#ive been fighting for my life trying to get tone across in tags

[saym0-0]

finished head shot of this silly little guy,,

i was going to do the full body but tbh i think i might ruin it if i go much further and i do like this a lot,,,

consider: copper wire hair & oxidised brass beard drumbot

[librababe99]

ive had this idea stuck in my head for weeks. friends to lovers w Wade. I love your writing! would love to see you do something with this :DDD

Nikki, friends to lovers is one of my favorite tropes! The fact you've are my first request for Wade has me sooo stoked too😊

I hope you enjoy this!!

Title: More Than Just Friends

Tags: MDNI, 18+ ONLY, Wade Wilson, Female Reader, Set during the 2016 Deadpool Movie Summary: Wade is used to hiding his pain behind sarcasm, but after a brutal night of mercenary work, the one person who always patches him up--His best friend--makes him confront feelings he can no longer bury. WC: 1.0K

It was late, but that was typical for Wade. The nights when he didn’t come home covered in blood, bruises, or worse, were rare. His apartment was as much a sanctuary as it was a warzone. Every time he came back, it was always with a new wound, and every time, you were there. Not that you minded.

You sighed as you climbed the stairs to Wade’s dingy apartment, the bag of medical supplies in your hand. You’d been getting calls from Wade for a while now, ever since he’d been discharged from the Canadian Special Forces and started taking on freelance mercenary jobs. The two of you had been close before—best friends, even—but this work had brought him back into your life in a way you didn’t expect.

It started as a few nights of patching him up, laughing at his stupid jokes while you taped him back together, but it had become routine. A strange routine, but a routine nonetheless. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d gone a week without seeing him, usually in some state of disrepair.

You knocked on his door, hearing a grunt from inside that signaled Wade’s familiar, albeit exhausted, voice.

“Door’s open,” he called, his voice rough, and you entered.

He was slouched on his old couch, blood smeared across his shirt, which was barely hanging on by a few threads. The sight of him in this state wasn’t new, but something about the way he wasn’t immediately making a joke unsettled you. His usual bravado, the sarcastic remarks, the teasing grin—none of it was there. Instead, he looked… worn down.

“Wade?” you called softly, setting your bag down on the coffee table. “What the hell happened to you this time?”

“Just another Tuesday,” he muttered, trying to crack a smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

You knelt in front of him, already assessing the damage. His knuckles were split open, bruises darkening around his ribs, and a cut on his cheek was still bleeding. You bit your lip, shaking your head as you grabbed a cloth and some antiseptic. He watched you in silence, his gaze following your every movement.

“This doesn’t look like a ‘just another Tuesday,’ Wade. You look like someone ran you over with a semi-truck.” You tried to keep the tone light, but his silence was unnerving.

He winced as you pressed the cloth to the cut on his cheek, and for a moment, you expected a snarky comeback. Something about how he’d gladly take a semi-truck if it meant seeing you in scrubs. But nothing came. He just closed his eyes, leaning into your touch slightly.

“Wade?” you said softly, pausing. “You okay?”

His eyes opened slowly, meeting yours. There was something there, something raw that you hadn’t seen before. It made your heart skip.

“I’m fine, just… rough night,” he finally said, though his voice lacked its usual strength.

You continued tending to his wounds, the silence between you growing heavier. Normally, Wade would have filled it with crude jokes or exaggerated stories of his fight, but tonight, it felt different. It was like the weight of his life—the mercenary work, the violence, the loneliness—was catching up to him, and for once, he wasn’t hiding it.

“Why do you keep doing this to yourself?” you asked quietly, wrapping a bandage around his hand. You’d wanted to ask him this for a long time, but it never seemed like the right moment. Now, with him this vulnerable, it slipped out before you could stop it.

Wade blinked, his gaze shifting away from yours. “Someone’s gotta do the dirty work, right? Might as well be me.”

“But you don’t have to,” you insisted, your hands stilling on his. “You’re not alone in this, Wade. You don’t have to keep putting yourself through this hell.”

For a moment, he didn’t respond. He just looked at you, his expression softer than you’d ever seen. His usual mask of sarcasm and humor had fallen, leaving the man underneath—the one who felt too much but never showed it.

“I’m good at it,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “And it’s all I’ve got.”

You frowned, shaking your head. “That’s not true. You have people who care about you. You have me.”

The words hung in the air between you, heavier than anything you’d said before. Wade’s eyes widened slightly, his gaze locking onto yours. You felt the tension rise, the room suddenly feeling much smaller.

“Do I?” he asked, and there was something vulnerable in the way he said it, like he genuinely didn’t believe it.

“Of course, you do, Wade,” you replied, your voice soft but firm. “I’ve been here, haven’t I? Every time you get hurt, every time you need someone. I’m always here.”

Wade swallowed hard, his usual cocky grin nowhere in sight. Instead, he looked at you with something closer to fear—fear of what he might say next, of what it might mean.

“I’ve always joked around, you know,” he began, his voice shaky. “Flirting, teasing… but… you know I care about you, right?”

Your breath caught in your throat. You weren’t sure how to respond. Wade was always so flippant with his feelings, always hiding behind his humor. But now? Now he was serious.

“I know,” you whispered, feeling your heart pound in your chest. “But do you know?”

He looked at you, and for once, there was no joking, no sarcasm—just Wade, raw and real. “I’ve been scared, I guess. Scared that if I said something real, I’d screw it up. I’m good at screwing things up.”

Before you could respond, Wade did something you never expected—he leaned forward and kissed you. It wasn’t his usual playful, teasing kiss. It was soft, tentative, almost as if he was afraid you’d pull away.

But you didn’t. You kissed him back, your hands resting on his chest as you leaned into him. The kiss deepened, and all the tension, all the unspoken words, melted away.

When you finally pulled back, Wade rested his forehead against yours, his breath ragged. “That wasn’t a joke,” he murmured, his voice raw with emotion. “I meant that.”

You smiled softly, your heart swelling as you looked into his eyes. “I know, Wade. I meant it, too.”

For once, there were no jokes, no walls. Just the two of you—more than just friends.

[wing-ed-thing]

Honey Cakes (Shino x Reader) Chapter V

Synopsis: You were stupid. You made a stupid choice; it left you with the first real heartache of your life, and you could safely admit that you deserved it. But then the war came. And as quickly as it came, it was over. So what about you and Shino? Sequel to Honey Stand.

Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings/Tags: Gender Neutral Reader, Post War, Slow Burn, Slight Canon Divergence, Fake Tech Talk, Aged Up Characters, Angst

Notes: *beats idea with a broom* I’ve had the outline for Honey Cakes in my head for a year and I need it out I need it out out out I’m sick of looking at it *hits with broom*

“What’s not fair?” 

You snapped back to reality, not even realizing that you had zoned out into your salad. 

Shino sat across from you, a single elbow on the table as his lips steadily drooped back into a scowl. The little moment you thought the two of you had disappeared in an instant. The silence in the air was about as palpable as the tension. The lights blared down on your head as the clock ticked by slowly.

You sat still, avoiding Shino’s gaze as you wondered if it would be worth fighting about in the first place. The whole drama was beginning to feel so childish. You confronted him about your mutual past twice now, only to be met with unwarranted hostility. You wondered if you weren’t as much of the problem as you always assumed. In the silence, you only grew more sure of yourself.

You cast your gaze down to the floor, half of you unsure of yourself while the other seethed with annoyance. 

“Let’s just get through this mission. I want to prepare for the wedding as much as you do.” You quickly packed up the food container, pushing it gently back towards Shino as you suddenly lost your appetite. “Thank you for dinner. It was unnecessary.” You stood from your seat. You turned, hardly noticing Shino also rise from his chair.

“What’s not fair?” 

You shook your head, not wanting to engage. 

“I’m too tired to get into this. I have a report to write.” You pushed in your chair with your foot, still reeling from your interaction with Shou. Shino swiveled his head in frustration as he made curt gestures with his hands.

“Get into what?” He gritted your name, stalking after you as you began to make for the door. He reached for you. “Dammit, what are you talking about?” You turned suddenly, slapping his hand away from you. The sound reverberated throughout the room. 

You faced him with a pointed glare and a clenched jaw. Tension furrowed your brow.

“Stop acting like you care about me, Aburame!” The words poured from your lips like liquid poison. Your eyes widened as if the tension of keeping your comments in physically weighed down your features. Your vision began to blur, and you shook your head to dismiss the mounting tears. “I hate this. I hate this… this ignoring me for ten years like I never existed. I hate this disdain you’ve held for me all these years… Like the shit on your shoe… Then you have the nerve—” 

You took a step back as you swiped a hand across your face. 

“You did the same thing with that Sasuke stuff,” you exasperatedly noted. “And you think you have the right to act like you’ve been saving me? From the river? From the squad leader— who I now have to document, by the way, thanks a lot—” He scoffed, shoving his hands in his pockets as he hulked. 

“Just drop the goddamn report shit—” You stomped your right foot, fists clutched straight at your sides as you stepped closer. You shook your head as you gaped to yourself. 

“I can’t, Shino! I’m trying to get transferred!” 

The room fell silent again. The ticking of the clock continued. So did the whirring of machinery. Shino recoiled an inch, unable to mask that your admission caught him off guard. His brow knitted as he wrinkled his nose.

“Here?” he asked with what sounded like a scoff. 

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You want to get transferred here?” Something about his tone made you feel a pang of shame. Your imagination filled in his unspoken judgment. A judgment that you were cowardly for leaving. A judgment that you were sacrificing your dignity to work with men like Shou. A judgment that you were better than this place. He spoke a part of it. His voice was about as quiet and level as usual, but Shino couldn’t help the bite of disbelief that laced his tone. “Out here, away from your friends, in the middle of nowhere to be left to the likes of that creep—”

“Everyone’s moving on, Aburame! I know that’s not your strong suit—”

“Please.”

—“But I need to move on too. Being stuck in teenage drama is so… so… shit! We’re adults, goddammit!” You fought back the urge to scream, clutching a tuff of your hair and just holding your scalp under your fingertips. Your foot made swift contact with a nearby trashcan. With another shake of your head, you turned to leave. “Everyone has moved on. I at least need to try.”

Your name spilled from Shino’s lips in a low grumble, and as he reached for you once more, you turned in an instant and landed a firm smack across his cheek. His glasses flew from his face, hitting the floor and spinning off somewhere in the room. Before you could blink, the lights in the room went out completely. 

Your hand stayed suspended between you as you stared into honey-colored eyes. Shino’s hand caged the light switch. The moonlight from outside did little to illuminate the room, but some reflected off of Shino’s bright irises. You had always expected them to be darker. You traced what little you could see into your mind, finally able to read Shino’s eyes after all these years.

Your left hand shot out, and before he could stop you, you tugged off Shino’s hood. His hitai-ate clattered to the floor. He caught your wrist, and as you attempted to hit the light switch, he caught your other. 

You stood together in the darkness, trapped in Shino’s grip. You tried to jerk your arms away, but Shino held firm, studying you in the dimness. 

You couldn’t help but stare. You couldn’t help but search for answers in Shino’s newly revealed face. When you tried to tear yourself away again, your movements lacked violence. Slowly, Shino let you go.

“You can’t keep doing things for me, Shino.”

“What things?” He was quick to respond, but other than his urgency, he gave nothing away. You stared back at his face, the answers you hoped to find nonexistent. 

“Bringing me what I used to make you back then,” you said bitterly. You caught the small purse of Shino’s lip as his jaw clenched.

“I brought what I knew you’d like, that’s all,” he deflected with his usual frown. His hands returned to his pockets. He took a half-step backward into a shadow cast by a piece of machinery. You stood in the dim moonlight as he retreated. 

“No, Shino. It’s your favorite. That’s why I brought it to you,” you snapped, although the admission came out softer than you intended. You cast your gaze off to the side as you played with the cuff of your sleeve. “I remembered. You told Kiba… that one time in Iruka-sensei’s class.” A moment passed you by, brought on by your brief reminiscence. 

“Ah,” Shino hummed in a way that almost sounded deflated.

Another pause.

Another tick of the clock.

More machine whirring.

“You were working all night.”

“Shino—”

“You’re reading into things.”

“Shino,” you spoke his name in defeat. He didn’t answer, adjusting his jacket with a jerk of his shoulders. You crossed your arms. “You can’t just pick out aspects of a relationship and separate them into parts you want to ignore and parts you don’t.” Your nose jutted out as you accented your words. 

“I’m not.”

“It’s selfish, Shino.” 

Yet another pause passed. Somehow, the silence had become even more palpable than it had been before. You couldn’t help but notice how shut down Shino looked, eyes dead with lips curled into a complacent pout. He almost looked indifferent. His thumbs poked out the tops of his pockets.

“I just want to get to the next base tomorrow and go home.” The words stumbled out of your mouth clumsily. You squeezed your eyes shut, running your hands over your face. “Let’s just… Let’s pretend we don’t know each other or something… Or something like that.” You turned to leave the room for the third time, and this time, Shino let you.

***

You departed later the next morning.

Shino leaned against a railing outside of the eastern base. Through one of the windows, he could see you walk out into the hallway with the base commander. The two of you chatted. The conversation appeared formal but otherwise as if it was going well. You nodded your head. The base commander stroked the sides of his mustache. Shino’s eyes flickered up. Shou sat on a balcony used for sniping. His legs dangled over the ladder as he glared at Shino silently, scathingly.

When you emerged from the base, you came out alone. You paused for a moment outside the door, letting it close behind you. You said nothing to Shino, inhaling deeply and steadily as you squared your shoulders and marched forward. Shino followed after you, thinking about your admission from the night before. Wordlessly, you began your journey.

***

The trek was made in silence, only to be broken when the sun began to set. 

“It’s getting dark,” was the extent to which Shino spoke over the rushing wind in your ears. He stopped on a nearby tree. The light of the sunset reflected off of his glasses. You landed on an adjacent branch just a bit ahead of him and didn’t spare him a glance. You expected a snarky comment to follow, but none came. 

“We’re going to keep moving,” you ordered. As de facto captain, you held the right to push into the dark. With your simple decision, you departed with Shino not too far behind you. He scattered another part of his swarm into the forest as the dimness grew. Neither of you said another word. If it weren’t for the tension between the two of you, it would’ve already felt like a normal mission.

You could hardly see. 

You maintained your speed as Shino continued to scout. He always had better senses than you. More used to operating in the dark than you were, Shino seemed to have no problem keeping up your punishing pace. 

A branch narrowly missed your head, your visual radius severely shortened by the lack of light. It must’ve been a new moon. Another bundle of leaves appeared in your vision, and as you instinctively ducked, your foot missed the branch. 

You fell in the darkness, twisting in the air as you dropped five meters down. The fall into the night made you dizzy and discombobulated as you swiftly calculated where up was. You threw together a random, instinctual calculation of chakra. 

The branch you landed on shook in the dark. A piece of it snapped, falling onto the ground below. Shino appeared by your side, silent and barely detectable, even just an arm’s length away. 

You kneeled for a moment on that branch, feeling the curve of it beneath your feet and the slow shake of it in the air. You remembered your very first squad leader telling you not to think about how high up you were when it came to canopy travel. He told you that shinobi work was about balancing thought with instinct. The crash below sounded soft. It told you exactly how high up you were.

You stood, your knees shaking just the slightest bit. Shino’s presence loomed over you, silent and watchful. He didn’t dare say a word to his benefit. You moved forward until the lights of the base came into view in the distance.  

The southeastern base was surprised to receive you at the hour you arrived. With the velocity you approached, you and Shino had given them quite the scare. You blazed through the initial greeting with an almost recklessness. If the base’s leadership had been more trigger-happy, things might have gone differently.

The base was illuminated with lamps that cast harsh shadows upon your commanding figure as you made your way up the steps. Shino watched the symbol on the back of your uniform as you strode ahead. You moved with a determination and coldness he had never seen on you before. 

Maybe this is what you were actually like on other missions, a stark difference from your energetic demeanor in your early years. The way you used to burst onto the battlefield, Shino always thought you liked mission work, or at the very least, a chance to show off your excellent mastery of the lightning nature. What Shino always thought was naive self-assuredness was all but vaporized by your blazing determination. 

You introduced yourself to the base’s nighttime leadership as you had done with the eastern base. Shino continued to trail behind. He, after all, wasn’t the brilliant engineer they needed to speak with. The two of you were ushered inside. Shino was led to his quarters by a cadet as you stayed to discuss your assignment. He spared a glance back as he couldn’t help but note how well you fit in surrounded by other captains and leadership. 

Shino hardly slept as his hive swarmed within his chest. He laid on top of the sheets, hands behind his head as he listened to you tinkering away well into the night. He turned his head on his pillow to stare into the reflection of lamplight in his glasses that were folded neatly on his side table. 

You’d end up falling asleep at the installation site. 

***

For as quickly as it started, it ended. 

Shino wanted the mission over even before it started, but now, as the two of you began your departure from the southeastern base, he couldn’t help but feel a hint of apprehension. You exchanged a few words with the base commander before you were off. Shino didn’t even have to ask to know what you requested. With a shake of the commander’s hand, it was just like the day before. 

Home was only a few hours away. 

Shino didn’t often consider the passage of time. He was introspective but not to an existentialist extent. He, at least, liked to think so. But as the air hit his face and the orientation of the trees grew more familiar, Shino felt a stir within him. 

He wondered if you even noticed the visible electricity radiating off of you as you raced ahead. The image of you served as a blatant metaphor as he thought back to what you said about moving on. With the prospect of Team 8 disbanding after Hinata’s marriage, he had been thinking a lot about things you’ve said as of late. 

Shino felt blatantly aware of the humidity in the air and the hardness of the tree bark through his boots. The fact he should probably request new ones and that he had been thinking about replacing his boots for quite some time and never had. 

It was barely mid-afternoon by the time the two of you arrived at the village gates. 

Shino blinked, and the two of you entered. He blinked again, and you had arrived at the Hokage building. Time seemed to pile up behind him while the present hammered at him from the front, leaving him pinned and defenseless as only his own thoughts kept him company. 

The two of you passed Shikamaru on the way to Kakashi’s office. He came from an adjacent hallway, stopping short in surprise as your paths missed a collision. As you continued, Shino wondered if you saw him. He locked gazes with Shikamaru, who tried not to let his concern show. Shikamaru gave Shino a firm pat on the shoulder before the two headed their separate ways. 

Even Kakashi eyed Shino warily as the two of you gave your report. The sixth Hokage stared squarely at Shino as if to silently inquire about the undertones of your mission. 

“I’ll submit full documentation by tomorrow,” you finished. Kakashi hadn’t said a word: not about the success of the installations and not about your incident with Squad Leader Shou. He hummed to himself, arms crossed. 

“I see.” Your eyes flickered to his, studying his posture for the words he left unspoken. “Very well.” He said little else as he dismissed you. You turned, ready to finally return home. Shino followed. Kakashi cleared his throat. 

“Shino.” The both of you turned your attention back toward Kakashi. He beckoned Shino forward with a finger. “A word.” Instinctively, you and Shino glanced at each other.

“Of course,” Shino muttered, and you closed the door behind yourself.

Thank you to all who liked, reblogged, followed, and otherwise supported. Your support means so much and is greatly appreciated.

Notes: Whelp, that's the end of Honey Cakes. I hope you all enjoyed the sequal to haha lmao just kidding imagine if I did that I'm so sick of looking at this work I was thinking about it hahahahahaha I've gone mad

Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V

[homerjacksons]

Sonny Carisi Week Day 3: trust Word Count: 2388 Pairing: Barisi Summary: Snippets of Sonny and Rafael’s relationship over the years in moments of trust AO3

i. the beginning

Sonny’s brain was hazy with scotch and the smell of Rafael’s cologne. He knew it wasn’t the drink, though. He’d only had one finger, poured by Rafael from a bottle he kept in his bottom drawer for nights like this, nights spent hunched over paperwork as the clock ticked over to a new day.

He took a deep breath, breathing Rafael in, and watched as his lips quirked up into a smirk.

“Are you listening to anything I’m saying?” Rafael asked, only a slight hint of annoyance in his tone.

“Course,” Sonny said with a huff of laughter, shaking his head and lowering his gaze.

When he looked up again, Rafael’s eyes were still on him, shining in the dim lamplight, his face closer than Sonny remembered.

“I’m trying to...to tell you what this means to me,” he said, covering Sonny’s hand where it sat on his knee. “I’m telling you you’re not the only one. It’s not one-sided.”

Sonny blinked at him, because it turned out he must have stopped listening, lost in the greens of his eyes and the woody musk of his cologne, tired from a long night of paperwork and an even longer day of police work.

“You—me? Really?”

“You, yes,” Rafael said with a grin, cocky even though Sonny knew his heart must be racing.

“But—I—why?”

Rafael’s grin slipped and he tilted his head, giving Sonny’s hand a squeeze. “Because you’re you.”

“I’m—“

“Just trust me?”

Sonny studied him for a moment, not sure exactly what he was looking for. This wasn’t high school where the girls pretended to like him on a dare, or college where the boys kissed him as a joke. This was work, this was Rafael, telling him he felt the same.

He nodded, meeting Rafael halfway for a kiss, his entire being shaking as his heart burst with warmth and nerves and excitement and affection.

Because of course he trusted Rafael, even if it seemed too good to be true, even if Rafael loved teasing him above all else.

This was real. This was happening.

ii. fear

Sonny longed to reach out to Rafael, to hold him, to never let him go. He could see the fear that Rafael tried so hard to hide and he felt so grateful that he was trusted enough to see it, even if it broke his heart.

They got a cab back to his apartment after all necessary questions had been answered, and though they didn’t utter a word, Sonny held his hand the entire time, and Rafael held back with a fierceness Sonny had never felt.

As soon as his apartment door closed, Rafael let out a shaky breath as though he’d been holding it the whole time, and Sonny caught him under the arms as his knees buckled, entire body suddenly shaking.

“Hey,” Sonny whispered, pulling him in close. “You’re safe. It’s over.”

Rafael nodded, gripping Sonny as though his life depended on it.

He let Sonny lead him to the bathroom, and Sonny took his time removing Rafael's blood-splattered clothes while he sat, staring at a spot on the wall, unseeing.

He didn’t have the words, not really. He wanted to rant about how stupid Rafael had been to duck his security detail, about the ongoing death threats that had been a sore spot between them for months. He wanted to express the guilt he felt at not being there to protect his own boyfriend, at not being a better cop, at not finding who was behind the threats before it was too late.

Mostly, he wanted to cry, all that fear and hurt and anger and helplessness having been locked up inside him just below the surface, threatening to burst from the moment he heard 1 Hogan Place had been evacuated and Rafael was being held in his office by a man with a gun.

But he knew none of that would help. He knew, even before they’d got home, even before the events of the day, just how much all of this had been getting to Rafael. He knew because Rafael trusted him enough to let him see between the cracks in his facade.

So instead, he talked about something Jesse had done the previous day, about Bella’s new job, about his Ma’s insistence that they come to dinner that weekend. Anything to fill the awful, deafening silence as he cleaned another man’s blood off of Rafael’s skin.

iii. content

Sonny shot Rafael a grin over the kitchen island before turning back to the pan in front of him to flip the pancakes.

“What?” Rafael asked through a laugh, folding the newspaper beside him as he reached for his mug.

“Nothing, just…” Sonny trailed off with a shrug, unable to wipe the grin from his face. “Nothing.”

The truth was, he couldn't quite believe his luck. He'd imagine it a thousand times, what it might be like to wake up beside Rafael, to spend a morning filled with lazy kisses and a breakfast made from the heart. He'd imagined all the different ways it could happen, but the real thing was better than anything his mind could have come up with. Seeing Rafael, still soft with sleep, in a threadbare shirt with ruffled hair was everything.

Rafael studied him for a moment, eyes narrowed, before taking a sip of his coffee. “You look far too pleased considering how early it is.”

“It’s almost ten!” Sonny shouted through a laugh, flipping the last pancakes out onto a plate. “That’s late .”

“Not for a Sunday,” Rafael muttered under his breath.

It was such a small thing, but something new to file away about Rafael. Not a morning person, definitely not on weekends. Something else he could commit to memory. Something else he got to see all because Rafael trusted Sonny enough to let him into his home, to let him spend the night, to let him make him breakfast and look after him the way he deserved.

He slid a plate of pancakes across the island to Rafael before making his way around the counter with his own, still grinning, giddy with awe and affection.

“You’re ridiculous,” Rafael said through a sigh, but he smiled at Sonny as he said it, pulling the plate closer to him before drowning it in syrup.

“I know,” Sonny said around a mouthful of pancake and bacon.

Rafael shook his head with a roll of his eyes, but Sonny wasn’t bothered. He’d learned a while ago not to read Rafael’s teasing and exasperation as a form of affection.

iv. fear part 2

Sonny paused in his doorway, hand already on his gun before a quiet, “It’s only me,” issues from his living room.

He let out a shaky breath and closed the door behind him, letting his head fall back against it, closing his eyes, willing his heart to calm down.

Of course it was only Rafael. Who else would it be?

“Hey,” Rafael said softly, closer now, and Sonny startled at the noise, eyes flashing open.

Rafael took his hands gently, concern etched into his face in a way Sonny was sure he’d only seen directed at victims before. It made his stomach churn.

“Liv called me,” he explained, cupping Sonny’s cheek gently. “Told me you...might need me here tonight.”

“I’m fine,” Sonny muttered, closing his eyes again.

“It’s okay if you’re not.”

He took a deep breath before turning his head to press a kiss to Rafael’s palm.

“You didn’t have to come.” He took Rafael’s hand away from his face, giving it a small squeeze. “I’m okay.”

“Maybe I needed to see for myself.”

The slight waver in Rafael’s voice took him by surprise, and he nodded, pulling Rafael towards him.

“I’m okay,” he whispered before pressing a kiss to the top of Rafael’s head.

He didn’t say just how close it had been, how he’d nearly not okay, how he wouldn’t be standing here right now if his Lieutenant hadn’t come at just the right moment and saved his ass from his own stupidity.

He didn’t say how he’d stared down the barrel of a gun, sure he was about to die, or the way he’d been certain at first that it was Cole’s gun that had fired, that it had been his blood spilled.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he admitted after a moment, allowing the exhaustion he felt to seep into his words. “Not sure how, uh...how well I’d sleep tonight without ya.”

Rafael pulled back, smiling so softly it made Sonny’s heart clench in his chest.

“I wouldn’t have slept at all,” he said, taking Sonny’s hand again to lead him into the apartment properly. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

He nodded, allowing himself to be led to the bathroom, allowing himself to be looked after in a way he never really had before.

v. the end

“You’re leaving?” Sonny shouted, breathless from running up five flights of stairs.

Rafael winced and turned away from him, continuing to pack his suitcase. “Evidently.”

“Fuck,” Sonny said through a breath, gripping Rafael firmly on the arm, forcing him to turn. “Just like that? Without even talking to me first?”

Rafael looked down at the tie in his hands, fiddling with the tag, still refusing to look at Sonny.

“I thought I meant more to you than that.”

He hated how broken he sounded, hated the way his voice cracked as his throat tightened, eyes burning with tears he wouldn’t let fall. But it was enough to make Rafael look up at him, his own eyes wet and shining.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, sounding just as broken as Sonny felt. “I knew if I spoke to you, my resolve would crumble and I...I have to leave, Sonny. I have to.”

“Why?” He was aware he was shouting but he couldn’t quite stop it. “You won, you’ll find another job, you—“

“I love you.”

Sonny blinked at him, the fight leaving him in an instant. The words were offered as though they were an explanation, but they just added to his confusion.

“Then stay.”

“I’m so sorry,” Rafael whispered. “But this is what I need. This is what I have to do.”

Sonny studied Rafael’s face, read between the lines in his broken, pleading expression. He wanted to fight, to beg, to do anything to make Rafael stay, but he knew it was no use. His partner was as stubborn as they come, and he could see this decision hadn’t been made lightly, nor would it be easy, so he nodded.

“I love you too,” he whispered as he cupped Rafael’s cheek, wiping a stray tear with his thumb.

Rafael closed his eyes, leaning into Sonny’s touch for a moment before smiling at him, still sad, still broken. Sonny’s heart ached to fix this somehow, but he knew he couldn’t.

“This isn’t goodbye,” Rafael said suddenly, a fierceness in his voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “Not unless you want it to be.”

“Of course not,” he said without hesitation.

He gripped Rafael’s face in his hands, and Rafael grabbed the front of his shirt, and their lips crashed together clumsily, all teeth and passion and longing and tears, and they fell into bed, packing abandoned for now, desperate for one last time together before everything changed.

vi. a new beginning

“So…” Rafael slid another drink across the table to Sonny. All his usual bravado seemed to have gone, replaced by a shyness and uncertainty that didn’t suit him. “You...seeing anyone?”

Sonny laughed, surprised by the question, and shook his head. “Nah. You?”

Rafael shook his head, smiling at Sonny over his glass. He still looked nervous, and before he could think better of it, Sonny leaned across the table and kissed him, soft and sweet and chaste, as though they hadn’t missed a day.

“God,” Rafael said through a laugh as they broke off. “I’ve missed that kiss.”

Sonny hummed in response, pleased with himself and his own bravery.

“I never stopped thinking about you, you know,” Rafael said quietly, barely audible over the chatter around them.

“I’m pretty hard to forget.”

Rafael rolled his eyes, biting down on a smile.

“You said it wasn’t goodbye,” Sonny said with a shrug, suddenly shy himself as he played idly with the condensation on the tabletop. “I guess I trusted you.”

“I meant it,” Rafael said quickly, reaching across the table to take Sonny’s hand.

“You stopped calling though,” he said, not meeting Rafael’s gaze.

Rafael sighed, and moved to take his hand away again, but Sonny stopped him, linking their fingers.

“I thought I was setting you free,” Rafael admitted with a sad smile. “Liv kept telling me I was an idiot but I—“

“You are an idiot.”

After a beat of silence, Rafael barked out a surprised laugh, throwing his head back.

“I missed that,” Rafael said through a sigh. “You just speaking your mind.”

“Well…” Sonny trailed off with a shrug, a grin slowly taking over his face.

They sat in silence for a while, just drinking, hands back on their respective sides of the table though Sonny longed to touch him again, to be closer.

“I never stopped loving you,” he admitted, forcing himself to maintain eye contact.

Rafael didn’t look surprised at the admission, though. He simply nodded with a sigh.

“That was the problem. I thought if I stopped calling, maybe you’d...fall out of love.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Sonny said with a sharp shake of his head. He stood, moving around the table so he could sit beside Rafael, so close their knees touched. “For someone so smart, you really are stupid.”

Rafael hummed in agreement, but before he could say anything, Sonny kissed him, fiercer now, pulling Rafael into him, pouring years of pent-up longing into the action.

When they broke apart, both a little breathless, Rafael grinned at him, pressing their foreheads together.

“I never stopped loving you either, you know,” he said quietly.

“I know.”

“Can you forgive me for being an absolute idiot?”

Sonny smiled, pressing a quick kiss to Rafael’s lips before pulling back to stand up again.

“Already forgiven,” he said easily, holding out a hand for Rafael to take. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

[penfullofwordsaheadfullofstories]

So We Refuse To Take it Tragically

A/N: I’ve just accepted my fate is to be obsessed with this man, so here’s yet another Obi-Wan fic. There will be a second part to this, and I’m thinking a mini series of in-between moments. I won’t give spoilers, but this is NOT my normal type of fic, but he’s an exception to every rule in my book, apparently. Thank you to @caffeine-in-an-iv​ for being my beta on this, I don’t know where this would be without you!

Thank you also to @beskars​ for her post here that birthed this. Always blessing us with fuel for the thirst. 

And to the one I know IRL that found my tumblr, one I will refer to as Top Voice, this is your final warning to gtfo before feasting your eyes on unprecedented filth and sap. 

Pairing: Obi-Wan Kenobi x Force sensitive! Fem Reader (no Y/N)

Warnings: SMUT!!!  Cumeating, hair pulling, Comfort Sex, ANGST!! (It has a happy ending later, I promise, but it starts after ROTS, so it’s par for the course) If you’re gonna write not-particularly-pertinent-to-plot-porn, might as well make it unnecessarily detailed, right? As usual, too many feelings for porn,  More warnings will be in the tags to prevent spoilers 

Title from one of my favorite quotes: 

“Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.”

-D.H. Lawrence

Tatooine is no place for a baby.

 There are no soft surfaces, nor comforts, nor surplus of anything. It’s desolate and deprived and oppressive, but you watch as Obi-Wan shields the child from its harsh, sand-pelting winds with his whole body, despite the fact the child fits in the space between his wrist and elbow. It’s overzealous, but you don’t say anything of it.

 The past two days have ripped away nearly everything he held dear, insisting on devastating every tender place. Nothing sacred has been left untouched.

 He broke the code long before he met you, and you know part of why his love for you came so easily, why he had no qualms with breaking his vows, was because he’d long since loved the man that became his family in every way that matters.

 Love and Light so tightly knit together the fabric of his being one could not be separated from the other. 

 And you could take on the entire Force with your two fists for how it had rewarded him for it with Hate and Darkness coming from someone so close it shattered something foundational in Obi-Wan. 

 Yet even now, there isn’t Darkness surrounding his signature. There’s brokenness and his ever-present equilibrium has been replaced by jagged shards. But despite it all, those rugged pieces still reflect light erratically in their shine.

 It’s a loss and betrayal that spans many different planes: on one level, there’s nowhere you look in the galaxy beyond just the two of you that isn’t marked by the Empire’s rise in power, marking the end of the Republic he fought for and the fall of the Jedi, his community, comrades, and only home he’d ever known. And on another level, you’ve seen the weight of war and worse in Obi-Wan’s eyes, but nothing, nothing like this.

 The pain is panoramic, but it’s also profoundly personal.

 Even still, his attention isn’t on himself, but on the fussy bundle in his arms.

 You wonder: is it the galaxy that doesn’t allow this man time to heal? Or is it his own choice to throw himself into the need of others so he has a tangible reason to avoid his own torments?

 When he places the baby into the arms of the young couple, you know the times ahead will give the answer to that.

 Because there aren't the cries of the past few nights to wake either of you, there’s silence. 

 You long to fill it, to try to bridge this insurmountable void with something, anything you could say. But you know it’s bigger than you. So, so much bigger than you.

 Monumental obstacles and tremendous loss find themselves standing in the threshold of an abandoned hut smaller than your flat was on Coruscant. 

 “Well… it’s not much to look at, certainly. But the moisture vaporator seems to be in repairable condition, and we’re just far enough from town to avoid any curious neighbors. What do you think?” He turns to you, and his eyes, dark circles under and all, turn sharp in their assessment of your response. 

 “I told you. I’m going wherever you are so long as you’ll let me.” Your voice is gentle but adamant as you remind him. 

 He walks up from the living room to the threshold of the kitchen where you are, wrapping his arms loosely around your waist. “Be that as it may, I’m asking your input on where we’re going, or living, as your happiness means a great deal to me.” 

 There’s still no smile, but it’s the brightest his energy has felt since the last time you saw him before he came to your door in Coruscant days ago, whispering a rushed, heartfelt farewell, which you quickly countered with an emphatic, unshakable, “I’m coming with you.”

 You look up at him, gliding your hand across his cheek into the hair at the nape of his neck. There’s Darkness at the door of his soul that he’s fighting off every moment, and he has the audacity to speak of your happiness. 

 You don’t dare bring up his. It’s irony, at best. 

 So you smile, timid, knowing the gesture in itself might be blasphemous to the tone, but genuine all the same. “We can make a life here. I know we can.”  

 He scans your eyes, looking to find the authenticity in your statement. “Are you certain?” 

 He’s not asking about the hut anymore. Or, at least, not just the hut. 

 “Obi-Wan, I never had any delusion that any life I had with you would be easy. I thought I’d only ever be getting you in secret, sparse moments. Although I’d never, ever wish for it to be under the circumstances that it is, having you like this is better than I ever hoped.”

 There’s silence as he processes your words, then a wry twist of his features. “How I wish that your expectations needn’t be so low.”

 “No, no, that’s not what I meant.” You incline your head, trying to find the words to convey what you mean. 

 “Nothing any person or any planet anywhere has to offer me holds a candle to what I’ve found in you, nor will it ever. I’d never trade unshakable wholeness for the transience of materialistic happiness.”

 You know this has to resound with him. Is it not within the core set of values he was taught to forsake comfort in any avenue for something far greater? 

 His eyes flick between yours, gauging, and you can feel him reaching out to feel at your signature to solidify the truth. 

 If you knew him any less, you might be insulted at his questioning of your trustworthiness. But it’s not you he doesn’t trust. It’s something good willingly giving itself to him that causes his wariness. 

 The Force can have your middle finger along with your fists. 

 Then he’s relaxing into you, letting out an exhale that seems heavy with more than just air, and burying his nose in your hair for his next inhale. 

 ****

 By the end of the day, you’ve gathered enough supplies for basic necessities and to start on the repairs of the hut. You both snarf down a ration bar before shortly thereafter clearing the blown-in sand off what must have been the bed of the home. It’s a half circle indenture in the wall, and it has a dip obviously made for a mattress or cushion of some sort, but as all that’s available are the blankets bought in town today, you set to fluffing them to some semblance of comfort. 

 Fatigue pulls you into it far sooner than the suns setting. Last night was your first night without Luke, spent in a room you rented in town. Today was spent traveling to and from the hut, discussing details on what needs to be done, and you? You are absolutely exhausted. You can only imagine what he must feel like. 

 Obi-Wan secures the lock on the door before sitting on the side of the bed, looking off into nothing for a long, long moment. 

 You push up to your side, placing a hand on his back. “Obi…”

 His shoulder nudges toward your hand, but he cuts you off. “It’s going to get quite cold when the suns set, and since the stove isn’t properly ventilating yet, we’re going to have to work with body heat.”

 “I’ll try to mask my reluctance,” you retort.

 He turns his face to you then, and just a smidge of humor sweeps across his eyes before he sheds his cloak, followed by everything else until only his pants remain. You’ve long since stripped down to your own sleeping comfort level, so before he can fold his cloak along with the rest of his discarded clothing, you take it and cover yourself with it. 

 He shakes his head a little at you once he’s done, settling down next to you, throwing the covers over both of you. 

 “Tell me what you need.” You’re face to face with him, but his expression is unreadable. 

 “I… I don’t know.” He considers you as if you held the answer to the question you just asked him.

 “What about want, then? What do you want, Obi-Wan?” You wish he didn’t have his shields perpetually raised these days. It’d be so much easier to just read his energy. 

 His hand reaches up so he can stroke your cheek with his thumb. “You’re tired, darling. Rest.” 

 Ah, there it is. If the answer to the question of desire is him counter offering his own response with the fact you’re tired… 

  “So are you. But you still want.” You press your body fully against his, dropping your voice down to a whisper. “And so do I.” 

 You won’t push anymore than that, letting him take or leave the invitation. For you, it’s not even a question. It’s been four months since you last saw him. Since you’d last felt his touch.

 You’d spent the last few nights in each other’s arms, but between Luke's shrill cries and the deafening devastation of the events of the days prior, it’d been just that: sleep. Or, what tousled, disturbed counterfeit the circumstance offered you both.  

 For him, though, there’s an abysmal weariness that digs far beyond lack of sleep, and you don’t dare infringe upon him in any way.

 But there’s still a longing present, and even without his Force signature to guide you into his feelings, he can’t hide his eyes. 

 You watch the moment he makes a decision solidify across his countenance right before he presses his lips against yours. You sigh into it, letting the draw of his skin on yours pull you into orbit.

 Because that’s exactly what happens. It’s a kiss for a kiss’ sake, for flavor and fervency and the fullness of each other, but it quickly gains its own momentum when his tongue parts your lips truly. 

 It’s an acute absence. Not having his energy surrounding you with his shields so far up. But it also gives sharp attention to the press of skin against skin, makes it an anchor and an outlet for all that is still too tender to even acknowledge.

 You find grip in his hair, purposefully running your hands the opposite of the way he combs it as he takes your face in both hands and pulls you into him all the more. 

 When you both need to breathe, he only moves so far away that his lips still brush against yours on every exhale. “I..” he starts, then stops. 

 The hand still in his hair rakes through it gently, scratching your fingertips against his scalp as you wait for him to complete his thought.

 “Let me taste you,” he says at last. You know it's a question from the way he stills, waiting for permission, but it’s phrased as nothing like it. 

 You raise an eyebrow. “Is that a rhetorical quest…”

 “Oh, hush.” He’s already nudging you over onto your back, situating his body over yours, claiming your lips again. You allow yourself to sink into it, cherishing his weight over you, his hand roaming your ribcage, before pulling back to speak. 

 “I’m sorry, are you now getting on to me for my sass? Because… oh!”

 He finds a nipple through the thin fabric of your shirt, pinching softly with a small tug. 

 “By all means, continue. I was most intrigued.” His smirk is back, but it fixes you with a tinge of worry when it again proves to be a smile only skin deep.

 You place two fingers just shy of his forehead, but he catches your wrist in an almost painful clasp. The alarm casted by his expression quickly is washed away by a carefully constructed impassiveness, and your heart sinks. 

 He has to see it, because he bows his head in apology. “Not tonight.”

 And before you have any room to respond, he’s shifting himself down as he lifts your shirt up, placing a single taunting, wet kiss on each nipple before moving even further down, nipping at the skin right below your belly button. 

 He’s distracting you from what he’s not allowing you access to, and you know it, and you let him anyway. That’s what this is, isn’t it? Distraction from the barrage of the mind. If that’s what he needs, that’s what you’ll give.

 As he toys with the hem of your underthings, and you lift your hips to assist their removal, you realize it’s exactly what you need too.

 Except he apparently isn’t planning to remove your underwear at all. With a casual flick of his hand, your legs are parted and held like that with a no-nonsense sprout of Force energy. Then he’s simply pulling the cloth to the side and brings his mouth torturously closer, but stops just before contact. 

 You push up to your elbows to tell him you can’t take much of those teasing breaths he’s taking, blowing hot air against sensitive nerve endings. But when you hear his breath stutter as he just looks, unhurried in admiration, you decide against it, even as you flush at the undivided attention. Sprawling his palms out over your inner thighs, he dips down to press his mouth between his fingers, sucking not-so-gently into the soft skin, sending the flesh into tremors before he’s even really done anything to you.

 He says your name as he opens you up with his fingers, parting your folds so everything is bared to his view. You start to squirm, the exposure starting to feel a little too heady, and you’re starting to appeal with the beginning of his name when he leans forward, straight away connecting his lips to your clit. You try to thrust up into it as some shameful noise leaves you, but there’s only so much movement you have with your legs still pinned. 

 He loves to tease, so you don’t expect him to retract the energy that constricted your legs at the first resistance. Instead, he slides his hands under your ass, pulling you on to his tongue and lets you push your hips into him unchecked.

 He hums at your enthusiasm, the reverberation sending your hands into his hair again, which gifts you with even more noises from him. 

 It doesn’t take long at all, and you’re coming undone on his tongue, biting into your forearm to dampen your cry. 

 He doesn’t stop until you push at his shoulder, signaling your tender surrender. He obeys, looking up at you from between your thighs, absolutely besotted, eyes shining a shade brighter than before. 

 Then. Obi-Wan Kenobi keeps his eyes on yours before dipping his head and tilting his jaw, running his beard right where you’re still open and vulnerable, abrasion grating in a way you know you’ll be feeling all day tomorrow. 

 He licks his lips as he moves back up to kiss you again, letting you taste yourself on him. 

 He goes easily when you gesture for him to lie on his back so you can straddle him, carefully avoiding any contact where he’s throbbing for you. His hands fall right to your waist, stroking gently as he waits for you to initiate. 

 You focus your study on the section of his hair that’s fallen in his face, twirling a finger in it, happy to have anywhere to look but his eyes. 

 He’d normally at least be in your mind by now, and even though you understand it, well, the drought of it is as appropriate for the planet as anything. 

 You remember too late to raise your own shields against any accidentally too-loud thoughts, as Obi-Wan cups his hand on your chin, forcing your gaze to his, saying your name quietly in calling.

 “You have to know, it isn’t anything to do with…”

 You interrupt him. “No. No. I won’t have you addressing my insecurities of all things in light of…”

 “Please listen, love. I need you to know, it hasn’t anything to do with the love I have for you. That hasn’t changed and never will. I think I need… “ He pauses, solemn in thought. “Time,” he finishes finally.

 You knew this already in the pit of your stomach, but hearing him say it, hearing him affirm that it isn’t you insufficiency�� you hate that you needed it as much as you did. 

 And if he needs time? That’s what you’ll give. But he also has a want, evidenced by the brush of him against you when you scoot yourself down his torso. 

 You take the hem of his pants with you when you continue down, ridding him of them and his shorts. But when you wrap your hand around him and begin to lower your mouth, he grips your chin again, shaking his head. 

 “I can’t… please, just.”  It’s always an anomaly when he’s at a loss for words, usually ever-so articulate.  

 A gasp chokes out of you when you feel the phantom of his mind. Not in full, no. With barriers, and it’s projected out, not at all the same sensation to being within it. 

 It’s desperation. For how long it’s been, for how drained he feels, how he’s not sure how long this will last, and how much he yearns to be inside you.

There’s not even a second of debate in your mind as you take your position on his lap again, lifting your hips, intention apparent. He takes his cock in hand, holding steady so you can start to seat yourself onto the thick push of him. 

 The hitch in his breath is your only warning before he seizes the undersides of your thighs, halting you from taking him any further.

 His eyes are tightly shut, and you know from watching him before that his facial expression is an attempt at borderline meditation, except it’s several long seconds before he achieves anything resembling calm. 

 It’s as good a time as any to push his hands off you and squirm around to take him a little deeper. You plan on rubbing your victory in, but your smirk is wiped away with a whine at the elation. Instead of stopping you again, he almost imperceptibly thrusts up, and it’s your turn to falter, slamming your hands into his chest, nails digging in, working against your weight trying to pull you down onto him. 

 It goes on like that, until you’re both bordering on hysteria before you’ve even fully taken him. You can’t figure out if it’s a worse torment to keep delaying or continuing. 

 Obi-Wan seems to have come to his own conclusion to that, as he finally opens his eyes, locking them with yours as he places his palms flat on the tops of your thighs and pushes down until your skin is flush with his.

 You pull a hand up, biting on your fist, trying to stifle the exclamation in your throat.

 He pulls it away, voice ragged as he speaks. “I want to hear you, little one. We needn’t hide anymore.”

 It’s a dimensional statement. For one, no one is around for miles, a stark contrast to your quarters on Coruscant where you at least attempted to be considerate of your too-near neighbors when it came to noise. For another, it’s the irony of being in hiding from the Empire, but being allowed to be open in your relationship with each other finally.

 And the deepest irony is that you both have your barriers up so firmly right now all you can concentrate on is bared skin.

 Oh, but what a beautiful spanse of bared skin he is. Freckled and almost luminously pale, bending and curving with the strength of the form underneath.

 He sits up slowly, generating a breathless plea from both of you at the new angle. A search of your eyes asks you a question, and you’re nodding, kissing him with the full brunt of your craving. 

 You slide up and then down again just as he drives up, and you’ve found your rhythm, just like that. 

 His hands push you onto him every time you pull up, and his tongue laves your breasts, sucking and biting along your collarbone, as you rake your nails down his chest, over the backs of his shoulders, his scalp, anything you can touch. 

 It’s enough to send him into a chorus of groans, shoving himself hard up into you.

 He doesn’t even speak it aloud, just projects the apologetic warning that he’s on the edge.

 When his thumb finds your clit, everything in you goes tense despite the relief. You clench around him, hard, and he instantly moves his hands to your shoulder blades pulling you flush against him as he lets out an unrestrained sound against your breasts. 

 You push his thumb away from where it’s stilled against you, replacing it with your own. His fingers twitch in their bruising grip, and you can feel him throbbing inside you.

 You stay like that for a moment, just letting him ride out his bliss, whispering sweet affirmations into his hair.

 When he looks up at you again, his eyes are glassed over. You wonder if it’s ecstasy that is the cause, or something from the bedrock boiling to the surface. 

 He doesn’t give you a chance to elaborate, flipping you over on to your back. The moment he withdraws, you can feel the mess dripping down your inner thighs. 

 It takes everything in you to not come at the sight alone as Obi-Wan dips further down your body, parting you and lapping his tongue right where you’re weeping evidence of desire. 

 You know you have to be making a mess of his face and beard, but he certainly doesn’t seem to mind, indulging on his own spill infused with yours. 

 When he adds two fingers in you and curls them strategically, searing heat shoots through your lower stomach as you arch against his mouth, his name a high whisper with absolutely no suppression, echoing across the empty stone walls of the home. 

 He leaves a final tender kiss against you before lying down next to you, pulling you into his arms, and you pull him into yours right back when your limbs remember how to function.

 His head drops against yours, and his eyes flutter shut, taking a deep inhale, like he’s trying to fill his lungs with more than just oxygen. 

 Nothing is fine, and the world is crumbling. But right now, as the suns finally leave the house in dark, as you clasp each other in tight embrace, as sleep pulls you under, you can pretend it’s fine. If only for a moment.

 *******

  There’s a flash of feeling that startles you awake and into the disorientation that comes from waking in a new place. The sensation worsens when you feel the reverberations of the equivalent of a slammed door in the Force. 

 You sit up quickly and look over to Obi-Wan, who sits on the side of the bed, head in his hands, fingers brutal in their grip.

 You move toward him, and he turns around at the sound. “Go back to sleep, darling. it’s nothing.”

 When you fix him with a gaze that essentially translates “bantha fodder,” he just lies back down, pulling your back into his chest, and you doubt the fact you can’t see his face like this is a mistake. 

 The rhythm of his breathing betrays the fact he is nowhere near sleep, but you find yourself fading off soon again anyway.

 ****

 When you wake in the morning, you’re alone in the bed, which is no surprise. He’s not one to lounge, and if the height of the suns peaking through the window has anything to say, he’s already been up for a while.

 His cloak is still tangled in the blankets, though, and you wrap yourself in it, padding outside after doing something about your morning breath. 

 The hut is situated on a cliff, overlooking a barren valley. The suns glare with their unrelenting eyes of heat even so early in the day, and you stare back as best you can without squinting, daring them to do their worst. They know nothing of the misery that’s already visited this home. They have no hope of competing. 

 You find Obi-Wan cross-legged near the edge of the cliff. Cross-legged and levitating. 

 Of course, you know he can do things like this. It’s just such a different thing to see him doing it . You’ve never had a proper morning with him like this, seeing his routine. He was always up before the sun, you with him, gathering moments and soaking them in before he had to leave again.

 He looks almost peaceful now, not at rest, but peaceful. 

 How?

 How does he still have so much trust in the Force? 

 A more lighthearted thought emerges through the grim train, as you notice he’s opted to not put his tunic back on yet. 

 It doesn’t matter out here, you suppose, there isn’t any other living being for miles around. For that matter, you wonder why he even left the pants. 

 His voice damn near startles you, not even opening his eyes to address you. 

 “Although that may be the case, there are some locations more bearable to get sunburn than others.”

 You blush at being caught, and gently ensure your thoughts aren’t accidentally projected again, but he doesn’t give you much time to dwell on it.

 “Join me?”

 As he opens his eyes and descends the couple inches down back onto the ground, you feel your heart do the same. He’s taught you little things, here and there, and you’ve enjoyed it, learning to tap into that constant humming you never had the tools to channel before.

 But now? 

 What interest do you have with The Force that failed the man who served it without fail? You could burn it down for the atrocities it’s committed even in negligence against the man you love.

 But there’s been enough burning.

 Obi-Wan won’t speak of what transpired on Mustafar, but you’ve caught glimpses. Last night wasn’t the first night you’ve had him back, and it wasn’t the first you’d woken to a severe troubling in his aura. 

 You’re still not sure if Luke is a fussy baby or simply a very responsive one, as it seemed Obi-Wan was already awake before Luke started crying. 

 It was only mere seconds before his shields came slamming down, firmly in place, every time. 

You can’t tell if he’s trying to shelter you from his feelings or blockade them away from himself.

 Maybe both.

 But those seconds? They’re long enough. For just a flash of a charred, severed body. Of hateful, pleading, golden eyes. 

 There’s been enough burning. 

 “I can’t ever be a Jedi, Obi.” 

 “That’s not what I’m asking of you.” 

 He knows your criticisms as well as your compliments over the Jedi. You’ve both discussed it at great length many times, always over a firm understanding and respect, but you’ve never really had long enough to have a conclusion. But you’re not going to push now, not with the fall of it all still so close behind him. 

 “I should think our relationship itself is testimony that I don’t inherently agree or adhere to all Jedi teachings.”

 You drop your eyes, trying to ignore the sweat starting to trickle down your skin from the relentless heat. “I thought maybe you were with me in spite of your better judgement.”

 His brow furrows. “At first, that’s what I may have thought too, but it made itself clear that although what transpired between us was forbidden by the Code…” he trails off for a moment, almost hesitant. “...the way Light was and is exemplified any time I have you in my arms presented a solidified case that not always is the Jedi way synonymous with the will of the Force.”

 He says it wholeheartedly, but you can tell it pains him. It’s easy to never speak ill of the dead, either of individuals or groups. To glorify and wipe away any transgressions to ensure their memory sparkles as you grieve it. 

 The harder thing is to grieve everything, both the good you lost and the bad you experienced from the same source.

 And there’s another level there. Something that has him patting the spot beside him and giving a heartbreakingly forced smile.

 Even through it all, wariness of aspects of his own religion included, he seeks unity with the Force without reservation or resentment.

 You don’t fight him anymore. 

 The war is over, but the battle has just begun, and so help you Maker, you’re going to fight for him to have the chance to heal. 

 So you sit, mimicking his position. 

 When he smiles again, it’s much smaller but not at all fake. 

 “First, clear your mind.”

 *****

 The days are afflicted with an underlying gloom, full of work that busies the hands but leaves the mind to wander, which wasn’t at all a luxurious thing. 

 But the nights are filled with unclaimed time, time in an abundance you never had with each other before. 

 Sometimes it’s shot with silence from the weight of the day, reveling in the presence of another as you work together on the supper dishes.

 Or sometimes there’s almost an excitement, despite the labor ahead, of the plans for the place that’s now your home. 

 “Wouldn’t we have to have some sort of larger equipment to hoist that over the cliff edge?” You wonder aloud to Obi-Wan, speaking of the replacement unit for finally getting some very basic temperature control for the hut. “The way around back is too rough and would scratch it up, and I, for one, wouldn’t want to try pushing it up manu…”

 You stop at his smirk he’s trying to hide with tilting his tea cup higher over his lips. 

 “...Or there’s a Jedi solution to this problem that requires neither, and you’re just letting me ramble on anyway.” You punctuate the end of your statement by tossing a pillow his direction, which just stops. Midair. 

 There’s so much legend surrounding Jedi, you haven’t really been sure what’s factual and what’s fairytale. 

 You certainly knew of some of his abilities, but he didn’t tend to elaborate on details of his missions before, and you never argued, knowing it was a liability for you to have that kind of information if anyone ever found out what you meant to Obi-Wan.

 He chuckles, not even trying to look a little guilty. 

 Once you remember to shut your mouth, you get back to planning. “And that same principle just applies to objects of any size?”

 He nods. “Same principle, just more concentration required.” 

 You tuck your feet under you on your chair as you think on that for a second. You’ll have to ask him to teach you that one next. Mediation alone could get rather dull.

 “So, for instance, if a great amount of concentration is being spent Force-lifting an object up the cliff, it would leave a Jedi vulnerable to, say… projectiles thrown?” You throw another pillow at him, which just as easily halts next to the other, gravity defiant. 

 He could have lowered the first one by now. You raise a brow at the knowledge he’s putting on a show for you. 

 “You’ll have to do better than that, I’m afraid.” 

 More often than not, the time of the evenings are spent loving and lounging in sheets, savoring the difference of unhurried lovemaking, with no heart-wrenching farewell on the horizon.

 But every time you gently ask to reach his mind, he pushes the request and your hand away.

 *******

 Obi-Wan’s visits to see Luke are met with a level of hostility. The man, Owen, seems wary of him, doing everything he can to cut the visit short as you and the woman, Beru, if you remember correctly, look silently to each other for some relief in the tension.

 They already likely know his actual name, but you’re careful to only address Obi as “Ben” here, along with everywhere else that isn’t your hut. It’s precautionary, but if it’s for the sake of protecting Luke and Obi-Wan himself, you’ll do it without any further questions.

 But Luke seems to be doing well, and that is ultimately what matters most. It’s hard to believe how quickly he’s grown in the mere weeks that you’ve been here.

 The boy might be by far Obi-Wan’s greatest purpose being on this planet, but it’s not his only. 

 Master Yoda had given him Jedi texts, yes, but also another task for his time here. 

You’re thankful to talk about either, as it seems to be one of the few things he’ll open up to you about as it pertains to himself. 

 But when he goes to meditate alone, calling for his mentor, his father in every right of the term, he comes back more empty than he left. 

 When you look at him with a too-knowing look, too infiltrating for his comfort, he easily slides into a quip.

 “My old master, it seems, won’t appear unless on his own terms. I’m not sure what else I expected, honestly.”

 ******

 You also learn that the man does not cook. Not that you consider yourself an expert, but at the very minimum, you know how to use spices, which on Tatooine come as hot as their weather.

 “Is it a Jedi thing to have tasteless food, or is that just you?” You tease as he dices some sort of root at your direction while you sift through the cabinet. 

 His eyes are full of mischief when he’s quiet for a moment before speaking up. “I would argue there’s concrete evidence that I’m quite happy to indulge in the pleasures of taste.”

 You can’t help your blush as his very pointed look. 

 Dinner is long forgotten after that, but the night is delectable all the same.

 *****

 Something has shifted in your own Force signature. Something you can’t put your finger on. 

 It doesn’t seem harmful or threatening in essence, but it makes you wary in a way that makes your skin itch with more than the dryness. 

 You try not to think much of it. After all, there’s plenty to do between tending to the vaporator, hunting, fending off the Sand People, and your learning to wield the Force.

 After rumors of Tusken raiders being nearby, you ask Obi-Wan to teach you combat.  This would be starting long before he normally would teach someone, he explained, but he does it anyway. It’s not exactly using the Force at first, having to start with how to even move your body in the event of attack, slowly enhancing those skills with the Force as you become more confident in them. 

 You look forward to it more than any other task. It gives you a strength you haven’t had before, and it’s a whole different level of connection to the Force when you trust it physically, not just in your mind. 

 It’s also another level of trust with Obi-Wan, knowing he’d never hurt you even as he enters the role of a potential threat, guiding you through how to handle it.

 So you don’t know why today your stomach won’t agree to the way you want your body to move. You push through it anyway, despite Obi-Wan’s concerned questioning. 

 You lose your lunch into the rocks, and you really wish he wouldn’t pick you up to take you back into the hut, because the shift of what’s up and what’s down doesn’t help at all. 

 And you wish he wouldn’t dote over you the rest of the day, as if you didn’t feel useless enough already, as if the illness didn’t leave as quickly as it came. 

 You make a mental note to ensure you don’t let yourself become dehydrated again to that point.

 *****

 The trips into town are kept to a minimum, trying to keep curiosity away from the new couple. Also, there wasn’t much to do except barter and spend credits, something you both tried not to do a great deal of. 

 Obi-Wan was sent off with enough Republic credits to get you started here, but it was hit or miss if the vendors took them that day, and he also didn’t want to spend too much at once.

 Nothing was more suspicious than surplus here.

 The woman you brought the limited produce available from seemed… different this trip. 

 Obi-Wan was a couple of stalls down from you, negotiating with a man who had obviously jacked up the price on the items needed. Poor man didn’t know what he was in for. 

 You turned your attention back on to the woman in front of you, and tried to decipher what was different this time and why it felt so familiar. 

 As you pointed to a basket of hubba gourds, inquiring of the price, she gave you one that you knew for a fact was higher than last time. 

 You counter offered the same price as last time you were here, and she firmly stated her price again. Ready to stand your ground, you go to state your price again, she puts her hand to her belly, bringing her skirt in around, revealing a small bump. 

 “Can’t afford your low-ball offers with this one on the way, understand?” 

 The sky suddenly falls around you in thunderous clamor as the physical realm around you moves on, unaffected and unreachable. Almost mechanically, you place the credits she asked for on the table, not even capable of addressing the obvious manipulation.

 Understanding drenches you in its brutal weight as you realize the source why she felt so different this time. 

 Your hands shake in their clasp on the basket as you pull yourself into a side alley, heaving your breakfast up. 

 Because you recognize the same difference in her is the exact same one that has changed your Force signature.

 It’s because there’s a flickering light of another being’s Force signature within you. 

  Tagged as requested: @maybege​

[mooswords]

It’s all coming back

Pairing: semi eita x reader

Word Count: 2.8k

Tags: war au, minor character death (mentioned), angst

Ramblings: i think ive peaked with this fic. i also cried multiple times writing this but like... thats nothing new sklajsdbk. thank you to lyra for beta-ing and yelling about this with me every step of the way <3

---

The summer breeze sweeps through the valley, warm air bringing little relief from the afternoon sun. You can feel the sweat dripping in familiar discomfort down your back as you pull at the weeds invading your struggling potato crop. It’s mind-numbing work, but it has to be done. Anyway, you’re almost-

Your name is yelled, loud and panicked. Tsutomu’s stumbling form is running towards you. 

“There’s a man,” he pants. “There’s a man coming up the hill.”

“Is it Tadashi?”

“I don’t think it’s him. He-” Tsutomu throws a look over his shoulder, like he can see through the house and fences to remind himself what this man looks like. “He’s got a sword I think.”

“A soldier?” you breathe, the stone in your stomach dropping lower. Your shoulder aches. It’s still healing, a lingering reminder that soldiers are nothing but bad news. It’s been nearly a year since the war ended, but they like to ignore that fact. 

Through the summer haze, you can see a blurry figure trudging up the road winding up to the house. Even at this distance, you can tell it’s definitely not Tadashi.

“Kei and Hikota are further out," you tell him, eyes still set on the figure. "Go find them and stay in the barn together until I come and get you, OK?”

“But-”

“Tsutomu. Go.”

The mystery figure is nearly at the house by the time you make it out the front door, shotgun in hand. Now you're closer you can see the ash-grey hair, the sword swinging at his hip. At this distance, you can also see the nervous smile on his face. Reluctantly, you lean the shotgun against the door jam.

He stops a few respectful paces away, and you let your eyes flit over him scornfully. “You’ve got guts, showing up here again.”

Semi winces. He knew not to expect a warm welcome, especially with how he left, but he hadn’t expected this. You don’t look the same as he remembers - more worn, more beaten down by the ebb and flow of life than he had hoped. There is a new assertiveness that you wear, still a few sizes too big for you to fill out properly but nonetheless folding strong and confident across your shoulders. It speaks to many years alone, being forced to grow up too quickly. 

He supposes that’s partially his fault though.

“What do you want?” you ask, chin tilted up. Defiant as always. He’s glad that hasn’t changed.

“I’m… the war’s over. I came home.”

“Home?” You sound incredulous, a mocking edge to your voice.

“Yes,” Semi says, uncertainty beginning to cloud his words. “To you.”

You scoff. It seems the years have gifted you with a certain bitterness; he can not fault you for it, but it still grates at his rose-tinted memories. You were never a particularly joyful child - joy wasn’t a luxury people like you and he could afford - but there was a hope he remembered, a desperate spark that you’d imbue into the stories you’d tell the younger kids. The woman in front of him today deals only in blunt, unsavoury realities.

“Home to me,” you repeat, nodding slowly. Your tone is less than impressed. “Tell me-” you cock your head, contempt in every move, “since when do you leave your home without even a goodbye?”

You can see the confusion in the furrow of his brow. How could he not know? 

“I’m sorry, I-” he shifts, looking less like a war-hardened soldier and more like the lanky 17-year-old you knew all those years ago. “I wasn't brave enough.”

“And yet you were brave enough to go fight in a war that's stretched on for years.” You bite your tongue, frustration welling up because you want to hug him forever but you also can’t let yourself slip up. He’s a soldier. He left. You have the younger kids to think about too, and you aren’t going to let him come in and destroy this family you have fought tooth and nail for. 

“You seem like you’re doing OK now.”

“Yeah, now,” you bite back. “I’m doing OK now because I survived long enough to get out of the city walls. Barely. You can’t just waltz back in here like you never left.”

“I had to go, they needed me.”

“They needed you?! What about Tsutomu?” 

He looks sheepish at that. Maybe you're finally getting through to him.

“He had you?” he tries.

Then again, how could he know? He may have seen horrors fighting for six long years, but Semi left before the city really began to fall apart. You have survived your own nightmares. Humanity is capable of more atrocities than just war. 

“Of course he had me, I wasn't going to abandon him after his own brother did.” It's a low blow, but you can't find it in yourself to care. “But that doesn’t erase the fact I was one girl! I was struggling to feed my own siblings let alone yours! Do you think young girls can find work in the city? Do you think I could protect all of the kids?” 

You’re shaking now, animated in your fury, and the words are pouring out faster and more uncontrolled than you had imagined. You have had six years to think of what you would say to Semi if he ever came home, but right now you can't remember a word of the carefully scathing speeches you had drafted in those long nights. This is far less elegant, nothing more than the messy sum of repressed emotions and long-forgotten promises.

“You left! When I needed you! You left me alone, just to-” you angrily smear your tears, jaw clenching, “-to go fight in some stupid war they already had thousands of men to fight.”

“You had the others, and I couldn’t just-”

The door behind you creaks.

“Go back to your siblings, Kei,” you say, not turning.

Semi’s eyes are pulled to the proud arch of a young boy’s head. For someone with dirt smeared across his cheek and a sun-bleached shirt, the kid holds himself with something akin to royal grace. Semi would be impressed if he didn’t recognise the faux bravado as the carefully cultivated shield it is. He used to wear the same brand of armour.

“You sure?” the boy asks, a well-worn aloofness in his tone that that shouldn’t belong to someone still so young. If life hasn’t been kind to you, it has been rougher for this kid.

“I’m sure.” You turn, finally, and Semi catches the edge of your smile. He wonders if it still pulls higher on one side like it used to. He wonders if you still remember that secret handshake you made him learn all those years ago, if you still love the sunflowers that used to grow in the upper circles of the city, if you still get that faraway look in your eye when you get lost in the labyrinth of your own mind.

It’s jarring, Semi thinks as he watches the final nasty look thrown his way before the boy disappears back into the doorway. The image these memories paint is so out of sync with the woman he sees before him now, and no amount of reminiscing will bring them back together.

“So… who’s he?”

Impassiveness slides back over your face, the momentary softness slipping out of sight. “His family has also been torn away by this war. We stick together because we have no one else. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Come on, please,” Semi starts. This is not how he expected this reunion to go. He takes a tentative step forward. “I know you’re angry, but I truly never meant to hurt you. I just wanted to keep you and the kids safe.”

You don’t shake off his careful hand on your shoulder; you’re not sure you could. The fight is draining from your body, and as the anger recedes, you start to see him come into focus. The dusty bandage wrapped around his hand, the lines running deep around his eyes. Maybe you had survived your own nightmares, but you were a fool to think that made his any lighter.

“I’m sorry,” he says, pressing closer. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen to you, but I’d do it again. I’m sorry I had to leave you and the kids, but I don’t regret going to fight.”

“And I don’t hate you for wanting to fight,” you relent, finally meeting his eyes. They’re sadder now, yet he can’t help feel relieved that the animosity has drained away. 

You shrug, pained smile stuck awkwardly on your face. “But you still left us.”

Somehow, the lack of anger makes your words cut deeper. They have lost their accusing edge, replaced with a blunt resignation that makes his heartache. There’s resentment rallying in his stomach against your disappointment, and it mixes unpleasantly with the hope he had walked up to you with. 

“I said I’m sorry, didn’t I?” He can hear the annoyance leaking through, and from the line of tension that returns to your shoulders, so do you.

There’s a long moment, full of memories and chances long lost to history, where all you can feel is the inevitable beginnings of a new battle. The lamentable reality is that you were never taught how to back down from a challenge; to do so would just send you reeling back down to the bottom of the hard-won steps you had already taken. But haven’t you fought enough? Haven’t you fought your past enough, must you now fight him too? 

“You can say sorry all you like, it doesn’t change the past.” Your voice comes out more resigned, less annoyed than you had wanted. 

“Why are you so set on the past?” he demands, frustration tearing through the thin blanket of peace that had settled. “I’m here now, trying to make amends and you-”

“I don’t care what’s happening now, I want answers for what happened back then! Why didn’t you trust me?”

“Of course I trusted you, I- I just…” he throws his hands up, pacing a few steps away. “It was something I needed to do. Talking to you wasn’t going to change that.”

“Oh, so I didn’t matter then?” you say, lips pressed together painfully. It’s a wet anger; blurry eyes and choked voice. You had stared down more fearsome men than Semi Eita without a tremble, but his long-forgotten familiarity somehow makes this so much harder. “My opinion didn’t matter, my life didn’t-”

“Don’t be stupid, of course you mattered! Why do you think I left, huh? You and Tsutomu matter more than anything else-”

“Well that’s not what it seemed like to me and Tsutomu!” you yell back, sick to your stomach. “One day you were here, and the next you were gone! No warning, no nothing! Tsutomu was ten, Semi. TEN.” 

He hadn’t been there to see the pieces of your life shatter apart, to see Tsutomu look so confused, to hear him ask, so quiet and ashamed, if it was his fault his brother left. He hadn’t been there to see you patch your family back together with tape you couldn’t even afford and promises you literally bled to uphold.

“I was fighting to protect you-”

“You left us for dead.”

“You would be dead if they had reached the city! What was I supposed to do? Sit back and let others die for me while I did nothing?”

You huff, dragging a hand over your eyes. Your shoulder aches. “So you thought the military needed one extra person? One extra body, that’s all it took to win the war?”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” he groans.

“Do I?” you fire back, leaning forward into his personal space. “Do I know? Because I was of the understanding we were a team, and then you left without a word!”

He can tell from your face you are just as frustrated at this conversation going in circles as he is. And he knows you have a point - he did leave without saying anything, and it’s a guilt that still weighs on him. But in his core, he knows he is right too. Why shouldn’t he want to defend his home? Why shouldn’t he have gone? 

“I did what I had to protect you and the kids.” His voice drops into a low anger that holds more fury than any scream could. “I’m not going to apologise for wanting to protect what I love, no matter if you appreciate it or not.”

Your eyes dart between his, narrowed and searching. There’s definitely more underlying those words, years of unspoken almosts that had to be forgotten. Even just saying that much dredges up old memories he thought long gone, lost to time and unfortunate circumstance. 

“I’d appreciate not being left alone to feed-”

“Stop being dramatic, you weren’t alone. The kids are smart, and W-”

“They were literally kids!" you flare, tongue cutting with scorn sharper than any blade he's faced. "What, you wanted me to let Yachi go work in the factories? Let Tsutomu go fight in the pits? We both know that would have been a death sentence.”

“You had Wakatoshi, and-”

“Wakatoshi died!” 

Semi has been stabbed before. It’s a strange sensation; if there’s enough adrenalin flooding your veins, it almost feels like nothing more than a poke. But slowly, a creeping realization will set in as the wetness of your shirt becomes too much to ignore and your eyes are drawn irrevocably down. It’s only then the pain will hit you.

This doesn’t feel like that. This is immediate pain, your words splattering sharp and bright across his chest. He stutters back a step, breaths coming in short and shallow bursts.

“What… who...”

Your lips are pressed together, face turned away from him. The breath you pull in is shaky, and when you meet his eyes, they’re apologetic and guilty.

“The… the town guard caught Tsutomu trying to pocket medicine for me, and they were going to take him but Wakatoshi stepped in and it all happened so fast I…” a breathy sigh escapes you, right on the cusp of a sob. “I’m so sorry Eita, I didn’t mean to tell you like that.”

“It’s-”

It’s not OK. Wakatoshi has been a reliable fixture in Semi’s life for years, unshakable through everything. His certainty was something Semi had always admired. And despite his severity, there was a gentleness to his composure - lifting the kids up onto his shoulders during the rare parades or quietly teaching them how to play knucklebones. It’s unthinkable, for Semi to have survived this war but Wakatoshi to not.

“I’m OK,” he says. 

The quiet hand you lay on his arm doesn’t help, only serving to remind him that you lost Wakatoshi too. And maybe he lost you a long time ago too. Just one more thing to add to the never-ending list of all he’s lost to this war.

Semi can only laugh, a bitter, broken sound that echoes in his own ears. It’s an ugly thing; to fight and bleed and sacrifice for a country that has never done anything for you, only to come home and be slapped with everything else that’s slipped away in the process. Of course his selflessness would be repaid in frayed relationships and lost friends.

“I’m OK,” he repeats, because he needs it to be true this time.

“Are you?” you ask, concern slipping in under the blunt question. He wants to laugh again. You always have asked the hard questions. 

Your hand slides up to cup his cheek, palm rough but touch gentle against his skin, and he leans into it rather than answer. With his eyes closed, for just this moment, he can almost believe reality isn’t quite as bleak as it actually is. 

When he opens them your head is tilted, looking up at him with exhausted but understanding eyes. Sighing, your head falls forward to knock against his chest. You shoulders slump, and he slowly reaches around to grasp the back of your shirt. It’s still messy between you, and he knows this is only the beginning of a long road back to the trust you shared before. 

Yet as your arms come up to wrap around him too, he thinks maybe there’s hope for him. 

“I missed you,” you whisper into his shirt.

Maybe even hope for you and him. It might not ever be the same, but that is a battle to be faced later. 

For now, he finally lets the tears come. For Wakatoshi. For everything he went through, for everything he put you and Tsutomu through. For the simple relief of not having to fight anymore.

He feels your arms tighten around his waist. 

“It’s OK,” you tell him, and he thinks, someday, he might just believe you.

[jawritter]

You and Me...

Chapter 10

***SERIES WARNINGS**** Rape, non-con, male!rape, injury, violence, description of injury caused by rape, nightmares, self-harm, panic attacks, implied female non-con, language, ass hole Jensen, hurt!Jensen, dark fic, smut. If there is anything else I will add it as I go.

***Chapter Warnings*** Nothing really, some angst, hints of a panic attack possibly. That’s about everything, this chapter is pretty light.

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Reader, Jared x Reader

Word Count: 1509

A/N: Anyway, all mistakes are mine, please don’t copy my work, Feedback is golden. If you want to be added to the series tag list, or my tag list just let me know! I hope you enjoy this one. This is something I actually did and witness, and I realize this one might be hard to read because it is a little heavy.

Summary: It’s funny how one choice you made can change your whole life. One mistake can alter your course, and set you on a path that forever will haunt you. Two people find themselves getting through one of the hardest trials of Jensen’s life, on just one small promise. You and Me. We’ll get through it together…

Want more? Check out my Masterlist!!

***MASTERLIST***

***YOU AND ME MASTERLIST***

You should have been glad, you should have been relieved… But you weren’t.

They were finally releasing him from the hospital.

Paperwork was signed, medications to help with pain had been called into the local Walgreens that Jared would have to pick up once Jensen was home and settled in.

Jensen was going home… To his home… Not yours.

Which shouldn’t have been as big of a letdown as it was, but here it is. There’s no way to change it. 

He wants to go home…

Jared had tried to talk him into staying at your apartment in downtown Austin, but he refused. Said he wanted his life to be back to normal, and that he wanted to go home. 

You didn't blame him. After everything he'd been through if the roles were reversed, you'd be the same way. You would be lying though if you said you weren't just disappointed. 

"Y/N, if you can help him get into some fresh clothes? I'll go pull the car around so he doesn't have to walk all the way through the parking garage," Jared said, grabbing his keys. 

Everything seemed to be moving in so fast yet in slow motion. Jared hurrying around to get everything ready to take him home, nurses coming in and out, signing paperwork, unhooking IV’s, giving instructions.

This would be where you left Jensen today.  

It honestly made you a little sick. 

You didn't like the thought of him in that big house all by himself, trying to take care of himself. He could barely move around this morning he was so sore. He overdid it yesterday, even if he didn’t want to admit it.

What if he had another nightmare, and there was no one to be there with him? 

Turning, you grabbed the black pair of boxer briefs and slipped them over his feet pulling them up to his knees. Along with a black pair of jogging pants. He watched you quietly while you worked.

When you were done he stood in front of you pulling his boxers and pants up before changing his shirt. 

The two of you just stood there and stared at each other for a moment. There was so much you wanted to say, but you just couldn’t make yourself do it. 

He licked his lips and looked down at the floor. 

"You're not mad that I'm not going with you are you?" he asked, sounding more than a little like a scolded child.

"No, I'm not mad, I don't like the idea that you're gonna be by yourself when you still can't even bend down to dress yourself, but I’m not mad at you for wanting to put your life back together, Jensen," you told him, and he nodded his head. Looking up at you he took a long deep breath.

"I know you're right, but If I don't get some sort of normalcy, if I don't do this I'm never gonna get past what they did to me. I can't let fear rule me,” he said, closing the small distance between the two of you. With some effort making himself put his arm around you, even though you know his ribs must have been screaming in protest. 

That’s what he seemed to be complaining most about his morning was the soreness in his ribs.

Slowly and carefully as you could, you wrapped your arms around his shoulders. Helping to steady him a little on his feet.

"Just promise you'll call Jared if you need something," you tell him, looking deep into his forest green eyes. 

There was an emotion there, the first you had really seen out of him since coming to the hospital when you found out what happened to him, but you couldn't pinpoint what that emotion was. It was too masked. The light that was once in his eyes was still gone, and that bothered you. 

"I'll be fine."

His eyes travel to your lips then back up to your eyes. 

Slowly, so slowly at first, you didn't know what he was doing he leaned in toward you, brushing his lips so softly against yours that you almost didn't even feel him. Then taking a deep breath he closes his lips around yours in a hard kiss. 

It was hard and quick, full of different emotions that you couldn’t even name. It was intense, but it was short. He pulled away and it seemed almost as quick as he’d started. 

Your lips tingle where he had touched you. Even in that very short time his lips were on yours it was like something had ignited deep down in your gut, burning deep down into your soul. 

Grabbing his phone from the table next to the bed you put your number into his contacts. He watched you closely but didn’t stop you, still standing with his arm around your waist breathing heavily. It must have taken some mental effort to actually do what he just did. Still, hopefully, it was a sign that this wasn't completely goodbye, and you had to hold onto that, or you weren’t going to survive the ride home. 

It was going to kill you. 

At least it felt like it was.

You slipped his phone into his pocket before looking up at him. 

"If it gets bad call me... Please don't stay there alone," you tell him, your voice barely above a whisper as you fought against the tears that threatened to fall past your defenses.

For just a moment you thought you saw his resolve waver. The walls that he'd built up around himself about to give you a slight crack to peek in when Jared came back to the door. 

"Ready Jay...." 

He froze in place, seeing the position that the two of you were standing in. 

"Hell yeah. let's get out of here," Jensen said, still looking at you. 

Letting go of you he turned and walked away, holding himself up straighter so that if there was anyone watching they wouldn't be able to even see that he was injured. 

Jared looked at you giving you an apologetic smile, then turned and followed his friend. 

You felt like your world was falling apart around you. You didn't understand why, but you did.. Taking a deep breath you fight back tears as you grab your purse, and head toward the parking garage.

 “You let your heart get involved, idiot,” you think to yourself. “Now he's gone, and any chance you had of being with him is gone with him.”

Getting into the car you make the short drive back to your apartment.

 When you finally stumbled through the front door you poured yourself a glass of the strongest whiskey you can find in your house, and sit down at your kitchen table, kicking yourself for letting yourself get attached to him.

You knew better than that, but you let it happen, and now you had to deal with the heartbreak.

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

That night, about five glasses of scotch, and a shower later you were sitting in your dark living room, only the light above the stove shining through the open floor plan of your apartment, strumming ideally at the guitar sitting across your lap. You were just about to try and go to bed when your phone started ringing. You didn't recognize the number, but it had an Austin area code so you answered it. 

"Hello." 

At first, there was just silence. 

"Hello?" you say again a little louder, listening closely you could hear what sounded like someone crying on the other end. 

"Y/N? Can you come to get me?" 

You would have recognized the deep, rough voice on the other end of the phone if you were clinically dead. You were on your feet in a moment. The light buzz you had drank yourself into long gone.

"Where are you? What's your address?" you grab your purse and fly toward the door. 

An hour later you were both back at your apartment. 

"Sorry, it's so small," you tell him as you take his bag, and place it on the foot of your king-sized bed, helping him sit down on the edge of the bed. 

"It's fine," he says. reaching around and grabbing your waist. Pulling you to him so he could rest his head on your stomach, letting a huff air out. His shoulders were still tense as he sat there holding onto you.

"This is so embarrassing. A grown ass man, in my damn 40's, and I'm too chicken shit to stay by myself," he said as you run your fingers through his hair, laughing a little at his smart ass tone. 

"You're not a chicken. There's nothing to be embarrassed about."

You were so relieved that he was there that you really didn't care what had brought him there. Selfishly you never wanted to be apart from him again. Inwardly you curse yourself for being so attached to him. It was something you couldn't control any more though. If you were really honest with yourself you didn't want to try to control it. It just was. That was how it would always be. 

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

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[euphoriahrs]

bittersweet | jjk [i.may]

» pairing: manhwa artist!jeongguk x oc

» genre: roommate au

» synopsis: it’s easier to act indifferent than to show vulnerability.

» word count: 2.2k

» disclaimer: contains strong language, but very little

» rated pg 13

*lowercase is intended*

[series mlist]

chapters: i. | ii. | iii. | iv. | v. | vi. | vii. | viii. | ix. | x. | xi. | xii.

© euphoriahrs (please do not steal or copy in any form)

a/n: this is my first book, so don’t forget to reblog and let me know what you think about it!

𝐓𝐇𝐄 late spring heat welcomed haewon’s skin as she exited the apartment building with a satisfied smirk and made her way to the park.

the town that she lived in was not that far from the city but close enough so she could go anytime she wanted. it was more peaceful in this town whereas, in the city, there was commotion all day and night.

since she was little, she loved being alone with her thoughts in silence. during her school years, she was okay with being a loner. sure she had friends she would hang out with from time to time, but she preferred having time to herself. now that was something that she rarely had the privilege of having since she moved into her apartment and got a job.

the complex that she stayed in was well kept, not the best of the best, but good enough. the rent was manageable since she shared the apartment with a roommate that she had gotten to know during the past couple of months. the roommate in question was a special case, one that she either enjoyed or despised, but mostly despised.

her legs unconsciously strolled past the numerous buildings on the streets, though one, in particular, caught her eye, one that she hadn’t noticed before. letting curiosity take over, she decided to take a detour and have a peek at the building.

when she got closer it turned out to be an ice cream parlor. the building had a cute but simple modern style to it.

a bell rang as she walked in alarming the worker that there was a customer. she looked around, noticing the green and white modern furniture.

“hello! welcome to rocky’s road!” the girl greeted in a bored state.

haewon glanced at the girl, she was quite pretty, she had a cute girl next door appearance. she was average height, maybe shorter, with honey skin, straight black hair, brown doe eyes, and cute round lips.

haewon, who had slightly sharper features and a slightly darker skin tone, with dark hair that was dyed with ash purple highlights that was always kept in a ponytail, gave her a more mature appearance compared to the girl.

“hi,” haewon approached the register with a small smile. enjoying the smell of fresh waffle cones. “what can i get you today?” the girl asked.

haewon glanced at her name tag, yujin, then directed her attention to the menu on the wall. feeling slightly overwhelmed as there were so many different flavors and combinations to choose from, she continued to stare at the possibilities.

yujin noticed her struggle. “i recommend our special the rocky mountains, which is three scoops of our homemade rocky road in a waffle bowl with drizzled chocolate syrup on the bottom two scoops, marshmallow sauce drizzled on all three and chocolate chips sprinkled all over!” she excitedly explained.

haewon rubbed her chin contemplating whether she should get the treat or not.

after a couple of seconds, she grinned, “sure, i’ll take one of those.”

“that’ll be $4.74. you won’t regret it!” yujin chimed. haewon half smiled, “i hope i won’t,” she paused and adds, “has this place always been here?” still wondering why she hasn’t noticed it before.

“no, we just opened a couple of days ago. there used to be another restaurant here, i don’t remember what it was, but I do know that they ran out of business after drunken fights repeatedly happened and it ruined their image, so no one wanted to dine in,” yujin replied preparing the ice cream.

haewon let out a soft ‘oh’ and walked away to one of the chairs close by. she looked around to get more familiar with her surroundings and pulled out her phone to play a game to help pass time.

suddenly it felt like all of the air was pushed out of her lungs when she remembered what the building used to be. this building used to be the pizzeria that she had been wanting to visit since she moved to this area but never had the time to due to the schedule of her job.

she let out a heavy sigh and turned off her phone not being in the mood to play her game anymore. she dropped her head onto the table to cope with the pain. yujin shot her head up to make sure her customer was okay before focusing back on work.

“i was hoping that i’ll get a chance to eat there soon,” haewon internally groaned. that was the only place that seemed to have decent pizza in this town. she groaned again when another wave of sadness and regret washed over her as she grieved.

a few minutes passed and yujin brings out her finished ice cream and smiled cheerfully, “here’s your order,” she paused, “earlier it seemed as if you were upset about that restaurant not being here anymore. i’m sorry for that, but now you have the parlor that you can come to anytime you like,” she smiled cheekily, “so your next order will be on the house,” trying to cheer the girl up.

haewon was about to object the offer but yujin continued to speak, “i’m actually new to this town and haven’t had the chance to meet anyone yet because i’ve been busy working and organizing my apartment… so would you like to possibly hang out sometime?” she perked with puppy eyes.

haewon froze for a second thinking yujin was coming off a little too strong but thought about how she needed new friends as well. she lost contact with her old friends from high school after they all graduated. she was the only one to lose contact with them, they on the other hand, were all still great friends and went to the same college. but due to her habits of not wanting to talk to anyone, she didn’t try to keep in touch with her friends even if she felt that she should’ve.

haewon nodded at yujin’s request not wanting her to be upset if she didn’t give her an answer in a few seconds.

yujin squealed, “i’m sure that you know my name already, but it’s yujin.”

haewon answered, “and i’m haewon.”

the two chatted for a little longer before haewon remembered that she wanted to go to the park, so they said their goodbyes and she was on her way.

she ate her ice cream on the way enjoying the peaceful outdoors around her, the calm before the storm she thought . her smile transformed into a smirk when she thought about what she did earlier that morning.

when the park was in sight, her thoughts quickly went away, excited to finally be able to reach her destination.

she skipped her way to the park, weaving through running kids to get to the abandoned set of swings that she found on a whim when she first moved into the area.

☽ ⋆ ☾

it was a brighter night than usual with the light of the full moon shining down. haewon thought that it was the perfect night to explore the new area, so she grabbed her phone and left the apartment that her residing roommate was currently knocked out in.

she casually strolled through the streets enjoying the quiet night and being in her thoughts when a playground across the street caught her interest. quickening her pace to cross the road, her feet made contact with the sidewalk and continued towards the playground.

she was looking around reminiscing to when she was a kid playing on the slides, chasing and tormenting other kids with bugs and worms when she noticed a silhouette in a wooded area not too far away from where she was. she headed deeper into the area, stepping on sticks and dead leaves on the way to search for what the object was.

carefully, she stepped closer until it was in view. it was a swing set. that had been left to rust and be forgotten, to spend the rest of its time falling apart until it was completely in shambles.

she was walking towards the set when she froze in place. there was a shuffling noise coming out of the bushes close by. her eyes widened and the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood up.

“it’s close to midnight, who would be out at- oh yeah, me.” she quivered. trying to calm down, she blindly tried to search the area but wasn’t very effective because the trees blocked most of the moonlight. so she waited a few seconds to see if the noise was going to reoccur before continuing to walk to the swings.

she didn’t even get to take five steps before there was another shuffle coming from the bushes.

she jumped in surprise and failed to land on her feet with a thud, mumbling a stream of explicit words as she got up. then she remembered that she took taekwondo and silently thanked the gods that her dad forced her to take those lessons back in middle school.

“i’ll have to thank dad later,” she pondered. feeling somewhat prepared, she stood up, dusted the back of her pants off, and got in position ready for anything that could come out of that bush.

a figure slowly started to creep out causing the hair on the back of her neck to stand up even further than before, if that was possible.

her nervous thoughts rapidly shot through her mind. trying as hard as she could to block them out, she quietly hummed a random melody that she thought of on the spot.

her eyes locked onto where the target currently was. the small amount of moonlight allowed her to at least see the silhouette of the figure.

after a few moments, the figure finally sprinted out. quickly gathering up her courage, haewon dashed right towards the figure but stopped midway letting out the breath that she didn’t know she was holding in.

“a cat?” she clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth in agitation.

“a cat got me that scared? a fucking cat?!” she exasperated. a few moments passed in silence so she could gather her thoughts. her whole life flashed before her eyes just because of a cat?

“boo!” she quickly spun in the direction of the voice only to find an older man that looked to be in his fifties standing proudly with his coat opened in his hands.

“wha-” she screamed with terror after she realized what she was witnessing while covering her not so virgin eyes.

in a split second, she ran at full speed towards the man. who once had a sly grin, now was shocked in place as she lunged her knee at his exposed balls and scurried her way back to the apartment.

☽ ⋆ ☾

she spotted the woods and ran for the swings.

while eating the rest of her ice cream, she listened to the late morning conversations of the birds along with the trees rustling in the background, shifting the sun’s rays. butterflies, dragonflies, and other little insects flew through the empty spaces filled with the sun’s rays, weaving through trees and other bugs. occasionally, she would see a butterfly or two become a bird’s lunch. the moving sun rays gently radiated off her skin as she looked at the ladybug that was chilling on the seat beside her. she enjoyed the relaxing ambiance before it was to be interrupted.

haewon got off of the swing and headed to the recycling bin for plastic to dump her empty ice cream bowl away. as she walked back to the swings suddenly a song from her favorite band the rose interrupted the conversations that took place around her.

a toothy grin appeared on her face. she looked at the time on her small wristwatch. it was about time that her roommate would decide to wake up since it was the weekend.

she grabbed her phone from her back pocket, her grin turning into the one the cheshire cat possesses and accepted the call. but before she could answer, a husky livid voice boomed through the speaker, “haewon! what the fuck is wrong with you?!”

her smirk not faltering one bit “what’s wrong?” she asked with her voice laced in fake concern and chuckling to herself, “this isn’t funny haewon! you’re as good as dead when you come back,” the voice shouted with irritation. haewon burst into laughter. her boisterous laugh combined with the booming voice coming from her phone occupied the area around her.

“don’t- don’t act like your the innocent one here,” she tried to say in between laughs still imagining how he must look being upset over such a harmless prank.

a few moments later and she’s hunched over with tears stained on her face. she heard her name being said on the other side of the phone. “see ya” she breathed heavily and hung up feeling too tired to talk to them anymore.

after she caught her breath and cleared her mind, she stood back up and wiped her face before making a beeline to the apartment ready to embrace the storm or maybe just a squall that she had awakened.

[curiousconch]

Recovery

Chapter 9 of Ricochet (An Open Heart AU)

Catch up here: Series Masterlist

Chapter Synopsis: As Heather is set to recover, will her relationship with Rafael follow the same path? 

Pairing: Rafael Aveiro x MC (Dr. Heather Song) | Bryce Lahela x MC (Dr. Heather Song) ft. PLATONIC Dr. Ethan Ramsey

Words: 1.4k+ | Genre: Crime, Suspense/Thriller, Romance

Rating/Warnings: Mature (16+) / themes of physical and emotional trauma 

Author's Notes: This very very very angsty chapter was inspired by a favorite song of mine from Taylor Swift's 1989 album, Clean. Halfway through, I wrestled with the emotions of this chapter, and another song titled Say Something, a haunting duet by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera helped me complete the rest of the narrative.

Thank you so much for taking time to read this series. Please let me know if you want me to include/remove you in the tags list. Also, disclaimer: Majority of the characters are owned by Pixelberry, except the main character Heather Song.

Rafael watched from a distance as the doctors scrambled to revive her back to life. 

Seeing her actually slip away terrified him. But what was more horrific is how he could only watch on helplessly, with no ability to come to her rescue. It shook him to the core.

For so long he believed that he can be her own personal savior, her superman. But during the most crucial of times, the sinking knowledge that he simply can't fulfill the one promise he made gnawed at him life a nightmare coming to life. 

The fact that he himself had inflicted a deep wound on her heart just a few days ago crushed him all the more. 

He had no right to be here, he realized. He had already gave up that privilege on the day he chose his ego over her. It was when he decided to fulfill his fantasy of being someone else's hero, rather than coming to terms with the truth that she will never need him the way he wanted to. 

Even when the flashback of them at Donahues, where he asked her to consider taking him back, nipped at his already guilt-ridden heart. The sheer audacity of him to demand that from her, only a selfish person without care would ask someone to do that. 

The illusion that he hold onto for so long crumbled into dust. With it, was his determination to cling to what once was. 

"She's going to be okay, Raf," his silent torment was interrupted by Elijah, who approached him in the corner of the room. 

He looked up to him, then to the direction where she was laid down, and heard the merciful evenly-paced beep of the heart rate monitor. 

Relief washed over him. She lived. 

He quietly mouthed a thank you to Dr. Greene. When he was left alone yet again, he ruminated at the stormy thoughts that filled his head. 

She has suffered enough heartache for a lifetime. And for him to continue to pursue her is to only prolong her trauma and heartache over his actions. For them, there was no recovery. 

Today was not a chance to begin again. It was a chance to make it right and finally give up. 

It was then that he decided, it was time to let her go.

***

Heather woke up as she was wheeled into the hospital room. The white fluorescent light made her eyes flicker, her vision trying to adjust to the sudden brightness after a long stay in the dark. 

A baritone voice boomed into the quiet, jolting her consciousness awake. 

"Well, you put up a mighty fight today, Rookie." 

Heather couldn't help a snicker, her vision darting around to sought out the speaker. 

"I had to, or you'll probably chase me to the afterlife with your scalding commentary, Dr. Ramsey."

She heard him chuckle in response. 

"Still snarky, I see," the attending quipped, as he approached the side of her bed and pressed a button on a remote. Slowly, her upper body raised up, as the headboard elevated. She tried to curve her lips into a smile only to feel a tingling pain, making her wince a little. 

"Easy there, Dr. Song. You just went to hell and back today." Ethan said, a clipboard tucked between his fingers. 

"Funny that you say that," she said. "I still feel like hell though."

Her mentor can only manage a faint smile, an endearing affection coming across his piercing blue eyes. She knew that look. It was the same kind of gaze she saw him give Dolores during her intern year. A subtle look of genuine concern which she attributed to their growing relationship as mentor and protege. 

It was just a matter of seconds before that look vanished, replaced by a more formal version. 

"It's going to be a couple of days of recovery for you," he explained. "You suffered from severe hyperkalemia, which, with the help of your friend from the DA, we have managed to de-escalate as soon as possible."

Heather couldn't help but blink at what was just mentioned. "I'm sorry, my friend from the DA?"

"Yes, ADA Lahela was able to identify the correct chemical compound within the first half hour after you arrived here," he paused as he checked the flow of her IV. "It aided us to do the proper intervention in the nick of time."

He was right. Anymore than 30 minutes into the system, potassium chloride would have bound to the blood cells and would have caused permanent, if not fatal damage in her system. 

She'll have to thank Bryce the first chance she gets. Her memories went back to their last conversation, and she shivered at the unavoidable confrontation that will take place. 

Her hands trailed up to her temple, where she felt a bandage. She recalled her fall, thinking it was how she got wounded. 

"Ah, yes. We're going to do an MRI for that, just to make sure we're not missing anything else. But apart from that, you'll do alright." He concluded. 

"Thanks Dr. Ramsey," her appreciation was sincere.

He nodded. He was about to express something else, when a knock on the door hindered him. 

Both of them swiveled at the visitor. Heather swallowed hard as the dark brown eyes looked back at her, the familiar figure standing by the doorway. 

"May I come in?" Rafael said with a hint of hesitation as he put a foot forward.

Ethan Ramsey twisted his gaze back to Heather, checking if he would allow the young man in. Although he saw her body tense, she lightly nodded.

"Sure, Agent Aveiro. We're just about finished here." the attending gently patted Heather's hand. "I'll see you in the morning, Rookie."

When Dr. Ramsey departed, Raf made his way towards her, as if in a daze. Heather bit her lower lip and touched the tips of her brunette fringes. The thin tube of the IV tangled in her arm giving her an excuse to avert her eyes away from his for a few seconds.

"Are you doing alright?" Raf asked, taking a seat on the standard-issued metal chair beside her bed.

"Yeah, I'm okay, I've been through worse." she mumbled, almost whispering.

A sharp pang of contrition reverberated within him, unsure of which ordeal she just called as a better alternative than what she just went through. Although his adultery was probably a main contender.

His head bowed low as if navigating through the warring indecision between his heart and mind. While distracted, a soft pitter-patter of rain slid against the glass window. It was as if nature was conspiring against him, yet another heaven-given sign that their end was inevitable.

How can ending a relationship be made easier? There was no path that would prove to be less difficult, except for an admission of the truth. The least hurtful road to traverse is the turn towards an honest confession that what they had has intersected with their own definition of their limits. 

Rafael cleared his throat, the noise making Heather face him.

"Heather," he began. "I know I promised to be the person who you can turn to, anytime you needed." His lips quivered, fumbling with the right words to say. 

"But I broke that," he simply said, reaching for her hands and lacing it with his. His head dropped so low in between his shoulders that his cheek touched the fabric of her hospital blanket.

Her eyes shone as she slowly took in his words, soaking in the finality of the tone he uttered them with. When she survived her kidnapping tonight, she initially thought she won a battle. But only hours after, they were losing the war.

Rafael's tears soaked through the white sheet, like the rain that drowned the street outside the sullen, sterile hospital room. His muffled groans of defeat echoed through the silence that crawled in between. Although his heart burst in a million shards, deep down he knew it was ultimately for the best.

They couldn't remember how long they stayed still. Eventually, he lifted his head where his gaze fell upon the softness of her features. His thumb gently grazed her cheek, asking for permission.  She nodded, an unspoken agreement similar to what she used to give him before.

In a heartbeat, their lips met, savouring the taste of each other, fully aware that this will be the very last time. The kiss was sweet, but tainted bitter by their unspoken farewell. When they pulled apart, there was no question that it was the end of the road for them. 

There was nothing left to say.

But before they separated, a set of amber eyes witnessed the ending of their love affair, misinterpreting it as a last ditch effort to salvage the remnants of their irreparable relationship. 

The prosecutor fled from the hospital room without so much as a word, unnerved by the scene that put another blow on his own pursuit of love. 

Tags: @eleanorbloom @ramsey-lahela @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

***

Author's Notes 2: Although Rafael is still my OTP, what he did in the beginning of this series rendered him and Heather permanently broken. Cheating, no matter the justifications, will always be cheating. And dealing with the consequences of it, especially by the offended party, will be a hard mountain to summit. Raf chose to let Heather go, and for me, that proves that he loves Heather enough, so that he could spare her from further emotional trauma. She has more than enough to deal with now.

[samthemarvelfan]

Goodbyes: Chapter Six

Summary: Ella Monroe is the Avengers newest recruit, handpicked by Steve Rogers himself. Indebted to him for reasons unknown, Cap pairs her up with Bucky Barnes. He is tasked with training her to relearn and hone the skills that have long since rusted. Bucky is cold and distant, and Ella can’t seem to break through the wall he’s built up for decades. He sees something in her though, and it scares him to death. Has the fate of these two strangers been sealed? …or will they always be longing…

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x OFC, feat Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson

Warnings: DARKER THEMES AHEAD. Angst, Bucky is a dick, mutual pining, self sabotage, male-on-female violence, description of injuries, PTSD, mentions of medical talk? Sloooooow burn ahead. Fluff!

A/N: guys guys GUYS! Get ready for a lil fluff! The balls gonna get rollin’ and its a non-stop ride now. I hope you all enjoy, any and all feedback is appreciated! <3 Happy Valentine’s Day!

Taglist: @iheartsebastianstan @jjlizz @stuckysbabe @sk493494 @lefoutoir @nickangel13 @marvelismysafezone @lilulo-12 (strikethrough means the tag didn’t work! I’m sorry!)

Ow. That’s the only thought going through your head. Your eyes open and judging by the IV’s in your arm, you’re in a hospital. The events that landed you here start flooding your mind. You remember the HYDRA base, the agents, and the pain, but where is everyone? Where’s Steve? Sam? Where’s Bucky?

You sigh, Bucky.

He’d been so mad at you for ignoring him...a commanding officer. You’re in a huge amount of trouble—no doubt about that. You decide now isn’t the time to think about that, after all you were just shot.

You wanted to know if you’d dreamt him carrying you into the jet. If it was all just delirium from blood loss when you thought he was caring for you, assuring you that you’d be okay. You wanted to see him. Hell you needed too.

“Shit...” you seethe. Your right arm is in a sling and your shoulder is bandaged tightly. You scoot attempting to shimmy your body up so you could sit up some more. The sound of the door opening caught your attention, and when you saw him walk in you almost fainted.

Sergeant Barnes entered your hospital room, two water bottles in hand, dressed in black sweats with a tight, black cotton shirt. He’s being quiet as to not wake you. When he realizes you’re up he freezes, though. Unsure if he should be there at all.

“Hey...” you practically whisper. He says nothing, but takes this as an approval of his presence. There’s a chair next to your bed... right next to your bed. So close that the arm of the chair is indenting the side of mattress. Bucky grips the chair and moves it out from the bed a foot or two, then sits in it.

“Where am I?” You ask him quietly. It is then you notice that his jacket had been hanging on the chair he moved from your bed. Had he been here while you were asleep?

He opens the top of one of the water bottles, and hands it to you. “You’re at the compound. This is the med unit.” He speaks softly.

You take a sip of the cold water, relishing the hydration it gives your body. “I didn’t even know we had a medical unit on-site.” You say in an attempt to make conversation.

He stops to lock his gaze on yours. “And you wouldn’t have, had you just listened to me last night.” He sounds annoyed with you already, but also worried.

“Sam was in trouble. Steve didn’t respond to his distress call and neither did you, I did what I thought needed to be done.” To you it was simple. Your friend was in trouble, and you helped him.

“You defied a direct order, Ella.” There he goes, using your name again. “There could be serious consequences to that. If I wanted to, I could have you dismissed from the Cadet program all together.” His tone was serious but he wasn’t threatening you, he was just stating a fact.

You cleared your throat, before looking at him and fiddling with the head of your shirt. “Is that what you want?” You ask.

Why wouldn’t that be what he wants? He makes it pretty clear you’re a huge thorn in his side, and he doesn’t enjoy your company. This is an easy out for him, get rid of you and ease his work load in the process.

He smiled softly to himself. Smiled? Was that a smile on those perfect lips?

“No,” he said softly. “I just—“ 

Bucky was cut off by a tap at the door, causing him to stand quickly and move away from you even more.

“Knock-Knock...” You knew that voice. “Hey Ella, how are you doing?” Steve asks, sitting at the edge of your hospital bed.

You smile at him, unsure of what you’ve done in your life to deserve such a good friend. “I’m okay I promise. I’m just so sorry for all the trouble I caused.” You glance to Bucky, who’s gaze seemed to be locked on your shoulder.

“Can we get you anything?” Steve asks sincerely.

You shake your head, “I’m okay. I swear, I’m not looking forward to the scar this is gonna leave, but at least Sam is okay.”

Sergeant Barnes’ demeanor changed suddenly. You felt the tension in the room build and you didn’t like it. Why does he do this when other people are around?

“Sergeant Barnes,” you call to him, when his eyes meet yours you feel you heart do back-flips. How can someone be so gentle one moment and so cruel the next?

“Thank you for staying with me, and for helping me last night. I don’t know what would have happened had it not been for—“

He interrupts you, “Get this straight, Cadet. Out there—that’s the real world. The threats were dealing with are real,”

His eyes shift between yourself and Steve, who is looking at his friend with disappointment.

“The consequences are too. You get hurt, or worse...” Bucky’s jaw clenched. “The shit storm comes down on me, and people wonder why I put up with a recruit who can’t follow a simple instruction in the first place.”

Your heart falls into your stomach. “All I can do is apologize, Sergeant.” What else can you say? He clearly doesn’t wanna hear excuses, so there’s no point in trying to defend yourself.

“Despite all that,” Steve starts, “You did great out there. I don’t know if Sam,” He looks to Bucky, “or any of us would be here if you didn’t take the initiative.”

A small smile creeps across your lips, “Thanks, Cap.” The wound in your shoulder starts to throb from your elevated blood pressure. You grit your teeth, adjusting yourself on the cot.

“You’re sure you don’t need anything?” Steve asked, guilt painting his word. He rested his hand on yours, earning a stern glare from Bucky. You watch him subtly out of you peripherals, his jaw was clenched as was his metal fist.

You close your eyes momentarily, wrestling with the pain you feel in your shoulder.

“I’m alright. I just need...time.”

Bucky scoffed. “Time? You need to learn to listen to orders.”

“Buck—“ Steve started, removing his hand from yours.

He continued, “You wouldn’t be in a hospital if you could follow a simple command. You risked everyone’s safety because you’re too stubborn to do as you’re told.”

My eyes narrowed at Sergeant Barnes. Why does he do this? He treats you so differently when Steve is around, and you’re about fed the-fuck up.

“Ya know what? You’re absolutely right.” You say firmly, attempting to stand from the bed.

“Ella, just relax. He didn’t mean—“ Steve interjected.

“No Cap, I know exactly what he means.” You got to your feet; pride being the only thing hiding the pain from your face.

“Sergeant Barnes has made it very clear from the beginning what he thinks of me. What was it you said a few weeks back? Oh right, that I’m incompetent, I’m lazy, and I’m spoiled. I’m a rookie who would run from a fight the minute it started.”

Steve’s thumb and forefinger pinched the bridge of his nose, before looking at his friend. He subtly shook is head at Bucky, who kept his eyes locked on you, jaw tightly clenched.

“Guess what Sarge,” you say with disdain, gesturing to your shoulder. “I didn’t run did I?”

Bucky doesn’t speak, and his gaze on you is unyielding. “From now, keep your two-faced ass away from me.” You felt that all too familiar sting prick your eyes as you rip the IV from your arm. “You don’t know a God damn thing about me, Barnes.”

You pushed by them both, finally allowing the hot tears to stain your face as you head for your room.

“Mother...fucker...” You groan. You’re attempting to change your bandages, but unable to get it wrapped fully around your shoulder. Even with a mirror, it was impossible to do using your opposite hand.

You almost had it when a knock at the door made you jump. “Shit! Yeah, what is it?” You call, looking to the door.

The door opened slowly, revealing a casually dressed Bucky on the other side of it. You turned your back immediately, tending to your bandages again.

“What do you want?” You sneer.

He was quiet for a few seconds. You almost didn’t think he was going to say anything, until that familiar, irritated sigh passed through his lips.

“Christ, let me help you.” He said taking a few steps into your room.

You groaned. “I do not need your help.”

He scoffed. “Fine. Wrap your bandages poorly and get that wound infected.” He knew you wouldn’t protest, and shut your bedroom door.

You sigh, rolling your eyes so hard you thought they’d get stuck. You stood from the seat you had taken at your desk, walking up to him with as much attitude as you could muster and shove the gauze into Bucky’s chest. The force doesn’t move him an inch. “Just hurry up.” You command.

He unrolls the gauze, ripping it with his teeth when he deems it long enough. Bucky looks at the half-assed job you did on yourself and let’s out a chuckle.

“What is so damn funny?” You ask, annoyed to your core.

“Nothing, I just think it’s ridiculous you’d risk losing an arm for the sake of your pride.” He jested.

“What, not something you’d recommend?” You joke, nodding to his metal appendage.

He lets out a breath of laughter, “Not exactly, no.”

Bucky undoes you’re bandages, watching the pain form on your face as he moves over the open wound.

“Shit...” you intake a sharp breath of air causing him to pause. He watches you grip the edge of the table so hard, your knuckles go white.

He softly grips the spot above your elbow. “Just...take a deep breath. I’ll move as fast as I can.“ Bucky’s voice coaxes the tension from your muscles, and you relax.

Doing as he says, you inhale deeply through your nose and out through your mouth. Bucky attempts works quickly, seeing the discomfort in your face. The rough tips of his fingers cause chills to go through your body. He notices, and you hear him swallow hard.

The skin he passes over is burning, calling out for him to touch you again. You feel his warm breath on your neck, as you shudder. His body heat keeping your muscles relaxed.

“Almost done. Keep breathing.” He whispers in your ear. The smoothness in his voice coats your eardrum like honey, sending your body into a hypnotic buzz.

When he finishes he places his right hand on your bicep. His thumb stroking the smooth skin of your arm a few times. “All set, Els.” He speaks, using his nickname for you again.

You spin around to see he’s mere inches from you. “That um, that’s perfect.” You whisper. Your eyes flicker over his lips, and his do the same to yours. 

He’s so handsome. You think, Ya know, when he’s not being a total dick.

He stands to his feet quickly, breaking the intimate trance you shared. He disposed of the used bandages, and you realize that you indeed needed more help than you were willing to admit.

“Thank you.” You mumble in his general direction. You hated this, how you wanted to forgive him for all the horrible things he said to you and about you.

“You’re welcome.” He says softly.

Another moment of silence passes between you two. This is the Bucky you wanted all the time. This Bucky was kind and gentle and actually cared about you, or at least he made it seem like he did.

“So why did you come here? To my room? The last time you were here, you made it clear you didn’t wanna see me again.” You ask.

“That’s not true.” He said quickly defending himself. “You left the med unit before you were suppose to, I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Well as you can see, I’m fine.” You retort.

He looks at the ground for a moment. “I’m glad.”

You nod, as a sigh escapes your lips. The way he affects you isn’t insignificant. It means something, at least to you.

“Bucky, what are we doing?” You ask softly.

He doesn’t protest as you use his name, but rather looks at you confused. “What do you mean?”

You stand with a scoff, “This! I mean here you are, in my room...again. We’re alone and it’s private and it’s intimate so you’re being,” he steps closer as you fumble over your words, “I don’t know, you’re being the guy I wish you were all the time. When we get around people and it’s like you can’t stand the sight of me.”

He takes a step towards you again.

“I wanna know where I stand with you.” You say shyly.

He swallows hard, “This is the second time you’ve been hurt on my watch.” His face was pained as he looked at your wound.

You reach out for his hand instinctively, trying to show him that it’s not his fault. When your hand grasps his, he gently pulls you into him, playing with your fingers for a moment.

“I don’t know how to stay away from you. I’m trying, Doll. Really I am. Every time you’re around me you’re in danger and this,” he gestured to you shoulder, “This just proves it.”

He’s holding your hand with both of his now, “I want to keep you safe.”

“I’m okay, Bucky. I promise.” Is all you can say.

A breath of laughter leaves his lips, “You’re always okay, aren’t you?”

You smile, and nod. “I am...but I’m better when you’re around. Like this,—this feels...”

Bucky held you closer, encroaching your small frame with his. He’s mere inches from you now.

“It feels right, Buck.” You say, look up at him through your lashes.

He drops your hands gently, and cups your cheek with his right, holding your waist with his cool left one.

He swallows hard as he presses his forehead to yours, “I know it does, Doll. I know.”

You’re gripping his arms as he holds you. His eyes closed, breathing deeply. 

“What are you doing to me, Ella?” He whispered so low, if he wasn’t holding you, you wouldn’t have heard it.

A small smile graced your lips, “I could ask you the same thing, Sarge.”

Bucky holds you like that for a moment or two, before he gently lets you go and takes a step backward. He ran his hands over his face and through his hair.

He sighed thoughtfully, “Don’t think because you’re injured it excuses you from training. You may not be able to do hand to hand combat, but we will train your non-dominant arm to do everything your dominant one can.”

Ah, there he is. Reminding you once again that he is your commanding officer and you are his...burden.

Despite his words, a smile graced your face. “Y-you’re training me?”

He nods, and you notice the corners of his mouth turn up. “Yes. At least that way I’ll be able to keep an eye on you, and try and get some of Sam’s sloppy habits outta your head.”

“What time?” You ask happily.

He looks at you. His cerulean eyes mapping your shoulder up to your face. He reaches out and strokes your cheek with a smile, “7 A.M. Not a minute later.”

You stand from the edge of your bed, “Sir yes Sir.”

“Goodnight, Els.” He whispered.

You smiled softly, “G’night, Buck.”

That night, you had the best sleep you’ve had since being here.

...and so did Bucky.

Chapter Seven: Left

[soranihimawari]

Shatter continued

A story in several parts:

tw: reader chan’s sibling is a toxic force to be reckoned with; officers mentioned in later parts (civil servants for young adults); mentions of accidents and scarring [both emotional and physical]; young adult 18+ for strong and suggestive language

word count: 6.8 K 

tagging @oikawa-obvs​ @m0nstergeneration20xx​

the characters and other tie in works:

seijoh 4: oikawa, iwazumi, hanamaki, mattsun

spin off of the Running at 6a.m. feat. hanamaki and his s/o [plus s/o family]

Little side notes: mattsukawa issei means “it’s all right.” // fuyu no rairakku fuji means “my beautiful wisteria tree” // mitsuketa means “I have you”

Throughout this story, mattsun & q learn how important the actions of others does not define a set path.

Images based via Pinterest

Image 2 based off this post

<< Back

III

The day before you leave back to your side of the city, you tell your friend what has transpired between you and mattsun on movie night:

“That’s great! I knew he’d like you. They all do,” she says. “I mean, you did fall asleep next to him for a little while before they walked us home that night.” 

“Yeah, I know,” you reply. “I’ll be out with him all day…”

“You’re not going to know what hits you until it shows, Q.” 

“Life is not like the hallmark movie channel, Chise!” 

Your friend’s stubbornness and your counter argument came to a close when her aunt and uncle stepped in to act as a mediator between the two of you… 

“Your sister is coming to pick you up, Q,” her uncle informs you. The news was not a welcomed one at all; the blood in your veins ran cold. 

“What?! Uncle, you can’t be serious,” your friend states, wide eyed. “Q just got here…She can’t go back! Her sister is not right. Please recon—”

“There’s nothing we can do,” her aunt replies. She explains all the sound reasonings why. 

“How long do I have?” You wonder. Chise storms out of the room and when you hear her door shut, you inhale and exhale a deep breath silently counting down before you rationally think things through. You were gone for a total of four days & three nights; it takes about an hour or so for the train, but if your sister does a ride share, you have less than that. 

“She’s on her way, isn’t she?” Your voice betrayed your expression. 

“Yes,” you’ve never seen your friend’s uncle so abruptly twist in disgust. You know both he and his wife would try anything to help you, but considering how they presented the facts, it was going to be a losing battle.

Nodding, you thank them both for the news and the hospitality they offered, but you ask them to leave as politely as you can. You were seventeen years old when you realized that the hardest thing and right thing are not always the same.

IV

Your sister wasn’t always this way. She was the elder & you needed to listen to her. You were always like water, one with the moon & stars; she was like fire, warm and with enough energy to harbor the solar flares. She wasn’t always an unhappy brute; the accident that tore your family apart was the catastrophe which estranged you to this day. 

“What do you mean Q’s leaving?” Makki asks. He sits up hearing his girlfriend’s voice fall into a panic. 

“It’s an emergency; you know I told you about y/n’s relative right?” 

“Yeah. What’s wrong?”

“Takahiro, I’m worried for Q because that’s the one who’s coming to pick her up. She can’t go back to that house on a whim! Her sister might beat her up worse than before!”

“Stay where you are. I’m getting a hold of Iwazumi & Mattsun.”

“Mmk. Hurry because I don’t know what time that witch is arriving.”

—18:43—

“Call the authorities,” was what you hear your friend’s relative instructs. One of them has to keep the objective line of sight here and now all there is left to do is wait.

You stand outside your friends house with a dark expression. Your sister’s arrival meant you could try to fight, yet you knew words are just as damaging. You come face to face with her just as the boys arrive. 

“Come little sister,” she says. You don’t move. Your friend is behind you, but when the boys arrived she lets them in the side gate: Makki leads followed by Iwa, and finally Mattsun. Your friend fills them in and now they stand at the ready to help you if you need it.

“Q. Come now. Don’t make it anymore difficult than it has to be.”

“No.” Your voice is absolute. 

“No?” She sarcastically replied with a scoff. 

“Did I stutter?” You retort. Your friend and her family is on the porch watching this. 

“I don’t know what your game is, but this is a family affair…”

“Do not bring them into this mess,” you warn as you walk toward the spot on the lawn where your sister stands. There is a few feet of grass between you. 

“Enough,” she says in a menacing tone. “Quantum stop being foolish before I burn you and cast you out. Black sheep or not, you are my sister and you will do as I say.”

She takes out a lighter from her purse and one of the oldest journals you have. It was a tome you had since you started middle school.

“Burn it for all I care,” you spat. “Because as far as I am concerned, we are no longer family. You stopped being in mine before I started high school you bitch. Touch me again and I will make you regret finding me.” 

At this point, your teeth are bared and your voice is as even as it can me. You know there is truth in those words, but with your found family behind you, you have the higher ground. 

“Like hell little sister,” she spits. “I rather you drop dead and die because you are what makes me insane: this ends today.” 

You sister burns the book regardless. You stomp out the flames in time that a good portion of the damage book is scorched down to a delightful singe. You wonder how long your sister has been without her medication. The gargantuan illness does not leave her nor do you want to find out because the shadow of her hands comes into contact with your left side of your face. 

She leaves without batting an eye at you. Rather, you feel the residual sting of a slap across your face from a hand that is not your own. The sound is like a whip cracking in the wind.

“Mattsun, Iwazumi,” your friend’s face is pulled into Makki’s side where he whispers something in her ear, probably to watch you say the final nail in the coffin:

“You have no power over me; I am not afraid of you,” you defy her orders again. 

“You cheeky little shit,” your sister says before your fist makes direct contact with her face and when it knocks her to your left, you roundhouse kick her in the ribs thus knocking her wind out of her. 

“Did you know she could fight like that?” Makki asks. Your fist is unclenching because your wrath is unlike anything they’ve witnessed, sure Iwazumi smacks Oikawa with a volleyball, but when ther collectively see what you can do, they look at each other. Except Mattsun, he reads the situation and what you told him at the movie night the day before finally clicks.

I am not ready because I am not fully healed yet. I am left alone to deal with my own demons. Everyone has dragons to slay and for today that dragon is your sister. His thoughts are strung together, yet he sees what you mean in practice and honestly it explains your cynicism, your perception of what it means to have someone who is just as toxic and how they tried to break you. 

“Holy shit,” you clearly hear your friend gasp behind you when she pushes herself off of Makki. When your sister lands on the concrete border of the lawn, you don’t care to notice the winter wind whipping around your short locks. Your breathing is becoming more unstable, yet when you stand to inspect the damage done, you glance down with an oddly satisfying expression: You’re a survivor and you’d be damned if your sister thinks she could shatter you further. 

You pick your sister up by the collar until she is eye level with you. You whisper something in her ear which makes her furious: “Fuck you and the high horse you rode in on sister.” 

“Go,” your best friend says one word while Makki holds her back; Mattsukawa and Iwazumi sprint to where you are holding your sister and all that woman sees is red thereafter.

Her mouth lets out an in humane scream as she lunged forward, her hands have a vice grip on your exposed flash. You feel her nails dig and leave marks. The action carried through as hands reach for your neck to crush your windpipe. You know of the western saying “to choke on your words,” but you’d never thought of it being done physically.

As soon as this occurs, you notice your sister’s wrists are almost snapped by the sheer force Mattsukawa exerts in holding you from behind. Your gasping for air is by far one of the most horrifyingly haunting things he’s ever heard (and you all you can emote is telagraphing I am terrified. Don’t let me go). It takes you a moment to register that it is because you hear him breathe behind you.

“I got you,” Mattsun holds you; he holds you for as long he can to make sure you don’t slip on the residual frost on the lawn. He runs a hand through your hair calming you down further. Your hands are not by your side anymore, rather you feel them grasp on to his own. You close your eyes and he repeats those three words until your breathing and panic subsided.

This occurs while Iwazumi corners your sister and she leaves your friends’ property. Sirens wail in the distance and it doesn’t take very long for the authorities to take your sister into custody for verbal and physical abuse charges whereas you claim self-defense. It’s hard to talk currently, so you write it out on the report form. Makki and your best friend are filling out witness statements while Iwazumi is being checked out by one of the health officials right after you sign the report documents. Mattsun doesn’t leave your line of sight at all, for that you are grateful. Your knuckles have the suture glue on them aid the healing process. The EMT gives you a neosporin antiseptic for the scratches on yout face left behind from the slap your received from the guilty party already in the backseat of the squad car that had already left for the booking station in the west side of the neighborhood.

When the witness statements are done, you are asked to come to the precinct first thing in the morning for a secondary assessment for your wounds,but this is bypassed as soon as you mentioned your previous case serial numbers.

“She’s as lucky as they come,” one of the officers says in passing. “We’ve been trying to pin her relative’s location because of the fact this isn’t her sibling’s first attempt at attempted murder.”

“You did the right thing as soon as you called sir,” his partner praises your friend’s aunt and uncle. “That woman is a danger to herself and others. How did one sister’s grief spiral while the other chose to move forward is beyond me, but miss Q has some good people around her.”

“She’s our niece’s closest friend, so please make sure that woman has all ties cut with the victim,” you heard her uncle say.  “We’ll take her in, but please make the arrangements to have some of her things brought here before the holidays.”

“Understood sir,” the first officer says tilting his hat. “Ma’am, we’ll be going then. Good day.”

Iwazumi takes his leave shortly thereafter and reminds Makki to give you all some space. Mattsun asks if it’s ok to take you away for a couple of hours. You finish passing along the case files while this occurs. You’re not ready to talk about what just happened, but you find yourself ready to move past this ordeal. Families are different, yet your relationship with your sister is one of the worst after the story of biblical twins.

“Of course. Take her out for as long as she needs. You have my number, so text me later,” your friend says with a warm smile. She bops her head toward where you still stood basking in the frosty atmosphere. “Gods know she needs a break. Oh, and Mattsun?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.” She hugs hun quietly along with her uncle who lays a hand on his shoulder. Her aunt mentioned something about how they’re going to remodel the room you stayed in to a permanent one. “She is family after all,” was the last thing he heard as the three of them went back inside their home.

On that note, Mattsukawa returns back to your side. He marvels at your new marks bestowed by what had transpired a couple hours ago. It’s nearly eight in the evening on a Tuesday night. Winter break has finally come, but here he notices you’re ok. Or rather, as ok as you make it seem.

“I should get you a bell,” your sense of humor is impeccable, but when the tears that never come do make their way known in other ways, you stop to turn your face back to the skies. You close your eyes thanking whatever lucky stars you have for having good people gravitate toward you; with one final breath, you return your focus back to your guard dog even if he towers over you with enough power to eclipse the graying skies. As he reaches for your hand, you know this is the first time he sees a glimpse of how much you shine. 

“It’s quiet now,” you said, returning your undivided attention to him. “Thank you.” 

The young middle blocker moves forward with you mentioning something along the lines of you had a date to keep. 

“Do you still want to go?” He asks you this to gage how you’d react. He doesn’t want you to over exert yourself, so when you say yes, he leads the way to one of the closer neighboring shopping plazas.

One trip to a tea shop down the street leads you and him to have a quaint seat by a window. The both of you talk like old friends. You don’t let the dread of what looms over you break you, you’ve been through worse and you’re not going to let anything happen to make him feel like that again. You could tell how frightened he really was earlier when he kept you in front of him on the lawn. You pour some more mango black tea into your cup. You know you two barely say much, yet an entire epic is laid out between you two.

Not a word is said because there is an definite understanding in the delicate exchange here. Mattsun sips his tea and as he learns you’re exhausted of fighting on your own. It dawns on you if given the chance stories about being wronged in the past leads you to be bound by love later on. Tell me you want to help me too, Mattsukawa.

“If you’ll have me, please let me be your kintsugi,” he places the dwarf tea cup down on its saucer. You sit across from him as the fluorescent lighting causes your eyes to flicker amusedly at his features. You rest your chin in your hand when he does this. 

“You don’t have to ask,” you reassure him. With your free hand, you hold one of his with residual heat. Why are you doing this? You like each other. Hell, he’s the one who made sure you’re alive. He’s amazingly kind, so what is stopping you? 

“I already run with you at six in morning. It’s plausible after--Mattsun? Hold on a sec. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I like you,” Mattsun’s voice is as casual as he makes it seem. Don’t make me go through that again; I almost didn’t get the chance to show you how amazing you really are.

You see what he means behind those eyes of his. He’s honest, kind, and strong; almost like steel, but you’re just as strong like titanium. You work well together, you think. If this is what it feels to fall in like with someone, you’d proactively seek it every time from him until you learn how to love yourself for all parts of you. He has a subtle way of telling you he likes you. Acts of love and kindness aside, you want to cherish this setting, precisely because you live the way you tease him in a friendly manner. For a moment, the veil of winter’s shouldering dreariness stops. Your lips curl into a Cheshire’s grin. His heart nearly stops for the second time that day.

“I like you too,” you chuckle. “Who knew you were such a romantic at heart Mattsukawa?”

“You did.”

You nod. “I should have known. So, where would you like to take me now?”

After you two finish speaking at the teahouse, Mattsun escorts you toward another part of the same plaza. Your face illuminates in the refraction of the street lamps, your hands bump into each others whilst you walk the promenade.

There are no words exchanged because neither of you want to see each other with the image seared into your minds’ eye; his arms that evening were clicking on to your waist, his his center of gravity shifting so when he pulls your body backwards, you hear his voice reminding you he has you, you’re safe here. You nodding closing your eyes when his warmth emits a calming aura. You both ignore the subject, but you’re really fucking thankful to have him (along with the company you keep, each showing a different type of love from the international myths you loved to read): you both walk with the same thoughts that evening: Don’t scare me like that again, whatever you do, stay alive. We haven’t even seen what our story might look like. Just please, prove to me you’re still here; catch the fire from me to you and live.

Mattsukawa and you walk past a pillar and stop to take a glance at the community announcement boards. A few of the paper lanterns are already lit. The street lamps are beginning to hum.

“There’s a night market happening,” you read aloud, slowly, you feel yourself relaxing more into your surroundings. Your hand points to the sign and Mattsukawa notices the minute change in your behavior. You’re much more free and outgoing than before; you’re a winter’s tale and a dahlia, but he knows the flower thing might be a tad bit off, so he keeps that content to himself for now.

“We’ll take the others here later,” he informs you about thinking about how his classmates, especially Oikawa, would handle not coming.

“If you say so,” you reply. You both continue to walk and browse through the various shops, but when he takes you into one the art stores, you ask him to wait a moment to let other patrons walk in. He is perceptive enough to understand your feelings, so he does what he thinks is best: he reminds you you aren’t going inside alone. 

“I got you,” Mattsukawa repeats from earlier. “We’ll go inside whenever you’re ready. Does that sound fair to you?”

“...ok.”

“Do you want to go call it a day then?” 

The moment you nod, he walks at a quicken pace. Eventually you tell him to slow down when you pass by a neighboring plaza. This one was more serene than the last.

“What’s on your mind?” You ask you impromptu date. 

I’m learning to trust you a little more and I’m afraid of this continues, would you run from me? 

“Mattsukawa. Don’t overthink it,” your voice is unmistakably calm, yet it is driving him to let go and live a little; so you do. You let his hand go for a little while, and now you stand in front of him and you have a mischievous glint in them. 

Fuck it. I don’t care if you’re here for four days or four minutes. I am not running away from this, from you, and the possibility of you staying.

Mattsukawa tilts your face up with one of his fingers and when you feel his lips ghost over your own, you close the gap. First kisses in the winter are not rare, but the ambiance of being surrounded by the wisteria trees dyes the world into a violet haze. Love is not as fickle as you think. This one is different, you both relish in this display of affection. He breaks the kiss briefly, and to him, seeing you like this makes him finally understand the sentiment of seeing a whole universe in one person.

You stop him dead in his tracks because as soon as you feel Mattsukawa’s warmth leave your face, you understand how much he was holding back; you both were. His face is tinged a little bit flushed out slightly by the curious softened stare you give him. He wanted to see you worked up before, but he wasn’t expecting to see you act so hastily. You drag your bottom lip through your teeth before you sigh much to your own chagrin because you knew what he felt was true.

“Mmhm,” you’re driving him insane in this short game of stolen glances because he received no further warning when you pull his lips back on yours. Your hands traverse upward from where your hands initially were on his shoulders and eventually looping around his neck. There is a secret kindness you want him to have; he owns this part of you, the wild capricious love of the cold is gorgeously delightful. You’re ok even when he deepens this kiss and he draws this sounds of want and need from you the more you let him. You taste his love in the way your hands love to tousle his hair; you hear his chest rumble in amusement when he opens his mouth slightly teasing you with the residual taste of the tea from earlier. Don’t be afraid to fall, you muse.

Mattsukawa draws you in closer to him as he snakes one arm around the small of your back while the other hand he has used to tilt your face moves to your shoulder before finding solace on your neck. He lost a to the way you move your body and you both don’t succumb to each other’s prowess. What you both crave you found in each other. He dips you to one side like in those old movies you so love. You’re mine, my dear; irreplaceable and hopelessly in my loving arms. Safe you’ll always be.

You catch your breathing when you part, he places you back in a standstill position. You’re smiling together, like a firefly lamp in the summer, casting a halo ring around you two. A few of the flowers are blown away in the brief wind and apparently land all around scattered like gorgeous mosaics on the concrete. You turn your head slightly to hear his heart drum on; you tell him things via tracing the kanji on his shirt little messages like “future,” “brave,” “loyal,” “true,” etc. he chuckles because it tickles a bit, but he reminds you wildhearts can’t be broken so easily. You concur taking a deep breath, watching as your exhale leaves little pufts of moisture to dissipate in the air. He rests his head against your shoulder in a slight variation of an acknowledging bow; his breath tickles against the nape of your neck, his mouth teasingly nips at the midpoint of your ear.

“Fuyu no rairakku fuji,” he crowns you a new name; his lips press against your cheekbone. You grin at the new nickname.

“Mattsukawa Issei,” you remind him when you two begin walking again and he pauses dumbfounded by the tone you use. It dawns on him that perhaps his best friend’s girl told you his name in full. You return the wisteria name he bestowed upon you with a much simpler one for him. “Mitsuketa.”

— spring forward—

You wonder if he could remember that when you sleepover for the first time; you find out he can and does so the moment he lays you down on his bed to make you remember how being loved by him is going to leave you breathless one step at a time, and true to his word, his hands are sturdy.

This love is messy, but you enjoy every moment of being enamored by him. You don’t look back anymore, but forward when he calls your new name right as you pull him back toward you before you both ruin the sheets that support you. You place a hand over his chest to stabilize his figure over you. “Watashi no utsukushī fuji,” his voice has you defenseless the moment you humbly accept him as solely yours.

“My first love, come here,” your lips were always inviting toward him and he listens to the way you both praise each other while he brings your unscarred arm above your head; your scars are now inked with wild wisteria flowers he so affectionately called you a few months ago.

Luckily one of your case workers knew someone in Miyagi who does tattoos pro bono for victims of abuse survivors. Languid wisteria blossoms iluminate your arms under a blacklight, but the white ink outlines remain visible like small embroideries tying you to the blossom to ward off evil. The subject came about one evening during the routine cafe shoppe run with the boys and your best friend:

“All I’m saying is that if she wants it done, we know someone in Miyagi who can,” Makki reasons with your friend.

“I was thinking about it,” you speak up before your friend completes her ‘harrumph.’

The table falls quiet. “I was thinking of having the wisteria blooms cover the worse of it.”

“Wisteria, huh?” Oikawa asks. “I think that’s a good choice. Iwa-Chan! Let’s— ”

“No.” Honestly, when he found out what had transpired via the group chat with his friends, he nearly cut his family vacation short to fly back to check on you.

Instead, Iwazumi took over by sending him photos of both Makki and your best friend eating a crepe one night followed by one of you and Mattsukawa after he gifted you a wisteria branch necklace.

Presently, your hand coaxes Mattsukawa into leaving marks of his love blatantly across the exposed parts let him meet. The bruises his lips left behind are just as intoxicating as you remember.

“You’re still so daring,” his voice drowns out the pleasurable noise you let him hear.

“You’re~ahh~ staring,” your hands find their way to the collar of his half undone dress shirt. He pauses for a moment, smirking through his gaze when he envelopes you in his arms. Your hands are too quick when you unbutton the rest of his shirt. You’re wearing one of your old high school gym baseball shirts when you came over to visit for spring break. (The first time you sleep overnight was quite entertaining to say the least, but you both prove you’re capable of this sort of love too.) His hands move to coerce your legs slide over his thighs and here you sit, knees slightly bent and he has you where you both want to be.

Your breathing is ragged and labored as he kisses you slowly, hands slipping under your shirt.

“Please," your voice is barely above a whisper. One word was all he needed and fuck were you worth it. Mattsukawa assists you in pulling that fabric over your head before you push him down back on the bed. Your arms are cut around his shoulders for support as he picks up where his kisses left off. Your love bites haven’t fully disappeared yet from last time: bites across the mounds of your breasts are yellowing now; the ones over the inside of your thighs are still healing beautifully. His wisdom lurks in how well you handle his sexual desires with every time you consent to it. You both seek no other tangible means to prove how far you’ve come (with and without his help).

“You’re still pretty,” he says. He marvels at the fact you’re still with him in the present moment. Your hair is tangled in his hands and he beckons you to make him remember what you told him in the park one winters day.

“Mesmerizing me is what you do best,” your mouth haunts his own pulling out the lewd sounds of his satisfaction. He hisses as you return his favor; he holds you tighter until you are comfortable in his hold. Those eyes of his remain on yours because you told him the first time to keep his eyes forward.

“You’re really something else,” he groans as you bite the space in the space between his shoulder and neck. You don’t let him come undone without you a little less than an hour later; he makes good on his promise of always saying he got you and you return with remembering you have him. You ran with him every day at six in the morning for a solid year, but forgot that sexual escapades with him are more often a marathon than not. Eventually, you catch up to him, and the cycle begins anew with you. Mattsukawa is a fierce lover, but within the walls you share with him, he realizes you’re just as lethal as a jaguar in his bed.

Yes, love in the spring always came in waves for the outside world, it here, once the sheets were changed, you and Mattsukawa take care of each other first before he has your drowsy form (smelling like the rain) clean and clothed in just an old pajama top of his (he wears a pair of a different style sleep pant) he lays you down first before he climbs in with you.

Loving each other is never as messy as you heard from those around you. It’s only because you both let each other propel forward; your love is maddening since you and Mattsukawa are firm believers the shattering parts make you the most beautiful. So when you wake up in each other’s touch, his lips always trace over the sides of you where he loves you strongest, whistling the melodies that cause flowers to bloom.

End

<< Back

[imaginexmeintheuniverse]

5 times you infuriated me and 1 time you made it okay

A/N: okay so the 5 times concept is something i enjoy writing very much, however i am aware that in this piece in particular, a lot of the ideas are underdeveloped and probably especially dont make sense with the ending when you look at the relationship, but please keep in mind that this ‘5 times’ theme i chose focuses on those kinds of incidents so there are a lot of other times in between (and i dont have the time or energy to turn this into a super long fic but perhaps one day.. ) so this is what happened!

Warnings: mentions of torture (like in the 7th when Bellatrix takes to Hermione)

Tags: @expellimarvelous and for some reason my hp taglist got lost so let me know if you’d like to be added!

↠↠↠↠↠↠

I. Bad Start to the Sixth Year

Your sixth year at Hogwarts seems to be off to a good start as you laugh and snack on sweets with two of your three your best friends on Hogwarts Express. Or at least it seemed like it was off to a good start until the train arrives at the station, and Harry is nowhere to be found.

Waving off Ron and Hermione with a promise to catch up, you insist on going to look for him by yourself. Your search leads you all the way to the other side of the strain where the blinds are conveniently drawn. You can hear a voice muffled through the closed door, and you become filled with dread when you identify who it belongs to.

Sliding the door open a crack, you see a familiar head of slicked-back platinum hair. You aren’t able to make out what he says, but you do see him bring down a foot to meet Harry’s nose.

“Malfoy, what the fuck?!” you burst out, causing the Slytherin boy to jump in surprise.

“Y-Y/N- I-I—”

“I don’t know what the bloody hell you think you’re getting away with, but you better get the fuck off this train before I curse you,” you snarl, shoving him aside to get to Harry. Seeing that he’s been petrified, you take your wand out of your jacket pocket and mutter, “finite,” to which your friend thankfully wakes up, blinking a few times. He doesn’t move much, as he tries to regain control of his muscles, and you insist he takes a moment to do so.

Throughout this, Draco has gone so quiet you think he might have actually left, but when you turn your head to meet his stormy eyes, you’re filled with rage, once again.

“What the fuck are you still doing here?! Get out!”

“But Y/N, I-I'm—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” you say in a lower tone as you tend to your friend, not even sparing him another glance.

Why is it that just when you think there might be a redeemable quality buried deep in Draco Malfoy, he always does something that proves otherwise?

II. Welcome to the Slugclub

“Okay, okay! I was gate-crashing! Happy?” He admits, trying to shake off Filch’s grasp on his jacket.

His eyes that used to be sharp and bright, have recently become sullen. They lock with yours for a solid moment before he’s ushered out by Snape.

Your eyes linger on his figure as he’s led away from the party— probably longer than they should have, but you can’t help noticing how thin he’s become. You’ve barely seen him all year, despite having a few classes together. He was never that hefty to begin with, but it looks like he hasn’t eaten or slept in ages. Other than his usual perfectly tailored wardrobe, he now wears dark circles under his eyes, and it’s impossible not to notice how the contours of his face have become that much sharper and his already pale skin has adopted a sickly pigmentation.

You and Harry follow the pair out, but for different reasons. You know that Harry wouldn’t be happy about yours because of his suspicions, but Draco looks like he’s crumbling under stress.

Eavesdropping only proves Harry’s doubts about Malfoy, and he then decides to rejoin the party as to not get caught by Snape, but you hang back, telling him you need to go to the loo.

You wait in the shadows until you hear Snape’s steps scurry away before approaching Malfoy who stays behind, sitting on a ledge. A half-smirk appears on his face upon noticing you like he’s been gathering an arsenal of insults to shoot at you, but really, under the snide mask, he marvels at how lovely you look tonight.

“Straying from your date with Potter?” he spits out Harry’s name like it’s revolting to have on his tongue. “Wouldn’t want anyone to think Potter’s lady is ditching him in favour of a more refined pureblood—”

“He’s one of my best friends!” You roll your eyes and flail your hands up in exasperation. “And how is the nature of our relationship any of your business?!”

He snorts, leaning his back on the walk behind him and crosses his arms over his chest nonchalantly.

“You know, I came out here to check and make sure you were okay!” You shout at him hands coming up to furiously push your hair back. “I can’t believe that for a second I thought that— no- but you—”

“You thought what?” His voice has become softer, hard exterior starting to peel away in your presence. He stands from his seat, mild concern washing over his features.

You shake your head, looking anywhere but at him. “N-Nothing—”

“Tell me,” his hands place themselves on your biceps, long fingers curling around your arms gently.

You fall victim to his intense gaze, getting lost in the grey seas of his irises. His features aren’t as hard as they usually are and the grasp he has on you is delicate; like he’s afraid to hurt you and you almost feel like you can let your guard down. Almost.

“Is it true?” you ask him, diverging from the subject and he raises an eyebrow in response. “Did you hex Katie Bell?”

He opens his mouth, and then closes it without a word when he realizes he has nothing to answer to that and you’re the only person he can’t lie to. That’s enough of a confirmation for you. You let out a breath of disbelief and he starts to panic, because contrary to the backwards dynamic the two of you share, part of him does care what you think. “Y/N- p-please listen—”

All emotion leaves your voice as you tell him, “Just leave me alone, Malfoy.”

You shrug him off, and spin on your heel, breaking the eye contact. Walking down the hall, you leave him there to bask in the silence and his dark thoughts.

III. Hair Like You

You’re already teeming with rage as you scour the castle for Ron, who slipped you one of Fred and George’s prank snacks that ended up changing your hair color. Running into Draco Malfoy, of all people, really puts the cherry on top of the shit sundae.

To make things worse, it looks as though he’s going out of his way to get to you when he spots you from across the courtyard. At first he squints, not fully sure if it’s you with the new physical change, and then tails you down two hallways, not giving a single damn how creepy he may look.

“What do you want, Malfoy—”

“It seems like you’re more obsessed with me than I had originally thought,” he snickers, catching up with your quickened pace.

That’s when it hits you, and you instantly halt, causing him to smack into your back. Spinning around to face him, your eyes widen in horror as you take in the familiar platinum blonde hair— the same shade you saw in the mirror earlier.

“That’s just great!” You throw your hands up dramatically. “Now I look like you!”

“Please, don’t flatter yourself—”

“Oh, sod off, Malfoy!”

“You know, it really doesn’t look that bad. Maybe you’re starting to have better taste.”

Despite knowing full well that that was Malfoy speak for a compliment, you’re in no mood for it. “Oh, well I’m so glad that the Slytherin prince thinks me, a lowly commoner, 'doesn’t look that bad’ just fu—”

“No! No! No! Y/N! I didn’t mean—”

“—ck off! Because on top of looking like the most insufferable git in the entire school what I really wanted was to receive a backhanded compliment—” And just then, you spot the familiar redhead with bad influences for older brothers from across the hall who you’re even more pissed off at than Malfoy.

“I don’t have time for this,” is all you say as you bolt down the hall towards Ron, screaming, “YOU’RE DEAD, WEASLEY!”

IV. Held Hostage

Hermione’s screams are enough to make you feel like you’re being gutted, and when Bellatrix takes her knife to your arm, you’re absolutely terrified. At least this means your best friend has a break from her torture. In the meantime, you nearly bite through your cheek to hold in your own screams whilst the saddistic woman spells out the hateful term that’s been thrown at you your whole life, carving it into your flesh.

After what feels like hours, the death eater sits back up, admiring the her work with a sickening grin on her face, and you want nothing more than to smack it off. Or at least you would if you didn’t feel like you’ve been drained. What you do feel is defiled; like your own skin is no longer yours, and the blood that runs through your veins doesn’t belong to you.

And Draco Malfoy has been standing on the other end of the room this whole time whilst his barbaric aunt tries to get information out of you.

The rest of what happens is experienced through the blur of hopeless tears your eyes are clouded with, until Harry picks you up off the floor after Bellatrix had pushed you and Hermione to save herself from the falling chandelier. A certain fire surges through you as you regain full consciousness.

You see Harry and Draco fight over his wand, and instinct kicks in as you lunge forward, efficiently tackling the latter to the ground. Snatching the wand out of his hand, you throw it to Harry. The blonde boy’s struggles are weak under your weight, almost half-assed as you feel the tension start to leave his muscles.

“Why?!” you shout in his face, grabbing him by the collar to keep him down. Tears well your eyes, but your gaze pierces through him nonetheless. The feelings of helplessness and emptiness are long gone as angry tracks burn down your cheeks. “Why—”

“Y/N!” Harry scoops you off him in one swift motion, pulling you to where your allies have regrouped. “This isn’t the time- w-we have to get out of here!”

You don’t say another word, and your infuriated eyes target the conflict and fear that resides in Draco’s. He’s left with the image of your anguish and fury engrained in his mind long after you disapparate.

V. Crossing Over

The Dark Lord himself beckoned him, and for a second you thought he might resist, but then his mother called him, extending her hand for him to come to her, and you saw him break.

“No!” You cry out as he starts to take hesitant steps towards the death eaters. “Draco, don’t do this!” His already shaky demeanor falters for a moment at the sound of his first name falling from your lips. “You have a choice.”

Steeling his nerves, he doesn’t allow himself to look back, because he would surely crumble under the weight of your gaze and the pain etched into your features. He continues forward, into the arms of a proud tyrant, and you swear your heart drops out of your chest.

Then, the whole scene with Neville’s heroic spirit ensues and you feel the fire within you flare up again when Harry tumbles out of Hagrid’s arms. Death Eaters that have been backing Voldemort start to disappear, leaving an unevenly distributed cloud of darkness.

Everyone else starts to retreat to the castle to regroup and fight as one, but you chase after the fleeing Malfoy family. It’s as though you have no control as your legs move under you on autopilot and as fast as they can go.

You’ve almost caught up to the trio on the bridge and can no longer help yourself.

“Coward!” You yell, trying your best not to let your voice crack, with no avail. It’s all you can do to keep the tears from spilling freely. Draco meets your eyes with his own that portray a boy who is terrified out of his mind, but you’re relentless. The truth isn’t always easy. “You’re a bloody coward, Malfoy!”

Avoiding your fiery gaze, he turns into his mother’s comfort. Not once do his eyes meet yours again before he disappears in a whisp of black smoke.

What you feel is rage, but with that rage comes with an added indescribable pain and disappointment.

+ Midsummer Night’s Dream

The next time you see the infamous Draco Malfoy is just over a year since he disapparated in a whisp of black smoke. Little do you know, immediately after apparating, the boy fell to his knees in the arms of his mother. He broke that day, and hasn’t been able to put himself back together since, contrary to the proud Malfoy mask he wears out in public. He hides behind crisp suits and perfectly-coiffed platinum locks. It’s enough to have anyone who reads the Daily Prophet fooled about how the heir carries onto a successful path despite everything that has happened.

But not you. He never could fool you of anything, really. So when you and your friends spot him taking a seat alone at the Three Broomsticks you know something’s up, because a refined Malfoy doesn’t just hang out amongst mere commoners like that.

“What is he doing here?” Ron spits out, red fury already starting at the tips of his ears and seething from his narrowed eyes.

As if on cue, Draco’s eyes lift from his glass to meet yours.

Hermione sends you a sympathetic smile before mumbling calming words to her boyfriend. The Malfoys and Weasleys always did get each other riled up.

Harry, who sits beside you, gives you a gentle nudge with his shoulder to get your attention and you can immediately read his expression. He can read yours just as easily and can see that you’re starting to get anxious. “Y/N…”

“Harry, it’s okay,” you simper, standing slowly from your seat. “I’ve got this.”

He casts a glance towards the blond across the room before his eyes come back meet yours, sending you a look as though to ask if you’re sure. You give him a nod and he sends you off with a comforting squeeze of your hand.

As you make your way to the table for one, you’re so focused on slowing your heart rate that you’ve arrived at your destination before you know it, seeing the shiny black dress shoes in contrast to the uneven wood panels of the pub’s floor. When you lift your gaze, it’s then that you realize he’s been staring at you the whole time.

“Malfoy.”

“Y/N.”

The sound of your first name rolling off his tongue lights something inside you— and it’s not pretty.

“What are you doing here?” You ask, your voice is steady, but with a strong undertone of something darker. Like the calm before a storm.

“Can’t a man enjoy a butterbeer on his own?” Despite him being absolutely terrified of you, he somehow manages to exude a certain lightness. You look at his untouched pint and raise an eyebrow and he knows you aren’t in the mood for small talk.

“Cut the shit, Malfoy.”

Recognizing the beginnings of anger in your tone, he stands as smoothly as he can manage and gestures towards the door. The last thing he wants is for you to snap because he knows very well what it’s like to be on the receiving end of your fury.

He follows closely behind as you lead him out into the dim lighting of Hogsmead. The summer air doesn’t feel as heavy as it has for the last week, and the sky proudly shows off the twinkling stars. It would be a perfect night if not for your circumstances.

You stop in your tracks and spin to face him so briskly, your forehead almost hits his chin. “You have one minute to talk before I hex you where you stand.”

“You always did excel in hexes and jinxes—”

“Fifty-five seconds, Malfoy.”

“Uh- erm- o-okay—”

You have about zero patience left. The anger thats been quietly bubbling for the last year has been on the brim of overflowing the second he walked in tonight, but so has all the pain and sadness you’ve kept locked up all this time. “You’re wasting my time.” You prepare to stalk off, but a firm hand pulls you back by your elbow, and for the the first time since the war, your face with Draco Malfoy. It’s the first time tonight that you can really see him. He looks worse than ever.

The silver pools that once resided in his irises look like shells of what they once were. And he sure felt that way, until he saw you. That’s when he realizes how empty he always is until he’s around you. My, how he took that for granted all these years.

Trying your very best, you fight against the urge to give into the part of you who still cares for him and wants to know the last time he had a good night’s sleep. You also try to fight against the water accumulation behind your eyelids, but it only makes it worse.

“What?! What do you want, Draco?!”

The use of his first name is the only sign he needs to be brave for once. Without further hesitation, he leans down to capture your lips in a kiss. Once over the initial shock, you give in for only a half second before you come to your senses and push him back, both hands planted firmly on his chest.

“What the bloody hell are you playing at?!”

“I-I- Y/N, I-I’m so—” Right then, is one of the few times you see what he’s really feeling on the inside be expressed on the outside. “I-I just-I thought—”

“You- you thought what?! We’d ride off into the sunset on the back of a unicorn and live happily ever after?!” You don’t care how frantic you look right now. You don’t care that the midsummer night wind is whipping your hair into complete and utter chaos. And you definitely don’t give a single fuck about how the drunk people stumbling by you giggle uncontrollably. You pause for a moment as you wait for them to be out of earshot, and once they are, you let out a frustrated breath and resume. “Did you honestly believe that you could kiss me, and then everything— all of the absolute shite of a mess would just go away?!”

His gaze drops to the ground that his shiny dress shoes stand on, with a few platinum strands that fall from their place. Those are the only visible signs of something amiss with the well-dressed man. But you see something else cloud his features: shame. The last time you saw that, which was also the last time you saw him, he left. He always left you while you were angry, enraged, and never stuck around to face the truth.

Draco Malfoy decides that this time is going to be different.

He has felt as empty as his eyes appeared for months, but when his gaze rolls back up to meet yours, you see the grey storms you saw when you first met him. Sure, they were masked by an outer shell that was brimming with entitlement, but they have now what they had then. Purpose.

“Y/N,” His hands twitch as he fights the urge to reach out for yours, deciding against it in favour of using two words you’ve been waiting to hear. “I’m sorry.” You soften, releasing the tension you didn’t realize you carried in your shoulders. The angry tears that stung the backs of your eyes melt to something peaceful as they escape their ducts. “I’m sorry for everything I put you through. I know I don’t deserve another chance, or any of the chances you’ve given me, but if you’ll give me one more I promise I’ll be better. Everything you’ve ever said about me is true; I am a coward, but I’m not leaving this time.”

“And what if I want you to leave?” You ask, testing the waters, more than anything else.

“If you tell me to leave— if that is what you truly want, then I will. Tell me to leave, and you’ll never have to see me again.”

“Okay, then leave.”

“Is that what you really want?”

“Y-Yes—” You stammer out a complete lie. Every cell on your body knows it’s a lie, and apparently so does he.

“I don’t believe you.”

More than anything, you want to fling yourself into his arms but you feel like your feet have been colashoo-ed to the ground. A corner of his mouth quirks up into a soft lopsided smile as his hands raise to thread fingers through the top of your hairline, smoothing wild strands away from your face. His touch is so careful and delicate than you could have ever imagined. He leans down slowly and stops just as his lips have brushed over yours, asking for permission, “I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

Syllables get caught in your throat, and channel themselves through you body as you move to slate your mouth over his. The sensation is so delicately mind-blowing, and it leaves you absolutely breathless when you pull away to lean your forehead against his.

All you can manage to breathe out is, “stay”.

The way your breath fans over his lips is intoxicating, and he’s certain he’s never seen anything more beautiful, no work of art finer, than the way you’re looking at him.

“I’m not leaving this time. Never again.”

His grasp tightens as he pulls you back to his lips and your fingers curl around the light fabric of his shirt. Every emotion and feeling accumulated over lost time is poured into this kiss.

This time, what you feel for him is something stronger and far different than anger.

[psychopersonified]

KIdnapped!Q - Part 2

Continued from Part 1 here.

---------

“The boyfriend don’t feed you??” she shakes her head and sends a glare at Bond’s direction indicating what she thinks about his efforts.

Q nearly spit takes his tea. He forces it down, choking in the process.

Bond clears his throat. “I think… you’ll find the boyfriend tries his best,” he grinds out, still looking straight ahead, his tone betraying more than a little indignation.

-----------

Notes: The event told roughly from Bond's POV especially the first half. Plus the aftermath. This is me trying to get into Bond's head. Also, let's all get on Bond's case shall we? 

Towards the end, there is exposition of technical plot. I've tried to interject it with humour and also to use this opportunity for character development.

Some parts borrowed heavily from Spectre (movie) but does not take place in that universe.

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

Level 5 Lobbby, SIS (MI6) HQ

Kneeling beside Q in the Level 5 lobby of MI6 HQ, Bond vacillates between being livid at himself and overwrought with worry for Q. The young man is crumpled unconscious on the marble floor. He had seen it coming. Q was already too pale in the car, lips almost colourless. He had to call Q’s name twice before he responded to exit the vehicle.

He should have dealt with it in the parking garage, instead of turning Q into a spectacle here in the lobby. He recognised the symptoms of hyperventilation when he saw it. Bond was hoping to get Q to medical before helping him recover.

He checks Q’s pulse, rapid but weak. He’s breath is still shallow. If medical doesn’t get there in the next minute, he’s going to pick Q up and carry him there. A crowd is forming around them. Level 5 lobby is the main exchange lobby inside HQ - where the ‘public’ meets the ‘secret’. The floors above level 5 house the Executive and Operational branches. Level 5 and below that are the public facing areas - accounts, administrative, HR, logistics, cafeteria, etc. To get to the upper levels, they have to change to the restricted lift banks further to the rear of the building.

And now, it’s right in the middle of the workday morning. Curious staff from both upstairs and downstairs are standing around staring. Bond wants badly to tell them to -piss off-, but it would just make rumours spread faster.

Dr. Chen arrives just then with two of her aides, a crash cart and a gurney. Together they put Q onto the gurney, checking his vitals on the way to Medical.

“BP  87/60. Pulse 110. Oxygen saturation 92%. Glucose levels 61mg/dL,“ One of the medical aides report.

“He’s borderline hypoxic and in hypoglycaemic shock. Prepare glucagon shot, and glucose IV drip.” Dr Chen orders as they fit Q with an oxygen mask.

Knowing Q, he likely hadn’t taken breakfast yet that morning either. He was still asleep when Bond left for HQ. Add that to the fact that Q barely had dinner the night before; appetite suppressed by the cold he was having - he was running very low on reserves.

—

The treatment room doors close in his face. One of the senior nurses had brandished a folded stethoscope in his face like a weapon and told him to stay. That was Maria, a straight talking matronly nurse of Pilipino descent, the only nurse in medical that isn’t afraid of his 00-status despite being nearly a foot shorter than him. So he’s now left pacing the corridor outside.

—

Earlier that day

When his phone buzzed that morning with a security alert ::Lobby Alert:: , 007 was in a meeting in the operations centre with M, Tanner and 004 running through plans for the next mission in Libya. A local warlord was buying guns presumably to fight ISIS insurgents but intel has it that he’s gone from fighting them to suppling them - profits were better.

007 had excused himself to a corner to check the app that would give him access to the security cameras in Q’s building. The sight of the three men at the door with the battering ram had him on his feet in an instant - heart in his throat. The distress signal came through seconds later.

He was out of the conference room door in seconds and into the main operations area where the wall of monitors stood. R was there and had apparently received the same alert - the warning flashing red and urgent across one of the monitors.

“007, Sir!” R called out to him from across the room, “Q’s distress signal was just activated.” R looked to Bond like he might have an explanation.

M and the others in the conference room had followed him out when they noticed him leave abruptly.

“I just received the same alert. Security cameras show three men attempting to gain access.” Bond held up his phone to indicate how he knew.

Panic flickered across R’s face for a moment; but her training kicked in and she started calling out orders to the minions around her, “Executive Protocol Q! Attempted forced entry at Quartermaster’s residence in progress. I want CCTV feeds around his residence. Get the police on the line, how fast can they get a patrol unit there-...”

What happened next was a flurry of activity. Bond’s only deference to protocol was to turn to M and nod his leave before sprinting out. Tanner caught up with him at the lifts, a tablet in hand. He swiped his Chief of Staff card and tapped a short code that would give him (or more accurately M) preferential lift access in emergencies.

“M says to take his car. R can patch through the feeds and update us on the way.” Bond would normally object to having someone tag along with him, but in this instance a government vehicle with its blues-and-twos flashing would get them through traffic quicker.

By the time they got to the parking garage, they were joined by another team of agents. Tanner had the keys to M’s Jaguar and took position as driver, he signalled to one of the other agents jump into the front passenger seat - leaving 007 to stew in the back. The remaining agents followed in a separate vehicle.

-

“Tanner... a little more speed would be appreciated.”

“007, why don’t you pay attention to the tablet and help R out?” Tanner suggested politely.

-

007 flung the door open before the car even made a full stop. He engaged the second assailant just as Q made it across the Jag’s bonnet to the other side. Bond would later dispute the police report that indicated excessive force was used to subdue the assailant. A broken nose, partially crushed windpipe and dislocated knee was hardly excessive in his line of work.

—---

Present

Dr Chen emerges from the treatment room 15 minutes later.

“He’s fine. He’s fine.” Chen holds up her hands to placate Bond before he can do his double-0 looming. “Oxygen levels are back to normal and blood glucose readings are back up. He just needs rest and some food in him.”

Q comes fully around in half an hour. The glucose and oxygen supplement doing wonders. He’s sitting up on the recovery bed having tea and biscuits that Bond managed to retrieve from Q’s stash in Q-Branch.

Mallory and Eve are present as well, intercepting Q before Bond has had a chance to see him privately. Pleasantries done, M leaves the room and gestures for 007 to follow him out, leaving Eve to continue her conversation with Q.

—

Outside Recovery Room A

“007, It’s been a trying day. How are you?” M opens.

Bond makes a non-committal sound, “Sir. I know you didn’t want to see me to discuss my mental health.”

M sighs. Why must everything be so difficult with this one.

“Fine. I want to discuss Q’s protection detail for the next few weeks until we get this threat sorted. You are off the Tripoli mission next week, 004 will be taking lead,” M offers.

Bond would normally protest, but this time he makes no move. Internally he is relieved. This saves him from having to come up with an excuse for why he won’t be going.

“We’re going to have to move Q to a secure location. MI5 has safe houses and resources we can tap into— “ Mallory sees the snarl forming on 007’s lips and quickly adds, ”—but I have a feeling you are going to want to have a say in it.”

Bond backs down and considers a moment. “I still have my place. The floorplan is easy to secure. A few upgrades and it should be adequate.”

“And the rest of the detail?”

“I’ll… need two more officers. Better yet, field agents in line for the 00-program. Consider this their asset protection training.”

M nods in approval. But something is left unsaid. M decides that it is time to get it out of the agent.

“How long has it been going on?” Bond knows M is not talking about the protection detail anymore.

“Just over a year.” He says matter of fact looking at a point past M’s shoulder. Bond isn’t volunteering more information than that. M doesn’t look surprised. If anything, he looks thoughtful.

Both men are clearly uncomfortable with the personal segue of the conversation. A pause and they both look away and clear their throats at the same time.

M ends the discussion on something they are more accustomed to, “Well, I trust you have this area under control. Tomorrow morning, we’ll reconvene to discuss any information R and Forensics can recover.”

Bond nods. “Very well, sir.” The fact the M hasn’t removed him from the case is consent enough.

——

Inside Recovery Room A

“How are you?” Eve rubs his blanket covered shin.

“Aside from it being one of the worst days of my life? Alright all things considered.“

Eve reaches over to give him a tight hug, more for her own sake than Q’s, “You had everyone so worried!… Thank goodness for the pen.”

“Yes well… Bond’s penchant for pilfering Q-branch equipment finally came in handy.”

Eve ruffles his hair and presses a kiss to his cheek, “You did really well today. I’m so proud of you.”

Q shrugs, what can he say? He doesn’t feel particularly proud. More numb if anything now that’s it’s over. Eve seems to sense this and goes for humour instead, ”Did Tanner tell you? He put 007 in the backseat of the Jag on the way to you.”

“I did wonder about that…” He could imagine Bond’s ire at having to relinquish control and wait patiently. Eve and Q share a conspiratorial smile.

“The rumour mill is spinning in overdrive; thought you might to know. It was quite the spectacle this morning in the lobby.”

Q pinches the bridge of his nose; mortified. “Not my finest moment I’ll admit. I’ve single handedly destroyed what little street cred Q-Branch had left.”

“Oh Q... that’s not what people are talking about—,” at his blank look, she unlocks the phone in her hand and pulls up the internal messaging app. She scrolls to a video and selects it before showing it to him.

It was of Q crumpled dramatically on his side just in front of the lift banks. 007 is crouched over him, one of his hands cradling Q’s head. Tanner is standing nearby, phone to his ear. The video captures 007’s other hand coming up to touch the pulse point at Q’s neck. A few moments later the agent looks up, taking in the crowd, his eyes a blazing blue, expression tinged with fear. Dr. Chen arrives soon after, cutting off the view from that angle.

Oh… OH…- In his mind, Q had expected the incident to be far more comical. A tech boffin kissing the floor from panic induced hypoxia has the potential to be the stuff of comic legend; if schadenfreude was your cup of tea. But the video was far from amusing. Poignant would be a more accurate description. Bond will be a handful to deal with later.

At the sobering thought, Q changes the subject, “Did I make the tele?”

Eve grins and nods,”All morning… breaking news and all. It’s being spun as a possible terror attack, as shots were fired and we need to maintain your cover. Mallory negotiated a quid pro quo with MI5. They are getting credit for the quick response in apprehending the suspects in exchange for publicly copping to counter-terrorism failure.”

“There were quite a lot of shots exchanged. Was anyone hurt?” Q recalled the street was rather busy.  

“Aside from the assailants, none seriously. Some civilian injuries, but all stable.” That assuages his guilt somewhat.

“Has anyone been to the flat?”

“Forensics is taking a look now.”

“Derek, the officer in the lobby? Is he—“

“He’s just out of surgery. Critical but stable.” This is why Q loves Eve, she knows everything.

“Don’t suppose anyone knows what happened to the cats?” Q is a little sheepish to be asking about his pets when human lives were threatened this morning.

“The cats are fine. Emily from forensics found them huddled in the laundry room. She’ll bring them back here at the end of her shift,” Eve reassures him, “But at the moment, your lion is loose and prowling the halls.”

Ah right, “Eve… does everyone know?”

Eve smiles at him, “Q... everyone’s known for months. Including Mallory.”

Just then the door opens and Bond reenters. Eve takes her leave. She pats Bond on his bicep on the way out and he acknowledges with a nod. When she’s cleared the doorway, he closes the door and locks it behind her. Finally. Some privacy.

Bond is silent intent when he comes to sit on the recovery bed facing Q. He removes the mug of tea from Q’s hands and sets it safely aside - gently demanding.

He leans in to wrap his arms tightly around Q, crushing Q against his chest. He runs his calloused hands over Q’s back, neck and into his hair - then buries his nose in that unruly mop of hair, breathing in deeply. When he’s a little calmer, a little more composed - he relaxes his hold to nuzzle Q around the temple before going in for a kiss, hands still stroking the sides of Q’s face and neck.

Q’s glasses are askew from all the petting. “Alright… I’m alright…. ,“ He soothes the agent, and has to take hold of Bond’s hands to quiet him. He knows Bond in this unsettled mood - a predator caught off guard, challenged… insecure. Bond would very well take things too far to reassure himself if Q lets him. And this isn’t an appropriate time or place.

“Are you still going to Tripoli on Monday?” Q tries to distract the clingy agent.

“No. M stood me down… I’ve been reassigned as your PPO,” Bond rumbles softly into his hair.

“Aren’t you a little overqualified to play bodyguard?” Q needles him.  

“Hmm… you deserve the best,” he mumbles into the corner of Q’s mouth.

Q snorts at the backhanded compliment Bond’s paid himself.

Bond whispers, “I’ve been told I’m rather good at what I do.”

Bravado. Let him have it- Q thinks, “You’re incorrigible.”

“And you’re precious,” Bond had not intended that to be out loud, and is a little embarrassed even before Q calls him out on it.

“Gah! You’re incredibly mushy today,” Q pushes him away lightly, mock cringing.

Bond leans back, but his hands have escaped and have wandered around Q’s waist, thumbs caressing the ticklish flesh, “Considering the events of today, I think I’m entitled.” Bond leans back in for a kiss.

Pillow talk. They’re engaging in pillow talk in the middle of the day in Medical. -Surreal- Q thinks.

The door handle rattles. Bond squeezes his eyes shut and exhales in exasperation -Seriously, can everyone just piss off!

Undeterred by the universal sign for a request to privacy, the person the other side raps on the door.

Bond goes to unlock it. Q picks up his tea to hide his mirth.

The door opens to reveal Nurse Maria sporting a -very- disapproving scowl. She’s back to check in on Q’s condition. She keeps her eyes on Bond as she enters, keeping him at bay with her stare alone. Bond moves away to a decent distance and stands at parade rest, eyes straight ahead; the very picture of obedience.

She turns to Q and fusses over his vitals and starts removing the IV drip.

“Rest. No more dangerous stunts. Eat more... Too skinny. Tsk!” she makes a sound of disapproval.

“The boyfriend don’t feed you??” she shakes her head and sends a glare at Bond’s direction indicating what she thinks about his efforts.

Q nearly spit takes his tea. He forces it down, choking in the process.

Bond clears his throat. “I think… you’ll find the boyfriend tries his best,” he grinds out, still looking straight ahead, his tone betraying more than a little indignation.

“Hmph…” Maria huffs unimpressed, as she fluffs Q’s pillow.

Mercilessly she adds, “Maybe the boyfriend is too busy. Always travelling. You should tell him to slow down. Spend more time at home.”

All this she directs at Q but there is no mistaking who the words are actually for.

“I’ll umm… I’ll make sure to let him know.” Q tries to defuse the situation. If it comes down to an actual contest of words between those two, Q’s not sure Bond would win.

——

Quartermaster’s Residence

Late that afternoon, once forensics is done collecting evidence, Bond is back home - well technically Q’s place. He speaks to Emily, Head Forensics Tech onsite for an update.

“Place is untouched, only damage appears to be the door. Nothing appears to be out of place, but you’d be able to tell better than us. It doesn’t look like the assailants bothered to search for anything. Which confirms the suspicion that they were not after anything, but Q himself.”She informs him - which to Bond is the worst case scenario. Q has something they want, and if the failed attempt today does not dissuade them, then they will try again.

“We’ll have some technicians back onsite to secure the door at least temporarily and do a more thorough sweep… Right then, cats are in their carriers in the laundry room. Do you still want us to take them to HQ?”

“No, that’s fine. I’ll take it from here. Thank you Emily.” Emily pats him on the shoulder much like Eve did before leaving.

Bond has two other agents with him:

Agent Monica Chalmers, former Squadron leader in the Royal Air Force, calm, tough as nails with surprisingly good hand to hand combat skills for a pilot.

Agent Peter Coyle former Major in the Royal Marines, good all rounder but with a dormant sense of rebelliousness that Bond see lying just beneath the highly disciplined exterior.

Both are experienced field agents and nine months into the Double-0 program and top of their batch. He’d consulted 009 earlier for his recommendation and Bond remembered them from the selection weekend ten months ago when he assisted 009 in the testing process.*

Bond gets them to help pack a few bags for Q as well as collect any projects and papers he was working on - directing them where things are and pointing out the items he wants packed.

When they’re done and about to leave, Bond emerges form the laundry room with his own bag and a cat carrier, “I hope the both of you like cats.”

Chalmers is quick to indicate affirmative. Coyle hesitates a split second too long; 007 smells blood and smiles sharkily. “Well you do now,” and promptly hands over the carrier case to him.

-—-

Notting Hill, Chelsea

Then they swing by MI6 to pick up Q before heading to Bond’s place in Chelsea.

They have a polite dinner, all four of them standing around the kitchen bar, because Bond’s bachelor pad lacks any real furniture. Bond refuses to be embarrassed. The place smells musty from disuse, and the overhead lighting is harsh and unflattering. It’s in a very nice part of town, but the place is frankly depressing. Q’s only been here a handful of times. Barely furnished and incomplete, it represents Bond’s past - he still comes by time to time especially after missions where he’s had to do some morally questionable things. He comes here to shed the proverbial filth so to speak; before returning to his present, his life with Q. Psychological compartmentalisation in physical form.

Q had let the cats out to explore. Jellicles the younger tuxedo cat is curious, zooming about the place and chattering to himself. Q thinks his boldness is due to the place not smelling entirely alien. Bond had to pull the cat off the hanging kitchen lights at one point.

But Spot (after Data’s cat) the older orange moggie is having none of it. The big former street cat is attempting to climb Q’s jeans, wanting to be held and cuddled. Q finally gives up and picks up the cat and hitches it to his side like child - the large moggie is as heavy as one too. With the cat mollified, Q can finish his dinner.

After dinner, Q transfers the cat to Bond’s arms before excusing himself to shower and get ready for the night. Bond is in his usual white shirt open at the collar, gun holster still around his shoulders. The orange cat fidgets in his arms, head-butting him under the jaw. Jellicles who was lounging on the kitchen bar now feels left out and is reared up on his hind legs, front paws on Bond’s other shoulder, meowing incessantly. “Yess, alright…,” he sets down his fork in mild annoyance to pet the cat along his long sinuous spine and get him to sit back down.

Agents Chalmers and Coyle exchange a look. Here is the idolised spy, the revered Double-0 agent, the man himself in his private setting and nothing lives up to expectation. The cognitive dissonance throws them.

Bond ever the observant one catches their open stares, understanding immediately. His voice is low, tired even, heavy with the the years of service and untold horrors he’d witnessed and done, “They lie in the brochures. I hope neither of you are doing it for the lifestyle.” And that concludes Bond’s pearl of wisdom for the day.

When they’re done clearing up, Bond gives them their instructions.

“Familiarise yourselves with the floorplan, entry and exits. Let me know what improvements we need and an escape plan for contingencies.”

“In the evenings when I’m around, you won’t need to stay. Check in with the police guards outside and have them keep watch of the building. But I won’t be here all the time. At some point I -will- leave to go after whoever is behind this.”  

“The both you will need to take turns sleeping on the couch. Or make alternative arrangements for him if the threat becomes untenable. We’ll discuss more tomorrow.“

With that, they’re dismissed.

——

That night, when the lights are out, and they’re both scrubbed clean of the days’ stress  - Bond crawls into bed behind Q. Q can sense it in the cautiousness and light tremors in Bond’s movements, like he’s trying to keep it together.  

Once his guard drops, James is near inconsolable. Wrapped possessively around Q, hands everywhere, legs tangled - his face is buried in the back of Q’s neck. The man is silent, except for the harsh and erratic breathing - and not the good kind either. The back collar of Q’s pyjamas is wet with tears.

Q does his best to soothe, petting and rubbing the muscled arms wrapped around him. He brings the man’s hands up to his face and kisses the cuts and bruises on his knuckles. “James, I’m alright…. I’m right here…” he whispers over and over.

He doesn’t try to stop the emotional breakdown, better to let him have it. Q feels a little guilty, he’s feeling somewhat detached from the days’ traumatic events. Maybe it’s because he got to panic while it was happening and it is now out of his system.  He’s cool and calm now while James suffers the emotional fallout.

Q recalls the video that Eve presented to him earlier in the afternoon. The camera capturing with stunning clarity the raw emotion behind the agent’s blue eyes. If the agent knew about the video, he’d make the person who took it will disappear. Which reminds Q to make a mental note to nuke the video from the messaging platform in the morning.

James is past the tears now and demanding more. The soothing caresses turning to something more serious, more consuming. Q is more than happy to give. They comfort each other until they’re both exhausted enough to fall asleep.

---------

Saturday 10:00  

SIS (MI6) Ops Centre Level 9 - Operations Room C.

R is providing sitrep. Images flash across the wall of screens to the front of the room.

“…—The ambulance was stolen from the Forest Hill Station south of London. Three assailants. Two in custody--” Their mugshots appear on screen:

Assailant 1 sports a bandaid under his chin. “…— is under medical observation for possible head trauma from hitting the cobblestone street—…”

Assailant 2 is much worse off, broken nose, a large hematoma under the right eye, and ugly bruising across the throat. “…— is also under medical observation for a partially crushed windpipe and dislocated knee.”

“Hospital will not release them for questioning until Sunday or Monday at the latest. Human rights and all. Third assailant was cornered by our agents, but opened fire into the crowd. Luckily there were no serious injuries. Agents stood down to avoid risk to civilian population and the assailant escaped on a stolen motorcycle.”

“Facial recognition places them as local members of a south London crime syndicate. Armed robbery, money laundering and the likes - serious crimes but nothing on the scale that would suggest going after a head of department in SIS.”

“Hired muscle. Nothing more. So that if the attempt fails or they get caught, it can’t be traced to whoever ordered it,” M concludes.

“Yes, sir. But they would have to know where to drop the asset off if it were successful though.” Agent Chalmers chimes in.

“Note the unusual timing; in the middle of a workday morning meant that they had to know that Q would be home at the time. That he was relatively unguarded—“ that Bond wasn’t home, was left unsaid. “—which means they were watching. Or told when to initiate the attempt.” Tanner added.

Q is only half paying attention to the discussion. Mark from IT-Branch came in earlier to hand him three new boxes of electronics - bless him. A new phone, laptop and hotspot router (because Bond’s place has no telephone or internet); unboxing them was like taking a hit for an addict in withdrawal. Q is preoccupied with setting them up and re-downloading data from the secure cloud services. He feels nearly like himself again. He had spent most of yesterday without them and he didn’t know what to do with himself.

“The place was untouched. The target was Q. What worries me is motive. Why would anyone take such a risk to provoke MI6 by abducting the Quartermaster knowing we would have the motivation and resources to go after them. Not unless the payoff is something that would massively change the way they forward their agenda. It has to be something they need him for. Something they can’t replicate, not even if they had the plans.” 007 concludes.

M who was rocking lightly in his chair whilst listening stops, leans forward and sighs. He looks over at Q, “What have you been working on?”

Mallory couldn’t keep track of all of it. Yes Q-Branch spent millions in R&D but they made the government (and by extension secured SIS funding) at least ten times what they spent. Declassified plans, schematics and programming codes sold at auction to private defence, Infosec and engineering companies for tens of millions.

The Q-Branch minions might be the butt of jokes at times in SIS, but their work not only kept operatives alive but helped keep the lights on in MI6. It is no wonder that MI5 wanted a slice of that pie. Sometimes M wondered why Q hasn’t left to go work in private. He’d asked him that once, and all he got in reply was something to the effect of ‘reigning in egomaniacal tendencies with public oversight and knowing which side you’re on’.

“Take your pick—” Q huffs in mild frustration, then realises who he was speaking to and adds,”—Sir.”

Q’s feeling tetchy this morning. Aside from tech withdrawal, his cold had gotten worse so his nose is completely stuffed. The general fatigue that accompanies a cold is exacerbated by his aching leg muscles from all that running the day before. Then he’d discovered he’d ripped a nail right off the finger bed in his haste to remove the hard drive so it stings when he types. He’s feeling a full on sulk coming. Bond already bore the brunt of his crabbiness this morning attempting to get him ready to come in to HQ.

“What about the project you’ve been working on with Mark? With the Shadow Network?” R said trying to be helpful.

“What about it? And please, I prefer Gemini Network - sounds less villainy.”

“I heard Mark say it could be a game changer, that it will give us the upper hand when it comes to controlling information.”

“Well in theory….” Q is being a little evasive.

Mallory looks over at Eve and tips his chin up at her. Eve knows at once to go and fetch Mark. They’ve learned over the years that when Q says something is ‘in theory’, it means he’s already gone ahead and built a proof a concept it or at the very least it tested the theory.

Mark enters the operations room like he’s been summoned to the headmasters office. “Sir? You asked to see me?”

“Tell us about the Gemini Network.” M dives right in without preamble.

“You mean the Shadow Network?” Mark looks for clarification.

“Why does everyone insist on calling it that?…” Q is slightly miffed.

Mark begins, “Well, the concept started years ago when we first used it to trap Silva in his earlier days. Quantum was trying to undermine your predecessor through Q-Branch, cascade of equipment failures leading to the death of a field agent. Basically we built a replica of Q-Branch systems and let Silva run his virus in it to learn what he was doing.”

“Since then we’ve evolved and developed the concept into a full shadow network that now protects MI6 systems. We created an AI shepherded by our cybersecurity team that patrols our systems; learning the normal functions - what’s secure, what’s not.” Mark pauses to check if everyone is still following.

“The idea is that when an anomaly in the system is detected, the AI isolates the suspicious node and shunts it into its shadow network. The shadow network presents itself as a legitimate fully functioning system and lets whatever suspicious activity continue unchallenged. But all the while it is watching and learning. It then flags the human team who can then decide if it is harmless or a legitimate threat. We can then use what it learns to patch the actual system. Think of it like an evolving immune system for cybersecurity. The more it learns the more robust it gets.”

Q then reasons, “The AI represents thousands of hours of machine training and learning, valuable in it of itself. But not impossible to recreate - though having MI6 as a training ground does make it harder for anyone to catchup to it.”

Bond notices Mark’s excited body language. The man is almost bouncing on his toes, “But… I’m guessing there is more to this…?”

Marks looks to Q and they have a non-verbal exchange. Those two are thick as thieves when it comes to programming, though Mark still refuses to transfer to Q-Branch for the sake of his sanity. Bond has met Mark numerous times, he likes the guy. Mark looks up to Q like an adoring little brother wanting someday to be just as good. Which means he’s an enabler who goes along with Q’s ideas without any sense of self preservation.

“Recently, Mark and I found a new application for it. We managed to package the AI into a worm that can be used to infiltrate a target network. It will still require us to inject it behind a firewall, either through hacking or physically. But once inside, it starts watching and learning - filtering traffic internally between nodes; as well as incoming and outgoing traffic outside of the network. It will sit dormant until activated…”

Eve’s eyes are wide, “Oh boys, what have you created?”

“…When activated, it will deploy the Shadow Network, into which we can shunt specific network traffic. A) The captured node still thinks its in the master system and functions normally. B) The AI then replaces the captured node with a mimic so to the master system, nothing is amiss.”

“The beauty of this is that it does not require us to crack security. When authentication is required, the AI simply returns the node back in to authenticate before shunting it back out. Do you see? We can compel any system to unlock its door by hiding behind the captured node.“ Mark points out looking like he’s about to explode with excitement.

Even Tanner is stunned now. R, who has heard it all before and told them repeatedly how dangerous of an idea this was - has her hands pressed together as if in prayer covering her mouth

“The node itself is tricked into thinking it is still interacting with the master system - which makes it voluntarily reveal information which we can collect or use as we see fit. Alternately we can seed it with misinformation to bring back to the master system.”

“Its the ultimate spy - Agent 1001.” Mark declares gleefully. His attempt at humour falls flat. If he‘d added Ta-Da! at the end of it, Bond was going to cuff him behind the head.

Mark pulls himself together and continues, “In practical terms it means we can change literally any information - while both sides remain unaware because there are now two truths depending on which network you are interacting with. ”

“But that’s just the start—.” Q takes over.

“There’s more?“ Mallory drawls out, feeling a migraine coming.

Q is apologetic, “What’s the most secure form of record keeping at the moment? …Blockchain. A set of records linked cryptographically together, with a distributed ledger that technically guarantees security. You can’t change any data in a block retroactively without changing all the subsequent blocks…. not unless you have consensus of at least 51% of all the nodes in the ledger.“

“Q… As riveting as this exposition is, get to the point.” Bond’s tone is a warning, his consonants sharper. Even he’s catching on to where this is leading and dreading it.

“Yes alright..” Q doesn’t get why everyone seems more upset than impressed.

”The point is, theoretically if we manage to get the worm into a peer-to-peer network and let spread throughout, we can apply the Shadow Network concept to launch a mass ‘eclipse attack’ on the distributed ledger. The nodes in the network must stay in constant contact to compare data for consensus. If the AI shunts off enough of the nodes into its Shadow Network and manage to trick 51% of the nodes into accepting our version of the chain before returning it, we change the ledger. Change the ledger and—“

“—You’ve hacked blockchain.“ Eve finishes for him, disbelieving.

“So are we talking about bitcoin?” Agent Coyle hazards a guess.

“Oh Agent Coyle… cryptocurrency is just the beginning. Just imagine any database that depends on blockchain for its immutability. Voting records? Supply chains? Financial records? Anti-counterfeit measures? The Shadow Network lets you - Change. Your. Digital. Reality.” Q finishes with a flourish; in purely intellectual terms, the concept is truly quite clever.

Tanner looks to Mallory alarmed,“Sir… 35 central banks are now experimenting with issuing digital state currencies on blockchain. At least 10 will be going ahead in this year and another 15 in the next 2 years.“

Silence. You could hear a pin drop.

Bond who has been standing off to the side of the monitors in his characteristic agent pose, legs apart one hand in his pocket; exhales loudly and points out ominously, “So whoever controls the AI, controls the Shadow Network and everything it can do - the Shadow Master. “

All heads in the room turn to Q….

“Yes, that would be one way of putting it. Personally, I prefer the term Shadow Architect,” Q chortles at the absurdity of the comic villain names.

But no one one else is laughing. And they’re all looking at him expectantly. Except Mark, he laughs at all of Q’s jokes.  

-Christ-. Bond is torn between wanting to strangle the oblivious idiot himself and wanting to put the genius in a glass cage for his own safety.

A moment later, Q has a dawning realisation about what he’s managed to get himself into this time.

“It..Its just theoretical!” Denial.

“Technically this belongs to SIS…” Bargaining.

“We just thought it would be a helpful tool for our operatives to turn the odds in their favour!” Anger.

“What in the world possessed me to think…” Depression

“Owwh shit.” Acceptance.

Q stops his pacing in front of the monitor wall and collapses into a chair nearby. Elbows on his knees, head in his hands.

When he’s done cycling through emotions, M raises and eyebrow,“Well, I’m glad we’ve all come to the same conclusion,” M’s sarcasm flies over his head.

——

As a result of the meeting, Q & Mark are sent away to put their project into a secure vault in the servers - until M knows what to do with it. Q feels like they’ve just been sent to ‘time out’ - to think about what they’ve done.

Once he’s done that, he goes to Q-Branch to serve out his sentence.

Q-Branch is the only ‘secret’ arm in SIS that is located between the garage and basement bunkers. It’s more practical that way as larger projects (cars, boats, etc) would be a logistical pain to move if they were on the upper levels. Three whole floors make up Q’s lair that he shares with thirty or so minions.

It’s Saturday, so only a skeleton crew is present most of them are working in the floors below. None are in the office areas.

Bond is still in the meeting upstairs with M and the others. So Q makes himself tea and sticks his nose in the steam curling out of the mug to open his sinuses. He’s running through the theory he’s told the others in his head - trying to poke holes in it. But no, the simulation running on his computer is telling him how terrifyingly efficient the AI would be once activated.

The main doors to Q-Branch offices hiss open. Q doesn’t turn around, knowing who it is. Bond comes to sit a little noisily in a swivel chair next to him, facing the other way. He’s radiating ‘we need to talk’ vibes, but even then Bond usually just invades his space until Q speaks first.

“James, I’m sorry about being a tosser this morning. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. The eggs were fine.” Q makes a peace offering. And since no one is around, he reaches out to trace a finger around Bond’s tie pin.

Bond doesn’t move away which means he’s forgiven. Thats the thing with Bond, he’s not really a man of many words when he’s not actively trying to charm a mark. So when he does want to talk, best pay attention.

“Whats the damage?” Q asks.

“Mark is going to need his own protection detail.”

“Oh, he’s going to love that….” Poor Mark is going to have to explain that to his Bumble dates.

“Well, it might teach him not to be such an enabler and grow a pair around you.”

“Hah! Tell it to his face.”

“I did. Now, stop making him do things that will get him in trouble. You don’t want that on your conscience.” Bond chastises. The poor guy is like Igor to Q’s Dr Frankenstein.

Suitably reproached, Q doesn’t have anything to say for himself. He continues playing with Bond’s tie.

“Mallory is thinking of forming an internal oversight committee to run risk analysis on Q-Branch projects. He doesn’t want to accidentally end up with a cyberworld equivalent of a Manhattan project in his lap.

“He’s afraid I’ll turn into Ozymandias…,” then remembering that Bond probably didn’t get the reference, ”Antagonist, very smart, tries to take over the world.” He supplies by way of explanation.  

Bond laughs a little, “If you do turn villainous, does that make me your henchman?”

Q considers, “More arc nemesis I should think. Don’t pretend that M won’t send you to shot me if I do. And don’t pretend you won’t either.”

“Are you expecting me to refuse?”

“No Mr Bond, I expect you to come get me.”

----  To Be Continued ---

[davidmann95]

Your power is mine: thoughts on Kingdom Hearts’ newest, oddest character

Finished Final Fantasy XV over the weekend. Mixed feelings to say the least, but it does give me an excuse to talk about Kingdom Hearts again, specifically this weirdo:

And how it feels like most of the people discussing Yozora and trying to figure out what his deal is are missing half the point. Yes, there’s the apparent connections to Sora and Riku, and there’s his meta association with Noctis and the entire real-life corporate backstory there intertwining with the in-game narrative to an unknown extent. But when he’s discussed as some kind of fusion of Sora and Riku, or a literal reincarnation of Noctis, or that Verum Rex might end up a real game, or something similarly straightforward in terms of “he’s going to be a very important central character going forward”, the ideas or at least the tone of how they’re presented seem to miss an absolutely critical component of how he was introduced to us, in a way that shapes not only him but by extension the entire future of the franchise and its thematic concerns:

We aren’t just supposed to be surprised he’s important because he’s real where we thought he wasn’t. We’re supposed to be surprised because he’s introduced to us as a self-evident gag character.

Not that we’re not supposed to take him seriously where it counts: it’s clear he has an important role going forward and is a force to be reckoned with. But no matter what deep, foreboding connections to the Keyblade and Master of Masters may lie within his backstory that may determine the fate of more universes than one, he will never not have had the hilariously inauspicious beginning of being a toy played by Rex the Dinosaur. He doesn’t even have the dignity of being introduced as a game on one of the plot-heavy original worlds! He’s a throwaway gimmick to spice up one of the filler Disney segments, literally a child’s plaything.

Even before we learn the context he’s being presented in...well, look at him. He’s like Riku, who’s cooler than Sora, and Noctis, a Final Fantasy character and therefore cooler than all this Disney stuff, but also he has a LASER SWORD and a CROSSBOW - that are clearly functioning as cool future tech instead of dopey magical powers - and his eyes are MYSTERIOUS MISMATCHING UNNATURAL COLORS and he fights GIANT ROBOTS with a dude in a fedora in a city straight out of the REAL WORLD to save a helpless lady/prize: truly, let no mistake be made, he is VERY, VERY SERIOUS INDEED, AND ALSO, RAD. TO THE MAX. He’s every attempt at reframing contemporary Final Fantasy as slick and modern and cool dialed up and up and up until the tone breaks, without the barest hint of self-awareness even as it advertises its action figure tie-ins. I don’t think that his little Keyblade pattern on his jacket being near-impossible to spot unless you’re looking for it is just to preserve the surprise, but also because the sight of the big keys with the Mickey Mouse logo on them would be anathema to his entire vibe, so important as it may be it must be squirreled away where it can’t make him look dumb. Heck, when Dylan Spouse announced on Twitter he was playing this major character in a childhood favorite franchise of his, surely knowing more than we do about Yozora, his description of the part was “I have lived out my edgy JRPG character fantasies...I even got to say ‘Sorry, but I don’t lose.’” We’re supposed to receive him off the bat as Square Enix, and more specifically Tetsuya Nomura, poking fun at themselves, going ‘yes, we suppose this is all getting to be a bit much, isn’t it?’

And then he enters the story for real.

Obviously he’s much more than a joke now, but the idea of him as something off, something that doesn’t fit in these games, endures. His episode isn’t just in a modern cityscape but skinned in the graphics of the grittier, more detailed style of the Pirates of the Caribbean world meant to evoke photorealism rather than the look of the rest of the game. He interferes with the gameplay in ways no other enemy does, stealing your items and weapons (we’ll get back to that). When he casts you into a void to be attacked by the mechs, it’s not a pure empty white but a mass of abstract polygonal space, evocative of the visuals of early game development. What details we do get of his backstory frame him as a counterpart to Sora on a parallel journey all his own, but the associations with his other source material in Noctis are considerably more...cutting. Credit to @kitsoa, whose own extensive musings on Kingdom Hearts’ increasingly overt metafictional concerns brought to my attention the obvious parallel: that Yozora being changed ‘beyond recognition’ with his heart replaced by another’s is a reasonable, albeit scathing description of Noctis’s revised character in the shift from the Nomura-helmed Final Fantasy Versus XIII to the largely overhauled Final Fantasy XV (and by the same token, the Nameless Star’s identity being stolen comes across as a shot at Versus XIII’s Stella Nox Fleuret being entirely replaced by Lady Lunafreya. Who, by sheer coincidence, would have been corrupted in planned but cancelled DLC into a monster of darkness).

While the comparisons to his source material are not only intentional but textually overt - his introduction as a real boy is literally scored to the FFXV theme music - so is the distancing from that material, given that if Nomura simply wanted to use Noctis the very premise of Kingdom Hearts as a series could have allowed him to use Noctis, and even change him to fit his original vision however he wished given the design and backstory changes to the other Final Fantasy characters involved. Yozora has a distinct role in which he’s still meant to represent that tone and aesthetic, and all signs point to that being because as that representation, he hardly seems an endorsement. He’s a parody, offered up in a demeaning context and tangled up narratively in real-life creative bitterness before being placed as an antagonist, however well-meaning (though keep in mind every secret boss of his kind before - other than Julius, I suppose - went on to become an endgame boss later on), in the player’s path. He may not be a villain, but all signs seem to indicate he’s a figure to be regarded as a contrast to the heroes.

And it’s in that role as a contrast that I have my own theories about what his deal ultimately is, thematically if not plotwise.

For those who saw this in the Kingdom Hearts tag and aren’t superhero fans, that’s Superdoomsday, introduced in Grant Morrison’s run on Action Comics about 8 years ago. One among many takes on an ‘evil Superman’ from a parallel universe, the twist with his world is that rather than a survivor of Krypton, he is literally the materialized concept of Superman - imagined by his reality’s Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen, who created a machine which could bring ideas to life - that when sold to a corporation was reimagined in service of wide public appeal into an all-powerful, uncompromisingly brutal monstrosity clad in armor somewhere between an iPhone, 90s Rob Liefeld battle gear, and Nazi regalia, who ultimately journeyed into the multiverse to stalk and kill other incarnations of Superman, seeing them as competition to his domination of the ‘market’. “The curse...of Superman...” murmurs the dying Kent of that world, “...he becomes anything you want...him...to be...our world...wanted that...”

Yozora is...probably not exactly a 1:1 to that. But as a counterpart to Sora, it absolutely seems as if the main factor by which he contrasts him is that he’s ostensibly the sleeker, edgier model, new-and-improved. He reworks Sora’s story arc and aesthetic into something theoretically cooler and more palatable, steals his power, ‘saves’ him by sealing him away to presumably fight in his stead and thereby take his place as the lead. He is the protagonist so many feel Kingdom Hearts has needed for years, the somber AMV-ready Secret Movie tone and aesthetic stepping into center stage at last rather than maintaining a sunshiney Disney-esque child hero lead to anchor the assorted conspiracies and horrors of much of the rest of the tale. The manner in which he is presented as to make metatextuality an in-universe concern (to call back to Grant Morrison again, his next work after Action Comics was Multiversity, where a major plot point was that the events of parallel universes were unwittingly documented in each others’ pop culture; in that case comic books, in here video games) for Kingdom Hearts to explore in the next main entry is I believe so as to ask what, in fact, Kingdom Hearts as a series should be; is it a Disney series with some incidental Final Fantasy stuff in it? A Final Fantasy spinoff with some Disney elements cluttering it up that should maybe be discarded as it grows up? Something all its own? Is it time for Kingdom Hearts to get Serious? Even if the Kingdom Hearts as imagined by a marketing executive vision of Verum Rex isn’t what’s next, what is, as things get darker and that vision is now part of the narrative whether for good or ill?

So yeah it looks like Kingdom Hearts IV is Kingdom Hearts vs. its own Gritty Realworld! Urban Fantasy AU fanfiction for the soul of the series, and I am extremely here for it.

[highqueenofelfhame]

For Rowaelin: “Will you stop flirting with me you just got seriously injured and i’m the EMT trying to tend to your wounds in the ambulance, i don’t give a fuck that i look cute when i’m concerned, you’re lucky you’re not dead you dipshit” AU

She was strapped down to the stretcher before she had come back to full consciousness. Lysandra had likely called the ambulance as soon as they were close to leaving her behind. Wherever she’d been dumped this time, it reeked. The sewers, then.

Both of her eyes were swollen so badly that she could barely see out of them, her vision blurred and casting a red hue. The fight had been worse this time -- much worse. The last fight she had won, but this time Tern, the idiot, had managed to get her to slip on the gravel and it had been downhill from there. It wasn’t uncommon for her to stumble into the emergency department with broken knuckles or the bones of her foot fractured from piss poor form when she stopped caring toward the end of a fight. This was the first time she’d been the one dumped in an alley to die, however. 

Luckily for her, Lysandra had taken some weird sort of pity up for her ever since Sam had been murdered in his sleep last year. She helped her, tended to her minor wounds, and never let Arobynn see that they were on the same side, lest they both die. 

“Can you hear me?” A light was flicking between her eyes, a light she did her best to follow. 

“Yes,” she rasped, the voice that came out of her causing her to brow to furrow. It was low and raspy, near gravely and not at all like the honey soaked tone she usually painted her words with. 

“You were in an accident -”

“No,” she cut off the paramedic, eyeing the pale blue of his uniform and back up to his face. He was handsome. Too handsome for this job, and so ripped that Aelin briefly wondered what he would be like in a fight. Whitethorn was on the patch that designated his name, and Aelin lifted a bloody finger to tap the letters. 

“My name is Rowan,” he told her, a thick Wendlynite accent curling over his words the same way a crease of worry had sprung between his brows. Aelin tried to wet her lips, but frowned at the prominent metallic tang on her tongue. Blood. Rowan went back to looking for a vein to stick an IV into, no doubt to administer pain medication that she would be grateful for. For now, however, she would keep staring at the handsome EMT and hope that it would take away the pain. 

“You’re very handsome, Rowan,” she said, wincing a bit as a grin spread across her face. “Incredibly cute while concerned, I must admit.” Aelin moved her fingers from his name tag to the sleeve of his arm, worming her finger beneath the tight sleeve. It seemed to hug his biceps a little too perfectly. “How do you even move in this?” Her head tilted to the side as she dragged nail down the curve of a tattoo that peeked out down his arm. A trail of blood followed where her finger touched, but he hardly paused his work to give her a proper look. 

“Do you know what happened to you?” He asked instead, which made the bruised and bloodied blonde huff a sigh. 

“I happened to me. I’m clumsy. Stairs, you know how they can trip a person up.”

“You don’t seem like someone that fights stairs,” he retorted, a brow raised as he peered down at her. Aelin hissed as, somewhere on her leg, cleaning solution was sprayed out and a wound was cleaned roughly. She didn’t miss the way his words paused on the words fights. Like he knew exactly what she’d been up to.

“What do I look like? Dreadful, I’m sure. But I’m quite the looker when I’m not wearing so much red,” she offered with a shrug. A shrug that pulled at her muscles and pained her more than she’d like to admit. Rowan snorted. “You really are handsome.”

“And I’m trying to save your life, so --”

“I’d be more than happy to trip into your bed when you get off work tonight,” she licked her lips again, ran her tongue over her bloody teeth. It was the last thing she said before her vision became fuzzy, her body too heavy, and the medicine pulled her off to sleep. 

@musicmaam @starseternalnighttriumphant @city-of-fae @kandasboi @myfeyrelady @nalgenewhore @schmlip-scribble

[p-artsypants]

Queen! I have come to ask another question if you don’t mind! After reading “Longest Night” I have been wanting to start writing so I can produce works as amazing as yours! The only thing is... I don’t know how to write well... For example my dialogue is boring like “Marinette said”, and when I end up writing a chapter it’s so short and fast paced. I want to produce a story like you did, long, intense, exciting! Do you have links, information, anything for a beginner writer? Much appreciated!

ME? QUEEN?? I’M HONORED!!

(I am not a professional writer, and what I say below is not gospel, but what I do in my own writing.)

Now, hold on. Boring? Let’s say simple. Which is absolutely fine. You have to start somewhere, and you only get better with practice. For me, I read a lot of older novels for examples of writing. 

Tumblr talks about fancy writing. They like to say ‘don’t use said’ ‘don’t use their names over and over’. Except I totally do. If you use ‘said’ a lot, people stop reading it. It acts like a colon, like in a script. You can flavor it of course, by using ‘whispered’ and ‘shouted’ appropriately. Sometimes I just replace it with an action. 

She moved closer to the door. “What did you say?” 

That acts as a tag for the person talking. But you don’t have to come up with a hundred different ways to say ‘said’. 

Same thing with name tags. The more you use careers, ages, hair color, anything, the more it interrupts the sentence. It’s fine to be simple and just use names. DON’T USE HAIR COLOR! I used to do it, but when I did notice that it wasn’t good writing, I started to notice it in things I was reading.  If there’s only two people talking, one male, one female, ‘he’ and ‘she’ should suffice for tags. 

Every time someone new talks, tag the dialogue.  

Example of what NOT to do:

The designer exasperated, “Adrien, this habit is making your grades slip.” 

The blond moaned, “Dad, you just don’t understand! I’m expressing myself!” 

The father articulated, “yes, but rollerderby is a waste of time, and not to mention dangerous.” 

The fencer uttered, “It’s who I am, Father! It’s in my blood!” 

While none of this is necessarily wrong, I find it distracting. You can mention hair color once, to let the readers know that character’s hair color. But I wouldn’t use it as a tag. Using careers or age is fine if the character is not introduced. I used that a lot in Longest Night for the henchmen in the background.

An arm linked with his and pulled him away. “Oh Chat Noir, you shouldn’t drink that. The floor is dirty…”

Grimalkin whined, and met the eyes of the stranger.

No, not a stranger. A tall man, wearing a gray and pink suit with a hat. Mr. Ramier. “Thank you for stopping those muggers, even though you’re in no condition to do so.”

Grimalkin wanted to hiss and pull away and hide, but the pigeon man had always been kind to him. Unless he was akumatized, and even then, it was a relief to be fighting him.

“Come along now, the police will be here any minute.”

Grimalkin whined again and tried to pull away, with little effort.

“Mr. Kemper wants you to hide in the back room. No doubt they’re looking for you!”

He…wanted him to hide? That was unexpected, but not unwelcome. Grimalkin followed Mr. Ramier to the back room that Mr. Kemper was gesturing to.

Up until the bolded sentence, the owner of the store Grimalkin was in was only referred to as ‘the owner’ because he didn’t have a name. After Mr. Ramier says the name out loud, the tag changes from ‘the owner’ to ‘Mr. Kemper’. 

In English classes all through High School, teachers told you not to use run on sentences or incomplete sentences. But, I tend to use both. In fiction writing, a lot of the rules don’t apply. Grammar is still pretty hard and fast, but sentence structure is more loosy goosy. Run on sentences for fast paces sections that go on and on and makes you hold your breath and hold the anxiety. And incomplete sentences. To make you breathe. Focus.

Commas and periods make you breathe. Which. is. why. you. read. this. sentence. like. you. have. Asthma. Using punctuation is a must, but it’s also a handy tool for setting the tone.

I write dialogue the way I talk in real life. Incomplete sentences, pauses, and stuttering in the form of repeated words with a dash. I was recently told by a reviewer that I use ellipses (...) too much in my writing, and that it’s distracting. So, use that one to your own discretion. 

Marinette said, “Adrien, I need to talk to you.

Adrien looked at her. “Sure what’s up?”

“I just wanted to let you know...I have feelings.”

“Feelings?”

“Feelings.” She confirmed, a little too firmly. “For...you.”

His eyebrows raised. “Are they...good feelings?”

Alya leaned in. “Good. Good feelings, Sunshine.”

“Okay, they’re good feelings. Would you care to clarify?”

She opened her mouth, pausing, and then, “No.”

“Marinette...” Alya gave her a look.

“Okay, yes. Alright.”

Adrien just stared at Marinette, his eyes kind. Never judging. He was her friend, wasn’t he? He cared about her. Surely, he’d never laugh at her or be offended by her being completely and utterly in love with him--

“I...I love you.” She blurted.

His eyes widened.

“I’m-I’m in love...with you. Is what I mean. I mean, anyone would love you. And even if I wasn’t in love with you, I’d still love you, you know? Even Alya loves you! Right Alya?”

Alya just rested a hand on her forehead.

“Right, so,” Marinette continued. “I’m just...just letting you-you know, know? And I hope that’s-that’s cool with you. That I’m cool with you, er, that you’re cool with me. Loving you.”

“Marinette.” Adrien said.

“Hm?” She squeaked.

“It’s more than cool. It’s amazing.”

Now, as far as pacing. That’s something you’ll have to learn as you go, because I haven’t found a hard rule for pacing. For Longest Night, I have sections that are very flowery:

Paris was a city trapped in time. The rain blurred the past from the future, the happy and the sad, the night and the day. Erik Satie tried to emulate this effect with his Gymnopedie, and the impressionist painters worked with soft edges to create an atmosphere of calming mystery.

Here, on the sidewalk somewhere in Montparnasse, Adrien and Marinette, or rather, Grimalkin and Lady Lacrima, stood in the haze, freedom and imprisonment blurring lines. They were out, Salo was dead…

But it didn’t really feel real.

This section creates an opening scene. It describes the setting and gives the audience a clear image in their mind about what it’s like. But there’s nothing actually happening. The main characters are standing still, and there’s rain. I could have easily just said: 

It was raining. Grimalkin and Lady Lacrima embraced on the sidewalk. They were free, but it didn’t feel like it.

This is saying the exact same thing, only more concise and with less imagery. Now, if that wasn’t confusing enough, consider not dragging it on for too long. Leave some of it up to the imagination. If I pick up a fic, and the first three paragraphs are talking about how the light is so gently flittering into the room, I might just glaze over. 

It was the perfect temperature. Not too hot, not too cold. A soft bed, cradling her as if she was fragile, and a warm blanket weighing her to the bed. A soft ambient light held back the darkness, but didn’t pierce through her lids.

Marinette tried to open her eyes, caked as they were. The light was dim, illuminating gridded ceiling titles immediately above her. It smelled faintly of chemicals, while a droning hiss carried through the air. Her neck ached, but as she tilted her head, she briefly looked around the room. No one to her left, though she did see a strange machine and a metal stand, an IV stand. A tube ran from the bag down to her arm. A door cracked open revealed a bathroom and another door on the far side of the room was closed, but silhouetted figure stood in the window.

To her right, she found the owner of the voice, her own mother, sitting in a chair by her side, hand in hers, and reading from a book. Jane Eyre, as it looked. Farther down the bed, her father sat in another chair, his hand wrapped loosely around her foot.

Behind her parents, orange light filtered through the light curtains.

A bright red blob caught her attention. Tikki laid curled up on her chest.

A moment more, allowing her brain to digest all she could see, and she realized she was in a hospital.

I took the time to really flesh out the setting in this chapter for a few reasons. A) We’ve never seen this hospital room in the TV show, so we have no visuals for what it looks like. B) I’m describing it from Marinette’s point of view. She doesn’t know what the machines are for, and she doesn’t know who the person standing in the door is. I, as the author, would know, but even though this is written in 3rd person, it’s limited.  I’m giving everyone the same knowledge that Marinette has. 

I wrote a one shot that all goes very fast. It never really slows down. That’s because I never felt the need to slow things down. There’s a few sections where I really described the anxiety that Marinette was feeling, using her senses and what she was doing. 

As Marinette looked across the three girls, her stomach churned with unpleasant feelings. Nerves, nausea, dread…

And idea popped into her head, speaking in a voice that sounded a lot like Tikki. But she simply waved it away with a shake of her head.

‘Please please please don’t be embarrassing and try to ruin this in a fit of jealous rage.’ Alya’s voice piped up, as the angel on the other shoulder.

She swallowed, and looked to Adrien.

He was hunched in his seat, his leg bouncing quickly. She couldn’t see his face, but his body spoke of uncontested anxiety.

Her voice crawled up her throat, resolution pumping through her veins, pounding in her ears, sweating through her palms.

This was a bad idea, a very very bad idea—

“Excuse me, Mr. Agreste?” She blurted, right as he was about to speak.

All eyes were on her, and she felt the immense pressure of it all. This was not like being Ladybug. These weren’t akumas and she had no authority in her civilian clothes.

“Yes, Miss Dupain-Cheng?”

Gabriel looked right at her, staring her down. But his tone held no judgement or impatience. Just curiosity.

“I was hoping, if it isn’t too late. May I also throw my proverbial hat in the ring?”

“You?”

“Yes. Of course, I know I wasn’t invited. So I understand if it’s a no.”

Gabriel was quiet a moment, thinking.

Adrien, however, was staring at her, mouth open, eyes wide. Utterly gobsmacked.

“Adrien, do you have any objections to having Miss Dupain-Cheng join the others in the interview?”

He breathed, his whole body relaxing in one sweep. “No, I don’t mind at all.”

Maybe it was the nerves, but Marinette could have sworn he looked relieved.

“Then I see no problem. Please bring your chair over with the others.”

“Thank you sir,” she said, humbly.

By jumping into Marinette’s head for a second, we kind of pause time. Just for a moment. Enough to make it interesting. 

Wow this went on for a while. I hope it was helpful and that I didn’t come off as condescending anywhere! Happy writing!!