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vennilavee · 4 years ago

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love lockdown (7)

pairing: levi x reader summary: an anniversary spent together, and an old memory. warnings: wine, cursing, suggestive content, feelings of insecurity, smut (levi gets pegged)- 18+!!! word count: 4.3k a/n: based off of several asks you guys sent me hehe (the ones about the sweater curse, and tbah couple being the winery couple) tbah masterlist

Levi has been knitting for a long time, for years now, since a little before his mother had gotten sick. His mother had been the one to teach him- she had tried to even as a young boy, but he hadn’t really paid attention to it until he was older. He remembers how happy she had been when he had woven his first wool scarf. It’s been several years since his mother passed away, but he still keeps his knack for knitting alive and well.

Besides, it’s a way for him to feel close to his mother.

Levi has his favorite techniques tucked away in his brain and his favorite types of fabrics tucked away in a royal blue box in the corner of his linen closet. His trusty knitting needles also sit in the same box. It’s been a while since he had taken them out.

But he has decided that he’s going to knit you a thick blanket. Who better than to knit a blanket for anyway?

Once you and Levi begin to rack up anniversaries, Levi feels the need to do something different. Neither of you had celebrated monthly anniversaries because you felt no reason to (other than a nice candlelit dinner for your six month anniversary), but this specific moment in time feels different. Mainly because he’s come to the calming realization that you are it for him. And really, it’s a realization that has been brewing warmly for the last few months.

He’ll make it out of sunflower yellow yarn. The color that reminds him of you.

The idea is planted in his head about two months before and he sleeps on it. Before deciding that he wants to do it. It’ll take some time to finish, and he thinks he can have it done in a month or so.

Levi’s favorite way to knit is with a glass of whiskey and with the television turned on for background noise. With every stitch, he finds himself thinking of you- will you like it? He hopes you will- it’s not much, but it’s him.

But he has nothing to worry about, because he knows you’ll appreciate it. It’s part of why he keeps you around, after all.

“Dude, you’re knitting her a blanket? Have you never heard of the sweater curse?” Mike asks incredulously, “I would think you, as a well seasoned member in the knitting community, would know what the sweater curse is…”

“The what,” Levi says flatly.

“The sweater curse,” Mike repeats with a raise of an eyebrow.

“You repeating it doesn’t tell me what it means. Spit it out.”

“It’s when someone who knits makes a sweater, or anything really, for their significant other. And then the couple inevitably breaks up, because one of them realizes that they put in way more effort than the other,” Mike says. He says it so knowingly, as if it’s fact.

Levi scoffs with a slow roll of his eyes. But still, something uneasy settles in his chest. He tries to quell it before it sprouts and blossoms, and he does a mostly good job of it.

But Mike’s words stay with him for the rest of the day. Even when you had called him to say goodnight from your apartment, it had lingered in the back of his mind.

You could tell something was off- after all, you like to think you could read him like a book. Despite him giving you his full attention, you could tell he was distracted-

“Levi? Is everything okay?” You ask softly, “You seem... preoccupied.”

“Yes,” He says instantly.

With that, you don’t push him. But still you frown a little at him, wondering what could be bothering him. You decide to change the subject. It’s taken a while, but these days, if something was bothering him then he would tell you.

After letting it fester for a bit and after he tried to work through his feelings on his own.

“Hey, can I come over this weekend? I have something for you… And also your bed is comfier than mine.”

“Just say you wanna sleep on my bed. No need for false pretenses.”

“Well, it is a well known fact that your bed is superior to mine…”

You don’t push him and Levi is grateful for that. Maybe he’ll voice his concerns when you come over.

The blanket that Levi is preparing for you still needs about a week of work, but they are coming along nicely if he says so himself. The material is soft- he’s particular about what he works with and for you, he’s even more picky.

With each weave and stitch, he grows a tiny bit unsure about the stupid sweater curse. He curses Mike for putting such a stupid idea in his head. But what if it holds some truth to it? After all, he can vividly remember the instances of breakdowns in communication in the beginning- how many times he was so quick to jump to conclusions rather than talk things out with you.

He’s come a long way since then, but what if the stupid curse holds some truth to it?

His slight spiral takes a backseat when his phone vibrates, a text from you letting him know that you’ve just parked your car and you’ll be inside in a few minutes.

Levi makes his way to the lobby to greet you. Almost every time he does this, you protest, telling him that you can just meet him in his apartment. But every time, he greets you in the lobby whenever you visit him.

It’s small, but it makes your heart sing happily for your chivalrous man.

Levi takes your bags and touches your elbow lightly as you both wait for the elevator to ding. In the privacy of the elevator, you kiss him hello quickly.

“How was the drive?” Levi asks, rubbing your wrist.

“Felt longer than usual,” You admit, stifling a yawn. Levi hums in acknowledgement and keeps a hovering touch over your elbow as you both walk side by side to his apartment. You allow yourself the luxury of resting your head against his shoulder as he unlocks the front door.

“I would’ve come to pick you up if you were tired,” Levi scolds gently.

You shrug, “I don’t mind the drive, baby.”

Pet names slip easily from your lips when you’re in each other’s privacy and comfort.

“Go change and wash up,” Levi murmurs, patting your ass fondly, “I have dinner ready. I’ll pour you a glass of wine, shiraz good?”

You hum wordlessly and squeeze his arm with a grin. As you fumble through your small duffel bag that you specifically use for whenever you stay over Levi’s place, nerves begin to fizz up in your veins.

You sincerely hope Levi enjoys the small gift you had for him. Pulling on one of Levi’s looser shirts, your favorite purple hoodie and cozy leggings, you pull the gift tucked away in the side of the duffle bag and hide it behind your back.

“Hi,” You mumble softly, molding yourself to his side in the kitchen where he is setting plates for you both, “I have something for you, baby.”

“And what’s that?” Levi asks, bringing you in front of him and pressing your back against the kitchen countertop.

“Sit with me on the couch,” You murmur, tugging his hand in yours gently. Levi sees a small package in your hands as you not discreetly try to hide it from him.

You seem a little nervous, picking at the hem of your hoodie before finally raising your eyes to meet his.

You hope he likes it.

“It’s not much,” You mumble, “But…”

Levi unwraps the blue wrapping paper dotted with little cartoon stars on it with a raised eyebrow. His lips are pursed together in a thin line, wondering what it could possibly be and how he didn’t know you were planning to gift him something.

He thinks about the nearly completed blanket hidden in his bottom dresser drawer.

“It’s getting cold, and I know you don’t like how cold your neck gets in the winter,” You say, watching with wide eyes as he pulls out a rich navy sweater from the wrapping paper. It’s warm to the touch, the material thick and of good quality.

It doesn’t feel store bought.

“Did you- did you make this?” Levi says, almost incredulously, “You made this for me? Since when do you knit?”

“I don’t,” You say sheepishly, “You like knitting and I wanted to make something that you like. Or try to make something at least. If it’s shorter on one arm than the other, mind your business.”

Levi rolls his eyes and pats your head fondly. It had taken you months and hours to figure out what you were doing, with the help of videos and the elderly lady that you bought your fruits from on Saturdays.

He can’t believe you had done this right under his nose. But should he be so surprised, considering he is doing the same?

He wants to tell you about the blanket sitting at the bottom of his drawer, but he refrains. The sweater is a rich, blue that brings out his eyes (at least, according to you).

Levi instantly takes his shirt off to pull the sweater over his torso as you watch with hearts in your eyes.

“I know it’s not much… Do you-mmph-”

Your sentence is cut off by the abrupt press of his lips on yours. Levi leans over, laying his weight on top of you and kisses you soundly- his tongue slipping in your mouth with the tilt of his head. The material of the sweater tickles your chin and your cheeks. You’re surrounded by him- his kiss, his touch, his distinct love.

Levi knew he was worrying for no reason. The sweater curse might exist for other couples, but not for you both.

“Thank you,” He mumbles into your neck, his cheeks heating up, “It’s really warm.”

You only beam at him, adoration clear in the edges of your smile. Levi looks handsome, infinitely more handsome than usual since he’s wearing something that you made for him.

Your love looks good on him.

The memory of the sweater curse is amusing now, when Levi looks back on it. Now, five years later, he’s with you at a winery in celebration of your anniversary. You’re spending the night at a nearby hotel- you had picked the winery and Levi had picked the hotel.

If Levi was a painter, he thinks this would be the perfect picture to paint. You, in a sea of green vines and a clear sky beaming down on you. You, with your glowing skin and mischievous eyes. You, with love sitting in every crevice of your smile that you give him.

Maybe someday he’ll paint it. You, his sunshine personified.

“Mmm, Levi darling. Don’t you think this red wine contains a note of blueberry? Perhaps some...how do you say...raspberry?” You giggle behind your wine glass, the liquid swirling around carelessly.

“It’s a pomegranate wine sweetheart,” Levi says in amusement. You always do this at wine tastings, pretend like you’re an actual sommelier when in reality you and Levi mostly believe that all wine tastes the same.

“Close enough. It’s in the same family,” You huff.

“Oh is it? Blueberries taste like pomegranates now? What kind of berries have you been eating?”

“It’s called wine. You should try it sometime.”

That earns you a subtle swat of your ass and you giggle happily.

“It’s gorgeous out,” You sigh.

“Yes, it’s almost as gorgeous as you,” Levi says flatly and you nearly throw a slab of cheese at his chest, “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Tell me you think I’m pretty.”

“You already know I do.”

“Tell me anyway. It’s my birthday, remember?”

“Your birthday just passed.”

“Okay, and? It’s still my birthday season.”

“You know you’re gorgeous. You know I think you’re gorgeous,” Levi rolls his eyes and then smirks, “But you’re prettiest when your mouth is stuffed full of-“

“I’ll blow you right here in these vines, don’t test me.”

“Stop making empty promises that were both too classy for and finish your damn wine.”

You beam at him and clink your glass noisily. It nearly slips from your grip but you catch it in time.

“We have about an hour until the wine tour. Think we can finish this bottle by then?” Levi murmurs, tugging on your hand for you to settle in his lap.

The vines you’re seated in are far, far away from the main entrance of the winery. Away from prying eyes. Which is why you both allow for a little touching, a little kissing and a lot of flirting.

“Who do you take us for?” You mumble and turn your head to kiss him lightly, “We’re wine connoisseurs. Sommeliers, if you will-“

You laugh wildly when Levi playfully nips your neck and steals a sip of your fruity wine. He wraps an arm around your waist, holding you tightly. His long, lithe fingers brush against your bare thigh. It’s funny, even after all these years, he still manages to touch you in a way that feels like magic.

You both finish your glasses of wine and eagerly fill them both up to finish off the bottle.

Your lips are stained a pretty red, matching Levi’s own lips. You touch his lips with your fingers and he doesn’t even swat your grabby hands away.

“There’s some cheese at the corner of your mouth,” You say flatly, “I’ll just get it off-“

You kiss him and he expects it, already used to your antics. He doesn’t let you get very far, only allowing you to slip your tongue into his mouth and only allowing himself a plentiful grab of your ass.

“Wow, Levi, keep your hands to yourself. We’re in public,” You laugh to yourself, shooting him a pretend glare.

Levi only sighs and pops a cracker and cheese into his mouth, his hands never leaving the curve of your ass. Your giggles are higher pitched than usual, your limbs and your lips a little looser.

Tipsiness colors your dark eyes when Levi pulls your sunglasses off. “You’re not fooling anybody, sweetheart,” Levi jeers, “You're drunk off your ass.”

“No! I’ve only had like… two glasses!” You protest, grabbing your sunglasses back from him.

Levi looks at you in disbelief but says nothing. He indulges you in taking selfies with him and deciding to change your lockscreen to a new photo of both of you.

He can’t resist kissing your cheek after another half a glass of wine. “Mmm, you’re pretty,” Levi murmurs into your neck, his face warm, “You wore this dress for me?”

It’s one of his favorite dresses and his favorite color on you, and yes, maybe you did wear it because you’re very well acquainted with this information.

“No,” You roll your eyes and ignore the pinch to your waist as he tightens his arm around you, “I wore it for the wine tour guide. She’s really pretty, I might ask for her number-”

You swat his shoulder when he has the audacity to bite your neck in response. “I’d call you a vampire but you’re looking more golden than usual, my love,” You poke him, “That’s what happens when you get more than two minutes of sun per day-”

“You’ve got a mouth on you today, huh?”

“Gonna fuck the attitude outta me or what?”

“Tempting, but I’ve got wines to taste.”

Once the wine tour starts and you both get progressively more and more tipsy, blaming it on both of your affinities for wine, you make grabby hands for Levi’s cheese and crackers. He glares at you, close to pushing your hand away, but you stick your tongue out at him and swipe them anyway.

“God, fuck, you know what would taste good with this wine,” You whisper (but really it’s more of a low groan).

“What?”

“Fuckin’ Thai food,” You moan, cracker crumbs sticking to the side of your mouth, “Fuck, babe, I could go for some pad see ew…”

You huff, a dreamy sort of look in your eyes at the thought of it.

“You’re interrupting the wine guide,” Levi scolds, swatting your thigh. Though his eyes are starting to unfocus as the heat of your thigh feels so nice in his palm. He thinks he’ll leave his hand there for a bit.

“This tastes like I just dunked my head into a crisp apple and sucked the juice out of it,” You murmur, giving him a mild cider.

“Like in a good way?” Levi whispers.

“Duh.”

The wine tour consists of a few other couples and groups, but you and Levi keep to yourselves at a corner table as you give each wine you taste a rating. They all begin to blend in with each other after each taste, and pretty soon, you’re heavily leaning against Levi. The scent of his warm, spicy cologne curls around you and envelopes you in a hazy daydream filled with shades of grey.

“What?” Levi whispers when he sees you staring (a little dopily, he might add).

“Nothin’,” You grin, “Wanna nap at the hotel after this?”

“Can’t believe we’re getting drunk just to nap together,” Levi scoffs but he squeezes your hand.

“We have reservations later,” You remind him, “We both need to rally before dinner, honey.”

“Are you ready, baby?” You purr, stroking Levi’s hair back and leaning over to kiss his forehead. A pretty peachy pink blush colors his cheeks and creeps down to his neck. You tug his bottom lip out from the grip of his teeth.

A thin sheen of sweat coats his skin. You grin salaciously with hungry eyes and lick a stripe up his neck. His breath hitches, tilting his neck to the side a bit and you kiss his neck even over his pretty necklace with a green pendant hanging on the gold chain.

It’s pretty because it’s your necklace.

The softness of your lips over his skin- his chiseled chest, his lower abs- is a nice compliment to your fingers gently skimming his sides. You sit back, looking down at him from above. You lick your lips to moisten your suddenly dry mouth.

You’ve seen Levi like this, pliant and glistening for you too many times to count. But still, the sight of him flusters you and sends an instant rush of wetness flooding your pussy.

You adjust the straps of the black harness around your hips, tugging at the pretty purple silicone cock that hangs heavy between your legs. Levi tracks your movement with blown out eyes and a hand wrapped around his own thick, dripping cock.

“Did you like my fingers, baby,” You murmur, letting your hands travel up the expanse of his chest. His muscles tense with your touch, goosebumps arising instantly.

Levi hums, reaching for your hands and rubbing your knuckles.

“Mmm, words, my love,” You mumble, pressing a thumb to his plump bottom lip. His hot breath warms your finger when he opens his mouth to reply with a soft ‘yes, sweetheart’, his voice heady and low. Broken and slow with desire for you.

You pull away from his lips, ignoring the way arousal swirls in your belly and your clit throbs with how needy he looks already. You reach forward and stroke his cock languidly and gather his wetness over your thumb and press your thumb to his bottom lip again.

“Open, baby,” You say, your own voice sounding a little raspy, “Open up.”

Levi parts his lips and allows your thumb into his mouth and he swirls his tongue over it, tasting himself on his lips. You groan at the sight with hooded eyes, wishing for some friction over your clit.

You look like a vision hovering over him- your legs tanned and glowing, eyes zeroed in on him, looking at him like you want to absolutely ruin him. You are a goddess, and he’ll follow you wherever you might take him.

Especially when you slide into him slowly, deliciously, as he savors the slight burn as it dissipates into pleasure. Your grip is tight over his hips, warmth and electricity spreading from your fingertips to his belly.

You’ll ruin him, ruin the silky navy sheets below him, steal his soul from his cock. All of the above. Anything you give him, he’ll take. He’ll take it with open lips and open legs.

It doesn’t take much for you to find a rhythm with your palms flat on the sheets on either side of Levi. Arousal licks your insides at every gaze of his heated cheeks and his murky, grey eyes. He’s openly vocal with you, panting and mewling into the sheets, alternating between fisting them and holding your hips with a searing grip.

“God, baby, look at you,” You whine, leaving open mouthed kisses to his chest while still rocking your hips into him, “Is this okay, baby? I love you-”

Levi groans and nods, wrapping his legs around your waist for a deeper grind of your cock. He palms your tits, squeezing in his large hands and moans into the space between you both.

“Are you wet,” Levi asks in a strangled voice.

“Fuck yeah,” You grin, thrusting your hips in a slow grind into him. His cock is throbbing, standing tall and pretty for you. You stroke him slowly, matching your thrusts with your strokes.

It takes coordination, but you’re used to it.

“Wanna sit on my face?” Levi murmurs, squeezing your thighs with his heavy hands. He’s close, so close, and you both know it- his thighs begin to quake slightly. And he has the familiar look in his face when he’s about to cum, his eyes go dark, lips parted and his eyebrows are furrowed into a tight line.

“Mmm, maybe later,” You reply instantly, wanting to see him come undone by your hands and by your cock. By you, by the steadfast beat of love that surrounds you both and envelopes you on this silky sweet cotton candy cloud.

Or maybe it’s just the sheets.

“Is my baby close?” You purr, dark eyes swirling, “My baby’s gonna cum?”

“Fuck,” Levi groans, throwing his head back onto the bed when you thrust into him particularly harshly. The column of his pretty throat is exposed to you and you lean forward, his cock still in one hand. Sucking a mark on his clavicle, you nip his earlobe and his breath hitches as you make your way down his chest.

“Your cock is so big in my hands,” You marvel softly, looking down, “You’re so big, baby…So good to me. My big, strong, sexy man.”

And apparently, that’s what he needs to finally cum, a long, drawn out groan of your name slipping out of his mouth as he shakes in your hold. Ribbons of cum paint your hand and his lower abs, some of it even spraying on your harness.

“You’re messy,” You tease and Levi only hums in acknowledgement, “Are you okay? I’ll go get you water and clean you up, sweetheart.”

Levi doesn’t move, only shifting on his side tiredly. You make your way to the fancy, marbled bathroom to unclasp the harness and clean yourself up. Your pussy still throbs, achingly so, but that’s the last thing on your mind.

He calls your name gruffly, voice a little hoarse. You return to him with a glass of water and wrap your arms around him from behind, kissing the back of his neck gently. Your fingers thread over his sore muscles, his abdomen and his thighs and you rub his scalp soothingly with a deft touch.

“Are you okay?” You murmur, hugging him close to your chest.

“Yes,” Levi says instantly, “More than okay.” He turns in your arms and pushes his head into your bare chest, inhaling deeply and innocently grabs your ass. Just to hold you close- his touch is mostly unassuming. He likes being close to you, touching you, just breathing with you after times like this when you steal his soul with your cock.

You glance down at him and smile, pushing his dark hair away from his forehead and press a kiss to his sweaty skin. Levi nuzzles his cheek further into your chest, a content hum rumbling in his chest. His thigh brushes against your aching core and you force yourself to stifle a groan. But he catches it, because he always does.

Your attentive man.

“You didn’t cum,” Levi states, letting his hand drift downwards to palm your sensitive pussy.

“We have later for that,” You mumble, swatting his hand away but he doesn’t listen. He presses himself closer to you, sinking his lips into your neck and rubbing your clit lazily.

His long, lithe fingers slide into your wetness easily and you huff into his ear. “We have now for that,” Levi murmurs, nipping your jaw as presses his finger into your dripping core, “Slow with me, baby.”

It doesn’t take much for you to cum, just a few strokes of his fingers in you and a few slow circles of his thumb on your clit. It hits you slowly, crawling up your toes before curling in your belly in a warm stroke of flames. It’s unhurried as it blooms in your belly, allowing you to savor every second of it.

“Sit on my face later,” Levi says, pulling you closer into his side. You throw a leg up around his hip and hum in agreement. You press a kiss to his clavicle, the slow of his heartbeat in tandem with the gentleness of your fingertips rolling through his hair.

“Happy anniversary, my love,” You mumble, kissing the corner of his mouth.

“Our anniversary was on Friday,” Levi says with a turn of his lips, earning himself a swat to his chest, “Happy anniversary, pretty girl.”

Levi kisses your forehead, his knuckles brushing your cheek before dipping down for another kiss.

“Cheers to many more,” You say, smiling into his kiss. He replies by deepening the kiss and pressing your back to the bed, allowing himself to drop on top of you.

Levi’s touch has always made you feel infinite, and this time is no different.

tags: @simpingmaize @captainchrisstan @kentobean @alrightberries @melancholicmonologue @regalillegal @castellandiangelo

#levi x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman #levi x you #aot x reader #snk x reader

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cherrysha · 4 years ago

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1.english is not my first language so sorry if something sounds strange. I realized that the requests are open and I would love it if u wrote something with the feitan pls. maybe a headcanon of him dealing with a very affable s / n (?) kkk i can't explain but like he is disturbed because she is accepting very well the fact that she was kidnapped and now she is forced to fall in love with him, and he is like "me I'm a fucking criminal, why are u so calm?"

It doesnt sound strange at all! This went in a completely different direction and its part headcanon but mostly just a short drabble. I’m not one hundred percent happy with this piece, but i wanted to get it out there!

Also, This is a universe in which I deny the fact that he sounds horrible in the dub. We only stan subbed Feitan over here.

word count: 1572

My requests are open atm

Warnings: TORTURE. thats it. thats all it is. just one big torture scene.

So if his s/o didn’t resist...

• He’d prolly just think they were biding their time

• He wouldn’t ask, he’d just straight up assume that they were playing the long con

• And a few months of it and he’d be sick and tired

• They were so agreeable, they let him touch them even when he was covered in blood

• And I don’t see any way this doesn’t end in torture

• He’d be really pissed off abt it

• Probably goading you the whole time

• “It doesn’t have to be like this if you just tell me.”

• And in truth he knows no plan would work, but he just wants some confirmation that you were going to try to escape

“Plan for what?” And he sighs. Part of him knew this was going to happen; that you’d still feign innocence. And that same part of him revelled in the course of action he’d decided to take. Basking in the chance to finally cause you pain. It’s a deeply rooted desire, one he isn’t accustomed to controlling. He wasn't one to pass up an opportunity such as this one.

You’ve been tied, arms above your head as the balls of your bare feet support the weight of your full body on the unforgiving concrete floor. The blindfold he had used to lure you into the room with is now converted into a gag as its shoved into your mouth. He’s done listening. Maybe when he’d given you incentive to be more... forthcoming, he’d remove it. The knife glints in the low light, the sight of it seemingly manifesting out of nowhere is startling to say the least. He takes a minute to ponder the situation. The apprehension on your face. You’d never seen him like this, only ever catching glimpses of his profession in the blood soaked clothes you washed so diligently. Was that not enough of a warning? He makes quick work of cutting off your top as well as the bra underneath. He deftly moves behind you, the sound of something heavy being picked up as he opens his mouth to speak. “This is going to hurt.” And it’s the most warning he’s given any of his victims. The suspense they felt, the jagged breaths they took as he circled their body like a hawk; it was part of the excitement for him. The whip cracks against your back one, two, three times before he takes a break. Your mouth opens in a wretched scream, but Feitan has become accustomed to the noise. It’s as irrelevant as the sound of the overhead light buzzing in the background. Blood seeps from the places the whip had licked your skin. Dark red as it lazily rolls down your back and soaks into the top of your cotton shorts. He stands back and admires the way your muscles bunch up under your skin in a useless effort to pull away from the pain, lifting you off of your toes until your feet lazily swung away from the ground. He was starting to enjoy the weak noises that left your throat. You don’t even notice when he forces your shorts and underwear down your legs. There’s a pool of cloth lying at your feet, dainty fabric that had been soaked with blood and cut into ribbons. He hits your thighs and ass with the next five strokes of the whip. Before moving again, he stutters, torn between being forgiving or continuing his endless assault of your soft flesh. The way your head falls limply to your chest, a sheen of sweat coating your body as crimson red rivulets silently descend to the ground below you, as if it’s their duty to entice him. To push him over the edge with need until he couldn’t take it anymore. It makes him give in, seven more and then he drops the instrument in an attempt to contain himself. He takes a moment to look at his work. Lover’s blood, he’s sure that he’s read something about the beauty of it. But seeing it for himself, hearing your shallow breaths as you succumb to the pain and your body slackens against its bindings, is more beautiful than he’d imagined. - He wakes you with even more pain. A faint trickle of something searingly hot burns down the fresh wounds that mar the opened flesh of your back. The scream you let out is the loudest yet, and he takes pride in the fact that he was able to wrench such a sound from you. A noise that no one else had heard and it was all because of him. “It’s just a disinfectant.” In all actuality he knows the level of pain you’re experiencing is probably on par with receiving the injuries, but he can’t stop himself from teasing. He finishes with a sigh and walks around to your front, smiling slightly as he sees your face. You looked wrecked, completely sinful as ribbons of pink tinged liquid dribble down your legs. It’s an encouraging thing. Feitan was the only one to see you this way, would only ever be the one to see your face streaked with tears and sweat, eyelids drooped and breath heavy from the excruciating pain he’d given to you. It makes his own breathing heavier. The spit slicked gag is ripped away and you don’t budge, head still slack against your chest as you stare dazedly at the floor. “Were you hoping to gain my trust so you could try to escape?” He whispers. And you almost don’t hear it over the sound of your own breath. You stutter out a feeble ‘yes’, because you know it’s what he wants, but it doesn’t seem to placate the man. He’s done this long enough to know when someone is lying to him. He’d previously came to the conclusion that you were just good at telling him what he wanted to hear, the paranoia settling over his mind like a heavy blanket as months stretched on and you’d remained unwavering in your acceptance. He can see it now, the truth of the matter enclosed in your feeble attempts of stopping the torture. He takes a step forward and smiles at the slight hitch in your breath at his sheer proximity. You were finally giving him a reaction he was accustomed to, one that he knew all too well. “See, I’m not so skilled at keeping people.. alive” he twists the blade in his hand, eyes shying away from your own as if he’d just revealed a weakness to you. He’s deep in thought, mulling over what exactly to do so as not to harm you too bad. You had told him the truth, after all. “This.. this is where I’d sever your leg from your body.” The knife is red hot as he pierces it through your skin, successfully drawing the image onto you. “At the joint.” After doing the same to the right, he digs it into your lower stomach, “if I had cut here, your entrails would cause such a mess.” Groans leave your throat in your attempt to breathe through the pain, rolling your head back to avoid looking at him. Its hard to contain the excitement he feels just from looking at your debauched state. You were enticing to him, enough so that he had gone out of his way to pluck you from your miserable life and let you start fresh with him. But right now, all he could really think about is how alluring your body was. Bloody and raw, so vulnerable in every sense of the word. He closes his eyes and lets out a puff of air through his nose in an attempt to contain himself. After he has, he continues his earlier ministrations. “The arms would be next, as you’d imagine,” And the lithe blade penetrates the meat of your shoulder as he continues with a downward stroke. It’s debilitating at this point. In a desperate attempt to block it all out, your eyelids involuntarily dance closed. Your body felt utterly destroyed, but your mind was in even worse shape; Choosing to forego the pain, black dots clouded your vision as you felt yourself being quickly tugged under and into unconsciousness. It’s a gentle slap, in his opinion, a warning to keep you alert. He didn’t want you to block this out. Not yet. He’s talking more than usual, a pent up frustration at the fact that he didn’t get what he was looking for. That he was denied the satisfaction of making you admit your wrongdoing. So, he snatches it from the crunching noise of your body hitting the floor. “If I did that, you’d die. Do you think I want that?” You only have enough strength to nod ‘no’, and your answer gains you a swift kick to your gut. He knew you were lying. “I’m not going to kill you.” He lets out something akin to a shaky laugh, the revealing sort that lets you glean just how unhinged the man truly was. He only meant to punish you, to force the truth from your mouth. But once he had a taste of the way you shrieked at his touch, how sweat made your naked body glow in the dim light, he knew this would be the first of many punishments to come.

#feitan #feitan portor #feitan x reader #yandere feitan

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lihikainanea · 4 years ago

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sis leiii, can i please have a piece where instead of bill flying back home to be with tiger, she's the one who's flying to see him because he's travelling to film a movie or do a photoshoot or something but he's feeling homesick and maybe having a fever and tiger flies immediately to whatever he is to take care of him, but she surprises him and he lets himself cry when he sees her there?

Oh my sweet, soft Bill. Tiger is, without a doubt, no stranger to rescuing her Big Dude.

And you know, maybe it’s a multitude of things. Maybe Bill really isn’t jiving with the producer or the studio or something, but he’s learning in his older age that sometimes you can’t just...flip your shit and walk away from projects. Maybe the project itself still really interests him, but the people carrying it through are being insufferable dicks. Bill has an extremely low tolerance for people who think they are above anyone else, and if the set he’s on is rampant with egos, he has a really hard time...but he also can’t necessarily walk away.

Maybe it’s not even that. Maybe it’s just a gruelling shoot, one where actors’ unions and the studio are constantly in a battle because the actors are somewhat being forced to go through with scenes or go through in conditions they have no business going through. On Bill’s second day on set, he spent 14 hours submerged in an indoor pool that was way below the temperature it should have been. His acting contract, his union, probably states that he can spend up to 3 hours maximum in the pool and then he needs a one hour break to dry off, have a warm drink, raise his body temperate back to normal and then he can continue.

But the producer was always almost just getting the right shot, and maybe just one more take, and okay that was great but let’s do another one just in case and suddenly, it’s 14 hours later and Bill is shivering, his body temperature is dropping dangerously low, and his lips are blue. The doctor on set finally puts an end to it.

The next day, a cough had set in deep in his chest. One of those coughs that started off small and then just couldn’t stop, one of those ones that ached in your lungs, a cough that had you gasping for air after you just couldn’t make it stop. His entire day was scrapped, every take he did cut short when his breath would catch and it would set off this hacking cough, one that rattled deep in his bones. He was exhausted. He was out of breath. The first week hadn’t even wrapped yet, and he was already wrecked.

Tiger heard it the moment she picked up the phone when he called her that evening--the middle of the night for her. She picked it up and mumbled a groggy hello before a deep, uncharacteristic wheeze had her eyes widening.

“Hi kid,” he rasped, “Sorry I’m calling so late.”

“...Bill?” She had to ask to be sure. His voice was so rough, so strained, and she winced as a terrible cough sounded down the line.

“Yeah,” he wheezed, “Sorry, give me a second.”

He sounded terrible. His voice sounded thick and rough, strained as if he was trying to control it--and his cough sounded even worse. Wet and rumbling, it seemed to go on forever before she heard a soft sip, clearing of his throat.

“Sorry,” he croaked, “Having some issues.

“You sound terrible bud,” she said, “What’s going on?”

“Just caught a bit of a chill,” he mumbled.

A bit of a chill turned into pneumonia a few days later--and still, he worked. He would call her when he could, but tiger was getting increasingly more worried--she knew her Good Dude. And it seemed that every time she talked to him, he was coming off a day on set that was seeming more and more insane. A night shoot, where he had to run through freezing cold temperatures and snow in nothing but a bathrobe, barefoot--and he had to do it over and over and over again, because the director wasn’t happy with the shot. More water scenes. More hours spent in subzero temperatures, in soaking wet clothes, already sick as a dog.

Tiger had a feeling that there was a reason why he was sticking to regular calls instead of video ones, and at one point she insisted on it--and it only confirmed her suspicions. He looked terrible--gaunt and pale, his big eyes sticking out of his head even more, his skin a sickly pallor, and he was at the point where he couldn’t even get two words out without either having to stop to catch his breath, or launching into a coughing fit. The wheeze in his chest was even more prominent, there was a permanent wince in his features from the pain, and his eyes had deep bags under them.

“Bill,” she said sternly, “Have you seen a doctor? Are you taking meds for this?”

“I’m on a round of antibiotics,” he brought a pill bottle into the frame and shook it to show her, “But it just needs to run its course.”

“My ass it does,” she snaps, “You look awful.”

“Careful,” he warned, but it lacked all of its usual malice when he launched into a coughing fit after.

As soon as tiger hung up the phone, she booked her ticket to his location. She wasn’t going to sit by and watch this happen. The kicker was when she was browsing her instagram and just happened to stumble across a story that one of Bill’s co-stars posted--a goofy photo of the dude in the make up chair--but there in the background, a little blurred but tiger could spot him anyway--was Bill, curled up in a lounge chair, an IV drip in his arm. Tiger screen capped the photo and sent it to Bill, with a very curt message.

Call me. Now.

Seconds later, the image disappeared from the costar’s stories and Bill’s name popped up on her screen.

“Don’t freak out,” he started, “It’s fine, kid.”

“An IV isn’t fine Bill,” she snapped, “What’s happening?”

“It’s just some nutrients and vitamins and a lot of hydration--” a pause for a gross-sounding coughing fit--”I’m having a hard time shaking this thing, so it’s just to give me a boost.”

“You can’t shake this thing because you’re exhausted and this gig is killing you--”

“I’ve gotta go tiger, they’re calling me back to scene,” he mumbled, “Please don’t worry about me. I’m okay, I promise.”

Tiger moved her flight up to the earliest one she could find.

And listen, when she got there? She gave his agent strict instructions not to tell him shit, but to help her find a way to get into his apartment. She was exhausted from the flight and the time difference, but she was on a mission--she found a grocery store, was able to pick up a few staples. She stocked up on green tea, honey, managed to find some warm blankets, was able to somehow figure out how the sauna on the back deck worked. Tiger had a bad case of whooping cough as a kid, and she remembered that Granny used to spend hours in a steamed out bathroom holding her, trying to ease the pain and break the cough. Extreme heat was good to try and clear out the lungs, and if Bill didn’t have a fever, she planned on manhandling him into the sauna for a few hours tonight.

She got everything she could. Medicine. Lozenges. A thermometer. A hot water bottle. She spent the rest of the day cooking--big pots of soups and stews, hearty things with a lot of vegetables that would be easy for him to digest.

And listen, when Bill got home in the wee hours of the morning? Tiger was on the couch reading, and she stood when he entered the doorway. He hadn’t seen her yet and she watched as her Big Dude stepped in, closed the door behind him--and then slumped against it. His back leaning on it, his head fell forward and she heard him exhale a rough sigh--or at least part of one, before he started coughing again. Pushing himself off, he wearily raised his head and that’s when he saw her--and he froze.

“But you’re fine eh?” she said sarcastically. The house was mostly dark except for a few dim lights, but she saw his eyes widen and the shock register on his face.

“...Tiger?” he rasped after a long pause. He shook his head as if he might be imagining it, but tiger took a few steps forward.

“This ends now Bill,” she said lowly, “Do you hear me?”

She stopped in front of him, but he still hadn’t blinked yet. She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

“Tiger...” he mumbled. Reaching a hand out, his fingers brushed her hip as if he was afraid she was just a mirage--but then a few fingers turned into a whole hand, then both hands.

“Tiger,” he croaked, and then he crumbled. Reaching for her, she pulled him in as his knees buckled under him. She caught his weight as best she could, and he buried his nose in her neck. His shoulders shook and he clung to her, and she could feel the rumble in his chest as he struggled for air.

“Okay easy big guy,” she said, “Just try and stay calm and breathe through it.”

The cough started off small as he tried to suppress it, but eventually his whole body shook as he wheezed and his knees gave out. He knelt down, trying to get air in as he heaved, and she soothingly rubbed his back.

“Enough,” she said softly as she patted his back, “I’m here bud, and I’m not leaving. Just try and calm down a bit so you can get your breath back.”

His hand still reached for her just to make sure she was real, and it took him a long time to be able to catch his breath. Tiger held him the whole time, right there on the floor, until he could at least get some air in again.

Once he was able to breathe again, I’ll bet she put her foot down. Told him that she was worried, and that she was there to take care of him--because he was sick. Really sick, and that if he didn’t take the time he needed to heal, that he would only get worse. He finally caved because it was her you know? And for as well as he takes care of her, he trusts her to do the same for him. Halfway through the call with his agent, tiger had to take the phone from him because he was struggling for air again and couldn’t get the words out. Tiger told her, in no uncertain terms, that Bill wouldn't be able to work for at least two weeks.

And listen, for two weeks--Bill wasn’t allowed to move an inch unless tiger told him too. His fever was too high for the sauna that night, and even though he shivered most of the night, she made sure he was only draped with one blanket so he wouldn’t overheat. She filled him with fluids to try and help break the fever, and when it was a little better the next day, she started working on his lungs. She dragged him to the sauna and sat there with him to sweat it out. He was miserable--cranky and in pain, the dry air burned his already sensitive chest, but tiger just sat there and held him. She held him as his body wracked with heaves, she rubbed his back when a coughing fit took over and left him gasping, and she wouldn’t let him leave no matter how much he protested. Only after they had been in there for two hours did she pull him back upright, take him inside and get him to drink another ungodly amount of water, followed up by some of Granny’s tea. She gave him all the head scritchies until he was able to sleep at least a little, and even then he was only able to with his head propped up against her chest.

It was agonizing. It was the sickest she had ever seen him. And it was a long process--if she didn’t like the way he looked after two weeks, then she wasn’t going anywhere for at least another two. And neither was he.

#bill skarsgard drabble #bill skarsgard #BFF!Bill #sick bill

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shigarakis-fifth-hand · 5 years ago

Text

MHA Poly: Mina x Reader x Bakugo x Kirishima; Family Day

@drbumpkin said:

I'm back! I can't stay away honestly. So imagine Mina and reader are in a relationship but their families aren't supportive because they girls. So to get them off their back they ask Bakugo and Kirishima (who are dating) to pretend to be their boyfriends (separately). For some reason they agree and along the way they all fall in love with each other. It was hard to stop kissing your one partner infront of the family, now it's even harder to not kiss all three.

Mina Ashido, your girlfriend and future wife. You two were inseparable, and there was never a dull or boring moment when you two got together. You two were fun, exciting, and more than amazing. Especially Mina. She could party and talk all night long, but honestly, sometimes you wanted a break. Once, you just wanted to be able to sit in bed and spoon, but no. It was always go go go! It obviously wasn’t something to break up over, but you wished you had someone to chill with.

You and Mina had talked about having someone join you and make it a polygamourous relationship, but everyone who was even considerable was either in a relationship or not into girls.

Plus for now, you were so happy with it just being you and Mina. Except... Family Day was coming up, and you both knew that Mina’s family was the most homophobic family on the planet. “That means I won’t be able to kiss you for a whole day? Do you know how hard that is for me?” Mina complained while pecking your cheek every second, trying to make up for the time you two would lose. “It’s not even a day. They come at 8 am and leave at 8pm. It’s only half a day.” You tried to explain, but Mina kept complaining anyways. You had one clingy girlfriend.

“Even if they don’t think I have a girlfriend, they still think I’m gay. Maybe you can dress up as a boy for me.” Mina laughed, before seeing two of our friends bursting down the staircase.

“BakuBabe, you can’t be serious!” Kirishima yelled out as his blonde boyfriend stormed down the staircase. “Yes Kirishima! We are going to tell our families we are deathly sick! Now I have to go take a few pics at the hospital so they’ll believe it! Are you coming or not? It’s either this, or we pay two pathetic girls to pretend to be our girlfriends so my mom doesn’t pester me for being single.” Bakugo asked as you and Mina stared at each other, eyes sparkling your eyes.

“We’ll be the pathetic girls!” You popped off the couch and walked over to Bakugo, smiling cheekily. “And you don’t even have to pay us! Just pretend to be our boyfriends for Mina’s family, and everything will be fine! Then we can both forget that any of it happened, and we’ll be set!” You explained as you put your arm on Bakugo’s shoulder. Surprisingly, he didn’t even push you off this time. Bakugo always was softer with you for some reason.

“Honestly, sounds great. Pretty girls, and oblivious parents. Sounds great.” Kirishima smiled, pumping his fist into the air as Mina playfully punched him in the side. “I think it’s fine too. Cute guys, and my mom will get off my back about not having a boyfriend. Now I’ll have a hot hero boyfriend for my mom to hug to death!” Mina pinched Kirishima’s cheek, wrapping her arm around his waist and trying to pick him up.

“Heck ya! I can pretend that you’re BakuBabe, except you have boobs, and you look like if an alien and a spice girl had a child.” Kirishima explained as Mina winked, kissing his cheek and flicking him in the face. “Hey! Come on bro, let’s go act all kissy kissy!” Mina grabbed Kirishima’s hand as the two practically skipped to the kitchen.

“Aren’t you jealous of that? Aren’t you upset?” Bakugo asked you as you giggled, shaking your head. “Mina is as loyal as they come. Plus her and Kirishima were already friendly flirting like that. I think it’s cute. And plus, we can do the same.” You smiled at Bakugo, linking your arm with his and leaning your body weight on his.

“Yea, whatever.” Bakugo blushed and shook you off his arm and walked away, putting his hands in his pockets and leaving you, alone in the living room. What just happened? You sat on the couch, looking sadly at your girlfriend and best friend laughing loudly at an inside joke. They were close...

Mina mixed something in a bowl that smelled sweet, while Kirishima tried to juggle spoons after Mina refused to let him use knives. When Mina was finally done whisking, she brought the whisk up to Kirishima’s lips and let him lick it off. You noticed how the two looked at each other lustfully, and couldn’t help but feel a weird feeling in your stomach. Why couldn’t Bakugo look at you like that???

Wait, no! Mina was your girlfriend! You were not available to anyone. You loved Mina so much, and you should feel the urge to beat up Kirishima, not kiss his boyfriend... or him to be honest. But Bakugo was too hot to not feel attracted to, and Kirishima was just too sweet to feel any hatred for. Was it weird that you found Mina and Kirishima’s sweet.

It was as if you had no relation with either and were just a fellow student hoping they would hook up eventually. No though, Mina was yours, but Kirishima wasn’t a threat? Right? You propped your legs up on the couch and began to fade away, seeing that it was already nine pm. Yes, you usually stayed up late, but who would you go to? You felt awkward going to hang out with Mina and Kiri, Bakugo had ditched your ass, and nobody else would be out of their room.

Slowly you began drifting off to sleep while scrolling through your phone, finally passing out on the couch. Slowly, your dreams began to fill with images of Bakugo and Kirishima, shirtless of course... Mina’s voice was in the background, of course romantic and making your horny like always. As Bakugo grabbed you by the arm and pulled you to his chest, Kirishima came up behind you and sucked your neck while Bakugo nestled his face into your hair, smelling your perfume.

You woke up in a cold hard sweat abruptly, noticing your heavy breathing and chills running down her spine, as well as the goosebumps. You sat up, looking at the clock to see that it was just past midnight. You grabbed your blanket, and began to get up before feeling someone on you. Moving the blanket in your arms, you looked down to see Mina’s head propped up on your lap. You smiled, running your hand through her hair and playing with her horns before hearing an abrupt male snore behind you.

Looking to the other side of the you, you saw that it wasn’t a pillow you had been sleeping against, but sleeping with your head on Kirishima’s shoulder. You blushed abruptly, before watching him shift in place towards you, smiling softly as he put his hand on your thigh and began to lay on you more. You began smiling, a feeling of excitement rushing through you as his bare skin touched yours.

You laid back aggravatingly, not knowing what to do. How were you supposed to act like you were Bakugo’s girlfriend when you were angry at him for not giving you the attention you so desperately craved from him, had a girlfriend, and also were having feeling for a certain red-head. You and Mina had talked about an open relationship once, but... No! Kirishima was obviously into Mina and Bakugo, Bakugo hated you, Mina loved you and Kirishima, and you just... liked them all. God, you were a terrible person.

You sighed, looking back at the beautiful alien and the cute redhead who were both snuggled up against you. Smiling, you settled back down against Kirishima’s shoulder and closed your eyes. There were many people who would kill to be you at that moment, and you knew that eventually Family Day would be over and you would lose the happy feeling you were feeling now. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

You were awaken by Bakugo shaking you awake, yelling at you. “God, our parents are going to be here in half an hour! Get up Loser!” He screamed angrily as you woke up, realizing you were alone on the couch. “Don’t just sit there, move! You look homeless!” He yelled as you groaned, picking up your blanket and quickly walking to your room. You noticed Mina and Kirishima in the kitchen together, in a suit and dress together with their hair done.

You felt as if you were about to cry, feeling as if Mina and Kirishima were a better couple than you and Mina, the way he was manly and went to the gym like she did while you did swim team and ran track and liked to cook like she did while you liked to grill out and bake. Not to add the way Bakugo obviously despised you due to your move on him last night. God, he hated you and your ugly ass.

As you shut the door to your apartment, you slammed yourself against the door and began crying, hating the feel of your greasy hair and pajamas, you felt like trash. Wrapping your arms around your knees, you chose to ignore the sound of running towards your door. You were surprised to hear quick knocking on your door, and then the sound of your sweet redhead friend. “Y/n! Y/n, please let me in.”

He begged as you tried to wipe the mascara marks from your cheeks and got up, opening the door slowly to reveal yourself. Immediately as he saw you, he pushed through the crack of the door and held you in a tight hug, holding you close. “Shh, shh. I’m sorry, I swear he doesn’t know what he’s saying.” He petted your hair, and rubbed your back kindly. “It’s not just that, it’s just...” You looked up at his sweet face, feeling the blood rush to your face as you blushed.

“You and Mina are such a good couple compared to her and I, I know you like her. I know you’re dating Bakugo, but I know you told everyone you’re good with polygamourous relationships. I feel like I just... it’d be better if I just left everyone alone and just-” As you were about to continue, Kirishima grabbed your chin and slowly pulled your lips close, finally kissing you softly. He put his hands on your waist and pulled you against him close, you feeling his erection poking through his black pants.

“N-no, we shouldn’t be... We’re both in real relationships, it’s not... It’s not okay Kiri, we can’t just-” He stopped you again by pulling you into another kiss, this time you kissed back. He began French kissing you, and you immediately fell into his warmth. As you two separated, you two began smiling softly before Kirishima stepped back. “I’ll wait for you down-” You grabbed his hand, your body moving against your mind and thoughts.

“Stay in here, it’ll just take a minute.” You whispered, holding his hand and bringing him to your bed to sit. You walked to your closet and grabbed out the white flowy dress, taking it off the hanger and placing it on your desk, beginning to strip off your clothes and change. You didn’t even have to look back at Kirishima, knowing that his eyes were laid on you. While you changed into your dress and put on your black flats to match, you finally met eye contact with Kirishima through your mirror. “Would you mind?” You asked, turning to let him see your zipper to the back of your dress.

He nodded nervously, sitting up and walking over to you, beginning to zip up your dress but stopping mid-zipper. You closed your eye as he kissed the back of your neck, sucking hard as to leave a mark as chills went up your spine. His lips finally left your body and zipped up your dress, hiding the hickey he had given. He then turned you around by himself, kissing your lips softly multiple times, before running sweet pecks down your face, lips, and collarbone.

You left to go to the bathroom, leaving him with a small smirk as he did the same, staring at you with his eyes wide as if you were the prettiest thing he had ever seen. You did your hair and makeup, making sure to put on the strawberry perfume your mother had got you, and the necklace your sister had given you. That was, until your hand grazed the ring that Mina had given you exactly one year ago as a birthday gift.

You sighed, a feeling of guilt and remorse in your heart as you put the necklace on. You were a girlfriend to the most beautiful girl in the world, and here you were kissing another boy. You knew it was wrong, but your body ached for it so much. The worst part was that you still loved Mina, but you felt such a feeling for Kiri as well that you couldn’t stop yourself. God, you were such an awful human being.

You walked out, making eye contact with Kirishima as his eyes bugged out. “God, you’re gorgeous.” He whispered, bringing you to a hug as you both wrapped your arms around each other. “I think I’m in love with you.” He murmured as you nodded, feeling him run his hands on your back. “Me too...” You whispered, letting him kiss you multiple times as his hands roamed your body.

He cupped your breasts, kissed your neck, nipped at your ear, and ran his hands through your h/c hair. “God, I want to spend the entire day with you. Why do we have to do something today?” He joked as you giggled, bringing his forehead to yours. “God, just give me a minute. I won’t be able to touch you for an entire day.” He smashed his lips into yours, bringing his tongue inside of your mouth. Yes you were moving fast, but he was just so addicting and sensual.

“Now, let’s go. Our parents will be here and... you have to go date my girlfriend.” You smiled, fixing his tie and hair as he held the door open for you and let you both out into the hallway. On the elevator ride down, you wiped the lip gloss off of his face as he stared at you, you allowing him to hold your waist. When you walked out, he walked off to join Mina, winking at you as you blushed, beginning to walk around.

You saw the Ashidos, knowing them from when you and Mina had done “sleepovers” during the Summer, and then the Kirishimas, all of them with black hair. You began to see the Iidas, Asuis, and of course the Todorokis which radiated tension and uncomfortability. Walking into the kitchen, you were met with the lovely sight of the Bakugos. “Katsuki! That is not how you do it! You have to season it before you cook so it mixes in! God, who taught you to cook?!”

Bakugo’s mother, who was a splitting image of him, began smacking him on the head as he tried to cook chicken on the stove. “Dear, we talked about this!” You turned to see Bakugo’s father, with brown hair and a button up golf shirt and jeans with glasses. At that moment, both of the parents turned to see you, angelic and beautiful in the doorway. “Katsukiiiii! Is this your little girlfriend who Kirishima told us about?!” She asked, running to you as Bakugo turned to look at you.

He stopped cold, blushing bright red as he looked at you, unable to believe his eyes. “Well, it didn’t take long for you to go from a four to a ten.” He commented as his mother playfully hit him. “Katsuki, you didn’t tell me she was such a looker! God, girl you’re beautiful! You must be Y/n! Call me Mitsuki!” She reached out her hand, grabbing yours to shake it abruptly. “Hi, I’m Masura, Bakugo’s father. It’s so nice to meet you.” He walked over calmly and extended his hand for you to shake, waiting for you to shake his hand unlike his wife.

The two were so different, yet they made total sense for the child they had raised. Totally crazy and energetic most of the time, but could be chill and calm if he wanted to or needed to. “Oh deary, say something! I’m so looking forward to meeting you! Katsuki, keep the chicken on the low cook and keep an eye on it while your father and I talk to your girlfriend!” She grabbed your arm and rushed you to the dining table, sitting you next to her.

“Now tell me, how did you and Katsuki meet? Did you ask him out first, or did my son actually grow a pair?! Tell me everything!” Mitsuki asked you, before her husband turned his eyes to his son. “Katsuki, that’s not how you-!” You turned to see Bakugo struggling with the chicken, quickly getting up and walking over to him to help. “Katsuki, you have to stir it so it’ll cook evenly.” You grabbed his hand in your own and began to move the spoon around the pan, moving the chicken, noodles and cheese sauce around.

Katsuki blushed, but he didn’t pull away as he looked over to see his Mother and Father watching attentively. At least that’s what he told himself when your bare touch sent electricity through his body, as if Denki had shocked him in the pool again during swim practice. As his parents stared at them googly-eyed, his mother reached into the pocket to get her phone. “Oh dear, I left my phone in the car. Let’s leave these two alone for a second and go get it.” Mitsuki smiled at her husband, grabbing his hand and forcing him to leave the building.

“You look good.” Bakugo murmured as you turned to him angrily, turning back and ignoring him. “I said you look good, like really good.” He commented once more, but you chose to ignore him again, not even bothering to turn. Before you could react, he grabbed you by the waist and pushed you against the corner, turning you around to face him. “Why are you ignoring me?” He asked as you rolled your eyes, trying to hold back the tears.

“You’re so rude at me, I’m doing you a favor here so your family doesn’t think you have a boyfriend!” You yelled at him, ignoring the fact that his leg was slowly making it’s way in between your own. “I’m doing you the same favor with your family!” He yelled back, now getting angry. What he wasn’t expecting was when you burst into tears, beginning to run out of the room before he grabbed your wrist. “Y/n!” He yelled, beginning to pull you to his chest as you cried. At that moment, he realized something...

“And you don’t even have to pay us! Just pretend to be our boyfriends for Mina’s family, and everything will be fine! Then we can both forget that any of it happened, and we’ll be set!”

You didn’t have a family coming for Family Day.

“You... I’m guessing your family isn’t coming today.” He murmured as you looked up at him, tears streaming from your e/c eyes. “Oh Y/n, I’m so sorry.” He whispered sadly, holding your head close to his heart as you could literally feeling it beating. “It’s okay... I’m used to it.” You explained as he couldn't help but feel like a jerk, even more than usual. “Is there anything I can do? Let me do something, I feel so bad.” Bakugo expressed, surprised when you pushed yourself from him.

“No... Don’t let me ruin your day with your mom and dad, enjoy time with them. I’m going to go fix up my hair, be right back.” Before Bakugo could argue, you ran out of the kitchen, and out of view. He would have run after you if his parents hadn’t walked into the kitchen the next second. “Aww, where is she? I wanted to take some photos!” Mitsuki exclaimed as she smiled, showing her phone to Bakugo.

“She had to go fix her hair, she’ll be back in a minute.” He groaned, staring at the food in front of him. All he could want is to feel your hand on his, and to feel your warmth on his body. He knew it was wrong to want you with neither of you being single, but the want was to great for him to think of any morals. Little did he know, his boyfriend was experiencing the same dilemma.

You walked into the bathroom, tears about to spill out of your eyes at the thought of your parents. Your mother would be the life of the party with the other moms, and your dad could talk about anything for hours with the dads. Your sister would have came and bonded with Mina, Bakugo, and Kiri. She would have loved them, saying that you could have dated any one of them and it’d be too cute.

Your family was so supportive, yet you had lost them in that one car accident in elementary school. Being forced into foster home after foster home, tragedy seemed to follow wherever you went. Your first foster home turned out to be a crack house, the second with young kids who just wanted the money, and the third was a woman who was too busy to give you the time of day.

The cycle seemed to end only when Aizawa installed the dorms, and you were ever so thankful. You were able to get money from companies you had saved from fires and earthquakes, so financially you were good. But mentally, losing your entire family in one night took a toll on you, and you had vowed to never grow close to anyone who you could lose again.

But then Mina came into your life and changed everything. In a single week you went from not talking at all like Shoto to being the most social girl in the class. You became friend’s with everyone, and thanks to her, you also learned a thing or two about your sexuality. By the time you and her got together, your entire life had changed for the better. Yet, sometimes it still hurt.

As your sobs filled the bathroom, you failed to hear the door open and close behind you. “Y/n?! Oh gosh, what happened?” You looked into the mirror to see Mina running to you, hugging you from behind. “I... I miss them. I really really miss them.” You told him as she nodded, wiping a tear from your cheek. “You poor thing. I know it hurts.”

She gave you a sad smile before hugging you again. “Just think about how proud they would be. You went from a foster kid to a UA student who’s going to make it big and become a pro hero! You’re incredible Y/n. They’re proud of you. I’m proud of you. They love you. I love you. I know it’s hard, but just think about how much they love you. You are making them so happy.”

You smiled at your girlfriend as she kissed your cheek. “So, what are you doing in here? Trying to hide from your parents again?” You asked as Mina giggled, blushing. “You know me too well. The tension between Kirishima and my parents are terrible. Not to mention that Kirishima’s parents left to go see his brother and want to meet up for dinner tonight, so it’s just Kiri and my family.”

You smiled at Mina, loving the way that she could still make you smile whenever she wanted. “Yikes. Want me to come help out? Bakugo and I aren’t... doing the best.” Mina smiled at you, nodding. “Of course!! I was thinking I would have to beg you!” She grabbed your hand and wiped the tears off your cheek before pulling you out into the hall towards her family and Kirishima.

As soon as you got close to them, you watched all of their eyes brighten up. “Hey Kiddo! Long time no see!” Mina’s father, one of the main owners of the country club nearby, gave you a side hug happily. “Oh dear, is it possible that you’ve gotten prettier since the Summer?” Mrs. Ashido exclaimed happily, hugging you tightly. “It’s good to see you’ve recovered.” She smiled.

“Recovered?” Kirishima asked curiously as you turned to him, remembering that he was there. “Oh ya, I rode my motorcycle off the roof of Mina’s house and broke my arm. I missed the pool. It was nothing though, I got over it fast.” The Ashidos and you laughed it off as Kirishima’s eyes widened. You were so cool... “Anyways, what’s been up with you chica?” Mrs. Ashido asked, smiling ear-to-ear as she started a conversation with her second child.

“Oh, nothing much. UA is such an amazing school, it’s wild. The dorms are brand new and I’m neighbors with Mina and my other friend Hagakure so it’s never that loud. 1-A is such a nice class, I’m literally friends with everyone. They’re all just so nice and we all help each other, plus the guys are so cool. Denki charges my phone when we’re on the bus, and Sato makes me cake.”

As Mina’s parents laughed and continued to carry on the conversation, you happened to look over at Mina and Kirishima. They were whispering and giggling with one another, holding hands and sitting very close as they stared into each other’s eyes, smiling widely with blushed faces. Something in your stomach dropped as they both looked over, meeting eye contact with you.

They froze before separating, trying to pretend like nothing had happened. “If you’ll excuse me, I just think I forgot to put out the candles in my room. Be right back.” You excused yourself from the conversation with Mina’s parents, quickly walking into the elevator. “Wait, Y/n!” As you entered the elevator, you turned to see Kiri and Mina running after you.

You pressed the 2nd floor button, letting tears fall onto your face as you watched the two run after you. Lucky for you, the doors closed before they could get to you, letting you cry in peace. You closed your eyes tightly and let the tears fall onto your cheeks, feeling exhausted from the lack of school, emotional, and confused about what you were feeling.

Mina and Kiri were just so perfect together, and they obviously had feelings for one another, yet they both had said they loved you earlier that day. Were you bringing them down, or being played? As the elevator opened and you ran out, you ran into someone. Almost falling before they grabbed you, you looked up to see Bakugo. “I went to your room to check but you weren’t there.”

He helped you back to your feet before seeing the tears streaming down your face. “What’s wrong with you?” He asked, surprised when you ran into his chest, now sobbing. “Today has been the worst day of my life! I haven’t slept all week because I was thinking about my family, and then today has just been the absolute worst!” You confessed as he nodded, petting your head.

You were shocked at his sudden gesture, filled with surprising compassion and sympathy. “I know how you feel. I made a girl who I love cry.” You looked up at Bakugo, eyes wide as you could only guess what he had meant. “I bet that made you feel like a jerk.” You murmured slowly, staring into his red crimson eyes. “Yea, I should have ran after her.”

Slowly, you and Bakugo leaned together, kissing slowly. He cupped your face with his hand, and used the other on the back of your head to intensify the kiss. “God, I’ve wanted to do this for so long.” He whispered as he began to trail he hands to your waist, squeezing every curve of your body. Slowly, he pushed your back into the elevator and pushed you up against the wall.

“Wait, no. I can’t do this.” You pushed him away as he sighed, separating only a bit from your lips. “I’m risking just as much as you.” He exclaimed as you both didn’t realize the elevator door had opened. “No, I can’t do any of this! I’ve kissed you, Mina, and Kirishima in the same day!” As you saw Bakugo’s eyes widen, you turned around to see Kirishima and Mina staring back.

“I’m such an awful person!” You cried out, running past them and into the side hallway towards the side exit. As you grabbed the door and tried to run out, you felt Kirishima wrap his hands around your waist. “No! Let go of me, please!” You begged, pushing against him as he continued to held you close, letting Bakugo and Mina catch up to you both.

“Y/n, please relax. It’s fine, nobody is mad at you.” Kirishima tried to calm you as you finally stopped fighting, dangling from his arms as tears streamed down your face. “I’m mad at myself. What kind of girlfriend am I?’ You asked as your eyelids slowly drooped down. “Baby, how much sleep have you gotten recently?” Mina asked as you looked up at her slowly.

“Two and a half hours...” You whispered as Bakugo’s eyes widened at you. “God, no wonder you’ve been so emotional today. You must feel like you’re dying.” He exclaimed as you nodded, sleep overcoming you without your consent. “Oh god, go get her to her room. I’ll go tell our parents that she’s not doing well. Then we all can meet up for dinner.” Mina explained before leaving towards the main room.

“Let’s go. I’ll carry her.” Bakugo told his boyfriend as Kirishima shook his head. “I wanted to.” Kirishima protested as Bakugo sighed angrily. “Fine, let’s go!” Bakugo groaned, opening the door to the exit and leading Kirishima to Y/n’s room. When they walked in, Kirishima laid her on the bed while Bakugo walked to get her water bottle.

He handed it to Kirishima who put it on the nightstand before laying a blanket on top of her. “She doesn’t have a fever, so I think she’ll be fine.” Kirishima murmured as Katsuki nodded and sighed. “You... kissed her?” Bakugo asked as Kirishima turned to him, nodding guiltily. “I almost kissed Mina, but only Y/n. Did you?” Kirishima asked as Bakugo nodded upsettingly. “I... I’m a terrible boyfriend.” Kirishima murmured.

“No, don’t blame yourself. I did the exact same thing, except not Mina.” Bakugo sat down next to his boyfriend, letting Kiri lean on him. “Please don’t break up with me. I... I really love you Bakugo.” Kirishima looked into his boyfriend’s eyes, kissing him slowly. “I love you too Kirishima. Never ever forget it.” Bakugo kissed his forehead, before putting his arm around Kirishima.

“So... now what? We both love each other, and we both love her.” Kirishima asked, but was met with silence, meaning that Bakugo literally didn’t know. The silence was interrupted when Mina walked back in. “All of our families are meeting for pizza at 8 tonight. How’s she doing?” She asked as they both turned to her, smiling.

“She’s doing well. She’s not sick, just probably tired. She can sleep for three hours and then go to dinner.” Kirishima explained, holding onto your hand tightly as you slept. “So... what now? The three of us drove her to exhaustion and an anxiety attack. I think we owe her an answer, and apology.” Mina explained as the two boys nodded. “What about... all of us in a relationship? I’m okay with it if you guys are.”

Bakugo and Kirishima exchanged glances, surprised by Mina’s proposition. “I... I’d be down to try it.” Bakugo whispered, shocking Kirishima by his confession. “I... Of course.” Kirishima began to smile as Mina sat down and hugged them quickly. “You guys are the sweetest. Now it’s just up to...” All three of them turned to the h/c girl in the bed.

“We can get an answer when she’s up for it. Right now, she just needs to-” Mina stopped as you opened your eyes partially. “Mina? Bakugo? Kiri? What’s happening?” You asked, looking around your room. “Nothing baby, just go to sleep.” Mina began rubbing your back as you shook your head no. “Please.” You tugged on her sleeve, and then on Kirishima’s.

Slowly you pulled all of them into the queen bed of your dorm, including Bakugo who surprisingly climbed in after Kiri. “What about dinner?” Bakugo asked as you pulled him closer. “We have a few more hours. Don’t worry about it.” Kirishima ruffled his boyfriend’s spiky blonde hair and nestled into the crook of his neck. There, and only there, did you feel like you had a family again. Two boyfriends and an adorable girlfriend.

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stanbillyhargrove · 4 years ago

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Demons - The Rewrite

Chapter 6 - You Need A Friend

TW: Eating disorder, self harm, non con, drugs

Steve's POV

I was pushing through the crowds, trying to find a glimpse of Cat in the sea of bodies around me. A stranger had taken her, that's all I knew. That she asked for me and someone else had taken her.

Fuck, I should have stuck closer.

I tried to shake off the anxiety. This is Hawkins, where everybody knows everybody. Safe. She's okay.

“She’s passed out upstairs?"

“Yeah, out cold..she didn't spaz like the last one, just dropped..I left her there for you."

“Wait til you see her. All cut up and shit...fucking ass is great though."

A few of the guys from out of town huddled together in the kitchen, grinning from ear to ear. I had heard enough to spike my concern, leaving the crowd to go look around upstairs. Some poor girl had drank too much and needed someone to take care of her. I walked into room after room, excusing myself from the rooms that had people in them, before I found a girl lying prone on a bed. I closed the door behind me and noticed her clothes, black pants unbuttoned, red shirt up above her breasts.

“You okay?” I whispered.

"Hello? Cat is that you?” I asked, inching closer.

I gasped as I stepped up to the bed, noticing the angry red scabs and pearly white scars that littered her hips, stomach and chest. I could see how small and frail she looked, ribs and hips poking out of her pale skin.

She looked so sick.

I tried shaking her, but she didn’t wake up. I paused, waiting to see her chest rise and fall with a shallow breath.

Where the fuck was Billy? He was supposed to be here. I didn't know..

Breathing deeply, I tried to control myself as I pulled her clothes back to where they were supposed to be. Carefully, I tried to scoop her up into my arms. It took a few tries to get myself balanced enough to lift her dead weight, her head lolling against my shoulder as I walked downstairs.

Time slowed to a crawl as I descended the stairs. My eyes met those of one of the out of towners on his way up. Tan and lanky, all polished and proper, stereotypical prep guy. I watched the grin falter on his face when he noticed Cat in my arms. Just for a moment, his eyes widened and his jaw tensed, then a tight smile spread.

"That your friend? She doesn't look too good. Want me to call someone?"

Bastard.

I grit my teeth together and held Cat's limp body tighter to me, "she's fine."

Too white teeth flashed, "good. You take care of her."

I turned to move past him but he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

"She's lucky...having a friend like you to watch her. There's a lot of people here...she could have gotten hurt."

I twisted and pushed past him, hurrying to get Cat out of here. Laid her across the backseat of my car with my jacket under her head before getting in the drivers seat.

I ran my fingers through my hair, tightening my hands into fists and tugging my locks before smacking the steering wheel with a growl. Looked in my rearview mirror back at the house and contemplated going back in and starting a fight but then glanced down at Cat sleeping and drove away instead.

Luckily, my parents were never home so there was nobody to explain why I was carrying a passed out girl to my room to. I laid her down in my bed, pulling off her jacket and pants, seeing scars going down her arms and legs too, and tucked her into the covers. I wondered to myself if Billy knew how bad of shape she was in as I changed into sweatpants and made myself a bed of pillows and blankets on the floor.

Quickly I ran downstairs to grab some water for Cat and stopped when I looked at the house phone. I stared at it for a moment before I looked up Billy’s number in the phone book and dialed, exhaling hard.

“Hello?” A woman answered after a moment.

I could hear a man's voice in the background, angry that the phone was ringing so late.

“Hello, this is Steve Harrington. I’m sorry...I'm just looking for Billy, is he home?”

“Sorry hun, he hasn't been home all evening, he was closing the pool tonight. Should I tell him you called in the morning?”

I sighed, “no, that’s okay. Thank you.”

She said a quick good bye and hung up the phone.

“Fuck," I growled, slamming the phone back onto the hook, "what the fuck do I do?"

I looked at Cat when I got back to my room and felt my heart clench, she almost looked dead. After really seeing her I couldn’t stop looking at her pale skin and sunken cheeks. I used to think she was just naturally thin with sharp cheekbones but I never thought that her whole body would be sunken.

I never thought she was hiding being so sickly.

I stared closely at her to see her chest slowly moving and sighed in relief before lying in my makeshift bed and staring at the ceiling.

How do I tell her what happened? Did something happen or did I get to her before anything could happen? Before falling asleep I cursed myself too and promised to keep her safe.

@charmed-asylum

#billy hargrove #billy hargrove fanfiction #billy hargrove series #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things #steve harrington #billy hargrove fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic

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asherranceoftheheart · 5 years ago

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Icarus Falls - Ch. I - What A Wonderful World!

Story Summary: “You'll never leave me alone right?" "You think I'd actually let you go?"

A story about the slow descent and corruption of a lonely man, a demon who learns that bonds go both ways, brothers who deeply regrets their words spoken out of anger, and a conflicted man watching them all fall down from the distance. Here's a Puppet!Chase AU that was written with extreme self-indulgence so beware and read the tags before entering.

Chapter Summary: It’s Sad Chase Hours, my friends! (:( Pairing/s: None, Platonic Character/s: Jack McLoughlin, Chase Brody, Antisepticeye, Mentions of Other Septic Egos Genre: Angst Chapter Warning/s: Creepy!Anti, Self-Deprecating Thoughts (Thoughts like I’m not as good as the others, etc.), Sadness (Archive Of Our Own Edition) Note/s: If you wanna get tagged in this fic just tell me lmao. Also I’d advise the people who has an AO3 account to follow and subscribe to this fic there cause it’ll be easier to get notifications that I’ve updated the story. Oh and Jack McLoughlin is basically NOT Sean. He’s based on him but his motivations, personality, and etc. are different. So I guess please consider him as like another Septic Ego?

Nearly an entire year has passed ever since his best friend had been rushed into this hospital and was declared to be under a comatose state without showing any sign that he was going to be waking up soon. The chemically clean smell of the hospital that originally made him sick now barely affected him. Don’t get him wrong, he still hated the smell but when you’re here every three days it stops affecting you and is basically just a part of the background like the constant beeping of the heart monitor that originally drove him rather mad.

He held Jack’s thin hand, pressing the cold palm against his cheek and closed his blurring eyes.

“I miss you so much…” Chase choked on the heavy, bitter tar of sadness clinging to the inside of his throat and the wire of thorns made out of his guilt constricting suffocatingly around his bleeding heart. “I should be the one in your place, not you… I’m the weakest, most useless one among all of us. It shouldn’t have been you.”

The stinging burn of his tears welled up in his closed eyes and he furiously blinked them away even as his body heaved with dry sobs.

Pathetic…

While all the others are out there trying to find the cure to help Jack wake up from his coma, he was stuck here moping around, constantly crying like a little crybaby…

Powerless, useless, waste of space Chase…

He snapped out of his self-deprecating thoughts when he felt something squeeze his hand lightly. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought he was just imagining the action out of desperation. He looked at Jack’s sleeping face and humorlessly smiled. Somehow, even when the man was in the depths of his coma, Jack always knew whenever he wasn’t being kind to himself. When he was awake, he’d just painlessly whap him on his back or shoulders before pulling him into a tight hug to murmur against his hair that he’s going to be okay and that whatever mean thing he was telling himself wasn’t true.

“Hey! Don’t think of yourself that way, Chaser. If it weren’t for you nobody’d be dragging Henrik off to sleep or to eat something for the entire day and would’ve just kept on working regardless of how much he was already suffering. Jackie wouldn’t have anyone to chill and relax with when he’s trying to take a break from his superhero job to remind him that he’s human and he needs to rest too. Nobody would be dragging Marvin, screaming and spitting like a cat, out of his stuffy bedroom to enjoy the day outside and to be nicer to others rather than continuing his foot in mouth syndrome. You’re important to us Chasey so please, please never think of yourself that way.”

He could still hear Jack’s voice pleading with him while he used those silvery blue eyes to melt most of his self-doubt and self-hatred away… At least for the time being.

Chase laid his cheek on his crossed arms on top of the bed and he held Jack’s hand tightly as if he was afraid that the comatose man would disappear if he wasn’t watching over him carefully. The effects of sleepless nights, repeating extremely vivid nightmares, and the constant emotional and mental torment from Him finally took its toll on the weary man. A wave of exhaustion poured over his entire body and he could feel his eyelids being weighed down by fatigue.

He drifted off to sleep in mere seconds.

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

A hand was squeezing his cheeks and pulling them apart. Chase grumbled and attempted to turn over to the other side to escape the menace who was snickering at his futile attempts.

“Good morning Chasey Wasey,” he heard Jack coo at him mockingly in a tone used to humor babies. He hissed angrily when he felt a hand ruffling his bed hair furiously making it even worse than usual. “Time to wakey and facey the day, sunshine!”

“Fuck off, Jack,” Chase grunted as he pulled up the blankets to cover his face and swatted the hand that tried to squeeze his cheeks again.

His only warning was a sigh before someone was suddenly jumping on him and laying their entire body weight on the previously sleepy man. His eyes snapped open just as his blanket was forcefully pulled down and a pair of hands with wriggling fingers began to attack his ticklish sides. Chase began to squeal like a pig and squirmed like a worm trying to escape the smirking Jack’s trap while he howled with laughter.

“Jahahahahahack! Stahahahahahap!” Chase began to curse the snickering man who ruthlessly kept dancing and digging his fingers up and down the cursing-laughing man’s sensitive sides to hear him scream.

“Awwww, why should I? Look at you, you’re having so much fun right now!” Jack grinned down at the rapidly growing red face. “Coochie coochie coo!”

The older man only took mercy on Chase after his laughter had evolved into soundless screaming and he looked like he just stopped breathing with how hard he was laughing. Jack chuckled and rolled off the panting man’s body to flump over, spread-eagled to his other side. He draped an arm over Chase’s face and snickered when he shoved it away with an irritated grunt.

“You… are… a… motherfucker,” Chase huffed out every word with a hiss, righteous vengeance burning in those teary baby blue eyes that had Jack internally adding to his mental notes to watch out for the upcoming revenge from the other man. “I’m… going… to… fucking… kill you.”

He propped himself up on an arm and teasingly poked Chase’s soft, flushed cheek with a grin.

“Is that any way to talk to your father, young man?” Jack dropped his voice in a teasing mockery of a stern father’s loving but scolding voice.

Chase rolled his eyes and gave Jack a look that could wither up an entire tree in three seconds.

“I didn’t realize you signed up for my child support, Dad,” Chase narrowed his eyes dangerously and sassed him back with a sickly sweet smile and a voice dripping with poisoned honey. “I’m sure Marvin would be very interested to find out about this little fact.”

This time it was Jack’s turn to shudder and look at the younger man with a little bit of fear. They both knew that if Marvin ever heard of their little jokes, he was not going to leave Jack in peace. That magician was determined to have Jack take responsibility as their ‘parent’ despite the fact that trying to get that legally acknowledged is going to be a piece of hell to explain. Not that that matters to Marvin of course. The prideful man could out-stubborn even a rock.

Jack pouted and Chase’s smile widened. This was definitely a win for Chase.

He smacked his palm over the little bastard’s smug face and yelped and gave Chase a disgusted look when he felt him lick his palm. He snagged his own hand away and wiped the saliva off his shirt while Chase sat up trying to pat down his fluffed up hair that was flying all over the place.

“You literally don’t know where this hand has been, you little shit.” Jack told Chase who arched an eyebrow at him and looked him dead in the eyes, no sign of regret or remorse over his previous action.

“What? Are you one of those crusty dirty bastards who never washed their hands when they go to the bathroom? Are you a crusty, dirty old man, Jack?” Chase taunted his creator who snapped and pounced on him to lock his head under his arms while he noogied his creation. “I’m going to tell Henrik you’re one of those dirty bastards and then you’ll get five hours worth of lecture for your crusty ass!”

“No you fucking won’t or I’ll tell Henrik that you haven’t been eating anything else other than Mac and Cheese for dinner for the past week just because he said that it wasn’t healthy for you and you, the complete child you are, decided to spite him because you said quote that Henrik is not the boss of you end quote.” Jack growled back at the other man who was still trying to pull his head out of his armlock.

Jack smirked victoriously when Chase stopped squirming and looked up at him with narrowed eyes.

“... Truce?” Chase finally decided after a few minutes of their stubborn staring contest. He was pouting sulkily.

Jack snorted and gave Chase’s hair another ruffle before he finally let him go, “Truce. Anyway, get your ass up. We’re supposed to be meeting the others for lunch outside today.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Chase grumbled but the next words still came out as easily as breathing to him. “Love you, bro.”

The words albeit it had been grumbled out was still painfully sincere. It lit up Jack’s weary face with a fond smile. He pulled Chase into a big hug and buried his face into that fluffy brown hair.

“Yeah… Love you too, Chaser.”

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

“...dy? Mister Brody, visitation hours are done,” Chase slowly, reluctantly stirred from the peaceful dream that he tried with all his might to never wake from.

He didn’t want to wake back up into the cold reality where he had to face that he was all alone and carrying what felt like the entire world on his aching back. He wanted to stay in that memory where his family was by his side and his closest friend and brother would be there to shake him awake ready to greet him with a smile and a lively spark in his eyes. However, he knew that he couldn’t postpone reality any further and he also knew that Jack and the others wouldn’t want to lose him to the world of bittersweet memories. There was no need to add one more unimportant baggage with another comatose friend to the other’s stress.

Chase forced himself to open his eyes and his hand was still loosely being squeezed by Jack in his sleep. That was the only reaction they ever got from him. He hoped that the others at least read his messages reporting Jack’s ‘progress’ over the past months. It’d be nice to try and be optimistic in believing that this means that Jack was slowly regaining his strength again.

“Good evening, Mister Brody,” Chase sat up at the sound of the familiar voice. He rubbed the crud made from sleep from his eyes to blink up at one of the doctors that had been assigned to care for Jack.

The man had neatly cut auburn hair, freckles dusting his pretty face like a night sky full of stars, and a pair of kind grey eyes. Doctor Adam often allows him to stay a bit later than usual for visitation hours, probably out of pity especially whenever he sees his god awful face.

“Evening Doc,” Chase muttered with a rough voice and glanced at the clock. He let out a groan and rubbed a hand down his face when he saw that the clock’s hands were pointing at nine o’clock. “Thanks for giving me an additional hour, Doc.”

The man just patted his shoulder and gazed at his comatose patient’s blank face. If one didn’t know better, they would think that Jack was merely in a deep sleep.

“You slept the entire day away since you came in before lunch. Have you been getting any sleep on your own, Mister Brody?” The gentle inquiry made Chase wince as he thought about his sleep schedule or rather to be more accurate, the complete lack of it. “Please try to get some rest by yourself. Nobody would be happy if you were to follow after your brother’s footsteps into this hospital.”

Chase sighed and rubbed a thumb on the back of Jack’s hand. It’s not like he can tell the doctor that sleeping peacefully and living well is not an option in a household where you have to deal with a demon who follows your every step, save for when he comes to this hospital, to torment you and push you around. Thank fuck Marvin used a powerful warding spell on this place before he and Jamie vanished on a trip to find a spell that could wake Jack up. He did ask his older brother why he couldn’t use the same spell around the house but Marvin explained that the hospital is connected to a powerful leyline so the spell is automatically powered to be kept up without his influence. The house doesn’t have the same advantage.

He understood his brother’s explanation and dismissed his own suggestion. He didn’t want to take up too much of Marvin’s energy when he should be focusing it on more important things. Marvin gave him one of his rare hugs and thanked him for his understanding before he was off. Jamie followed after him but not before staying back a bit longer to talk to him.

“Are you truly sure that you will be alright by yourself?” Jameson furrowed his brows as he asked his older brother. Chase plastered on a convincing smile and gave the youngest ego a hug before letting him go.

“Take care of our stubborn big brother. He’s a bit prickly but since you both have the soul bond he’s more likely to listen to you and be nicer to you. Keep yourselves out of trouble, okay?” Chase stood up on his toes to kiss Jameson on his forehead before gently pushing him towards the direction Marvin left. “Go. Don’t worry your head about me. I’ll be fine. You guys would be going through more dangerous tasks than I do.”

Jameson looked like he wanted to say something before he must have thought it wasn’t worth the effort before he gave him one last squeeze and a kiss dropped down on the crown of Chase’s head before he ran off to follow their magician.

He hasn’t heard anything from them in months but Chase knew that they were fine. If Anti had captured them, he would’ve been gloating about their unfortunate fate day in and day out into Chase’s ears.

“I’ll try to take care of myself, Doc.” He returned his mind back to the present and gave the concerned doctor a small smile. “You’re right. Nobody would want me to follow Jack here.”

‘At least… not yet,’ Chase’s dull eyes dimmed further at the dark whisper of his mind.

He stretched his arms out and faked a big yawn to hide the dullness of his eyes that were only accented by the dark raccoon-like black bags circling them. Chase stood up, gently prying Jack’s hand from his own, and leaned over to brush his chapped lips against the cold skin of his forehead. Sometimes, his morbid thoughts would rear in and tell him that he was basically caring for Jack’s corpse at this point. He brushed away his brother’s growing bangs from his thin face.

“His hair’s getting pretty long,” Chase idly commented as he twirled a brown lock around his pinky finger. “We should trim it soon.”

“We should,” he heard Doctor Adam walk behind him and grab his shoulder with a firm squeeze. “You look exhausted, Chase. Are you sure you’ll be fine going home on your own?”

The fussing from the other man painfully reminded Chase of the times Henrik would nag him over his health. He’d often tell him to call him or one of the other guys to come pick him up if he was too tired from his shoots to drive home on his own.

Poor Henrik… Ever since That Day, he had gone missing, probably spirited away by the demon that was tormenting all of them. Jackie followed soon after telling them tersely that he’s not coming back until he finds the other half of his soul bond. He did tell them to call him or text him if they managed to find a solution to Jack’s coma or if they found Henrik but other than that he had been ghosting them (or well, Chase) since he left. Chase wondered if the second leader of the group managed to find any other clues about Henrik other than that time when He managed to take over Jack’s tumblr to post the taunting images of a vacation postcard that grew bloodier and glitchier with every post edit before it was erased from existence as if it had never been there in the first place. He sent Marvin and Jackie messages about what happened but he has no way of knowing if they saw it or even believed him.

“I’ll be fine. I took a cab coming here,” Chase shrugged off the warm hand from his shoulder and pushed past the unresisting taller man’s body, “It’s getting late. I won’t get you into more trouble for letting me stay past visiting hours again.”

“You look like you’re only getting your good night’s sleep here and it’s not like you’re disturbing our patient,” Adam scratched the back of his head and gazed at the tired slump of Chase’s shoulders. “Be careful on your way home and please get something to eat… You haven’t eaten anything the entire day.”

Chase wisefully didn’t say that he hasn’t been having that much of an appetite to eat anything for the past months. Everything just tasted like cardboard in his mouth and it was taking him more energy to get food down into his stomach than any other activity. He still forces himself to try and eat something three times a day despite his lack of appetite. After all, you can’t hide extreme weight loss in a recorded video easily unlike the makeup he would expertly use to hide the black bags around his eyes. He does have to care for his body or else the community would notice that something was wrong.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll eat something when I get home.” He waved off the doctor’s concerns and inclined his head towards Jack. “Bye Jackaboy… I’ll see you in three days.”

He looked back at the doctor who was now checking his patient’s numbers to see if there was anything they should be worried about or if there had been any positive change.

“Doc, please keep taking good care of my big brother.”

“Of course, you take care of yourself as well, Mister Brody.”

With one final glance at his brother’s face, he turned around and mustered up all the flimsy strength in his heart to prepare himself for the war that will greet him when he returned to that house.

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

Chase paid the cab driver his fare and gave him a nice tip for the smooth drive. Before he exited the cab, he bade the old man farewell and wished him a safe drive. He slid out of the car and closed the door behind him, watching the cab disappear off into the distance then told himself that he can’t keep putting the upcoming event off. He deeply breathed in, his lungs expanding with the chill of the evening breeze before letting it out slowly through his nose to calm his racing heart.

He looked up into the darkened windows of the house, the lack of light giving it a more ominous look even before he caught sight of a pair of green eyes watching him from the windows on the second floor. There was unrestrained delight in those eyes as they relished in the sight of his obvious fear and internal conflict that kept him from moving his frozen legs to enter the house.

“Stop being such a wuss, Chase,” he whispered to himself as he swallowed around the lump in his throat and forced his shaking legs to walk up to the front door.

He unlatched the collection of keys swaying from its place on his front belt loop and flipped through them before coming to a stop on the front door key. He fumbled with it, trying to stall for more time, and inserted the item into the keyhole. The man hesitated for a second, knowing just what awaited him behind that door before he gritted his teeth and forced himself to turn the key. The click of the lock opening sounded like the bell that would sound for one’s death. He pulled the key out and reached over to wrap his sweaty hand around the ice cold steel surface of the doorknob and slowly pushed the door open.

The pitch darkness of the hallway made him feel small and helpless to whatever lurks within its shadows. He resisted the urge screaming at him to turn around and run back to the hospital with his tail tucked between his legs. He dug his nails in his palms, forming faint crescents, before he stepped inside the dark house and closed the door behind him. The hair behind his neck rose along with the goosebumps on his arms. Someone was watching him.

The feeling of being watched has grown worse now that he stood all alone in the dark. It was as if His eyes were everywhere, focusing their unblinking gaze upon his shaking form. He leaned back against the closed front door and fumbled blindly for the lock. He already has enough in his own plate dealing with the being lurking in this house that he doesn’t want to deal with impromptu home invasions. He switched the lock up.

“... I’m back,” he doesn’t know why he kept doing this even though he knew that only one person (and it was his most disliked and feared person at that) would be there to listen. His words carried through the still air of the house and Chase grimaced when he heard the previously subtle static grow louder as He approached.

He shook his head and gathered up the shattered pieces of his courage and journeyed on to the kitchen. While he doesn’t have the appetite, he could still make do with a sandwich or two for food. He’d flick on whatever light switch he’d encounter on his way to the kitchen and he began to lose some of the tension in his muscles as the dark house soon brightened up. Don’t get him wrong. He’d never fully turn off his guard while he’s outside of the hospital’s warded boundaries but light always had a way of easing some of his worries and burning away a little bit of that fear.

When he reached the kitchen, he headed straight for the cupboard to grab a box full of teabags to get a kettle started up. He used whatever flavor his hand could snag from the box first before putting the other teabags back in the cupboard. Then he walked over to the fridge and opened its door to look at his selection of food.

Normally, if this had been the past and he had the energy and enthusiasm, he would’ve been cooking homemade food because it was his favorite activity other than filming videos and trickshots, playing the piano, or doodling or sketching something that caught his interest. However, it’s been a while since he did any of those hobbies. He didn’t really have any room in his energy output to be able to invest some time in his own passions.

Most of what was inside the fridge delivered fast food and a rare takeout box. Occasionally he’d get the energy to eat outside since he was sick of the silence of the house but that happens probably twice or thrice a month.

He wasn’t in the mood for anything especially heavy so he chose the club sandwich that came with his ordered salad a week ago. He gave it a careful sniff and shrugged when it smelled pretty normal.

When he closed the fridge’s door, he didn’t react to His sudden appearance behind it.

“Hello, little Brody,” the demon purred, His creepy inhumane wide smile stretching out further until it looked like it was about to split His face apart when He saw his hand tightly gripping his sandwich. “Did you have fun visiting Jack today?”

Chase swallowed the biting words ‘Don’t say his name’ down his throat to let it sit heavily in his stomach. He found that the best way to cope with the demon’s presence was to ignore Him and give Him no attention until He grows bored of you for the rest of the day. It’s not a perfect tactic. Sometimes it angers Him and Chase is left with new bruises covering up the side of his back that makes it difficult to sit in a hard chair but he made do. He turned around without looking back at the smiling demon and returned to the whistling kettle. The strong fragrance of peppermint filled the room and its scent lessened some of Chase’s drowsiness. He turned off the heat and poured himself a cup of tea before going to the living room.

“Still ignoring me, Chaser?” The high pitched giggles grated on Chase’s nerves and ears but he determinedly pretended that nobody was shadowing his steps, blowing little puffs of cold air behind his neck. He gritted his teeth and stopped his twitching arm from spinning him around and striking Him on the face. That would just encourage Him to retaliate.

He hastened his brisk pace and placed the cup of scalding tea on the table before collapsing on the couch. He reached out to grab the remote control of the TV from the table before turning it on and navigated the screen to Netflix. He decided to continue watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine and maybe even bring some cheer to himself. His dull blue eyes never wavered from the screen in spite of the intent, sneering gaze burning a hole through him coming from the side. He only leaned over to pick up the mug that was still smoking hot.

“Have you finally received any notice from the cowardly magician and fake hero that they’ve actually read your messages or are they still pretending that you have no important information to tell them?” The demon crooned, His poisonous words managing to directly hit all of the weak points of Chase’s insecurities.

His hand tightened around the mug's handle. He felt Him shuffle closer almost until their arms were touching together.

Ignore Him Chase. Ignore Him. He’s just taunting you. He’s just trying to get a rise out of you. You know His games. You’ve been playing it since December last year. He is lying to you. Do not believe His lies.

“Leaving you with no way of contacting them for emergencies, ignoring all of your calls and messages… One would think that you’re just an unimportant nuisance to them,” He giggled, He was so close now that Chase could feel the static that clung to His presence teasingly sparking up against the skin of his arms. “Such loyal and loving brothers you have there, Chaser.”

He suddenly grew hyper aware of the heaviness of his phone that had been stuck in his front pocket for the entire day. He didn’t power up the thing ever since he woke up this morning until he was sitting in the taxi cab on the way back. He texted Marvin and Jackie’s number to give them the weekly updates on Jack even if there hasn’t been any change at all. He began to type out that He has been haunting him and stared down at that part of the message with a blank gaze before he erased the parts mentioning how he was actually doing and just said that he’s been fine if not a bit tired.

Sometimes, when Chase was feeling a bit selfish, he wished that they would send him back something, even if it’s just the single letter K to tell him that they’ve been reading his messages. Originally, he told them about his daily nightmares about Him and how He was starting to show His presence around him but the lack of replies felt… cold and uncaring. It felt like he was annoying them about his complaints and should just suck it up. It wasn’t like He was kidnapping him or anything.

So he stopped. He only texted them now for reports on Jack’s state.

His head was beginning to hurt, more specifically the side of his head was beginning to hurt like a bitch. Ah. He was getting too emotional.

He bit down on his tongue, the pain snapped him out of the emotional downhill he was starting to fall into and to stop him from snapping at the demon and defend his brothers from the lies that He was spewing from His grinning mouth.

“Stubborn, so stubborn… You do know that everyone considers you as the weakest link of the group right?” Chase felt the shivers run up and down his spine when those ghostly fingers began to brush the top of his hair. “Poor useless, powerless little brother… You lost the only person who stood by your side while the others who swore to be your brothers abandoned you, left you to face the monster all on your own.”

Chase abruptly stood up, the mug that was filled with tea that had gone cold fell over to the floor as his loosened grip let go of it, the sound of his racing heartbeat roaring in his ears while he tried to ignore the demented cackling coming from his tormentor. His words kept bouncing around his head and in a futile attempt to forget it, he held up the ruined sandwich that he had unknowingly crushed in his hand and tore into it.

“You can’t run away from the truth, Chaser.” He crooned right next to his ears, His dark presence loomed over his shaking body. “I truly do wonder if the others would actually come to your rescue if you cried for their help?”

Chase looked down at the remaining pieces of the sandwich in his hand and at the feel of cold tea on his feet.

His sandwich tasted like ash in his mouth.

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

Chase ran his fingers through his wet hair and walked out of the shower, wiping off his wet feet on the bathroom mat so that he won’t accidentally slip and crack his skull on the toilet. Knowing Him, He’d probably just laugh His ass off at his own stupidity and then the last thing that he would see would be that demon’s grinning face. That would be a shitty end to an already shitty life.

When he said that the hospital was the only safe place in the world against Him, he was sort of lying. For someone as creepy as He was, He still doesn’t invade the bathroom space especially when he’s taking a bath so that’s one place he can have some temporary peace whatsoever. It’s not that everything stops when he’s in there. Like…

Chase looked at the mirror and saw that he was crying tears of blood again. He reaches up, wiping the crimson liquid away from his cheeks, feeling the squish of the blood on his fingers, and spreads the mess all over his face. However, when he looked down he already knew what sight was waiting for him.

His fingers were clean.

When he looked back up into the mirror, there was not a shred of evidence that blood had been streaming down his cheeks a few seconds ago.

It was sickeningly funny in a fucked up way how such a thing that would’ve incited extreme panic attacks and mental breakdowns in the beginning barely fazed him anymore. He squeezed his dry fingers together and sighed. After all, there were worse things to panic about other than illusory tears of blood at this point in his life.

After their little one-sided conversation in the living room, Chase decided to take out his airpods and plug them up to his ears while he cleaned up the mess his tea made on the floor and finished up the remaining tea on the kettle and his smushed up sandwich. He could see Him snickering at his valiant attempts of ignoring Him at the corner of his eyes but Chase just averted his sight and began singing loudly to the lyrics of the songs screaming against his ears. Once he chugged down his tea, forced the tasteless sandwich down his throat, and cleaned up his mess, he dragged himself upstairs and decided to go for a hot shower before going to ‘sleep’.

The heat was both a comfort and a hit on the face about how this entire bullshit situation was the reality that he has to live with. A comatose best friend, a missing brother, a demon haunting nearly every second of his day poking at every raw wound of insecurity in his psyche, and a bunch of distant brothers who were too busy with their own respective tasks to listen to him… A tiny part of him wanted the ex-wife and children in his backstory to be real so that he could at least worry about something else other than the supernatural stuff but the bigger part of him wasn’t cruel enough to wish this messed up situation on anyone just because he wanted to feel a little less lonely.

He stepped out of his shower once his skin turned slightly red from the temperature of the water. No doubt he’s going to feel the rawness and sensitivity of his skin in the morning if he wasn’t feeling emptier than usual but for now, he just didn’t care. He changed into an oversized clean blue shirt and black shorts after he finished drying his hair with a towel and walked out into his bedroom.

The place was what you would frankly call a Mess. Dirty clothes formed into small mountains all around the corners of the room, a bunch of dirty mugs and plates sat on the table, his laptop in sleep mode settled on top of his unmade bed, and a trashcan full of empty packets of chips and snacks that he couldn’t be bothered to take out. Chase looked around his room and could just imagine Henrik or Jack’s fussing over him and the mess. They’d drag him out of his bed and help him clean out his room or get some sunshine.

God… He missed them so much…

He trudged over to his bed and replaced his laptop over to the floor. He slipped under the sheets and crossed his arms under his head while he stared up into the dark ceiling of his room. He could feel His gaze staring right at him, watching him do nothing if not for the sole purpose of reminding him that he’s not alone.

…

Would it be fucked up if he said that some part of him was glad that He was there? Save for the people in the hospital and his other absent brothers, everybody thought that he was Jack. He couldn’t let it be known that the man was in a comatose state as that would just bring more questions than reasonable answers that they could answer with. He has to pretend to be him in front of the public because nobody needs Chase but a lot of people need Jack.

The demon was the only one outside of the hospital to acknowledge that he was Chase and it’s so disgustingly, pathetically refreshing to him. He was the only one who ever calls him by his name now and it helps him remember that he wasn’t Jack, he could never be Jack.

Maybe after all this is over… If he’s still alive by then, he’ll dye his hair an outrageous color again so that nobody would ever make the mistake of calling him Jack.

“Oh Chaser~” He hates that the nickname that held such fond memories for him was now tainted by the eight months of hearing it being hissed out with mockery by the demon who couldn’t help but ruin everything that previously made him so happy. “Still giving me the cold shoulder while you’re about to sleep? How rude.”

Chase closed his eyes and turned over to lay on his stomach and bury his face into his pillows. He felt the side of the bed dip as He sat on it. Still, he feigned deafness to the sound of static popping and hissing in his ears while he tried to force himself to go to sleep. He felt his entire body tense when a painfully familiar hand started to play with his hair in the same way as Jack often did to him in the past.

“You’re lucky I’m in an indulging mood today, Chaser,” His voice dropped while His static grew louder. The hand that had been gently playing with his hair suddenly tugged on the strands while claws threateningly grazed his scalp. “On any normal day, I wouldn’t have stood for such disrespect.”

The healing bruises all over his body twinged at the same time while he listened to those words.

‘I know,’ Chase thought numbly. ‘I know that very well.’

The touch lightened once more now that He had delivered His message effectively. As those fingers glided down his hair to massage the weak spot behind his neck, he couldn’t resist melting against those hands. Unconsciously, he had moved his body closer to the gentle touches that his body has been craving for months. He wanted to laugh at the sad fact that the only physical contact he has felt over the past year came from the demon who also hurt him every single day. He heard Him chuckle as he chased His touch greedily.

“There, there, big brother’s here with you now,” Chase shuddered as He impeccably imitated Jack’s loving tone, tears springing up from behind his closed lids when he couldn’t stop the wounded whine that just escaped him. “Shh… You’re tired aren’t you, Chase? Go to sleep. I’ll keep you company for the night.”

He should be fighting this. He shouldn’t be taking any fake comfort from the demon… But he wasn’t strong enough like the others and he was so, so lonely... So they’ll forgive him if he gave in just a few times right?

“You think too much,” Chase sniffled at the perfect copy of the way Jack would express his fond exasperation while helping him go back to sleep after one of those terrible nightmares.

It hurts. It hurts that this feels like his big brother never left but he knew perfectly well that this was just another cruel game He was playing with him.

“Goodnight, Chaser,” He whispered into his ears while He continued to pet his head.

“Goodnight… Jack.”

#jacksepticeye #writersofjack #chase brody #antisepticeye #jack mcloughlin #Icarus Falls!AU #tw blood #tw hospital #tw coma #angst #hurt no comfort #creepy anti

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mystxmomo · 5 years ago

Note

Character ask: Akane Owari

favorite thing about them // least favorite thing about them

I’m combining these categories because I think I do longer essays a bit better then quick statements.

A positive; In (my own) fanfiction, I think she has a lot of potential to explore The Poor Experience. I grew up poor, and quite a few of my friends did as well, and being able to play with how that effects someone is almost cathartic in a way? I think there are things about her that people that grew up poor could identify, but people that didn’t would take as a passing joke. For example, I know her overeating at every event is played for laughs but you know. When you get food and it’s free, you’re going to get as much as possible or you’ll go hungry. That kinda thing that danganronpa doesn’t take seriously but I think could be fun to explore.

Negative; The way her tits are drawn in canon. But also, the thing that sold me about how hyper aware they of how goofy it is is that in her sleeping sprite, her tits push up on the blanket!! Thats so fucking funny to me it almost makes it excusable.

Negative going back into Positive; Also, more unironically, I think they could have played up her worldly experience a bit more in canon. I know the whole “Oblivious to everything sexual while also being incredibly vulgar” was suppose to be part of her being dense as a bag of bricks, but also she was basically a teen mother because her own mom wouldn’t take care of her siblings. I think it could be a lot of fun to explore what that does to someone from a young age. Something about trauma and forced maturity forcing someone to age faster, while still being young.

I think she could be an interesting and fun character to explore, but I understand why she didn’t get as much spotlight. Not every danganronpa character can get the main character treatment! And that is OKAY! We have fanfiction to fill the void in our owari shaped heards.

favorite line

“... Hold on, Baby Gangsta.”

“S-Stop calling me Baby Gangsta!”

What’s he gonna do?? She’s like twice his size and weight. Probably.

brOTP

Well her and coach, duh. (Said jokingly, but I unironically think their dynamic is pretty neat)

I think her and Souda could have a fun friendship, because they’re both dense as a bag of bricks. They punch eachothers arms and drink beer as they shoot the shit while sitting by a fire, kinda vibes. Or alternatively, after doing so get up into trouble that requires them both to get like 10 stiches collectively. They’d have fun together.

OTP

Man I don’t have many Owari ships. But I HAVE played around with Her and Sonia, because I think there would be stuff to play with from their differing economic backgrounds, and vulgar/polite personality. Kinda a knight/queen vibe too.

I had someone send me Owari/Tsumiki, which seems like a sweet ship. I’ve been sitting on that ask for a bit, but one day I’ll draw again. I think any Loud and Brash character with Tsumiki is sweet though.

nOTP

Honestly? I don’t have nOPT’s unless fanon experience has driven me otherwise. I do be having pairings I’m more so or less so interested in, but there’s no Owari pairing off the top of my head I can say I’m knee jerk against.

random headcanon

I’mma introduce this one in an upcoming chapter of one of my fics, but she doesn’t like food like pudding and jello, because even she can get sick of “too much of one thing.”

unpopular opinion

Probably something I showed not told, but I think shes low intel but high wisdom in a very specific way. Sometimes she spits out profound life experiences in a way thats very casual and vulgar, so people don’t take it seriously. But when you think about it for a moment, you’re like “Wait she had a point.”

song i associate with them

"Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" by Daft Punk

favorite picture of them

Look at how happy they all are. Look at the BIG ASS smile on her face. I love this picture more then words can describe : ‘ )

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make-it-mavis · 4 years ago

Text

Homesick (Entry #18)

(cw: vomiting) ----------

01/06/88 2:55 AM Hey.

Y’know what’s weird?

This is getting harder and easier at the same time.

I stayed at the edge of the forest until the arcade opened. It felt safer that way. If anyone wanted to sneak into our game and snuff me out, they’d have a tough time getting past the Surge Protector within working hours. Even still, there was the thought, how was I to know someone hadn’t somehow dodged all my booby traps, and was already waiting for me at my den?

Being paranoid sucks. I would not recommend it.

Once the quarters started rolling in, the thundering dull roar of gameplay eventually grounded me enough to breach the tree line. I bolted through the trees and reached my den, which was blessedly free of murderers, for the time being. I tore down all the curtains so no one could hide behind them, and I kept my back to a tree while I gave another real, more involved shot at using my brush.

I tried to make a pie, but just got cherry slime. I made way too many apples, oranges, and bananas. I made red strings, orange streamers, yellow confetti, red sequins, orange beads, yellow ribbons, always with the red, orange, yellow, red, orange, freakin’ yellow.

Everything about it made me sick. I felt betrayed. This was the one thing that I was supposed to be able to control, one of the few good things the Devs gave me. Now, rubbing handfuls of salt into the gaping wounds I was already nursing, they took it away, for what I preferred to think of as no reason at all. I’d find a reason if I let myself think about it, and it would not be good. The last thing I needed was more ‘not good’ things.

I’m a strong sprite, there’s no doubt about that. But that aforementioned weight on my shoulders was starting to really bear down, slowly carving hairline fractures in my bones. I wasn’t broken, yet. But I was sure as hell breaking, and there was crit all I could do to stop it. You know me, though. I’m not one to resign to fate, or whatever you’d call it. I’m a kicker and a screamer.

So, I kicked and screamed.

Threw my brush, flipped my bed, ripped my papers down, shattered my mirror, pulled out clumps of hair and just screamed, just like in Fix-it’s apartment. I wanted to purge all the panic, rage, and desperation, and I wanted it to be easy.

That method usually works. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t this time. It didn’t really have time to. It actually… almost made things a lot worse, I guess.

I was so loud, the gamer at controls heard me.

After I’d been screaming for a couple minutes, I had the absolute pixels scared out of me by deafening beats on the side of our cabinet, courtesy of Litwak. It sure shut me up, I can tell you that. I fell right on my ass and held my breath.

Way off, I heard Litwak say, “And… all better! Some of these older games can really start singin’ sometimes. Lemme know if there’s an encore, huh?”

Then, some kid’s voice giggled, “Thanks, Mr. Litwak!”

I got us smacked. Maybe that should have bothered me more than it did -- after all, that could only have added to my ‘danger to the game’ allegations. The Nicelanders would definitely go around saying that I’d gotten an Out of Order sign all ready to be taped to the screen after that. But there was hardly anything I could do anymore that wouldn’t have been incriminating in their eyes.

No, what bothered me was what he said. About how we were one of the ‘old games.’ I guess we’re the old games by default, now, with this wave of shiny newcomers being plugged in. But the way he said it just really made me think of how unfair it all is. All the first-generation Litwak’s Family Fun Centre games bust their bits for years to keep the quarters flowing, but hey, none of that matters once something new comes along. Like Roadblasters. I remembered all the grief I’d seen you go through once that flashy eyesore started leeching your ‘loyal fans’ -- and the very same giant wastoid who plugged it in now had the nerve to call games like mine, and by extension, yours, ‘these older games’? My gut burned with so much spite, I wanted to go break through the screen and rip out his moustache.

Instead, I threw up in my laundry barrell. Somehow, less satisfying.

Once most of the chaos in my head had settled to more flexible levels, and after I’d been dry-heaving my feelings for a solid five minutes, I had a decision to make. The longer I stayed in my den, all alone, the more dread crept back into me. I wanted so badly to be able to be on my own, where no one could see how hard I was having to fight to keep it together, but that was just impossible. I couldn’t turn my back to the darkness. I could barely close my eyes. It felt like the worst kind of pathetic, like a scared little kid needing to sleep with the lights on. But there was no negotiating it -- I needed company. Real bad.

It didn’t take long for me to decide where to go. I was, by no means, in love with the idea, but I didn’t have much of a choice. After all, now that I was no longer speaking to Fix-it, there was only one other non-Nicelander left. Whether or not he’d kick me out on sight remained to be seen.

I stuffed my bag full of notebooks, slung my guitar over my shoulder, and wrapped a few things from my hoard (including a bucket) in a big makeshift blanket-sack, along with as many pillows as I could fit in. All the pillows in the world would not save me from those bricks, but one has to try.

I also found your scarf and goggles. You know. The burned ones.

I’d kept them, of course, but I’d just been… ignoring them. They felt like the most pressing question of my life, and I hadn’t wanted to face them again until I had answers. But, suddenly, that changed. I don’t know how to describe why, right now. All I know is, when I wore them around my neck, it felt... right. In the most terrible way.

I almost never take them off, now.

Anyway, once all had been gathered, I grabbed the knot of the sack, and like the dull, flightless bird I’d become, I started trudging towards the most awkward series of sleepovers in my life.

Also known as the dump.

I didn’t bother waiting for the arcade to close, or even for the game to end, before crossing the map. The gamers seeing me wouldn’t do any damage -- quite the opposite, really. They love me in short spurts. That is, they love the idea of me.

Once I stepped into the light of the screen, they had their usual little freak out.

“Woah, hey, what’s that!?”

“Get it, get it!”

I paused. Being on my way to cross behind the building, I was out of their playing range, but it’s not like they could tell, with their crummy depth perception. They puppeted Fix-it over, ‘til his long shadow almost touched my feet, and he looked over his shoulder as much as he could, straining to smile. The gamers mashed the fix button and bounced him around. Bing bing bing bing bing.

“I can’t get it--”

“Jump on it!”

“I am jumping on it! It’s like, in the background, or something.”

“Oh my god, look at Felix’s face. He’s looking at it. What the hell is it?!”

“Looks kinda like a little pink Felix?”

Always and forever with the Dev-damned pink. Not to dig on pink, but it’s so obviously salmon. What’s the point of being 16-bit if the colorblind gamers only see in 8?

I kept moving. The scene felt too familiar, you know. They kept up their insistent twittering ‘til I emerged on the other side of the building. I heard Fix-it hopping around in the foreground again, but I didn’t stop to look. I just carried on to the dump. I’d done the game enough of a favor -- after all, even after I’d left the light of the screen, the gamers were still in a tizzy, jamming in quarters to try to figure out how to get me back.

“I’ve sank a fortune into this game, and I’ve never seen that before.”

“Was it some kind of Easter Egg, you think? How did I unlock it?!”

And so on.

I climbed up the bricks, and I make a point of saying ‘climbed’ here, because the old pile has really grown over the past five years, and I never really thought about it too much until I couldn’t fly anymore. The wrecker’s beloved stump sat flat against the ground, once, but now it’s easily higher than two of me. I set my stuff down a little ways behind it, looked up to see both Fix-it and Wreck-it giving me the side-eyes through gameplay, and pushed together a brick pile big enough to duck behind and gain some semblance of privacy.

I honestly don’t remember how I spent the rest of that day, until closing. I can’t have done anything too interesting. Waited, stewed, debated, panicked, threw up, waited some more. Something like that.

Waited, waited, waited.

#fanfiction #fanfic #wreck it ralph #fix it felix #make it mavis #original character #homesick #turbo

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liquor-and-intellect · 5 years ago

Text

Clouded- Part 3

In which Jules might or might not have feelings for her best friend, Harry, who is getting engaged to another girl and everything just becomes… more complicated.

friends to lovers to enemies to lovers- it’s complicated

PART THREE

Somehow, someway, something is going to happen and the universe will fall back into place.

Jeff's words continued to ring through my head, pulling me back to the place I had tried so hard to get away from.

He didn't know how utterly wrong he was.

I pushed the glossy engagement party invitation as far away as my kitchen table would allow. I couldn't look at it anymore. It was everything I wanted for Harry and then everything I didn't want to happen and it crushed and burned my heart into a million pieces.

Running my fingers through my hair, I took a small sip of the peppermint tea I had brewed, remembering my mum swearing how it could sooth any aching stomach and nausea. I didn’t know if it was my heavy anxiety or if I was coming down with the flu, because I felt as if I was falling apart at the seems.

When did my life take this turn?

Because now I was alone, crying over a fucking party invitation for my used to be best friend's engagement party, while I was dabbing my damp forehead from sweat in the middle of December.

The ringing of my phone caused me to startle. I assumed it was Jessica, calling to chew my ass out for abandoning them last night at the bar. Preparing for an argument, I pushed the tears off my face and reached to grab it.

“Hello?” my voice sounded wounded and battered, everything I was trying not to be at the moment.

“How are you?” the familiar satin voice eased its way through my ears, still sending butterflies into my abdomen and still making me feel as if all I had was this middle school crush.

I swallowed. Deciding to push away all memories of the past three and a half weeks along with the bundle of feelings and words that had been said and focus on his single question.

How are you?

For two minutes— just for two minutes— that was 120 seconds and not even a quarter out of my empty schedule. I wanted to pretend nothing happened and just talk to Harry. Talk to my best friend who had held me when my family dog had passed away. The same one who ditched his date to dance with me at prom just so he could be my very first dance. The same man who when we were sixteen laid down with me on a yellow blanket underneath the stars and promised me that if he made it through on X Factor the next day he would remember a freckled face girl with unruly dark, brown hair named Julia and that he would always love her.

“I'm okay,” I whispered, tears silently making their way from the corners of my eyes, down the bridge of my nose to land on the wooden table that I was leaning on for support.

He took a sharp breath on the other line. A familiar sound that I knew came right before a sob. He had always been such a heavy crier, the beautiful, sensitive Harry Styles who cared too much about the world. He never let anyone see that side of him though. It was one of my favorite things about him.

“Can— can we just be friends?” he whispered, as if his voice was too loud the vulnerability between us would shatter. “Just for a moment,” he pleaded.

“Yes.”

I heard him swallow. “I— I want you to be with me. I can't do this— I can't do this whole 'we aren't talking' thing. I know it's going to be hard, but... Can we try to be friends again?”

It was going to be hard. Because unlike Harry, I had no one to distract me from my thoughts, feelings or memories. No one to make new emotions with that might cover up the old ones. I was done being selfish, though. He needed me.

“Yes,” I sobbed, sniffing and clenching my eyes shut. “I would really like that.”

A sigh of relief sounded through my thin phone as if the weight of the world had just been lifted. “We—we'd have to do things differently though,” he murmured. “Maybe... maybe not hanging out alone too much?”

I swallowed. “Yeah. Yeah I agree.”

“Okay,” he breathed. “okay, yeah.” Obviously, he hadn't planned to get this far into the conversation with me—I didn't either.

“I'll be there,” I told him. “at the engagement party tomorrow night.”

“Thank you,” he whispered. “it really means a lot.”

I nodded, knowing he couldn't see me. But words were too much right now and all I wanted to do was sit in the comfortable silence of knowing he was on the other end of this phone line somewhere.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked. “Do you need anything?”

“I'm okay. I'm fine.” I didn’t want his worrying. I’m afraid if I admitted to him that I wasn’t fine and I didn’t think I would ever be again, his sympathy for me would be too much to bear. It would push my thoughts places they didn’t mean to be and confuse things even more for me.

When I heard Elaine's voice in the background, calling him to another room, I knew then that we had talked for too long. We needed baby steps. And it was going to take a lot of effort.

“I'll let you go,” I told him.

“Jules-” he broke off, rethinking what he was going to say and then releasing a sigh. “Okay, yeah. I'll see you tomorrow then.”

And he hung up.

***

Later I was in my small bathtub, the clock slowly ticking past two in the morning. My body was so worn down and tired while my mind was awake and alert, not stopping to let me have a moment of peace.

I hugged my knees to my chest not sure where to go next.

I think I was going to skip classes tomorrow. With the engagement party that night I knew I needed to save up my energy in preparation. There was no way I could go a full day of lectures and then drag myself there, I would crumble.

First, I needed to take some medicine for my stomach. In an effort to clean my life up a bit, I couldn’t have random bursts of vomiting.

Maybe it was my time of the month?

I grabbed my phone from the floor beside the tub, scrolling through my calendar. It was supposed to be last weekend. That had been a week and a half after Harry and I...

“No,” I laughed sarcastically. There's no way, there is no fucking way.

That might not even be the problem. I could just generally be late. All I needed to do was go to sleep and worry about it in the morning. It was too late for this.

Pushing my hands through the water, I pushed a finger to my stomach. Was I getting fatter?

After I had climbed out of the tub and pulled myself into my bed, I knew sleep was not going to come with this on my mind. My nerves were on edge at just the thought.

I pulled my body out from under the comforter, yanking sweatpants up my legs and sliding my shoes on. There was a gas station down the road, it would take twenty minutes at the most to purchase a pregnancy test and get back to my place with my sanity intact.

Grabbing a hooded sweatshirt, I walked outside, the eerie London night fog swimming around me. I kept my head down and my hands in my pockets as I walked down the sidewalk.

The corner store was lit up, the clerk behind the counter with her feet on the desk and looking anything but happy to see me. I felt the same way.

Obviously I had never done this before, I reminded myself as I walked down the family and life planning aisle. I remember going with my friend in high school to buy her one but neither of us had any idea what we had been doing. Which one worked the best? Which one was more accurate?

I wasn't sure so I grabbed four boxes of an assortment of each one. They had to have a general answer between them, right?

Maybe later when my rib cage wasn't about to explode from heart palpitations I could easily look back on this moment and laugh at how hysterical I looked purchasing four different pregnancy tests with half-wet hair and stained sweat pants at 3 a.m.

On my way out the clerk gave me a sympathetic look and a “have a goodnight”. I didn’t want her sympathetic eyes on me, so I ignored her and walked home.

When I arrived at my apartment, it took me three tries to open just the first package from my shaky hands. This was not where I would have pictured myself tonight when I had decided to go to the club with Lauren and Jessica. But how had I not thought of it? We hadn’t used physical protection besides the trusty pull-out method. Which in the moment had been hot but now-

My blood was pumping in my ears when I looked down to the first test in my hands. Positive, it read. It was positive.

Releasing a shaky breath, I pulled out the next one. Maybe the first one was defected.

The second read positive as well. The two lines taunting me from the counter.

I hung my head as I checked the third and the fourth. Of course, they were tainted with the two thick blue lines.

I felt tears brimming my eyes. There was no way this could be happening. Hundreds of thoughts raced through my head, all of them eating at me from the inside as I suddenly felt fatigue catching up with me.

I will just deal with this in the morning. This can all wait until I've had at least four hours of sleep.

Pushing myself up from the bathroom floor, I dragged my feet to my bed and tried to calm my racing heart.

…

There was a brief moment when I woke up where everything felt fine. My eyes had just opened to the sunlight leaking through the blinds and I felt good. It only lasted a moment until the sick feeling eased its way up my throat—an invisible hand choking me as I remembered the events of last night.

The dread set in and I knew before even having to look on the bathroom counter that I was pregnant and from here on out everything in my life was going to be different.

Not that it already wasn't. Harry was getting married and we had formed this “almost friendship” after everything that had happened. And Harry-

Harry. This was his baby. He had a right to know but...

But.

The engagement party was tonight and here he was trying to make things work with Elaine.

None of it made sense. Not the timing, not the situation... There had to be something that I was missing. Some kind of sign along the way that had lit up and said, “Hey! Turn back now.”

I knew I couldn't avoid Harry. If I did then he would know something was up. But I could, however, avoid telling him for as long as needed. At least until the timing was right. Which did not happen to be at his engagement party...

I sighed and shoved my hands through my hair, wanting to crawl back into bed and sleep for another two hours.

***

Surprisingly I had made it the rest of the day without any breakdowns. It didn't feel real at the moment and maybe it was just denial that allowed me to peacefully do my hair and makeup without crumbling. Tonight, I had chosen a solid black long sleeved shirt, tucked into a sequined skirt that exposed my right thigh through a slit. With my lips stained red, I pinned my hair back into a low chignon and strapped my feet into heels. I wondered if Harry would think I looked good.

I took a deep breath and pushed those thoughts away.

I knew he was going to want to talk to me when I got there, but I felt anywhere but prepared for the fake smiled conversation that was going to come— or for the speech full of lies I had written down earlier that morning. I must really want to pull this off if I'm willing to get up in front of everyone and say how much I hope Harry and Elaine have a very nice life together. The thought alone put a pit full of guilt into my stomach.

When the taxi finally arrived, I forced myself through the front door and down the stairs trying to push thoughts of pregnancy and lying to the back of my mind.

The ball room they had rented out was packed tight with cars when I handed the taxi driver cash. The flash of cameras sounding from behind the bushes on the next block. I ducked my head as I hurriedly walked toward the front doors. No matter how secret he tried to keep it, paparazzi always seemed to get the word when Harry was going to be somewhere.

I wondered if they were really trying to keep a low profile as I took in the extravagant venue. The entry was decorated with red velvet carpet and crystal chandeliers, high heels of all kinds tapping across the floor as shimmering dresses flowed above them. It was so over the top and extravagant— just like something Elaine would want. I couldn't help thinking as I walked into the main room and took in the ice sculpture that if it had been up to him, Harry would never ask for this.

He would want something classy and intimate. Family and close friends only and maybe some red wine. Not a fucking letter S sculpted out of ice...

It took everything in me not to roll my eyes as I took in my surroundings.

Glancing around the room, I realized immediately that I didn't know anyone here. There were a few people I recognized but no one I knew well enough to walk up to and start a conversation with just to minimize my embarrassment. I swallowed and cursed myself for even showing up here in the first place.

I found my way toward the drink table, grabbing a glass of water and pushing myself by the wall. Maybe if I stayed back here no one would notice how awkward and out of place I felt.

From across the room I could see Harry already, my eyes trained to naturally find him naturally him in a crowd. He looked so nice in a fitted tux and fixed hair. His pink lips stretched into a smile as he laughed at a man I recognized from the management team. He looks so effortlessly flawless here tonight and I hated myself for bringing such turmoil into his beautiful life.

“Hey!” said a voice from my right. “Julia?”

I turned to the bright eyes of Charles, the man from the coffee shop. He had a goofy grin on his mouth, his blonde hair messily pushed out of his eyes

I laughed, what are the odds? “Yeah,” I told him. “and you're Charles from the coffee shop, yeah?”

He nodded. “What are you doing here?”

I nodded toward the area Harry had once been in. “Friend of the groom.” I grimaced. “You?”

“Elaine's very distant cousin who just couldn't pass up a party invite,” he said with a smirk on his face. “But we actually haven't talked since we were maybe thirteen.”

I laughed. Seriously, how intertwined could she get her bony fingers into my life?

“You know,” he told me. “I really would have called you the next day, but an hour after you left I dropped my phone into a puddle on my way to my flat.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. It's alright, spare my heart the details,” I said lightly, clutching a hand to my chest.

He chuckled and turned to face me all the way. “No, seriously. I had to get a new phone so you should really put your number into this one.” Verifying his statement, he slid his black iPhone out of his blazer pocket. “Here, I swear I won't screw this one up.”

I shook my head with a smile on my face. What was the harm?

After he put his phone away, I glanced up to meet eyes with the one person I was hoping to avoid this evening. My heart clenched on contact and I tried to secretly push negative thoughts toward him in hopes he would turn around and not be making his way over here. I know we had agreed to attempt this “friend” thing but I wasn't exactly prepped and primed to go through with it.

“Can you do me a favor?” I whispered suddenly to Charles who had been taking a long sip of his champagne chute.

He cocked an eyebrow to me.

“I know this is strange, but can you please pretend to be my date for five minutes?” I asked, seeing Elaine's curly hair bobbing toward us in the crowd with Harry's arm in her grip.

A large smile grew onto Charles' face suddenly and he tilted his head toward me. “I'd be delighted,” he replied. “I was Peter Pan in my school play.”

As soon as I stepped closer to him in attempts to look like we knew each other more, Harry and Elaine approached looking like the star couple they were.

“Julia!” she greeted too enthusiastically. “I am so glad you showed up.”

“How could I not?” I asked over the rim of my glass.

As I took a sip of my drink, I could see the green eyes of Harry focused on me through the distortion of the glass. I knew it was wrong to make him jealous, but I had too many emotions blowing around me to actually think straight.

“Wait,” she said, putting a manicured hand to her lips and I couldn't help but notice the glistening diamond on the top of her ring finger. “You two know each other?”

Before I could reply, I felt an arm slink around my waist, pulling me to his side. “Yeah weird isn't it?” Charles said. “We've been hanging out for the past couple of weeks and then we both got the same invitation to this engagement party and realized it was such a small world. We thought we might as well go together, isn’t that right?” He glanced at me.

My lips were slightly parted, still in shock that he had just saved my hide. I could seriously cry tears of joy for him right now.

“That's good,” Elaine said, nodding her head slowly. “Harry and I have always been hoping Julia would one day find someone, isn't that right?” She turned toward him and I took the moment to actually look at his frigid posture.

Harry's jaw was clenched as his eyes focused on me, his bottom lip so minutely sucked into his mouth it was barely noticeable. “Yeah,” he replied, halfheartedly. His voice sounded strained and pulled taut like stretched rubber bands. “Always hoping.”

I removed my eyes from him, ignoring the sting that immediately lodged itself in my heart. What did he think he was doing? We were supposed to be trying out this “friend” phase and now he has the decency to be rude?

“Sorry,” I said, my eyes trained on him and my voice icy to my own ears. “I guess I was just holding out for that one person, you know?”

His eyes locked with mine and I felt the chills all the way down to my toes. This was a side of him I've never experienced before. Never had I been on the receiving end of such a loathing look from the sweetest man I had once known.

Before I could swallow my emotions and look away, I heard Elaine clap her hands suddenly together.

“Well,” she said, her voice high pitched. “I guess we should get this toasting started. Julia would you like to start us off?”

I broke our gaze to snap my eyes to her, finally thankful- for the first time- to hear her voice.

I cleared my throat. “Yeah, sure.” And followed her over to the stage where she handed me a microphone.

Honestly, with my new-found anger at Harry, I didn't want to voice the lines I had once planned to say. I knew sooner or later that it was going to happen, I couldn't stop the inevitable. Harry didn't know this, but I had begun a slow dig of my own grave with him. If anything I might as well start to redeem myself before I hit the bottom rocks.

I took the microphone from her perfectly manicured hand and stepped up on the platform to look out at the dazzling audience, theirs eyes eating away at my jittery skin.

“Hello, everyone,” I said, my voice bouncing off the walls around me, enveloping me into a choking hold where I could feel the suffocation as I plastered a fake smile on my face. “I hope you are having a lovely evening.” I cleared my throat, running through the lines in my head.

“Elaine asked me to give a toast tonight, since Harry has always been one of my closest friends. I felt that it would be fit to stand up here and tell you all about how he is one of the most kindest, loveliest and most forgiving human beings I have ever met.” I made point to find him in the crowd, locking our eyes and willing him to not hate me for all that I was about to do to his life. I never wanted to take away his happiness. “I do hope you find all the joy in the world, Harry,” I told him, even though he had been giving me a hateful glare only minutes ago.

I could see his deep eyes soften at my words, his eyebrows drawing together as he took in my rigid posture. We were both so hot and cold lately and the going back and forth was beginning to make me dizzy.

I cleared my throat, looking out to the crowd. “I know life is going to throw things at you, but I also know from experience that you are more than fit to handle them.” Somehow I made out the features of Jeff sitting at a table with his arm slung around the back of his wife’s chair. His lips pursed as he gazed at me, probably recalling our conversation the night before. If he only knew what had happened after he had dropped me off at my place.

“I thank God every day for people like Harry,” I continued. “And to Elaine: I hope you cherish him, because only a lucky few are able to hold such gold in this world and claim them as theirs.” I released a long breath, raising my glass in the air. “So, let's have a toast for Harry and Elaine-” I inwardly cringed “-and for their many years to come. To Harry and Elaine.” I took a sip of my water, hoping to wash down the bile in my throat and the lies that were slowly consuming me.

The crowd repeated me as I set down the microphone, hoping to find a bathroom before I had a mental breakdown. This was all wrong. What kind of low have I sunk to? I had always hoped when I had to speak at my best friend's wedding, I would be able to stand up and not feel like I was about to vomit up the truth. I wasn't supposed to be standing there speaking lies as I was secretly pregnant with his baby and no one knew but me.

Everything was wrong. So, so wrong...

I walked through the thread of guests, finding the long hallway that led to the bathroom. I couldn't be within such a choking crowd right now because it would only suffocate me.

As soon as I started down the deserted corridor that led to the bathroom a voice sounded from behind me.

“Julia!”

Turning I saw Jeff jogging toward me, his eyes wide and bright and his coat waving softly at his sides. I was too stunned that he had come after me to move toward him at all, taken away by his rushed appearance. He grabbed my wrist, looking around before pulling me behind him as he walked further down the hall where we wouldn't be seen.

“What happened?” he asked, slightly breathless as he furrowed his eyebrows at me.

I knew exactly what he was talking about. “He called me last night and we had agreed to be friends, but then he was being such a jerk when I showed up-”

He sighed, obviously aggravated with me. “Maybe because you showed up with another man.”

I shook my head. I knew what I had done was wrong, but he was getting married, so I was clearly justified. “It wasn't like that,” I told him. “I have only talked to Charles once and he was the only one here I knew so we just stood by each other.”

He threw his hands up. “Well, did you tell Harry that?”

I crossed my arms. “No.”

He mocked my posture. “So you did it to— what? Make him jealous?”

I rolled my eyes, he was making me feel like such a child. I couldn't handle this right now. “He's getting married, I don't see what the big deal is.”

Jeff groaned, running his hands down his face. “You two just keep going backwards when you finally make some progress,” he mumbled into his palms.

My fingers fumbled with the hem of my dress as I looked down, my lips being pulled into my mouth. He was so completely right that it hurt. Everything with Harry was beginning to look so hazy and I felt my eyes starting to mentally cross from trying to focus constantly.

“It doesn't matter anyways,” I whispered, my eyes trained on the floor. My voice was so low that I wasn’t sure he would hear me. “I've already messed everything up as it is and it's only going to get worse from here.”

His eyes narrowed at me, yet he didn't miss a beat.

“What do you mean...?” he said slowly as if he was treading on the thin ice that was hiding everything I didn’t want to admit.

I swallowed and tried to avoid his minimizing gaze. “Nothing,” I mumbled, shaking my head. “I'm going to go. I shouldn't have come in the first place.” I turned to walk away but his hand landed on my arm, my body stopping in its tracks.

“Julia,” he whispered from behind me, his voice barely audible. “don't think I haven't noticed what is going on.”

I pivoted slowly to look at him, my gaze finally locking onto his hazel eyes. My heart was beating erratically in my chest.

“You know what I mean,” he said.

I nodded slowly. He was catching on.

“Are you pregnant?” he murmured, his eyes softening and these worry lines taking root in his forehead.

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, my vision became watery as I let out a small nod followed by a gasping sob. The tears streamed down my face as I finally let myself feel the truth like a punch to the gut.

He didn't say anything else, but pulled me forward into his embrace, wrapping his arms tightly around my shaking shoulders. My body trembled as I pressed my face into his chest, wishing that the one person who couldn't be presented with this news was the one comforting me.

“When did you find out?” he whispered into my hair, his lips grazing the tips of my ear.

I inhaled a shaky breath. “Very late last night.” My voice was so foreign to my ears it hurt.

“I don't want to ruin his life,” I sobbed, burying my ashamed face further into him. Never in my life would I have though that I would be in this situation with Jeff. That he would oddly be the one to hold me as I collapsed in on myself.

He shook his head against me. “You won't,” he murmured, his hand running soothingly up and down my back. “But the longer you wait, the more it's going to hurt him, you understand that, right?”

I let our another chest rattling sob, sniffing and nodding against him. “I know,” I cried. “I know.”

…

The next day was harder.

After I had finished crying on Jeff's shoulder, I told him I needed to be alone and declined his persistent offers to drive me home. It had been a long day and I needed time to sit and reflect on everything. Which isn’t what happened when I closed the door of my apartment that night. I crawled up on my couch, turned the TV on as loud as it would go and drowned out any thoughts I might have had on Harry or pregnancies.

The next morning, I pushed the positive test strips away, deep into a bathroom drawer, because having them out on the counter to remind me was not helping with the emotional distress I was experiencing. I cleaned my living room and swept my kitchen, putting every piece of dirty laundry into the hamper that I could find and busied my shaking hands until I eventually found myself breathless against the kitchen counter.

I had tried my best not to think of everything today but as the time hit four o'clock, I felt all of it began to slither to the front of my mind. I had never looked for Harry's reaction yesterday after my speech. Was he relieved? Mad that I would say those things? Embarrassed? Had he thought that Charles and I were together? Which shocked me ever more if he could think that, because as it looked now, I don't think I could ever move onto anyone else after that single night with him.

But all of it came to a halt when I began to allow all the things that I needed to get straight run through my head. I was pregnant. The fact never hit me until now that I would need to set up doctor's appointments, how would I support a child while I was still in college? I had worked and saved for two years out of high school just so I could focus on my studies without a job. And shit…I had to tell my parents...

What would I tell my parents? I haven't even talked to my mother since the day before Harry came to visit me for the week. We were usually in touch but I had been putting off her phone calls due to the stressful situation I had put myself into recently.

I felt my heart clenching in my chest like the time I had put myself in a panic attack when Harry was here. My vision cloudy as every piece of drama dropped itself in front of my eyes and forced my attention to it. My throat was dry and I felt the rush of hot tears on my cheeks as I struggled to grasp anything I could cling onto.

It was impossible to hear anything as a rush soared into my head, shaking my ear drums and rattling my brain. I felt the constricting push on my chest as my kitchen seemed to be smaller and smaller in my vision, the walls pressing against my sides. My life was such a mess.

Harry's P.O.V

My hands clenched the steering wheel of my car as I sped down the busy college street. I had rehearsed everything I was going to say in my head throughout recording this morning. My mind solely on Julia and how incredibly frustrated she made me. She showed up to my own engagement party with her new lame-ass boyfriend and then had the decency to get on stage and tell me how she thinks I deserve all the happiness in the world?

She was so fucking infuriating it made me see red.

As soon as I saw her walk into the ball room last night, my vision was immediately taken over by how strikingly beautiful she looked in a classy black dress with blood red lips. Her presence filling the entire room—and I swore every eye had been on her and the way she held her head so cocky and completely innocently at the same time. When I saw the men in their fitted tuxes eye her up hungrily, I had immediately wanted to run over to her, grab her and pull her away from the sticking gazes of people I had only met once. I wanted to wrap her away from the rest of the world and let her fold herself into my arms the way only she could.

But I couldn't. Never in my life could I claim her as my own. Even if circumstances were different and I didn't feel myself being torn completely in half, I knew that I could never fully say that she was mine. I've known this from the day I recognized the way her blue eyes sparkled in the sun or how she would find herself spinning with her arms outstretched for no reason in particular. Julia had too much soul for this world. Her spirit couldn't be held to someone like me.

I think what frustrated me the most was that in some odd way I thought her feelings for me had been deeper than that. Deeper than pushing me to the side and finding someone new without a second thought. I knew I had no right to hope she would spend days crying after we decided to be just friends, when I was the one getting married... But I didn't know I would just be shoved to the side like that.

I was being irrational; I know that. But this whole situation was irrational and the only way to fend for yourself in an irrational world was to be irrational right back to it.

I parked my car in front of her apartment, not giving a second thought before I stomped up the steps to land in front of her door. It had been too long since I'd been here.

When I knocked there had been no reply and I suddenly felt stupid for thinking that she would be home this evening. She might be at classes or the grocery store or maybe even with that Charles guy…

I huffed and knocked louder this time, my fist rattling the thin door. There was no way I was going to leave today without talking to her. All these unsaid thoughts and emotions were floating between us and it was time for open-ended sentences to finally have a close.

Five minutes later she still hadn't answered. Desperately, I pulled my phone out, the familiar sound of her voice telling me she couldn't answer and to call back shortly. Which was unlike Julia, she always had her phone on her and if she couldn't get to it she was sure to call you back.

I rang her a couple more times after that, worry starting to set itself in the pit of my stomach when she didn't pick up any of the times. Jules always told me I was a worrier and I needed to not be so paranoid all the time but something didn't feel right...

With the phone pressed to my ear on my fifth call to her, I banged my fist loudly against the door frame again, taking note that her bike was indeed out on the porch so she had to be here...

“Julia!” I shouted, hoping if she was in there she could give me some indication that she was okay.

Wiggling the door knob—with that annoying creak— the door opened.

“Seriously,” I muttered and walked past the threshold where my ears immediately picked up on the choking sounds coming front the kitchen.

I heard a crash as I dropped my phone on the ground, my feet unconsciously running through the doorway where I saw her.

It was like the time I had walked in on her having a panic attack almost a month ago. It had been one of the scariest moments of my life to see someone I cared about so much be so vulnerable to her own mind. It felt close to impossible to pull her out of herself and draw her back to reality. I've never experienced anyone going through that before, but I knew Jules enough to at least attempt to help her through it.

Right now, her body had collapsed in on herself. Her knees on the tiled floor as one hand clutched her chest and the other grasped desperately onto the counter above her as if to hold on to it for life. Tears streamed down her face as she sobbed between the heavy breathing coming from her mouth.

“Jules,” I breathed, not even hesitating before I threw myself down on the floor beside her, wrapping one of my arms around her, the other pulling her head into my chest. “It's me,” I told her when I noticed her flinch from my touch. “Harry, your best friend. I'm here, listen to me breathe.”

She took in a shuddering breath as I inhaled with her, my hand pressing gently down on her back to pull her more to me. “Breathe out,” I exhaled, her breathe blowing across my chest where her cheek was pressed.

Her breathing became more even and the tears eventually stopped, her shaking body becoming limp in my arms as she leaned onto me as if I was her lifeline. And for the moment, with everything in me, I wished I was.

…

Julia’s POV

My thoughts had drowned me.

Filling my ears, my nose, every pore of my skin as I was pulled under by their violent waves. By their endless stream of words and taunting sentences and confusing riddles, so many question marks and so many abrupt ends.

It was like I had been in my own world, alone and scared and soaking wet from the tide. When out of the darkness were arms and they were wrapping around me and I felt a familiar pillow under my head. My ear tuned into their heartbeat and the steady melody that pulled me from the daze. I was being resuscitated.

“Just breathe.” The words rode out on an exhale. Filling my lungs for me as if he could literally restore the oxygen I desperately wanted back into my blood.

I followed his command, feeling my heart slow down its violent thrashing and resume a less harmful beat. The ringing in my ears dying as I focused on his deep voice and the way his tongue would dig beneath each syllable to draw it up again. Such a drunken way, I felt, hanging onto his every word.

“Harry?” I whimpered, knowing the way I was being held and the smell of him. But not fully believing he could really be here. He shouldn't be, at least. Not when I've pushed him away so much.

“Shh.” His breath fanned across my face as his hand gripped the fabric of my shirt as if to pull me closer. “Just rest for a moment.”

Here we were sitting on the kitchen tiles. Harry on his knees as he held my dead weight, tears leaving stains on my cheeks as I fell completely against him. I was too tired to hold myself now, too many things were weighing me down.

“You don't need to talk right now,” he said, his voice groggy like pebbles and slightly shaking. “so just hear me out, okay?”

I nodded, burrowing deeper within his arms so he couldn't see all the thoughts painted on my forehead that I was too exhausted to hide.

“I was really mad at you. That's why I came over,” he whispered. “I was mad that you brought a date to my engagement party and then got up on that stage and said all of those things that made me feel like the worst person in the world.”

My eyebrows came together.

“Don't make that face,” he scolded with a small smile in his voice. “you knew exactly what you were doing.”

A weak grin pulled at the corners of my mouth.

“You, Jules Lovewick, are the most taunting human being on the planet,” he mumbled, his chin resting on the top of my head. “you can put any man on his knees.”

My arms around him tightened, my chest doing a strange flip at his words. “That's not true,” I murmured because while he was on his knees physically for me, he wasn’t emotionally.

I felt him swallow and I knew that we were treading on minefields at the moment.

“I wanted to come over here and just yell at you. I wanted you to feel all the bitterness that I was feeling,” he said.

I felt a lump in my throat. He was right, I made him feel horrible. I deserved everything that he was about to throw at me. It was my fault we were in this situation.

“Harry, I'm so sorr-” I started.

“Don't,” he cut me off, his head lightly shaking back and forth. “You don't need to tell me you're sorry because I'm sorry. We need to get pass this because I obviously can't live without you somehow in my life.” His voice dropped, “I need you, Jules.”

My lungs released a gust of a breath that had been patiently waiting in my chest to be let go.

“And you make me so angry sometimes,” Harry continued. “so-so infuriated. A man that I never knew I could be. But that's okay because that means I feel alive.”

I closed my eyes, heartbeats dropping like rocks at his confession. It was everything I wanted to hear.

“So, that's what I'm doing now, I guess. Laying everything out on the table,” he murmured. “I'm ready to start new and be honest with each other. I just want to be friends again.”

Honest. He wanted to be honest.

“Harry...” I tried to find words, my mind mentally grasping for anything to say. I had to tell him, I had to, but I didn't know how.

“I want to be friends too.” My mouth spoke for me and I cursed it for the lies it told. That wasn't what I wanted to say at all.

He let out a sigh, pulling me closer for two seconds before releasing me. His hands holding my shoulders back so he could examine my face. “Thank you,” he said. “I know it's going to be hard. But I need you. I'm sorry it took me so long to realize that.”

I put my head back onto his chest, closing my eyes. I wanted to inhale this moment, breathe it in, write it down, tattoo it onto the alleys of brain. Moments like these, I knew, wouldn't last long. Sooner or later, guilt would swallow me and I would have to return to a sharp reality where it would cut me open for everyone to see. Choking back my words, I leaned into him. Just for a few more seconds, I told myself, just for a few more.

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cloudbatcave · 4 years ago

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The vampire looked off into the distance, searching for something they seemed not to find, yet when they looked back it was not with dissatisfaction. Their face was thoughtful, the long pointed ears ever so slightly arched upward.

“It’s likely I can’t be good. But what is goodness? It’s less great deeds and more many little ones, I’ve found. I’ve watched empires rise and fall, and certainly, some single acts have incredible weight. Humans love that story; one hero saving the rest. It’s not a bad story to like, either. It’s relatable. Humans are individuals; they want to hear what individuals can do. They want comfort, and why not? They live in a terrifying world.”

Jessica shifted, her feline ears flattening a little as she bit her lip, wondering if she should protest at the obvious meaning of the last line. If she could protest.

“Well, what does that have to do with it?” She said instead, slightly snappish but more worried than anything. “You still haven’t said what you think.”

“Patience, I’m getting there.” They waved a finger at her, just as her sister said they’d always done when lecturing and she half wanted to laugh, half wanted to strangle them. How had Elly ever put up with so many tangents?

God, Elly had put up with so much.

She forced back the stupid tears that threatened to pour out of her again. She was so sick of crying.

“Jessica?”

They were looking at her, concern in their bright green eyes.

“Yeah. Go on. I’m fine.”

“You can always tell me to stop, you know.” They reminded her gently, slender fingers clasped together.

They clutch their hands when they’re trying not to fret - you wouldn’t think a vamp would be so anxious, Jessie, it’s the funniest thing.

“Don’t. Don’t stop right now.”

She needed noise. There was too much empty space. Background babble was better.

They looked mildly confused along with concerned, but nodded.

“It matters because I am not really an individual as humans understand it. I look like one, I can function like one, but I don’t have the morality of a single person. I have the morality - or perhaps the lack of morality - of a superorganism. Every semblance of manners and decency, I had to actively learn. I don’t have a human’s natural impulse to care for their kind, to slow down for others, to ask about their feelings.”

Jessica rolled her eyes. “Everyone has to learn those, Tuuya. Babies aren’t born knowing them. So what if you’re a little...” she tilted her hand back and forth. “...you know. You do those things. That’s what matters. Plenty of humans - and other species - suck balls at them.”

“How very utilitarian of you.” They replied, teasing approval in their voice before they sobered. “But lacking a natural tendency for warmth and kindness would be seen by many as unsettling and make my actions appear fake or hollow. Not an invalid view.”

“Oh my god.” The young woman groaned, stretching her arms out and extending her claws. “How does your head not hurt thinking about this all the time. Do you argue with yourself when you don’t have a class to hold captive? Is that why you teach, to have an audience who needs you for a grade?”

“Blast, you’ve found me out.” They said mock-sorrowfully, ears drooping for effect. “I became a professor because no one would hold still long enough to talk to me otherwise. Damned annoying having to keep tying them down.”

Jessica laughed much louder than she meant to. It wasn’t even that funny, it was just...she’d had such a long day, and it was ending with some sort of worm swarm being the person she had to rely on right now. What the fuck was her life.

How was this real? She felt like any moment Elly was going to walk through the door, the body they’d found had been someone else, and -

No. She couldn��t let herself live in denial. Elly was fucking dead, and they were going to find her killer, and Jessica was going to beat the shit out of them, claws and teeth and all. Human respectability could kiss her ass.

She didn’t realize she was sitting down until what felt like a while later. Maybe it was, maybe it had only been a few minutes. Time was weird now.

There was a blanket around her, fitting for the autumn chill. The half-Sphinx pulled it closer, more out of habit than anything.

A meal sat on the table in front of her, and judging by the coolness of the plate and the low-burning candle nearby, it had been there a while.

There was a note too, written in green ink, the handwriting swoopy and old-fashioned.

Jessica,

There’s a room for you if you want it, second down the hall on the left. But if you’d rather go back to your apartment, I understand. Find me in my study if you do, I’m grading papers. If you don’t want the food, just put the plastic bag around it so it doesn’t attract ants.

She thought of the empty, dirty apartment, where she could walk in and smell her sister’s deodorant hanging over the place. Where she could eat the ramen leftovers they’d made together two days ago, adding pork belly and garlic and making fun of each other for bad breath. She could sleep on the worn couch, uncomfortable but in a way she’d gotten used to over the last six months.

So quiet.

She takes a few bites of food (she hardly even tastes it) but wraps up the rest. She should probably put it in the fridge but can’t seem to find the energy, so she wanders into the room the vampire has left for her.

It’s a lot more modern than she expected from something - someone so old. But then, the antique furniture Elly always liked was expensive, and professors aren’t paid big bucks. Some people like to imagine all vampires are rich, but she’s always figured that was bull because not all sphinxes like riddles. She’s never seen the appeal.

You’re half-Sphinx, honey, she can hear her father’s gentle voice saying. Things are different for you.

The old man will probably never realize he’s just as bigoted as the people he enjoys ranting about. He thinks he’s such a saint because he doesn’t scream hate. Because he didn’t turn her out on the streets.

Tuuya would rethink their idea of goodness pretty fucking quick if they met him, she thinks acidly. No pride solidarity urges or human empathy for him.

Except when it came to Elly. Elly, who wasn’t his bio daughter, who wasn’t even half a Sphinx, but who could do no fucking wrong, apparently.

Fuck, no, what’s the matter with me? She screamed at herself. Elly was dead, why was she feeling this way? Not that she’d felt great about resenting her when she was alive, either, but...

She dragged her hands down her face, claws sheathing and baring as she tried to reconcile her roiling emotions. Then all the energy went out of her again. What was the point?

The bed was surprisingly comfortable as she flopped in it. Didn’t vampires not need to sleep? What did Tuuya keep an extra room for anyway? Who would even visit the weird old bloodsucker willingly?

God, I’m such a bitch, she thought to herself, half-amused and half-ashamed at her thoughts. They’ve done nothing but help me.

Then again, even they said they probably weren’t really good. But did it matter? Jessica hadn’t met a long list of people she’d actually call ‘good’. Polite was the best you could hope for. Polite and not too damn nosy.

Long as they don’t chew on me in the night, I don’t care, she decided. As long as they help me find the shitstain who did this, and then...

She decided to go to bed instead of thinking about the nebulous and very, very empty space after ‘and then’.

#cloud writes #my brain: here have a whole new character #me: not what I wanted but ok I like this one #despite how it starts this is mostly Not About Tuuya #it’s about this brand new girl who has all sort of opinions #and trauma

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kingofdirtandnothing · 4 years ago

Text

wemultitudinous asked: kiss meme - 31. a kiss on the palm, from alexander for john

Kiss Meme: (Perpetually Accepting)

John knows it’s going to be a shit day from the second he opens his eyes. He wakes up with the heavy bruising in his chest thumping like a second heartbeat, and he’s got nothing to blame his misery on but chemicals. He knows, he knows he should see a doctor. But the thought of his father hearing the word bipolar bandied about is enough to make him swallow all of that bitter pill down and just keep on keeping on.

It works, most days. But like he’s been summoned by the sour thought, his father calls and asks how’s that vacation going, Jack and John wants to curl up and die. And just because it’s destined to be the day from hell from eight in the morning, his mother’s voice flows faintly into the background and she asks if there’s any special girls in his life.

By the time John gets off of the phone, it’s nine in the morning and he can’t bring himself to do anything else. So he puts his phone on silent and gets right back beneath the covers, pulling them over his head and hiding away.

He doesn’t sleep well, but he sleeps long, a couple of uncomfortable dreams like disconcerting shapes beneath the waters of his mind.

At six in the evening, he wakes with a dry, chalky mouth and the kind of lethargy that comes with too much sleep. He’s got a couple of texts from Herc, two from Lafayette, and a less than surprising eleven from Alexander. John can’t help it. He ignores them all and sends a group text instead that says ‘drinks on me tonight’.

It’s enough to at least drag himself out of bed and into the shower, though John can’t force himself to dig out the nicer clothes in the back of his closet. He settles on ratty jeans, soft as his blankets and a big University of South Carolina hoody that’s been washed so many times that the grey is almost blue. With his hair up, he’s basically presentable. It’s not like he’s trying to get laid or anything.

The place is closer to upscale than Alex and Herc would like, but John is the one footing the bill, and he sends the address along with ‘I’m already here’. A little bit of whiskey before his friends got there would be enough to take some of that miserable weight off his chest, and make it easier to breathe.

It’d make him a little easier to be around. God knows he’s not always the best company, but he tries for his friends. They deserve that much.

So he’s two whiskeys in and feeling a little looser, a little warmer by the time his boys make it through the door. It only makes sense to buy the bottle, to save them a bunch of trips up to the bar. John tips good, gets a rare, honest smile from the guy behind the counter for it before he weaves through the growing crowd to the booth that has been claimed in the name of their bro-hood.

John pins himself between Alex and Herc, lets the comfort of elbows banging against his and knees against knees knock loose some of that lingering pressure in his chest. The conversation is good, it’s easy, and even John gets lost in the depths of it before Herc catches him just above the elbow and drags him out onto the dance floor.

He loves to dance. His mom snuck him to some hiphop classes when he was a kid, and he can salsa pretty damn good. But it’s not about that here. It’s about bass so deep he feels it in the middle of his teeth. It’s laughing so hard at Herc getting down with a girl that John chokes on his own spit for a minute.

And it’s Alex being drunk enough to move from body to body, plastering his back against John’s front without actively realizing it was him, smooth rolls of his hips that have his ass bumping against John and he’s warm in all new ways now.

But just like always, any time he works up the nerve to think about getting a hand on Alex, his friend is weaving back through the throng of drunken bodies to sink back into the booth. Which leaves John with a pretty redhead Latina grinding on him, who delights when he answers her in Spanish and gets his hands low enough on her hips that if she had a boyfriend, he’d be coming to kick John’s ass.

She says meet me in the bathroom, and John thinks about it for a half a second. It’s been awhile since he’s hooked up with anybody. But he knows that any day that he feels like this, he’ll feel worse in the morning when he’s met with a hangover and a cold bed. So he tells her sorry, mami and shrugs, moving on to dance with the next person to ease into his space.

John just happens to look up from where he’s grinding on Herc’s last dance partner to catch a glimpse of Lafayette and Alexander in the booth. Pressed together. Lafayette’s head bowed and lips so close to Alex’s ear that it looks indecent. But it can’t be. It’s got to be a trick of the light. John laughs at himself for being stupid and turns his attention back to dancing, going out of his way to bump his ass against Herc’s just to get that loud ‘Hey!’ he likes so much.

He shouldn’t look back. But it’s niggling at him, a hangnail of the mind that he can’t shake. John looks up and sees Lafayette striding into the bathroom, shooting a come hither look over his shoulder. To Alexander.

To Alexander, who is following him into the bathroom with those same dark eyes and flushed cheeks he got when he was getting the good sexts.

“Fuck.” It feels like the floor has dropped out from underneath him, the walls undulating sickly all around him. John untangles himself from the girl with her arms around his shoulders, her call of dismay soft to his ears, like he’s listening through cotton.

See, there’s this narrative about John. That he’s impulsive, that he’s reckless. He doesn’t think things true. But that’s not really the case. Even as he cuts through the middle of the dance floor, elbowing between people, he knows what he’s doing is wrong. He’s fully fucking aware what opening that bathroom door is going to do to him. He does it anyway.

“Oui, lá, s’il te plaît—”

The words hit him before the image does. For one dizzying second, all John can think about is how thick Alex’s voice is. What he must look like with his head throw back and-

-and that’s when reality sinks in. When he sees the familiar pair of knees in front of a pair of sneakers he’d watched Alex use his duct tape to fix the toes not even a week ago. If John thought he felt sick before, it’s nothing compared to now.

John turns and walks out of the bathroom without a word, bumping into a guy’s shoulder on his way. There’s more words, cottony and drawn out and distant, but the feel of a big hand shoving him from behind snaps the world back into crystal clear focus.

He knows what he should do. Walk away. He knows what he won’t do. Petulantly, peevishly, he wishes he was the one fucking somebody in the bathroom. That he could lose himself to that kind of physicality and feel better for it.

This was the only kind of touch his body responded to anymore, and that thought is enough to have the stoked fire in his belly surging to life, fanned to flames by the fucking injustice of it. That Lafayette could so casually have what John has wanted for so long that he’s malnourished for needing it.

The first punch lands, and this is better than most of his fights, because this asshole can actually scrap. They’re a pile of limbs and sharp blows raining down, and by the time they’re pulled apart by security, John’s snarling smile is painted red, blood dripping down his chin. “Fuck you, man! Fuck you!”

And maybe it’s less about fuck you to the random asshole in the club, or the bouncer hauling him out by the torn collar of his old school hoody. Maybe it’s more saying fuck you to the world. To his stupid heart. To Alexander Hamilton.

Who has a kind of radar, barreling out of the back door of the club so soon after that John’s still breathing hard. Alex’s cheeks are pink high up on the apples of them, his mouth kiss bruised and soft. For one wild, terrible second, John wants to hit him.

Alex is talking to him. Alex is always talking, and John can’t hear a fucking word of it over the rush of blood in his ears. All he knows is that Alexander is taking his scuffed hand and lifting it to press a gentle kiss to the meat of John’s palm, where he’s had the skin scraped away from landing on the concrete when he got bounced out.

John yanks his hand back, that sweet touch hitting harder than any fist that landed on him tonight. “Don’t fucking touch me.” It’s a snarl. Later, when the anger falls away, he’ll replay that wince on Alex’s face until he’s screaming into the bunched fabric of his pillow. But for now, he’s too fucking furious to think.

Somehow, some way he stops himself from spitting out I don’t want Lafayette’s spunk on my fucking hand but it’s a close thing.

He’s out of control, out of breath, shoulders heaving with each breath. “I’m good.” He’s not, but he grits it out between his teeth all the same. He’s been lying to his parents for years, why not start lying to his friends now?

“I’ll get my own ride. Go back inside.”

#ch: laurens #wemultitudinous | alexander #wemultitudinous #to quote becca here #you ever see somebody break they own heart

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xxx-cat-xxx · 6 years ago

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Settle our bones (like wood) over time, over time

Tony is down with the flu, so Rhodey helps out by looking after Morgan (and her dad).

Seems like Endgame has turned me into a fluff writer. This is probably one of the softest things I’ve ever written. Contains fever dreams, vomiting, some angst and light spoilers, but nothing too grave.

A million thanks to @whumphoarder for putting so much work into beta-reading.

Rhodey has just finished showering and is fixing himself a sandwich when his custom-made StarkPhone starts blaring the unmistakable melody of Black Sabbath’s Iron Man (The phone was a belated gift from Tony for his last birthday - subtlety has never been his best friend’s strength).

“Hey man,” he greets.

“Rhodes?” Tony asks, sounding slightly off.

“Yes, it’s me. You should know this, seeing as you called.” A bit of worry starts gnawing in Rhodey’s gut.

“Listen...I might need your help here.”

Rhodey sighs internally. This is the same sentence he heard a year ago, when Tony’s bots managed to blow up a pyramid of paint buckets in the nursery and both of them spent the next seven consecutive hours hurrying to clean up the mess before Pepper came home. Rhodey’s just returned from a rather arduous week with Nat in Morocco and was looking forward to an afternoon spent entirely with himself, his food, and his TV remote.

“Sure,” he replies, trying his best not to sound entirely unmotivated. “What’s the mission?”

“Just, Morgan,” Tony says. “I, I guess I caught a flu bug, and I can’t - Pepper’s in L.A., and I can’t even open these stupid baby food jars without puking. Pep will kill me if I have Dum-E feed the kid.”

He breaks off and Rhodey hears a muffled cough from the other side.

“I know you just got back, but-” There’s a clatter, a muttered curse, and then the sound of a baby crying in the background. “I’m sorry, dude,” Tony continues in a hoarse voice.

Rhodey frowns. If Tony is calling him for help - hell, if he is actually apologising - things must be pretty desperate.

“On my way,” he confirms, getting up with a groan but already feeling his own fatigue fading into the background. “Be there in ten.”

The cabin sits at the lake, calm as ever. Rhodey smiles a little to himself when he thinks that his Tony, the former party king of New York, has chosen a lonely place in the woods as the site for his retirement. The front door opens automatically as soon as the hidden scanner has examined his face, and Rhodey steps into the warm interior.

“Welcome, Colonel Rhodes”, Friday’s voice greets him.

“Hey, Fri. Where’s Tony?”

“Boss is upstairs in the nursery.”

“Thanks.”

Giving Morgan the bedroom under the roof was probably one of Tony’s more selfless deeds (well, apart from saving the universe multiple times), considering the breathtaking amount of stars that are visible through the window directly from her bed.

On the other hand, Tony is understandably not very fond of stars anymore.

Rhodey makes his way upstairs, avoiding the building bricks littering the steps as well as the heap of washing on the first floor landing that needs to be ironed.

Tony is sitting on the floor in Morgan’s room, leaning heavily against the bed frame, the eight-month-old baby on a blanket next to him. She’s not exactly crying, but the noises she’s making definitely express discontent. Tony is trying to capture her attention with a screwdriver that he circles above her face, but he seems barely able to keep his own head up. There’s an unopened baby food jar and a spoon on the bedside table next to him.

“You look like crap,” Rhodey assesses. “What’s your temperature at?”

“I called you to babysit Morgan, not me,” Tony rebuts hoarsely. “If you’re fussing, I’ll ship your ass straight back home.”

“Sure you will.” Rhodey bends down to stroke the girl’s hair, noticing that she is swaddled up in multiple blankets like a baby-burrito.

“Is the little hobbit sick, too?”

“What?” Tony’s head shoots up. “No, I hope not.”

“Then why’s she wrapped up like this?”

“‘t was freezing this morning...Her skin felt cold…”

Rhodey frowns and checks the kid’s temperature. If anything, she’s a little overheated and clearly uncomfortable in too many layers. “That was probably the fever messing with you.”

“Oh.” Tony shifts uncomfortably. He is entirely too pale, with a hint of green on his face.

“When is Pepper coming back?” Rhodey inquires as he unwraps the blankets around the unhappy baby.

“’s Wednesday today, right?”

“Thursday,” Rhodey corrects.

“Ah,” Tony rubs his hand over his eyebrows in an exhausted gesture. He looks about ready to keel over. “Tonight, then. Probably late. You can, you can stay over in the guest room if you want to…”

“I know, Tony, don’t worry about it,” Rhodey reassures. “I’m gonna feed her now. You should move to your own bedroom, try and get some rest.”

“Yeah,” Tony nods, glancing at his feet for a moment as if not sure whether they will carry his weight. “There’s an idea.”

He hoists himself up and strokes Morgan’s hair out of her face with slightly trembling fingers before shuffling towards the staircase.

When the baby is fed and asleep, Rhodey makes his way to Tony’s room, hoping against better knowledge that his friend would be following the baby’s example. But of course that’s not the case. The sounds of dry heaving are carrying clearly over to the staircase from the first floor bathroom.

“Tones?” Rhodey knocks on the door.

“’m good, don’t come in.”

“Sure…”

Rhodey pushes the door open and takes in the scene. Tony is slumped over the open toilet bowl, his cheek resting on the seat. His face is showing an unhealthy pallor. Towels and discarded bottles of Gatorade are strewn around him, and the smell of sickness hangs thickly in the air. It’s obvious that Tony has been ill for a while already.

“Dude,” Rhodey starts.

“I said don’t come in. Not pretty,” Tony rasps.

“Well, I’ve seen you worse.”

“Yeah, don’t remind me…” Tony coughs again and retches drily, not even bothering to lift his head anymore. Rhodey can see the muscles in his back contracting when he throws up again, the ribs visible under his shirt. Hs still hasn’t gained back his full weight after the three weeks in space.

“Oh, fuck this.” Tony reaches up weakly to flush, then crashes back against the giant bathtub. Tiredly, he looks up at Rhodey, his dark eyes glazed over from fever.

“Okay. Back to bed,” Rhodey orders.

“Not sure if I’m done,” Tony admits.

“I’ll get you a bucket.” Rhodey grabs Tony under the armpits to pull him up and steadies him until he is sure that Tony’s own feet can take his weight. Then he hands him a glass of water to rinse his mouth.

“Do you want some Tylenol?” he asks, scanning the medicine cabinet.

“Nah,” Tony shakes his head. “Tried. Didn’t stay down.”

“At least drink a bit of water. You must be getting dehydrated.”

Tony obeys, sipping at the glass while supporting himself on the wash basin. His hand is shaking so hard that water is spilling over the edge, even though the glass is barely filled two-thirds.

All at once, Rhodey vividly remembers the week after Tony had returned from Titan. True to his word, the first thing he did when he was able to stand again on his own was try to shave. His hands were shaking so much that Rhodey had to help him, steadily clearing the stubble that was more gray than black, deliberately not talking about Steve and space and the child whose absence was so present in each of Tony’s words and actions.

It still is.

Rhodey gets Tony settled into bed. The engineer lies down on the mattress gingerly, as if his whole body hurts. Within minutes, he falls into an exhausted slumber, looking entirely spent.

He is undeniably older now - a fight in space, a lost child, and another one born having taken their toll - but something about the way he keeps his forearm curled protectively around his face reminds Rhodey of college, of watching over him while he slept off his highs, an arrogant, vulnerable, entirely too-young kid in a world that didn’t care enough.

Rhodey carefully pulls a blanket over his friend. He goes to the kitchen to fetch some crackers for himself and a basin in case Tony gets sick again and checks once more on Morgan, who is sleeping peacefully, hugging an Iron Man plush toy, then settles down in an armchair in the corner of the master bedroom. He picks up Tony’s tablet, scrolling lazily through the news, before setting out to ruin his friend’s Netflix viewing history.

Twenty minutes later, Tony starts moaning quietly, his face scrunched up and slick with sweat. He rolls to and fro, hands balled into fists, his eyeballs moving rapidly below his eyelids as he mumbles something unintelligible.

Rhodey sighs and stands up to wake him. Before he can do so, Tony snaps upright. “Peter,” he croaks breathlessly. His eyes dart around the room, taking it in with a mixture of confusion and fear.

Rhodey just shakes his head. “No, Tony. I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

“Oh.” Understanding settles in Tony’s features, disappointment, sadness. He slumps back against the pillows, brushing an arm over his face to wipe away sweat and maybe more. So much pain. So much guilt. “Is Morgan—?”

“She’s fine. Go back to sleep,” Rhodey advises.

Tony grunts in response. He closes his eyes, but opens them again a few seconds later, looking paler than before. “I need- ” he clasps a hand over his lips, sitting up, and tries to get his feet under him.

Rhodey takes the basin from the nightstand and pushes it into his hands, silently ordering him to stay in bed. “Here. It’s okay.”

Tony eyes the bowl and takes a few shallow breaths, closing his eyes. Rhodey can see his throat working as he tries not to be sick.

Upstairs, Morgan starts to cry.

Tony reflexively makes to stand up. “I got her,” Rhodey reassures, already half out the door. He feels his heart go a little warm. The one man whom nobody ever would have thought would be a father has turned out to be a pretty good one.

He hears Tony retch behind him and the sound of liquid splashing into the bowl when he climbs the stairs. Rhodey makes a mental note to keep an eye out for signs of dehydration since the only thing Tony could possibly be bringing up at this point is the few sips of water he had earlier.

Morgan is crying at a volume louder than should reasonably be possible for someone of her size. Rhodey changes her diaper and carries her around the room, talking nonsense to soothe her. It takes a while to settle her back down. She knows Rhodey well, but it’s clear that she wants her parents.

When he returns, Tony is still in the same position as he left him, but now slumped over, holding his head in his hands. The half-filled basin is sitting in between his knees.

“Hey.” Rhodey takes the bowl out of his lap gently and sets it on the floor. Tony barely reacts. He’s malleable, radiating heat, the fever evidently much higher than earlier. He barely opens his eyes when Rhodey helps him to lean back against a heap of pillows in front of the headboard. Rhodey goes to clean the evidence and returns with a wet washcloth that he uses to wipe down Tony’s face and then cool his forehead.

Tony is too feverish and uncomfortable to actually fall back asleep, so Rhodey starts the TV for some white noise and settles into the bed next to him. Tony watches with half-lidded eyes and heavy breaths, his hands clenching the blanket. He keeps shifting his weight against the pillows until his head lands on Rhodey’s shoulder, the sweaty hair hot and damp through his shirt. Rhodey adjust his position a little to make him more comfortable.

“So that’s what it takes to get you into bed with me,” Tony slurs.

Rhodey rolls his eyes. “You wish.”

There’s a pause as the weak smirk fades from Tony’s features and he lets out a tired sigh. “I…” He struggles to form words. “Just…thanks, dude.”

“It’s okay, Tony. I know.”

And he does, he’s always known. During the nights at MIT, he understood the way Tony sought distraction in parties and wine to quiet his thoughts and how he brought people home to bed to keep the loneliness at bay. He was there when Tony OD-ed on his graduation day, after Howard hadn’t shown up and Tony had worn an AC/DC shirt instead of a suit, insisting he didn’t give a damn about his summa cum laude. And that other, horrible night, after Tony’s parents died and he stood on Rhodey’s doorstep, high and silent, with red-rimmed eyes and traces of tears on his face.

After he’d returned from space, starved and broken, when he was too weak to cry and water just seemed to flow out of his eyes like from an overfilled pond, Rhodey understood that those tears were for Peter Parker. And the day Morgan was born and Tony was more afraid than ever before, Rhodey had quietly waited at the hospital all the way until the door opened and Tony stepped out with his daughter in his arms, smiling like the proudest man on earth.

Now he just sits there, feeling Tony shiver when the chills run through him, doing what he always does - being there.

He stays until Morgan starts up again and he has to extricate himself from the bed. She’s clearly awake this time, and it seems she’s had enough time without her parents, so Rhodey takes her to the master bedroom.

Tony is too out of it to even move much, so he just lets the baby crawl around him and numbly plays with her hair while she tries to grab his fingers.

“Yeah, kiddo. Daddy’s not much fun today,” Rhodey comments. Tony just shoots him a tired glare.

“You up for some toast?” Rhodey asks.

“Please don’t.” Tony’s face scrunches up with nausea.

Rhodey gets him to very slowly drink half a glass of water during the next fifteen minutes before Tony lies back down fully while Morgan is on her stomach, playing with a War Machine doll that has inexplicably found its way into the bed. After a while, Rhodey wets the washcloth again and drapes it over Tony’s burning forehead, receiving a grateful sigh.

Tony’s breaths eventually even out again and Rhodey gently picks up Morgan. He takes her outside and feeds her dinner, and she stares at him intently with the dark, warm eyes Rhodey knows all too well.

When Pepper comes home late that night, Rhodey is on the porch, carrying a crying Morgan in his arms who has decided a few hours ago that she was definitely done sleeping for the day.

“What happened?” Pepper asks, a crease appearing between her brows and worry set in her eyes. It’s been almost two years and the fear is still there, always lingering below the surface, ready to materialise upon the smallest provocation.

“Hey, everything’s okay. Tony’s got the flu, but it’s under control. He was very well-behaved - called me earlier today to help out.”

Pepper raises an eyebrow. “He told me he had a cold when I called him up last night.”

Rhodey sighs. He’s never seen Tony ask for someone to be around when he was sick, thanks to Howard Stark, and he’s sure that he wouldn’t have done it this time if it hadn’t been for Morgan.

Pepper takes the child from his arms and greets her with a kiss before entering the house and making straight for the master bedroom, not bothering to remove her shoes or jacket. Rhodey follows her upstairs, but stops just outside the bedroom door. He watches Pepper step in softly, Tony warily blinking his eyes open and then struggling to sit up when Pepper settles down on the side of the mattress.

Rhodey can’t hear what they are saying, but he sees Tony mumble something and warmth filling his tired eyes. The tension bleeds out of Pepper’s body when she ghosts a kiss on his cheek. Morgan giggles upon seeing her father, not understanding the words, but fully able to feel the completeness, the love, the rightness of it all.

It’s an impossible life they lead, Rhodey thinks, but something right has come out of it after all.

@badthingshappenbingo - This is the fill for the square “Big Brother Instinct” on my Bingo card.

Link to all my fics

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artificialqueens · 6 years ago

Text

Elastic Heart - Part 5/10 (Branjie) - Mia Ugly

A/N: The rest of this story is basically mostly written and I'm going to try to post it quickly before the ACTUAL SHOW messes with my Valentina-esque levels of fantasy. Thanks to everyone who has been reading and giving me feedback. I’ve never written in this fandom before and you’re all so kind (and talented, Jesus murphy.)

Relationships for Brock have always been complicated.

He really hasn’t met a whole lot of queer people who don’t have some kind of emotional hang-up based as a result of the world they live in. And his journey’s been easier than a lot of other people’s, so really, he should be over this by now. But he still has a helpless association between want and guilt, like the moment he feels something good it’s a ticking clock until it’s going to be taken away.

His most long-term relationship has been with ballet, and then he cheated on it with drag. He can’t imagine loving anything more than that. The thought makes him feel a bit sick to his stomach, because - that kind of love would be overwhelming. As big as the world. Completely uncontrollable, and Brock has to be in control.

But when he watches himself on Drag Race, there are moments up there when he sees someone who - isn’t. In total control, that is. Sure, he presents a very polished, curated image but sometimes he does this smile thing when he’s asked about Vanjie and it’s - just not a face he’s ever seen himself making. He knows what his face looks like. When did it start looking like that?

He goes out after the Snatch Game watch-party with a couple of other queens, ones he barely knows (but he’s trying to be unreasonably social, trying to stay distracted.) He can barely look at the screen as he epically bombs a Canadian legend, so he drinks too quickly, and talks to the bartender, and pretends to be live-tweeting when isn’t. There’s a guy there too (Jeff? James?) leaning close to Brock, touching him too much, buying him drinks he doesn’t want. Brock accepts them anyway, wanting to feel anything but his feelings.

His friends suggest another bar, and he follows them, and Jeff or James is comes too. There are vodka shots (he thinks) and Vanessa’s beautiful face on yet another screen and more shots and Jeff/James’ arm around Brock’s shoulders.

And Brock doesn’t want his arm there. But he laughs and smiles and reprises his war-crime of a French Canadian accent, because that’s easier. Easier than remembering that episode, those feelings. The sight of Vanjie, silver sequins across the mainstage, lips parting. the thought of: “this is it, they’re in the bottom two, it’s over.”

It wasn’t over then, of course. It is now.

Brock thinks he gets Jeff/James number although he can’t remember asking for it. Do they kiss? He hopes they don’t.

Somehow Brock is in an alley, leaning against a brick wall because he doesn’t think he can stand.

Somehow Brock is in his bed, and there are cats on his pillow.

Somehow Brock is on his phone, FaceTiming someone. Who is he FaceTiming oh dear GOD don’t be -

It’s too late, there’s no going back, and Yvie Oddly’s furious eyes are glaring at him. No, his name is Jovan. They’re here in the real world, they’re not on the show (Brock sometimes has to remind himself of that.)

“Oh.” Jovan says that one syllable like an obscenity, rubbing his hands over his face. Brock can barely make him out in the darkness. “I see you’re handling things well.”

Jovan’s in bed somewhere, still wrapped up in blankets.

“Whosit?” a quiet voice slurs somewhere beside him, a tumble of long dark hair against a white pillowcase. Jovan frowns and murmurs something indistinguishable, picking the phone up and taking it somewhere brighter.

Brock regrets everything, all of it. “Sorry - I shouldn’t have called.”

“There are lots of things you shouldn’t have done. I don’t know if calling me at 3 am makes the top five.”

(Top Five Things Brock Shouldn’t Have Done:

Number One, and fine, Number Two as well: Fallen stupidly, clumsily, unspeakably in love on national goddamn television. On a reality show, for Christ’s sake, like he’s a contestant on the Bachelorette, like he’s the kind of person who would confuse a paying gig with something real. Looked across a set full of cameras and lights and P.A.s and thought ‘holy shit, that’s Miss Vanjie,’ and then - not even one day later - thought ‘holy shit. I’m in so much trouble.’

Number Three: Started smoking. That stuff will kill you, and it’s so fucking hard to quit. He’s tried seven times, and the longest he ever managed it was six months, but he was touring and he was gaining weight and his body-issues were out of control at the time, so. Yeah. Don’t ever start, is what he’s saying.

Number Four: That Celine Dion, Jesus Lord, it was just hideous. The memory still wakes him in the night in a cold sweat.

Number Five: Thrown Ru-Paul’s fucking Drag Race.)

“I’m drunk.” The bedroom is spinning. The cats are in danger.

“Yeah, you are. Girl, what is going on with you?”

“I just - I know we can’t talk about it. But I wanted -”

In the dull light of a kitchen, Jovan raises an exhausted eyebrow - or at least the place where an eyebrow would be if he had one.

“I wanted to talk to someone who was there.” (Because Nina wasn’t there. And Plastique wasn’t there. And sometimes the weight of what happened seems unbearable on Brock’s shoulders. And sometimes he wonders if he even remembers it right. Sometimes he thinks that when the episode airs it’s going to be a completely different picture than the one he painted in his memory. Uglier. Bright and graceless and cheap.)

Jovan lets out a long, deep sigh. Brock can faintly hear a clock ticking in the background.

“Okay. Fine. I was there. But you know who else was?”

“Yvie -”

“Your fucking boyfriend. Remember that? So maybe there’s someone else you should be drunk-dialing at ass-crack-o’clock in the morning.” Jovan’s volume is starting to build, but he brings it down, casting a nervous look over his shoulder. “Listen, Brooke, you made a choice. Okay? You can’t go back, and you can’t beat yourself up for the rest of your life. There’s got to be a point where you move the fuck on.”

“I know.” This is why Brock called, must be what his vodka-soaked brain was thinking. Jovan can be mean and he can be abrasive but he’s never anything other than honest.

“And like, I’m pretty sure she’s fucking other people. Someone was posting about it. So.” (Okay, maybe a bit too honest Jesus fucking hell -)

Brock’s face must do something in response to that statement, because Jovan suddenly looks - sad. Ugh, that’s even worse than furious.

“Does she know?” Jovan asks before Brock can say anything.

“Know what?”

“Fuck off, ‘know what.’ Have you told her you’re in love with her?”

(“You want a ring or some shit?”)

Brock doesn’t answer.

Because - he hasn’t told Jose, not in those words. Not - out loud.

Jovan nods sharply. “And there it fucking is. Why do I have to have this conversation with you if you can’t cowgirl up enough to get your man back? I know this timid Canadian bullshit was good for the fans, they fucking ate it up, but this is real life now, girl. You can’t blame a bad edit.”

“Didn’t you just tell me to move the fuck on?”

“Well bitch, now you have two options. Maybe pick one. At least you’d be doing something.”

After Jovan says goodbye (well, flips him off and hangs up) Brock is still too tipsy for his own good. So he does another stupid stupid thing. He goes online.

There’s this picture floating around of the two of them. He remembers the P.A. taking it in the back seat of the van, promising them he’d send it to their managers (“Omg, you’re so cute right now.”) Brock looks at it for a long time, and there is sand and saltwater under his fingernails.

Is this what a heart attack feels like? Maybe he’s having a heart attack.

Maybe he should try to quit smoking again.

Maybe he should listen to Yvie.

(Move the fuck on. She’s fucking other people.)

Relationships for Brock are complicated. It’s only ever been simple once.

* * *

There’s a heatwave in L.A. and production takes them to a beach.

The whole area is guarded by P.A.’s on walkies, but its the queens’ day off, and there are no cameras for once. Everyone loses their shit after Brooke emerges from the changerooms with a wide-brimmed hat and long linen shirt over her swimsuit; for all that she’s accused of being thirsty AF, she’s still a pasty white chick who’ll burn in under thirty minutes. Vanjie laughs so loud and long when she sees her that it’s almost worth it (“yass girl, live that Diane Keaton fantasy.”)

When they get to the water, Vanjie is quick to ditch her clothes in favour of the tiniest black speedo, and a thin gold chain. She looks like a picture Brooke might have hidden under the mattress as a teenager, and Vanjie knows it. She grins at Brooke as she rubs some sort of oil on her (perfect, gorgeous) skin, and Brooke thinks she must have gotten too much sun already, might faint or dissolve with the weight of this wanting.

“Eyes up here, bitch,” Vanessa smirks at her as she walks past, heading toward the shoreline. Brooke watches her go, can’t help herself. After that precious five minutes in Brooke’s hotel room, every second around Vanjie seems electric. Brooke keeps having these terrible, delicious thoughts of pushing her up against every hard surface she sees; the stations in the werkroom, the side of the van, the runway. The way Vanjie’s body was warm and trembling, the way her eyes were blown black, the harsh rasp of her voice - fuck.

Brooke shouldn’t be thinking of this while wearing a swimsuit, she’s going to get arrested.

She lathers on the sunblock and keeps the hat (but undoes her shirt, so that’s something. She might regret it later when she’s lobster red, but she’s beginning to feel a bit like the girls’ spinster aunt chaperone.)

Yvie, seemingly oblivious to the heat, remains in long black jeans and a ripped up sweatshirt. She hangs back under a beach umbrella, nose stuck in a copy of Blood and Guts in High School while the other girls frolic in the surf like puppies or nymphs or something. Brooke sits with her for a bit, watches A’Keria and Silky and Vanjie hassle each other, laughing and swearing as they try to push Silky underwater.

Brooke isn’t sure what expression is on her face as she studies Vanessa from a distance, but it can’t be dignified. She twines her hands together, smiles down at her knees before anyone calls her out for it.

Of course, she’s too late. When she glances back up, Yvie is looking at her over the top of her tiny round sunglasses. She does not look impressed.

“You know what you’re doing?”

Brooke doesn’t bother pretending to be confused. She’s been asking herself the same question a lot lately. Too often to not be a bit of a red flag. A pink flag at least.

“We’re just flirting. It’s fun, we’re not –“

“Yeah, but like maybe drop the bullshit for ten seconds and remember that this is a competition. You know they’re going to make you lip-sync, right?”

Brooke’s mind goes conspicuously blank for a moment. She forces herself to take a breath, do a grounding exercise. Obviously it’s a thought she’s had before. She knows it would be a gag, knows it would be good television. But it’s also something Brooke has to avoid thinking about, move her thoughts in pirouettes and backbends around the idea, because she doesn’t know how else to survive. She can’t - she can’t be the one who sends Vanjie home. It just can’t happen.

“We’ll have to stay out of the bottom then.”

“Girl, they won’t care, they’ll fucking put you in the bottom to get that storyline. That’s the tea. Can you handle it? Because you’ve got little hearts floating around your head right now –“

“Fuck off –“

“-and I don’t think it’s an act. I think you’re trying to be cool about it, but you’re not being cool at all. The pair of you are being absolutely the least cool.”

Brooke rolls her eyes. Yvie’s been pissy since Scarlet left, but she doesn’t need to come at Brooke when they’re at the beach for Christ’s sakes.

“You know she’s not making it to the Top 4. With that runway -”

“Fuck off.” Brooke snaps her head toward Yvie, immediately done with this conversation. Yvie can say what she wants about Brooke, but no one gets to talk shit about Vanessa. “Seriously.”

“I’m just saying, you ready for that?”

“And I’m just saying it’s our day off. So maybe leave it for a goddamn minute.”

“Whatever.” Yvie gets up out of the sand, brushes off her jeans, and walks off down the beach, little black stormclouds following her. Brooke decides that the least she can do is steal the queen’s umbrella, shuffling her towel over into the shade and stretching out.

Fuck Yvie. She doesn’t know what’s going to happen. She doesn’t know anything about it.

Brooke dozes in the shade for a bit, enjoying the warmth of the sand and the occasional bark of Vanjie’s wicked laugh. She doesn’t know how long she lies there, only really waking up when a very cold, very damp toe drags over her bare calf.

“Poor sleepy Brooke. Just ain’t cut out for the pressure of television, hey?”

Brooke smiles before she opens her opens her eyes, squinting up at Vanjie in the sunlight.

“You need to pull a Dela, send your fine self home?”

“You wish,” Brooke smiles as Vanjie settles down beside her in the sand. Water droplets still cling to her shoulders, chest, stomach. Brooke feels her lips parting, thirsty as hell.

“That’s a damn lie, girl, don’t know what I’d do if you went home now. Be boring as hell around here. You know, cuz you got so much personality.”

“I leave the personality to you, you leave the challenge winning to me,” Brooke says deadpan, and Vanjie hoots with laughter.

“Oooh ,bitch! You may look pretty but you don’t act pretty.”

Nina and Plastique have gone to track down some food, and the rest of the girls are still down by the water, so it’s just Brooke and Vanjie under the umbrella together, lying side by side. Vanjie leans up onto her elbow, giving Brooke a once-over before raising her eyebrows.

“You undone a couple buttons, hey, Miss Brooke? Tryin’ to drive the boys crazy?”

“Only one of them.”

Vanjie gets that crease between her eyebrows again, that little nervous tell. It’s gone just as quickly, and Vanjie looks away.

“Sure, sure.” But there’s a flush to her cheekbones, the kind of blush that makes Brooke feel like she’s never been kissed before, or heard Tchaikovsky, or seen the Pacific Ocean.

Sometimes Vanjie does things that make Brooke feel like a sun that is rising. Completely new and so bright she’s blinding.

“Bet you say that to all the girls.” Vanjie stretches out on her back, staring straight up. “Top 8, Top 8, Top 8.”

“Top 4, Top 4, Top 4,” Brooke says back to her, and Vanjie laughs.

“Girl, I gotta take it one challenge at a time, right? I ain’t gonna think that far in the future.”

“What would you be doing today if you weren’t here? If you were just at home?”

“Hmm.” Vanjie thinks about it. Brooke watches her distractedly tug on the thin gold chain she’s wearing. “Same sorta thing, maybe. Hit up the beach, find some piece of trade. You know - what I’m doing now.”

“So this is just any other day for you.”

“Oh yeah. Definitely. Gettin’ bored up in here.” Vanjie grins at her. “What ‘bout you, girl? You be at the library or something?”

“Sure. Studying. Playing bridge. Drinking tea if things got really crazy.”

“I knew you was nasty.” Vanjie studies her, reaches out one hand. “One day and you already gettin’ scruffy.”

Her fingers trace Brooke’s upper lip, and Brooke can’t be held responsible for her actions; she opens her mouth and sucks Vanjie’s fingers inside, twisting her tongue around them. They taste like the ocean.

Vanessa’s eyes go dark and unfocused, and her breathing stutters. “Careful, girl.”

She slides her fingers out of Brooke’s mouth and sucks them into her own. Brooke wants to roll over on top of her and kiss her and grind against her, right here in the sand in front of everyone. She wants Vanjie’s nipples in her mouth, hipbones between her teeth. The want is something she’s never felt before, clean and simple and deadly as a knife. It shakes her knees, rattles her jaw.

Of course, she won’t do it. Vanjie might be known as this loud, dynamic, fearless queen, but when it comes to – whatever’s going on between them – she’s just as private as Brooke is. Maybe more so. Brooke was ready to spill the tea in the backstage lounge after being called out that first time, whereas Vanjie just laughed and disappeared. Brooke was talking about crushes while Vanjie was calling them friends.

She’s shy. Brooke’s realizing that more and more, and it blows her mind. Who would have thought that Miss Vanjie would be shy?

Most of the time it’s Brooke that makes the first move in the werkroom, and God help her she was never this touch-starved before - what the fuck is happening? She’s never had to clench her hands into fists instead of reaching out, she’s never felt electrified by something as simple as a raised eyebrow. She’s clearly out of her depths here, and she blames it on the structure of the show – the pressure of performing and being judged, the long days and almost sleepless nights (she’s dreaming in choreography now, wakes up en pointe.)

“You’re killin’ me,” Vanjie murmurs, staring at Brooke like she can’t help herself. Brooke flattens her hand against Vanjie’s smooth chest, and Vanjie lets out a tight, slow exhale. Brooke can feel Vanjie’s heartbeat leaping against her palm, and wonders how the hell she’s going to survive this.

The van ride back to the hotel is some kind of torture. A P.A. takes a picture of them in the backseat (“OMG you’re so cute right now.”) and then Vanjie takes Brooke’s hand and doesn’t let go. The two of them are pressed close together, shoulder to hip, and Vanjie smells of coconut oil and saltwater. It’s like sitting next to a mermaid. Brooke thinks she might be drowning.

At one point Vanjie dozes off, and her head tips toward Brooke. Almost resting on her shoulder but not quite. Enough that she can feel Vanessa’s breath each time she exhales. It’s making her feel dizzy, stomach tight with (well, want, that’s obvious) but also something else. Something sharper, like a needle full of ink. Something that feels permanent.

Vanjie’s hand is warm in Brooke’s, pulse slow and steady as music. Brooke does not let it go.

When the van is pulling into the hotel parkade, they’re jostled slightly. Vanessa grumbles, sighs and starts to pull away. Brooke turns toward her just as Vanjie wakes up and for a moment they simply – look at each other. Vanjie’s head almost on Brooke’s shoulder, Vanjie’s dark eyes blinking sleepily at Brooke. Their lips only inches apart, and the smell of salt in the air between them.

Vanjie’s forehead creases. Brooke would press her lips to that spot, if she wasn’t terrified the other queen would flinch away.

“Hey,” Vanjie says softly, their eyes holding. Something gives a lurch in Brooke’s chest, like a muscle being torn.

“Hey,” she says, but the word feels like something else.

“Out the car, bitches,” Silky shouts at them as the van door opens. As Brooke reluctantly pulls away, stumbles out of the back, she sees Yvie shaking her head, over it completely.

As they stand in the parking lot, waiting for the other girls to gather up their things, Vanjie reaches over and takes Brooke’s hand again. Their fingers lace together. Brooke has trouble remembering to breathe.

They hold hands all the way to the elevator, quiet. Brooke can’t shake the constant awareness of each move Vanessa makes, every time their arms rub together, the sudden pressure of Vanessa’s hip against hers as they squish into the elevator with the other queens and the remaining P.A.s. When they get to Vanessa’s floor, it’s all Brooke can do not to follow her out, hold hands down the hallway and press her up against the door of her room, get down on her knees and do anything, everything (get Vee off once with her mouth, and then take her to bed and eat her out until she’s begging to be fucked, and then -)

“Bye ladies,” Vanjie says as she exits the crowded elevator, followed by her P.A. A flicker of something crosses her face and she suddenly turns back around. “Oh shit, I forgot - hold the door.”

A P.A. stops the door from closing and Vanjie pushes her way back inside until she can grab Brooke and pull her down into a deep kiss, sloppy with tongue, noisy and wet and intoxicating. Brooke squeezes her eyes shut as the elevator erupts in cheering and whistling, puts her hands around Vanjie’s waist and holds her tight. If this is all they can have right now, Brooke is going to take advantage.

Much too soon, Vanjie drags herself away, lips swollen and shiny.

“Y’had something on your face, Hytes,” she says as she leaves again, and A’Keria wags her finger while Silky hollers.

Vanjie catches Brooke’s eye as the elevator doors start to close, and Brooke wants to rip her heart out of her chest and hand it over. Vanjie should have it, and she can do whatever the fuck she wants with it, Brooke doesn’t care. It’s not Brooke’s heart anymore. It stopped belonging to her a couple days ago.

Instead she smiles at Vanjie, struck dumb with affection, and Vanjie smiles back. The doors close and Brooke goes back to her room. She doesn’t turn on the lights on, doesn’t need to. She feels incandescent, shining bright enough to be seen from space.

And then the next day Snatch Game happens, and everything goes to hell.

#rpdr fanfiction #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #yvie oddly #branjie #angst #smut #canon compliant #elastic heart #mia ugly #tw binge drinking #tw anxiety #concrit welcome #submission #s11 #on set fic

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