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couchpotatoaniki · 4 years ago

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Our Fruitless Tree

As children, the three of you were inseparable. To show this, you planted a mulberry tree together--a symbol of your love and ever-lasting friendship that would withstand the test of time. But would it really?

Pairing: Servant!Hongjoong x Royal!Reader x Nobleman!Seonghwa Genre: Royal AU, Arranged marriage AU, Love triangle, heavy angst, fluff, childhood friends to lovers (?), Fantasy AU, Warnings: swearing, mentions of conception, blood, death (unknown terminal illness; tree), unrequited love, extremely poor story-telling, magic torture, Word Count: 5.8k+

@atozfic IT MAY BE SHIT, BUT THIS ONE’S FOR YOU /g

A/N: the bridal bouquet in this is inspired by Princess Diana’s. I dunno, I just really liked it.

“Y/N! Come look over here!” Seonghwa yelled at you, hand waving in the air to beckon you over where Hongjoong and he stood. Even as children, the two were taller than you, as if their bodies had not cared you were of a higher status.

You were the only child of the Kingdom’s royal family, meaning that you had little in the way of friends. Especially when the future crown stuck to you, intimidating any future playmates. Luckily Seonghwa was the son of a family friend--a nobleman with immense power, who’s faithful lineage dated back to the creation of the kingdom.

Hongjoong was similar, the only difference being that he came from that of a servant family than of one of power, a debt made by his ancestors that had sold his life to serve the royal family. But being your servant had taught him from a young age that, unlike what everyone had tried to make you believe, you were pretty much a normal human with feelings, the weight of an entire empire on your shoulders from the day you were born.

“Coming!” you yelled back, hurriedly making your way towards your only two friends, the younger holding something behind his back while the older was practically bouncing with excitement. “What are you hiding from me?”

Grinning, Seonghwa’s hands pulled into sight, unfurling to show off the sapling in his hand. “It’s a mulberry tree! You love mulberries, don’t you?”

You believe that was the first time your heart skipped a beat--at the young age of 11--but you wouldn’t realise until a quite few years later, when life was much different, though the relationship between the three of you had not changed all that much.

That day was a precious memory, where the three of you had planted the young mulberry sapling in a secret garden that your father had built just for you, but you had opened it to Seonghwa and Hongjoong; a place where none of you had to bare the titles hovering over your heads.

Even the Earth was indiscriminate when it came to dirtying your clothes as you all kneeled to plant the young sapling easily becoming the most important thing in your friendship.

Had the three of you acting as if it was your shared child, arguing who would water the roots, talking to it as if it could respond.

As the years went on, life was much different than when you were all naïve children, but the care and love you had never weakened, even during the occasional arguments that burst between you all.

With age, Hongjoong’s untameable burnt-chocolate hair lightened to a gentle chestnut, long enough that he had to tie it back into a little bun. Seonghwa’s hair, on the other hand, had changed from a soft platinum to a dirty blonde, messy strands now pulled down into a neat style.

The two were lean. Both still taller than you, though Hongjoong was only a few inches from you.

The three of you truly believed you could withstand the test of time. That your relationship would never change no matter how long it had been.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?” you whispered, hand clamped to the stone railing of your balcony. “It’s your last chance to back out, Seonghwa.”

You could hear chuckling beside you, deeper than what you used to hear as a kid, though you dared not to look at the boy--the man beside you. “You know very well I can’t do that, Y/N. Would rather it be me that’s marrying you than some officious fool who knows nothing of your happiness.”

Sighing, you leaned over, letting your necklace dangling slightly in the air from around your neck. “Doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your own happiness.”

You felt two colder hands wrap around your exposed arms, feeling nice against the humid summer night. Seonghwa’s chin rested down on your shoulder, as he looked on the same scene you were. Soft breaths against your skin had it erupting with goosebumps, and you prayed your friend had not noticed.

He did, but didn’t pay much heed to it--as per usual. If only he would put a little more though into the strange quirks you developed over time--developed around him and him only--maybe he would have realised that you loved him.

More than a friend.

Both of you were too lost in the moment to realise someone had entered your room. The final person to complete your trio. Hongjoong, dressed in his crisp cream and gold uniform, overlooked the scene of you two.

He didn’t know why his heart hurt so badly.

Clearing his throat certainly got your attention, ripping away from each other in fear that someone had caught you two a night before the wedding doing something you shouldn’t have. Was nothing like that, but people--especially those in the castle--tended to blow things out of proportion.

Upon seeing that it was only Hongjoong, you two had released a breath of relief. “For heaven’s sake, Hongjoong! You almost gave me a heart attack,” you said. Seonghwa had his eyes averted to the polished marble floor, unable to meet his friend’s, cheeks flushed.

You thought it was because of embarrassment that someone had caught the two of you so late at night.

It wasn’t.

“I think it would be best for you to return to your room, Seonghwa. Before someone actually does come looking for you. Don’t want someone to see you too,” Hongjoong laughed, now an expert at making a light-hearted aura around him with years of practice.

“Alright then. Good night,” the nobleman smiled, finally bringing his sight up to see his best friend, heart beating feverishly when he saw the gentle smile pulling at his lips. Couldn’t tell it wasn’t real, not even as he left the room.

Now it was just you and Hongjoong.

“Come, let’s take a walk.”

For as long as you could remember, the boy had been attentive to your needs (despite his occasional silly behaviour), long before he was told that it was his job. You’d like to think of it as his sixth sense; knowing how you were, what you needed, when you needed him.

Maybe that’s why he could tell that you had pre-wedding jitters, feeling so sick you barely had the life in you--skin looking more dreary than usual. You needed time away, even for a few minutes, to take a breather from all the commotion.

The two of you walked in silence in the sleeping halls, like two thieves in the night, careful not to wake anyone up.

Hongjoong was aware you liked Seonghwa, but he knew it was unrequited. Why, he could not his finger on. You were prefect, a person who deserved all the love in the world--in the universe.

You knew better than to ask where he was taking you; after all, you trusted him. And maybe because you also knew him well enough to know where he was taking you.

To the secret garden.

“She’s withstood all the storms and droughts the earth has threatened her with. No wonder her bark is so thick and her roots so tough.” His voice was tender as the tips of his fingers brushed against the rough bark, the trunk appearing darker under the absence of the sun. “Gotten so big, hasn’t she?”

As if his actions were a trigger, your hand reached out to stroke the mulberry tree too. “She has...” Tender look in your expression had his breath caught in his throat. Your eyes shifted to meet his, which were already gazing at you. “Do you think she’ll bare fruit this time?”

“The frost has long passed, so not this year, I believe.” Hongjoong couldn’t bare the instant hollow look in your eyes, saddened to his core until the light reignited in your irises--almost glowing in the dark like the fireflies surrounding them.

“But she will next year, right?”

“And she will bare the tastiest fruit. Better than those sold on the markets,” he reassured, though he had an inkling of suspicion that this fruit would not come any time soon. Not after all these years. But that spark in your eyes was the only thing he could not bare to extinguish, so he kept his lips pursed.

“I was reading up on the symbolism of the mulberry trees across cultures,” you said, moving to sit on the wooden swing that hung from one of the stronger branches; the rope had rose vines growing around it, which Hongjoong made sure to maintain so it was safe for you whenever you came. This was your favourite spot, after all.

He raised a brow, moving behind you as his hands rested on your back momentarily before pushing you slightly. “Is that so? Mind telling me?” He already knew from his extensive research to look after the tree, but there was no harm in hearing it again.

Excitedly, you let a wide grin play against your lips as he gradually pushed you higher and higher. “So, in Xiqen, it’s seen as a link between Heaven and Earth, and in Mika, it represents a support, nurturing and self-sacrifice.”

“Is that all?”

“Uh...yes.”

“Strange... I could’ve sworn there was some significance of the mulberry tree in Zepheth.” He began to slow down when he saw your back slump over slightly. Probably because he knew that it wasn’t a happy story.

“There is,” you mumbled, eyes downcast to the evergreen grass rather than meet his soft chocolate ones. “Just... it’s very sad.”

He held your hands in his larger ones, both of you loving the warmth it provided despite the slight heat of the night. “Not all stories are happy. Need to hear the sad ones too, to truly understand the picture.”

Words were a bit cryptic, even for him. Regardless, you had continued. “In Zepheth, there were these two lovers who were forbidden to wed, so they secretly arranged to meet under the mulberry tree. However, they were found out, and killed under the tree, staining the white berries red... It symbolises star-crossed lover and the final union of death.”

The air seemed to be still, despite the rustling of the leaves and chirping of the hidden crickets. Hongjoong kneeled down, pressing a hand onto your cheek to soothe even the slightest bit the grief in your face. “Good thing the other two have nice symbols. Cancels the bad things out.”

Chuckling slightly, you rested your own hand on his, nuzzling into his palm as your eyes shut. Stark contrast between your skins, yours being softer than silk while his were calloused and rough. But it felt nice against the supple flesh of your cheek.

You both thought so.

But with the moon so high and hair beginning to stick to your necks from the humidity and heat, you thought it best to return. “Escort me to my chambers? After all, it is a very big day tomorrow and we both have to rise early for the final preparations.”

As if he needed reminding of that. “Very well then.”

Your servant wasn’t happy with the proceedings--not when he knew that Seonghwa’s eyes did not meet the passion you had in yours, despite your many years of friendship. But he had to agree with him on one thing.

Seonghwa was the best and safest choice you (and the kingdom) had in this moment of time.

So Hongjoong didn’t protest when you walked down the isle in the most breath-taking attire, adorned with pearls and jewels, and a gorgeous bouquet of green and white; gardenias, lily of the valley, earl mountbatten roses, freesia, and ivy--and most importantly, white mulberries.

He didn’t challenge when the vows were spoken and Seonghwa promised to love you and only you forever.

He didn’t object when the Priestess gave the crowd one last chance to speak or forever hold their peace before the deal was sealed with a kiss.

Despite his gut and every other fibre in his being screaming at him otherwise.

Another two decades passed, and now strands of white hairs were peeking through, but unlike before, much had changed. You were now a parent of three--triplets, conceived within the first few tries.

Yunho, San, and Wooyoung. The mulberries of your eyes.

You suppose that’s when the rose-tint on your married life began to fade. Though he was extremely affectionate in the beginning, Seonghwa never touched you like that again after the birth of your children. Though the three kids never really noticed it much as it was all they had known, you could see it clearly.

How he would spend more and more time in his office. How he would climb in bed and talk about your day, but doing nothing more. It was if you two had reverted back to friends--that very thought breaking your heart when you had loved him so dearly.

Felt as if he looked at your feelings as if it were a trinket in a shop before putting it back, not finding it suitable enough for him.

But for Seonghwa, that wasn’t the case at all.

He tried--he really did--to love you.

By now, time had made him wise enough to know of your compassion for him and he begged himself to return your feelings. Spent many nights while you were asleep praying to the entities residing in the Heavens, crying on the hard floor of the palace’s temple until his arms grew sore and his legs went numb.

But he could not look at any other. Seonghwa could not stop his heart knocking against his chest, his cheeks pooling with heat, whenever he saw Hongjoong smile, or laugh, or do the most menial of tasks.

Could not stop the thoughts of him being by his side rather than you--and it killed him to think that, especially when you have been nothing but kind and loving to the both of them--never giving your personal servant too much work or being too stubborn in wanting your husband’s affection. Instead of pressing too much, you worked on the kids and kingdom.

You were kind, selfless.

Maybe Seonghwa should have let someone else marry you. Maybe they could love you back for all those times he couldn’t.

But he supposes that the best thing out of this marriage was his children. Despite Yunho’s hyperactivity, San’s clinginess, and Wooyoung’s mischievousness, he loved the three to the moon and back.

Helped you in raising them over the last two decades into great people.

It was the only thing he couldn’t bring himself to regret.

That, and how it had given him the excuse to be closer with Hongjoong too, the two of them learning how to look after the triplets (one already proved to be a handful, but three was a nightmare) while you were unwell or busy with other business.

There were times where he glanced at his childhood friend, playing games with the young kids or feeding them or changing them, and had completely forgotten about you. All that swirled in his head was if this is what it would look like if Hongjoong and he had a family together.

Then Seonghwa would snap out of it a spilt second later, cold shame eating away at the warmth in his chest because how could he ever think of such a thing about the mother of his kids?

Meanwhile, Hongjoong--your intelligent and faithful servant--had figured this out too. Figured out the reason why he felt so sick to his stomach when he saw you be so loving towards a man who doesn’t love you back, and why said man could not reciprocate your feelings.

If Seonghwa felt guilty, then Hongjoong felt a million times worse.

Felt as if he was the reason you were in so much pain--and he could tell you were, because he was the one you came running to in the beginning, when your husband kept his wall up around you and you became so frustrated and upset that you spilled waterfalls of salty tears onto his jacket, mumbling words of pain and heartbreak that stayed within the walls of the secret garden.

It stayed safe there, as Seonghwa no longer visited.

Not even you had visited less, despite being consumed with your children and the work of the kingdom. The tree was a sign of your love for each other, it was your very first child.

Hongjoong, too, had stayed. Continued to care for it, to keep it company on his breaks, to talk about his problems since he certainly could not tell you or Seonghwa. His own tears often landed on the roots of the tree, nurturing it with his pain.

Perhaps that’s why the tree had not bore any mulberries, from the saltiness of the water or the anguish it carried.

But he kept whispering the same thing to you whenever you asked, that the mulberries would definitely come, and they would be tastiest you would ever have. Better than those from the markets.

Five more years had passed and you grew ill. Hid it well, so well that no one except the royal physician knew of your condition. Not even Hongjoong knew, so you took that as an achievement. Rarely anything got by him, especially when it came to you.

Dr Yeosang had looked at you with dreary eyes, putting his equipment away which had signalled the end of your appointment. “Anything?” you inquired, coughing into a blood-stained napkin.

“I’m afraid there is still no diagnosis. None of the symptoms match up to any known illnesses and it appears that it is not spread by people since everyone else in the palace is as fit as a fiddle.”

Your smile was small as you chuckled. “Everyone except me, it seems,” you joked in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Yeosang simply sighed. “I believe it’s time. Tell your family before it gets even worse--which it has been doing since the first appointment. At least Hongjoong.”

“You know very well I can’t do that. We’re in the middle of a drought and there’s raids going on in the North--”

“Every kingdom faces those, and yours has already dealt with such situations in the past very well.”

You looked away, cheeks now starting to sink in from the lack of appetite. “I know,” you whispered, ”but I can’t bring myself to say it.”

He licked his lips in contemplation, understanding why you wouldn’t want to tell anyone. A monarch is as strong as the kingdom--any instability in the family will cause instability for the nation. And the same goes for a parent and their family.

“I suppose I can try to hide it a little longer... but a month is all I can do--from the rate your illness is progressing.”

Lips tightening in a thin line, you nodded. There was never going to be enough time. Would go greedy, wishing for a month, then another, then another. But your timer was non-negotiable.

So the first thing you did when you left the royal physicians was go see your sons. If there were anyone who needed your attention, they would be your boys.

Short on breath, you tried to travel swiftly through the hallways--bones, now weary with age and sickness, no longer moving the same way as you used to. As you made your way to the royal family’s private wing, you overheard wisps of conversation through a nearby door.

Slowing to a halt, you listened closer, recognising the voices but not seeming to put names to them--brain too muddled to think straight.

“--know.”

“You can’t do that, Seonghwa. Not to her.”

“I can’t force myself to stop caring about you, Hongjoong!”

Your heart stopped mid-beat.

“Keep your voice down!” There was a pause while the floorboards of Seonghwa’s private office creaked, most likely Hongjoong’s habit of pacing while he was thinking. “You need to. I care about you as a friend, but nothing more.”

“You think if I could, I would’ve done so already?” your husband’s voice was seething. “Heavens know how hard I have tried to love her, b-but I just can’t!”

“Well I can’t love you back, if that’s what you’re asking for.”

Another stretch of silence passed, and you could almost imagine the two glaring at each other as they normally did in a fight. “Because you love her. Am I correct?”

A soft sigh came from who you assumed was Hongjoong, quiet but still loud enough for your ears to capture (greatly timed to cover your own gasp at the revelation).

“I don’t know...”

“What do you mean by that?”

“...Nothing.”

“Hongjoong, you know you can tell me anything. Regardless of our positions before or after this conversation, we will always be friends.”

“This is better kept between me and the Heavens.” He sighed once more. “All you need to know is that we can’t be together because I don’t love you and I have my loyalty. End of discussion.”

Had it been anyone else, Seonghwa would’ve had them arrested for speaking that way to their king. But neither of you could ever so that to him. He was your rock, your old friend--his loyalty shining bright even after all these years of serving you.

Before Hongjoong could open the door, you had fled the scene, not wanted to be caught eavesdropping on such a private conversation--even if the topic had concerned you.

Just before entering the Princes’ linked chambers, you caught your breath, willing your pounding heart to stop beating so feverishly.

There was too much going on. Too much, and your brain can’t seem to wrap itself around it all.

“So that’s why,” you whispered, lacking breath in your lungs. “His heart belongs to another...” Then a fit of coughs burst once more and your hands scrambled to retrieve a fresh napkin tucked beneath your sleeve to catch the blood.

Upon hindsight, it was a bad idea to stop in front of your son’s private room, because your extreme coughing had caught his attention. Yunho’s confused eyes melted away to concern, especially after seeing the dark red liquid tainting the pure white cloth.

“Mother!”

His cry had attracted the attention of your other two sons, who swarmed around you as Yunho cradled his arms around you, guiding you to his bed.

San brushed the strands of hair that had escaped from your tight bun away from your face while Wooyoung rubbed your back in attempt to sooth your violent coughing. “What’s wrong, Mum?”

“We need to tell Papa!”

“We need Dr Yeosang--”

“He knows,” you tried to say, doing your breath to bring your breathing back to normal. “The doctor. He’s known... for a long time.”

“What do you mean ‘a long time’?” San asked, his hands clasped around yours, a desperate look in his eyes begging for an explanation. “What’s going on, Mama?”

Not right now. You were supposed to have a month extra. They weren’t supposed to find out so soon. “I...” you throat felt tight and dry, “I’m very unwell. The doctor doesn’t know what’s wrong because he’s never seen anything like it before.”

“Then we get a new doctor!” Yunho piped in, voice raised and slightly frantic. You really didn’t need them panicking.

“If Yeosang doesn’t know, then no one will.”

“What about Dad?” Wooyoung asked. “Does he know? Uncle Hongjoong has to know, right? Uncle Hongjoong always kn--”

“Neither of them know. We must keep it that way. So you need to pretend that I’m healthy and well for just one more month. That’s all I ask for. One month.”

You looked between all your children, trying to memorise their faces because Heavens know how long you have left.

As promised, the boys kept your secret for as long as they could--caring and tending to you as much as they could without arousing suspicion from Hongjoong or Seonghwa.

But before your month was up, you had collapsed just after a dinner--slipping in and out of consciousness while your old friend carried you up to Yeosang’s office, the rest of your family in tow, beyond worried.

Yeosang later explained, when you were fully awake, that whatever illness you had was growing at a much faster rate than he anticipated, and you had a few weeks at most.

Now, you were bedridden in your chambers, limbs too heavy and painful to move, lungs feeling like they were being pressed down from the gravity and it got harder and harder to keep your eyes open.

Not a day went by where your sons or husband visited you, and Hongjoong had rarely ever left your side. As strong as they all tried to be, their puffy crimson eyes and sniffling noses were all too obvious.

“Seonghwa? Hongjoong?” you said, voice faint and dry. “Could you go out... for a few minutes. I need to... talk to the boys.”

They exchanged glances, before following your quiet word. “What is it, Mama?” San said, crouched beside you as he held your hand once again.

Even as a man in his mid-twenties, your little baby still called you ‘Mama’ and refused to let go of his mother’s hand. Found you as the most comforting thing in the world.

“Remember... the mulberry tree? The one I showed you?”

“Yeah, Ma,” Wooyoung said leaning against the wall that faced you. Despite his playful and nonchalant nature, you knew he was the most emotional one out of the three. Which was why you were very concerned over his silence for the past few days until he finally spoke now.

“I want you three... to look after it once I’m gone.”

“You’re not going, Mother,” Yunho sniffled, tears in his eyes threatening to drop. He was the oldest (by a few minutes) and was still the most respectful. But even then, he was still a kind and soft-hearted boy, much like his brothers.

“But promise me... regardless. That you’ll look after her. And when she finally bares fruit...”

“It’ll be the tastiest fruit,” your sons recited in unison, eyes glossy with unshed tears, “better than any other on the markets.”

With the little strength you had left, you mustered a weak smile. “My good boys... You will become... fine kings one day. I have no doubt.” You let go of San’s hand, hand instantly being consumed by the cold from the lack of insulation and warm blood pumping through your veins. “Now... call in your Father and Uncle.”

And they did so, leaving the room to leave the three of you alone. “What is it, my dear?” Seonghwa caressed your cheek lovingly, but you both knew that it was more of a platonic gesture than a romantic one--more for you than it was for him.

“I know...about your love for Hongjoong.”

You could feel the tension in the air thicken to such a degree that you could slice it with the letter opener that resided on your bedside table. It was Hongjoong who spoke up. “Y/N, you need to know that we never--”

“Did anything... I know.” You look to him, that same weak smile plastering on your face. “Such a loyal friend. Never did deserve you, did I?”

He shook his head as he came down to hold your hand. “No--don’t say that. If anything, I didn’t deserve you as a friend.”

You chuckled softly, careful not to trigger another one of your coughing fits. “If I can’t say things like that... then neither can you. But I would like you both to do two final things for me.”

“Anything,” his voice was still strong, unwavering, but you knew Hongjoong long enough to see the stormy ocean behind his calm gaze, the turmoil he must be feeling right now from losing his closest and oldest friend.

“First thing is.. be happy,” you shifted your gaze over to your husband, “and you too. If you can’t with me... then at least with each other.”

For the first time, your servant let go of your hands, denying your request. “I can’t be happy without you.”

“Then learn to do so. After all, you have... the rest of your life.”

He couldn’t verbally agree to that, not when what he said was true. Not when his own heart lay in your possession--and would to until the day he passed as well. So Seonghwa took the painful step in asking what your second wish was.

You recalled the Zepheth’s symbol of your most beloved possession. Star-crossed lovers and the final union of death. Though the three of you were stuck in a sick triangle of unrequited love by the Heavens, it felt fitting for your story.

And perhaps, with your permanent presence, the fruit would finally grow.

“Bury me under the mulberry tree.”

Extra, alternative ending below If you’re not a fan of fantasy or torturous spirits or man-eating trees, just stop here.

Two young travellers searched around the ruins of a lost palace, greenery overflowing, filling every nook and cranny of the battered stone walls--a rather beautiful sight of Mother Nature reclaiming her lands.

“Where even are we, Mingi?” the shorter, more muscular one of the pair said, stumbling over vines and rubble as he followed the much taller man.

“Not where we’re meant to be, I think,” he quipped, looking at the architecture to find some clues of their whereabouts.

The other rolled his eyes. “This would’ve been a lot easier if you didn’t drop the map in the river.”

“Hey! In my defence, it was really windy and the rain made the ground slippery. Leave me alone, Jongho.”

“Not until you give me a damn map.”

Like the archaeology student he was, Mingi studied the tattered tapestry and engravings on the walls until it had hit him. “Holy mother of fresh, sweet hell.”

“What?”

Without answering his best friend’s question, the man too off running, as if he already knew the layout of the place. Jongho ran after him, screaming and almost tripping over the vegetation in the way of his heavy boots.

Once Mingi stopped, his friend held his knees, heaving to catch his breath. “What... the hell... was that for?”

Swivelling on his heel, the tall explorer had sparkles in his eyes. “This is it! The Lost Kingdom! The thing we’ve been looking for!”

Jongho’s head snapped up. “You mean you’ve been looking for? I was just dragged along by your antics as usual.” He narrowed his eyes when he finally saw where his friend took him. “A tree? You took me to see a goddamn TREE?!”

Mingi got closer the enormous mulberry tree, gazing at it as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. “Not just any tree. It’s the Queen Y/N’s tree!”

“Okay, let me get this straight,” Jongho sighed, feeling the rage burn within him like a furnace, “you took me to see a dead woman’s tree?”

“Yes, but--”

“WE ALMOST DIED, MINGI! TWICE!” He held up two fingers, expressing his point further. “AND ALL THAT FOR A GODDMAN TREE?!”

“The lore surrounding it was well worth the trip,” a voice said, the two boys’ head spinning to see a person dressed in old, fancy clothing, perched upon the swing--now completely covered with vines and moss. Both of them swore they hadn’t noticed them there. Yet, they brushed it off anyways, thinking that they just had silent movement.

“Who are you?” Mingi asked, head cocked to the side as he became familiar with the sight of them.

“The protector of this tree,” they replied. “Who are you?”

“Some travellers...sightseeing,” Jongho piped in, sceptical of this person who looked like they were in their twenties, just like them.

“You were talking about lore?” The older of the two inquired, already greatly invested in the whole place. “Are you familiar with it?”

“Why, I must be. After all, I look after her,” they said, lovingly stroking the trunk of the tree. “Would you like to hear it?”

“Yes, please!” Mingi sat down, like a child excited for story time despite knowing the book by-heart, while Jongho stayed stood up beside him.

“Well, once upon a time, there was a very strong and powerful Kingdom--”

“The Lost Kingdom!” the child-like man shot out, too giddy to hold back.

The person giggled, his antics reminding them of someone they used to know. “Yes, I believe that’s what you call it. Well, there were three children that lived here; one was of royalty, one of nobility, and the third was a servant--but they were the best of friends, despite their status.”

The muscular boy narrowed his eyes at the childish tone the person was using, not liking how it sounded--how it started to make him feel weary.

“They planted this tree,” they tapped the trunk with their hand, “right here, and nurtured it for as long as they could. As they grew older, the royal and nobleman got married and had children together, while the servant dedicated his life to helping them.”

Jongho sat down, feeling more dreary than normal, coughing a little, while Mingi did the same, not feeling so well either.

“They were all still close, regardless of personal disputes between them, but their love for each other began to weaken only once the tree remained barren of fruit. But they kept up hope, saying that it will the next year.”

The travellers had found it hard to breath, as if there was a pressure on their lungs, squeezing them flat.

“But then, the royal found out they were dying, so they asked to buried under the mulberry tree. In their mind, their body would give the tree the nutrients it needed to finally bare the mulberries they so desperately craved. But no fruit had bore, making the spirit of the royal restless.”

Jongho coughed violently, thick red liquid dribbling down his chin, looking over to Mingi who was hunched over in pain. "But... that’s a fruitless... mulberry tree.”

It appeared to be the wrong thing to say, as their brows furrowed, scowl pulling at their lips, the swing stopped swinging. “And who are you to say that?”

“Because I study... goddamn plants.”

Then it clicked in Mingi’s head--what was going on. “Jongho... shut up--” His chest squeezed harder, a yelp escaping his lips as he toppled to the side.

“Carrying on from that rude interruption,” the person glared at the younger of the two, who was now lying on his side, curled into the foetal position, “the nobleman and servant then died a while after, and were buried side-by-side with the royal.”

Overgrown roots of the tree began to soften, becoming more flexible like snakes as they began to slither their way to the two young boys.

“But even their bodies weren’t enough. So the royal’s spirit swore to use whatever they could to make the tree finally bare fruit.”

The roots wrapped around each boys ankle, spiralling up until it wrapped the two of them in a cocoon. And neither of them could do anything, too tired to yell or move around, succumbing to the sweet release of sleep.

Getting up off the swing, the person rested their forehead on the trunk of the tree.

“And it will be the tastiest fruit. Better than any other on the markets.”

A/N: If you didn’t get it, the tree not growing any fruit was a metaphor of unrequited love. I feel like I didn’t really explain that properly, but there you go.

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iwritesickfic · 3 years ago

Text

"i kinda have a crush"

synopsis: Henry has a crush on his roommate's best friend Tom. When he gets sick, he's not sure whether Tom's concern means he feels the same.

Henry doesn't have time for a cold. Especially not now. Finals start next week, and between studying for exams, finishing final projects, and going to class, pretty much all his time is going to be occupied. Today, he woke up with a headache and a sore throat, which he's trying to convince himself is just a product of poor sleep, but deep down he knows is just the beginning of something worse to come.

Now, he's in his room, wrapped in his comforter and highlighting passages in his bio textbook, hearing his roommate Sam and his loud friends watching something equally loud in the living room. It's useless trying to ask them to quiet down - he learned after the sixth or seventh time asking that even though they all seem accommodating, they forget pretty quickly. Normally he'd be able to tune them out, but his steadily worsening headache is making it near impossible.

He gets up and starts pulling on clothes - the walk to the library may be freezing, but at least he'll get some quiet. Leaving his room, he's aware of how pissed off he must look, but he doesn't care enough to feign politeness to Sam and his friends.

He heads to the kitchen and grabs his travel mug - he's going to need coffee if he's going to last at the library. He's just filling it up when he hears a voice behind him.

"Hey! Henry! I didn't know you were home!" It's Tom. He's probably Sam's best friend - at the very least, he's the friend who's over more than anyone else. Henry suppresses a sigh. Tom is the exact kind of guy he doesn't like. Bro-y, athletic, always overly friendly to everyone - it just comes off as phony. It also just so happens that guys like this are always very attractive, and Tom is no exception. He turns around to grab milk from the fridge.

"Hey," he says, trying not to sound as annoyed as he feels.

"If I knew you were here I would've been a little quieter - you have finals coming up too, right?" Tom asks, leaning against the door frame in that way he always does.

"Mmhmm. It's fine. I'm going to the library." Talking to Tom is not helping the throbbing in his head. He starts to add the sugar and milk to his coffee.

"Are you sure? I can ask the guys to quiet down."

"No, it's fine." He snaps the cover onto his coffee and starts toward the door.

"Alright, well have a good day!"

"Thanks, you too." When he closes the front door he sighs, rubbing his eyes. He starts down the stairs. Being around people like that is exhausting on a normal day - Henry's always been quiet. Reserved. With the beginnings of a cold it's almost aggravating.

The frigid air outside makes his throat burn and his eyes water. His nose starts to run too, and he hopes it's just the temperature and not a new symptom. Knowing his luck he's going to be the one annoying person in the library constantly sniffling.

His time at the library is mostly uneventful, apart from going through a pack of travel tissues and getting dirty looks from other students. By the time they're ready to close, he feels significantly worse than he did this morning, but he's finished his biology review and is almost done with a paper for Transformative Design.

The trudge home feels like it takes forever - it's only about a 15 minute walk, but between the cold and feeling like crap it seems neverending. He can hear from the hallway outside the apartment that Sam's friends are still here, which makes him want to tear his hair out.

It's almost midnight when they leave, so it's only about that time he can get to sleep. He has class the next morning at 8, and when he wakes up with his alarm, he knows he's in for a full blown cold. His head still aches, and his sinuses feel sore and swollen. His throat kills too, and he feels shivery, despite the heavy comforter.

He lets himself lie in bed for a while, sniffling and trying to absorb as much warmth as he can from the comforter, before he drags himself up. He immediately pulls on his warmest sweater, even though he's just going to the bathroom. It doesn't help the shivering much, but it's something. He probably looks ridiculous, in just a pair of boxers and his oversized sweater, but he feels so shitty he doesn't really care.

Walking by the couch, he sees Tom asleep, shirtless. His heart flutters - he knew Tom was fit but it was something else to see it. The butterflies are almost annoying. There a million guys on campus, why does he have to get so worked up over this one?

In the shower, he cranks up the heat and lets the steam ease the aching in his sinuses. He's in there for too long, but the thought of having to actually walk to class in the cold makes him reluctant to get out.

He arrives to class a few minutes late - nose still dripping from the cold. Luckily today is just a lecture, but it's a five hour class, and he didn't have time to make any coffee this morning. He brought another little travel pack of tissues, but he's definitely going to have to ration them.

He's still shivering. It's worse after being out in the cold, and even though it should get better over time, nothing changes. He just sits there, achy and shivering and congested and miserable until 10:30, when the professor calls for a 10 minute break. Thank god. He needs coffee. There's a small shop in the building, so he forces himself up and out of his seat - which leads to a few seconds of particularly bad throbbing in his head - and out into the hall.

He almost groans when he sees who's working. Tom. Of course he's been to this little coffee spot a million times and he knows it's where Tom works, but he didn't think he'd have to see him this morning. Part of him is annoyed - he definitely does not have the energy to deal with him at the moment - but another part is a little embarrassed at how awful he must look. Not that he should care what Tom thinks of him, he reminds himself. Regardless, he walks up the counter, half occupied rubbing at his nose with a tissue.

"Hey," he says, and is surprised how congested he sounds. Tom turns, eyes lighting up.

"Hey!" He dims a little when he takes in his full appearance. "You ok?" Henry sniffles.

"Yeah. Fine. Can I get-"

"Large hot coffee, oat milk and sugar, right?" Henry's taken aback.

"Uh, yeah. You know my order?"

"Of course. It's an easy order." He goes about starting to make the drink. "Hope we didn't keep you up last night. I kept telling Sam to shut the fuck up but he doesn't listen to me."

"It's fine. I'm used to it." He sniffles again.

"You sound like you're coming down with something."

"And you sound like my mom." That makes Tom laugh, and again, Henry feels a stirring in his chest. Tom puts the lid on the drink and hands it to him, and Henry tries to hand him the money. Tom shakes his head.

"That's ok - on the house." That draws a little smile out of Henry. Tom smiles back, and for a minute he forgets how shitty he feels. "I hope you feel better."

"Thanks."

He heads back to class and sits down, taking a sip of the coffee. It tastes great, as always when Tom makes it, and the warmth helps to ease the chills at least somewhat. The rest of the lecture is spent half paying attention, and half worrying his sniffling and nose blowing is annoying. When it's finally over, he wants nothing more than to just go home and take a nap, but he has a problem set for calculus due tomorrow that he hasn't even started. So, reluctantly, he makes the trek to the library. He's able to work for most of the day uninterrupted - he's not very hungry, which maybe should be concerning but is convenient nonetheless.

By the time he's done, it's already dark out, and the walk home is brutal. The wind is whipping, and his scarf and hat aren't doing much to keep the cold out. His nose is running like a faucet and the cough he developed over the course of the day drags the cold air even further into his lungs. The coughs hurt, like they come from somewhere deep in his chest, and by the time he gets home his throat is destroyed.

When he gets home, he's glad to see Sam isn't making a racket for once. Still, he knows he's in for a restless night anyway. He puts a can of soup on the stove to heat up while he changes into sweatpants and a hoodie. His reflection in the mirror is definitely a sight - he's flushed from the cold, his hair a mess, and his eyes red rimmed.

He knows he should really fit in some more studying before he calls it a night, but after he picks at his soup and does the dishes, he's ready to fall over, so he just curls up in bed, coughing and shivery, and goes to sleep.

He wakes up a few times in the night coughing, and the soreness in his throat makes his eyes water. He's barely able to drag himself out of bed the next morning. His shivers have become more like shakes, and his cough feels like it never stops. He got a decent amount of sleep, but he still feels totally exhausted - even his muscles are sore.

His classes are a blur - he's too preoccupied with feeling awful to focus, and by the time he's done at 6, all he wants to do is go home and sleep until tomorrow morning. But, he knows he has to get at least one assignment done. After tomorrow, he'll have the whole weekend to relax. Not totally, but still.

Just the assignment tonight, classes tomorrow, then he can finally get some rest. The library probably isn't a good choice - his cough is too distracting, and he knows the walk home later will be torture. So instead, he goes back to the apartment. The cold air always exacerbates the cough, so the whole way home he's hacking, his nose running like a faucet. His ribs have started to hurt from all the coughing.

He almost wants to cry when he gets home and hears the sound of Sam and his friends in the living room. Why tonight of all nights? He trudges into his bedroom and changes - he's started to feel warm, which is a relief after feeling so cold all the time, but now it's becoming a both too warm and too cold feeling, so he tugs on his sweater and a fresh pair of boxers.

He starts to work on the physics problem set - there are only three problems total, but each of them usually take an hour at least, and that's when he's not feeling like death. He works for a while, but it's only when he starts to feel lightheaded he realizes he hasn't eaten yet today.

So, he heads into the kitchen and rummages around for a can of chicken noodle. He finds it, but he's too weak and shaky to work the can open right. He tries for a good three minutes before he feels a lump form in his throat.

"Hey, do you want some help with that?" He turns to see Tom standing in the doorway. Self consciously, he sniffles and clears his throat.

"Uh, y-yeah, that would be great." Tom smiles softly and walks over, making quick work of the can. Henry expects him to just go back into the living room, but he grabs the pot from the cabinet and turns on the stove.

"You've got quite a cough there." Henry feels himself blush. They all must be able to hear him from his room.

“Sorry, I-”

“Hey, no, no don’t be sorry. We make enough noise, you’re allowed to be sick.” He pours the soup into the pot and starts to grab spices from the shelf.

“I’m not sick.” Henry isn’t sure why he’s being so defensive, but Tom doesn’t challenge him, just smirks.

“Well whatever it is, it sounds brutal.” He shakes a few of the spices into the soup, stirring slowly.

“I’m ok. Really.” There’s a bit of an awkward silence before someone calls Tom from the other room. He looks a little dismayed, but puts on a smile.

“Feel better, ok?” He rests his arm on Henry’s upper arm, giving him a soft smile, before heading back into the living room. And there’s that fluttering in his chest again.

On his way back to his room, he catches a bit of a conversation.

“I think we should go out.” That’s Tom’s voice.

“Nah dude, it’s freezing.” That’s Sam.

“C’mon, let’s go. It’ll be fine.”

“Alright, whatever.”

Henry smiles to himself. Maybe it’s reaching to think Tom did that specifically for him, but part of him really hopes he did.

The rest of the night is blissfully quiet, apart from his incessant cough. By the time he’s finished with the last problem, it’s midnight, and the world is swimming. He’s never been happier to lie down. But, it’s short lived. Despite being exhausted, his cough and what he suspects is a fever are making it all but impossible to sleep. He drifts in and out of half-sleep, sometimes too hot, sometimes too cold. Luckily his class isn’t until the afternoon, but he spends the whole morning much like the night before. When he finally gets up, he feels truly ready to fall over. His headache is horrendous, throbbing and pounding at the slightest provocation. His sinuses are still swollen, along with his poor throat that makes him wince with every swallow. The cough is the same if not a little worse, except now it sends cramping pain through his ribs.

On the walk to class, he just keeps repeating the same idea in his head. Just three hours, then you can rest. The class is truly a blur, but the walk home is too unpleasant to tune out. Once again, the freezing temperature isn’t any help, and forcing his aching body to walk through the snow gets harder with every step.

He turns the corner for the front door of his building, and a wave of relief washes over him. But, he’s confused when he sees someone standing near the buzzer. He’s even more confused when he realizes it’s Tom.

“Hey, uh, Sam isn’t here. He’s gone for the weekend.” He says, embarrassed at how thready and weak his voice sounds. Tom turns, looking confused.

“Why are you out here? It’s freezing.” He says, and Henry isn’t sure whether it’s the fever that’s keeping him from putting the dots together or this just doesn’t make sense.

“Sam isn’t upstairs,” he repeats, and Tom sighs gently.

“I’m not here to see Sam.” It still isn’t clicking. “C’mon, let’s go inside.”

“Ok…” He unlocks the door and clumsily shakes the snow off his boots before getting into the elevator. Tom follows, and Henry figures someone else must be in the building that Tom wants to see, but Tom follows him right to the door. Henry sighs and rubs his eyes. “Tom, what do you want?”

For the first time, it looks like Tom might actually be nervous.

“I came to check up on you.” Henry suddenly feels a strange bundle of emotions unfurl in his stomach.

“Oh,” is all he can manage to get out. Tom bites his lip.

“Is that ok?”

“Yeah! Yeah, it’s fine, uh…” He takes a deep breath, but breaks into a fit of coughs before he can speak. He feels a steady hand on his back. After he’s done with the fit the world swims, and there’s a hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s go inside so you can sit down, ok?” Henry just nods, and after a few moments of struggling to fit the key into the lock, Tom does it for him. Immediately, he strips off his scarf and coat and practically collapses onto the couch, pulling off his boots. He leans back into the cushions, closing his eyes.

“Fuck…” he breathes, and he hears Tom laugh quietly. When he opens his eyes, he sees Tom sitting in front of him on the coffee table, still looking nervous. “Why would you wanna check on me?”

“Well you didn’t seem so good last night, and I wanted to make sure you were ok. Even though you hate my guts,” he says with a smile. He starts to rummage through his backpack, and pulls out a bottle of tylenol and a thermometer, as well as a quart container of soup.

“I don’t hate your guts,” Henry says quietly, and Tom gives him another smile.

“Well that’s good to hear.” He leans forward and starts to move his palm toward his forehead, but hesitates. “Is this ok?” Henry nods, and sighs when he feels the cool palm on his overheated skin. He moves his hand to his cheek. “Jesus, you’re really burning up.”

He lets out another volley of coughs, and Tom rubs his back again. It feels nice, but it doesn’t make the confusion go away. For now though, he’s happy to just be looked after.

“Here.” Tom slips the thermometer under his tongue, brushing some of his hair away from his face. When it beeps, he takes it out. “102. Not so bad.” Henry has a feeling he’s saying that more for his benefit than his own. “You want me to grab you some more comfortable clothes?” Henry just nods, and Tom smiles in return. “Alright.”

He gets up and walks into the bedroom, leaving Henry alone on the couch, finally giving him a moment to process all of this. Why on earth would Tom care about him? They’re not really friends, are they? And Tom was straight, wasn’t he? And even if he wasn’t, there’s no way he’d actually like Henry of all people. And did Henry even like him? Sure, he’s sweet and funny and impossibly hot, but he’s friends with Sam. And he’s on the soccer team. And he’s so outgoing and friendly all the time, wouldn’t that get annoying?

He almost doesn’t notice when Tom gets back.

“Here you go. You want me to go in the kitchen while you change?” He hands him the clothes, and Henry bites his lip.

“If you want to.” Is that a weird answer? Tom smirks.

“I’m fine if you’re fine.”

Henry starts to take off his shirt, but he’s so shaky and uncoordinated, Tom has to help him, which probably killed any romance the situation offered, he thinks. The clean fabric feels nice against his feverish skin. The pants go the same way, and he didn’t realize how uncomfortable he was until now.

“Here, lean your head back,” Tom says, and he does. Tom presses a cool, damp cloth to his forehead, and he sighs softly. “That feels good?” He nods. There’s a few moments of silence while he just relaxes into the feeling. Then, he sits up straight.

“Why are you doing all this?” Tom looks nervous again.

“You’re my...friend. And I care about you,” he says, and Henry feels his heart sink a little.

“Oh. Ok.” He must sound disappointed, because Tom smiles.

“Hoping for a different answer?” Henry shrugs, and Tom rubs his jaw.

“I mean, it’s a little embarrassing but I used to...have a crush on you. But I think you made it kind of clear you weren’t interested.” Henry can’t hide his confusion.

“I made it clear?” He’s genuinely not sure what Tom is talking about. Sure, he’s never out right flirted with him, but he always thought he was straight anyway.

“Just...one word answers to everything, always seeming like you had somewhere else to be - it’s fine. I don’t know why I even brought it up. You want some soup?” Henry just nods, and Tom smiles. “Ok, sounds good.”

He heads into the kitchen, and Henry’s mind runs a mile a minute. There’s no way he’s telling the truth right? But why would he lie? He comes back through the doorway and leans against the frame.

“It’s on the stove, just have to wait a few minutes. You feeling ok?”

“Yeah, uh...I wanna tell you something.” Henry doesn’t know how he can make leaning against a doorframe look so good.

“Shoot.”

“I kinda had a crush on you too. Or...have.” He can feel himself blushing. Tom laughs.

“You have a really funny way of showing it.” He’s beaming, and it makes Henry smile too.

“Well it’s not my fault you’re so annoying,” he says, and Tom walks back over to the coffee table and sits down. Tom’s hand rests on his forehead, then makes its way down to his cheek. It feels so steady. Stable.

“I’m not the one that got themself sick with pneumonia because I wouldn’t miss a class, am I?” Without thinking, Henry wraps his arms around him as tight as he can - which isn’t very tight, but still. He buries his face in the crook of his neck and takes a deep breath. Tom rubs his back gently.

“Thank you, for doing all this,” he whispers, and Tom squeezes him a little bit tighter.

“Anytime.”

#my writing #oc henry #oc tom #two more boys pining for each while one has a cold what's new?

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angelicamerlinbarnes · 4 years ago

Text

Albus Dumbledore being an awesome teacher and human being

Bubblegum Bitch - MARINA

(Imma be honest with y’all, it’s mostly just him being a crackhead.)

He tells stories about Grindelwald, about their marriage and their beliefs and their lives together. All of the stories have lessons - sure, a lot of those lessons are about how NOT to make pasta, but they’re still lessons!

He likes to matchmake students using seating charts and certain magical spell assignments. He’s very good at it. I mean, he’s shit at figuring out who likes each other, but he is great at meddling, so Mcgonogall tells him who to mess with and he does as he’s told. They make a great team (and are invited to a lot of weddings). Couples they’ve helped include but are not limited to: Dean and Seamus, Luna and Ginny, Hermione and Harry and Ron, Sirius and Remus, Peter and Maxwell Needles, Peter and Regulus (that was later), Lily and Severus and James, Fred and Lee plus George and Lee, Charlie and Newt (queerplatonic), Leta and Newt (queerplatonic), Harry and Luna (queerplatonic), and Sirius and James and Remus (queerplatonic). They’ve been very busy.

He and Mcgonogall have teatime almost every day. They talk about their students and work on their matchmaking plans. There’s a lot of sass and deadpanning involved. Sometimes they invite Remus, Sirius, and James. (Not Peter. He doesn’t need the same level of torturing that they do.) Bubbles of all shapes and sizes and colors float around the room the whole time. It’s fantastic.

He accepts gossip in exchange for extra credit. He’s a really good secret keeper too, so a lot of students go for it. (It hasn’t broken any friendships. There’s an understanding among the student population that Dumbledore is like Ms. Potts from that Muggle film Beauty and the Beast - well-meaning and trustworthy, but terribly, terribly bored.)

Everything in his classroom is pink. And glittery. And covered in sequins. Once a student asked him why and he just smirked for a solid minute before whispering, “Lemonade.” (As if that makes any fucking sense.)

He once taught class in a full-fledged glittery ballgown that faded from light pink to deep purple. He did not once acknowledge it or act like anything was out of the ordinary. One student raised their hand and asked timidly, “Professor? Why are you wearing a ballgown?” And his brow furrowed as he frowned, looked down at himself, and muttered, “Thought it was a bathrobe.” (Harry does not let him live this one down. His dad is not much help - Severus took many, many pictures.) (Not that it mattered. On Wednesdays Dumbledore wears pink (glittery ballgowns).)

He speaks to kids who have parents, friends, and relatives in prison, whether for being Death Eaters or otherwise. He chaperones visits to Azkaban for them so they can see their loved ones. He casts protective and invisibility charms on them so only the one they’re visiting can see or hear them, and he teaches them Patronuses (with Remus’ help, of course). He often spends these visits on the other side of Grindelwald’s bars, playing wizard’s chess against him. (Sometimes Grindelwald gives him flowers. It always makes Dumbledore smile. There may be no one left in the world who understands why they love each other, but they don’t need to understand it for it to be true.)

He stands at the front of the classroom and makes funny faces during tests and waits to see how long it takes for a student to look up. His latest record is seven minutes.

When he’s teaching Grindelwald’s history, he makes snarky comments about his husband. They range from “I mean really. Who the fuck thought wizards ruling Muggles was a good idea?” (Rest in peace that one student who thought it was a good idea to say, “You did, Professor.”) to “Honestly, that man has no concept of romance. I ask him for a nice night out and he takes me to a Muggle rally about witchcraft and tries to impress me by playing practical magical jokes on the speaker. A toddler could do that.” (He often gets mushy during those stories though, usually trailing off like “But that time he took me to my childhood home for my birthday was sweet… brought me flowers for Ariana’s grave and everything. Sure, he killed her, but… he has a sweet side…” and from there on out he’s basically a lost cause and you might as well go to your next class because he’s not going to stop humming that fucking Elvis song).

He “loses” his glasses all the time by casting an invisibility charm on them and forces his students to search the classroom for them when they’re on his face the whole time. He thinks it’s funny. Harry does not. (But Severus and Mcgonogall do, and that’s really what matters.) (Severus and Mcgonogall and Dumbledore are a fantastic trio full of snark and sarcasm and shit, I have just decided.)

He makes little animals out of multi-colored magical dust and they fly around the classroom and perch on his favorite students’ heads. Once a dragon fell asleep on Newt’s head and wouldn’t leave even when class was over. Newt had to wait for the magic to wear off so it would disintegrate. (Of course, he had named it by that point and had a meltdown when it disappeared, so Dumbledore recreates the dragon (Robert) every class and just lets Newt coo at it, even during tests.)

He conjured and charmed two giant (I mean Egypt half-animal half-man guard statue size giant) fluffy pink teddy bears that are alive and stand on either side of him like bodyguards during class. A Slytherin student punched one in the stomach once and it vomited enough M&Ms over their head to completely bury them. The student’s partner, a Ravenclaw student, punched the other one in an ill-advised burst of illogical thought and received the same treatment, but in Skittles. (Luckily their Gryffindor aro-ace friend and nonbinary Hufflepuff friend stayed after class and ate until they could move again. Safe to say no one has dared punch the bears again.) (Though I hear they do give very good hugs. And they eat homework if you ask nicely enough!)

He has a bunch of cloaks that act as portals to realms like Merlin’s Celestiums (S.G.E., Soman Chainani). He gives one to each student for tests, and they are transported to their ideal test-taking environments, complete with whatever song they feel like listening to at any given minute playing all around them. Unsurprisingly, his students have the best grades in all of Hogwarts. (He also has a secret cloak that he uses for himself, to see Grindelwald. Grindelwald has his own matching one so he can always make it home for Thursday date night.) (They have been caught. Of course they have. But no one is going to challenge Dumbledore for his right to see his husband, even if he did marry a murderer.) (Sirius and Remus used to steal the cloak for their own dates. And later on James would steal it to take the two of them on friend-dates. Inspired by that, Dumbledore made a special cloak for Mcgonogall that he gifted her on her fiftieth birthday. The smile she gave him then is his favorite of all time.)

He bickers with Fawkes constantly. This often evolves into full-fledged screaming matches with spastic hand gestures, gratuitous spit, and angry hops on both sides. Once Dumbledore drew wand on his “useless babbling bastard of a bird”. No one has bothered to tell Dumbledore that Fawkes probably can’t understand a word of their arguments. (They do evacuate the classroom when these fights start though. The last time they stayed their hair was gone for a week, and when it grew back it was glittery and pink.) (Harry looked especially fantastic. Sirius thought he looked great. He laughed until he was in tears. Harry was not amused.) (Remus was.)

Sometimes he’s absent from class and Mcgonogall teaches them instead. When asked if he’s alright, Mcgonogall simply answers, “My partner is away on personal business for the day. Now, turn to page -” Soon enough people figured out that “personal business” meant “conjugal visit with Genocidal Maniac Husband™ in prison”. They stopped asking.

He gives all of his students the red button test (without knowing what it does, do you press the red button?). Those who pass get automatic A’s and a lollipop. Those who fail get a talking pet pygmy puff. The thing that usually trips people up is that Dumbledore considers the “correct” answer to be pressing the goddamn button. (Seamus is the only one who has ever passed (enthusiastically too!). Newt half-passed because Niffy the Niffler sat on it.) (Sirius and James would have passed too if they had not been the life partners of one Remus Lupin, whose creativity with threats and extensive curse-word vocabulary rivaled Mcgonogall’s even at the tender age of fifteen.)

He has floating war maps just lying around. He plays battleship with his students on them. What he neglects to tell them is that their moves have actual consequences in the world, as the maps are magical and reflect real battles and places. When Harry finds out (he blew up Denmark, completely unawares) he shows up at Dumbledore’s door soaking wet at five-thirty in the morning with a newspaper, his fists clenched, his face red, and his chest heaving. He wouldn’t stop glaring for weeks. (Alas, Dumbledore’s glorious beard has great resistance to fire spells.) (Following an incident involving the original four Marauders in their third year. Shhh… we do not speak of that.)

He has a habit of walking into random classrooms, gesturing for a student to come with him with his finger, and then taking them to his office for teatime. He usually asks them inane questions about a specific theme (fish, pasta strainers, socks, throw pillows, mooses, etc.) for hours until finally dismissing them. It drives Mcgonogall crazy. (She’s yelled at him plenty for “kidnapping students to ask them questions you know you could easily find on that Muggle infer-het thing! They have exams, Albus -” but he just smiles at her while calmly sipping his tea and she always ends up collapsing in the chair across from him with a sigh, taking the tea from his hands and chugging it before wiping her mouth, slamming it down on the desk, and asking, “So. Fish. What’s up with them?” and Albus just beams.)

He spends half of his class lessons babbling on about how Merlin was gay for Arthur and Arthur was gay for Merlin, but not in long tangents. Just a bunch of random comments without context, warning, or explanation. (He mentions “poetry” a lot and waggles his eyebrows for some reason, so… what’s up with that? (Merlin BBC))

He overshares A LOT about his and Grindelwald’s lives. It’s a problem because 90% of the time it’s something sweet or innocent like “Oh, he brought me a tiger lily that bloomed open to show a gold and ruby ring nestled inside on our first anniversary. That’s how he proposed to me” and “He used to hum while he did the housework, you know? He’d stand in the middle of the house and close his eyes and just hum. Almost entire symphonies too, just waving his wand in the air like a conductor” to “This one time in bed he…” and there is NO warning. The amount of things these poor children’s ears have had to endure… (*shakes head in mock disappointment*)

He often cooks during class using wandless magic. The pots and pans heat themselves and float around in the air. Sometimes Dumbledore dances and then they start dancing too. He whistles and creates a base beat for the sizzling, popping, clanging, and other kitchen noises to follow. This usually happens during tests. Oh joy.

He leaves the windows open when it rains, but somehow nothing ever gets wet. Harry and Hermione have a theory that it’s protection charms. (Really it’s a spell Severus made up when he was drunk because he was angry that umbrellas don’t have enough room under them for three, and he’s always been the most self-sacrificial person in his marriage.)

He regularly makes bets with Mcgonogall about the students’ love lives. Not money, but little things the other doesn’t want to do or buy. Dumbledore usually has to handle the Marauders’ detentions or give up one of his teddy bear guards for Mcgonogall’s experimental enjoyments. Mcgonogall has to do something embarrassing or let him borrow one of her glittery hats. They should really stop making bets at this point; the stakes and the winners are dreadfully predictable. He always wins when the bet is on a student’s sexuality or gender and she always wins when the bet is on who a student will end up with. Nonetheless, the bets continue. So too does their grumbling amusement.

He figured out how to make a broom invisible when he and Grindelwald first fell in love, so they could be showy with each other at their Greater Good rallies. They later used it for dates, prison breaks, and daring escapes complete with kisses under the moon. Once Grindelwald went to Azkaban, Dumbledore used it to find some privacy where he could grieve. Now, he uses it to travel around his classroom and Hogwarts and trick everyone into thinking he can fly by sheer will. Only Mcgonogall knows his secret. (And Severus, but Dumbledore doesn’t know that because he told him when he was black out drunk. So.)

He lets pygmy puffs sleep in his beard. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.

He once taught class while teetering on his feet because he had somehow gotten himself tangled in Christmas lights from shoulders to ankles and couldn’t move. (Sirius wandered in and saw this, cried he was laughing so hard, and then warbled his off-key way through as many Christmas carols as he could remember for the rest of class.) (Dumbledore tried to Silencio him but just fell over trying to make the wand movement. He broke his nose. Sirius almost had a panic attack because he couldn’t breathe from how hard he was laughing. By the end of this he had curled up in a fetal position on the floor, Remus was lying down next to him and muttering jokes to him, Mcgonogall was trying to fix Dumbledore’s face, and Severus had taken over the class. Not that they got much done - James was visiting that day. And him, Sirius, and Remus all laughing about the same thing rarely leads to a quiet and calm learning environment.) (They gave him a joint present of rainbow Christmas lights for his birthday - “Happy Gay Day, Professor!” - and he was not amused.) (Grindelwald was though. So was everyone else.)

He tends to mix up holidays in his head and often decorates for the wrong one. He goes all out too. He’s kind of a disaster, and so is his classroom. It became such a problem that the Marauders actually took pity on him and made him a very big calendar with all the holidays marked on it in glitter and fake jewels and flowers. It sits behind his desk and occasionally works.) (Occasionally.)

He’s queerplatonic partners with Mcgonogall. They held a friend-wedding and forced Severus to be the flowergirl. Harry officiated, Remus was Dumbledore’s best man, Sirius was Mcgonogall’s, James wasn’t given a job cause he was crying too much, Lily was in charge of taking care of James, and Peter was the ring bearer (he only lost them TWICE and they were ring pops anyway). Mcgonogall screeches at him a lot and Dumbledore can be depressive and neglectful because he misses Grindelwald but they love each other so it works. (And they’re the prime source of advice for James, Sirius, and Remus regarding their own queerplatonic relationship, for better or for worse.)

He puts his feet up on the desk even though it’s bad for his knees. Mcgonogall told him it’s bad for his knees and he has stubbornly put them up there every class since. (His knees are killing him but he will not give in to “a paranoid, batty old witch who doesn’t know shit about what’s good for me and wouldn’t if she was hit with an Imperio and I told her -” “I’M YOUR FUCKING PARTNER, YOU BLASPHEMOUS ARROGANT BRAT OF AN OLD FART!”)

Instead of walking around his classroom, he struts. (Yes, it worsens his knees.) He does strike poses, he does make obnoxious expressions, and he does look fabulous. WORK! (Yes, that was a Hamilton reference.)

He once taught class without a face because Mcgonogall cursed him for “fucking up the alphabetical organization of my tea, you old twit. Honestly, Albus, it’s not that hard”. (How did he teach without a mouth, you ask? Easy, he used intermediate BSL (deaf students, plus Azkaban isn’t great on old men’s ears and he and Grindelwald are both gettin’ up there) and Sirius interpreted.) (Incredibly wrongly, crudely, and foul-mouth-ly, but nonetheless he interpreted.)

He has difficulty understanding the straight people in his class. He is fully accepting of everyone and wants the best for all of them, but when it comes to relationship advice, he’s shit.

Excerpt pulled from Pensieve of a conversation he had with a student who identified as female:

Dumbledore: “So your boyfriend is a dick, is what you’re saying?”

Student’s best friend: “Yes. Merlin, he’s such a dick. Would you believe he -”

Dumbledore: *looks at student and points to her best friend* “Why don’t you just date her?”

*cue red faces and sputtering*

(They did not take his advice.)

He wears bowties ALL THE TIME. If he’s not wearing a bowtie, there are bows in his hair and tying the ends of his beard together. Once he wore pigtails. It was great.

He has a habit of bursting into song randomly and performing full-blown Broadway musical numbers (yes, he can rap Guns and Ships at full speed). This usually involves all of the complex moves to be expected in a musical - dramatically climbing up the stairs while looking forlorn, leaping onto the desk and squatting as you launch into a whispered limerick, speedy costume changes - you know, the works. Sometimes Sirius and James back him up, if they’re there. Severus will take over teaching with a bored look on his face (“What are you looking at, Harry?” “Dad, there’s -” “I don’t see anything interesting happening, Harry.” *glares*) while Mcgonogall screeches at Dumbledore to “GET THE FUCK DOWN, YOU NARCISSISTIC HEATHEN!” It’s a problem.

When the Marauders challenge the dress code, Dumbledore is the first Professor to encourage it. While Sirius is perfectly confident in a skirt and Regulus isn’t far behind (neither is Severus, surprisingly), James and Remus are far more insecure. Dumbledore wears a tutu to class one day to show his support, and Remus wouldn’t stop smiling the rest of the day. (James just turned bright red and beamed when Sirius started laughing.) He also backed Lily up when she wore pants (along with Marlene, Dorcas, and Mary) by convincing Mcgonogall to wear pantsuits for a week. (Sirius, despite being a hardcore gay, was quite affected by this. Remus did not appreciate the water spit in his face and refused to kiss Sirius for a week.)

He plays Cecily Smith (Will Connolly) on the ukulele on late nights and stares out at the stars thinking of Grindelwald. Sometimes he forgets to turn off the Sonorus from earlier that day and ends up broadcasting his little song to the whole school. Sirius and Remus will dance to it in the common room while James watches his partners with a happy smile on his face (and Peter sleeps, because he’s tired and doesn’t force himself to stay up simply for the purpose of being cool or finishing that one assignment that isn’t due for another two weeks) (I’m sorry, do you feel called out?).

This man has weed brownies stashed away in his desk and he does eat them during class. He also offered one to Remus once, who is the only student that knows about the stash and tends to use marijuana for medical purposes (helping with anxiety and pain regarding the full moon, courtesy of my beautiful girlfriend who has never read nor seen Harry Potter but nonetheless insists to me that Remus Lupin is a stoner who wears red beanies). This prompted Sirius to ask for one, which Dumbledore refused, but then James joined in and they started a riot by standing on their desks and pumping their fists in the air and screaming, “BROWNIES FOR ALL!” while Remus giggled into his hand and was no help at all, so Dumbledore gave them each a brownie just to shut them up. (Sirius wouldn’t stop rambling about how pretty Remus’ eyes were, James was babbling on about unicorns, Severus was hissing at something no one else could see, Regulus was hissing at the same thing for some reason, Peter was crying because he couldn’t tell the difference between hamsters and gerbils and guinea pigs, and Lily was muttering pi under her breath until she fell asleep.) (Mcgonogall was unimpressed.) (No teatime for eight weeks. Damn.)

Dumbledore cares about all of his students, however little he shows it. He wants them to lead a better life than he did. And maybe fall in love with better people than he did.

#albus dumbledore #albus wulfric percival brian dumbledore #mcgonogall &x dumbledore #&x means queerplatonic i have just decided #grindledore #wolfstar #james &x remus &x sirius #severus & mcgonogall & dumbledore #james x lily x severus #albus dumbledore is a crackhead 2021 #i dunno please enjoy this shit #i'm really fucking tired #harry potter #have a nice day y'all

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lovelyirony · 4 years ago

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morgan doesn’t have to be a hero. she just has to know the family that was.

(or me ignoring everything about infinity war and endgame)

Thinking about how Tony doesn’t tell Morgan everything about Iron Man. There are books, of course. A couple of children’s authors and illustrators thought it would be nice if the kids could see heroes on something else other than a news source that also talks about casualties and how much they actually lost.

It’s nice for Tony, too.

No one saw the wormhole. No one illustrates him falling out of the sky, body plummeting and seeing what the future would be.

It’s Morgan’s favorite book, seeing the team defeat the “mean aliens.” Her eyes follow each hero. She likes Hulk the best. She likes tracing along the pages, asking “whozat” every two minutes or so.

She finds the old armor in the garage when she’s in her “investigation” phase, and correlates it to the book.

She doesn’t think that Iron Man is that cool. She wants the armor to be pink and green, so dad loses out on “cool points.”

She finds the armor that he’s building for Pepper, because he’s still paranoid and worried and he wants her to be safe.

He survived one house of his falling, and he’s not sure he’ll survive another one.

Morgan asks about the picture at the kitchen, the one where Tony and Peter are posing for Peter’s official internship.

“That’s...that’s your family,” Tony says, because he can just picture how excited Peter would be at having a little Morgan around, crawling everywhere. “His name is Peter.”

He never refers to Peter in the past tense. He doesn’t know if it’s for Morgan’s benefit or his own.

He tells her all about Spider-Man. “Spidey” becomes easier to pronounce, so they go with that.

Sometimes mom finishes those stories while dad goes to get juice pops.

(And look at the photo for a bit too long.)

Morgan asks him where Spidey is, once. More than once. But the first time it was...it was painful.

“Where is he?” Morgan asks.

“He’s...”

Tony doesn’t know what to say. He’s not gone. No, fuck that. Peter isn’t gone. But he’s not here, and Tony doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know where anyone is.

“He lives far away, so he would have to take a long time to get here,” Pepper says, smiling. “But now, we are going to travel for the kitchen for lunch! The menu today is carrots and celery with hummus, and some fresh fruit and a sandwich. What do we think?”

“Is the fruit seasonal?” Tony asks, voice thready. “Points off if it’s out.”

“You’re a nerd,” Pepper says. “Yes, it’s in season. Would you mind turning the washer on? I forgot to.”

Tony nods, and Pepper grabs his hand, squeezing.

He was so lucky to have her in his life.

And then the Avengers are reforming. Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, aka the weirdest superhero name he’s ever heard, has a theory.

About time travel.

He said he didn’t Back to the Future think about it, but he totally Back to the Future thought about it.

The problem is that it works.

That’s not the real problem. No, it’s not a real problem at all. He thinks about everyone returning and it’s happy and good again, and-

He’ll have to leave.

He hasn’t forgotten Strange’s statement.

Only one situation where this doesn’t fail. Where we don’t fail.

And it has to be him.

You don’t come back from something like that.

Usually, anyway.

Tony’s determined that he’s coming back. That everyone is coming back.

The whole plot of Back to the Future goes as such: Marty’s life sucks, his parents’ lives are boring, and they’re not supposed to change the future.

They do anyways.

And it works. That’s the thing. Out of every single “time travel is dangerous” trope, Back to the Future still shows that sometimes some changes don’t affect the future badly, it just changes it.

Tony knows that that can be done. It has to be done, because there’s no way in hell he’s going to leave Morgan. He already pinky-promised her that they’d make a picnic for her fifth birthday, and pinky-promises are the most binding contract he’s ever been a part of so far.

He doesn’t know what he’ll do if it can’t be done.

He has to go with Steve to get a stone. He doesn’t necessarily like that because neither of them are subtle and they’re going to see his dad.

Which is just gonna be a ball of a time. And Tony looks like Howard, just a few slight changes, but it’s undeniable.

As long as no one connects the dots, he’ll be fine.

They’re both like bulls in china shops. Neither has ever been out of the spotlight, and neither have been trained very well in the art of subterfuge.

“What, SHIELD just decide to set you loose?” Tony hisses as they’re making an escape.

“Oh and you didn’t have any time to learn?” Steve snaps back. “Let’s go.”

Natasha almost doesn’t return. Almost. Tony’s terrified to think of what would have been happened had she still been there.

“Dumbass,” Clint mutters. “Thinking you could jump and we wouldn’t have done shit about it. You’re stupid.”

Natasha just has a graceful smile on.

“You’re not allowed to be the stupid Avenger all the time, Clint.”

“Okay I accidentally blew up a microwave one time and suddenly-”

Tony laughs.

Genuinely laughs.

It’s been a while since they’ve functioned like a team. Been a longer time since they’ve been one.

They get the stones.

Hulk gets everyone back. Bruce gets everyone back.

He’s confusing.

But there he is, Peter.

Tony hugs him, and he tears up, and god he’s so glad that Peter’s back. That everyone is back.

It feels nice.

But they still have a fight to finish and a glove to play hot potato with.

Thanos is still formidable. He’s still skilled, still has an entire army.

Well...they’re not outmatched for long.

Dr. Strange opens portals, leading a whole new mass of people to help. And Tony sees Danvers, which he has yet to talk to Rhodey about. God, Rhodey had been right about her being alive.

But that’s not important.

He’s fighting one-on-one.

Thanos is confident that he’s going to win.

See, that’s the thing about Tony: he may not have been trained in subterfuge, but he knows all about flouting expectations. He knows that everyone had expected so many things of him that when he did anything out of the ordinary, no one paid attention.

This is just like that.

Thanos snaps, only it’s not enough this time.

It’s not going to be like last time, with Peter panicking and people screaming and tragedy lining the news for years.

No this time? It won’t work.

Because this is the time where the hero wins against all odds and there’s a happy ending. He’s going to make it so, no matter how much of a toll this takes. He’s getting back to Morgan and Pepper no matter what it fucking takes.

Thanos is gone. His army dissolved.

And he is satisfied. He’s tired, but happy. And he’s fairly sure that the glove has taken its toll on his body, but he hopes to god that he’ll be okay.

Pepper is running her hands through his hair, telling him it’ll be okay, and asking anyone for help with transportation.

There’s one person important that didn’t get blipped, and luckily, she’s a personal friend: Helen Cho.

Sure, it’s time-intensive.

Yes, Morgan is mad that daddy can’t read her a bedtime story.

But...she gets to meet Peter, torture him with forty questions a minute, and Tony gets the use of his arm back.

So it equals itself out.

The world, for now, doesn’t need a lot of superheroes. Everyone’s still settling down, no one wants anything but normal.

This means a lot of superheroes have no idea what to do.

But Morgan does.

When dad gets back and is up for playing again (which took forever), Morgan asks to see the team.

If dad is Iron Man, then it only makes sense that he knows all the other ones. And she has a lot of questions.

The Avengers are a...a team. God, that’s about the only thing they can call themselves now. They used to be a family but everything’s changed and stilted and awkward.

Morgan knows none of this.

So ergo, she decides the most amazing thing ever for her fifth birthday party is to have a picnic with the whole team. Writes them invitations and everything, makes her mom trace out the words she wants to write so that it looks “extra fancy.”

Tony’s never been one to deny Morgan something she really wants.

“You sure you wanna handle this? You and Steve aren’t exactly on the best of terms, and I don’t think the team has actually talked.”

“Well, no time like a five year old’s birthday party to get to catching up.”

It’s...something.

Morgan is blissfully unaware and everyone makes so that she stays unaware.

This involves some...awkward conversations.

But mostly just making peace with the fact that life happened.

And Natasha finally has another niece, even if she’s not named after her.

“You still should’ve,” she jokes.

“We were thinking about it, honest,” Pepper remarks dryly. “But hey, thanks for coming. Morgan’s very excited to learn how to ‘be a spy’ in her words.”

Natasha grins.

“I’ll have her taking out government officials in no time.”

“Or just teaching her how to disarm dangerous people, thank you very much,” Tony says hurriedly.

“Didn’t peg you to be the helicopter parent, Stark,” Clint says.

“Oh trust me, he barely left the house when she was born,” Pepper says with a laugh. “And he would check everything. I had to convince him that Morgan did actually need to sleep in her crib.”

“She would’ve been fine by us!” Tony defends weakly. “And besides, you said you did want an office space!”

“Working in the sunroom is fine enough,” Pepper says. “And you forget that you offered to build me one, which is an offer you still haven’t done.”

“I saved the world, you know.”

“Oh, did you?”

Tony grins, popping a grape into his mouth as he sees the scene unfold.

Morgan’s having great fun showing everyone her little hideout, and where she goes on walks.

She’s made friends with Peter and introducing him to her stuffed animals.

Yeah.

Life is good.

#fix-it but not fix-it bc i'm just saying it's canon #endgame noncompliance #hehe :)#lovelyirony writes #morgan stark #tony stark #pepper potts #peter parker #steve rogers #natasha romanoff #steve and tony are like. u know when u have beef with someone but like. not the most important beef #but like enough so that you can't talk #so. you know.#also tony IS the helicopter parent #also i've never seen back to the future that whole line was just bc i looked it up on wikipedia

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lavenderslemonade · 5 years ago

Text

Playing Animal Crossing While in Quarantine HC

Requests: Open!

Warnings: Pure fluff

Midoriya, Bakugou, Todoroki, Kirishima, Tamaki and Aizawa: Playing Animal Crossing With Their S/O While in Quarantine

I’ve been obsessed with animal crossing these past few days! If you want to visit my island some time or just chill, DM me and I’ll send you my switch friend code!

Also, if there’s another My Hero Academia peep you want me to do that isn’t on this list, leave me a message in my inbox and I’ll do them next! Also, please feel free to leave a comment!

Midoriya

- The two of you had the game pre-ordered and once you got it the two of you became hooked. You refuse to let Midoriya onto your island till you have everything set up how you want. However, Midoriya lets you visit his island frequently. He has a little park area on his island, a little picnic area where the two of you can have little dates since he can’t take you out on real ones.

- He won’t let you in his house. You don’t know why, but he won’t. Before you can get near it you see where he’s dug holes or blocked the entrance off with large items so you can’t get through. “Midoriya, I wanna see your house.” You state one day over the phone as you keep hitting the large fish tank he’s put in front of the door with your net.

- You finally get in one day when he accidentally takes the fish tank away when he hit the wrong button, and you just bolt inside. You hear him freaking out on the other end of the phone begging you to please not look at his house. However, it’s too late. It’s...actually not that bad. He has normal rooms much to your surprise.

- Midoriya starts chasing you around his house as you scope out what he’s done with the place. Bathroom, Kitchen, Bedroom, Living room, it’s all pretty normal. Then you get to the basement. You knew it was too good to be true. His basement is nothing but All Might. Midoriyas avatar is behind you sweating and freaking out. However, you reassure him that it’s okay, you’ve seen worse. No really, you went to Minetas island to be nice, and like I said, you’ve seen worse on that island.

- If there’s something in the Nook shop that he thinks you’d like he’ll buy it for you and surprise you with it the next time you come over. If there’s a fossil you can’t find, or one or two bugs you need for Blathers then he’ll try his hardest to find them on different islands and give them to you. If your anniversary or birthday was coming up and couldn’t spend it together during quarantine, he’ll try to come up with a surprise for you.

- You leave your switch for a few minutes to open a few gifts that your relatives had sent you through the mail, and get a piece of cake that your parent(s) got for you. You keep your switch on so Midoriya can run around your island and do as he pleases. While you’re away he begins planting flowers all around your house that he’s collected. Has a little picnic set and places it in the middle of the flowers. Luckily the flowers start to attract butterflys and different insects.

- When you come back your heart is warm from the display, and the two of you spend several hours just talking and doing little things together like collecting the bugs the flowers brought in or fishing.

Bakugou

- He has a switch, but he didn’t buy the game when it first came out. Why would he? It was too cute looking for his taste and he remembers some of the girls playing that stupid background music to help them concentrate while they studied back at UA. It drove him up a damn wall then, so why would he put himself through that torture now?

- It wasn’t till he became annoyed with you that he decided to get the game. You were one of the people that had the game pre-ordered and ever since you got it, plus went under quarantine, you’ve hardly paid Bakugou a lick of attention. He was on the phone with you trying to have a conversation, but whenever it was your turn to talk or answer a question your line was just dead. He’d call out your name snapping you out of your trance, and apologize to him due to you trying to catch a butterfly.

- It was okay the first few times it happened, but then it became annoying. How your line would be quiet then randomly “If I can’t one more fucking sea bass!” blares from your end causing Bakugou to nearly drop his phone in surprise. “Are you still playing that stupid fucking game!” He’d growl into his phone. Goes onto Amazon once the two of you get off the phone and order the game. He won’t pick up whenever you try to call him, which honestly makes you feel pretty guilty.

- However, your guilt flies out the door when you see the banner come across your screen stating a visitor was arriving. You rush to the docks to see who it is and you’re surprised to see a mini Bakugou avatar walk out of the little airport. Quickly, you grab your phone and call him. You had hit the joy emote as you waited for him to pick up, and as soon as he did you couldn’t help but squeal in excitement. “I can’t believe you got the game!” You’d state excitedly as you watch your screen.

- Then an ax appeared in his hand, making the color drain from your face. “Please don’t...” You whimper. Honestly you expected him to chop down all your tree’s, however he simply chased you for about five minutes. Once he’s cooled down he listens to you gush about all the little dates the two of you can go on, giving him a tour of your island, and even showing off the big fish you’ve caught. He’s a little irked because he’s just started the game and hasn’t caught fish as big as yours yet.

- He complains about his hate for Tom Nook. You watched as he tries to hit Toms tent with an ax to no luck. He goes around your island and shakes all the fruit out of your trees much to your displeasure though he drops his own fruit from his island in front of you stating he wants you to plant them.

- Bakugou has a shirt that looks like his hero outfit that he wears most of the time. If he’s not wearing that shirt then he has a regular black shirt with a skull on it. The Bakusquad usually visits each others island, though they don’t visit Denki’s as much since it’s about just as bad as Minetas. It’s not perverted like Minetas, but it’s not really put together well and he wears the dress that looks like it’s a bikini...

- Bakugou is known to uproot Mina’s flowers when she’s not looking to give to you later, and easily gets irritated if one of the bakusquad catches a fish he was trying to get.

- He tried to name his island Hell, but that’s not allowed. So he followed Jacksepticeyes example and named it Hel

- He has a large bed in his house so that whenever you come over you can crawl in with him and pretend that the two of you are cuddling. He has Moose on his island AND HE WANTS HIM GONE!

Todoroki

- He didn’t pre-order the game before it came out, in fact he didn’t even own a switch. He’s never really been that interested in video games, and has mostly been spending his free time reading and spending time with his siblings. You keep sending him images of fish you’ve caught, the small garden you’ve set up beside your house, and when you spotted a Wisp across the water. He could tell you were having a lot of fun, and was surprised to find out that Midoriya and the rest of Class 1-A was playing the game.

- Thus, he ordered a switch and the game so he could play with everyone. He sends a picture of his avatar once he’s gotten everything set up. Though, you’re not surprised that his character has white hair instead of red. You call him and answer any questions he has, helping him learn the ropes of the game. once he’s got a good bit of things done, and Timmy and Tommys shop has been set up, you allow him to visit your island. However, he won’t let you visit his yet.

- The two of you mostly goof around collecting bugs and fish. When the sun sets you have a bench near the edge of the water that the two of you sit on together. Todoroki starts a garden on your island just for you. Yeah, you have one that you started, but he wanted to start one where it’s just flowers he’s brought you. If he’s visiting a fellow classmates island and sees a flower he thinks you’d like or would look good in the garden, he’ll take a few thousand bells and drop it at the island owners feet before typing “I want the flower.”

- They’re not complaining because they got a dept to pay. Will go straight to your island and plant the flower.

- He has Marshal AND Raymond on his island, and honestly you feel a bit jealous. He’s converted pictures of you and the two of you together from his phone to the nintendo app so he can hang up pictures of y’all in his house. His house is honestly pretty simple, just like his dorm room. He even has a bamboo noodle slide beside his house. Actually a good chunk of his island has bamboo on it now, which doesn’t surprise you.

- The two of you actually dress up your characters to go on mini dates together. It grosses Bakugou out. “Why the fuck are y’all dressed like you’re about to go someplace fancy?!” Bakugou would type out while hitting Todoroki with a net much to his annoyance. When he’s bored Todoroki would make little outfits for you and send you the QR code. You mostly wear only what Todoroki makes now.

- He insist’s on helping you pay off your debt to Tom Nook, but you won’t let him.

Kirishima

- Like Midoriya he and you both pre-ordered the game. Surprisingly he’s played the past Animal Crossings as well. Before quarantine the two of you would actually listen to soothing animal crossing music when you study or were taking a nap. Your island is more developed than his since he doesn’t want to do the time jump cheat.

- The first room he has added onto his house is turned into a gym. He gets along so well with Tank, and usually can see his character running with Tank. Sucks at designing clothes so you designed him a Red Riot costume and emailed him the QR code. He lets you design different outfits for him and will put on little fashion shows for you. The two of you usually visit Sero and Minas island together, and sometimes Bakugou when he’s on (which is rare), and Denki’s.

- Everyone clicked the surprise emote when Denki appeared in the bikini dress. The two of you will go on fishing dates together, and if he catches a cute insect or a hard to catch fish, he’ll give it to you. One of the only things he’ll try is trying to grow a money tree, which surprisingly works.

- You logged on one day for one of your dates and he stated he had a gift for you. He’d hop off the bench y’all were sitting on and give you a huge stuffed bear from the Nook store. After that he’d take you to the town square where some of his villagers were singing Bubblegum KK.

- Has a large bed so the two of you can ‘snuggle’. His house is pretty ordinary, he keeps all his workout stuff in the back room. He’s the type that uses half his island to store the fish he’s collected to he an turn them in all at once. He’ll spend two-three days collecting fish nonstop, and then selling them to Timmy and Tommy. He see’s it as just a bit of revenge for the insane dept Tom Nook has put everyone in.

- He surprisingly pays close attention to the decor of your home. If there’s something he thinks you’ll like, he’ll build it and then change it’s color so it can fit with your homes aesthetic. Both of you download the nintendo switch app and convert photos of yourselves to put in your homes. He wants to go visit Tamaki, but you try to convince him not to since you know he’ll probably cause the older boy to have an anxiety attack with how hyper he is on the game.

- The two of you decided to be nice and visit Mineta’s island a.k.a “Hentai Island”. As soon at the two of you read the title you knew you were in trouble. His avatar frequently wears a shirt that has abs on it, and somehow it’s more disturbing than Denki’s Bikini dress. He tries to flirt with you in the game “Do I look manly enough for you now (y/n)?” you can basically hear him salivating from the other side of the screen.

- After that you and Kirishima vow never to go back. He’s not allowed on either of your islands either. Kirishima allowed him over once and he just kept staring at one of the pixel images of you Kirishima has on his wall. Luckily, while he was over Kirishima accidentally shook some wasps from a tree, and while he was running away they attacked Mineta.

Tamaki

- Both of you were too busy to pre-order the game, but Fatgum knew how much both you and Tamaki enjoyed Animal Crossing. He had actually caught the two of you playing on your break on your 3DS’s. He knew that some much was going on in your lives due to it being your final school year, plus the ordeal with saving Eri. Thus, he pre-ordered two of the games as a surprise for the two of you.

- However, due to not knowing when you’d get quarantined, once the games arrived he personally mailed them out to the both of you along with a little letter. When the two of you got your copies, you were surprised and ecstatic. Both of you sent a thank you text to Fatgum and began playing right away. Both of you spent a few days to yourselves, wanting to get your island organized and to surprise each other. You tried catching all the butterflies you could to give to Blathers and make the museum’s butterfly garden as nice as it could be!

- Neither you or Tamaki time jump since you want to experience the full calming effect of Animal Crossing. Tamaki honestly feels a bit intimidated by Bam, but he loves Fuchsia. When the two of you finally visit he each other, you insist on going to his island first. He has flowers all around Fuchsia’s home and you could see a few buds sprouting around the new homes that were being built, his way of welcoming his new villagers.

- He’s made a large garden for you at the top of his island, where none of the villagers can really disturb the two of you. Because there’s nothing more awkward than Tamaki spending time with his S/O in a romantic setting and then trying to take them to the secret spot he set up just for Dom to be sitting on the bench meant for the two of you. He doesn’t want to be mean to the villager, however, watches from the side as you pull out your net and start thwacking Dom with it till he moves.

- Tamaki watched Dom leave, before joining you on the bench, and deciding to send the sheep some flowers as an apology for making him move. But like, it was a mini date for the two of you and he really wanted to watch the meteor shower with you from that said spot. And the end of the night you give him the outdoor picnic set you needed cherry blossom petals to make.

- On your island you tried your best to collect as many butterflies as you could along with a few other insects and koi for aesthetics to surprise Tamaki with. He’s honestly shocked with home many butterflies you had caught. With the time frame of some of them it means you’ve probably been up early in the morning to late at night trying to catch specific ones. Blathers probably has nightmares now about butterflies.

- Both of you aren’t really big fans of Tom Nook, but Tamaki loves Isabelle, Timmy and Tommy. Whenever Mirio and Nejire visit, it’s chaotic. The two of you will be chilling in the town square watching Marina sing into the mic that Tamaki set up for her, meanwhile Mirio and Nejire are chasing each other with nets and beating each other over the head. Mirio accidentally plucked one of Tamaki’s flower hybrids and Tamaki quickly clicked the distressed emote.

- Tamaki takes very good care of his plant life, literally going around and watering them everyday. So you were able to replicate the hybrid and planted it in the spot where Mirio had accidentally plucked the other one.

Aizawa

- Due to your busy schedules, Aizawa has a switch lite that he plays on when he’s taking breaks at school or when he’s just resting at home. Meanwhile you have a full on switch. Both of you pre-ordered the game and play it side by side at home. Aizawa is pretty resourceful with his materials, keeping things in his storage as to not waste room and going out to collect more stuff.

- His first two villagers were Rudy and Pashmina. You watched as his eye lit up at Rudy, knowing your boyfriend was crazy for cats. He tries to follow things step by step, collecting items to sell and pay off Tom Nook and steadily becoming frustrated with the more dept the damn raccoon put him in. Meanwhile, you’re using the time jump cheat to get things done quicker and make your island look like legit paradise.

- You’ve went to his island to find him catching fish and trying to give it to Rudy. He doesn’t really use emotes. A good bit of the time you see that he’s online, thus when you go to visit his island you’re surprised to see he’s not greeting you at the docks. You go to his house and you’re not surprised to find his avatar asleep on the bed. You go to the living room to see your boyfriend passed out on the couch, his switch resting against his chest as he snoozes away.

- You frequently bop him in the head with your net when you want attention, because he’s usually focused on completing tasks for Tom Nook and selling items to Timmy and Tommy. You finally stop when he pulls out an ax and just stares at you. You peek up from your switch in your chair in the living room and just see Aizawa glaring at you from the couch. “...I love you.” You’d state with the most innocent look you can muster.

- Barold moves onto Aizawa’s island and AIZAWA WANTS HIM GONE. You’d noticed online how the character had been getting a fair amount of disapproval, but it couldn’t be that bad. Well, Aizawa led you to Barolds house and you were amazed to see the surveillance stuff he has up, and you agree with Aizawa. Boi gotta go.

- You decide to mess with him one day so you send all his students his switch friendship code, and Momo helps you design the schools uniform for the students. Some even make their hero costumes. When he gets on one evening he’s horrified to see all his students sitting in classroom chairs in the center of his island. Some of the villagers are passing by trying to talk to them, and you’re chilling on a bench. You walk over to your boyfriend and pull out a party popper and spray confetti over him yelling “Surprise! They wouldn’t pay attention on Zoom, so I thought they’d pay attention on here!”

- He just stares you down from his side of the bed. You refuse to look up from your switch to meet his irritated gaze.

- You’re not allowed on his island for a week.

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onlysarah235678 · 4 years ago

Text

A Little Bit Part 15

Pairing: Billie Dean Howard x female reader

A/N: This one is longer because I’m trying to finish this story up…I AM SO IN LOVE with this gif by illuminated-blue. Anyways, I hope you enjoy! Mind the warnings.

Warnings: angst, mentions of domestic violence (I put *** at beginning and end as usual), and domestic fluff

The rest of the day was pretty boring after Erin dropped off Milo. You were still a little tired and spent most of the day lazing around. It wasn’t due to a lack of energy though. You wanted to do something, but Billie kept making you relax. You would get up for a drink or to walk Milo, but she would insist on doing it for you. She assured you that she wasn’t too busy to help out. She didn’t have a lot scheduled for the next couple of days, just a few calls and those didn’t seem to last long. You had stopped trying to argue with her after the third time she told you to sit.

At first it was weird for you to stay at Billie’s house and do absolutely nothing. You didn’t realize how much you weren’t allowed to do until deciding to stay put on the couch. You tried turning on the television and Billie had shot you a look from where she was working at the dining room table. You were going to go stir crazy if you had to keep sitting around.

The second night you spend at Billie’s was worse than the first. You weren’t as tired this time, so it was more difficult for you to fall asleep. You also had Milo with you which you loved until he would wake up to scratch or wander around the room. Any noise from him aggravated your headache and you ended up kicking him out to go sleep downstairs. You made sure that the laundry room door was closed before going back to sleep. Or at least trying to.

It was 2 am before your headache went away enough to sleep, and you were woken up by scratching at the door around 7 am. Luckily it stopped pretty quickly, and you know you had Billie to thank for that. When you finally woke up, you had breakfast waiting for you and Milo was already taken care of. So, there was nothing for you to do other than eat and sit around.

The only problem was that you’d been doing this for hours. You finally grew tired of staring at the ceiling around 3 in the afternoon and you sit up with a sigh.

You look around the room to see that Billie is still working on something. You sneak a peek at Milo before looking at the clock again. It’s been a while since he’s gone out, so you know you should walk him soon. You sigh before reaching out for him and mouthing the word ‘walk’ with a smile.

He starts to wag his tail and you look back over to Billie to see that she hasn’t caught on yet. You know that the likelihood of you out running the medium is slim to none, but you might as well try. You turn back to Milo about to tell him to get his leash when Billie’s voice startles you.

“Where do you think you’re going, Y/N?”

You turn back to Billie to see that she’s looking at you with a frown and a raised eyebrow that would usually make you cave. However, you are very bored and just want to walk your dog. You don’t even have to go that far. Just to the damn street.

“I was going to walk Milo.”

This is what Billie expected you to say and she starts to stand up. You shake your head as you tell Milo to get his leash with a sigh.

“Billie. No, I can do it. Please. I can’t sit around anymore.”

You watch as Milo flees and Billie gets up and walks over to you. You’re pouting and doing your best to get Billie to give in, but she’s not budging. She moves to sit next to you with a sigh before shaking her head as Milo returns with his leash which he drops in your lap.

“Y/N, you’re really not supposed to--.”

You cut Billie off because you’ve heard this before. You were supposed to just sit on your ass all day and do nothing and you hated it. You are grateful for everything that Billie’s done to help you, but you really needed to get out of the house and get some fresh air. Even if only for a few minutes.

“Please Billie! I just need to get out for a bit. Please?”

Billie stares at you as she contemplates her options. She is actually surprised that you’ve lasted this long without disobeying your doctor’s orders. You had accepted all of the restrictions that she had put in place with minimal argument, so she supposes she should let you have this. It would only be for a few minutes anyways.

“Alright, but I’m coming with you.”

You smile in excitement before nodding a little too vigorously. You remember last second to keep your face neutral so Billie doesn’t have a reason to take it back. She watches as you get Milo’s leash on and move to stand up, but she beats you to it. She’s up and holding out and hand for you and you smile gratefully before taking it with a sigh.

“Thank you.”

Billie just smiles as she meets you halfway for a quick kiss. Your smile widens before you pet Milo and ask him again if he’s ready for a walk. He yips before jumping up on you only to be pushed down quickly. You shoot him a half-hearted glare before telling him to calm down.

“No, Milo. We’re going on a walk, but we’re going to take it nice and slow okay?”

Billie smiles as Milo just pants happily before heading for the door. You follow him and quickly put on your shoes.

You still haven’t gotten Billie to agree to take you back to your apartment to get some of your things. You were wearing the only clothes of Billie’s that fit you, and although they were fine you felt a little weird. You were very particular about your things which is why the next item on your list was getting back to your place to at least get a change of clothes.

That was a battle for a different day though.

“Remember, we could run into reporters, Y/N.”

You of course, hadn’t thought about this and you pause as you consider how you will handle it. Your first thought is to just ignore them, but then you realize that never really works. You sigh as you shake your head with a smile before looking to Milo.

“Milo will scare them away.”

Both you and Billie look to Milo who is panting excitedly as he practically bounces while waiting for you to open the door. You smile as you reach out to pet Milo before turning to see Billie rolling her eyes. She doesn’t doubt that Milo can scare people away, but you didn’t like him doing that. He wasn’t an aggressive dog, and you didn’t want people to see him that way. She knew you were mostly joking, but she still decided that maybe she should hold onto him in case he got a little too excited.

You nod at this before handing Milo’s leash to Billie. You only have to think for a minute about how your dog could easily drag you in the state you’re in before looking to him with a serious expression.

“Be good Milo. No pulling okay.”

You wait until Milo calms down a little before opening the door and following Billie out. You squint as you step out into the sunlight, but you feel better as the heat hits your skin. You don’t usually mind lazing around inside, but not being able to watch or read anything is just torture. You follow Billie down the stairs, making sure to hold the railing as you take careful steps. You smile as Billie leads Milo to a nearby tree and your dog sniffs around for something that he’s picked up on. You frown a few seconds later as you see something small run out from behind the tree and into the bushes. Milo goes to chase after it and you open your mouth to call him off, but Billie beats you to it.

“Milo, no! Leave that poor thing alone, let’s go.”

You can’t help but smile as you watch Milo turn away from the bushes and follow Billie down the driveway. You realize you’re falling behind when Billie stops and waits for you with an expectant look. You meet her with a smile before grabbing her hand because you can already feel your head start to swim as you look around.

“You’ll let me know when you need a break?”

You just smile before nodding in agreement. You really want to get out, but you know better than to push yourself too much. That won’t help you in the long run.

You, Billie, and Milo walk through the neighborhood mostly in silence. By the time 15 minutes pass you are holding tight to Billie’s arm as you walk with your eyes mostly closed. For this reason, you miss the look Billie shoots you, and you’re surprised when you suddenly stop. You open your eyes to see Billie watching you and you blush slightly when you realize you’ve been caught. You just nod when Billie suggests that it’s time to turn around, and Milo leads the way back to the house.

“How are you feeling?”

You shrug slightly before mentioning that your head hurts, but not too badly. It’s not a lie because it definitely hurts, but not nearly as much as when you left the hospital. You smile as you reach out to pet Milo, but he moves last minute and you nearly fall. You groan as Billie catches you and you just let yourself fall to the ground. You sit down and take a second to breathe before you’re tackled by Milo. You sputter and push him away from you while trying to get his fur out of your mouth. You groan again as Billie pulls him away from you before sitting down. You try to wave her off, but it doesn’t really work and she’s down on the sidewalk beside you before you can even get a word out.

“It’s fine, Billie. I’m just a little tired.”

You lean into her with a yawn as you close your eyes again. You could fall asleep here if it weren’t for the fact that you were pretty sure you were sitting at the end of someone’s driveway. Still, Billie lets you rest for a few minutes before Milo starts to whine at you both. Billie sighs and you groan under your breath at your obnoxious dog's behavior.

“Alright, Milo. Let’s go.”

The three of you arrive back to Billie’s without any further issues, and you are quick to move to the kitchen before you’re ordered back to the couch. You sit at the counter and put your head down with a sigh. You didn’t check to see what time it was, but you are really hungry and wouldn’t be opposed to eating now. You hear Billie walk up beside you before placing a hand on your shoulder. You don’t move immediately because the cool counter feels nice against your throbbing forehead.

“Are you hungry?”

You smile before sitting up, not opening your eyes until you turn to Billie. You ask her if you can cook and she shakes her head before telling you that you should rest. You pout but quickly realize that it’s no use. Billie wasn’t going to give in to you again, at least not so soon. You decide to cut your losses before asking if you can order food which of course Billie agrees to. She is all for not cooking if she doesn’t have to. You also offer to pay and look around for your wallet that Erin brought yesterday. You of course have no idea where it is, but Billie doesn’t really care. She is shaking her head before looking around for her phone. She hadn’t taken it on the walk with her and she was just now realizing how that hadn’t been smart. Luckily, she hadn’t needed it, but now she did and it was nowhere to be found.

Instead of wasting time looking, she grabs her computer before returning to the kitchen. She nearly trips over Milo who hurries to join you after finishing his post-walk roll-around on the carpet. He bounds over to you with his tail wagging furiously before sitting next to your chair. You scowl at him before apologizing to Billie who just shakes her head with a smile.

“Sorry about that, he’s a little careless.”

“Don’t worry about it, Y/N. Where do you want to get take out?”

You’re asleep by the time the food arrives, but you’re woken up by the doorbell. You hear Milo bark once before racing towards the door and you sigh as you try to stifle a yawn. After ordering food, you and Billie had moved back to the living room. She had finished her work for the day and you wanted to cuddle, but as always you ended up falling asleep on her.

You’d shifted in your sleep at some point, so Billie was able to get up without disturbing you. She stands up and hurries to shush Milo as she opens the door. Standing there is a brunette who is probably in his early twenties carrying a large bag of food that smells great. Billie hears Milo start sniffing furiously, but she ignores him as she looks beyond the person on her porch.

Down past her driveway there are a couple of cars on the street. They hadn’t been there when you returned on your walk and they definitely didn’t belong to the brunette in front of her. Billie just manages to spot someone in the front seat of one of them before the brunette, Noah, speaks up.

“Uh, Hi I’m Noah. Here’s your food and uh this.”

Billie frowns as she takes the bag but watches as Noah moves slightly so he’s standing between her and the cars on the street. She doesn’t get a chance to question this as Noah coughs slightly before speaking up. He’s holding out his hand to her and she looks to the money with a frown.

“What is this?”

Noah shifts his weight back and forth before managing to look Billie in the eyes.

“So those reporters out there gave me this to ask you something, but I don’t like getting in other people’s business, so I’ll just give you that.”

Billie takes the $50 because she’s too stunned to do anything, but as Noah turns to leave, she finally gathers her wits.

“Noah, wait.”

The brunette turns back to the medium, eyeing her and then her scary looking dog before finding his voice.

“Uh, yes?”

Billie hands him back the money because honestly she doesn’t need it. She doesn’t really want it. The thought of those reporters trying to bribe her delivery guy is ridiculous, and at the moment the only thing she’s grateful for is the fact that he didn’t go for it.

“Keep this, dear. You deserve it. But can you tell them one thing for me?”

The smell of food makes you sit up and you look around excitedly to see Billie and Milo both heading towards you. You run a hand through your hair with a sigh. You’re so glad that you took a shower, but damn your hair was still not behaving. You see Billie smiling in that mischievous way of hers and you can’t help but smile as you tilt your head slightly.

“Did you have any trouble?”

Billie sits down next to you before shaking her head with a laugh. She has to wave Milo off as he tries to sniff each item that she pulls out of the bag. She figures that she should see if you want to eat at the table, but you look so comfortable wrapped up in your blanket that Billie doesn’t want to make you move. She just finishes unpacking the food that’s honestly way too much for the two of you before shrugging.

“Not at all. Reporters are just camped outside trying to bribe our delivery driver.”

You roll your eyes at this news as you wrap the blanket around you tighter before you start to survey the food you and Billie ordered. You ask almost absentmindedly.

“Oh yeah. What did you tell them?”

Billie smiles as she recalls the look on Noah’s face when she gave him the message for the reporters. She wasn’t sure if he was going to actually do it, but it would be funny either way. It wouldn’t change anything anyway. It was just for her entertainment.

“I told him to keep the money and to tell the reporters to shove it.”

You laugh as you shoot Billie a questioning look. You have a feeling that what she’d actually said was a little more colorful, but when Billie just smiles at you, you decide to drop it. You smile as you grab a container of food before handing it to Billie.

“For you.”

Billie takes it with a smile before leaning in to kiss your forehead. She pulls away and shoots you a worried look that you just nod at.

“How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

You sigh before claiming that you feel better. You smile a little as you mention that your nap helped. You are less tired and your head doesn’t hurt as much. When you say this, Billie realizes that it’s almost time for your medicine again. You were sent home with a couple medications that were supposed to make your headaches better, but so far you’d only taken them a couple of times. You were really bad about remembering to take your meds, and Billie hadn’t realized this until today.

However, now that she knew, Billie was all over it. She was making sure you took them every 8 to 12 hours whether you were feeling poorly or not. You try to stop her as she heads for the kitchen to grab them for you, but it’s no use.

“Billie, I can--.”

“I’ll be right back. Go ahead and start eating.”

You sigh in defeat before just nodding to yourself. You didn’t like having someone wait on you, but you were glad that if it had to be anyone, that it was Billie. She wasn’t mean or condescending toward you, and it wasn’t a power trip for her. She didn’t hold things over your head like others had.

You don’t realize how lost in thought you’d been until Billie is back and handing you two pills and a glass of water. You smile appreciatively before taking them both and quickly downing your pills before drinking some of the water. You realize that you haven’t been drinking enough because you nearly drink the whole thing before Billie speaks up.

“Where did you go?”

You smile slightly realizing you were caught before you shake your head. You had wanted to wait a little bit to talk about this, but you supposed now was as good a time as any. You put your now empty glass down before fixing your blanket with a sigh. You pat the space next to you waiting for Billie to join you, but Milo beats her to it. You groan before snapping your fingers at your dog and telling him to get down. He doesn’t listen immediately, but when you tell him to get to bed he jumps down and moves around the couch. You can’t see him from here but you assume he does as he’s told because Billie just smiles before she sits down next to you.

“Is something on your mind?”

You wait until Billie’s settled before sitting back so you can face her. You nod before trying to figure out what to say first as you fiddle with the blanket wrapped around your shoulders.

“I was thinking about what you mentioned earlier. About filing a police report?”

Billie just nods as she waits for you to continue. She’s not sure where you’re going with this, but she decides to wait and see instead of jumping to what she hopes you’re going to say. She watches as you shift uncomfortably before glancing over to where Milo’s situated in his bed.

“I don’t think I want to do it. I know it’s—it’s probably a good idea, but I just don’t want to get into it.”

Billie frowns at both your explanation and the way you’re struggling to say whatever is on your mind. She doesn’t like the idea of not knowing what’s bothering you, but she starts to nod anyway. She wants to respect your wishes and if you want to drop it, she’ll drop it. She will just try to get a better explanation later.

“Okay, you don’t have to tell me.”

You are surprised by this until you think about what you just said and you curse. You didn’t realize how that sounded and you shake your head quickly before wincing at the action. You move closer to Billie so you can take her hand before deciding to just get it over with. You always worry about someone not wanting to be close to you because of your endless baggage, but you trust Billie and she’s only ever proven that she wants to help you or be there for you. She hasn’t used anything you’ve told her against you.

“Hey, that’s not what I meant, Billie. I don’t want to get into this mess with Doug because it reminds me of the mess I went through with…her.”

It takes Billie a minute to figure out who you’re talking about, but you just wait patiently for her to put the pieces together. You know that you should just come out and say it, but it’s embarrassing and you thought that you’d told Billie enough about your ex for at least the next couple months or so.

You hadn’t expected to be in the situation you were in now, and you definitely hadn’t needed the reminder of how stressful it was to deal with the police.

You groan under your breath before you hide your head in your hands with a sigh.

“God, why do I have so much baggage?”

Your head hurts too much to attempt a joke and you just leave it at that as you plan your next words very carefully. You feel a hand on your shoulder and you frown before turning to face Billie. She’s frowning too, but she seems more worried than you are and you don’t like it.

“You don’t have to tell me Y/N. You know that.”

You do know this, and you also know that Billie means what she’s saying. She doesn’t push you to do anything you don’t want to, unless it’s for your own good, and you love that about her. This; however, you need to tell her about. Especially if it explains why you are letting that asshole Doug get away with giving you a concussion.

“I know, but it might help you make sense of this stupid decision.”

Billie wants to argue with you, but she wants to wait until she has all of the facts first.

***

For the next twenty minutes or so you and Billie eat while talking about your past relationship. It wasn’t exactly your idea of good dinner conversation, but you were at least glad to be getting this off your chest. You reiterate how your ex had been manipulative and controlling and how this eventually turned into physical abuse. You tell her how the other woman had gotten joy from making you feel terribly and watching you become the shy, obedient girlfriend that she’d always wanted.

You realized pretty quickly what was happening and how fucked up it was. You didn’t like to have your voice stifled, but every time you fought against her, she fought back. It got to the point that you didn’t feel safe around her. You didn’t enjoy her presence like you had when you first met, so you tried to leave. You took Milo and you moved back home, and you thought that was the end of it.

“She showed up really drunk one night when my dad was gone, and we got into a huge fight.”

You mention how violent things had gotten and how you’d both ended up in the hospital. You had broken your wrist while she had been bitten by Milo who came to your defense. She’d threatened to sue you and you’d threatened to get a restraining order against her when the police showed up to your hospital room.

Billie watches as you shift uncomfortably before dropping the blanket that you had just been holding to your chest. She waits as you take a deep breath before looking to your dog who had moved back to sit in front of you when you started eating.

“I was going to do it too, but then she came back and threatened to take Milo from me.”

You hadn’t believed that she could actually do it, but when she’d shown you the adoption papers that you’d left in your shared apartment you had panicked. You couldn’t risk losing Milo to someone that you knew didn’t really want him. She had treated him as poorly as she’d treated you, only sometimes you were able to redirect her aggression against your dog to you so you didn’t have to pay for any more bites.

“I agreed that I wouldn’t get a restraining order and she gave me back the papers. I guess I—I considered doing it anyway, but then I got the job out here and then my dad…I figured it would be okay.”

Billie wants nothing more than to hug you, but she sees how tense you are and she doesn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. So she just frowns as she tries to figure out what you’re going to say next. You sigh heavily before you abandon your corner of the couch and move towards Billie. You just sit in front of her for a second before you manage to admit why you really don’t want to think about what Doug did any longer.

“I just—I know it’s not healthy, but I don’t want to think about her anymore. If I try to do this thing with Doug I know it’s all I will be able to think about, and then I’ll get worried again. I’ll become that person again, and I’ll be looking over my shoulder for her all the time and I just--.”

Billie decides to take the chance, and she cuts off your rambling with a hug. She feels you stiffen slightly before you fall into the embrace and wrap your arms around her tightly. You squeeze your eyes shut as you feel tears start to fall and dammit this is why you didn’t want to do this.

“Shh, it’s okay, sweetheart. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, okay?”

You’re not surprised when you start crying harder at Billie’s words and you curse yourself as your headache comes back full force. You hide your face in Billie’s shoulder as you mutter things that you never had been able to say to her face. To anyone’s really.

“How are you this nice to me? How do I deserve this?”

Billie hates how confused you sound and how you seem to genuinely believe that you are not worthy of what Billie believes is basic kindness. She hates how someone wrecked your expectations so thoroughly that you are surprised when people treat you the way you should be treated. She has a lot that she wants to say, but Billie sticks with what she believes to be the most important for now.

“Y/N. You deserve everything anyone could ever give you. You’re such a sweet, caring person and I’m in awe of how strong you are.”

You sniffle pitifully into Billie’s hair before she sighs in defeat. She has no idea how someone could be so cruel to you. She just knows that she’ll do everything in her power to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

“You’re amazing, Y/N, and you deserve to be reminded of it every day.”

***

You wipe the tears from your eyes as you pull back so you can see Billie’s kind and earnest expression. You smile slightly before you nod thoughtfully. You need to stop thinking so poorly of yourself. You know you do, but some habits, regardless of how quickly they form or how long they last, are hard to break. You sigh again as you kiss Billie in thanks. Your head is pounding, but you smile wider as you play with the ends of Billie Dean’s hair.

“Thank you, Billie. I-.”

You pause as you stare into Billie’s eyes and you feel heat rush to your cheeks as you shake your head. You look away for a second before you’re smiling again, your heart pounding inside your chest.

“That means a lot.”

Later that night, you are nearly falling asleep on the couch when Billie calls Milo to go out for a walk. It’s nearly 10 and if it wasn’t going to be just a quick run outside, you’d insist on going with her.

Since your talk at dinner, you and Billie had been a little off, and it was making you nervous. You aren’t sure what it is but you figure that it has something to do with what you’d told her. You didn’t often divulge the gruesome details of your past, and really only, relationship easily, but you trusted Billie and you wanted her to know about your past. No matter how painful.

Now Billie hadn’t said or done anything to make you feel like she was upset with you, but –you couldn’t explain what it was. It was probably all in your head. You were worried that you’d freaked Billie out with your dicey history.

As you watch her leave with Milo you sigh heavily before looking around the room. You don’t know what you want to do, but you find yourself wandering to the kitchen for leftovers. You aren’t even really hungry, but you need to keep yourself busy or else you’ll get yourself worked up overthinking things. You open the fridge and grab the first box you see.

You’re still standing at the counter eating from the to-go box when Milo and Billie come back. Milo finds you first and he runs up to you with his tail wagging in excitement. He plants himself down right beside you with a pleading look. You just shake your head at him because he’s not getting any of your food. The last time he got into leftovers he had diarrhea for a week. You were not dealing with that again.

Especially at Billie’s house.

You don’t get to cringe at that thought before you hear Billie arrive to the kitchen. You’re standing with your back to her and you smile guiltily as you turn around to face her. You’re not surprised to see her frowning, so you hold your food out to her with a questioning look.

“Do you want some?”

Billie sighs before shaking her head and moving past you to get to the fridge. You watch as she opens it and grabs a bottle of wine. You look to the clock again before frowning.

“Do you have more work to do tonight?”

Billie pours herself a glass before sighing in defeat. She didn’t really need to do anything else tonight, but Michelle had just sent her something that she wanted to look at before tomorrow’s interview. All day she’d been working on preparing for it, but she and Michelle had overlooked a potentially important question that might come up.

Billie tells you that she has some last-minute prep to do and you just nod before putting your food up. You are really tired but you don’t want to go to sleep yet. At least not alone. You were going to see if Billie would keep you company, but it looked like she had work to do.

“Okay, well I’ll probably just get ready to sleep then.”

Billie nods before asking if you want her to go with you, or rather help you upstairs. You shake your head though because you’d done fine on your own since you woke up this morning. You start to head out before you turn back to Billie who is still standing in the kitchen looking a little distant.

“Do you mind if I say hi to the kittens, first?”

Billie smiles before muttering an ‘of course not’, so you take Milo with you to wait in the guest room while you go love on some kittens.

You make it up the stairs easily enough and after dropping off Milo, you head to the laundry room. You open the door quietly so you don’t disturb the kittens. You smile as Bit looks at you before promptly returning to grooming duty and she ignores you as you wander towards her to get a look at Mickey and Co. You sigh as you watch them all shift around and mewl at each other.

They were getting so big and you couldn’t help but want to pick them up and feel on them. You resist however because it was late and you didn’t want to disturb them too much. Instead, you just sit down with a sigh watching from across the room as Bit finally settles back down next to her kittens.

You wonder how Billie was going to part with them all. She had mentioned keeping Mickey, but she’d said nothing about Bit. She would need to be spayed soon, and you could talk about that at your next visit, but for now you didn’t really care. You wanted to take at least one of the kittens, but you weren’t sure how that would work. Milo was okay with Mickey for a limited time, but you had to make sure that this behavior would extend to any cat that you brought home. It was worth figuring out, but you were too tired to consider it at the moment.

You lean back against the washer with a yawn before you close your eyes. You were just going to rest for a minute then you would get ready for bed.

Billie was still downstairs reading through what Michelle had sent her when you drifted off in the laundry room. She was worried about tomorrow. More worried than she’d typically be for an interview. Tomorrow wasn’t just going to be the standard, ‘tell us about the new season of your show’ interview. Now that Billie was seeing someone and they’d been in the media so much, there was no way that this wouldn’t be a topic of conversation. Billie just hoped that it wasn’t going to overshadow the real reason why she was doing this interview.

She had agreed with confirming her relationship with you, before the events of this week had pretty much done that for her. She had been excited to do so, and she hated that she was a little less thrilled about having the conversation.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want people to know about you, or even ask about you. She was proud of you and wanted to show you off. She didn’t; however, want to answer intrusive questions that were really no one’s business but your own. Billie was just lucky enough to be privy to some of your secrets. She could always pretend not to know, but after a long talk with Michelle and Jeff about this, it was decided that refusing to comment about this week’s incidents wouldn’t look good.

It didn’t matter how it was framed, not knowing about what was going on with you, or pretending not to would cause more speculation that Billie didn’t want.

Billie’s goal for tomorrow was to talk about her show that would be airing in just a couple of weeks. She would talk about what viewers should expect, how filming it went, and whether or not there would be more to come.

She had also decided that she would talk about you enough to placate whoever wanted to know, but not too much to make you uncomfortable. That was Billie’s main concern, and after having permission to talk about what happened on Sunday and the first night you spent at her house, she was feeling a little better. She wouldn’t say too much and she didn’t plan on making any of it a big deal.

She just really wanted to promote her show and talk a little bit about her girlfriend.

When Billie finally finished up and decided to go to bed, it was around 11. She was tired and needed to sleep. She needed to get up early to make it to the studio in time for makeup and all of that. Billie was still thinking about how late she could wake up when she arrived upstairs and immediately heard whining from down the hall.

She heads toward the guest room and immediately realizes what the cause was. She could see Milo’s paws appear every other second as he tried to dig his way out from under the door. Billie sighs as she opens the door to let him out before he rips up her carpet. He immediately runs into the hallway and looks both ways for you. Billie realizes quickly that you aren’t in there and she heads toward the laundry room. Milo follows, but she doesn’t let him in when she opens the door and sneaks inside.

She sees you fast asleep against the washer, and she sighs before turning to check on the kittens. They are fast asleep as well, but they look a lot more comfortable than you do. Billie reaches out for your shoulder to gently shake you awake.

“Y/N. You can’t sleep in here.”

You groan in annoyance as you’re awoken from your little nap. You see the kittens first and you realize where you fell asleep. Next, you turn to see Billie standing over you, and you smile slightly before shaking your head. You didn’t even hear what she’d said to you, but you find yourself responding nevertheless.

“I know, I know. I’m awake.”

Billie smiles at you before reaching her hand out to help you up. You grab it with a quiet ‘thanks’ before getting to your feet with another groan. You roll your eyes at the sound of Milo whining from outside, and you are quick to follow Billie out into the hall.

You reach out for your dog smiling as he licks your hand before he follows you and Billie back to your room.

“All done with work?”

Billie nods as you both make the short trip back to the guest room. You hesitate to go in because you really don’t like sleeping alone as much as you like sleeping with Billie. Not that you would be sleeping with her, you just wanted to be near her. You weren’t sure how to communicate this, but apparently just standing in the doorway and staring into the room wasn’t the best way.

“Is something wrong?”

Billie frowns as she watches you just stare blankly into the room that Milo has returned to. He’s sitting at the foot of the bed, but you’re not looking at him. Once you realize that you were just staring, you turn towards Billie with a smile before shaking your head.

“No. Nothing’s wrong, Billie. I-.”

You pause briefly as you think back to the weird vibe you’d been feeling since dinner. You consider just going to sleep in your own room, but your neediness outweighs your paranoia at the moment.

“I was just wondering if I could stay with you?”

Billie smiles before beginning to nod because she had been waiting for you to ask this. She didn’t like having you here for two nights but not sleeping near you for either. She didn’t want to push you though because you were recovering and she was sure that any sounds she made would have irritated you. Now that you were doing better, she had another reason to decline.

“Of course you can, Y/N, but I don’t know if you’ll want to. I have to wake up pretty early tomorrow.”

You frown in confusion until you remember that today is Tuesday, meaning that tomorrow is Wednesday. The day of Billie’s interview. You know that it’s not until 9 and you can’t imagine how early Billie has to wake up. Maybe 7? The earliest 6?

“For your interview, right? How early do you need to be up?”

Billie smiles before she gives you the time and watches as your mouth falls open in surprise. You’re quick to shut it though as you ask incredulously.

“5:00 am? That’s ridiculous. Why do you need to get up so early, Billie?”

Billie just laughs before she rolls her eyes and runs a hand through her hair.

“I have to get ready, Y/N. They need ample time to make me look tv ready.”

You snort at this before you start walking down the hall to Billie’s room. You walk slowly in case Billie really just doesn’t want company before shaking your head.

“Well, that shouldn’t take very long. Come on, Billie. Is that all you got? I can go back to sleep before watching your interview.”

This catches Billie’s attention and she stops in her tracks behind you before shaking her head. Not that you see her, but what she says next makes you stop short.

“You’re not going to watch tomorrow, are you Y/N?”

You turn around to face Billie, shooting her a confused look before you nod. You can’t think of a single reason why you wouldn’t watch Billie’s interview tomorrow. If you had the choice, you would be going to it, but that wasn’t an option. It hadn’t been brought up before your fall, and now there was no way you were getting an invitation.

“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I watch?”

Billie sighs before she walks past you toward her room. You follow her wondering what’s on her mind, not even noticing how Milo is following you both. Billie retreats into her room before she starts to undress. She pulls her sweatshirt over her head before she responds to you with a pointed look.

“Your concussion? You’re not supposed to be watching television.”

You obviously realize this, but decide to argue anyway because there was no way you weren’t watching Billie tomorrow.

“I know, but it’s only what? An hour? Also! I can just listen!”

You watch as Billie sighs in defeat before she just studies you for a minute. You don’t back down. You don’t even look away when Milo comes up to you and nudges your hand asking for scratches. You wait until Billie just rolls her eyes before giving in.

“Alright, Y/N. I trust you to know your limits. I just hope you don’t get a migraine watching me fend off silly questions.”

You smile victoriously, but Billie doesn’t see it as she retreats to her closet. You don’t realize what she’s doing until she comes back with some clothes for you. You smile gratefully before you set them down on the bed so you can change. Milo follows you, reminding you that he’s in here and you go to kick him out.

“Milo, come on. You’re going to sleep downstairs.”

You are almost out the door when Billie speaks up, and Milo stops before you do before bounding back into the room and over to the medium.

“He can stay here. As long as he doesn’t bark in his sleep or anything.”

You watch as Milo greets Billie before moving to the foot of the bed. He looks at it for a moment like he wants to jump, but luckily he just lays down on the carpet with a yawn. You realize that you hadn’t answered Billie’s question, so you shake your head before offering a verbal response once you see that she’s not facing you.

“Uh, no. He won’t do that.”

Once you and Billie are ready for bed you follow her lead as you get under the covers and turn off the lamp beside you. You sit in silence for a moment waiting for Billie to get situated before speaking. You don’t want to stress Billie out, either of you really, but you want to make sure that you say this before Billie leaves tomorrow.

“Are you worried about tomorrow?”

Billie can’t see you since it’s dark, but she can picture the frown on your face as you ask this. She knows better than to lie to you because you’d been with her all day, and there was no way you’d fail to notice how much time she had spent preparing for tomorrow’s interview.

She eventually sighs before sitting up again and reaching for the light. She wants to be able to look at you when you have this conversation.

“I’m a little worried that they’ll try to make it more about the two of us, than the show.”

You squint slightly as the light flicks back on before nodding in agreement. You hate that you messed this up. The timing of everything couldn’t be worse for Billie’s interview and you’re feeling really guilty. This was supposed to be about promoting her show and giving everyone a chance to see how amazing the medium was. You weren’t biased at all, but you were going to be so angry if Billie doesn’t get the recognition she deserves tomorrow.

“I’m sorry.”

You say this before you can stop yourself and Billie frowns as she watches you cringe. She realizes it’s not because of a headache as you scramble to explain yourself.

“I just mean—I hope I didn’t mess anything up for you. You worked so hard for this and now no one will appreciate it because they’re--.”

You are cut off as Billie reaches for your shoulder before moving to push away some flyaway hair with a smile. You look to her in confusion because you’re not sure why she’s smiling, but she doesn’t let you wonder long.

“Y/N, you didn’t mess up anything. In fact, you showing up in my life has been one of the best things to happen to me in a long time.”

You feel your heart start pounding at Billie’s words and you open your mouth to say something, but you can’t. You’re speechless. Billie just smiles before she leans in to kiss you.

“I don’t want you to feel guilty about anything, okay? Tomorrow will be fine.”

You find yourself nodding in agreement before you’ve even decided that Billie’s right, but it doesn’t matter. You know she is, and you just have to trust that she knows what she’s talking about. She has been doing this much longer than you have.

“Okay, Billie.”

Billie smiles before she turns off her light again before getting settled. She waits until you lie down too before sighing and she’s smiling by the time you move closer to her.

“I wish I could get you to see how special you really are, Y/N,”

You don’t respond immediately, at least not with words, but you move closer so Billie can pull you into her. Once you’re close enough, you turn so your back is to her before scooting as close as possible with a sigh. You bite your lip so you don’t say what’s on the tip of your tongue. Instead you just thank Billie again by squeezing her hand where it rests on your stomach.

“You’re too good to me, Billie Dean.”

The woman behind you just scoffs in answer, and you chuckle under your breath as you close your eyes. It’s almost midnight, and despite the fact that you know you’ll be woken up in five short hours, you can’t bring yourself to care. You’re convinced that you’ll wake up sleep-deprived every morning if you are able to spend every night like this in Billie’s arms.

Part 16

#american horror story #ahs #ahs fic #ahs imagine #my fic #ahs murder house #billie dean howard x reader #billie dean howard imagine #billie dean howard #a little bit

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nyasha-of-germa-66 · 4 years ago

Note

Hello! I just found your blog and I'm in love with it ❤v❤ Could I maybe ask for hcs for Luffy, Law and Kid (separately) with a 45/55 year old friend who's like their mom figure who also lives on an small island with her grandkids and they accidentally called her "mom" in front of their crews and they're embarrassed and later she talks to them alone about not being embarrassed because there's nothing wrong with that? I'm so sorry if this was too much to ask for!

Hello, hello! Hopefully, my failure to post at a reasonable time hasn’t tainted your view of my blog, but if it did... I completely understand haha.~ I really loved this request, it was so wholesome and creative! I hope you’ll enjoy, and thank you so much for the request and your patience! 😁

Accidentally Calling Motherly Friend “Mom” HCs - (Luffy, Law, Kid)

Luffy

Dadan and Makino were perhaps the closest people that Luffy could consider as mother figures, but now he's very close friends with one woman who's motherly inside and out. He sees the way she treats her grandchildren, and he feels as though she treats him in a very similar way.

On top of that, Luffy's crew is always teasing him about how his friend is almost like his mom, the way she frets over him and constantly feeds him along with her grandchildren and the way she hugs and comforts him as if he was actually her son.

With all of his crew's teasing and his friend's motherly personality, it's no wonder that one day Luffy slips up and calls her "mom." He doesn't even realize he's said it until Usopp or Nami points it out to him.

Now, Luffy rarely, if ever, gets embarrassed, so to see his cheeks begin to grow a rosy tint before he pulls his straw hat down to hide his face is truly a strange sight to witness.

Things are a little awkward afterwards with Luffy staying relatively quiet, only speaking when spoken to but with a mopey tone in his voice. He wants to run back to the Thousand Sunny, but he reckons Zoro or Franky will stop him, maybe even Robin, too.

Luffy eventually finds a chance to leave when his friend's grandkids ask him to go outside to play, to which he happily accepts and flees the scene. How could he say something so weird?

Once the children are done playing, they go inside to wash up and grab some snacks while Luffy chooses to stay outside. He's so caught up in his thoughts that he hardly hears his friend walking up to him until she takes a seat next to him and puts a hand on his shoulder, startling him quite a bit.

She laughs and asks him why he's outside by himself, and when he tells her its about the embarrassing mishap, she laughs and brings him into a tight hug. Seeing her lighthearted reaction, he'll laugh, too, saying that he doesn't even know why he called her "mom" in the first place since he's never called anyone that before.

As she reassures him that she doesn't mind being called "mom," Luffy's wearing a huge grin on his face and joking about how he's finally found himself a mom.

It's not obvious since Luffy is almost always grinning and laughing, but after this encounter, he's just gleaming with joy. Blood-related or not, anyone who treats him like family would get nothing but the best from him.

Law

From time to time, Law will mourn the loss of his family even after all the years that have passed, especially when it's their birthdays or the anniversary of their death. The death of his family weighs heavily in the back of his mind, but he never once thought he'd become so close to another motherly figure.

Law was surprised at all of the advantages of having a motherly friend to dote on him. He likes to think that he's got his life figured out and that he's capable of handling himself, but he learns so much from this friend that he'll often call her up in search of advice.

His crew absolutely adores his friend and her grandchildren, so they've all pretty much integrated themselves into her family. They even go so far as to call her "mom," too. Unfortunately, the crew's habit of calling her "mom" must've grown on Law subconsciously.

Out of the blue during one of their visits to the small island, Law mistakenly call his friend "Mom" and doesn't even pick up on it. The room suddenly grows quiet as his friend and his crew stare at him in bewilderment.

He's confused at first, and when they reveal to him his slip-up, he looks on with astonishment at his embarrassing mistake. Just what was he thinking!?

His face goes red, of course, because his crew is laughing and teasing him about joining them as his friend's "adopted children." And all he can really do is slump back in his seat and pull his hat down over his face.

Luckily, he's not the center of attention for long since the conversation quickly changes to a new subject, but he replays the memory in his head over and over again, wanting to throw himself into the ocean. With everyone else preoccupied, he makes a quick escape to the other room where he grovels at his mistake.

When his motherly friend enters the room to check on him, he apologizes for making things awkward. He's more than surprised at her lighthearted response saying that she doesn't mind being called "Mom."

It's comforting to hear her say that, and her kindness and acceptance is something he cherishes. He sees his own mom in his friend, and it's almost as if he's been reunited with his deceased mother, just through a whole different person.

Despite the horrible first experience of calling his friend "Mom," Law feels relieved at having someone he can consider family, almost like he's filled a hole in his heart that he never knew he had. And with his friend's fondness toward the nickname, Law decides he'll call her "Mom" but only when the two are alone.

Kid

Kid has never really prioritized making friends or building strong relationships with his family, but he does make one exception for a very special lady.

Sure, she tends to scold him for his reckless behavior and his unprecedented cruelty which gets on his nerves, but he can never bring himself to dislike her in any way. He's much too attached, and the pros of having her as a friend far outweigh the cons.

Her constant encouragement and support of his dreams are more than welcoming to Kid. And for that reason, he's sworn to protect her island and her family, often mentioning that she's the only person to ever get this kind of treatment from him and that she should feel lucky.

One day during a particular visit, Kid is spending his time catching up with his motherly friend, while Killer and a few others are playing with the grandchildren in the same room. Meanwhile, the kids keep calling for their mom to watch them do somersaults despite their mother being in the middle of a story.

She apologizes to Kid for the disruption and turns her attention to her grandchildren for a moment, praising them for their impressive skills before returning to Kid to continue her story.

As Kid was waiting for the mother to finish, he noticed a new picture frame hanging on the wall. Curious, he decides to ask her about it. And in the midst of the children chanting for their mom and Kid preparing to ask his question, he accidentally says, "Hey, Ma, what's-?" He barely manages to catch himself, and it's absolute torture for him.

His face is nearly as red as his hair, and he doesn't even know how to react. He can hear muffled chuckles from his crewmates with Killer trying to shush them. When that fails Killer shoos the children and small group of pirates outside, leaving Kid to pout alone with his friend.

Kid tries to tell her it was an accident and that she ought to forget about it if she knows what's good for her. They're nothing but empty threats, and his friend knows that. So instead, she gives his arm a comforting squeeze and tells him that she doesn't mind if he refers to her as "Ma" since she finds it fitting.

He tries to argue with her, but she uses her motherly skills to quiet his fussing and convinces him to calm down. He's still embarrassed, of course, yet he's now able to calmly ask her to never bring it up again since his crew is likely to poke fun at him later. And she agrees, much to his relief.

It's comforting to know that such a close friend is willing to consider herself family to him. In fact, he's delighted to hear her say that, but Kid feels that it's better if they remain friends. After all, it'd be hard on his friend and her grandchildren if someone they considered family never returned from the seas again. But hey, he now knows someone he can call "Ma."

#one piece headcanons #monkey d luffy #trafalgar law #eustass kid #one piece luffy #one piece law #one piece kid #nyasha of germa 66 #thank you for the ask!

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pixie88 · 4 years ago

Text

Charlie

Chapter 11 - Together - Adam & Ellie.

A/N: This chapter is from both M!MC & F!MC POV. I cried at this chapter, you would think for someone who’s given birth 4 times I shouldn’t have to Google what labour is like but my only “normal” labour was over 10 years ago now and the other 3 have been very very fast labours. It is a fast forward chapter sorry but I like doing this series like this but this is also why I haven’t added a DOB because of the fast forward timeline haha. I hope you like it! 😘

If you like it let me know or if you don’t still tell me why I won’t be offended!

I am only tagging those who have asked to be tagged in this series from now on as I don’t want to annoying people with tags. So Let me know if you would like to be tagged and if I missed anyone sorry just let me know!

Find previous chapters HERE under Together - Adam & Ellie.

Word count: 1803

WARNINGS: ⚠️ Fluffy fluff, Mild NSFW & adult language.

Pairings: Adam x Ellie.

Enjoy!

M!MC POV

15 Weeks later.

"You can do this Ellie"

Tears are streaming down her face "I can't! It hurts..AHHHHHH!"

"Ellie, look at me, you can do this just breathe. You got this beautiful"

She takes deep breaths on the gas and air, "Now Ellie, I just need to check if we are there yet so after this contraction I'll see how we are doing" April the midwife tells her.

(Her water broke at half 7 this morning just as I got up for work. The contractions started lunch time. It's 2 days until Charlie's due date. I wish I could take the pain away)

I move out the way for April "Has that one gone?" she nods.

"Right, let's have a look" the midwife checks Ellie over "Well, good news you've hit 10 centimeters"

"Another one is com.....Ahhhh!"

I take her hand "Right, now Ellie. I need you to put all your energy into pushing. With your next contraction can you give me a small gentle push. Put your chin to your chest as you push"

She pants while she waits for the next contraction, it isn't long before it's here. Instead of screaming Ellie puts all her effort into pushing "Ellie, that is brilliant! Remember to breathe, small, gentle pushes"

Her grip on my hand tightens, she gasps "That one has gone. How much longer until he's here"

"I think with a few more pushes we'll have the head"

I kiss her knuckles "You're doing amazing beautiful"

"What? Even though I'm nearly breaking your hand?" she smiles.

"Break it! Squeeze as hard as you can if that's what you need"

"Here com..."

"That's it! That's it Ellie, small pushes. I can see the head"April tells her.

A few more pushes later "That's the head out Ellie" She started panting "Next contraction and he'll be here!"

"Oh god here it..." she starts pushing again.

"Here he is" April looks up at the clock "8:05 PM"

"Ellie, You did it, he's here!!" I well up.

"Would you like skin to skin contact?" Ellie nods tears streaming down her face as April places him against her chest under her hospital grown.

"Adam, he's here. He's really here!"

I kiss her forehead "He is!! I'm so proud of you beautiful"

"Would Daddy like to cut the cord?"

"Yeah, I'll give it ago" lifting the grown she turns Charlie (He's so tiny! He's sucking his fingers. He's gorgeous)

"Right, just cut here" the scissors cut through the cord.

Ellie's smiling at me, my heart has never felt so full.

A little while later, after Ellie delivers the afterbirth, vitamin K, stitches, April places Charlie on the weighing scales "Lets see how much you weigh you little beaut.....7lbs 7oz. Now let's give you daddy, so he can dress you, then is mummy breast feeding?"

"I think I'm going to do a bit of both?"

"Great while daddy is getting him dressed why don't you grab a shower or bath and I'll grab you a hot drink and some toast"

Later we are taken up to the neonatal unit where, I get up onto the bed with her, I pull her to me, kiss the top of her head "Ellie, Thank you" I whisper.

She looks up at me, she looks absolutely shattered "Thank you? For what?" she whispers back.

"For giving me a baby. Making me a dad"

She lets out small laugh "I think you'll find you gave me him first. So, thank you!"

I laugh, "True, but you grew him and did the hardest part"

"And I couldn't have done it without you! Adam, we're parents!!"

We both drift off.

1:38 AM

I hear Charlie stirring I pick him up out of the cot bed, I look over to Ellie who is still asleep.

"Hey little man, we need to be quiet. Mummy needs her rest" not wanting to wake her, I give Charlie a bottle, burp him and change his nappy.

Luckily April helped me do it downstairs "Right, we need to remember, we wipe what we see. That's what she told us, isn't it?" after I've changed him, place him on my chest he soon asleep again, I place him in his cot again.

~*~*~*~

4:23 AM

"Such a good boy! Well done!" I hear Ellie whisper. I wake to see her breastfeeding Charlie, she spots me "Hey, go back to sleep. We have this don't we!"

"I didn't hear him stir"

She smiles "I got up to use the toilet when I came back, he was just starting to wake. His nappy isn't full. It's weird!"

I laugh, sit up to kiss her cheek "Weird!" I pull out my phone.

*9 New Messages*

The first one is from Mum.

11:47 PM

[Oh, Adam he's beautiful. My first grandchild 😍 Congratulations to you both and well done to that superstar daughter inlaw. We are at the airport our flight leaves in 20 minutes. We'll see you when you all get home. Well done Adam! We are proud of you both. We love you x]

The next is from Mel.

11:48 PM

[Congratulations!! He is absolutely gorgeous! I can't wait for cuddles with my new grandson 🥰 Well done both of you. Saving that photo as my screen saver. I can't believe I'm a nanna. Thank you so much for sending that. Tell Ellie I've been shopping for you guys all packed and put away. See you guys soon 😊]

Tom.

11:49 PM

[Well done El's and well done Adam....do you have an x-ray booked to make sure she hasn't broken any bones in your hand! Haha. Seriously I'm so happy for you two! Congratulations. My nephew is going to be a little heart breaker that's for sure. Can't wait to meet him]

Nan.

11:50 PM

[How much does he look like you as a baby Adam. He's beautiful. Congratulations mummy and daddy and well done mummy! I saw Mel at yours earlier so I popped in a lasagna in the fridge for you both. You just need to heat it in the oven. I've also done a few batch meals and stuck them in the freezer, there is chilli which Mel got a couple of packets of that ping rice for. There is also bolognese in there you will have to cook the spaghetti and there's a few other bits all labelled for you. So no need cook for a while. Xxx]

There is a few more from other friends.

F!MC POV

"Are you ready beautiful?"

I look up at him "This is it! We get to go home"

"As a family of 3" he places a soft kiss on my lips.

I go to pick up my bag "Don't even think about it Ellie," I hear Adam over my shoulder, I roll my eyes.

"OK, hulk but you can't carry Charlie in his car seat and this bag"

He takes it off me "I can! Now let's get you two home"

We walk down to the car Adam clips Charlie's seat onto the Isofix, I get into the passengers seat.

20 Minutes later we pull up to the house once inside Adam ushers me upstairs to have a bath. I hear Charlie and my breast start to leak "Adam! I'll be down in a second" I quickly brush my hair and head down.

In the living room Adam is on the sofa with Charlie, he passes him over, but Charlie doesn't want to latch on. "Here I got one of the formula ready made bottles out for him" Adam hands me a bottle.

I look at the coffee table and spot them, there are flowers and chocolates on the table. "Who's that from?"

I look at him confused "have a look," he smirks.

He picks up the card out of the flowers. The front of the card reads BEAUTIFUL!

"They are from you!" I melt.

"I got Lisa to make them up for me and Nan to bring them round early this morning"

"They are beautiful! Thank you"

He leans in, his lips brush against mine "No! Thank you!" Adam kisses the top of Charlies head "I love his smell"

"New baby smell"

"I had a text from Mum and your mum they wanted to come round today, but I've told them maybe it best to leave it until tomorrow"

"Give us a chance to settle in first" I smile.

"Yeah, that and I wanted my little family to myself a little while longer" he grins.

~*~*~*~

The next day

Mum, Tom, Nina, Al and Elaine are over for lunch.

Elaine made a platter of sandwiches and snacky bits, "He has your nose Ellie" Nina is cuddling Charlie.

"I hope his eyes change to Adams" Adam squeezes my hand.

"They can change up to a year old" mum says.

"How did he sleep last night?" Tom asks.

"He only woke once!"

I hear a low chuckle coming from Adam, I turn, and he's smiling "Twice actually"

"He did? Why didn't you wake me?"

He smiles, "You looked so peace sleeping. Plus that's what I'm here for"

"Adam & Ellie, your dad and I got something for Charlie. Al go and grab it" Al gets up and walks to the hallway before bringing in a big box.

"I know you have a cot and a moses basket but Sophie's daughter had one for her little boy and swears by it"

"What is it?" Adam asks.

"Next to you crib"

"Oh, wow thank you both" I smile.

~*~*~*~

4 Weeks later I've finished Charlies night feed and put him back down.

I slip back into bed Adams arms come around me, pulling me tight against him "Did someone have a naughty dream?" I whisper as I feel his hard member against the curves of my arse.

"Maybe...its torture not doing anything about it"

I laugh "Just because we can't do that doesn't mean I can't do anything!"

I feel his body tease up "What?" he whispers against my neck.

I turn to face him "There are other ways I can help you scratch a certain itch" I start kissing his neck and push him onto his back.

I trail down his chest until I reach his inner thigh "Ellie, you don't have to"

I smile against him "I want to," I pull down his boxer springing him free, he gasps as I wet the tip.

"Fuck!"

"Shhh! You'll wake Charlie!"

~*~*~*~

The next morning "Ellie, your mum is here!" Adam calls up from downstairs.

"OK, I'll be down in a bit" I make my way downstairs, Adam is at the bottom.

"She in the living room cuddling up to Charlie. Are you excited?"

"Aww, bless her! Super excited!" I smile.

"I find it funny you own a bridal shop but you're going to another to get your wedding dress!"

Continue reading this story here - Chapter 12.

@lem-20 @aussieez @khoicesbyk @shewillreadyou @txemrn @irisofpurple

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xayneimagines · 4 years ago

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Part Time Immortality (pt 1?)

Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Pairing: Spike x Reader

Warnings: Cussing?

Genre: I think it’s cute and funny.

Summary: Y/n is a vampire with a soul who works a normal human job and does a lot of normal human things. Spike doesn’t get it. Featuring, Spike pinning and Y/N being a little hard to get? (This isn’t a request. I just started a new job and my body is hella mad at me for it).

“I don’t get it, pet.”

“And I don’t get why you’re even here. Now both of us are confused.” The kitchen was mostly loud and crowded, but luckily the spot of the dishwasher had some space away from the racket. For a while, Y/N enjoyed the extra space and the separation from others, though recently that space has been filled by a vampire who, for some reason, has been allowed to enter the establishment with little to no questions?

“It just makes no sense. You do realize you’re an immortal being, right? All-powerful, grr, and what have you.” As Spike spoke he fished a cigarette out of his jacket, placing it lightly between his lips before lighting it. Spike had been at this same tangent for what seemed to be days. It wasn’t until today that he actually followed Y/N into the establishment, complaining about their odd choice in income. Really, he just couldn’t stand the idea of the somewhat object of his affection slaving away at some shit show that only gave them minimum wage.

Y/N let out a sigh at the sound of the lighter, not fully turning towards the vampire to address his oddly mortal addiction.

“Do you have to do that in here?” They didn’t hate smoking generally, but in a small place that was already humid and stuffy, it threatened to make them just a little more uncomfortable and that extra discomfort could cause them to snap.

“What, is it illegal?” His face tightened, not liking being told what to do. Granted, he’d make a lot of exceptions for Y/N, but he couldn’t just roll over and be lovey-dovey when the bloody person wasn’t even with him.

“Uh, yeah. Passed 1995 in California...not that it hasn’t just been ignored for the most part...” Pulling the rack out from the dishwasher had hot steam blowing up into their face, irritating them further.

“Ugh, still so annoying.” They quickly wiped their wet hands on the apron before moving onto the next batch of dirty dishes, rinsing off the ones that wouldn’t just get washed in the dishwasher.

“Yes, well, immortality doesn’t make you immune to getting annoyed...in fact, it tends to make it worse.” He took another long drag of his cigarette as he watched them move around the line. It was odd how they could make the most lackluster movements entrancing to him. They didn’t add anything special to their movements, but he could write a poem of how he felt it was a show nonetheless.

As they loaded in the next part of the dishes, y/n turned around with another heavy sigh and stared at Spike. They leaned against the counter behind them and crossed their arms, a pout setting in on their face.

“Okay, what is it? Why are you here? Actually, why did they even let you in?”

“Well, for the last question, most of your coworkers including your boss is at least buzzed if not drunk. Something about kitchen service brings out the worse in any creature. Secondly, I’m just trying to figure out why you’ve subscribed to this bullshit? Aren’t you a bit young to have a soul? You should be out killing and stealing. Unliving up the good life.” His tone carried his disbelief and his arm gestures added that flare to sell home the point.

“Well, the whole soul bit was a choice and I’m working so that I can get money so that I can pay bills and blah blah blah. I don’t do the dine and dash thing.” This wasn’t the first time Spike shared his disbelief over their choices. Heck, he wasn’t even the only vampire that used their choices as some quip against them.

“Fine, you don’t have to. I’ll provide the all you can eat buffet.” The way he spoke was nonchalant and confident.

“Oh yeah? And what’s the price for that?” They couldn’t help the huff of laughter that escaped them. It was odd to be at the end of his praises, especially considering their past was filled with literally trying to kill each other.

“Just for you to be on my side. I think I’m being very generous.” He locked his eyes onto Y/N to gauge their response. It wasn’t as though he was simply testing the waters by this point, he all but declared the word ‘love’ since he had come to terms with his feelings. Looking at their response was more of a service to see if they were at least opening up to the idea.

“No, you’re being very demanding and persistent. I’m friends with the scoobies and an enemy to the big baddies, which includes you by the way! In case you forgot!” Their arms had dropped and they looked at him with such an expression of disbelief that it could almost hurt his feeling. It probably would have added to the sting of rejection if he didn’t have a good bet on them feeling the same.

“...You think I’m a big baddie?” A mischievous smile spread across Spike’s face at the perceived compliment.

“Oh my god, Spike. What has gotten into you? You literally tried to dust me a few mo-”

“BACK TO WORK Y/N! SAVE YOUR LARP TALK FOR OFF THE CLOCK. YOU TOO….BLONDEIE...” The boss had rounded the corner and had apparently decided to get strict on the amount of work being done. Y/N rolled their eyes before turning back to the dishes, shaking their head as they tried to brush off the shout.

“...Honestly, it is amazing the human race has lasted this long.” They couldn’t help the exclamation, frustration building up with every moment spent inside of the kitchen.

“See! You’re too good for them. You should be with your own kind-” Spike quickly went for it, figuring now was as good of a time as any to accurately show what he was meaning.

“You mean you.” Y/N interrupted with some annoyance written on their face but not nearly as much as earlier when the boss had spoke up. They had turned back to the vampire, already losing their motivation to continue the job at hand.

“Yes, you should be with me. Glad we agreed to this!”

“Spike!”

“Y/N!”

Y/N groaned and turned away from the vampire once again, annoyance causing their body to feel as though it was heating up despite knowing that wasn’t likely. While they were trying to will themselves to put forth the effort into their job, they simply just stared at the dishes. They stayed quiet for a moment, their thoughts racing with the conversation they were having.

“Spike, even if I said yes, you have that chip. You couldn’t provide if I wanted you to.”

“Oh sure, rub it in love.”

“I’m not mocking you, Spike. At least not right now.” Their voice had gone somewhat quiet by the end of their sentence before they looked back to Spike, confusion, and a sort of vulnerability showing in their eyes. The look risked causing Spike’s heart to start beating.

“So, why are you being like this exactly? Last time I checked you hated me about as much as you hate Buffy. Something about me being a no-good vampire like your old friend Angel?”

“Well, you are an awful vampire. I’m not going back on that.” He snorted, eyes glancing to his hands as he fidgeted ever so slightly.

“So then whats going on? Are you okay?”

He hesitated at the question, always caught off guard when they expressed any concern for him. Of course, they would ask questions like that and then wonder why he was so intent on providing literally anything for them.

“Why do you care if I’m okay?” He tried to egg them on, wanting to get them to confirm something he already knew. The question obviously backfired as their face went back to a look of exasperation.

“Okay, if you’re just going to act like this the-” They were interrupted by Spike holding his hands up, trying to show he was backing off with his motions.

“You’re right, you’re right. Look, I-”

“I TOLD YOU TWO-”

“OH, SHUT THE FUCK UP CLENT! Jesus Christ, I swear, everyone else here can dick around, however, and whenever, but the moment I just breathe he fucking bites my head off.” They hadn’t realized how hard they had been gripping the lip of the sink behind them until a noise of metal crushing got their attention. They looked towards the now bent sink before looking back to Spike, already wanting the night to be over with.

“Listen, I get you want to do the whole human thing, but at least go after a different job. You’re fucking miserable, and coming from me that’s saying something. All these centuries I’ve tortured people and not once was I evil enough to put them into food service.” Spike shook his head as he watched Clent leave the area, his attention only being drawn from him when he heard Y/N bark out a laugh. A smile spread across his face at the pleasant sound that accompanied their smile. God, he’d kill to be able to hear that for the rest of his undead life.

They stayed quiet for a moment before they shrugged.

“Fine. I’ll at least quit this shit job. But I’m still not being a bad guy with you and I’m getting another job when I can.” Y/N couldn’t keep their smile down, small chuckles continuing to escape them as they untied their apron. Spike clapped his hands together, standing up straighter.

“Good to hear. Now let’s get the hell out of here!”

#BTVS Spike #spike imagine #spike x reader #btvs spike imagine #buffy the vampire slayer spike imagine #buffy the vampire slayer imagine #btvs imagine

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sonderrow-moved · 4 years ago

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I was expecting a good memeing but instead I got thoughtful and heartwarming investment I’m weeping, my chest is all warm and fuzzy. @solaoccasum

i read that archer enjoys bathing, because it’s akin to the strange euphoria when one is drunk. so i have to ask, does he ever combine the two? has he ever accidentally drowned himself, if so?

That’s a great observation I don’t mention often ! ;; Archer does combine the two at times ! Only very rarely. It could be because a) he’s often drunk anyway or b) it is not easily available where he bathes/practical to bother with a container he’d need to personally arrange or c) bath houses, for obvious safety reason, do not serve or allow alcohol while bathing. Drinking alcohol, in Archer’s alcoholic habits, is a common occurrence, while long bathing times is more of a luxury he allows for himself, so he tends to not necessarily associate the two hand in hand. Usually, the sensation of bathing is strong enough that alcohol wouldn’t change much given his personal resistance (atop of the now vampire one that just tripled it).

The times Archer would have drunk while in a bath was when Integra ( @midorigxrxge) would treat him to a large bath and serve him a glass (more like a bottle given how much he asks for). The earlier times would be while his sire would (near forcibly) throw him into his bathtub to bathe together, because Alucard was just like that, indulging in everything at the same time, wanting to drink strong alcohol with Archer in the same “large but just small enough for two grown men to be uncomfortably snuggled against one another in a tub”―ideally (for Alucard and Alucard only), they would have had sex while bathing and drinking, but since Archer wouldn’t have any, he mostly just decided to drown him for amusement.

So the happenstance of Archer mixing the two pleasures together would mostly be for an occasion where he had company to drink with.

has jael ever had an immediate attraction to someone, when courting hasn’t been involved? does he like doing grand gestures for a s/o? has he ever been courted?

That’s another good question !! Jael is quite a shallow person when attraction is involved. So, to put it elegantly, when someone’s body is showing great sexual assets, he does have this immediate attraction, even if they don’t directly make a move on him.

There is no real way for the moment to know if Jael likes grand gestures from a significant other, because he’s never had a grand gesture that was actually thoughtful about his person done to him. Every time it was made, it was a traditionally more of the shallow, generic type of grand gesture, like a surprise party or large gifts that “anyone would like”, but never something that could truly touch him. I’d tend to say that he doesn’t like those, but something that was truly thought through and very personal to him ? Given he’s a pretty laid back and low-key kind of romantic partner, I wouldn’t know exactly yet !

Jael has been courted in the past. As a jock type person and a guy who grew into a typically masculine good-looking white man in North America, it is not hard to imagine people making a move on him, even in the more sentimental way, all cisfemales, as he always gave too much of a I’m absolutely straight vibe. Unfortunately for those who flirted with more romantic and emotionally invested type of thoughts, Jael never (and may never?) fulfilled those expectations, albeit not on purpose.

what would archer do if his immortality was suddenly gone? would he react? would he worry about his mortality?

It would be quite a shock for sure, as it was already a massive trauma AND shock to be suddenly turned in one of the most painful way possible and be hit in the face with the fact that everything about his nature was to change, for eternity. However, I do believe that after time spent to come in terms with this, Archer ultimately wouldn’t mind so much. Even as a vampire, some form of mortality always loomed, and his cynical, depressive mindset always thought of the worst-case scenario. The immortality did give him some courage to make some leaps, but he would keep on living the same way he does right now. Because as a vampire or a human, Archer only tries to live his life (or unlife(?)) one day at a time.

when it comes to quinn’s...slimy limbs, has he ever throttled someone to death? does he found the thought horrific? is he overstimulated, scent wise, when it comes to being in an environment that is alight with smells?

Quinn has, so far, never used his limbs in an offensive way. It simply doesn’t compute with his prey-leaning instincts. He and his slime peers are no predators, and he has never seen his extra arms as something which could potentially cause harm to someone, only something practical for himself to reach farther places in a timely fashion. Given he still hasn’t fully developed nor explored the potential of his tentacles in Earth’s gravity, a lot is open to possibilities, especially now that he’s maturing amongst humans, and his thoughts are becoming more concrete.

That’s a very good supposition because yes, Quinn is VERY sensitive to scents !! Much like multiple mammals. Given his prey role, his senses are very aware of what surrounds him, and his scent is very sensitive, as it is so much more reliable than sight when wanting to survive. Quinn’s sense of smell, like all other senses is felt like a closer to a human (or more like a mammal since it’s so much more accute) when in a human form, while it is computed very differently while a slime, but to the same result. Quinn associates scents much like an animal does, as in he is not necessarily disgusted by their sources unlike a lot of humans (say, for example, trash and body odors), but seeing them as identifiers. And, just like certain animals, his emotional response is also dictated by what he smells, like a loved one for example.

if roy could give up one insecurity/normalization of something he dislikes, what would it be? does he expect to live a long, full life? if not, does he have some sort of twisted bucklist to complete?

I assume you mean anything in the world ? If that is so I think that Roy would like to suppress entirely blissful ignorance, especially the type which people decide to stay in. Things like people reposting cute seals pictures with “uwu so cute” while they take no care of the environment are what greatly grind his gear. He would take someone who actively dislikes seals and the environment and has full conscience of the consequences of their action than someone who starts to make jokes when confronted by such things. From small to crucial matters.

Roy doesn’t expect to live a long, full life, as he is very lonely, and aims to live a life without regrets, even if it is not necessarily a happy one. However, you may argue he has already lived a long life. As far as bucklists go, yes, actually ! He has one, which is, to make it short, full of goals to control how other people think and act, and is basically impossible to achieve.

when it comes to archer’s and olu’s ( @nvrcmplt ) relationship, does archer have any hang ups. are there desires he’s yet to explore with the lion? does he trust him? do they trust each other? does he ever....wonder about what if they never met?

That is another great and also embarrassing question !

Archer would... love to explore the very limit of how much abuse Oluwayemisi can take in the bedroom, but abstain to do so given the lion’s antecedents with genuine, non-roleplay abuse which Archer was key in being responsible for it*. The desire DOES show, especially when he is topping, atop of how much of a bloody mess both their maw and claws can do.

*So, for those who didn’t know, Archer played a key resource role with the people responsible for Oluwayemisi’s pride death, torture, enslavement, experimentation, you name it, which only left his son Osakwe luckily estranged with a healthy adoptive family, and Oluwayemisi a slave forced to fight in pits like an animal while being treated like a piece of meat. Not knowing how much he had actually been involved with Olu as he and his kind were, at the times, for Archer, numbers and words in business emails related to atrocities he had been numbed of, Archer fell in lust sponsored Oluwayemisi’s fights. And, as Oluwayemisi turned out to be very intelligent which just made the whole lust thing way worst, the two of them started to have actual discussions and rapports, despite the discrepancy in power role. Olu showed a care and thoughtful, wise responses to his antics that Archer couldn’t have cared if the second he dropped his guard he’d find out it was all a scheme to kill him and run away, he had just fallen too deeply in love. And he’d gladly have been ripped apart by someone he already found so great.

The thing is, Archer is very aware of how unusual the kink scene can be to Oluwayemisi. The rawer type of violence they can use at times plays on familiar, animal instincts the both of them carry, but more elaborate plays is potentially puzzling. Olu has been very receptive to a lot of Archer’s material, but never to the extent he’d take it if possible. Because a) Archer is too afraid to ask (a rare occurence) b) he loves Oluwayemisi way more than risking triggering something and c) even with his moral ambiguities and wrongs, Archer can definitely see the amount of fucked up this would imply.

Since they, although messily because as you can read Archer is just like that when things reach a personal level, are open to sexual encounters outside their relationship, Archer contents himself with letting out this preference out on willing (or not really all the time...) partners who know they are into it.

Does Archer trust Oluwayemisi ? He would love to say yes, but, ultimately, no, Archer doesn’t trust Olu. Despite everything the lion could tell him, Archer is sure that, if the right mother material would come up, he would rather Oluwayemisi leaves him for the freer lifestyle he tore him away from. He is sure that, if it came down to it, Olu would choose his son over him and he would be right to do so. And, most of all, Archer is sure that, as Olu discover more about him, he will end up hating him, like he should have done from the very beginning.

Do they trust each others ? There’s so little change in the wording, yet my answer would be the total opposite, I do think that Olu and Archer trust one another. They trust one another to love and care for the other, trust that they will both take into account the other’s desires and needs. That they will both compromise if one has different preferences than the other. As chaotic as Archer can be, they actually have quite a stable, solid relationship going on. On top of all this, Oluwayemisi can read Archer like an absolute open book, which Archer has no idea on how obvious he is to Olu’s eyes. This makes Olu’s view of Archer drastically different and much more stable.

Does Archer wonder if he never met Olu. He does, a lot. Because of his insecurities on how much he finds himself out of Olu’s league. Archer thinks that he may have never found out, and that he doesn’t even admit it to himself and probably never will but that is only the truth, that Archer needed to be literally fucked as hard as he had fucked others over in his life. That he yearned to be punished so badly and still does. The need to have at his side a powerful person who’d constantly challenge him, to punish and be punished. Archer thinks he could have continued settling with people he can use, weaker people he can play around with as they kneel and beg to be abused by him. That he would have thought that finally admitting he was into men was enough, and there was nothing else more to admit to himself.

Help me when it comes to them I write so much.

does jael ever worry about his age when it comes to sex? or relationships? even for like casual things with friends? is he up to date on slang and such with the younger generation lol ?

That is both hilarious and amazing thank you so much hahahaha !

Jael is someone who is at the peak of shape given his lifestyle and profession, so he never truly worried about his age when sex was on the table. If anything, with his age, he worries more about his practical, physical skills degrading with time, and him not being able to perform his job and protect his brothers and sisters in arms efficiently, especially since he has the role of the heavy stuff in his unit.

On relationships, however, as much as he’d hate to admit, yes. Jael thinks he has become way too old to have a significant relationship, but that is something he actually gave up on pretty early on, as he was never good at this kind of things. It is one thing to dream about a fulfilling romance, another to put up with the hardships that comes with a real one.

When it comes to friendship, Jael does have a hard time. However, age is less of an issue than his lifestyle. Not everyone is military and can bond with one who has been so deeply in it. It is a unique culture, a unique mindset. Some people in service are more flexible, but those like Jael who had service define all they are have a harder time bonding with others that are not on the job, and an even harder time bonding with people in service who are not in active duty anymore, as things can degrade rapidly.

Is Jael up for woohoo and such with younger people ? Absolutely. I mean he did... kinky stuff under a restaurant table with someone who seemed younger ( @lightpersists wink wonk). When you go past the weird mask thing and the foul mouth, he finds himself often attracting people in their early thirties or even twenties. Jael doesn’t really... have a moral compass on the matter. It is pretty much “as long as it is legal I’m good” type of deal, and even then he’s the kind of stupid, irresponsible, yikes man who would believe a 17 yo by word if she said “I’m 20 I just look younger”. (though if we go into specifics, he wouldn’t do it with someone he physically saw looked like a kid he prefers womanly ladies) Younger people are actually less put off by Jael’s appearance and behaviour, so he does tend to naturally be around them. If he hits it off with someone younger than him who is also an adult, it is only natural to him. He doesn’t feel guilty about getting along with groups in their 20s or early 30s, but maybe a bit of shame because, even for him, it sometimes feel a bit off...

#solaoccasum #tysm again for this ;;;#. Quinn's core ( headcanon )#. Kessler's facets ( headcanon )#. Jael's is ( headcanon )#. Spiegel's canon ( headcanon )#long post #AGAIN TYSM THIS WAS SO FUN ??? aaaaaaaa

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drangues · 4 years ago

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Impervious

The Armed Detective Agency was in something of a chaotic frenzy.

This, in and of itself, was not anything new- Day in and out, if one listened hard enough, they could hear the infuriated screams of one Kunikida Doppo as he frantically chased after his coworkers in a futile attempt to get them to complete whatever paperwork they were avoiding that day. Hearing the terrified screams of the patients- Or perhaps, the victims- Of one Yosano Akiko’s medical practices also wasn’t too out of the norm, for the area.

What was out of the norm was the genuinely fearful air about the workers of the Agency- Every single one of them was rushed, in some way, and they all bore a frenzied energy that seemed to refuse the idea of sitting still.

And if one looked into the Agency’s office space, they’d find the reason why.

xxx—xxx—xxx

There was not a single member of the Armed Detective Agency that was having a good day, and it wasn’t even in the “we’ll laugh about this later!” way that Dazai Osamu liked to torment his coworkers with. To be fair, the man himself was hardly in the mood to be pulling pranks and making a mockery of everyone- And it was all for one simple reason.

Nakajima Atsushi had gone missing.

He wasn’t sick or calling out of work for some other reason, because Izumi Kyōka had seen him before she left their shared apartment, Kunikida had called to make certain that he wasn’t feeling ill and had forgotten to notify them, and Dazai had even broken into the apartment (without asking Kyōka) after all was said and done, just to double check.

He wasn’t lost in the depths of Yokohama, because Miyazawa Kenji and the Tanizaki siblings, Jun’ichirō and Naomi, had been combing through the city on foot to make sure he hadn’t gotten sucked into any trouble, and Tayama Katai has been looking through the security records in every available place, both legally and illegally, just to cover all their bases.

He wasn’t in the custody of the Port Mafia, which they admittedly only knew because at least three separate people would have sent a message to gloat about having captured the weretiger.

(Also, Dazai had not-so-secretly pulled some of his older strings and broken out a few threats of dismemberment, but that was neither here nor there.)

No one knew where the white-haired male had gone, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that someone outside of the usual suspects had interfered in their lives.

Now if only they knew who the hell this new subject was.

xxx—xxx—xxx

When he opened his eyes, it became clear to Atsushi that something had gone very wrong between Point A and Point B on his way to work.

Admittedly, the day had started off somewhat badly to begin with- Kyōka has dropped the breakfast crêpe he’d made her on her way out the door, so he’d promised to make her a new one while she went on ahead. Then, once he’d finished with it, he’d realized that he was late, and that he was certain to get an earful from Kunikida about it. So he’d stepped up the pace and started running for the Agency, and then-

And then-

And then what?

He… Remembers, somewhat vaguely, someone stopping him as he ran. They wanted something, he thinks. Then… Nothing. The last thing he remembered seeing was-

Ah, he thinks, somewhat dully, I dropped the crêpe.

It wasn’t actually that big of an issue, all things considered- Clearly, he’d been kidnapped- And yet, that’s what stuck out at him. That’s what he remembered.

How stupid.

You couldn’t have remembered something actually useful? Your captor’s face, perhaps? Your surroundings?

Useless, awful beast-

Atsushi breathed in. Breathed out. Not right now. He couldn’t handle hallucinations right now. He needed to think. Whoever took him had to want something, right? Something from the Agency?

But what, and why-

Creeeaaak.

The door opens, slowly and loudly, and for the first time, he realized that he was, in fact in an inclosed space- He just hadn’t thought to use his senses to confirm it. He isn’t wearing a blindfold, but the light is flickering and dull- Certainly dim enough to offset anyone else, if they’d been caught. The air is stale, too, an old kind of scent that makes him think of earth and dirt- Underground, then. Maybe.

How would you know? You can barely even function as a detective on a normal day, much less when you’ve been taken by someone.

Should’ve left you to die in a ditch.

Should’ve let you starve.

Should’ve left you rotting in the basement-

With a shaky sigh, Atsushi manages to ignore the words that have always haunted him, and the figure of a man standing just at the corners of his vision. Instead, he takes in his captor.

They’re taller- Taller than him, anyways- With messy, frantically rumpled brown hair and wild, dark brown eyes. He looks like he just rolled out of bed- Or like he’s been too worked up to take care of himself.

Atsushi catches a whiff of his scent and immediately decides its the latter.

He doesn’t… Register everything the man says- He’s still groggy from being unconscious, and there’s a distractingly sickening pit in his stomach that gets deeper the more this man talks.

Dangerous.

Run.

Stay away.

Run

Run.

Run!

And it’s only as the man tightens his restraints and lets out an unhinged laugh that Atsushi realizes, with a dullness that only comes from experience-

Oh.

There’s a nail above his foot, and a few more set aside.

His captor raises a hammer.

I’ve seen your kind before.

Atsushi doesn’t scream.

xxx—xxx—xxx

It takes them four days, some intense virtual searching from Katai, and the intervention of Edogawa Ranpo (Who had been away on a mission for the Agency for the first three days, and who they hadn’t been able to contact) for the Agency to realize when Atsushi was taken, who took him, and where he might be at the moment.

Most alarmingly, alongside this information, they discover what might be happening to the weretiger while they tried to find him.

Hanmura Ryō was a man with an extensive criminal history, and the connections to make sure he never really had to suffer for it. He was well know for kidnapping and torturing people- Usually, those people are between the ages of seventeen and twenty one, and they mostly had silver or white hair. This torture could apparently range from a single day to a month, and he’d initially killed his victims after becoming bored of them.

Then his connections had proven to be powerful enough to keep him from facing any real consequences, and he took to leaving his victims alive after he was done with them- A last sort of mockery on their inability to do anything to him.

Needless to say, this information only worked the Agency up even further.

After all, Atsushi, as far as they were aware, had never really had any experience with being tortured- Which wasn’t to say that they’d be alright if he did have experience with it, but it made them worried that it would break him irreparably.

(Of course, unknown to them- Or perhaps, ignored by them- Atsushi did, in fact, have experience in that field.

It wasn’t his fault they didn’t believe him.)

Luckily, it only took a few more minutes of digging from Katai (Minutes filled with some very colorful threats from Dazai, and a distinctly murderous feeling from Kyōka) to narrow down the kidnapper’s location- And, with any luck, it will be Atsushi’s location, as well.

It’s Dazai, Yosano, and Kunikida that end up getting in the car to go on their rescue mission.

(Kyōka had wanted to go, but Fukuzawa Yukichi had very firmly put his foot down, regardless of her past experiences, and told her that Atsushi would much rather have the first face he sees upon returning be that of his little sister.

She was now waiting very stubbornly by the door to be exactly that, but he’d take what he could get.)

They just hoped they wouldn’t be too late.

xxx—xxx—xxx

Atsushi doesn’t know how long it’s been, exactly, but he does know that he’s… Surprised? At how little this is all affecting him.

Oh, don’t misunderstand- He’s terrified out of his mind at being in a place that he never asked to be in, that’s so similar to a place he hated (Hates? Hated? Dazai and Jun’ichirō had made things so confusing…). He’s terrified that he can’t bring himself to use his Ability in such a place. He’s terrified that the Agency might not come for him- Because they can’t? Or worse, because they don’t want to.

But- While the nails going up and down his arms and his legs hurt- The torture itself isn’t getting to him. Oh, sure, the hot pokers that his captor had shoved in his gut hurt something awful, and getting his bones broken, only for them to heal, was an… Interesting experience, but.

But this wasn’t anything he hadn’t dealt with before. If anything, it was tame in comparison.

The man hasn’t even tried to sew his mouth shut, like one of the Sister had when he was a child. He isn’t being forced to do labor while injured. There’s blood- His blood- But he isn’t being forced to clean it up. Words on his own worthlessness as a human being aren’t being forced into his head, day in and day out.

Well, they are being forced there, but he isn’t sure if a hallucination counts- It isn’t anything new, after all.

It hurts- Everything the man does hurts. His body aches, and he knows that, without Byakko, he’d be irreparably broken, physically speaking.

But he’s used to this sort of thing. “This sort of thing” is one of his earliest memories.

His captor screams, frustration coating his voice as he kicks Atsushi’s chair down. The pokers twist in their wounds, making him wince, but he still doesn’t make much of a sound at the feeling.

Breath in, breath out.

The man shrieks again, foot coming down on his spine with an audible crack for what must be the fifth time.

Remember- What’s better than being alive?

xxx—xxx—xxx

It doesn’t take all that long for the trio to arrive at their location- A fairly normal house, all things considered, if somewhat rundown and a bit out of date. The key feature is, of course, the basement they’re almost entirely certain is holding Atsushi.

(Everyone hopes that’s where he is, at least. They’re pretty sure that Dazai will actually go on a killing spree if it isn’t- And they don’t think they’d stop him.)

The entire building is silent upon initial observation, though, and none of them are quite sure how to feel about that.

Is he okay?

Is he gagged?

Is he dead is he dead is he-

Yosano enters first, and Dazai would complain if he didn’t know it was to give her quick access to Atsushi if he had a fatal injury. (Also, she was generally a badass, but that’s another story, entirely.) The two men follow behind, all three quiet as they scan the first room for anything potentially alarming.

There isn’t much, really. Just some dull, ratty carpets, thrown over the floor in haste, and cracking wallpaper.

Also, there’s a padlocked door at the far end, and they could’ve sworn there was screaming of some sort.

It doesn’t take much more than that for them to break down the offending door, which was apparently soundproofed somehow, because the screaming, while still indistinct, became much louder without it. In fact, the screaming itself didn’t even stop at the noise of the door falling.

They take the stairs two at a time, with the exception of Dazai, who simply skips walking down entirely to throw himself at the bottom, hitting the floor in a neat roll as he gets back up.

All three of them get weapons out, turning to face the source of the noise.

None of them were quite expecting what they saw.

xxx—xxx—xxx

Atsushi doesn’t know what he did to make his captor so mad, but he’s kind of wishing he hadn’t done it, regardless.

The man will. Not. Stop. Screaming.

For someone with sensitive ears, like Atsushi, it’s hardly a pleasant experience, and he isn’t entirely certain what he’s yelling about in the first place- Wasn’t he the kidnapped one, here?

He shifted again, causing the plethora of nails, pokers, and stakes that his captor and pressed into his body to tug at him uncomfortably- Any bruises created from the beatings he’d been given had long since healed, much to the man’s ire, and he’d eventually chosen to keep going with the only things that left lasting marks.

(That they only left lasting marks because he wouldn’t remove them was ignored, apparently.)

His head fell back against the dirt floor he’d been laying on ever since the man had knocked over the chair that was holding him.

You deserve this.

Weak. Useless. Mindless.

It’s your own fault, couldn’t even hear him coming-

Monster monster monster monster-

He shut his eyes, trying to block out the voices hissing in his ears- But concentrating was a lot harder with the hunger twisting in his gut. His captor hardly felt the need to feed him, after all.

A foot lashed out, driving a trio of nails on his collarbone deeper into his body, and he choked at the sensation.

It still wasn’t a scream, though, and the man snarled, foot reeling back to repeat his actions-

Thu-thud thu-thud thu-thud-

THUMP.

If he’d been using them, Atsushi’s tiger ears would’ve twitched at the noises- As it stood, he simply raised his head, attempting to peer into the front of the room, where his captor typically used as his entrance and exit.

He blinked.

To be fair, he didn’t think the man was expecting the sight behind him, either, if the look on his face as he twisted around was any indication.

Behind him stood Dazai Osamu, Yosano Akiko, and Kunikida Doppo of the Armed Detective Agency.

And they did not look happy.

xxx—xxx—xxx

When they found their missing coworker, they’d expected blood- Lots of blood, to be honest. Broken bones, screaming, the whole nine yards- And they technically got that.

They just. Weren’t expecting the screaming to come from Hanmura.

Oh, Atsushi was clearly in pain, sure- His eyes were glassy, and his breathing was far to rapid for their comfort- But he wasn’t screaming or cowering, as they were afraid he’d be.

By all rights, he seemed almost… Used to this.

Had they still been too late? They’d moved as fast as they could-

Had he broken completely?

Was he just stronger than they thought-

God, they hoped he was stronger than they thought he would be-

It takes them only a moment to regain their bearings, and within seconds, Dazai has shot Hanmura in both kneecaps with pinpoint accuracy, with Kunikida moving in to fully restrain him a moment later. Yosano, meanwhile, had immediately moved to Atsushi’s side, carefully removing him from his restraints with some quickly applied bolt cutters and lock picks.

After that, it doesn’t take long at all for her to begin examining one of her newest coworkers- Senior only to Kyōka, really. With as much care as can be afforded, she begins checking the wounds around every intrusion to his body before removing them and allowing the tiger to do its work.

Better safe than sorry, she thinks. Super healing or no, if infection had set in-

She pushes the thought aside, only really intervening in the healing itself to remove any cauterized areas- The fucker had used heated pokers at some point, then.

How lovely.

(And maybe she would typically be more sadistic, but even she has her limits- And she won’t make things worse for Atsushi after he’d just spent four days being tortured.)

Luckily, it takes only five minutes for her to remove all of the nails and stakes and pokers that had been shoved in the silver-haired male’s body, and soon enough, she’s able to help him to his feet, though he’s a bit unsteady, and far, far too light.

(He probably hadn’t been fed at all, and she sees Dazai stomp a foot down on one of Hanmura’s now-broken kneecaps.

Good.)

Once he’s up, she steps aside and let’s Dazai hold Atsushi, instead- The man has been worried out of his mind, after all, and she can’t say she blames him.

True to expectations, Dazai immediately wraps an arm around Atsushi’s back to steady him again before pressing his face into his neck in a sort of half-hug, and after some rather impressive, nonverbal back-and-forth, he convinces him to at least get on his back so that he doesn’t have to walk too much.

(Healed or no, the man had still be starved. So what if he wanted to take care of him a little bit?)

A mutual look between all three rescuers tells them that they’ll talk about this later- About why Atsushi seemed so unaffected, and about how the hell to make sure that Hanmura stays down- But for now, they have more important things to focus on.

It was time to go home.

xxx—xxx—xxx

Author’s Note: Yes! It is I, Nyanon!!! Anyways, you mentioned wanting a fic of the “Atsushi being tortured” idea I sent you on anon- Hopefully this is good enough!

Also, if you’re wondering why Atsushi didn’t just turn into a tiger and eat Hanmura- It was sort of meant to be a “he’s been in this situation before, and just pliantly doing what they wanted was how he survived” sort of thing? Because Trauma. Hopefully that makes sense!

#fic #dazatsu fic #kinda??#bsd fic #bsd fanfic #nyanon #nyatsushi anon #submission #THIS IS AMAZING #I LOVE IT #FUCK #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #if yall wanna send small snippets here then-feel free to do so #I WOULDNT MIND #just pls dont make it angst with sad ending .#thats all i dont want

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fireinmoonshot · 5 years ago

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CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE RISE OF SKYWALKER.

PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR | PART FIVE | PART SIX | PART SEVEN | PART EIGHT | PART NINE | PART TEN | PART ELEVEN Summary: Armitage Hux finds himself strangely fascinated by you, a Resistance fighter and pilot, even though he knows he shouldn’t. You know that there’s much more to him than you see on the surface. Pairing: female!Reader x Armitage Hux Fandom: Star Wars Word Count: 1936 Warnings: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER SPOILERS A/N: I promised I wouldn’t make you wait too long for Part Twelve, but this part was really strangely hard to write, which also explains why it’s so short. But there is also a point in making it so short as I do want it to just read as a snippet of time, as that’s what it is, and a part of time where Armitage and Reader are just sort of... floating in their uncertainties. And then things will start getting on track in the next part for a finale in the next three-four chapters! Anyway, sorry for the wait and I hope you enjoy it! Read it on Ao3 here.

It’s ironic.

The fact that, when you both leave Arkanis, it’s not raining. That there’s a hint of sun on the horizon, and you’re flying away from it. Both of you sat in silence, both of you wanting to say things but not knowing what to say. There have been a million possibilities in mind over the past few hours, but none of them seem right.

You can count the times that you’ve spoken to each other since on one hand.

He hadn’t joined you yesterday, on your final day on Arkanis. He’d chosen to explore – or so he said. For all you know, he could have stayed on the ship all day. You’d been busy back at the markets, making a list of contacts that you could hand over to Poe when you got back.

And then there was the matter of Poe.

You hadn’t left on good terms. You’d left with Poe being wary of Armitage, and you defending him – and now you’re returning barely on speaking terms with Armitage himself. It’s a strange, uncomfortable full circle and you’re not looking forward to the confrontation that’s inevitable when you touch back down on Ajan Kloss.

When you settle into hyperspace, Armitage excuses himself from the cockpit, and you wonder, ever so briefly, if possibly Rey and Poe had been somewhat right all along.

–

Armitage exits the ship before you do, his bag over his shoulder and a slight scowl on his face. He leaves you to pack everything else up, of which there luckily isn’t too much, and you’re half way through doing so when Poe appears behind you, arms crossed.

You assume he’s seen Armitage, then.

“How was your trip?” He asks, a little smugly.

You fix him with a glare. “If you’ve come in here to gloat, I’d really rather you not, Poe. I don’t know what Armitage has told you, but it’s really a lot more complicated than you’re obviously assuming right now.”

Poe furrows his eyebrows. His cheeky mood is gone. “Armitage hasn’t told me anything. I just saw him go, and you didn’t follow. Did something happen?” He’s feeling protective – you can hear it in his voice.

“Do you want me to admit that you told me so? Is that why you’re here?”

He scoffs. “No, I don’t. I’m asking you earnestly. What happened?”

For the first time, you stop what you’re doing and stand up straight. You look him in the eyes and are surprised to find actual, genuine concern in them. But his comments from before are still whirring in your mind, and he’s not the right person to confess everything to. You can’t confess things to someone who might throw it all back in your face later, and so you settle for the next option.

“Is Rey back?”

Poe gives you a look. “Yeah, she’s in the Falcon. Are you going to tell me–“

“No.” You speak simply. “Because honestly, I’m not sure what happened myself.”

You smile weakly at him and hang your bag over your shoulder before you exit the ship yourself. You don’t even contemplate stopping by your quarters as you leave. Your first and only port of call is the Millennium Falcon and Rey. Because if anyone is going to have any kind of advice… you hope it’s her.

–

Rey looks at you with no judgment in her eyes, and it’s exactly what you were hoping to get from her. That’s not what you need right now, judgment. You need understanding. You need to be able to understand what happened yourself, and with Rey being the only other person on Ajan Kloss who had truly had a connection with someone in the First Order other than you, the two of you had created your own bond. Her relationship with Kylo Ren, or Ben, as she often referred to him, was entirely different than yours with Armitage, but you’d found similarities.

“You never tried to talk to him about it?”

“When I did, he shut it down. I don’t want to push him. It’s not fair on him.”

She gives you an unimpressed look. “It’s not fair on you, either.”

You shrug a shoulder and slump down a little in your chair on the Falcon. It had been easier to stay and talk here, because you knew nobody would overhear you. Armitage is… well, you have no idea where he is, but he isn’t anywhere close, and that helps with confessing everything. Everything you’re sure of, anyway.

“I think I just need to give him a bit of space. It’s only been – what, two days? He probably just needs some time to figure out his mind. And even if we never talk about what could have happened… he’s a friend, you know? We all need to come together right now, not split apart. I can’t handle truly losing a friendship… not after Leia.”

Rey reaches over and wraps an arm around your shoulders. “Don’t beat yourself up for what did or didn’t happen. Things will sort themselves out. I trust that. And you should trust that too.”

You give her a small smile. “I’m really glad I didn’t beat you back to Ajan Kloss. What would I have done if I arrived here and needed advice and you weren’t here to give it?”

She laughs a little at that. “I think you probably would have found Rose instead.”

“Speaking of Rose, you wouldn’t happen to know where she is, would you?”

Rey nods. “Last time I saw her she was talking to Beaumont by Leia’s ship. Why?”

“Us girls, we need to stick together.”

That was more important now than ever.

–

Armitage, as soon as he steps inside your quarters, lets out a long breath of air and buries his head in his hands. He’s ruined everything. He can’t even look at you properly anymore, and any life he felt he was starting to form here on Ajan Kloss may as well be a mere memory in his mind.

He allows himself to wonder, briefly, how different things could be if you hadn’t been interrupted that night. Or if you’d still be mad at him – because you had to be. You had to be ashamed of his actions, of his lapse in judgment. He’d never felt a feeling quite like the one he felt with you that night, and he’d been silly enough to actually try and follow it. He hadn’t known not to.

He sighs and looks down at his makeshift bed, still on the floor of his quarters, and then moves to dismantle it. He can’t sleep here anymore. He’ll find alternate quarters. But he won’t put you through dealing with his company any longer.

He ensures that he picks up his old First Order uniform, and then he leaves your quarters, blankets and pillow in hand, too, intending to find a new place to sleep. A place where he could try his best to move on.

–

You see Armitage again for the first time all day at dinner that night. He’s sitting alone, eating at the very opposite end of the tables that have been set up for you all, and you’re sitting with Rey and Rose. You’ve never wanted anything more than to walk over and sit with him.

But he probably wouldn’t be very happy with that if you did.

Rose notices you staring. “You’re just torturing yourself, you know that? Why don’t you just go and try to talk to him if you’re just going to stare at him anyway? He can probably feel your eyes burning a hole in the side of his head.”

You tear your gaze away from Armitage and back to Rose. “No, I’m giving him space.”

“Then actually give him the space and stop staring,” Rose hums. “I could really use your help tomorrow. We’re packing up a bunch of old files and taking them out to be properly archived. There are more there than we realised.”

It doesn’t take long for you to agree to help. Especially because you know it’ll help to get your mind off of Armitage, at least for a little while. And that’s what you need right now – Rose is right. You’re giving him space, and you need to follow through on that.

For the rest of dinner, you mostly play with your food rather than eat it. But you are happy to be home, since Ajan Kloss seems to be more of a home than anywhere else, even Arkanis, nowadays. You’d managed to find a good thing on Arkanis in the locals that were willing to talk to you, despite being thrown out of the bar, but many of your good memories had been marred by the incident with Armitage.

You can’t blame yourself for wanting to get back into the swing of things on Ajan Kloss sooner rather than later.

But it’s an entire accident when you run into Armitage while taking your plate up to be emptied and washed. He’s standing right beside you and for a second, you don’t even realise it. Rey and Rose are staring at the both of you from afar, wondering if they should intervene, when Armitage suddenly speaks.

“I should tell you that I’ve removed my belongings from your quarters and moved them into my own,” he starts, and you feel like your heart is in your throat. “With people leaving, there are quite a few spare now. I should have moved out sooner.”

You hadn’t even thought about that. About Armitage sharing your quarters, and you do your best to ignore the sting of disappointment at his confession. “Right, well… if that’s what you want, I won’t argue.”

He nods. “It is what I want.”

You nearly flinch at the harshness in his voice. But something else pushes you to reply – even though nearly everything in you is telling you to just walk away before things get ugly. It might be the way he speaks with you now in such a dismissive way, or it might be something else entirely, but your idea of giving him space just… isn’t going to work if he’s going to act so strangely with you in the times you do run into each other and find yourselves unable to help it.

“Listen, Armitage,” you turn to face him, and he meets your eyes for a second before turning to stare down at his feet. “I don’t know what happened on Arkanis. But I want you to know I’m not mad at you. I just– I’d really like it if we could be friends, or at least something similar to friends. I can’t take anymore heartbreak right now, not after losing Leia, not after Snap or any of the other pilots and friends I lost in that attack on Exegol.”

You hold out a hand towards him.

“What do you say? Friends?”

And he places his hand in yours.

–

Rose and Rey look at you strangely as you sit back down at their table.

“I’m guessing you saw all of that?” You ask, with a small smile.

“Uh, yes,” Rose nods. She turns and glances at where Armitage is still standing, emptying off his plate where you’d left him. She shakes her head, slightly amused, and then turns back around to look at you. “You like him.”

You furrow your eyebrows. “Of course I like him. We’re friends, despite everything that didn’t happen on Arkanis. We just agreed to be friends again. I like you and you’re my friends.”

Rose and Rey share a small look, and they slowly start to smile.

–

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alecmagnuslwb · 4 years ago

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Would It Be Enough If I Could Never Give You Peace?

Writer’s Month 2020 Day Twenty-Seven

Read on AO3

John Constantine doesn’t dream. Not really and definitely not since he was a child.

If he’s lucky his sleep is filled with simple, blissful nothingness. Just darkness plain and soothing for however many minutes or hours he can manage to get.

If he’s unlucky, which he often is, he has nightmares. Some nights it’s the blazing twisted memories of his father, bitter and resentful that John survived and his mother didn’t. Some nights it’s the horrors he’s already just barely survived replaying over and over again. Other nights, some of the worst nights it’s the heart crushing fears that live inside him, watching Zatanna die in his arms disappointment in her eyes the blame of it all on him, Boston trapped on the River Styx tortured for eternity with John on the other side nothing he can do to save his friend.

But most nights it’s visions of what inevitably awaits him one day when his time comes. A macabre mixture of every nightmare he’s accustomed to with the burn of hellfire, the burrowing scratch of hell beasts’ claws and the whispers of the devil and demons in his ears added on.

Tonight is unfortunately one of those nights.

John wakes up in a sweat his back ramrod straight and his hands grasping the sheets so hard they’re nearly tearing. Tonight’s particular brand of hell had started off with the normal fire and brimstone he sees often enough, the added fuckery of a black-eyed bastard wearing Zee’s face and telling him all the things he’s done to ruin her was new. A brand of nightmare he sure as hell never asked for.

He looks over to his left and sees Zee lying there still sleeping peacefully face down her back exposed in the moonlight and her face turned his way.

He still hears the echo of the demon using her voice rolling through his head, but the sight of her whole and human eases his hands from the sheets and lessens the tension in his back slightly. He moves his hands to run through his hair damp with sweat before slipping quietly from the bed. He bends over grabbing the pants he hastily discarded earlier from the floor slipping them on and checking the pocket to ensure his cigarettes and lighter are still there.

He casts one last look at Zee making sure he hasn’t woken her before slipping out onto the balcony. The night air is just on the right side of warm, a cool breeze blowing across him. He leans forward on the wall and lights a cigarette taking a long drag.

“All that good, all that light and your darkness stamped it out, dirtied it with your damnation, no matter how much you love me the hell you brought into my life never made it worth it,” the demon wearing Zatanna had said in his dreams as it dug it’s nails into his chest, into his heart literally and metaphorically.

He hates how much he believes it. Hates himself enough to believe it.

He’s never thought he was good enough for her, with the amount of times he’s felt like he failed her he probably never will. He constantly feels like he’s wasting her honor, her heart by being the person who gets to hold it like no one else does. He loves her more than anything else in the world, he’d kill for her, die for her, but none of that seems like enough with the baggage he lays at her feet.

She’ll never know rest, never know real true peace as long as she loves him, not than he can stop her from doing so most people don’t realize she’s twice as stubborn as he is when it comes down to what matters most to her.

His damnation, his darkness will always creep into her light and bring her trouble.

Yet, she chooses him. She chooses to stay and to take him back time and again. He can’t help but worry that one day she’ll look back at it all with regret, a life wasted, a love sullied.

He feels the sting of a burn at his fingertips and looks down to realize he’s let his cigarette burn down to the end while looking out into the blank night sky, lost in spiraling thoughts and nightmares still edging at his mind.

He flicks the butt of it over the wall and watches as the flickering ember dies out and it drifts down to the empty concrete below. He reaches over to where he’s sat the pack and lighter on the wall and pulls another cigarette out intent on actually smoking this one.

He focuses on nothing, trying to shake the nightmare from his bones and silence the echo of the voice that wasn’t actually Zatanna from his mind.

He tries to let logic rule out over his own shitty self-image and doubts.

For all the things she’s said to him over the years, even the words born from anger, she’d never said anything close to what the demon in his dreams spouted. She’s her own woman and not even John’s darkness could take away her light. She’d never call him not worth it either, no matter if he thinks it true, to her anyone she loves is worth everything. It’s all a part of the light she is, the light she holds that can’t be stamped out.

He takes another long drag standing up to his full height moving his neck side to side to release some more of the tension running along his back and then feels two arms wrap around his waist, a forehead rest between his shoulder blades.

“Nightmare?” Zatanna says voice low like she’s trying not to wake the city below. He nods reaching his free arm back to loosely embrace her. The tension bleeds out of him at her touch, whether it’s magic or just her gentleness he’s not sure but he figures it’s always a bit of both with her.

There’s no point in lying to her, she knows he doesn’t dream; what the nightmare was about he won’t say and luckily she won’t push him to, she never does, always allowing him to come to her in his own time if he needs to. She doesn’t need to hear about a twisted demonic version of her berating and torturing him.

“Hm?” she says taking his arm and slipping around to settle herself between the front of his body and the wall he was leaning on. He realizes then she hadn’t seen or felt his nod.

He moves his arm holding the cigarette from where it was braced against the wall careful not to catch on her skin or the silky robe she’s put on. He takes another drag blowing the smoke out to the side away from her face before he answers her.

“Yeah,” he says pressing closer to her resting his free hand on her waist.

“Want to talk about it?” she asks and he shakes his head. “Okay,” she says quietly one hand caressing his neck softly the other resting over his heart.

They stay that way for a while, quiet in each other’s embrace. Slowly he finally settles down from the nightmare completely, Zee’s touch and soft comfort grounding him back in reality instead of the hell that he sees when he closes his eyes.

“Is how much I love you enough in return for all the shit you have to put up with from me?” he asks suddenly words he really didn’t allow himself to say out loud coming out anyways. Zatanna is quiet her eyes meeting his in concern and deep consideration. She reaches up and takes the cigarette from between his lips taking a drag for herself before stamping it out and flicking it over the wall.

He knows whatever she’s about to say must be important if she took a smoke to give herself a minute to say it right. She tolerates his nasty habit at best and only rarely in times of great stress or heavy consideration actually partakes in it.

She holds the sides of his neck firmly ensuring his eyes stay on hers.

“Whatever you give me will always be enough as long as you give it willingly. All the rest, all the trouble, as long as I can help you fight it and you do the same for me when I’ve got my own that’s just noise baby,” she says her words earnest and firm.

Goddamn he’ll never understand how a woman as incredible as her loves him.

“Okay,” he says fully leaning into her his arms wrapping around her waist and resting his head in the crook of her neck. She embraces him back her hand rubbing slow smooth circles into his back. Maybe one day he’ll actually have enough self-worth to completely believe what she’s saying, for now though meeting her halfway will have to do.

She holds him for a long time until the cool breeze gets a little too chilly and she pulls him inside and back to bed. She wraps him up in her arms once they’re both settled under the covers and when he slowly falls back asleep to the gentle rise and fall of her chest against his back he still doesn’t dream, but it’s the peaceful kind of sleep he so rarely gets, the kind that only her presence can really bring about these days.

#my fic #writersmonth2020 #johnzee #john constantine #zatanna zatara

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baijingshen · 4 years ago

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@chordbound sent: Motor - Our muses having sex in a car – modern nieyao B) [NSFW]

They were just going to talk BUSINESS, that was the plan, the whole intention behind this meeting. Maybe Nie Mingjue is lying to himself a little bit when he thinks that - but it really doesn’t fucking matter what his intentions were at any point of the night when Meng Yao is sitting in his lap, grinding down on his already growing erection and whispering sweet obscenities into his ear. He could be saying just about anything; when they’re together like this the sound of his voice alone is enough to get Mingjue’s blood pumping. His hands are roaming, stroking over the smooth fabric of Yao’s shirt and feeling the heat of his skin underneath it. It makes him want to tear it off, just rip it to shreds and ravage him.. but that’s not so simple.

“Back,” Mingjue grunts as he breaks away from kissing Yao for a moment, deciding, after hitting his knee on the steering wheel - twice - and his hand on the gear shift, that doing this in the driver’s seat is simply IMPOSSIBLE. Meng Yao says something that sounds suspiciously like ‘bossy’ but complies regardless, demonstrating a noteworthy flexibility by climbing out of Mingjue’s lap and into the back of the car through the gap between the driver and the passenger seat without any trouble. Nie Mingjue only considers following suit for a second before he decides that he is too old for this and gets out of the car through the driver’s door to join Meng Yao on the backseat the old-fashioned way.

He’s over him in a heartbeat, pressing him down into the leather seats with the weight of his own body, their lips back to kissing HUNGRILY, like they’ve both been craving this for months. (It hasn’t been months, but weeks. What else but intense longing could make them behave like horny teenagers, getting it on in a car in the relative darkness of the company’s underground carpark?) Meng Yao’s hands are moving over Mingjue’s body nimbly, loosening his tie and unbuttoning his shirt, pulling it from his pants after opening the button there too. Mingjue is far less elegant about it, just tears Yao’s shirt open after failing to open the last few buttons without looking down. It earns him a scolding look and a sigh but he only counters it with an unusually mischievous smile. “I’ll buy you a new one,” he whispers against Meng Yao’s lips and for a moment he feels the other’s hand on his arm tighten. “I can buy my own shirts, Mr. Nie,” Yao says and a shiver runs down Mingjue’s spine at the way he addresses him. Meng Yao is doing it on purpose and he knows exactly what it does to him. Nie Mingjue is sure of that, mostly because he’s heard his first name from Yao’s lips before - albeit gasped and barely intelligible. (A good memory.)

Meng Yao’s hands are in his hair, his lips on his jaw, and Mingjue tries to get out of his pants, at least partially, bumping into the driver’s seat with his elbow and into the door behind him with his foot. A frustrated groan escapes him that makes Yao pause for a moment and look up. “Something wrong?” he asks and Mingjue swears the look on his face is the same one he’s seen there whenever a point of disagreement comes up in the negotiations and Yao goes straight into fixing it mode. It’s equally as entertaining as it is impressive. “I’m too big,” he explains, pushing himself up a bit by resting his hands next to Yao’s body. The look on Meng Yao’s face turns into a lewd smile. “I’ve found you to fit quite perfectly, Nie Mingjue..” he says with the voice of an angel and Mingjue’s cheeks heat up with a blush that the darkness inside the car luckily swallows.

“For the car,” he explains even though he has no doubt that Meng Yao understood exactly what he meant. “Oh.. we could--” Yao starts but Mingjue doesn’t let him finish. Moving one arm under his body he pulls him against his chest while shifting from hovering horizontally into sitting on the backseat the way it was actually designed, with Yao in his lap. “Much better.” Nie Mingjue takes a moment to admire the man sitting on him, his mussed up hair and his big dark eyes that catch the glow of a faint light outside the car. He’s so beautiful it makes Mingjue’s heart roar with love and desire and an ugly violent need, somewhere deep down, to POSSESS him. He shouldn’t feel this way. This can’t be more than what it is now; a string of stupidly careless meetings somewhere in the dark, a temporary weakness, an indulgence. And yet.. to think that this is going to end and he won’t be allowed to touch Meng Yao anymore.. it makes Mingjue’s heart sting.

“What are you looking at?” Meng Yao asks, his hand brushing over Mingjue’s cheek, thumb stroking over his lower lip. Mingjue opens his mouth and takes it between his lips for a moment, brushing his tongue against the tip. Everything I ever wanted, Mingjue thinks and, “You,” he says. Meng Yao smiles and withdraws his hand as he leans in. The kiss they share is sweeter than the ones who came before, slower and gentler somehow, but the heat and desperation returns to their touches not long after. Mingjue’s hands tug at Meng Yao’s pants until he lifts off his lap to slip out of them (and his underwear), pushing them down his legs until he can get one of them free. As tempting as it is to sit back and watch the show, Nie Mingjue uses the time to push his own pants down to his knees, finally freeing his cock, which is achingly hard by now. Meng Yao seems PLEASED by the sight, judging by the smile that flashes over his face as he moves back on Mingjue’s lap, not quite sitting down yet but being close enough their bodies touch and draw a gasp from him.

He seems to consider teasing Mingjue for a second, his hand reaching between them to curl around him and give him a few slow strokes, but it’s apparent he doesn’t have the patience for it anymore either. Remembering something, he reaches for his discarded pants and produces a bottle of lube that brings back memories of their last encounter. “Planned ahead?” Nie Mingjue asks and Meng Yao shoots him a look that implies he, too, is thinking of last time. Yao shuffles closer, his knees on the seat next to Mingjue’s thighs, and pours some lube onto his palm. Mingjue notices some of it dribbling onto the leather between his legs but can’t find it in himself to care. His mouth goes a little dry when he watches Yao’s fingers, slick with lube, move between his legs and push inside him without any hesitation. It’s not the first time they do this and realistically neither one of them has the patience to draw this out, but Mingjue can’t help feel a light pang of disappointment over the fact that he won’t get to watch Meng Yao prepare himself properly. It’s just his fingers pushing in and out a few times before his hand withdraws and wraps around Mingjue’s dick instead, the gel nice and warm from Yao’s hand as he spreads it on him. (His treatment is equally short, Meng Yao’s impatience quite palpable.)

The hand is wiped clean on Mingjue’s shirt - some kind of payback he assumes - and then finally - Meng Yao sinks down on him and Mingjue’s head falls back against the car seat. He stays still until he’s bottomed out, Yao’s thighs flat on his, but his hands move to his hip and ever so slightly pull him down more. Meng Yao is hot and tight and the way he arches his back is driving Mingjue crazy. He’s not sure if Yao actually needs the time he takes before he moves or if he’s doing it just to TORTURE him, but it’s all he can do to stay still and wait. When Yao finally moves again it draws a breathy curse from Nie Mingjue’s lips.

They move at a steady but fast pace right away, the car moving comically beneath them, but neither of them care. Mingjue’s fingers dig into the soft flesh at Yao’s hip, pulling every time he comes down to thrust up a little harder. He’s not the one who sets the pace but it gives him some semblance of control - not that he NEEDS it. Meng Yao’s hands grab the edge of the backrest behind Mingjue, fingers digging into the leather as he holds on for better leverage, riding him hard enough it takes both their breath away. The air is filled with their gasps and the sound of skin on skin, the windows of the car fogging up around them. If anyone walked by them in this moment there would be no doubt about what’s going on inside, but that thought is not a conscious one in Mingjue’s head at this moment.

He doesn’t need long to feel hot white pleasure building inside him, every time Meng Yao sinks down on him bringing him closer to the edge, but he barely pays attention to himself. He’s mesmerized watching Yao move in his lap, the way his body moves and his muscles tighten, seeing the little crease on his forehead that forms when he closes his eyes with that look of concentration on his face that he gets when he’s chasing his own pleasure like this, fucking himself on Mingjue’s cock as determinedly as he does everything else. It’s almost better than reaching his own climax, watching Yao lose his composure for a moment and his movements lose rhythm when Mingjue’s hand slips between them and curls around him, giving him a few rough dry strokes, just enough to push him over. His back arches and the sweetest sound comes over his lips as he spills himself all over Mingjue’s stomach and chest, clenching down around him involuntarily.

“Fuck..” Mingjue groans, his hand moving back to Yao’s hip. If it were anyone else he’d expect them to slow down now, float on their own high, but Meng Yao is not anyone else. He only takes a moment to collect himself before he picks up where he left off, riding him as if he didn’t just come, and Mingjue finds himself lost in thoughts about HOW LONG Yao could keep going like this, when he’s gripped by his own orgasm that hits him like a train. His hands pull Yao down as he thrusts up one last time, a low moan on his lips as he comes. It feels better than it should to come inside Meng Yao and Mingjue is aware that he is going to have to make up for it somehow.

They’re both left panting and slowly coming down from their high, Mingjue’s heartbeat beginning to normalize again. Meng Yao falls forward against him and Mingjue’s arms warp around his back. He places a few kisses on his neck, tasting a bit of salt on his skin. “Maybe.. some day I’ll actually get to have you in my bed.”

#chordbound #m. chordbound #m. nie mingjue #nmj. chordbound #v. sleeping with the enemy #.nsfw #.ic asks #.replies #.drabble #vaguely referencing a LAST TIME we haven't even written but it's very vivid in my head #js

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