. In part by his job, yes, but a small part of you feels like you may also have something to do with that. A thought that pains you to wade in too long.

After dinner you try to help with the dishes, packing away leftovers and to-go plates. You don’t get too far, instead get shooed out of the kitchen by the elders, being told to ‘spend the rest of the evening with your man’. You oblige, realizing you barely talked to each other since earlier in the day. In your quick scan of the house, you couldn’t find him, so you shoot him a text.

Some of the kids and teenagers were gathered around some games in the den. Their antics and wittiness remind you of your nieces. They happily let you join in, and at one point, you acquired a little one on your lap as your game partner. The two of you bond over beating her cousins in these games as you school them in a few rounds of Uno, Connect Four, and Jenga. 

Your phone buzzes in your pocket, and you smile as you check it.

“Oooooo is it from Uncle Chris?” she cheekily asks as you get up, setting her on your spot on the floor.

“They’re probably gonna go make out under the mistletoe,” one of the older kids teased. The room of adolescents erupt into a fit of giggles and chorus of ‘ews’

“Are you two gonna get married?” the little cutie randomly asks you. “I heard my Grandma and Aunts talking about it!”

“Oh, wow, um… I gotta, I’ll see you all later.” With that you dash out of the room, as symphony ‘K-I-S-S-I-N-G…’ fading behind you.

——————————————————————————

The sky was shades of baby blues, pinks, purples and oranges. It’s a beautiful backdrop to the snow and ice kissed tree branches and lawns. The road had been freshly salted and freed of winter obstacles making it easier to stroll along as you and Chris often did after a meal.

It’s even more beautiful than he said, you think to yourself. For a second you wonder why you were ever hesitant to come here. There was no real reason, yet you used a million excuses. But this time around, you finally ran out.

Not that you weren’t tired of your fear. That was it. The real reason… was fear.

You look down at your boots, the ones you dust off just one week a year now. Striding beside them are a larger, more expensive pair; they too only see the snow on rare occasions. Your eyes follow up the long legs they belong to, taking in the nice slacks and chunky cable knit sweater under a heavy, well-made piece of outerwear. Your eyes finally land on the face of the man in the fine threads. 

Looking at Chris right now, you’ve never seen him fit in so perfectly somewhere. But why wouldn’t he on the roads he cut his teeth on. He could make you forget every fear and every doubt you’ve ever had. Hell, he could make you forget your name on a good day. And on those days, you didn’t know what to do with all of that, what to make of it. But it’s the most wonderful time of the year, so 

“Come here,” you say just above a whisper, tugging on Chris’ hand causing him to turn to you. You bring your hands to his broad shoulders, smoothing out the invisible wrinkles there. You languidly drag your right hand over to his chest as you notice a red stain on the light colored knit. “My love…” you humoredly drag out as you tap on the food stain.

“I know, I know. My mother already beat you to the scolding,” he chuckles.

“You’d think by this age you’d have learned to be more careful.”

“Hmm, now what fun would that be…” his sultry tone didn’t go unnoticed by you. Your eyes on his tailored, dinner party clothes, hoping to find a relief for your emotions somewhere between the stitches. You never know where to begin with your feelings. Surely it would be to start with the easy stuff, but it all seems hard. 

You rub your hands on his chest, not quite meeting his eyes. “What’s up? Whatcha thinking about?” Chris asks with a lopsided grin, resting his hands on either side of your waist. You smile at him nervously. Before you could say anything, there’s a gust of sharp, cold wind. You clutch on to Chris’ sweater, burying your face in his chest seeking refuge and warmth.

“M’thinking about how you got me out in this damn cold! You know my southern bones can’t take it,” your whines muffled by his sweater. He chuckles at your antics.

Chris slowly drags his large palms up from your waist, and this just ensures that there are goosebumps on your skin under your layers if the wind hasn't done so already. He rests one hand on your shoulder pulling you apart just enough for you to look into his hazy blue eyes. His other hand continues it’s trek until it’s rested on the side of your neck, his thumb stroking your jaw. “I know of a way to get you warm…”

“Was this part of your plan?”

“Mmmm… maybe…” Chris leans in close, surely to kiss you, but you have other plans.

“How’s it feel to be back home?” you inquired with faux aloofness, slipping out of his hold and continuing your walk towards his mother’s home.

Chris hesitates for a second, wondering if you really just swerved a kiss from him. He clears his throat, “Uh… yeah it’s great! There’s nothing like family, I know you can agree to that. Even if they are loud… and crazy,” to which you both chuckle. “So…” he starts as he wraps his arms around your middle causing you both to waddle up the front lawn. “How do you feel? Not so bad, was it?”

“No! Far from it! I really, really love your family Chris,” you say as you crane your neck to look at him briefly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Although, I strongly disagree with some of their choices in best music of all time, but I’ll learn to get over that. I got over it with you,”

Chris spins you around in his arms, hands firmly on your waist. “I don’t care what you say; Joel is the best music Billy of ALL TIME!”

“Yeah, ok.” you retort with an eye roll to his amusement.

“I’m glad you had a good time babe. They’ve been hounding me to meet you for a while now. I’m happy we made it happen.”

The words are right there on your lips. I’m sorry it took so long. I’m sorry I acted silly. I’m sorry I was scared to take the next step. But what if I’m not ready? What if we get it wrong? Your throat is dry, as it often is when it’s time to bare a little of your soul. At least Chris always has something to say.

“I can’t wait for you to see me this nervous when I meet your family…” You don’t know if that makes you feel better or worse. Chris looks into your eyes expectantly, lovingly. His features are soft and tender, and you think it’s the most beautiful sight on a man, on this man. Your man.

Chris looks at your lips then at your eyes. There goes that silent question again. You’ve never been one to give Chris what he wants when he wants it. He’ll never admit, but it’s one of the things he loves most about you. So, in true you-fashion, you make a run for it.

He’s baffled, but doesn’t waste much time in playing into your little game. You’re laughing hysterically as you look over your shoulder to see him bounding after you on the front lawn. You high tail it around the side of his childhood home, kind of hoping he catches you. Not even you, as stubborn as you are, would want to be running forever.

Chris walks into the backyard cautiously, but not cautiously enough as he’s met with a snowball in the temple. And your maniacal laughter.

“Oh, you’re in for it now!” Chris sneers as he scoops up the most perfectly compacted snowball.

“Oh shit!” You slowly make for the backdoor, walking up the deck stairs backwards, hands up in surrender “C’mon babe, you don’t have to do this,” you plead.

“Yes. Yes, I do. Cos all I wanted was an innocent, sweet kiss.”

“I’ll give you a kiss! Just put the snowball down.”

“It’s too late, sweetheart.” The look in his eyes is sending butterflies straight to your heat. As much as you wouldn’t mind ‘losing’ this game, there’s too much at stake.

“Think of my hair!” You whine to appeal to his better nature. That gave Chris pause, but only for a moment.

“It’s in braids; you’ll be ok.” When Chris takes a step towards you, you take a step back, but instead of eating snow as you anticipate, you slip on a patch of ice and fall flat on your ass.

Chris is quick to race over to your side. “Babe! Are you ok?” he’s slightly panicked as he lifts your torso in his arms, checking your eyes for consciousness.

“Got the wind knocked out of me, but I’m fine, yeah,” you say through a dry laugh.

“Oh, thank god.” He says with a sigh of relief and a wide smile. You smile back at him as he strokes your cheek and says, “Now I won’t feel bad about this.”

“Wha—“ You see white as your face freezes over. Chris is dying of laughter as you sputter the snowball out of your mouth. 

“Ha ha ha. Keep laughing... you won’t get that kiss you’re wanting so bad.” He immediately stops laughing, deflates, and pouts, causing you to giggle. “Oh my goodness! Is it that serious?” you teased him a little further. Chris was done playing, though. He stood up and folded his thick arms over his chest to show you he was serious.

You stood up too, and began to tap and poke at his shoulders, chest and stomach. Chris wouldn’t look at you, trying his best to stand firm and not smile. “Look up, dummy!” you say eventually. He acts as if he’s doing you a favor, but can’t hide his giddiness at the sight on the ceiling.

A leafy green plant, with a cluster of red inedible berries, secured with a red ribbon.

You take his face into your hands, lightly grazing your fingers over Chris’ full, trimmed beard. The world is out of focus as you and Chris are now eye to eye. Neither of you can hide your eagerness. You rub your thumb over his plump bottom lip and wonder why you would ever deny yourself this man.

Pulling him into you, the gap is closed between your mouths. The kiss is gentle, shy even, after first. It dawns on you that you’d only shared a quick peck at the airport, and before then, had gone a couple weeks missing each other’s touch.

The neediness and desire within you is heightened at the thought. You wrap your arms around his neck pulling him closer. You start to get lost in him, in his warm taste and touch. You feel the yearning in Chris too. He wraps his arms around your waist, hugging you tightly to himself. His hands start to travel to places you desperately want them to be, but he catches himself, remembering where you are.

“Let’s go say our goodbyes,” he says through an out-of-breath smirk. You bite your bottom lip and reply with a quick nod of your head. 

The pair of you head inside to make your last rounds for the evening. Chris keeps it pretty brief with everyone, the both of you promising to see them again sometime soon in the new year. Early Spring seems to work for most everyone; the kids will be on spring break, Chris will be home before jetting off for a press tour, and you’ll have settled in to your new writing job, that isn’t exactly your dream gig, but a step in… a direction.

As you got into Chris’ car to head for his Boston home, waving to his family as you backed out the driveway, none of you could predict or prepare yourselves for the very different, sordid world that waits in the months ahead. How drastically it would change on grand and small scales.

You look adoringly at Chris from your spot in the passenger seat, unaware the beginning of your relationship’s treacherous slope was just a few days away. Had you known, you wouldn’t have left that kiss so soon, would’ve cherished his heated embrace a little more later tonight.

But it’s already been written.

——————————————————————————

What’d you think?

[slut-mp4]

April Fools - Park Jimin

summary: jimin writes a letter after receiving a call from his ex telling him that he loves him, on April Fool's Day.

words: 1.9k

this one shot is also posted on my wattpad account, however, the original is in Spanish. I don't speak English fluently, so this may have some mistakes; my intention with this is to try to learn a little and entertain you.

April Fool's Day.

The sunset glowed darkly, the sun descending in a zigzag cusp with the buildings blocking it from me. Naturally, everything always ended up leaving me, although this time it was metaphorical. So I looked at the clock, listening louder to its hands moving until it struck six in the evening than to the laughter of the people passing by on the sidewalk and their voices saying things I didn't understand the tone in an invisible bustle, but could imagine; people making jokes, telling anecdotes or just talking among friends.

I wonder at what point in my life I will have one of those, because they all eventually left too, and they lasted less than the sunset fading into the sky like a river of warm colors.

Do you remember that day? When we also faded into each other. When we were the ones who ran in the streets laughing without caring about people, when we were the ones who stopped on the sidewalks and just talked non-stop. Do you remember what we were? We were here, on the terrace of my room, watching the stars jealous of the beautiful way you could shine even brighter than them without trying. Do you remember how it felt? I couldn't forget.

Yet I'm just a fool who has ruined everything, because I can't be a normal person. I made you go. I made you walk away from me. And now I'm here, pretending you can hear me, but you don't. And even if you could, you shouldn't. I ruined what we had because I can't live up to expectations. Funny, even though I know it was my fault you left, I'm still here thinking about you like we had a chance.

You deserve better. Something so much better than me.

Who am I, really? Why would you have been with me in the first place?

The sound of a call on my phone suddenly rang out, too, though at that moment it too could sound even quieter than the noise of the street. It was strange. For a second something burst in my chest; I didn't usually get calls, or messages, though maybe it could have been my mother asking me if I've done the dishes yet.

—Hello, Jimin? —then I heard your voice.

I hadn't heard you for so long. About a month or two, which were a torture that you took it upon yourself to make more painful. Because that's what you were doing at the time, listening on the other end of the line the way you were collecting yourself around my agony and loneliness, and you were there asking how I slept yesterday, waving as if I deserved to hear from you again after letting you down before and letting out that shaky sigh that made my skin bristle.

It hurts. You used to make the pain go away, then you started to provoke it.

I had to hang up on you, because my heart couldn't take so much after hearing you speak before my chest hurt and my eyes burned. I can't lie to you, I miss you, like I have since day one, but I couldn't help it, you will always be the most precious thing I will have ever had even for a few moments of this life.

You called me again and again. Again and again. Over and over again. I didn't understand. You did it on purpose, didn't you? You knew I was going to come down?

—Don't play games with me like that —I cried once I answered the call. I tried not to let my voice break, but my mind was my worst enemy, reminding me of the good times we had, how good you made me feel. Damn. Yeah, it's so fucking weird being alone now, but I don't know if you know about it.

—Jimin... —Oh, your shaky whisper, it sounded even frighteningly beautiful. I want to believe I know how you feel: so do I, however, I also believed that one day you loved me, and it was you who ended it.

—It was so good —I lied. If I heard a little more of your voice calling my name I was going to cry yours until it was just ashy moans of my love for you. Why are you looking for me now? Why do you want to hurt me?

—You are a good person Jimin —you said. Sometimes we just have to understand that some people don't deserve us.

I wondered for a moment what you were referring to, but it was more than obvious, of course. Even if I wanted to deny it at times, it was impossible not to know that the only reason I could no longer breathe peace in these gray walls or in the cool air after a warm sunset was because I didn't deserve it. I could never deserve it.

—Please stop —My voice came out to you, like the cry of clouds shining among soft invisible stars within a sky the color of the sea where I could drown; I wonder if you would know the way my heart was pounding when your breath hit the microphone. Why are you calling? Why are you still here?

Your soft laughter shuddered down the avenue. It was so convenient; that's how you are. The streets lit up, though nothing shone like you, and for a second I could hear myself crying in the darkness of my balcony empty of you and happiness, even above the bustle of freedom outside that naturally gave me a headache.

—I'm not still here, Jimin.

And yet, it felt like you were lying. Your hands kept caressing my shoulders and your scentless breath would sneak between my ears, then you'd smile over me to love me as if I deserved it. We remember those nights here locked in bubbles empty of realities, and we felt ourselves vibrating on speakers as if we were bliss. We remembered the way we connected, and then forgot what it was really like.

I could, for a second, hear again your "I love you's" floating in me like cold butterflies, yet it doesn't feel the same way real love could. Of all the words we said so much to each other, the only ones that were real were always mine.

But it was okay; I get what I deserve, and real love with you couldn't be further from reality.

—I know —I closed my eyes, feeling the beauty of the night as if it could protect me, but in reality it did not. Of all the promises we made, not one has been kept. I also know.

—Jimin, I love you.

—D-do I? —I muttered.

I would never have questioned before whether you loved me or not, yet now that I've realized I'm not worthy of love, now that you've gone away from me, I couldn't believe you even if I wanted to.

Why, what have I done wrong? I don't know. The only thing I am sure of is that I do love you, but I could never again allow you to falsely return it.

I love you, so even if you could truly love someone like me in some lifetime, I would not let you..... You said it yourself, why should we stay with people we know we don't deserve? For better, or for worse.

—Yes. I love you.

—Then why did you leave? —I whisper. The hum of pain crushing my chest you could hear on the other end of the line, surely.

I wanted to tell you what I thought of your love,

And you kept talking. You did. I wanted to tell you, "Hey, stop, please, you have to stop talking because I'm falling in love with you all over again," but I couldn't, the lump in my throat grew stronger and the breeze made me feel cold. I had to set boundaries, because I was falling again.

That was what you wanted.

It was always what you wanted.

—It was you who ended it, so why are you calling me?

Still, you spoke as a whole. I heard your words, the worried way you listened in my ear like a melody of pain. I don't understand what you want. Acting innocent, you just make me sick, though I'm not entirely sure about that. Because, the more I listen to you over and over again as if you might feel something towards me, the more I feel deluded. Could you really love me, why would you be bothering me again.

—You can't stay in the past —you said. Your voice suddenly sounded so hoarse. The leaves on the trees rustled loudly as an icy breeze blew through, they clattered against each other. I think a night storm was coming. I suddenly wondered how similar you and a storm could be, they can both appear at any time and destroy whatever they want, can't they?

I don't know at what point we got to that point in the conversation when you said again:

—I love you, I love you. Forgive me, please.

I wanted to tell you to stop, to stop, but I couldn't. I didn't want your voice to come back. I didn't want your voice to disappear again because it makes me feel livid, floating in the world with loving agony. Honestly, I didn't care how much pain you were capable of causing me, because, I wasn't like that, but you're still inside my heart and I've become a fool.

I am a fool.

—You make me lose my mind, why do you want to see me now? —I asked, when I heard you say an address and remind me of the moments in it. This is strange, I should be alone again. You are better off like this, without me, why now?

—Because I've thought it all over, I'm so sorry, really, come back to me.

My heart shook inside me. It was you who ended it, but now you want to come back. It's okay, you have control over me in anything, you rise above me and it doesn't matter. It really doesn't. I'm used to that. Besides, deep down, I'm nothing without you.

—Why do you want this? I don't deserve you, I don't... you deserve better than me, you shouldn't come back to me.

—I know.

I had to hang up on you. Your voice was still ringing in my ear and I couldn't stop my world from spinning. I thought of the sweet smell of your skin, the silkiness of your hair, your eyes looking at me and your lips on mine again. I missed you so much, and even though I didn't want you to have to live with the burden of being next to me when I was barely capable of deserving you any less than you do, I had to dial your number again.

—Yes, okay, I love you, I love you with all my life. Please, yes, please, please, it doesn't matter, I'm going to give you even my little self-love to deserve you, I promise.

Then, I heard your soft laughter like a calm wave on the ocean. I wish I hadn't minded, but actually, I did, what was so funny?

—Oh, that was harder than I thought, you ask a lot of questions, but congratulations, I thought you were only going to last a few minutes and we've been here talking for an hour now.

In the background, I thought more people were passing by on the street because I heard more laughter altogether, but actually, it was coming from my phone.

—Happy April Fool's Day!

April Fool's Day.

I remember that day, but it was no longer as happy as when we made jokes together, but passionately sad when I sobbed.

I'm a fool, because I still sighed feeling sweet to hear you laugh. It doesn't matter, it really doesn't matter.

—I love you... happy day to you.

—Happy April Fool's Day —you seemed to want to correct me.

—No, happy day still.