#love is stored in the big fuzzy gut

[ludinusdaleth]

posting some trans tummy tuesday because.... i mean look 👀

im far from my goals but if you told me a year ago id actually have a hairy tummy, or even a tummy at all, at all i might have cried in relief. i fuckin love having one 🤎 upping my t dosage beginning this week, so i get to have an even bigger hairier one soon!

[archangeldyke-all]

i’m so excited for halloween. i love all things fall/october.

could you write an autumn fic? 🍂

more specifically— i feel like the reader would have to force sev to wear some kinda costume for halloween >:) how do you think sev x reader would dress up? how would they spend their night together? ly mootie! ♡

my city's in the middle of a heat wave and it's HUMID too, it's horrible-- so yes, let's think about fall for a while hehehehe

men and minors dni

there is no doubt in my mind that fall's her favorite season.

and i think halloween is probably her favorite holiday too.

she's not a festive person, so even though she loves fall, she doesn't really indulge herself in things like decorating or baking.

but you do.

sevika doesn't realize how much she loves fall until she meets you. because you treat fall like it's your birthday or something. sevika's shocked to see how much you incorporate her favorite season into your day to day life. and even more surprising, she's shocked to find that she kind of loves it.

as the leaves start to change, you start making her coffee pumpkin flavored, sometimes adding a bit of hazelnut and cinnamon too. she fucking loves it, it's the best coffee she's ever had.

your apartment always smells like pumpkin pie or autumn leaves or flannel-- various candles burning and filling your space with the cozy smells and a lovely warm glow when the days start to grow dark earlier.

you start cooking hearty, warm meals-- stews and chilis and soups and curries-- sevika fucking adores it. there's nothing like a freshly baked slice of bread scooping up some kind of meaty sauce.

and your baking. sevika's almost cries the first time you hand her a plate of freshly homemade triple chocolate chip cookies, with a tall glass of milk.

she adores watching you start to get cozier as the days grow colder. your home becomes slowly filled with fuzzy blankets, you string up some fairy lights to flick on in the dark afternoons, pumpkin decor starts to decorate your tables and shelves.

she loves watching you cuddle into a hoodie, or pull a scarf up over your nose when you're outside and it's chilly. she especially loves cuddling with you under a blanket on the couch.

sevika just can't say no to you. she hates it. (she loves it.)

this means she ends up carving jack-o-lanterns for the first time in her life with you at the big age of forty three. she's surprised to find that she loves it-- scooping the guts of the pumpkin out is so satisfying, and she's always loved stabbing things. (what she loves most of all is the way you arrange your jackolanterns right next to each other on your front stoop, a scarf strung around the two of them, just like when you share your scarf with her.)

this also means that she wears a halloween costume for the first time in nearly thirty five years just for you.

obviously, it has to be a matching costume. sevika will not humiliate herself unless it's to show the world that she's yours.

i'm thinking about the classic lesbian couple costumes: werewolf and vampire.

sevika tries to get away with being a vampire by just drawing two little dots of red lipstick on her neck. you go all out-- buying a werewolf mask and gloves. and on the night of, when you reveal your costumes to each other, you pout at sevika until she rolls her eyes and gives in-- putting on the vampire costume you bought at the same halloween store you got your mask in.

you go to a party at silco's house, the adults drinking while the kids binge on candy, spooky music blasting, vander trying to jumpscare every guest by the end of the night.

you only show up for an hour before you decide to head home, both of you overwhelmed by the party.

sevika tugs on your sleeve as you wander through the leaf-covered sidewalks toward home. "babe, look." she whispers.

she swipes her vampire-cape to the side and reveals one of her fanny packs on her hip-- stuffed to the brim with candy she's stolen from the kids.

you burst into laughter and smack her shoulder, before pulling a kitkat out of her bag and crunching into it.

when you get back home, you spend the rest of the night smoking a joint on the front porch together, snuffing it out when kids approach and ask for candy.

sevika's shocked when you reveal the box of full size bars you'd bought to pass out, and you just shrug. "it keeps me on the good side of all the neighbor kids for the rest of the year."

she knows this isn't the real reason you do it though, you're too much of a softie. the real reason is the giant smiles and excited laughs the kids give the pair of you when you pass them the giant chocolates.

at one point, a little boy dressed in a dinosaur costume approaches with his parents trailing behind him. he seem's shy-- scared to run up onto your porch-- but with a bit of encouragement from you and his parents, he finally climbs the steps.

when sevika hands the boy the candy bar--nearly the size of his head-- his entire expression changes, a huge, toothless grin taking over his face. "thanks scary ladies!" he shouts, before running back down the stairs to show his parents his bounty. sevika chuckles to herself about this for the rest of the night.

by eleven, most of the kids have gone home. you and sev turn in, blowing out the jackolanterns, leaving the box of chocolate out for any teenagers looking to make trouble, hoping that they'll take the bribe and keep from egging or tp-ing your house.

you get in your (matching flannel) pjs and crawl into bed, snuggling and lazily making out as coraline plays on the tv.

taglist!

@fyeahnix @lavendersgirl @half-of-a-gay @thesevi0lentdelights @sexysapphicshopowner

@shimtarofstupidity @chuucanchuucan @badbye666 @femme-historian @lia-winther

@ellsss @sevikaspillowprincess @emiliabby @sevikasbeloved @hellorai

@glass-apothecary @macaroni676 @artinvain @realgreeniebeanie @k3n-dyll

@sevsdollette @ellieslob @xayn-xd @keikuahh @maneskinwh0re

@raphaellearp @iamastar @sevikitty

[udretlnea]

The Divine City: Some Slices of Life

Part 1 (here) \ Part 2 \ Part 3 \ Part 4

“Amor Fati - ‘Love your fate’, which is in fact your life”

Friedrich Nietzsche

On the early morning of August 2nd, the grapes glistened like jewels as the rising sun reflected off of the morning dew. Their size and color was telling. It was time to harvest them.

The grapes of the Divine City were big and purple. Henry smiled to himself as he plucked several clusters of grapes with one hand. With Volksfest arriving this month, so too does the harvest. Naturally, this meant that the pumpkins were also ready; the wheat, ripened earlier in July, was in the middle of being gathered.

Sometimes, Henry imagined the farmlands to be as vast as half the continent. To him, this was his entire world (ignoring the bi-weekly trips into the city for the house). The farm boy thought about what it must look like to visitors; waking up at the crack of dawn, toiling in the fields, tending to the animals. It was all honest work that he deeply admired in his gut. 

A part of him thought it was romantic. There was just something about all of…that which made him feel warm and fuzzy. 

Suddenly, a sharp pain in his palm made him cry out. He pulled back his hand and clutched it close to his chest. Henry frowned at a particularly sharp branch, then slowly uncovered his palm.

He sighed in relief. It didn’t break the skin which means no blood. Good.

As he stared down at it, he saw he’d dropped a cluster of grapes. Tutting, he brushed it off and put it in the basket with the others before moving on. He looked around him.

In distant fields, neighbors were making quick progress judging by how far down they were on their grapevines. Meanwhile, he still had three quarters of his section to go. If he wanted to finish early, he’d have to go into overdrive.

 And so like all teenagers who wanted to finish early to play, Henry shut his mind off and went to work. That way, time would pass quicker. Before he realized it, Henry finished harvesting and placed his buckets of fruit in a cart with the rest. Then he jogged as quick as he could to the city.

Getting there took around ten minutes, but he made it to his destination. A boarded up hole in the wall leading to the inside. He recalled his dad calling it a service tunnel. For what, he wasn’t sure, but it sure did him a good service by allowing Henry to sneak past the entrance. 

The Divine City lacked a proper name because nothing could really describe it in one word. At least, that’s what Henry thought as the cart passed the gate after a brief stop. He could feel his excitement building up. It was almost difficult to contain, like trying to cover up an overflowing bucket of water.

He wandered around almost like a kid in the candy store.

Stores were already putting up signs advertising their wares. Henry noticed a man strongly hammering on a giant sign that proclaimed it sold the best high-quality wine. 

Not even several days in, and competition’s already started, huh? He quietly chuckled to himself. Resting a knuckle against his cheek the farm boy imagined himself of drinking age, entering one of the pubs. It was a pretty image that he entertained while the cart kept going. 

The taste of wine was something he had to fabricate from scratch. One of the downsides to being a teen was his lack of experience for everything; he was aware of his naivete to an extent. But he believed he made up for it with his good natured rascalism. He wasn’t going to apologize for being himself - unless it actually harmed an innocent.

Finally, the cart stopped. Henry hopped off and jogged away. There was something he needed to do here before the morning rush.

Henry ducked into an alley. He remembered the way - or more accurately he remembered what the store looked like and memorized the route for that singular place. And ONLY that place. 

It was a small antique shop sandwiched between a cafe and a hat store. The appearance was somewhat dull, but no less interesting.

Henry opened the door and was greeted with a pleasant chime. Almost immediately a rough voice yelled out, “Welcome to Timeless Treasures! How may I help you?”

A giant wall of muscle stepped into view. He wore a green plain apron over a white collared shirt and dark blue slacks. A nametag reading “Havel” was tagged on the apron’s left. In Henry’s opinion, his massive frame made for a funny image among the delicate looking and priceless antiques; he wisely kept that thought to himself.

“What is up, Havel my good man?” Henry asks casually as he saunters up to the counter. “I’m here for my super special thingy-mabob.”

The man rolls his eyes. “Aye. I’ll have your ‘thingy-mabob’ in a jiffy. Stay there and don’t touch anything.”

Henry does so. He waits for two minutes when Havel comes back holding a moderate sized wrapped box; the bright teal green and the golden ribbon made it pleasant looking. The teen excitedly reaches in his pocket to place a somewhat heft pouch. It lands on the counter with an audible thump. 

Havel picks it up and counts it off quickly. After he’s confirmed it’s the exact amount, he puts it under the counter. In that moment, Henry feels his chest glow warm with pride; all those months of saving his allowance combined with doing odd jobs paid off. He could almost imagine the look on his parents’ face when it was time to reveal his gift.

But that is in the future when Volksfest truly kicks off.

Henry gives the owner a brief thanks then heads back the way he came. To his amusement, he found the morning rush just starting to form; he turned to a cart parked in front of another cafe - seriously, how many cafes does a city need - and snuck back out the way he entered.

Henry ducks out of the service tunnel exit without a sound. The walk back home is silent. Around him, signs of life make itself known. Squirrels climb down to forge for food while the birds begin singing their songs. 

The breeze blows through hair and branches and the sunlight warms his skin. All of this reminds him that he is living in this moment.

He sees his house and vacantly wonders if they'd even love his gift. Doubt creeps in and weighs heavily in his gut, threatening to spill. Then, anxiety sweeps in and soothes his worries just as quickly. His parents and siblings will love it. In that he must have faith.

Before he even realizes where he is, he’s opening the door. His nostrils are assaulted by the sugary smell of cinnamon and dough.  So far, nobody seems to have noticed him gone.

He gives a silent thanks to Her Grace, though even now his guard is on high alert. Quietly closing the door, Henry sneakily climbed up the stairs. His room was empty.

He seized this opportunity by hiding the present underneath his bed. For added protection he covers it with some old white cloth.

Now satisfied, he dusts himself off. Henry turned around-

POMF

-to be hit harmlessly in the face with a pillow.

When Henry swats it away, a young boy with dirty blonde messy hair frowns at him.

The boy opens his mouth to reveal gaps in his teeth. “There you are! Where were you? I've wanted to play Upholders ever since we finished harvesting!” 

Before Henry can reply, his little brother grabs his wrist. He gives no resistance.

Thus in the morning of August 2nd, Henry was dragged away to play with his younger sibling. As the sun continued to rise over the horizon, its light managed to reflect off of a lone cloud in the otherwise clear sky. It observed the city almost like a hawk.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////

A/N:

The Divine City by @yuriisclumsy

Volksfest: “╰[A Volksfest (pronounced [ˈfɔlks. fɛst]; German for “people’s festival”) is a large event in German-speaking countries which usually combines a beer festival or wine festival and a traveling funfair.] 

Volksfest begins in Autumn – August to November – because it is harvest season.

Please let me know your comments, thoughts, and critiques? Literally, anything to help improve my writing. I need to see if I can consistently update on a project and build on something pre-existing pleasingly.

Speaking of, you’ll get to learn more of these characters after this work. As I said before, this is set-up; we’ll introduce them all first before getting into the real character exploration stuff.

(ALSO FIND IT ON AO3)

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////

???: Done and posted. That...wasn't so bad.

???: Hm. Now comes the tricky part. Consistency's always a muddle-fudging issue. Oh. I see we're censoring our words now. Lovely.

???: Sir, I must ask: is this... post-commentary just copying the original?

'Sir': P-34, the Greeks did this thing where they commented on the action of a play. They called it a Greek chorus; also, it's what I named the lab after. Besides, these four squirts are gonna need someone explaining their actions. Though, buying a gift at an antique shop for their parents? Novel.

P-34: Yeah...if I were him I'd buy his parents something practical. Or tasty. Mmm...like potatoes dipped in cheese.

'Sir': I...remind me: were you always this hyperfixated on potatoes?

P-34: You tell me. You made me.

'Sir': Hmm...eh. I guess my little brother was rubbing off of me that one time. Whatever. Who's next.

P-34: Uhh says here...some female youth from the core section?

'Sir': Upper class. Lovely. I need to practice writing those. I'll go pull up files for any examples we recorded. Tomorrow.

[mortiskiller]

A companion piece, the feeder perspective to a story by @thefoolandthehermit and I. Make sure to read them both!

It was a short drive to the dispensary, maybe thirty minutes round trip, enough time for the groceries I ordered to be ready for pick up. As I pulled into the driveway, the kitchen light caught my attention. “Silly girl must be hungry after last night.” I thought, grabbing the groceries, every bag bulging with ingredients and treats for my voluptuous growing girl. 

The sound of me opening the door stopped her dead in the hall. Thick round and heavy ass cheeks stretched a pair of pink panties to their limits, a drooping pair of love handles covered the waistband of her oh so small panties. 

“Princess.” I addressed her, she knew to turn around. Thick pillar-like legs that touched to her calves shifted her jiggling bulk around. A light red spread over her plump peach shaped cheeks as she looked at me, hands filled with a half gallon of chocolate milk and two cold slices of pizza. “You know you’re not supposed to be on your feet today, remember?” 

As she chewed on her pizza the sudden realization of our deal came back to her.  Today my lardy princess was not supposed to move a muscle besides to eat or use the bathroom. A whole day of being pampered, being lazy, being indulgent. The light red of her cheeks deepened as she realized her mistake. Placing the bags in the kitchen as she finished her pizza and chugged half the milk, my hands gliding over her wide seat filling hips, squeezing her hips as her legs buckle slightly and a breathy moan escapes from between lips still glistening with milky chocolate. I steer her like a cow grazing in a pasture, she knows she as no choice in the matter, it's not like the 400 plus pound princess can protest anyway. 

She has been talking about this day all week. A day off work and a day for me to remind her that she was my feedee. My growing, thickening, cow. 

I spin her around and sit her down onto the couch, aiming for the dent her sixty five inch hips have catered into it. Her belly and tits jiggle as she falls into the dent, the usual chorus of creaking wood and grating metal greeting her prodigious bulk. 

“The couch could not break anymore.” she said looking at me with a slight hope she was not too big. A slight smile crossed my face as I kissed her forehead, “We’ll see…”. 

In a short time the coffee table in front of her is filled end to end with the bounty of the grocery store. Bacon, eggs, toast, pancakes, and her favorite, a heaping mound of chicken and waffles. Her eyes look to be fucking the food as her tongue licks plump lips, her chubby hands and sausage fingers rub a gut that spills across her thighs and on to her knees. I could see she wanted to leap off the couch and kiss me, like she did 200 pounds ago, but instead her loving eyes drew me to sit down as her favorite bong was pressed into her pudgy belly. Her hips flowed into my side, warm plush fat sending a shiver up my spine. 

Over the next hour I took turns bringing the bong to her lips and shoving in forkfuls of food as the weed dulled her sense of time and space. My plan was to get her so high she loses all control and gives in completely to me. Each bite is followed by a deep hit of the bong. No exhaling, just swallowing and chewing. 

As the last bite of waffle passed her sticky lips, her groans and gentle moos filled the living room. In just under an hour my SSBBW cow had finished a breakfast big enough for a family of five and smoked two grams of weed. Eyes closed, leaned back into her ass groove, as her hands rubbed and kneaded her tight belly. She was so lost in the stuffing she did not notice me grab her vape pen. Loaded inside was a new flavor of high potency THC, just what I needed to make her mine for the day. A fuzzy headed cow mooing for more food. 

The cold metal of the pen touched her lips, “Take a hit now.”. Her lips curl around the tip, inhaling deeply as she takes a large hit. I can tell the weed is hitting her hard. Her eyes open wide as the effects take hold. What little hold on reality she had is slipping. Her hands gripped her bulging upper belly as greed took over. In a matter of minutes she is begging for more food. 

Bag of chips and candy, plates of grilled cheese and bowls of soup, half a dozen boosts disappear into her cavernous gut as the weed keeps her fuzzy and greedy. 

Rubbing her belly as she chugs the last boost, I marvel at her size. Her belly is so tight and firm, but the lower belly rolls are soft as butter, spreading over her thighs like an avalanche of creamy stretch mark covered blubber. I take time to massage her taut belly, kneading it to compact all the food down so her weed addled brain thinks she is hungry again. A roaring blech brings her back to some semblance of reality as I continue making room for her to eat. “Daddy, is it lunch time?”. She asks through barely opened eyes blurry and red from the immense amount of THC pulsing around her body. I chuckle slightly thinking that she thinks hours have flown by, instead of the two since her breakfast feeding session. It's barely past ten in the morning. 

As my hands push gas out of her our, both ends of her showing the effects of eating ten thousand calories in three hours, I lean into her yielding form and whisper, “You need more, baby. You're not ready yet. I need you so much fatter. More fuzzy brained, more obedient.”. I bring the pen back to her lips and leave it there till she takes a deep, long, hard hit. My other hand snakes between her thighs, I feel them wiggle and squeeze my hand. “Is my cow getting hungry and horny?” thick warm honied words fill her ear. She takes another deep hit of the pen. "That's it, get nice and dumb piggy. Just how I like you." Taking the pen away her head falls back as she moans and moos, she always does this when her brain is soaked in weed, arousal, and dopamine from being fed. 

I take my time to grope her fattening body, licking and kissing each stretch mark, tasting her mouth and the flavors of her meals. The oven dings to let me know the pan of brownies is done. As I bring the warm, gooey and heavy pan laden with enough butter, sugar, and chocolate to kill a normal person, her mouth is hanging open. I see my opening and start shoving in hunks of brownie by the handful. She doesn't resist, just a dumb smile between bites as she paws at her FUPA and thighs. Just how I like her, stuffed and so horny she is an eating machine. 

The last handful I scrape out of the pan and into her mouth brings a rumble for her stomach. I can feel her belly shake as it begs for more food. The piggy's belly wants more. Such a deeply arousing moment for a feeder brings a grunt from my mouth. "Such a perv." she laughs and I smirk at her. 

"Says the half naked fatty, eating and smoking whatever I give her." a familiar crimson shoots across her cheeks. My hands pull her thighs apart, causing her gut to drop between her legs. A gasp rips out of her mouth followed by a deep throaty moan as the full force of her obesity hits her. She is quiet after that. 

This continued for hours. Between naps to settle her stomach and give me time to prepare meal after meal, she was an absolute blimp by the end of the night. The appetite enhancers, shakes, weed, and mountains of food had rendered her immobile on the couch, at least until she could sleep for 24 hours. When I would use the bathroom or run to the pantry for something, her sweaty wheezing face would show me the futile attempts to move. 

She was too high, too fat, dependent on whatever I wanted to do next. After today, her body would convert this gluttony into new heavy immobilizing fat. Hanging sheets of lard that would make it easier and easier to feed her into a couch locked sow that could only eat, smoke, and groan. She lies there clutching her gravid looking belly, soothing it like a heavily pregnant woman, instead of a morbidly obese whale. As the food settled into her stomach, mixing and churning, every minute I could see her body struggle to hold the thirty thousand calories into her gut. 

The rocking back and forth of her hips told me she was unbearably horny. Under her hanging gut and hefty FUPA I can almost hear her genitals begging to be used. 

As I stood in the kitchen getting her dessert ready, a loud crack followed by her yelling for Daddy. I ran over to her looking over the immensity of her body, she had broken the couch and the splinters were under her ass. The sow was sitting on the floor! 

"I told you you'd break it.." I say standing at the door way chuckling.  "Look at you,  whiney and dumb. Bet you don't even understand that it was your fat ass that's broken the couch". She  shakes her head, then slowly realizes it was her beluga sized ass and gut that broke it.

"Daddy, I'm sorry. Please help me up, please!. I want to go to the bedroom! I want you to touch me!" she pleads as her flabby arms wave and beg for me to lift her up. Leaning over her, rubbing circles around her navel and holding a box of jelly donuts, her eyes see the dozen fried sugar bombs and her gut growls again.

"You're not going anywhere my sweet." I flip the box open and without hesitation shove a jelly filled donut sloppily into her mouth. My hand covers her mouth, making sure she can't even think about not swallowing the whole thing. She was so insatiable,her eating sounded like a fucking orgy. Wet squelching of her fat lips coated in thick layers of jelly and pastry, her moans from a packed mouth of fried dough and sugar, the high pitched screams as she pawed her hidden genitals. 

So focused on eating and taking the next doughnut whole, she failed to notice me spreading her legs, nibbling the soft sensitive flesh of her thighs. 

"More! Please!" she pleads and her words are met, another donut shoved into her mouth as I suck her buried clit. "Fuck!" muffled by pastry and lust comes from her lips. Her clit leaked into my mouth, I could swear it tasted like icing. 

"Cum on my face baby, you can cum as much as you want, you just have to keep eating." I say bringing another doughnut to her lips. Once the two donuts were gone there was little reprieve for her clit and her belly. I could tell the fast pace and force of the feeding was making her stuffed again and this was only donut three of twelve. Her  thighs tensing around my head let me know a second orgasm was ripping through her body.

Parting her legs, I kissed her deeply, "Keep eating princess, I promise if you finish it all Daddy will make you feel so good. I'll make sure I breed you nice and deep." my hand slaps her churning screaming gut and a belch loudly followed by a pained moan with hints of arousal.

I giggle at her "There's my growing girl. Now, have another donut. I'm not done with you and I won't be for a while-"

[jeridandridge]

Autumn Days

The giddy excitement Melissa feels as she drives is enough to make her vibrate. You were in the passenger seat as usual, looking at the map on your phone while you two head for the cider mill. Melissa had a secret, one that was on a silver band hidden away in her bookshelf at home. Now, driving in the crisp morning air Melissa glances over unable to stop the warm smile spreading across her lips as the sun rays come through the window giving your hair a warm glow and your black sunglasses sparkle.

“If we keep going straight we’ll hit Main Street and it’s right there.” You tell your girlfriend, completely unaware of her loving gaze.

As you two pull into the grassy parking area you beam like a little kid rounding the truck to hold Melissa’s hand.

“I haven’t been to one of these places since I was a kid.”

“Yeah? Well we’re pulling out all the stops.” Melissa beams lacing your fingers together as you walk through the entrance. Taking in a deep breath you smell cinnamon and cider making you shimmy your shoulders in excitement.

“Hayride and apple picking first?”

“You bet, hon.”

As you two walk through the crowd you find the little stand to pay to get on the hayride and offer Melissa your hand to climb up onto the makeshift seats. “Covered in hay.” You chuckle. “I bet you’re already thinking about what you can bake with the apples we pick.”

Melissa grins squeezing your hand. “And the pumpkins we’re gonna carve.”

She looked like a little kid in a candy store, bright eyed and a permanent smile etched onto her lips. Looking over you can’t help but squeeze her hand grinning like an idiot. She made you feel warm and fuzzy, alive.

As the afternoon goes on you carry your bag of apples over your shoulder as you walk through the bakery and shop looking at all the sweet treats. With a handful of Carmel apple suckers between your fingers you weave around other people and strollers getting to the cider.

“Baby, do you want a jug of cider for the house?”

“Yeah! We can use it as a mixer.” Melissa grins. “You need all those suckers?” She laughs.

“Of course I do! They’re seasonal, Mel!” You smile happily carrying everything to the checkout.

When you two come out of the store you hold onto both bags in one hand and Melissa’s with the other, happily intertwining their fingers.

“I don’t wanna put pressure on you, but I’m gonna kick your coolie at carving.”

You quirk a brow eyeing the playful smirk on her lips. “You’re on, Schemmenti.”

Back at home with a candle burning, cider drinks made, and a cozy fall playlist going you and Melissa stand at the opposite sides of the plastic covered table with a sucker between your lips. Standing with a determined look on your face you finally come up with an idea, not having a clue as to what’s going on with Melissa.

The redhead is already holding the pumpkin back, drawing her design. She tries to keep her hand steady as she writes.

“I got you big time, Schemmenti.” You grin getting started on your carving by taking the top off.

Melissa shakes her head with a smirk taking her time with the carving not wanting to finish too soon. As you get to carving yours you stand up and hum and bop along to Don’t Fear The Reaper.

“You’re so cute.” Melissa chuckles watching you concentrate on your work, the little crinkle between your eyes being one of your favorite mannerisms.

“I’m very cute.” You grin right back at her. “Don’t try to sweet talk me. I’m winning this thing.”

“I dunno about that one, Tesoro.”

You smile flicking pumpkin guts onto the plastic with a scrunched up nose not thinking of anything going on from the other side of the table. When all is said and done Melissa stands up getting the pumpkin guts off her hands with a towel

“Are you done already?” You chuckle, “let me see.”

“No!” Melissa panics. “Not yet, we gotta wait for the reveal with the little lights.” She recovers easily. You nod and open the package for the little fake candles.

“Here, I’ll do those and spin em around for you to see em.” Melissa tells you with a giddy smile. There was definitely something going on.

“Okay,” you chuckle going over to flick the lights off so you can get the full effect.

Melissa’s hands shake as she opens up the top of the pumpkin, the smell is almost too much in the moment with her senses on overload. She’s never been so nervous in her life. Placing the battery powered lights in the pumpkins she turns yours around first smiling at the witch design.

“I carved Kristen, you like it?” You joke.

Melissa laughs holding onto the other pumpkin. “I really do, hon. You got her nose just right.” You were definitely the one for her.

Carefully turning the pumpkin around, she keeps her eyes on you. When you see the words carved and glowing you let out a gasp, your eyes going over the words over and over again. Four words that change everything.

Moving to stand beside you Melissa wraps her arms around your waist.

“Will you marry me, hon?”

Spinning in her arms you beam like an idiot pulling her into frantic kiss.

“Yes!” You laugh, “oh my god, Mel yes!”

Melissa squeezes you in a tight hug before holding the gorgeous engagement ring out to slide onto your finger.

Cupping her cheeks in your hands you lean in giving her a sweet kiss before grinning once again.

“Best day ever.”

[sendpseuds]

20 days until Christmas

"I don't think I've ever seen an elf with a beard before," Padme smiles brightly, giving Anakin's shoulder an affectionate pinch as she sinks down on the couch beside him, waiting for him to lace up his boots.

"Oh, Obi-Wan Kenobi has had several different style eras," Anakin replies with a chuckle, smiling up at the elf perched atop his refrigerator, his chest flooding with the warmth of wonderful memories everytime he catches sight of the little Christmas creature of cloth and cotton , "He has a whole wardrobe."

In the beginning, Obi-Wan hadn't looked too dissimilar to the elves lining store shelves — red felted body with a silly white collar, big blue eyes, and that cheeky little smirk that never fails to make Anakin smile. He wasn't exactly the same, of course, made in his mother's studio instead of in a factory, but that had only made Anakin love him more. Every Christmas she found ways to make it even more magical, adding details to his face, changing his hair, making him little outfits like the tiny knit sweater he wears now.

One year, when Anakin was at that age where all boys think their moms are horribly embarrassing, she sewed Obi-Wan a tiny Canadian tuxedo and gave him frosted tips. A stage made from cardboard boxes and a few strings and she had figured out how to make the poor elf dance like some tortured boy band member as Anakin manned the spotlight [held a flashlight] and failed to stifle his delighted laughter.

She always knew how to win him over.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi," Padme says softly, her voice trailing up at the end like she's not sure she's remembered it correctly, still looking up at Anakin's childhood toy, "Does the name mean something?"

"Not really," he replies with a shrug. "The last name came later," like the beard and the beauty mark on his cheek, that much Anakin remembers, "I think it was just fun to say."

[The way they would just say it over and over. "Do you like the snowbi Obi?" "You should knowbi by now that Obi-Wan Kenobi loves the snowbi." Anakin always imagined it annoyed the elf greatly.]

"My mom always said I started calling him Obi-Wan that first night," Anakin continues, leaning back into the couch pillows, his vision going a bit fuzzy with the memory, "She always said it was like I knew his name— that I knew him before she'd even finished sewing him." All this time later, Anakin still thinks it might be the truth. "I don't know," he shrugs, shaking his head like it might clear his foggy thoughts, "He's just always been my Obi-Wan."

In the days since Anakin pulled Obi-Wan from that box, it's been difficult not to feel like he's found a piece of himself he hadn't even realized he was missing.

"That's so cute," Padme smiles, giving his shoulder a quick squeeze, "I'm glad you found him."

"Me too."

It only takes another minute to grab his jacket and check for his keys and wallet before they're headed out the door to meet Padme's friends for drinks at her favorite cocktail bar but Anakin finds himself lingering for a long moment in the doorway, his fingers gripping the handle, his mind fuzzy and focus far away.

"Everything okay?" Padme asks, reaching out to grip his bicep like she's trying to pull him after her, "I don't want to be late."

"Yeah, sorry, I—" Anakin stutters, trying to identify the strange needling feeling crawling up his spine, "I feel like I'm forgetting—"

That's when it hits him.

I forgot to say goodbye to Obi-Wan.

That little habit came back shockingly fast.

Guilt twists in his gut as his eyes linger on his smiling Christmas elf sitting on top of the fridge in his cozy cable knit sweater and Anakin wants to say it.

He feels like he should.

He doesn't.

"All good. Let's go."

The moment he gets back from the bar, Anakin apologizes.

He's pretty sure Obi-Wan forgives him.

He always does.

[macabremads]

pairing: dieter bravo x f!reader (no use of y/n) rating: mature, mdni 18+ word count: 1.8k summary: Dieter had grown accustomed to your unwavering forgiveness, even when it seemed as though the world was on your shoulders. But, what happens when you decide to take a step back? Or, Dieter Bravo experiences a wide realization of the consequences of his own actions, to the point where redemption seems utterly elusive. warnings/tags: angst, hurt/no comfort, implied drug use, alcohol use, unhealthy relationship dynamics, angst again, too much angst, implied recovery period from substances. A/N: this is part one out of a three part series! please do let me know if you enjoy it as this is my first fic after years (and years) of being hiatused on this account. love ya all xx

His fingers gently pulled at the once-soft sheets under his fingers, a soft hum leaving his parted lips as he looked out past the haze of his dark room, lit only by a cheap candle he had picked up at an old antique store. Probably, that hunk of wax was nearly one hundred years old, but he had decided that keeping his nice, musky-smelling ones was more important to him.

The rain outside the window hit the glass in gentle and rough rounds. The sky couldn't make up its mind on whether it wanted to drizzle or downpour, but it didn't make much of a difference to Dieter; he wasn't planning on going outside either way. Truthfully, he couldn't really remember the last time he had gone outside or left the house unless opening the door to collect his food deliveries counted as a 'breath of fresh air.' He knew it didn't, yet he considered most things these days to be a win.

Grunting, he looked down at his phone. "Monday, October 2nd" rang out on the screen in bright letters, making him squint as he stared down at his phone. No new notifications. Yeah, he hadn't truly expected there to be. He hadn't realized, whether or not that's because he had a goal of staying coked out most days, that your name was the one that always hung around his phone. Whether it was stupid videos of cute animals or random texts asking him about where he was, what he was doing, or if he was enjoying filming. He hadn't really noticed how much he had longed for another compilation of kittens falling over to music that wasn't appropriate given the context of the video, but he knew that his own demise fell at his own hands, and that regardless of what he wanted or thought, there was little opportunity for him to make right his wrongs.

The shitty bottle of cider popped off his lips with a loud 'pop.' Dieter smacked his lips together as he looked at the label from under his brow bone, staring at the little label and trying to decipher where he had bought the alcohol. He was coming up empty-minded, unsure if it was one you had gotten and shoved to the back of his drink fridge, or if he had just gotten gifted the wrong thing from his Instacart driver; the latter seemed more probable. You never were a big beer drinker, and Dieter had his many vices, with beer not even close to the top of that list.

Tossing the bottle onto his already too full end table, he pressed his lips together and moved forward, fuzzy-socked clothed feet hitting the ground, well nearly. "Fuck," he hissed, having stepped on the corner of the top of a beer bottle. The jagged edges crushed into the flesh of his foot as he got up, kicking the metal piece away from him.

Things were miserable; that much he could admit. Not even the promise of a smooth high made his body light up with excitement anymore. He didn't get the same draft from going out and getting messed up with his actor buddies, all of whom he knew didn't like him all that much. But he had always said, "Being around people makes you look more approachable, even if you hate their guts."

Looking down to his phone once more, he shuffled out of his room and kicked at the random clothes that littered his floors, not caring too much about the pigsty he had lived in for the last few weeks. He realized in the haze that you had been tasked with cleaning these messes for him in the past. If you hadn't done what you had around the house, he would have been living in disrepair, unless he had purchased a cleaning service. But that was neither here nor there. The walk to his kitchen was long, mainly because Dieter refused to turn on the lights. He only used his phone to light the way, and even then, he couldn't be bothered to turn the brightness higher than the 50% it had been on all day. He mumbled something to himself about his eyes being adjusted to the dark, as though anyone was listening to him.

Dieter 1:02 am: I’m sorry.

"Fucking-," he nearly shouted, his hand gripping his phone as he looked at the messages he had sent over the last two weeks. All of them said the same thing: "I'm sorry," but this one was different. All of the other ones went through, their blue text box taunting him as he stared at the screen, the last one sent green. You had blocked him, finally. He assumed that it was time, considering how badly everything had ended, but he still hadn't really expected you to do it. You never had in the past, even when his words had venom dripping from them, a coke-induced anger, sharp daggers sent your way, just to see you squirm, just to see you cry, to see you beg him to stay in his life because at the end of the day; he loved to feel wanted, to feel needed, and he knew no other way than to make you suffer in order to prove to him that you cared. This time, he had gone too far.

The cost of hubris didn't fall on deaf ears when it came to Dieter, even when it was clear that he wasn't thinking about anyone else but himself. Concerns voiced to him were brushed off with a furrowed brow and a dismissive wave of his hand. It usually ended with some brief statement that he "would work on it" or he "would talk to you about it when he wasn't so messed up," but there was only so many times that excuse would work on anyone, and you had gone past your limit.

It had been an incredibly monotonous day that poured over into the evening. You and Dieter had both decided that staying in made more sense. Neither you nor him had the willpower to go out and avoid fans, prying eyes, or the tension that lingered between you. Or at least you couldn't. Dieter was another story, an enigma that found comfort in the silence you both shared. He held a clear "if you don't say, I won't ask" mentality, and it had kept things relaxed, mellow, and undisturbed, at least on his side.

You wouldn't be able to forget the moment when things had tipped over the edge. There wasn't a big fight, there wasn't a eureka moment that rolled upon you. Yet, the tea glass, for lack of a better metaphor, had broken months ago, and the shards that you consumed with every sip began to make swallowing and breathing difficult. Choking on your own blood silently, while Dieter lay next to you, none the wiser.

His arm had been wrapped around you, your head lazily placed upon his chest. The shirt he had been wearing was wrinkled and creased, a result of his refusal to hang up his folded clothes. He smelled like brandy, a bit of mint, and whatever fragrance was laced into his hair gel. His fingers played with a loose thread on your jumper, one of his old favorites that he had gifted to you after your second date, insisting that it "looked better on you than it ever looked on me."

"I don't think this is working anymore," the words were nearly silent, tasted bitter on your tongue as you continued to lay on his chest. His breathing halted, and his fingers stopped their soothing moves on your arm as he took in your words. He had heard you, and he felt the deep ache in his stomach, as though you had dug your fingers into his chest, pressing past the delicate fibers of the muscles between his ribs, ripping out every last bit of him, despite not moving from your spot.

The Dieter that you had originally met was a spitfire, never taking much seriously, not having any plans for his future outside of what drugs he was going to take at his next party or what country he was going to go to next to star in another forgettable movie. Now, things had gotten better, but the desire to fix this broken man had begun to lose its luster once the honeymoon period had worn off, and all that was left was both of you, not moving, yet gripping each other's wrists as though you two would melt if someone walked away.

You had prided yourself on your strength, and Dieter had too. Despite his shortcomings, he hadn't expected you to leave. He would have bet every last dollar that you wouldn't have left him, that you couldn't because you had promised to stay by his side and love him like he hadn't been loved before. He had always been insecure about his place in the world, despite putting up a bravado and an air of being untouchable. Still, you had instilled in him that he wasn't more broken and less deserving of love, and he had believed that your love would fix him, forgetting that it wasn't only his cup that needed to be filled, but yours as well.

You had devoted your time to making him happy, and he did his best to do the same for you, for a while. Until he got used to you being around, until he got too numb to all that you did for him. It hadn't been intentional, but when filming got hard, when he felt overwhelmed, when the drugs didn't fill his chest like they used to, he blanked out and took and took from you, never thinking about how eventually your cup would run dry while his overflowed.

He said nothing that night. He didn't beg you to stay, he didn't make false promises that he would change, as he had so many times before. No, he knew that all he could do was hold you close, inhaling your scent, and asking if you could stay for the night.

You agreed.

[casualreginaspectator]

The first time I drank coffee, I was seventeen. It was the night before the first day of my senior year of high school – a bunch of us brought tents and the country kids drove their trucks out and we stayed the night in the field behind the school, where the JV football players do their practice when they can’t be bothered to drive to their actual field. I went with my best friend, we had a tiny little tent between the two of us. And there were a bunch of our friends there, and one of them was one of my exes, which was a little awkward because he was flirting with another girl the whole time who he had no chance with, and another guy who hated my guts at the time, but we pitched our tent in their corner, and then got up and walked to the coffee box a few blocks away. I’d gone through before of course, with friends, getting hot chocolates or lemonades or water, or nothing, but never coffee. Couldn’t drink coffee. Wasn’t going to subject myself to coffee. But I was already a sinner, could already feel it encroaching on me. And besides, I knew the things I was going to say that night. Might as well.

So we walked to the coffee shop. One of those drive through ones, a chain. There was a group of maybe fifteen of us, making ruckus down the side of the road, adrenaline already pumping through us. We were starting our senior year of high school. We were doing what big kids did. We were drinking coffee.

I can’t remember what was ordered for me. I’d grown up loving walking down the coffee aisle in grocery stores; it’s a dark, nutty aroma. I’d always known I’d love coffee. And the coffee jelly beans in the 49-flavors pack were ones I’d pull to the side, save for last. I knew I’d love coffee. Couldn’t drink coffee.

It was large, blended, sweet, and creamy. I do remember that much. Meant to work my palette to it, warm me up. Didn’t need it. Didn’t like the drink, besides the coffee. But it didn’t feel bad, drinking it. Didn’t feel like the sin I’d always been told it was. Didn’t go to bed until two that night either. Didn’t wake up until four.

The first time I got drunk, I was eighteen. It was the first day of October in an October that meant everything and feels like a fever dream. It was with the guy who hated my guts the first night I drank coffee, but he didn’t hate my guts then. We had it all planned out, that I was going to try it out, because I’m not so big and I didn’t want to end up at a party and fall victim all over again. So he drove me around, picked up a bottle of whipped Smirnoff from his best friend who gave me a big ol sip from his styrofoam taco bell cup. I made a face. My best friend got me this shot glass as a graduation gift painted with the insignia from my college because it’s one of those big party schools, even though I don’t really party, and I especially don’t now, because I can’t hold my alcohol, and I don’t wanna fall victim again. But we were trying it out, and now that this guy didn’t hate me anymore I was back to trusting him, and I let him get me drunk, and we used that shot glass. Took my first shot and walked into a grocery to buy a water, and could already feel my head moving around, feel the lights getting all fuzzy. Took my second on the overlook we always parked at on late nights, and then we drove to a park, but not the one where we started hating each other’s guts. Took another, tried running away, somehow made it a straight line. Took a fourth. Kissed his neck. He ran his hands under my sweatshirt and told me about another girl he loved. I was sober enough to remember that, and the other things I said that night that I shouldn’t have. Said I didn’t, though. It felt easier, than the coffee. Less bad, somehow. I wouldn’t have even thought it was a sin at that point. Came home almost sober. Went to bed at midnight. Woke up at ten. No hangover.

The first time I had sex, I was nineteen. It was the night the guy I was with got back from Christmas break, and maybe it was three weeks of pent up whatever, but it felt right to do it then. And it did feel right, and didn’t feel like a sin. He’s attentive. He’s kind. He understood when I left him for the guy who didn’t hate me anymore. He somehow took me back when I couldn’t be with him anymore, too. He understood I was a victim. He understood I thought it was a sin. That I used to think it was a sin. That I was nineteen, that I had been waiting, that it was important, even though part of me didn’t want to care, wanted to throw it back like that coffee, like that vodka. But we didn’t. He turned on music right before, and the first song was Horses by Maggie Rogers. He held me so close. And for a relationship that was initially built on sex, that was all hookups and craze, it was perfect. That was the first night I stayed the night, too. We went to bed by eleven thirty. We were up at four to do it again. Got out of bed at eight thirty.

I was a victim at sixteen. I’ve already told that story.

I lost my faith at sixteen, too. Or maybe it was seventeen. Or maybe fifteen.

I was fifteen when I had my first kiss. There’s a guy who comes into my department at work when swing shift takes over who looks like the guy I usually consider my first boyfriend, even though he wasn’t, technically. See, I was fifteen. Not sixteen. If I had actually dated him, It would have been a sin.

There was this little booklet you got when you entered the Youth program, for our strength, that gave rules and outlines for what you should and shouldn’t do, what was wrong and what was a sin and what the behavior God expected from you was. And I only marked my bibles when I felt like I’d be a better person for marking my bibles, but that booklet, those informal, vital statutes, I marked and highlighted and annotated like my life depended on it – which it did. My strength was that book, that book was my bible. And in it, of course, was a list of rules for what you should, and shouldn’t, and should avoid, with other Youth. No passionate kissing. No horizontal kissing. No hands, above the clothes, under the clothes. Under your sweatshirt. Don’t arouse any feelings. But I knew as soon as this boy started talking to me I would kiss him. And maybe I could tell he was a sinner. Maybe I knew he drank coffee, drank alcohol, had had sex, before I kissed him, maybe it added to the danger of it all.

It was a terrible kiss. Made me think of the way the bodies of jellyfish move, against each other, a movement I didn’t understand and didn’t think was right. It wasn’t. But he kissed me, outside the old highschool, and then it was impassioned, and then later it was horizontal. He touched me. I didn’t tell him he couldn’t but I didn’t really mind it. Feelings were aroused. I thought about sex. And I thought about sins. I knew it was a sin, then. It bothered me. I hated it. I hated hiding it, it gnawed at me from the inside, clashed with the horrible adrenaline of being kissed. Kissed me at four. Told me he loved me at five. What was I to do but say it back?

[avengerscompound]

Small Gods: First Cup - 7

First Cup: A Hawkeye Fanfic

First Cup Masterlist | More Small Gods PREVIOUS //

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing:  Clint Barton x F!Reader

Rating: E

Word Count: 1203

Warnings: none

Synopsis: Clint Barton has a coffee addiction.  One day that addiction brings him to The Elysian Fields coffee shop where he meets you.  Soon Clint feels like his addiction isn’t just caffeine-based.  But things are not as they seem.  With a store that only appears under certain conditions, no customers, and a dog the size of a Dire Wolf, Clint isn’t sure there’s not more going on with you and he isn’t sure how to figure out if his feelings are real or just a side effect of his addiction.

Chapter 7

Clint was excited.

Tired - yes.  He’d gone all day without any caffeine and he’d started to get withdrawal shakes.  But mostly - he was excited.

Having clarity about how he felt about you was like having a weight taken off his shoulders.  There was still the fear and apprehension of new love and a future that he always expected to fuck up.  There was still the extra added pressure of the fact you were a god and he was just a regular mortal guy.  Yet, even with all that, he was going out to dinner with you and he knew he was in love.  He wanted to do the hard stuff because he knew he loved you and you were worth every potential struggle that could pop up.

He had dressed up, putting on a charcoal grey suit with a purple tie.  He didn’t exactly feel comfortable in it - suits weren’t his thing, but he’d booked a table at a particularly fancy restaurant because he had wanted to make this special.  The discomfort he felt in the suit only exacerbated the nerves he had, but part of him knew it would be okay - he was going to see you.

As he walked down the street he saw you step out of the shop with Hati on your heels.  You looked incredibly cozy in a calf-length black coat that tapered at your waist and then flared out like a ball gown.  You wore it over jeans and combat boots and you had a purple travel mug clutched in your hand.

Clint called out to you as you locked the shop behind you and you turned to him, your whole face lighting up.  “Clint!” you said, hurriedly locking the shop and jogging over to him.  When he reached you, he wrapped his arms around you and nuzzled into your neck.  You held him with one arm as you held your cup out away from him.

He’d missed this.  The warmth of your body and that nutty, coffee scent that clung to your skin.  You kissed his cheek and he tilted his head brushing his lips over your jaw.  You seemed to pause a moment, your eyes fluttering closed, and then you brought your lips to his.  It was like a first kiss all over again, soft and passionate and full of desire and expectation.

There was a deep growl from below and you pulled back and looked down at Hati.  “I might have had to ignore you two canoodling while I was pretending to be a dog, but don’t  think I won’t gut you both now.”

“Aww,” you said, crouching down and ruffling Hati’s fur.  “Such a big scary beastie.”

Clint didn’t know if he should be worried for you or not, but even though Hati rolled his eyes, his tongue lolled out and he raised his head so you had better access to his neck.  “Alright, off you go, fuzzy.  Go try and catch the moon.”

“Hopefully I catch it tonight and we can finally end this charade,” Hati said with another eye roll and he turned, trotting off in the opposite direction.

You stood back up and held out the coffee to him.  “For you.”

“Thank you, honey,” he said, taking it from you.  “You didn’t need to do that.”

“I know, but I can feel your caffeine withdrawals from here,” you teased and ran your hands down the lapels of his jacket.  “And look at you.  You dressed up for me.  Am I underdressed?”

Clint swallowed a mouthful of coffee and held out his hand to you.  Yours slipped inside his and you linked your fingers together.   “You look perfect,” he said.  “I’m probably overdressed.  I just wanted to make the effort.  I’m serious about us.”

“Yeah?” you asked as the two of you began walking in the direction of the restaurant.  “Even with the fact that I’m a god?”

“Well, you're a coffee god,” Clint said.  “So it’s almost a selling point.”

“Have you thought about the long term?  I’ve never been in a long-term relationship before.  I don’t know if I can have kids.  I’ll outlive you,” you said.

“The way I’m going, most people will,” Clint joked.  “I get it if you don’t want to risk losing someone you love, but I want to try this with you.  There are other ways to have kids if you want them.  Do you?”

You smiled and nodded, your eyes dropping to the ground as you turned a little shy.  “I’ve been an observer in life for so long.  It would be nice to experience it for a change.”

“The way I see it,” Clint said, lifting your hand to his lips and kissing your fingers.  “Every couple faces all these problems.  I’ve been married before.  We tried having kids and couldn’t.  We went through a bunch of shit we never imagined could happen.  No one goes into dating someone and expects they’ll have to face losing them one day, or kids dying, or someone being kidnapped or hurt, or someone being paralyzed or comatose - or any of the terrible things that can happen in life. You just don’t.  It’s always a risk and you have to decide if a person is worth the risk and if the amount of good you can have with them will weather the bad.  I know it’s early for us - I don’t want to rush it.  I always rush it, but I think you’re worth taking the risk.”

You had stopped walking and Clint turned to look at you with a smile on his face.  You gazed up at him with a look of such love, it made Clint’s heart stutter.  “I think you’re worth the risk too,” you said.

He leaned in and kissed you.  Your arms wrapped around his shoulders and your hands threaded into his hair.  He took his time, enjoying the feel of your lips against his, soft and warm and just a little wet.  You hummed as you leaned into him more so that your bodies were pressed firmly together.  He still had the coffee cup in his hand and he pressed it against your back so that he could hold you as best he could.  Gradually, and slightly unwillingly the two of you pulled apart and Clint pressed his forehead against yours.  “Besides,” he said.   “We already know some of the things we have to worry about, so we’re already ahead of most couples.”

You laughed and gave his ass a playful spank.  He grabbed your hand and the two of you began walking again.

“You’re kind of a sap, Clint,” you teased.

“Don’t let it get out,” he said.  “I have to keep my attractive and cool persona out there.”

You laughed and bumped him with your hip.  “Your secret is safe with me.”

The two of you walked in comfortable silence for a moment, content with this being the start of something potentially really good.  When you reached the restaurant, he grabbed the door and pulled it open for you.  “Ready?” he asked.

You smiled at him and nodded. “For whatever is thrown at us.”

He laughed as he followed you in, knowing he felt the same way.

~ END  ~ 

[darwin-xf]

Love is a Verb

His dick knew things.

In general, thinking with your little head not your big one got a bad rap.

But for him? The opposite seemed to apply.

Of course he’d been mortified when he sprung to life in her hand the night before, with Scully in full on doctor mode, acting so clinical and detached. While he was so very very exposed.

A wave of anger arose in the wake of his humiliation. At her. Which wasn’t fair. She was doing him a favor, after all. Examining him, because they were stuck in a crap motel in the middle of nowhere Florida, the day after a hurricane, flights snafued, roads clogged with debris. And him with a sea monster bite on his neck and an angry itchy red rash on his dick to match. She was caring for him, just like she always did. Even though neither one of them was exactly comfortable about the prospect.

But now, considering what that moment of vulnerability had led to, he was glad it happened. And hardly surprised.

And when his big head has been muddled and confused on a night a few weeks before? His dick had shown the way forward. When a different woman had laid her hands on him, slipped her tongue into his mouth.

He didn’t want her. He felt like a block of wood as she kissed him and touched him. And yet he let it happen. His mind filled with a fuzzy gray static as she whispered to him how she needed him, how she’d never stopped loving him, until she was kneeling on the floor in front of him. She opened his pants and he let her, hungry for something she was offering. He would think a lot about that later.

But then his dick was in her mouth. And she worked it, employed all her little tricks. And still it stayed soft.

Until, giving up, she stood. She crossed the room and poured herself a scotch. He tucked his junk in his pants and zipped up. Not even embarrassed.

“You love her,” Diana said, her back to him.

He nodded. “I do.”

“But Fox,” she said, closing the distance between them, sitting down next to him, “She doesn’t know you like I do. There’s so much I want to give you...”

She launched into the pitch he’d heard from her before. Since she returned, she’d been whispering to him whenever she could get him alone, offering him access. “There are so many things we can accomplish together, Fox. Why would you want to keep toiling in the dark when you can shape the future of the human race? You’ve more than earned your seat at the table. And your voice is needed there...”

Though he never really felt engaged in these conversations, his big head listened to what Diana had to say.

But the little one was more persuasive. Not to mention more persistent. The truth was, Scully had been the only one able to get him off for months. Though of course she hadn’t touched him.

His extensive collection of salacious videotapes these days stayed tucked in their hiding places, moldering in their cases. The magazines delivered to his door each month, Penthouse and Hustler and Escort and Razzle and Club, remained stacked on his entryway table, their spines uncracked, their pages unperused. Most with the black no-see-um wrapper still intact.

A fact Scully discovered while visiting his apartment a few weeks before. She turned up on the late side one evening, work on her mind, files in her hand, her body tucked dutifully away in some dark suit.

“Oh that,” he said when she placed her palm on the towering cache of smut, popped an eyebrow in his direction. She had spent enough time in his space to understand that this was a departure from his usual behavior, where his porn was concerned. Whereby he’d rip the covers off the mags as soon as they arrived and leaf through them, looking for anything particularly good. He’d turn down the corners of memorable pages then leave them piled haphazardly around his place: on end tables, under the fishtank, next to his bed.

The explanation was not something he was prepared to share. So he thought fast, and invented something on the fly that seemed remotely plausible. “Yeah, the boys tell me that those are going to be collector's items soon. Print is dead, Scully. Everyone making the switch from atoms to bits and bytes. Paper’s so pulpy and inefficient. I have a book on it somewhere...” He riffled through his bookshelf, glad to escape her excruciating gaze. He plucked out a book and handed her a copy of Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte. “He’s a smart guy. You should check it out.”

His effort to distract her was in vain. She put the book aside without glancing at the cover and continued to silently cross-examine him. He pretended to be interested in another book he’d pulled at random, but the moment stretched on uncomfortably. "I thought I could get more for them if they remained in pristine condition,” he said as he paged through the book he wasn’t reading. For all he knew he was holding it upside down. “You know how people keep their Star Wars toys in the boxes with the cellophane on?”

She shrugged, unconvinced. But she moved on, willing to let it go. Her stacked heels clacked obnoxiously against his hardwood floors as she slowly made her way into his living room.

He doubted she wanted to know the real reason. Though he was pretty sure he could turn the tables on her if he blurted it out. It would serve her right for the way she roamed around his apartment and let her eyes light on his stuff, storing her little data points in that mind, trying to figure him out. But maybe one day the tea leaves of his pitiable life she seemed so eager to read would finally speak to her. Maybe it would occur to her what was actually going on.

Which was that every time he touched himself, he imagined it was her hand. And he would try to switch things over, open one of his skin mags— his trusty strategy for years when it came to getting his thoughts off his partner and back where they belonged —but it wasn’t working anymore.

He’d listlessly page through the glossies, looking for a promising spread, land on some blowjob scene and eyeball it for a while. But when he got down to business it, was her mouth on him, warm and receptive, her eyes on his face, his hands in her coppery hair. He’d smolder for a while, thinking of her lips, her strong small hands, and always her eyes, then feverishly work himself up. And the magazine, forgotten, would slip away onto the floor.

On the bright side, his inappropriate intrusive fixation on his FBI partner was saving him two hundred bucks a month he used to spend on phone sex. The last time he dialed in he couldn’t even get it up. So he spilled his guts to one of his regular providers, droning on for forty-five minutes about how he had it bad for his partner, all the things she did that made him crazy, the reasons he couldn’t tell her. Realizing even therapy would be cheaper, and feeling like a terrible cliché, he’d quit calling those numbers.

His videos were his last line of defense. Their absorbing input had always been able to capture his attention, so he’d try one of those. It might work for a few minutes, but the real action was behind his eyes. In his mind it was her heels digging in to the small of his back as he plunged into her tight little cunt. She’d be beneath him hot and panting, open her mouth to moan and he’d stuff his fingers in, slide them wetly against her tongue. Soon he’d be picking up the pace... The television would blare fruitlessly in the background, rife with bad dialogue and silicone silo tits and oh babys. The money shot would come and go, unseen by him, and the screen would fade to black.

The reason porn had quit working was simple: in his fantasies, she always comes too. Usually more than once. He’d start slow, imagine he was taking his time kissing his way down her body. That could take a while. Then he’d tease her, rubbing the fat head of his cock up and down her slit. When she begged him to, he’d slip inside her and slam his hips forward. He’d hold there, bottomed out, and kiss her sweet mouth. Then he’d slide it in and out, looking into her eyes, feeling every inch of her.

Soon he’d need to fuck her harder, faster. He’d reach down to tease her clit until she was thrashing and pleading. Then she’d say his name, and her face would change, and she’d come on his dick. He’d watch her ride it out, humming with pleasure as her warm wet circles broke against him and travelled up his body in waves. Till his nuts and his gut and his heart and his throat and his brain were replete with her. Finally he’d come, imagining he was cradled by her hips and rocking, buried deep inside her, spilling his secrets into her ear.

In his dirty busy mind he’d already had her so many places and ways: in showers and motel beds, in cars and elevators, bent over his desk at work, the door unlocked, her skirt bunched around her waist, her drugstore pantyhose dangling from her ankle. Quick or slow or sweet or mean, acrobatic or missionary, rough or tender. Or both. God. Even boring. Just the two of them in his bed, nose to nose under the covers, whispering and giggling and whiling away a Sunday morning.

And the most pathetic and woebegone detail? Sometimes his fantasies contained no sex at all. He wanted to watch a movie with her feet parked in his lap. He wanted to shop for groceries with her and hold her hand on the walk home. To spend a weekend with her on the Vinyard and show her his old high school. He wanted to rub her back when she was sad and play footsie with her under the table during boring budget meetings. He wanted to gather her close and kiss her eyelids and hold her in his arms as she fell asleep. To watch her to rise naked from his bed and pull on his clothes she’d just stripped from his body. On red eye flights he wanted to leave the arm rest up and snuggle with her under those dingy felt blankets. To read to her while she soaked in the tub and find the nooks and hollows of her body where she was ticklish. He wanted to make her giggle, make her laugh, make her cry happy tears. He wanted to make her wet just with his voice. To lay in bed and watch while she got dressed for church. He wanted to kiss her in front of her idiot brother, maybe even slip her a tasteful amount of tongue. To shower with her before work, to soap her up and shampoo her hair. He wanted to stock his fridge with an assortment of her gross non-dairy yogurts.

Scully. Before she’d even descended into his office and introduced herself, he assumed she was a plant. Or a dupe, a patsy. Why else would a promising and talented young agent be conscripted to his lonely, disrespected division? Most likely she’d already agreed to keep tabs on him, to cast his work in a negative light. And even if she hadn’t, he was certain she’d be manipulated, using the lever of her obvious ambition, into doing so. He also suspected, since she’d spent most of her time thus far in the FBI in the lab or the classroom, that she was a house cat. The kind of agent who might hold romantic notions about working in the field, but who would soon balk at the grueling, unpredictable hours, the endless travel, the physical grind. And blanch at the dangers. It’s no kind of life for anybody who wants a life.

By the time their flight touched down in Oregon on that first case, he knew for sure that she was fun to spar with. And all kinds of smart. And even sort of cute. And while it can obviously be helpful to have a partner if things go sideways, he remembers hoping that didn’t happen to them before she washed out and retreated back to the lab. Because he suspected this itty bitty pathologist with zero field experience and impractical footwear? Would be more likely to become a liability than properly cover his flank.

After they’d worked a half dozen cases together, it was fair to say he’d reconsidered the hasty assumptions he’d made about Scully. Which is to say she surprised him at every turn. Except on the couple of occasions when she’d astonished him, leaving him flat-footed and slack-jawed in her wake. Against all odds, he had himself a partner. Which is not to say he fully trusted her. Not yet. And he doubted she’d hang around much longer.

But still. He’d learned that she was game. Skeptical and rational, but up for anything. She never complained about bad food or lumpy beds. And courageous, staring down firearms pushed in her face without blinking. She was fearless and cagy, and could take a punch or dish one out. And in the next moment she could soften, to connect with a suspect or a victim, to care for a child, or for him. She believed deeply in what she was doing. When he bumbled into trouble, which he seemed to have a knack for, she more than had his back. Yet when she’d sided with him and blew off her buddies from the Academy? It wasn’t loyalty to him she was demonstrating, but to the victims. To the truth. Above all, Scully was honest.

In some ways, he knew her so well. Yet all these years later there was there were aspects to her he could only guess at. Scully, he’d come to understand, was a deeply private person. Didn’t give pieces of herself away in idle conversation, like most people do. The fact that he was a trained and skilled profiler didn’t seem to help. In his fevered mind he’d become preoccupied with the things he didn’t know about her. Like how, exactly, does she like to be touched? He thought about that a lot. Is she a morning sex person? (God he hoped so.) Is she loud in bed? Or more quiet and intense? A little repressed, or wild and uninhibited? He could imagine it either way. Is she bossy? Submissive? A little of both? What does she taste like? Does she talk dirty? Will she like it when he does? (Because he definitely does.) How would he tease her? What are her kinks? Does she like it rough? And if he wanted to go down on her for hours, would she be okay with that?

So, yeah. He loved her.

That switch had been flicked for him on a steamy summer evening, a moment when he’d been staring down the real possibility of losing her. She walked away. He followed her, flew out his door like he’d been shot out of a cannon. Stormed up to her where she’d turned to face him in his hallway. Fists clenched, voice raised, he was in full on fighting mode. But he wasn’t fighting her. He was fighting to keep her. So instead of telling her off, as his body language suggested he might, he told her what she meant to him. How he needed her. Things he hadn’t even realized before they came out of his mouth. But all of it the truth.

She’d been girded and resolute, her body rigid and self-contained. But then she broke, like a marionette whose strings had been cut, she softened and stepped into his embrace. He looked in her impossibly blue eyes glinting with tears and realized with dreadful certainty that, Christ, he was going to kiss his partner. More than that, if she let him, he was going to pick her up and carry her back through the door of his apartment and lay her down and fuck her.

That plan had been derailed, but the urge for him remained. And not long after, he gathered his courage and, with all the earnestness he could muster, he’d looked her in the eyes and confessed.

So he’d told her that he loved her. But had he shown her?

That was a thorny question, and it made him uncomfortable to consider it. Because he had to admit that for the most part, he hadn’t.

It was strange, but once his feelings for Scully had shifted, his behavior toward her had become less loving. For one thing, he didn’t let her in on that fact that she’d become the only featured player in his secret late-nite fantasy theatre. But more than that, he found himself especially irritable with her. Dismissive. Self-centered. Sometimes even cold.

When he was looking for an excuse to be angry with her, he told himself a story that she’d rejected him. Because, oh brother. But he’d seen her eyes go wide for an instant, felt her animal panic. She’d pored over his hospital chart and had to know he wasn’t high. So he’d concluded that she didn’t want him. Didn’t love him.

And Fowley’d chosen that inopportune moment to skip back over the pond and make a play for his ass. And though he had no interest in rekindling that relationship, just having her around reminded him of all the reasons it just might be a bad idea to get tangled up sexually with your partner.

More than that, even though he knew that Scully felt insecure because of Diana for several legitimate reasons, he hadn’t bothered to reassure her that she had nothing to worry about. When Diana called him and invited him downstairs for lunch, he’d go. Mostly to be near his files, and to mine the trashcans for cases when her back was turned. But he’d steal away from the bullpen, not tell Scully where he was off to, or why. He let her twist in the wind, wondering who Diana was to him and what her reappearance meant for their partnership.

It would make sense that once you’ve discovered the person you love, the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your days (not even to mention nights), the person who is, quite possibly, it for you? That you would try to make that happen. To lock that down. And yet he seemed to be doing everything but.

Even after she’d been shot by Ritter, and he’d almost lost her again.

And why was that? How to explain this puzzling behavior.

Maybe she didn’t want him, and he was just protecting himself.

The thing was, when he was being honest, he knew that wasn’t true. When he’d been about to kiss her in his hallway, she’d looked confused at first. And then concerned, with real fear flashing in her eyes. But by the time his lips were hovering over hers? They were on the same page. She’d gone molten in his arms, and her mouth awaited his, wet and ready. His body remembered how she’d opened to him, with her sweet breath and her fingers on his neck. He knew in his bones how that encounter would have ended, if not for that stupid fucking bee. Recalled it every chance he got.

As a psychologist, looking at the situation objectively? He’d have to conclude that he was engaging in some epic self-sabotage. Yup.

That night in her apartment when Diana had made her intentions clear, he’d agreed like some kind of docile sheep to join her. To scrum up with the other chosen few at El Rico Air Force Base as Armageddon loomed and save himself at the expense of the rest of humanity. And Scully, even though he wasn’t by her side where he belonged, was still fighting. For him, For them. For the truth. For the future.

And to repay her for her steadfast faith in him and devotion to their work? He was flirting with the one thing that could tear them apart. With inflicting a betrayal that could send her packing for good.

They’d dodged a bullet that night. More than that, they’d gotten their files back, and were free to resume their work. And by any measure he should have felt relieved. But he woke the next morning with a hangover worse than any he’d ever gotten from liquor. He looked in the mirror to shave and realized he couldn’t even meet his own gaze. He was ashamed. And he had to admit that he’d been seduced by Diana after all. Not into bed, but into complacency.

Needing some time and space to think things through, he called Skinner and redeemed a few vacation days. He threw some clothes in a bag and set out driving, not sure of his destination.

On the road, heading north, armed with this new clarity, he mulled things over. How was he going to feel, he wondered, when he succeeded and chased her away? That seemed to be his end game, after all. He knew what he’d do. He’d track her down to wherever she’d absconded to and interrupt her as she attempted to reboot her life. Then, looking desperate and half mad, he’d profess his love.

But it would be too late. She would conclude, quite logically, that he only wanted her when she was leaving. And even if she loved him like he hoped she might, she would not settle for that. Not Scully. And it would be selfish of him to ask her to.

It hit him then, with complete and utter clarity, that he had no idea how to love someone. He’d had bad models and a dearth of life experience in that arena. He knew how he felt. But love is a verb. It’s about what you do. She had taught him that.

He was good with the grand gestures, sure. Tracking her down at the bottom of the world and fishing her out of an enormous alien vessel, for example. Then breathing life back into her and hauling her to the surface while sidestepping rabid lizard monsters who swiped at them with razor-edged claws? Check.

But she needed more. For him to find mundane ways to express his care and concern, perhaps. To show her how much she mattered to him. How much he valued her and all the ways she contributed to their work. To his life. She needed to see that he put her first. She deserved these things. She had earned them. And he knew wouldn’t let him glimpse her secret self, let him know her like he desperately wanted to, until he gave them to her.

He wasn’t sure he could do it. But he knew he had to try.

He decided to start right away. He’d been thinking of her all morning, of course. About celebrating their return by pressing her her against a wall in their office and pushing into her, fucking her breathless and senseless before lunch, to be exact. But he hadn’t thought of her at all, he realized. Not really.

Scully. She’d be there right now, in the basement waiting for him, their first day back where they belonged. Wondering where he could be with half the morning gone. Bewildered as to what might be keeping him from reclaiming his precious turf. Maybe she already talked to Skinner and knew he was taking a few days off. Maybe she’d be worried. Or pissed. Or worse, wondering if he was enjoying a morning lounging in bed with a treacherous leggy brunette.

At the next rest stop, he pulled off and powered up his cell phone. He was relieved to see that he'd missed a call from her. She hadn’t given up on him yet.

Rather than listen to her message, he dialed her back. She answered on the third ring.

“Hey Mulder,” she said.

“Hey Scully,” he said. “Are you in the office?”

“I am,” she said. “Where I thought for sure you would be. Skinner told me you were on vacation. What’s going on?” Her voice was brittle. Defensive.

“I will be, Scully. I’ll meet you there. And soon. But I need to take care of a few things first.”

“Okay,” she said thoughtfully. “What kinds of things?”

“I, ah, I need to get my head straight before coming back. I’ve been mixed up. About some stuff.”

“I see,” she said.

They were both quiet for long seconds.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Me?” The question surprised her. “I’m good. Enjoying the quiet. Working on expense reports. Glad to be out of the bullpen.”

“You sure? You were popular, Scully. I think Agent Kargoll was working up the nerve to ask you out.” Mulder would glare at him as he brought her a donut on a little plate in the mornings. He’d leave it on the corner of the desk if she wasn’t in yet, like an offering to the high priestess.

“Yep,” she said. “I noticed that too. Reassigned in the nick of time...”

“I did my best to scare him off...”

“He was persistent, I’ll give him that.”

“He seemed like a nice enough guy. You could do worse than landing a boyfriend who arrives bearing gifts every morning...”

“I could do better, too.”

“No doubt,” he said. “What would be better than that?”

“Hmm. Why do you ask?”

“Research,” he said.

“Research,” she repeated. “Okay. Let’s see. The bearing gifts is ok. But maybe someone with some sense of what I actually like?”

“Let me jot that down,” he said. She snorted a little laugh. Which warmed him all the way through. “It’s true, Scully, you’re not a big fan of donuts. I benefitted from his crush on you more than you did.”

“I tried to wait until he had his back turned before handing those off to you...”

“You’re very kind,” he said.

Just then a truck blew by on the highway, laying on the booming brake, rocking his car.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“I, ah, hit the road this morning. Just to think. Just to drive. But I suppose I’m heading home. To see my mother for a few days.”

“Everything okay?” she asked. He heard the concern in her voice, the fear that she’d be needing to tend to him trepanned and shocky, bail him out of jail. The usual.

“Yeah,” he said. “Or it will be. I really think it will be.”

“Allright Mulder,” she said after a long beat. “I’ll be holding down the fort. Drive safe. And keep in touch.”

“I will. And save me some of that paperwork, Scully.”

She laughed and hung up.

He had, in fact, visited his mother. She was glad to see him, and he stayed a few days, helped her out with some chores around the house. Got on a ladder and plucked the muck and leaves from the gutters, shifted some dusty furniture from the basement to the curb.

And he absorbed the silences of that house, his mother’s sadness, the way every possession, every exchange seemed steeped in a deep, abiding misery.

He remembered his mother different. Laughing, for example. Playing bridge with her friends, toying with her strand of pearls as she leaned in to gossip. Teasing him with a glint of joy in her eyes. Before Samantha had been taken.

It had broken her. Broken all of them. Now she ghosted around her own home, tending to her roses, watching television. Always alone. He lived much the same way. This was all that was left.

All because his father had been unable to protect them from the men he worked with, no matter how noble his intentions. The same men he had been tempted by Fowley to join up with, if he was telling the truth. Now they were reduced to ash. He had no idea what remained, but he knew he and Scully would find out.

By the time he climbed in his car to come home, he was committed to not making his father’s mistake. And to living differently. Less stubbornly solitary. To inviting some goodness into his life, no matter how strange it felt.

And last night, when it was actually happening, when he was wrapped up in bed with Scully in real life, it had been so vivid, so peculiar. As he rolled his naked frame against hers, time slowed down. In his head he heard the seconds ticking away distorted by doppler effect, whomp whomp. Felt his stiff prick slide against her buttery thigh, painfully slow. Pressed his ear to her chest. Imagined the steady squeeze and release of her heart beneath her breastbone. Heard the whoosh of her blood through her veins.

Looked up at her flushed face, this beautiful untamable breakable beast.

And he loved her.

He’d told her so.

Now he needed to show her.

Thanks for reading. Check it out at Ao3 This fic stands alone, but is also chapter 10 of Bedside Manner

[unbridgeabledistances]

hello! <3 once again will not have a new full-chapter update of ✨ian and mickey take over the alibi✨ fic for a day or two, but wanted to post this little fluffy preview featuring the first appearance of our girl bazooka gallagher-milkovich!!! hope u enjoy:’)

—

“Hey, Mick. C’mere. Look at this one.”

Mickey glanced up from where he was elbow-deep in a series of sudsy dishes in their too-small kitchen sink. Once again Ian had made some sort of pasta dish for dinner, with tomatoes and basil and some fancy fresh mozzarella (that he was surprised the little dingy grocery store on the corner even carried)— and even though Mickey grumbled about “fucking gourmet bullshit” and “I’m fine with ramen, man,” he’d still helped himself to multiple scoops of second servings while they’d eaten their first meal at the little circular table from Ikea they’d assembled earlier that afternoon.

Now Mickey was on dish duty— Ian was trying to get the two of them to divvy up household shit equitably, since the usual rule at the Gallagher house was “leave dishes in the sink until they start to smell, then blame someone else for them”; and Ian was leaning back in his chair at the table, scrolling through pictures of various dogs on the websites of the local shelters— when one listing caught his attention.

Pit Bull Puppies, Chicago area NEED HOMES FAST, 8 months old

He clicked on the link—there were a series of images of dogs from the same litter, most of them already claimed. Ian scrolled to the last available listing, holding up his phone for Mickey to see as Mickey strode towards the table, wiping his hands on a dish towel.

“Look, she’s got blue eyes. You guys match.”

Mickey rolled his eyes. “Stop being soft. Gimme your fucking phone.”

This friendly pittie comes from a troubled past and needs a loving home. She was found in a barn outside the city that is well-known for illegal dog fighting along with her brothers and sisters. She isn’t trained yet, and needs someone patient to give her a loving and active environment. She’s a sweetheart, and because she isn’t trained we would love for her new family to give her a name!

Ian saw a crease form between Mickey’s brows as he read the listing. “Sounds like a lot of fuckin’ work.”

Ian could sense Mickey’s hesitation, his gut impulse to immediately put a barrier between himself and this new, fragile thing to take care of, especially after their conversation the other night— but beyond that, he could also see that Mickey didn’t even believe himself as he said it. It was an impulse response, for Mickey, to immediately put up walls— and it was getting easier and easier for Mickey himself to be the one to tear them down.

“Yeah, but it’ll be fun. We can go see her if you want, decide if we think she’s a good fit.”

Mickey swallowed, his eyes still fixated on the picture on the phone screen. “Yeah, but it’s got, like… y’know. Trauma and shit. What if we fuck it up even more?”

Ian smiled. “We won’t fuck her up, Mick. We’ll give her a loving home with two dads and a shit ton of dog toys.”

Ian saw the gentle worry creeping into Mickey’s eyes at the word “dads”—and, okay, maybe that was too soon. Mickey had said he’d be fine getting a dog, and was excited about it the whole time they’d been furniture shopping—but in a weird way this did feel like a trial run for a kid, in a way they were both hyperaware of. There was so much there—this was Mickey’s first real try of taking care of someone that was totally dependent on him, after years of shutting out and pressing down those dark chapters of unwanted fatherhood.

Except it wasn’t just Mickey taking this on; it was both of them, together. Ian tried to show him that, as he reached a hand out to press against Mickey’s lower spine in a grounding touch, pulling him closer.

“Hey. Wanna just visit, to see if we click with her? It’s just a fucking dog, and an excuse to see some adorable puppies.”

Mickey rolled his eyes, then pursed his lips. He stared at the picture again. “Yeah, whatever.”

**

“Thank you so much for coming by—this sweetheart is the last of the litter, I’m so glad you both saw the listing so quickly!”

The dog shelter employee, a caricature of a kind-faced middle-aged midwestern woman wearing a cardigan and khakis, led them through the well-lit hallways, turning them into room filled with scattered dog toys and two folding chairs.

“This is our little meet and greet area, we’ll bring her in just a moment.” She shut the door behind her, leaving Ian and Mickey in the mostly-empty room.

Mickey’s eyes darted around curiously. “This doesn’t look like a fucking dog shelter, man. It looks like a preschool.”

Ian smirked, settling into one of the chairs while Mickey remained standing. “It’s a dog rescue center, I guess. Probably run by lots of people who are way too into the dog thing.”

Mickey shrugged, capturing his lip between his teeth contemplatively. “Whatever. And they’ll just let us take it home? If we want it?”

“Yeah.”

Just then the door creaked open—and in came the shelter worker once more, carrying a bundle of grey wrapped in a worn towel. She placed the puppy down on the floor.

“Like the listing said, she doesn’t have a name yet—but here’s our girl!”

The puppy rose to stand on her four legs— a little grey pit bull, with ice-blue eyes and a too-skinny frame, the lines of her ribcage jutting out through her thin fur. She was tiny—definitely smaller than Ian had realized from the pictures, and definitely smaller than an 8-month-old pit bull should be based on the bits of googling he’d done on the L ride over.

The puppy stretched her limbs out long, then stumbled over her too-big feet slightly to race towards one of the dog toys in the corner of the room. Once she captured it in her mouth she circled back contentedly and flopped down on the floor in the middle of the room, starting to chew on the corner of the bone sleepily.  

“She’s so little.” Ian crouched on the ground— and he could tell he was doing that little baby-voice thing he always did, where his voice went up ten pitches and went all fuzzy around the edges that Mickey always gave him shit for, but in this moment he didn’t particularly care.

“Hey there, girl. You’re such a sweetheart, aren’t you?”

Ian could tell Mickey was rolling his eyes behind him. He reached out a hand to pet the puppy’s fur—it was soft, velvety and warm. Slowly, the dog inched closer and wriggled herself to sit pressed against Ian’s lap, letting the bone fall out from the corner of her mouth and nestling her chin to rest on Ian’s upper thigh.

“She’s a little sleepy,” the shelter worker added. “She’s been pretty mellow since we received her, but we think with some good nutrition and some exercise she’ll have loads of energy. It’s just a matter of getting her back into good health.”

The scrawny puppy was sleeping now, her chin still tilted on Ian’s leg and her eyelids drooping shut.

“Mick, d’you wanna pet her? Her fur is so soft, it’s ridiculous.”

Mickey bit his lip again, staring at the scene from where he was still standing a safe distance away, a few paces behind where Ian was perched on the floor.

“Yeah, guess so.”

He kneeled beside Ian, tentatively reaching a hand out to stroke the dog’s head— almost like he was scared he’d hurt her, like he was scared he’d do something wrong. The corner of Mickey’s mouth ticked upwards a bit at the contact with the puppy’s soft fur— and then he rubbed her head again, giving her a gentle pat. The puppy’s eyelids lazily opened, her tail starting to sweep side to side against the linoleum floor.

“Uh. Hey there.” Mickey chuckled uncomfortably, but his uneasiness was starting to melt away. “Do I gotta, like, talk to it?”

Ian grinned. “You can do whatever you want.”

Mickey ran scratches against the dog’s scalp, then down her sides.

“She’s kinda skinny. I can feel her fucking ribcage.”

Responding to the touch, the puppy lazily rolled over onto her back, exposing her tummy to welcome belly-rubs. Mickey grinned, and reached out to scratch at the puppy’s tummy.

“You’re a pretty girl, aren’t you? That’s right. Yes, you are. Such a good girl.”

Ian smirked—and filed Mickey’s puppy-talk away in his mind as something to make fun of him for later; but not right now, when Mickey was still learning to do this, when the defensiveness and self-judgement had only just drained from his system and he was still second-guessing his every move.

The puppy nudged her wet nose into Mickey’s hand and licked at his palm; and Mickey laughed, almost jolting in surprise. His eyes crinkled as he looked over at Ian.

“This is the friendliest fucking dog I’ve ever met, man.”

Ian felt his lips curve into a smile. Of course Mickey hadn’t met dogs that were this bubbly and friendly; half the dogs he’d had exposure to were chained in Southside front yards, trained to rip each other’s throats out and bark viciously at people walking by. Ian hadn’t really been near many dogs either; but seeing his husband immediately melt in the presence of a puppy, the innocence and awe seemingly radiating off of him, made something warm pool in his stomach.

“Yeah, she’s pretty special.” Ian reached a hand out to try and pet at the puppy’s head, and she turned her neck to nip at Ian’s wrist with her pointy puppy teeth.

“There’s some of that feisty energy we’ve been hoping for.” The shelter worker smiled knowingly. “Are you two interested in taking her home?”

Ian lifted his gaze from the squirmy puppy rolling on the ground between them to meet Mickey’s eyes.

“Mick?”

**

They called Debbie to pick them up from the shelter, since the logistics of taking a brand-new puppy on the L with them without a leash or collar seemed like too much to handle, even if she would probably just sleep the entire time. Debbie had spread an old towel in the back next to Franny’s car seat and Ian plopped the puppy into the middle seat, opting to sit shotgun next to Debbie while Mickey kept Franny and the puppy company in the back.

They were almost back at the Alibi now, and Ian was half-listening to Debbie prattle on about what slobs her new roommates were, and how she had half a mind to U-Haul with Heidi— when he tuned in to Franny and Mickey’s conversation in the backseat, the puppy sleeping soundly between them.

“What d’you think, Little Red— what’s the best dog name you can think of?”

Ian noticed Franny furrowing her brows from where he could see her in the rearview mirror. “Hmmm. How about… Queen Justice? That’s the name of my favorite wrestler. And the name I gave the fish Mommy got me.”

Mickey chuckled, and Ian raised an eyebrow at Debbie, cutting her monologue off mid-sentence. “Wait, you got Franny a fish?”

Debbie sighed. “Yeah. I felt bad about the move, and Monica and Frank never gave us shit like that when we were little. Figured I’d try to be a good mom or whatever.”

Ian smiled, reaching out to softly punch her in the upper arm. “That’s actually kinda cool, Debs.”

In the backseat, Franny was still thinking out loud.

“We have to name her after something you like, Uncle Mickey. That’s what Mommy told me about naming Queen Justice. What are your favorite things?”

Ian twisted in his seat to turn towards Franny and join the conversation. “Probably beer and guns, but neither of those things make good dog names, Fran.”

Mickey raised his eyebrows. “Oh yeah? Here’s a fucking relationship quiz then, lover— what’s my favorite type of gun?”

Ian rolled his eyes, contorting even more in his seat to twist and face Mickey. “I don’t fucking know, Mick.”

“A bazooka, bitch.” Mickey ran his hand over the sleeping puppy’s silky fur, scratching behind her ears. “Bazooka Gallagher. Or Milkovich. Or whatever. That’s a pretty good fucking dog name if you ask me.”

Ian felt a smile creep onto his face. Bazooka. “That’s honestly kinda perfect.” He reached his arm into the backseat to reach at the puppy. “Hey there, Baz. You like your new name? You ready for us to take you home?”

Bazooka’s eyelids drifted open, her tail starting to drum against the back of the car seat in a reaction to all of the attention. Franny reached down from her car seat and gave Baz a little peck on the head, and immediately Baz started licking all over Franny’s face, making her squeal and laugh and wriggle in her car seat as Baz shifted to stand on the seat and leaned closer to Franny’s face.

“It tickles! Uncle Mickey, she’s licking me!”

“Allllright.” Mickey reached to scoop the puppy off of Franny, wrapping Bazooka back in the discarded towel on the carseat and holding her like a baby in his arms. He scratched at Baz’s head again, then smoothed down her fur.

“We’re gonna take you home real soon, Bazooka Gallagher-Milkovich.”

[felswritingfire]

April Brain Rot #5

Prompts:

4. Adapt

(Detroit Become Human AU) Jack Howl x Reader

Summery: Jack turns deviant and murders your abusive father, now you're on the run, searching for a better future (and you meet some friends along the way).

TW: Violence; Blood; Broken bones mentioned; Mentions of abuse; Death (not reader or Jack); Emotional panic; Running away; Slight angst

Word count: 1,572

A note from Fel: I went feral when my last braincells decided to rub together and come up with this tbh (my girlfriend is my witness, I love her so much ;0;). I hope you enjoy! Because I had way too much fun writing this!

He had been a protector. He was doing what he was made to do. So why? Why did he feel like his circuits were about to overload when he stared at the mess of blood and fragmented bone that covered his closed fist. His ears flicked back at the sound of your labored breathing. Jack looked over his shoulder to see you leaning on your hands and arched legs trembling, the bloody nose and black eye with the dribble of blood leaking out the corner of your lips made him want to rip this man to shreds even more so than he had just done to him. He said the one thing that came to mind: “are you alright?”

The light on the side of his head blinked a yellow as your eyes drifted up to him. He waited for you, praying (an android praying- what a funny thought. Probably a malfunction of some sort) that you wouldn’t leave him. But, instead you looked at the bloodied face that was once your father and back to him before nodding your head slowly. “Y- yeah.”

“Are you positive? Your heart rate is still incredibly high.”

You nod again. “Yeah, Jack, I’ll… I’ll be ok.”

His eyes narrowed at you before he nodded and went to you, slow in his steps and gentle in the way he reached out to you. His ears flicked back at the sight of the blood smearing on your already bloodied clothes, drawing back for a moment. “May I pick you up?”

Your gaze grows watery the longer you look at him. A part of him fighting the urge to… panic? He wasn’t sure but the sense of distress was climbing in the back of his processor. “Please?” Your voice sounds so small as you hold your arms up to him like a child.

The android nods. He hooks his hands under your knees and your back, cradling you close to his chest.

The realization of what happened and what is going to happen weighs in his mind. He’d be considered a deviant for killing a man- an abusive man, but nonetheless he was human. He may end up adding to the end of the J-192 line that was slowly building against him already. He may have been a special edition android and one of a kind- but that doesn’t change what he’s done. And worst of all: he ripped your future straight from your hands (he can feel his chest cavity tighten at the thought, maybe he really needed repairs or he was more deviant than he thought he was).

Everything you worked so hard for- to escape you father by your own devices- and he’d gone and ruined it by snapping when that man had struck you far too many times in front of him. His processor is fuzzy on the details but he remembers how his sharp ears pick up on the sounds of bones caving in on themselves and wet squelch of blood beneath his fist.

As he went deeper into Detroit's streets he caught sight of a fire hydrant that was leaking water. He stopped by it, placing you gently on your feet before running his hands under it, the water turning pink as the blood ran down with it. He cupped his hands, pooling some water in his hands before gesturing with his head to lean down. You did, wincing when you moved too fast, he whined at you. “I’m ok, big guy.”

He nodded before gently splashing the water on your face, wiping the flaking blood off of your skin. His eyes sting with a wetness that he can’t quite place as he thinks (ha- what a funny word to pair with an android): this is how he repays you. After everything you’ve done for him: watching over him when you father had bought him; sharing your hobbies with him no matter if he didn’t understand; always talking with him despite him telling you that you didn’t have to; staying by his side as he began to act… strange: feeling his chest warm when he saw you, the way his face would flush if you got too close to him. He began to feel human and you were helping him learn how to be.

“I’m sorry.” He says suddenly as he pats your face with the bottom of his shirt.

“Why?”

“I should have never asked to kiss you, then you-” he felt himself shudder- “you would have never had to experience that.”

“Jack,” you whisper, resting your hands against his face. “If you asked me- I would do it all over again.”

Jack blinked, his light flickering between a yellow and a red. “... Why?”

“Why did you do what you did?”

“I didn’t want him hurting you! I-I…” he trailed off. Why did he do what he did? He had felt an awful rage build under his skin when he had been witness to it before- but he had never disobeyed the command to stay. That wasn’t supposed to be in his programming. But he had felt something so profound- so molten hot in his chest that he had to protect you because- because- “I would die without you.”

You smile, pressing your palm against his trembling chest. “And I’d die without you.”

He pulls you into a hug, holding the back of your head as he presses his nose against your hair. He can do this. He can do this if you’re by his side.

************************************************************************

It had been a long time of ducking into abandoned buildings and shoplifting food (though Jack wasn’t too thrilled about that- you had learned that he was rather firm on the laws if stealing wasn’t a necessity to you two) but you had stayed together through it all. You had even found two more deviants: Leona and Ruggie.

They had decided to join you two after they almost mugged you and you had hit Leona with a pipe that didn’t do much to the android. He laughed and laughed after that, having to hunch over at how hard he was laughing. Ruggie began to join in and now you were stuck with the two of them as you and Jack made your way out of the city. Jack was quite snippy with them at first, always glowering at the two and barring his fangs when they got too close. Ruggie had come to find this as a sort of game, throwing a casual arm over your shoulder as you talked or pressing his face against yours while explaining that he used to be a ‘nanny droid’ (as he liked to put it). Jack would press between you two, glowering down at the hyena android who just laughed his funny little laugh as he slinked away.

Leona had simply found it as a perfect opportunity to mess with the wolf as he would press his fingers against the back of your neck or would rest his chin on your head when you were busy counting your supplies. Jack would growl at him, shoving against him to take his place of standing behind you.

Though, he grew a profound respect for Leona when he let it slip that he used to be a bodyguard. “Had to watch this annoying brat. It was awful, he never let me rest.” (he might say that, but on more than one occasion, you would catch Leona fiddling with a necklace with a blue feather hanging under the silver circle that served as it’s pendant). And Ruggie simply grew on him- no one being able to resist his lazy eyes for long.

Though now, Jack was happy as he stacks the last of the bags of soil on top of each other in the corner of your store, basking in all the plants that lined the shelves in neat little rows on shelves. You had scraped the money to buy a building, get a business permit and open up a little plant shop in Toronto, Canada through some odd jobs and a collective effort from each of them.

He watched you chatter to some women, never seeing you smile so wide in the time he’s been alive. He pulls at the sides of his beanie, glancing at Ruggie through the crack in the door to the back whose tail wags gently as he tends to the budding plants, Leona sleeping (well, “sleeping”) on the hammock that you had put up for him with the flowers in the back.

He looks back to the little cacti he stood next to, a familiar warmth blooming in his gut. The orange rays of the setting sun illuminates the curve of your face as you go and walk the lady out (who happily holds her lilies and poppies in her arms) and wave to her as she leaves before closing the door and flipping the ‘open’ sign to ‘close’. You sigh before you turn to find Jack looking at you with a smile on his face as he stares at you. You walk to him and grab his hands and rest your head against his chest. “We did good.” You murmur.

He nods. “We did.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

A chorus of over exaggerated gagging brings you and Jack you of the moment and you laugh as Jack turns and yells at a grinning Ruggie and a scowling Leona to: “shut up!”.

<The Next Chosen Character>

Thank you for reading!

[nite-shay]

His Hero Part 4 (Kirishima Eijirou x Reader)

A/N: I don’t know if I’m completely happy about this chapter. I’m trying to get better with witting panic/anxiety/non-humor, so hopefully, next time, it’ll be a little better. Also, sorry for the long time off and just sporadic posting. Works been hell, but now that we’ll hopefully *grain of salt* were getting more people hired, I’ll have more motivation and time to write 

Warnings: Panic/anxiety , references to sex and/or sexual acts (nothing descriptive but suggestive) so I guess 18+? IDK how this works :/ If yer too young, offended by sex , sexual acts, sexual reference or don’t know where babies come from, please don’t read.

Word count: 3K 

Other then that, please enjoy! :D  

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4

*****

Kirishima didn’t protest when Fat sent him home for the day. 

‘Go home. Clear your head. Call me if you need anything.’ 

Honestly, he barely heard his mentor’s words. He just sat there staring at the screen. Watching, pausing, rewinding, and watching again. Over and over again. It wasn’t until Fat picked him up and carried him to the door, did he finally get the memo.

Yeah... he didn’t need to be here right now...

The trip home was nothing but a blur, and honestly, he remembered nothing about it. His body was on autopilot as his mind tried to wrap the possibility that he might have a kid. 

A kid… A son… Your son… His son? But… How? Err… Wait! 

Ok, he knows the ‘how’ of how kids are made. 

Better phrasing, how could this have happened!? He was always careful with anyone he was with! Err, not that was a really long list or anything. Typically, he was only intimate with someone he’s known for a while, and when he was, he’d use a condom, or they were on the pill. 

Oh fuck. How could he have let this happen!?!?

Calm down. Calm down. 

Maybe he was just overthinking everything? It could just be a coincidence. Sure, he and the kid have some similarity, but hey, there’s like, billions of people on the planet! So some are bound to look alike! That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re related, right? Total chance! That’s it! It’s that stuff we learned in school. Static? No, that’s not right; that was in science. The other thing was in math...Statistics! Yeah, that’s it!

So what if the kid has red eyes? His best bud Katsuki does too! 

The sharp teeth? Look no further than his gym bro Tetsu! Hell, depending on the quirk, it can be a super common trait!

The quirk being exactly like his... well, ok, that was… odd. And yeah, he hasn’t run into any with his quirk specifically, but, big but, it doesn’t mean there isn’t someone out there with his quirk! 

Or maybe it’s not his quirk! Maybe its a similar one! Really, really, reeeealllly similar.

Total coincidence! Anyone can have those traits!

He just… happens to have all of them… just like the kid… whose mother he just happened to have slept with… around six years ago… 

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!

The room suddenly felt like it was closing in on him. The air got thinner, making it harder for him to breathe. He jumped off the couch and started pacing. He’s had issues with anxiety for years, and one thing he did learn, when he got like this, he needed to move.

Breath and walk. Breath and walk. Breath and….wait! The kid can’t be more than five! He slept with you six years ago! Ha! The time doesn’t match up! So he can’t be his kid!

His legs felt like jello as the waves of panic finally came to a halt, and took a deep, much-needed deep breath.

He wasn’t a father.

This was a good thing. A great thing!

He doesn’t have a kid. The time frame didn’t add up. He was in the clear.

He should feel happy. Relief. Ecstatic!

So why did he feel like he just got punched in the gut? 

He sighed as he made his way to his fridge in search of something to calm his nerves. Beer isn’t his typical drink of choice, but he was glad he kept a few on hand in moments like this. Since he was single and didn’t have a roommate, his place was the place of choice for ‘bro’s night.’ 

Though sometimes, there was nothing like a cold one to just chill after a long hard day.

He grabbed one of the glass bottles by the neck, activated his quirk, and flicked the lid off with his thumb. Cool little party trick he learned a few years back. 

As he tilted the drink back, he took a long hard swallow and let his mind wander. The beer of choice today was one Katsuki preferred. It was good, smooth going down, and less alcohol content. Which was fine. Ochaco, even after giving birth, still couldn’t stand the smell of alcohol. Pregnancy wasn’t a subject Kirishima knew a lot about, but he knew enough to respect it. 

He’d seen her hauling ass many adays to the toilet of the slightest whiff of something she didn’t like.

Then the cravings came along, which prompted a few late-night trips to the store by Katsuki or himself if his bro was at work. 

He chuckled as he thought about the few times Katsuki had said something to piss her off and sent him over to the redhead’s place for the night. Only to call him back a little while later in tears because of mood swings. 

Towards the end was rough, though. She’d been put on bed rest and was in a lot of pain. Katsuki took fewer shifts during that time to stay home and help ease her in any way he could. 

Damn, she went through all that for, what almost a year? Maybe not quite a year, but it had to be close. 

Was it nine or maybe ten months?

His brain came to a screeching halt, mid-swallow as he started calculating.

Beer spewed out of his mouth and nose as he tried to breathe and swallow at the same time. 

The nine months adds almost a year! *Cough* Meaning the kid’s age would make sense! *Cough Cough*

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! It can’t be true, can it? He… He’d used protection… hadn’t he?

His mind raced as he thought back to that night six years ago.

It was Izuku’s birthday and his girlfriend, future wife Melissa, rented out a small private Terence at a hotel to celebrate. It was small, maybe fifteen people max: just some friends, family, and a few colleges of the green-haired hero.

He was having a few drinks while chatting with Denki and Hanta when he first saw you. That was when he first saw you… You were chatting with your Melissa and Izuku, and damn… he couldn’t stop staring at you. You were so beautiful, and the way you tried to hide your angelic smile every time you laughed made his heart skip a beat. 

Eventually, his two friends figured out just what or who had caught his attention. Which brought on a relentless amount of teasing. It took about twenty minutes, a few beers, and an angry blonde for him to finally make his way over to you.

Katsuki, at some point, approached his childhood friend, then proceeded to yell at him for some reason or another. Even on his birthday, the guy couldn’t catch a break. Now that he thought about it, it was over something All Might related. Something about a suit and which version was from what era? You were looking rather uncomfortable (Melissa was used to this) at the aggressive (mainly Katsuki) debate. That’s where he came in. With the help of Ochaco and Melissa, he finally got the two distracted enough to send them to opposite corners of the party. 

And then, he was left all alone with you.

He was so nervous that he even stumbled through his own name. Luckily, he played off his nervousness by making light of his two friends. To his surprise, you took his jokes in stride and even had a few comebacks of your own. 

The two of you must have talked for over an hour! Just one conversation after another. He’d never met anyone like you before. You were just so loving, kind, and just… wow!

Then things start to get a little fuzzy.

He remembered talking, drinking, joking, more talking, and more drinking. 

A weird memory of a drunk Denki yelling, “I swear to drunk I’m not God!” before face planting into the punch bowl. 

Then while everyone’s attention was on Denki, the two of you snuck away and back to his room. 

A makeout session on the elevator leads to the two of you missing his floor and shocking an elderly housekeeping lady. That was embarrassing but didn’t seem to stop the two of you.

Then things get really, really blurry, but somehow the two of you made it back to his room without any other incidents. 

While the rest of his memories were bits and pieces, but he… did remember the most of the ‘activates,’ and it’d been consensual, and yeah… he’d definitely used protection! That much he remembered!

The next thing he knew, it was the next morning, where he woke up alone, with a hangover, and felt better than he had in awhile. 

Too bad that feeling didn’t get to last. His phone rang not long after he woke up. It’d been work, a villain was causing trouble, and they needed him asap. 

He showered, dressed, grabbed his stuff, and left. 

Then… he’d gotten hurt… bad…

Ended up in the hospital for nearly a week. 

After he got out, he, well, had an interesting voicemail and charge on his credit card.

He blushed hard as he remembered the hotel’s message regarding the ‘damages’ done to the room. In particular, the ones done to the sheets and headboard. They even sent him pictures!

Damn, he couldn’t believe he lost control of his quirk like that. He hadn’t done that since… well, since his ‘first time.’ That was so embarrassing. Thankfully, he didn’t think he’d hurt you in the process. Of all the pictures and list of damages, blood-stained sheets weren’t listed. Maybe that’s why he never worked up the courage to reach out to you. Even if he didn’t hurt you, he might have scared you...

Wait….

He lost control of his quirk.

Oh… OH SHIT! Realization dawned on him.

Even if he had put a condom on, his quirk might have damaged it!

Then that means… there is a chance he's the father of your son!

FFFFFUCCCCKK!!!!

But wait.

If he really was your son… why haven’t you contacted him?

His footsteps slowed until he came to a standstill.

You would have told him if he was, wouldn’t you?

Granted, the two of you never exchanged numbers, and we’ll it’s not like he did much to reach out to you either, but… You would have known he’s friends with Izuku, so you knew a way to contact him. 

Two-way street, buddy. He internally lashed himself.

Between racking his brain and scolding himself, he didn’t hear the knock on his door until the visitor started pounding. 

“Oi! Shifty hair! Answer the damn door!” A loud, brash voice that could only belong to one person yelled through the abused door.

Katsuki? Why was he here?

Kirishima hurried over to the door before the blonde got too impatient and blew it down… again. He took a deep breath and put on his brightest and cheerful grin before opening the door to greet his grumpy best friend. 

“Oh hey, Bakubro, what’s up?” 

“Don’t bro me! Why the hell am I getting called from your boss to check up on you?” He growled.

“Fat called you?” That was a surprise. 

“Yeah, he did. Had to switch my patrol around and everything.” He brushed past the redhead, letting himself in. Kirishima sighed as he shut the door behind them. 

“I’m really sorry about that. Not sure wh-”

“Don’t start that bullshit with me.” Those fierce red eyes locked on to him. “And drop that fake ass smile. Always hated when you did that shit.” He mutters.

Damn, Fat just had to go and call him of all people. 

If it’d been anyone else, anyone at all, he could play this off. A bright grin, crack a joke or two, maybe a few reassuring words, and he could send them on their way. 

But not him.  No, not Katsuki. Most people wouldn’t in a million years think the aggressive blonde could show anything other than anger. And yeah, the guy was rough around the edges, and he wasn’t the best with words. But nonetheless, here he was. 

And sometimes, that’s all that mattered.

Fuck. 

“So why am I here?” Katsuki wasn’t backing down, so Kirishima took a deep breath.

“What did Fat tell you?” While his smile didn’t waver, he felt his stomach belly flop to the floor. 

“Bastard would spill it, just said you’d need me right and to get over here. Now what the fuck is going on?” While he still sounded angry, there was an underline concern in his tone that most people tend to miss. 

Who would have known that would be the thing to make him crack? Well, obviously, Fatgum knew, hence why he sent the blonde over. The great explosive hero was one of the few people that could blow a hole right through his hardened armor. 

Both figuratively and literally.

With tears in his eyes, he dropped his bright grin and let the damn of emotion bust. He explained everything that had happened. The robbery, the hospital, you, your son, the night he first met you, the security footage, everything! Hell, he was sure he went into a little too much detail when he described you and that night.

The blonde just stood there shell shocked as he tried to absorb the word vomit hurled at him. 

“S-so, yeah… I might… have a…” he couldn’t finish. He just let the silence hang between them. 

“You… dumbass.” He sighed quietly, running his hand through his hair before looking him right in the eyes. While his best friend was known far and wide to have a temper, when shit got real, it was eerie how calm and focused he was. “Are you sure he’s your?”

“I-I don’t know. I mean-”

“Have you talked to the mother?”

“N-No!” 

“Have you talked to anyone about this?” He pressed. “Does anyone else think you’re the father?”

“No! Well, Fat might, but that’s cause he was with me when I put the piece together. But I haven’t told or asked anyone else about this. Honestly, other than the mother, I don’t even know who else to go-” The redhead piped up. Something flashed in his friend’s eyes, and for a moment, he looked like he was ready to commit murder. Fuck was he made? He hadn’t come to him about this yet!? Of course, he was! He was finding this out because his boss called him, not because he had called him! Some friend he is... “I was totally going to call you about this! I swear! You’re my best friend. This just happened so suddenly!”

“I know you would, Ei. Chill.” The blonde’s features soften for a second, soothing the redhead some. But he could tell Katsuki was trying to keep his temper in check. “I’m not mad at you but, I’ll ask again. Does anyone else know about this?”

“Honestly, I have no idea. I only found out about this today, and I haven’t had any contact with (Y/N) since the other day and well at Izuku’s birthday party.”

“Ok. Stay here for a bit. You need to calm down. We need more information first. If he isn’t your kid, you’re losing your shit for nothing. And if he is... well,” He paused, “Cross that bridge when you come to it.” He pushed the hero towards the couch and made him sit down. “I need to make a phone call.” 

Kirishima blinked as his best friend made his way towards his front door. “NOW SIT THERE. SHUT UP AND CALM DOWN!”

*SLAM*

This was a new level of anger for the blonde. He couldn’t stand seeing the redhead like this. He felt even worse, leaving him alone like this. The damn guy lived off socialization with others, so for him to be facing this alone. 

Yeah... it really pissed him off.

The blonde stomped his way back to his apartment, which was just a few doors down. He did need to make a phone call; he hadn’t been lying. But it was a call, that big, dense red rock didn’t need to hear. 

Fuck. He couldn’t believe this. Did shitty hair really have a kid? 

Katsuki made his way inside his home. The home he shared with not only his wife but his newborn daughter. 

Fuck. He has a kid… and he never even knew. 

As he made his way through the foyer and into the living room, something caught his eye. Something black, orange, green, and tiny laid on top of a basket of unfolded laundry. It was the custom design onesie Momo had gotten for their daughter as a baby shower gift. The custom design was made to look like his hero costume. While he scoffed at the thing initially, he made sure that she wore home from the hospital. 

Well, tried. About halfway through the hospital parking lot, she decided now was the best time to need a diaper and outfit change. 

Little brat. He smirked.

If you’d ask him a few years ago what he thought of kids, he would have brushed it off, not really caring about it. His hero career was his focus. He needed no had to be number one. 

But now that he has a little one of his own, he realized there was more to life than being number one. Was he still going to do it? You bet your ass, but now that he has his wife and his child that climb to the top well, he couldn’t dream of making it there without them. 

He couldn’t imagine a world without her. Let alone a world where he didn’t realize she existed.

He whipped out his phone and thumbed through his contacts.

Especially if someone knew about them. 

He took a deep breath and hit send.  

Someone close to not only the kid but himself. 

And still not tell him.

He knows. There’s no way in hell that precipitative little shit doesn’t know!

One ring. Two rings. Three rings.

“K-Kacchan. This is a surprise. You never call. Is everything-” Katsuki cut him off. 

“We need to talk. Now.” 

****

Links: Part 1,  Part 2 ,  Part 3, Part 4

Thanks for the read! If you want see the other stuff I’ve done, click the link bellow!

MasterList

Tags: @hot-pocket01 ,  @simpforeveryone , @remember-happy-things 

[waywardfacegarden]

burning embers

Modern Au: Zuko centric + The Gaang + Zukka + Friendship/Family feels + Angst and Fluff.

Summary: Zuko learns the meaning of love.

Read on Ao3 here.

.

There’s something so tragically painful about falling in love, they say.

But Zuko wouldn’t know. He doesn’t know what falling in love with someone is, he doesn’t know what it feels like. Love is a concept so alien to him; he can’t even grasp the root of it. He just knows a broken home, the remaining ashes of a devastating, blazing fire that was supposed to be his father’s love.

He doesn’t know what love is. And yet, he understands: the underlying and heart-wrenching agony that comes with loving. The sorrow that comes with it; it is just there, intrinsically linked. It’s something that the small kid—full of unknown love and golden warmth, but also deep, bitter pain—comprehends at the tender age of 11.

It’s just common knowledge for him, the same way he knows the sky is blue and the sun hides at night.

Family. Love. Father.

Those words don’t have meaning, Zuko thinks, lying on his bed one night, still hearing the disappointment in his father’s voice echoing in his ears in the quiet darkness of his room. They’re there, of course. And he knows them. He can say them. But they feel far away, slipping through the space between his fingers, becoming dust that blows away with the chilly wind of an autumn midnight, escaping him before he can place what was there in the first place.

They don’t hold weight. They don’t mean anything. They’re shallow; they just exist, like a couple of letters strewn together, like when you say your name so many times in a row it doesn’t even feel right anymore; but, he supposes only a few people are blessed with their significance, with tasting them in their mouth with something not akin to hate or bitterness or emptiness.

Loneliness. Despair. Dishonor.

Those have meaning. Those have weight, despite being such empty words.

(But they very much taste like something akin to hate, too—and that’s the thing.

Maybe Zuko just doesn’t know anything aside from [self-]hate.)

.

.

Family, love, father. They are concepts that come alive to him the same way a phoenix is born.

They rise, awakening from the ashes that the fire within themselves has burned to death; so beautiful, so mystical, so mesmeric and so incredibly fragile and precious and wondrous, like a mythological creature coming back to life after having known its own death.

He learns the words and their meaning the same way his brain starts learning new things and concepts by reading a book; but he doesn’t learn with his mind—even though a part of him knows that this is where knowledge is stored—Zuko learns with his heart (he has always learned things best with his heart; after all, Zuko wears it on his sleeve; he’s emotional, visceral, volatile—his feelings are way too intense, too much that they burn his chest open; he’s always aflame), with his eyes, with his hands. He learns it in every little gesture that’s given to him, in every little crack (that keeps filling and filling and filling) of the time that goes on, in every little drop of ink that is spilled on the parchment where his life is being written.

He learns the words in the way he begins learning his uncle's tea recipes, in the satisfaction and pride he feels when his uncle congratulates him for a job well-done on a warm, quiet Saturday afternoon as he finishes helping cleaning and serving the tables around the teashop, in the way his favorite cup sits next to his uncle's on the kitchen counter in the mornings, full of Zuko’s favorite bubble tea; he learns them in the ugly, endearing, oversized sweater hanging at the back of his closet, the one his uncle gave him in his last birthday; he learns about love in the gentle smiles of weekends, in the singing of the birds outside his room’s window, in the blanket that rests around his shoulders when he is sitting on the comfy couch on a calm Thursday night, dozing off while trying to study for an English test, in the way the nightmares that used to haunt him are tormenting him less and less every time; he learns the meaning of father in his uncle's ridiculous pajamas, full of tiny drawings of cherry blossoms and tea leaves, in his uncle’s obsession with Pai Sho, and in the wise phrases he keeps throwing at Zuko even when he cannot fully understand them.

He learns, little by little, step by step, like a slow fire burning inside his guts.

And it's a weird, strange thing. Zuko learned that fire hurts you, the same way he learned that love does, but somehow, after years of building his new life, it doesn't feel that way anymore.

His uncle is patient with him. Patient as someone who would teach someone else origami or as someone who’s slowly writing a book. He teaches him, sees him fall, stumble and trip over his feet (both, metaphorically and literally speaking) and he’s there when Zuko gets up again.

It’s a nice feeling. Knowing that someone is going to be there, even if you fall. Even when you fail.

His uncle teaches him, the same way he creates a new tea receipt for the menu; carefully, gently, ever so softly. He takes Zuko, the broken child who looks at him through his pain and hatred, and makes him open his eyes. He points out, over and over and over again, that failing is not a bad thing, that love exists and that it doesn't have to hurt, and that if it does, you can heal from it; he teaches him that Zuko is full of it, full of love, he says that he’s always been.

Somehow, it feels a bit like healing. Of course, Zuko is still broken. Probably, a part of him always will be; but, somehow, he doesn't think that being a bit broken is so wrong now.

.

.

Friendship was a foreign concept to him, too. Or maybe not, but Zuko never wanted to get involved with it.

Too much trouble.

(Or maybe fear—fear of what it carries, what it holds in its nature; fear of failing, of not being enough, of being left out, of getting too attached.)

But just as Zuko was wrong about so many things in his life, this is not the exception.

He comes to learn that, too.

It’s a different process than with his uncle. Maybe because it’s slower, or maybe because it’s, rather, faster. Maybe because he wasn’t aware he was learning at all.

Zuko doesn’t know exactly when it starts. Can’t pinpoint the exact moment he started getting involved. Not that he cares much about that at this point, but he would like to know.

They kind of adopt him in their group (or, er, gang, as they call it), without Zuko noticing. But to be fair, Zuko doesn’t notice a lot of things.

Toph is a friend of his Uncle, and she lives near the teashop, so she’s around more time than she’s not; she’s loud and kinda rude, and always calls Zuko a dork or a nerd or an idiot, but Zuko realizes he likes when she’s there. Aang comes along sometimes, with his scarily bright smile. There’s also Katara and her big brother, Sokka.

He likes all of them, to his extreme surprise. They’re all good people. Aang is way too kind, Katara may be scary but she’s pretty cool, and Sokka is just a combination of a very, weirdly endearing, smart dumbass, which is, uh, new.

He honestly doesn’t know how it happened, or when it happened, but suddenly he’s tucked under a soft fuzzy blanket in winter, sandwiched in the middle of the three-spot sofa, with Aang almost laying over his lap. He’s almost sitting on Sokka’s right leg, pressing him against the arm sofa, his side overlapping with Sokka’s. He doesn’t seem to mind, though. He’s sitting there, cross-legged, with his right arm fully extended on the back of the sofa, almost like he’s hugging Zuko’s shoulders; he’s practically leaning on Zuko.

His arm and his side are really warm, though. Not as much as Zuko generally is, but it’s… kind of nice.

“Katara, Titanic is a classic, dude. What the hell.”

Zuko takes a sip from his hot chocolate, blowing off the clouds of steam gathering over the cup—the warmth of it is pretty welcomed in his throat, to be honest, while Katara rolls her eyes at her brother.

“I’m not watching that for the fifth time in a month and seeing you and Aang both cry for an hour later after the already three long hours of the movie.”

Sokka looks pretty indignant about Katara’s attitude towards his (probably) favorite movie, which is pretty amusing.

“You’re just a monster,” Sokka says, dramatically, “that’s why you don’t cry.”

Katara rolls her eyes again.

“I don’t know,” Toph says, from the couch closer to the TV, sprawled all comfortably over it. “It’s actually a really funny movie,” she points out, and then draws out her voice. “‘Jack, draw me like one of your French girls’.”

Aang laughs pretty loud, and Zuko smiles at the bad impersonation despite himself.

“Well, My Heart Will Go On is my anthem.” Sokka says, puffing out his chest.

Zuko actually snorts into his cup and Sokka shoots him a look. He remembers the time Aang and Sokka recreated that iconic scene, with Toph singing at the top of her lungs in a ridiculously obnoxious voice. He actually laughed at that.

Sokka seems to read his mind, because after a few moments of staring at Zuko’s face, his entire expression lights up. He grins, eyes sparkling, and starts singing really loud and purposely out of tune. Aang starts laughing and Toph doesn’t waste time on joining Sokka in singing. Even Katara smiles.

A few minutes later of terrible singing, they’re all laughing. Toph is cackling so hard she’s on the floor, and Sokka keeps leaning over him, laughing in his ear. He believes it should be annoying, but instead of that, it’s actually infectious and Zuko laughs a bit harder.

After they calm down, Toph is clutching at her sides and Sokka is wiping tears out of his eyes.

Aang smiles, then, softly and content, and raises a hand in the air, like asking for permission to talk.

“I have an idea.” He says, and turns around to look at him. “Why don’t we just let Zuko decide? He hasn’t chosen anything yet for our Friday movie nights.” 

All eyes turn to look at him at that. He stops his movements, mouth hanging open, hot cup halfway to his lips.

“Uh,” he frowns. “Thank you, but, um. Why would I choose? It’s your thing.”

Everyone stares at him like he has two heads, which, okay fair but why.

“What?”

Aang gives him a soft smile, all kind eyes and gentle features, like he’s about to talk to a baby, but before he can say anything, Sokka is putting an arm around his shoulders and leaning all his weight on him, as if they weren’t already close enough.

“This is your thing as much as it is ours, dude.” He says, grinning, “You’re one of us.” He vaunts, proudly, and ruffles Zuko’s hair.

Katara nods, at the same time Toph goes:

“Yup, you’re already in, loser.”

Aang chuckles. “Yes, you’re our friend, Zuko.”

Zuko blinks, stunned.

That’s… 

There’s… 

That’s… the F-word.

Friend.

Friend.

Huh? What? How? When did that happen? Huh? Did he miss something in the past few months?

Sokka, completely oblivious to his emotional turmoil, insistently points to the TV while squeezing him. "So, buddy? Don't you think we should watch Titanic to cry and share a couple of very male tears?"

"You only want to watch it because you have a crush on both Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio." Katara accuses.

"Nuh-uh!"

"Yes, you do! You even still keep that poster of them behind your…"

"Katara!!!!"

.

.

Friend.

It’s a nice word.

It tastes like hot chocolate in his mouth on a cold night, it sounds like Sokka’s laugh and Toph’s jokes, and it looks like Aang’s kind eyes and Katara’s nice smile.

It feels like something. It holds meaning. It’s not an empty word. At all.

Sokka’s hand ruffling his hair or over his shoulders, Toph’s nicknames for him, Aang’s offer of help in times he feels like Zuko needs it, Katara’s help with homework and advice on his recipes doesn’t let him forget that. ‘Friend’ is never going to be an empty word.

Friend tastes like hope, like warm food and bear-hugs.

Friend is such a nice word.

.

.

The thing with Zuko being generally—and strangely—warm all the time is that summer is a complete nightmare for him.

He's sitting directly in front of the fan at full power, barefoot in just jeans and a light T-shirt, and yet he still feels like he's going to explode. The weather forecast in the morning heralded a heat wave in midsummer, and it's exactly the worst thing in the world that could happen to Zuko's already overheated body. Toph groans beside him, lying with her arms and legs spread like a starfish on the cold ground. It is no comfort to her, however, and Zuko can understand that well.

Katara is looking at something on her phone, fanning herself with a magazine, and Aang remains practically unaffected, just as energetic as ever as he eats the remaining watermelon slices from the bowl they recently filled.

Zuko is wondering if he should go, or if he should fall asleep on the freezing ground that doesn't seem to be freezing at all, when Sokka walks into the living room in his baseball uniform. He has just returned from his morning summer practice; sweat is running down the side of his face, and his shirt is partly sticking to his body from the moisture. He smiles at everyone in greeting before gulping down all that's left of the water on the bottle of his hand. Zuko stares at his Adam's apple bob while he's drinking, and then his eyes trail the trickle of water that slides down his jaw over his desperation to drink all the water so fast. The drop goes down, down, down, dripping over his collarbone and sinking into his neck until it eventually gets lost somewhere inside his shirt. Sokka throws the bottle over the trash can and uses his shirt collar to wipe the water and some of his sweat off his face. Zuko's eyes unconsciously move downward; he can see a line of skin on Sokka's abdomen and stomach.

He swallows. Uh. His mouth is suddenly very dry. He's probably dehydrated. Is he dehydrated? He's starting to feel a little dizzy.

"So? Beloved friends, beloved little sister? Did you miss me? Obviously, you did."

Katara rolls her eyes, but still asks, "How was practice, dumbass?"

"It was cool! I hit twelve curve-balls in a row and sixteen of that weird fastball Suki pitches. Oh! And I'm finally getting the thing about that forkball. Also... woah, Zuko, are you okay?!"

Zuko blinks from where he was staring at Sokka's hair. It's kind of wet. Is that sweat? Shouldn't that be gross? Why is Zuko staring? Does he find it gross? He doesn't think so, but he also can't quite explain why...

"Woah, bud," Sokka says, kneeling in front of him and getting dangerously close to his face. "You're so red, are you having heatstroke or something? Do you feel dizzy?" He leans on his knees and presses a hand to his forehead, pulling up the bangs hanging over it. It feels nice, actually. Sokka's soft hand on his boiling skin feels like fresh water. He kind of wants to lean into it.

He probably does, because Sokka frowns. "Maybe you have a fever..." His mouth presses into a thin line. "Don't you want to take a shower to cool off? I can lend you some clothes, we're about the same height, they'll fit."

Zuko blinks. Huh?

"Here, let me help you." Sokka says, helping him up.

Around an hour later, Zuko feels a lot better, laying with his back on the floor in Sokka's baggy shorts and blue T-shirt with a cartoonish drawing of The Pink Panther. Zuko smiles involuntarily when he looks at it. It smells a bit like Sokka, or at least the detergent he uses. That makes his stomach do weird flips. He's not feeling that hot anymore, but maybe he is getting sick...

"Hey," Sokka tells him, looking at him from above, standing just behind Zuko's head. His toes are barely avoiding touching Zuko's sprawled hair on the floor.

"Hey," Zuko answers back, looking up at Sokka's soft face. His hair is down and still wet from the shower, and a few drops fall on the bridge of Zuko's nose when Sokka hovers over him. Zuko's face scrunches up, more out of involuntary reaction than out of bother, but Sokka chuckles.

"Sorry," he says, not sounding sorry at all. He uses the towel around his neck to messily dry his hair. "You look a lot better, now."

"Yes," Zuko muses, still a bit mesmerized by Sokka's wet hair. And Sokka's face. "Thanks."

Sokka grins brightly at him. "Sure."

He looks like he's about to say something else, but before he can say anything, Toph groans just a few feet away, sitting now on the couch. "Stop flirting and get a room already; it’s gross. We're here, too."

"What? We weren’t—"

Katara agrees, quietly.

"Hey! I was just worried!" Sokka excuses himself. "Weren't you all? His face was as red as a tomato."

Katara looks up from her magazine and gives him a pointed look, with one elegantly arched brow. Apparently, she doesn't even need to say anything else, because it's enough to make Sokka blush.

Oh.

He's cute, Zuko thinks. And then, oh, I think Sokka is cute. And then Sokka stomps over the kitchen muttering unintelligible things, still a faint blush over his cheeks.

Zuko smiles to himself watching his childish behavior. He is, though. He is cute.

.

.

.

It's raining heavily outside, drops pouring loudly against the asphalt of the sidewalk.

Zuko side-glances at Sokka. Maybe it's because after the course of a year, Zuko has learned to recognize many of Sokka's little gestures, or maybe it's the fact that the boy has been so much into his own mind lately, but Zuko recognizes that way he scrunches up his nose, that wrinkle between his eyebrows, that way his eyes twitch.

“Are you okay?” 

He’s asking mostly just to be polite, to be honest; he already knows he’s not. He knows something’s up.

Sokka turns to look at him, and then stares at the rain hitting the glass window of the lonely teashop.

“I’m…” He says, and looks at his hand. Then he presses his mouth into a thin line.

“You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Zuko says, awkwardly, because as much as he cares, he’s still a mess when it comes to social cues. He’s never going to stop being a mess. And terrible at comforting people.

Sokka sees right through him, though, like he always does, and smiles softly at him. His whole face mellows. It kind of makes Zuko’s heart flutter in his chest, like a butterfly flapping its wings.

“I’m…” Sokka tries again, looking at Zuko’s face. At his eyes, at his scar, at his neck. He feels weirdly exposed, but at the same time… He doesn’t. It’s just Sokka. Which means it’s okay. “Scared, I guess.”

Zuko blinks and tilts his head to the side. He’s not sure if he should ask, but…

“Of?”

Sokka gives him a wry smile.

“Of failing? Of disappointing my dad? Of not being enough? I don’t know, I can’t quite pick a single one.”

Sokka’s voice is not quite bitter, but it feels like that, in the air around them. Zuko knows the feeling pretty well.

“You are enough.” Zuko affirms, without a single trace of hesitation in his voice. Because Sokka is enough, in every single aspect, and he shouldn’t feel like any less than that. Zuko’s also aware of what he’s worrying about, and for Zuko, it’s just absurd—Sokka is one the very few people that shouldn’t worry about passing the entrance exam of college at all, he’s crazy smart. He should know that. But, to be fair, Zuko can’t judge him nor scold him for self-doubt when it used to be all that he was, along with his self-hate. So he says it out loud, looking into Sokka’s wide, surprised eyes. “You’re also really smart, Sokka, I’m sure you’re going to ace the entrance exam. You shouldn’t worry.”

Sokka rolls his eyes, but he also adopts that playful-kinda-flirty side of him. It’s painful because Zuko can see the sadness underlying in his voice and body language so clearly. Can see the lack of confidence in every single motion.

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“I am,” he agrees, “but it doesn’t mean it isn’t true. I really believe so. You’re the smartest person I know. You’re very capable of doing whatever you want, so have faith in yourself just like I have faith in you.”

Once he says it, and Sokka blinks once, twice, thrice at him, Zuko feels painfully aware (and painfully embarrassed) of what he just said.

Oh Lord, what did he actually…

“Ah,” Sokka says, and makes a face that Zuko can’t name. “You’re blushing.”

Zuko covers his cheeks with both hands. Sokka is probably right, they’re so warm, but still.

“I’m not.” Still.

Sokka laughs, and raises both eyebrows. “You sure?” He asks, staring pointedly at his face, which only makes him blush harder.

Stupid Sokka.

He must know the effect he’s having on him, because he laughs again, lightheartedly. Well, at least he’s not upset anymore…

“I’m not,” he uselessly and pathetically insists, even when it’s tragically obvious he is. But he has some pride, okay.

Sokka grins, but it’s all devilish. It makes Zuko’s hair stand on end. A chill runs down his spine.

“It’s just hot.”

Sokka smirks. “Sure, you’re always hot.”

“Shut up,” Zuko complains and groans, facing away from him so that he can’t see his blatant embarrassment. Sokka’s natural flirty personality wasn’t that much of a problem back then, but it’s only gotten worse, and Zuko just can’t handle it sometimes. It feels like way too much.

“Ah, but you blush when you’re embarrassed. That’s cute.” Sokka points out, a wide grin on his face. “Imagine being both cute and hot, what a crime.” 

He sighs theatrically, and Zuko is very tempted to answer, “shut up, look who’s talking,” but he knows he will just get more embarrassed after saying that. He needs to calm down. So he just grumbles while Sokka laughs.

Then, when Sokka has already calmed down and Zuko can feel his face like normal again, they look quietly at the rain, steadily keeping its pace.

“Zuko,” Sokka says, after some time, and Zuko quirks an eyebrow in reply. 

Sokka smiles. “Thank you. For believing me. It means a lot.”

Zuko smiles back. “Of course.”

.

.

Zuko notices it one night. (Though, looking back, it’s weird he didn’t notice it before.)

Well, more like, Aang notices and points it out, and then Zuko realizes that what he said is pathetically true, lying in bed at night because he still mulls things over sometimes before going to sleep.

“You know,” Aang had casually said, holding a can of orange juice, sitting next to Zuko on the bleachers at one of Sokka’s practice games. “You stare at Sokka a lot.”

Zuko frowned. “It’s his game, after all. We’re here to watch him,” he had retorted, like it was obvious.

“Well, yes, but I don’t mean only now. You stare at him all the time.”

Zuko didn’t feel like he liked where this conversation was going. Something about his expression must had given him away, or maybe Aang was just too good at reading him now, because he said:

“Wait.” He actually had sounded surprised. “You mean you’re not aware you have a crush on him?”

Zuko’s eyes went wide. “What? I don’t have a crush on him.”

Aang quirked up an eyebrow. Sure, he didn’t need to say.

“I don’t,” he had pressed on.

Aang hadn’t looked any more convinced of what he had said. If anything, he looked more convinced on what he himself had said. Aang had looked at him for a very long period of 1 minute before lightly chuckling and nudging him in the arm with his elbow, smiling brightly at him.

It was weird, but Zuko has gotten better at reading them, maybe just as much as Aang has with him. Maybe that’s why he knows what Aang means with all of that. Admit it when you’re ready.

It’s not like he was trying to deny or hide it. It’s not like he was trying to lie. He just didn’t think Aang was actually right.

But he is. Zuko can’t stop looking at Sokka, all the time. Thinking about him. About the way he smiles, with his hair up, with his hair down, with that denim jacket that fits him in all the right angles, with his baseball cap, ecstatic after he scored a run in the 8th inning. 

Sokka, practicing on the field. Grinning widely and openly and hugging him tightly when he aced the entrance exam. Leaning in to taste Zuko’s ice-cream into his own mouth. Ruffling his own messy hair. Wearing those silly cartoon t-shirts. Serenading Zuko with Electric Love and the most ridiculous voice ever on his birthday as a joke. Messy eating. Scrunching up his nose while drinking green tea. Reciting 80% of the Star Wars dialogues by heart. Being obsessed with boomerangs and swords (though not as much as Zuko is with that last one). Biting into the end of his pencil when he’s focused on writing an English essay.

Ahhhhh.

Oh, holy honor.

He has a crush. A crush. Feelings.

When did that happen? Why did that happen? He doesn’t know. Was it because of his warm eyes? His pretty smile? His pretty lips? Was it because he opened up to Zuko, let himself be vulnerable around him, bled his heart out so Zuko could piece it back together? Was it because he’s funny? Charming? Cool? Smart? Astonishingly cute? Was it because he made Zuko feel made out of thin air, sometimes, so raw and exposed but yet so safe, so comfortable in his own skin? ...That is, the others don’t necessarily make him feel unsafe, or uncomfortable. He just feels like he can be all open and vulnerable with Sokka better. Maybe because he opened up to him first, about something so personal like his mom (and Zuko knew about losing a mom, too).

Well, whatever the reason, it doesn’t exactly matter, does it? He’s already in deep.

Zuko rolls over his stomach and sighs, groaning loud into his pillow. Why, why, why, why. It’s not like he even has a chance, so why did he have to…

Ugh.

Feelings are stupid. His heart is stupid.

And the way he falls asleep thinking about Sokka’s laugh is even stupider.

.

.

The thing is, because Zuko notices all the little details in Sokka’s gestures and behavior, he also notices the way he acts differently towards… Certain people.

“Me and Yue?” Sokka laughs, and Zuko blinks. He didn’t even mean to ask it out loud. Now, he would just hear the confirmation of what he already knew from Sokka’s lips. How is that any better? Good job, Zuko. 

“Nah, man, Suki would kill me if she sees me wooing her girlfriend. Or at least kick me pretty damn hard.” Huh? Zuko blinks again. Huh? So they’re… Sokka and Yue… They’re not… 

“And believe me, she’s super strong. She kicked me once and I’ve always regretted eating that last cupcake on the fridge.” Sokka makes a face and shudders, like the mere flashback is enough to make him fear. But then he smiles, in that soft way of his that makes Zuko’s knees go really weak. “And I’m pretty sure Yue is immensely happy with her, too.”

Zuko doesn’t know what to say, so he just oh-so-eloquently utters:

“Ah.”

Sokka seems amused.

“Didn’t you know they were a thing? The PDA is so strong when they’re together, you have to have seen it.”

Well, that was… Zuko just thought they were touchy with each other? Sokka is pretty much touchy with him all the time, but that doesn’t mean they’re a thing.

Well.

“That’s rough, buddy.”

Sokka blinks. “Why?”

Zuko frowns. He tilts his head in confusion. “Because you are… Romantically attracted to her? It must be rough.”

Sokka blinks once, twice, three times. Stares. Then, he throws his head back and cackles, clutching his stomach.

“Dude, what the hell.” He wheezes. “Just say the word crush like normal people.” 

“Hmm.”

Then, when he calms down, Sokka eyes Zuko.

“Wait, what?” He says, serious all of a sudden. Or at least, surprised. “Do you really think that?” At Zuko’s lack of response, Sokka looks at him, then at his hands, then at the TV, where the video game they were playing is still on pause. Then, back at Zuko’s face. “No, I don’t have a crush on her. Or on Suki, for that matter.”

Zuko frowns. Sokka must know he doesn’t believe him, because he continues.

“I mean, I did.” He admits. “Back when I met her, when I was, like, 14. But I’m over it, now—Not that she’s not great; she’s awesome and I love her, just… Not in that way. It was just a silly teen-crush, anyway. And Suki is my best friend. We had a thing for a few months like two years ago, but we hit it off so much better as friends. She’s my bi icon, though. And bestest friend.”

“Oh.”

“Besides,” Sokka adds, and eyes him pointedly, “I’m interested in someone else right now.”

Zuko stares. Blinks.

What.

So he does have someone he’s interested in anyway. God, Zuko really doesn’t stand a chance. Why even bothering trying? And it’s not like he knows how to try something, anyway…

From the other corner of the room, Aang shoots him a very cryptic look. Zuko can’t describe what he’s thinking, but he guesses he’s taking pity on him. After all, he knows.

Ah. He really doesn’t like having feelings.

.

.

His mind is a cruel thing. It’s what keeps him up at night, what reminds him of all his insecurities, what makes him feel undeserving of love, what keeps throwing image after image into his head of his broken childhood on bad days. It’s what, as much as his heart, knows about his deepest desires, his longing, his yearning and thinks it’s amusing to play with Zuko for a bit.

“Zuko,” Sokka says, with a fragile smile on his face, his voice going ridiculously soft, his eyes warming up, and Zuko’s heart pounds on his chest like big waves crashing on the shore of a lonely beach. “Zuko, I love you.”

It’s kind of—very—criminal the way Sokka makes him feel. The way he makes Zuko’s heart seem like it’s going to burst out of his chest with how fast it beats after hearing just those three words, the way he makes Zuko’s entire soul ache and want, the way he makes him feel so grounded, so him, yet so tiny and delicate, like he’s made out of thin sheets of ice.

Is this how love feels?

Is this how it should feel like?

He wouldn’t know. He doesn’t know what falling in love is. He just knows a broken home, the destructive, neon-like, toxic obsession with power his dad had, instead of any tender form of anything else that can be called love that his dad should have had for his mom, but never did.

Falling in love is made to hurt. Falling in love is destined to make you feel sad, and alone, and unsafe.

Falling in love is a cruel thing. It’s not cut out for weak people, and Zuko is weak. He’s destined to break. He has always been made out of fragile, easy-to-destroy things.

That’s why his mind plays with him all the time.

He wakes up in his bed, opens his eyes to the dark quiet of his room, feels the way his heart beats so hard that he can almost feel it on his throat. And he feels lost. And sad.

He doesn’t even scream. He just lies there, feeling the world becoming smaller, feeling himself becoming smaller.

Lord, he’s royally fucked. Screwed. He knows. He’s destined to break.

There’s something so tragically painful about falling in love, they say.

.

.

He’s sitting with Toph leaning back on his right side, on the fluffy couch in Katara and Sokka’s living room, cutting up squares out of colorful paper.

They are both terrible in the kitchen. Something coming from being rich kids, Sokka playfully teased earlier. And he guesses it’s true. Either way, they are terrible—Zuko even burned his own kitchen once while making scrambled eggs (and that was. Not a very good day). Sure, he has tried to help Uncle Iroh a couple of times, and he knows a bit of the basics, but besides preparing tea, he’s lost. He can’t cook to save his life. So when Zuko almost lights a fire to bake cookies and mixes up the recipe for the second time, Katara kicks them out and bans them from the kitchen for the next 4 hours. Toph protests just to be annoying—she doesn’t like cooking at all, she has told him, but she loves annoying Katara, it’s her favorite idle activity. Zuko would be offended, but it’s the smartest choice if they want to finish baking Aang’s birthday cake without setting the kitchen on fire, so it’s fine.

Besides, this way he can steal a few glances at Sokka, as he hangs up the decorations he and Toph are making. The muscles under his shirt flex when he raises his arms above his head, his messy hair down from its ponytail, falling over his face when he moves a bit to the left, a line of the smooth skin of his back making its way to Zuko's curious, avid eyes.

Zuko swallows.

Toph sighs heavily and throws her head back. “So, are you planning to make a move any time this century or are you a loser?”

Zuko eyes her, coming out of his stupor, confused. “What?”

Toph smirks. “Right, you’re always a loser, my bad.”

Zuko blinks. Not because of Toph calling him a loser, but because, for a second, he really doesn’t get what she means.

Then, when he does, he buries his face into his hands and groans.

“Even you know?”

Toph laughs. "Yes, idiot, it's stupidly obvious.” She pats his arm. “I can see it and I'm blind, you know." 

Zuko groans again. He’s in physical pain right now. "How?"

She shrugs. "I don’t know. Maybe the way you say his name. Or talk about him."

Zuko feels a bit of panic. 

What? Is he that obvious? How does he say Sokka’s name?

"His name?"

"Yeah,” Toph confirms, nodding exaggeratedly, “stupidly sappy. It's gross."

"Oh my god."

She laughs again, loudly, because his suffering is apparently amusing. "You also talk about him a lot," she chuckles, "and sigh every time you see him. At least that’s what I assume, given that he’s in the room and you keep sighing like a 12-year-old girl in love. Pinning all the way.”

Zuko wants to die. He seriously wants to die. Maybe he should just tell Sokka he likes him, so when he rejects him, Zuko can just die a quick, albeit painful, death.

Toph nudges at his arm, with her typical abnormal strength for someone her age, but she doesn’t mean any harm. “So?” She asks, again. “Are you planning to make a move or not?"

Zuko sighs, "I can't do anything, he likes someone else."

Toph kind of stops where she’s fumbling with a couple of paper sheets. She then turns around and makes this face, where she’s scrunching up her nose and frowning like she just smelled something sour, or like when she’s deeply confused. "Did he say that?"

"Yes."

"Did Sokka seriously tell you that?"

Zuko’s confused at Toph’s relentless insistence. "...Yes?"

Toph’s face goes back to normal, but there’s something about the way she continues to hum that makes it seem like she still thinks Zuko is an alien, or something.

"You must have misunderstood him—which wouldn’t be a surprise, to be honest." She says the last part in a whisper, but he still hears her. That’s probably what she wanted anyway, but it’s not like he gets it. What does that mean? Zuko gets Sokka. That’s one of the few things he’s really proud of. Did he just think that he got Sokka while, all this time, he actually didn’t?

No. He understands Sokka. Sokka himself has told him that.

"No, I didn't. And I don't have a chance if he likes someone else, so I might as well not even try."

Toph looks mad. "You're super pessimistic, dumbass."

"Hmm."

She sighs, looking deeply tired and frustrated, like Zuko has completely worn her out. Then, she raises her fist and punches him. Hard.

Ouch.

Zuko yelps, and rubs at his sore arm. “What was that for?” he grumbles.

She frowns. “To punch some sense into you, big oblivious idiot!" Toph hums a low, guttural sound in the back of her throat, like she’s a feral dog trying to threaten a pedestrian. “Just try, at least. Everyone is kind of getting tired of your pinning, too."

"Ah." Everyone?

"Full offence."

"Ah."

“Even Katara. The only reason she hasn’t intervened yet is because she says it’s not her business to push you, but I don’t think her reasoning is gonna last long.”

Katara too!? Oh, no.

Zuko seriously wants to die.

.

.

Eventually, things go on. 

Zuko’s “crush” doesn’t go away. If anything, it just grows and grows and grows until it becomes almost unbearable. But he still can’t say anything.

“Zuko.”

“Hmm?”

“You know,” Sokka says, looking at him with feign innocence, sitting with his hands upwards behind him in Zuko’s room, “that looks heavy, want me to hold it for you?”

Zuko frowns. He looks up from his work to give Sokka a confused look. “What is, my pen?”

Sokka gives him that little, playful smile—the one that is so incredibly hot for some reason Zuko can’t understand. His eyes gleam, even more than they do all the time.

“Nope,” he says, and his smile grows an inch, “your hand.”

Zuko blinks. Sokka flirting with him is nothing new, that’s why he manages to hold back his blush a bit and remain calm, even when he’s a bit dying inside.

He is just trapped between telling him, “god, I wish you were flirting with me for real,” and, “please stop doing it, it’s not good for my heart,” and, “If only you knew how much I really want to hold your hand”, but neither of those options are actually. Something viable.

“Are you flirting with me?” He asks instead, knowing the answer already.

Sokka would laugh, brush it off, and say something like, “ah, but you didn’t blush this time,” and let it go.

He doesn’t, though.

What he does, instead, is shrug and look at Zuko’s textbook, like he’s completely uninterested in the conversation.

Huh.

But then he speaks up again.

“Have been for the past year and a half or so, but thanks for noticing.” He answers.

Zuko blinks. He’s tempted to answer, “yeah, I know, which is a cruel, cruel thing to do, by the way, given how my heart just wants to escape out of my chest and go with you every time you do it,” or something equally playful to play it down like they always tend to do, but… for some reason, this time it feels… Real.

Maybe he should just laugh.

He doesn’t, though, and, “What?” is what comes out of his mouth.

Sokka looks up. “I said that I’ve been doing it for a year and a half or so, thank you for finally noticing.”

Zuko doesn’t understand. He’s not following the conversation at all. “Wait.”

“Ahh,” Sokka sighs, “honestly, if you didn’t notice by the end of the month, I would have felt deeply embarrassed. I was starting to think I lost my charm and I didn’t know how to flirt.”

“Well, that was a terrible pick-up line,” Zuko can’t help but retort, and like he wasn’t mildly-insulted, Sokka grins at him.

“But it worked for you, didn’t it?” He teases, leaning on Zuko’s personal space, “it made you feel something.”

Zuko frowns. “How would you know?”

Sokka stares. “Your face.”

“My face?”

“I can see it. In your face.”

Zuko covers his mouth, frowning. He can feel his own heart race.

Sokka is still way too close.

“You can…?”

“Yup.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Zuko says, blinking. “That means—are you—are you flirting with me? For real?”

Sokka quirks both eyebrows. “Yes...?”

“But you—you…”

“Zuko, I don’t know where you got the idea, but I don’t flirt with anyone aside from you—at least, I haven’t done it in a long time. So yes, I am actually flirting with you.”

Zuko feels like he just got hit in the head. “Why?”

Sokka blinks. “Because I want to?”

“But why do you want to?”

Sokka shoots him a look. “Zuko,” he says, slowly, “I like you. I thought that was obvious already.”

Zuko blinks. “You have… romantic feelings for me?”

Sokka laughs, amused. “Yeah, Zuko, I have ‘romantic feelings’ for you.”

Zuko blinks again. He’s blinking too much. “So all this time… it was real… when you said… and that time you also said… and… oh.”

Sokka smiles, softly, and ruffles Zuko’s hair. It makes him blush. His heart might also not even work at this point, if it wasn’t for the fact that he can clearly hear it thundering in his ears.

Why is Sokka so calm? Zuko’s about to pass out.

“Katara is right, I’m dumb.”

Sokka grins. “Toph thinks so, too.”

“Toph thinks everyone is dumb.”

“Fair,” Sokka answers; he’s still grinning so wide. God, Sokka is so pretty. “Though I think she only calls us dumb, not that she means it.”

“Mmm.”

He’s so unfairly distracting, too. Zuko can’t stop looking at him.

“Wait,” He says, suddenly realizing something, “so you knew that I—that I—had feelings for you, too?”

Sokka looks at his lips when he talks, and Zuko has to concentrate hard to not straight up pass out from shock and his heart racing so fast it might give him an attack. Has he done that before? He would have noticed, right? Sure, Zuko looks at Sokka’s lips a lot instead than at his eyes, but he would have noticed if Sokka did it, too.

… Right?

He’s starting to feel dizzy. Is he dreaming? Is any of this real at all?

“Noticed it a while ago, yeah. That’s why I’m not freaking out that you noticed my flirting 100 years later.”

For a moment, Zuko is able to set aside  his internal emotional turmoil and state of panic, if only to complain.

“Hey!” He frowns. “Wait—”

“You have said that a lot.”

“Wait,” Zuko repeats, just to be annoying, “if you… liked me, and knew that I liked you back, why didn’t you… make a move?”

“Like asking you out? I tried to, but you’re too oblivious.”

“Huh?” Zuko utters. What does that even mean? He’s not—well, he is, maybe, just a bit, but. “Well, if you knew that, you could have been more straightforward, you know!”

Sokka smiles, then shrugs.

“I guess we’re both dumb.”

Zuko feels his lips curling up, not able to contain all his happiness anymore, his brain catching up with the last 20 minutes of his life.

Holy shit, Sokka likes him. Sokka likes him. Him. Zuko. As in, romantically speaking.

Oh.

Oh.

“I like you, Zuko.” Sokka says, as if Zuko’s brain didn’t shut down already. He reaches out and slides his hand on the table Zuko was previously working, the tip of his fingers touching Zuko’s. “So can I finally, please hold your hand?”

Zuko might pass out for real, but before that, he finally, finally, finally takes Sokka’s hand into his own.

It feels even better than in his dreams.

He feels like burning up, like all of his body is setting itself on fire.

Sokka’s hand is warm, so warm, and soft, so soft, and makes Zuko’s heart flutter like delicate flower’s petals in the wind.

Sokka’s thumb brushes over his knuckles; Sokka’s lips turn into a bright smile, like he’s been wanting to do that since forever.

It feels like home.

.

.

When they tell their friends they’re dating, Yue is the first one to say something.

“You mean you weren’t dating before?”

“Shocking, right,” Katara deadpans, but then she smiles, genuine. “I’m happy for both of you.” 

(Although remembering that minutes later doesn’t make her any less scary, when she decides to corner him out of the bathroom and put a steady hand on his shoulder, feign-sweet smile on her face, and say with a weirdly off-calm voice that, if he ever dared to hurt Sokka on purpose, she was going to break all the 206 bones on his body.)

Toph grins brightly and kicks him enthusiastically on the side with a loud “Well-done, loser!” while Aang jumps on Zuko’s back and clings to him like a koala.

“That’s awesome, guys! Be happy!”

Zuko smiles.

“Finally, I won’t have to hear Sokka’s pinning all the time,” Suki quips, like she’s tired and utterly uninterested, but even the happiness is evident in her voice.

Sokka still complains. “Hey! I had to hear you be head-over-heels for Yue for months, too.”

“It wasn’t months for you, though.” Suki deadpans, but then her face goes all soft, “I’m kidding, So, I’m really happy for you two.”

Sokka smiles, and she gets up from where she’s cuddling Yue on the sofa to hug Sokka tightly, grinning wide, and then look at Zuko (stumbling with a happily laughing Aang on his back and Toph annoyingly ruffling his hair like a proud little sister) and whispers something in Sokka’s ear.

Zuko is glad that he’s still looking at Sokka from the corner of his eye, because he catches him blushing after that.

He’s cute.

Suki laughs. Sokka frowns, still blushing, and when he catches Zuko watching, he blushes harder.

He’s really cute.

Zuko smiles softly, and Sokka blinks, once, twice, before smiling back.

The cutest.

.

.

“Zuko.”

Zuko hums, but doesn’t look up from his work.

“Zukoooo, darling, love of my life.”

Zuko is used to it by now. To Sokka calling him pet-names like those. Of hearing Sokka say he’s cute, or hot, or smart, or witty, or pretty. It still makes his heart flutter, though. Just as Sokka’s laugh does. It still makes him blush sometimes.

(It’s funny because Sokka is the same way—or mostly the same. Zuko said he looked really hot after a baseball game once and Sokka almost died on the spot. He blushed like mad, but after he calmed down, he couldn’t stop bragging about Zuko calling him ‘hot’.

“Look at you, flirting shamelessly with me! You’re all grown up!” and, “I shouldn’t be near Zuko if I’m wearing my baseball uniform, he’ll get a boner,” and a lot of more phrases.)

“Hm?”

“You are—” Sokka sing-songs, and crosses his arms over Zuko’s textbook. He puts his chin over his forearms and looks up at Zuko’s face, grinning, and Zuko would probably be a bit annoyed that he’s not letting him finish his essay if it weren’t for the fact that he’s Sokka. His, ahem, boyfriend. 

“I am…?”

“You are,” he repeats, and his smile grows bigger. Zuko thinks about kissing him; Zuko thinks about kissing him all the time. But, to be fair, he used to dream about that, just as much as he used to dream about them holding hands. And just as if he read Zuko’s mind, Sokka reaches out and holds his right hand; gently, like all of Sokka’s touches. It feels so nice, Zuko never wants to let go. “You are pulchritudinous.”

Eh?

Zuko tries to smile, but Sokka looks at him like he’s looking at a cute baby and throws his head back, still close and still holding his hand.

“You’re adorable.”

“What…?” Zuko is sure he looks as puzzled as he feels; he once caught his reflection in the mirror while playing Scrabble with Sokka and therefore knows how he must look. For some reason, Sokka finds it extremely cute. “What does that mean?”

Sokka laughs again.

Zuko narrows his eyes into slits. Or, maybe Sokka’s just making fun of him. (Not in a bad way, of course, Zuko knows. Sokka never means any harm, but he sure as hell loves teasing Zuko all the time.)

“Are you insulting me?”

Sokka wipes tears from his eyes and looks at Zuko with such a sweet face that it kinda makes Zuko stumble, even when he’s sitting.

His heart flutters alive, his face grows warm. He wants to kiss Sokka.

Sokka does, though, pulling gently at his hand and softly pressing his lips into Zuko’s wrist. He grins up at him.

“You’re adorable.”

(Later, when he’s waiting for a toast on Uncle Iroh’s kitchen, still barefoot, decked out in his pajamas and half-asleep, he finally finds what he thinks is the correct word using the search function of his phone—after 20 lame attempts of trying and failing at remembering—and pronouncing correctly—the right word.

He clicks on the dictionary tab, reads over the meaning, stumbles over, slips and falls flat on his ass.

He almost sets his kitchen on fire for the second time.)

.

.

Zuko is bad at flirting. He knows. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t try, hard, and sometimes, sometimes, he succeeds (conscious and unconsciously).

Or maybe Sokka is just too easy to fluster (even when Sokka says it’s the other way around; even when that’s actually, probably, just a bit, true.)

Either way, Zuko basks happily in seeing Sokka get all flustered. It makes him even cuter than he already is.

(Whipped, Toph would draw out, mockingly sing-song.

And, well, maybe he is.)

.

.

Kissing Sokka is like setting himself on fire. Like burning up alive, but not in the bad sense. Not in the way he was burned as a little kid.

Kissing Sokka is like sitting near a campfire when you’re feeling cold; like standing on the edge of a cliff, feeling your chest contract; like tucking yourself in a warm blanket, with fuzzy socks and drinking your favorite drink, while hearing your favorite song. It’s like waking up on a good day, like basking in the sun at twilight, like taking a warm shower after a long day.

He feels too much, way too overwhelmed, even with just a brush of lips.

Kissing Sokka is a blessed thing.

There’s something that comes alive in his chest at the same time their lips touch. It blossoms under his ribcage, spreads over his chest, warms up all the way up to his throat. Beating, growing, marveling in every fiber of his being. Maybe that’s what love is—maybe that’s what Zuko has been searching for all this time; this connection, this overwhelming feeling, this deep, raw, unfiltered emotion, coming off him through waves of desperation for more.

He can’t be sure. But even if it wasn’t something he has looked out for, the discovery of it still feels like a sacred thing.

It’s like watching cherry blossoms falling on the street for the first time, like falling asleep on the comfortable side of your bed after a tiring day, it’s coming back home—or to what home should feel like.

It’s something delicate, at first. Zuko doesn’t have any experience, so he just lets himself feel as Sokka presses his lips softly into his own, carding his long fingers into Zuko’s hair.

Zuko feels an electric chill run down his spine, where Sokka’s fingertips—from the hand that’s not on his hair—make a slow path down. He can feel them burning, even through his clothes, even when Sokka’s hand is not that warm.

But it feels like that.

Zuko breathes shakily, moves his lips experimentally, feeling Sokka’s smile against his mouth.

He wants to do something, so he leans in, feeling Sokka’s eyelashes tickling his cheekbones, feeling Sokka’s thumb under his jaw, angling his head in a better position, feeling himself become aflame. He wants to touch Sokka. He really wants to touch Sokka.

So he does.

He uses one hand to gently touch Sokka’s wrist—the one Sokka’s using to keep Zuko’s head up—and, carefully, tentatively, he wraps his fingers around it, caresses the skin like he wants to print a topographic map of it into his mind.

Sokka makes a low, appreciative sound, and Zuko feels so happy it should be embarrassing.

Sokka has his hair down, and Zuko wants to touch it so much because he loves Sokka’s hair. Sokka’s hair is so pretty—Sokka is so pretty—so he goes for it. He brushes his fingers on Sokka’s shoulder, touches the strands of brown hair that lie there, moves his fingers to the nape of his neck. Zuko does this slowly, he wants to feel everything and he’s not going to rush, not after how long he’s wanted this.

He cradles his head with his hand, touches and touches and touches. He pulls at his hair, lightly, and his hand goes down just a bit; the skin of Sokka’s neck under his fingertips is warm, and so soft. He can feel the gentle echo of his heartbeat thundering in the tender curve of his jaw.

Just then, Sokka’s thumb brushes on his bare clavicle, and Zuko hisses, feeling like he’s on fire. Feeling like he’s become burning embers.

It’s just—too much, and at the same time, not enough—he wants more.

He has always been sensitive, but it’s different now. It’s like all his senses are turned on—he’s hyper-aware of everything around him—of Sokka’s hands, of Sokka’s steady, fast heartbeat under his open palm, of Sokka’s smell, of Sokka’s warm mouth, of Sokka’s soft skin, of the way Sokka keeps mumbling his name, softly against his lips or when he breaks apart to breath. He touches Sokka’s face, Sokka’s arms, Sokka’s neck; breathes his name into his own mouth, makes sure Sokka knows how much he wants this, how much he’s dreamed of this: of kissing him, of him kissing him back.

It feels too good to be even real—just as Sokka always makes him feel, even when they’re not kissing.

He might as well die there.

It wouldn’t be a bad way to go, though.

Linked, bare soul to bare soul, with the prettiest, smartest, kindest boy he’s ever met.

.

.

There’s something so tragically painful about falling in love, they say. But as he sees Sokka laughing in front of him because of some ridiculous joke Toph made, holding Zuko’s hand like it’s the most precious thing in the world, he can’t help but think that falling in love is anything but painful.

Sokka turns around, catches him staring and grins, playfully wiggling his eyebrows.

Zuko smiles, thinking just how much he loves Sokka, how much he loves his life, how much he loves his uncle, how much he loves his friends, how much he loves being alive, being there, curled up with Sokka on his couch, watching a stupid rom-com movie on Sokka’s cell-phone screen, sharing earphones with his boyfriend. Being there, in the house that he shares with his uncle—his real dad—in the house that he has come to call home. Being there, feeling safe in Sokka’s arms, with Toph hearing music on the TV, while Aang and Katara and Suki and Yue sleep, sprawled there and there all over his living-room.

“I love you,” Zuko tells Sokka, like he just revealed the biggest secret of the universe.

Love.

He feels the word on his tongue, and it tastes sweet. It tastes like the color of Sokka’s eyes, like the tone of Sokka’s laugh, like all of Sokka’s smiles—the gentle one, the soft one, the playful and flirty one, the wide one—all of them. Love tastes like Sokka holding his hand while they go for a walk, like Sokka’s voice when he talks about what he likes, like Sokka’s proud eyes after scoring a run, after Zuko shows him his grades. It tastes like a lot of things he can’t name, like the way Sokka says his name, like the way Sokka makes him feel, like that little mole under Sokka’s jaw, like the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles with the setting sun of the beach, like the way his fingertips feel against Zuko’s neck. Like the way he looks at Zuko like he’s not broken, like he’s the best thing that ever existed, like his scar is beautiful and all of Zuko’s failures don’t matter to him because he’s him, and that is enough. Like Zuko is more than enough, and how he loves that he’s more than enough to Zuko, too.  

“I love you,” Zuko says again, in a low voice, and it feels real. It has meaning. It’s not an empty word at all.

For some reason, he feels like tearing up a bit.

Sokka’s face mellows, softens; he brushes his thumb under Zuko’s left eye, just at the edge of his scar, and his eyes become impossibly warm. Zuko wants to kiss all of his face; he wants to taste all of Sokka’s softness on his own lips.

There, in the quiet of Zuko’s living-room, Sokka smiles, and Zuko thinks he’s the most bewitching, stunning, ineffably beautiful being.

It feels like something ethereal. Sokka smiles and Zuko feels blessed to exist.

“I love you, too,” Sokka answers, like he’s sharing one of the secrets of the universe, too, like he’s never told anyone anything more true, and ever so gentle.

Zuko smiles and kisses him.

Falling in love is a blessed thing.

[adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy]

just saw a Christmas card at the shops that said: “I want to be the reason Santa puts you on the naughty list” and am I wrong in imagining demon!Harry giving that card to angel!y/n?

“I got you something.”

The sound of a grocery bag thudding hollowly against the marble countertop of the kitchen pulls Y/N’s attention away from the kettle heating up milk on the stove. 

She’s in the middle of making hot chocolate for the second time today; she’d acquired quite the taste for it as the holidays draw closer. Her new craving is actually one of the reasons Harry had gone to the store today— she had run out of marshmallows to top her favorite seasonal drink. 

He didn’t mind going, especially when Y/N had come to him while he was watching a supernatural documentary on the couch, approaching him in such a timid, guilty manner while holding the empty plastic bag to her chest and giving him a small sheepish smile. “We ran out of marshmallows.”

Harry had glanced down at the sullen, deflated bag and then back up at Y/N, lips twitching with endeared entertainment. “I think you mean you ran out of marshmallows ‘cause I’ve barely touched the stash.” 

She had given him a pointed scowl, though she knew he was right. The amount of hot chocolate she’d been indulging lately was getting to be borderline embarrassing. “Will you just pick up more, please?”

Harry had beckoned her forward with his forefinger, patting the armrest of the sofa as a symbol for her to sit. As soon as she’d settled into the spot, he’d wrapped his arms around her tummy and yanked her down into his lap in a flurry of clear plastic and wild hair. She laid with her back against his thighs and her legs hooked over the side of the sofa, laughing breathlessly due to the random whirlwind. He’d placed a gentle kiss between her eyebrows, breathing in the sweet scent of her chamomile and mandarin shampoo. “Why don’t you just put it on your Christmas list to Santa?” 

“I think my drink will be cold by then.” She had quipped back, tilting her head with a deadpan tone, giving him an amused scoff. 

He jutted out his bottom lip into an exaggerated pout. “Tough luck then, huh?”

Leave it to Harry to be a little shit over the slightest things.

“Pleaseeeeee?” 

Harry had pursed his lips, head falling backwards against the backrest, humming thoughtfully in the back of his throat as if mulling over the request. 

Y/N had reached up and grabbed him by his t-shirt collar, pulling his head forward once again and down to her level, kissing the faint curve of one of his dimples. In return, it had pinched deeper into his cheek, his mouth jolting into a soft smirk. 

“Pretty please?”

“How can I say no when you ask so nicely?” 

He had to restock some toiletries anyways. 

Harry had treaded through the superstore leisurely, wandering through the aisles aimlessly and taking his time in choosing what shaving cream to get and searching for a new deodorant scent. 

He’d swung by the market section, picking up two packs of mini marshmallows instead of one, knowing Y/N would be extra grateful. He’d thrown in a bag of Texas style sliced bread for his famous French toast, along with a twelve pack of ginger ale and some white cheddar puffs to snack on later while watching Chopped. 

He never thought he’d ever be doing something as domestic and mundane as going to the store solely for the purpose of buying his girlfriend marshmallows— he never thought he’d have another girlfriend in general. It just hadn’t seemed in the cards for him at the time and the way Y/N just crashed into his life and completely stripped him of the brooding, deflective, unattached shell he’d built over himself for centuries was astonishing. And if he’s being honest, it was almost disgusting how soft he’d gotten since, considering his romantic side hadn’t flared up in decades. 

Harry had grown fond of it, though. The wholesomeness of simple tasks like this sat at the pit of his stomach in the form of a warm glow, putting an extra jump in his heels and a goofy, lovesick grin across the edges of his lips, exactly like the ones in those stupid romance movies he used to take the piss out of.  

The old lady hobbling down the bread aisle probably thought he was fucking mad— no sane person just smiles at the smudged concrete ground in the middle of a supermarket for no apparent reason. 

As he’d made his way towards the self check-out kiosks, the most obnoxiously sappy idea yet struck him like a punch to the gut, slamming the breaks on his steps. 

The greeting card corridor. 

He found the perfect one barely five feet into the aisle. It had a pastel green background that was strewn with laminated glitter. Off to the left of the card was the art: a set of bright red lace lingerie, crumpled as if it were sitting on the floor with a Santa hat strewn carelessly next to it, insinuating that whoever had donned the attire had gotten it off in a hastily manner. The doodle of the clothing had actual lace fabric overlaid on top of the drawing and the hat even had a miniature fuzzy poof ball at the end. The words were shifted more towards the right of the cover, scrawled right beside the image in big, loopy white cursive: I want to be the reason Santa puts you on the naughty list.

The font for naughty list was different— instead of the pretty, festive letters, it looks as if it were written on the surface with red lipstick that had been smeared down the bottom of the card, a small kiss print decorating the space beside the phrase, acting as punctuation. 

It was golden and it gave Harry a palpable reason to wear that stupid grin on his face. 

He’d jetted home, excitement sizzling his fingertips and causing them to tighten against the leather of his steering wheel. 

The steps up to the condo were taken two at a time, the elevator much too slow for his taste and he’d learned not to just flash in and out of public spaces anymore because it could result in a ruckus amongst the humans, which is publicity Lucifer really didn’t want to deal with.  

That brings him to where he is now, plopping the bags off his wrists onto the marble kitchen counter, startling a robe-clad Y/N from her spot before the stovetop. 

“I got you something.” 

His girlfriend drifts over to the kitchen island, leaning forward on her tiptoes to bend over the edge of the surface, taking a curious peek into the grocery bags. Her voice comes out soft and childishly hopeful. “Marshmallows?” 

Harry can’t resist the bubbly chuckle that her adorably excited aura draws. “Yeah, I got the marshmallows, don’t worry. But I also got you something else…and you should be grateful for it considering you’re a thief.”

He reaches forward and gently takes the collar of her lavender Sherpa robe between his index and middle finger— which is actually his lavender Sherpa robe that he treasures very fucking much— and gives it a signifying tug. 

Y/N tilts her chin down to get a glimpse of what he’s going on about and then bashful recognition washes down her face in the form of pursed lips and a blithe glint in her eyes. “Sorry, mine’s in the wash.” 

Harry begins rummaging through the groceries, moving his sensitive skin shaving cream and Old Spice deodorant out of the way with the back of his hands, retrieving the two bags of marshmallows and sliding them across the counter. 

He suddenly kinks a single eyebrow up, her comment plucking a memory string in the back of his mind. “Was it the one you were wearing two nights ago?” 

He can see her bite into the inside of her cheek, a soft blue glow just barely illuminating the ring around her irises as she nods her head wordlessly, gaze darting down to the treats to keep them from going into full headlights mode. 

Harry leans forward onto the marble stretch, balancing on his elbows, chin propped on the palm of his left hand as the other slowly fishes the greeting card out, toying the pad of his thumb at one of the corners. He’s too amused to interrupt her fidgeting by giving it to her so he’ll hold out for a bit. 

His voice comes out low and teasing through a cocky simper, eyes hooded arrogantly. “Was it the one you were wearing when you jerked me off on the couch?”

It’s like he can flip her on like a switch, a milky white light casting across the high points of her cheeks, originating from her irises. She blinks rapidly, willing it to simmer down, glaring up at him from under her lashes with sharp annoyance. 

Harry taps at his upper lip with the pads of his digits, Cupid’s Bow curling as his grin widens, the back of his throat resonating with a hummed chortle. The pearl necklace he’d recently bought sits atop his collarbones delicately, gleaming mockingly under the bright lights of the kitchen, rising and falling with his deep, easy breaths. He worries the right corner of his mouth with his top teeth, jaw clenching to keep in a full-bellied laugh. His lashes slowly dust the crests of his cheekbones with a seductive energy, a faint moan running along the undercurrent of his words, giving his voice a sultry twang. 

“Was it the one you were wearing when you undid the tie of my flannel pants, pushed them down my hips just enough to get my cock out, and then proceeded to tug me off while kissing up my throat, whispering on about how much you love it when I moan your name?” 

Y/N swallows thickly and she’d failed to notice that she was gripping the bag of marshmallows to her stomach, thankful that she was opposite to him over the counter or else he’d get a view of her slightly buckling knees. 

She abruptly tries to defuse the atmosphere of the room by clearing her throat loudly and switching topics. “Thanks for going to get these for—”

Harry isn’t having it, interrupting halfway through her attempt.

“Was it the one you were wearing when you were swallowing down the little whimpers escaping my mouth and begging me to cum for you? The one I got jizz all over when you tucked my hair behind my ear, pressed your warm lips to it and mumbled, ‘Want it so bad, Harry, please. I love how pretty you look when I make you feel good.’”

A loud popping sound punctures the tension toiling in the air, a shocked yelp accompanying the sound on behalf of Y/N. 

Their intense stare-down breaks to zero in on where the noise had stemmed— the bag pressed against Y/N’s navel. She had gripped it so tight it had burst open, spewing a few marshmallows across the coffee- and caramel-colored marbled counter. 

The blank look of remorsed surprise on Y/N’s features is what finally forces Harry to release the rib-splitting laugh he had been pushing down. 

Her head snaps up at him, eyes narrowing because this was his fault, after all. 

He covers the lower half of his face with his hand to try and stifle the giggles, but to no avail. They continue to wriggle free between the cracks of his fingers. 

Y/N sets down the bag carefully, making sure it’s positioned accordingly so nothing else rolls out. She mutters a colorful array of words under her breath as she collects the rouge marshmallows and Harry’s positive her choice of language would put her on parole in Heaven. 

He lifts his chin from his palm and reaches forward, plucking one between his thumb and forefinger and popping it into his mouth, chewing dramatically to flex his jaw because he can see her taking quick peeks up at him as she cleans. “That was the robe you were talking about, though, right?” 

She doesn’t look up, simply focusing on the task at hand, but her response carries the daggers her eyes would otherwise deliver. “Fuck off.” 

Harry decides that this moment is as good as any to give her the card, mostly because he knows it’ll either push her buttons in deeper or make her drop the grump act. 

He slides it across the smooth plain of the island into her line of sight. “Picked this up ‘cause it reminded me of you.”

Y/N squints at the card, taking in the message along with the risqué art. Her lips press into a thin line, her actions pausing as she hovers a marshmallow in her grasp above the little pile she’s made in her other hand. She blinks at the paper once, then again, and then her top lip twitches. He can immediately tell she’s trying to keep from smiling.

He feels his dimples whittle into place, a giddy burst of energy expanding in his chest now that he knows she liked it. He figured she would, but seeing it confirmed is much more fulfilling than he imagined. 

“It’s no knife to the chest like Romeo and Juliet but I’d say it’s a lovely sentiment. Plus, I’m not really looking to die again. Not a fan.”

His comment is the last piece of the puzzle that sends her into a wave of fond laughter. “God, you’re an idiot.” 

Harry returns her giggling with some of his boyish own, watching with pride as she places the stash of marshmallows back in the bag and then drags her fingers over the lace material glued onto the lingerie drawing, admiring it. 

“It’s called modern romance, darling. Get with the times, it’s not three thousand BC anymore.” 

The easy banter in his attitude causes her smile to grow a bit bigger; it’s easy to match. 

“Such a nice message. We should frame it, honestly. Show off how much of a hopeless loverboy you are.” 

Harry nods his head vigorously, rounding the corner of the counter until he’s standing in front of her, his fingers walking across the stone surface and she snorts at his silliness. His digits hike over the top of her’s, dropping flat to sift between them, feeling the light scratch of the perforated fabric as well as the sleekness of the laminated paper beneath it. 

His eyes flit up from where their hands conjoin, brows shrugging temptingly. “I think we should listen to the card first, though. We can put it up after we go through with its suggestion.” 

“Mm, I dunno…” Y/N squeezes his fingers sarcastically. “My hot chocolate’s about to be done and it’s been waiting much longer than you have.” 

Harry’s jaw drops in an open-mouthed smirk, a sound of airy delight tickling his tongue at the crudeness of her vague joke. “Did…Did you just willingly make a blowie joke?”

Y/N scrunches her brows with fake confusion, cocking her head to the side slightly as if she doesn’t have a single clue at what he’s talking about. “I don’t know, did I?”

Harry snakes his free arm around her hips, flushing their bellies together as he fully coils his fingers around the hand he’d been playing with. “Oh, I think you did.” 

He ducks down for a kiss, lips puckered and itching to caress her skin with his, only to be met with his girlfriend’s temple. She had turned away, biting along the inside of her bottom lip to maintain a cap on the little noises of glee threatening to overflow.

Harry sighs grandly, maneuvering his head to chase after her mouth, aiming for the jerking corner closest to him. She leans back a bit and swiftly jars her head to face the other side, condemning his target to be her left cheekbone instead. 

He groans in mild frustration, shifting their bodies until she ends up pushed against the edge of the counter, the dip of spine bending back over the table. Her hands find their way to his shoulders, coasting up to rest her palms at both of the curves of his neck. She thumbs over the hollow at the center of his throat, eyes flirting with his in a taunting manner. “Doesn’t taste so good when it’s your own medicine, does it?”

“You’ve taken up being the pest in the relationship then, have you?” The hand tangled with her’s goes slack, finding itself cradling her jaw, thumb tapping at the center of her bottom lip ominously. 

Y/N’s painfully aware of the way his forearm is flexing against the lower half of her back and she recognizes it’s in anticipation to lift her off her feet. Her toes curl in her pink socks and she goes a tad cross-eyed as his face draws closer. “No, that’s your job. I just thought I’d get on your nerves.”

“Why?”

“Just because.” 

“That’s a bit bratty, don’t y’think?” The tip of his cold nose feathers along the bridge of her’s. 

She draws her chin back, trying to keep their lips from meeting. “Maybe.”

Harry thrums thoughtfully deep in his chest and she can feel the vibrations transfer across her body, prickling along her cheeks and to the tips of her ears. “Well, you know what I do to brats, don’t you?”

Y/N is suddenly hoisted up off her footing and though she knew it was coming, she still reacts to it out of habit, arms fumbling messily around Harry’s shoulders to keep her from teetering. 

It had been the result he was hoping for because now she’s so close their Cupid’s Bows are knocking and he keeps her suspended for a second— a measly task courtesy of his inhuman strength. Her thighs clench around his hips, feet dangling behind him as she works to keep from slipping down, well aware that her socks would likely betray her to the smooth flooring and deposit her on her bum. 

The warm air of Harry’s low mumble makes the entire lower half of her face sting. 

“Brats get it fucked out of them.” 

Just then, at this energy-packed stand-still moment, the kettle goes off. 

Y/N has never been more thankful. 

She squirms in Harry’s arms and he doesn’t have a choice but to let her down, eyeing her with a condescendingly entertained gaze as she scrambles towards the stove to remove the shrieking kettle from its place. 

He can’t help himself.

He extends his arm forward, swatting at her ass before she’s gotten far enough that he can’t reach her. 

Y/N’s shriek is the same pitch as the kettle’s. 

She gives him the stink eye over her shoulder as he retakes his previous position on the counter with his elbows, chin in hand, the edges of a shit-eating grin peeking through as he bites into the side of his index finger. “I want some, too.”

She rubs her backside slowly as she shifts the kettle from the heated stovetop to a cool one, opening up the cupboard and bringing out two black mugs. She carefully pours the warm milk into each one, mixing in a few tablespoons of powdered cocoa along with some sugar. 

Y/N carries both over to the kitchen island, decorating the top of the mugs with a handful of marshmallows that begin to melt immediately. She pushes Harry’s towards him as she takes a sip of her own, still somewhat seething at him over the rim of her cup. 

Harry’s focuses in on the beverage, a mischievous glint flashing his eyes pitch black as he mumbles a spell underneath his breath. “Incendo.”

The powdery white candy suddenly catches alight, the royal blue fire lapping along the circumference of the mug and charring the contents inside.

Y/N chokes on her cocoa, spluttering into a round of panicked coughing; she hadn’t expected to see their kitchenware burst into flames anytime soon.

Harry’s eyes flit back to their usual juniper green, another enchantment tinging the air. “Exstinguo.” 

The fire goes out as quickly as it had ignited, leaving a very disheveled Y/N blinking dissociatively in its wake. Her sights then pin onto her boyfriend, irritation pinching her eyebrows together. “Was that really necessary?”

Harry shrugs nonchalantly, completely unbothered. “I like the smokey taste it leaves. Reminds me of s’mores.”

He brings the drink up to his mouth, blowing gently before tipping it back, feeling a soothing warmth wash down his neck and chest as it travels down his throat, the sweet, rich taste tingling his taste buds. An airy, appreciative purr rings from his chest. “S’good. Could use some bourbon, though.”

Y/N sets down her mug on the counter, still somewhat miffed, mostly because she knows he only did it to mess with her (probably as revenge for earlier). Both of her hands tighten around the ceramic surface, leeching its warmth into her body to help stifle the cold shot of adrenaline that had shot through her veins. She licks the marshmallow residue off her upper lip, tone passive. “Maybe a little warning next time? Would like a heads up before you try and melt one of our bowls.” 

“That takes all the fun away! It was supposed to be spontaneous.” Harry pauses, catching onto his unintended pun and grinning like an idiot. “Literally.” 

[deathfrisbeeinthetardis]

'things you said when you were sick' ryan going: 'you were so weird! like you kept talking about how cold i was and-' shane quipping back: 'cuz i had a fever and your heart is made out of ice'

This was sent to me waaay back in the beginning of March, and now you’re getting a long-ish drabble in time for Shyan week day 6, prompt domesticity :D

To think this was even before 3AM anon came around and people started sending me so many prompts in my mail, ah wild.

if I’m telling the truth

It’s not that Ryan wants Shane to be sick, but it really does not hurt to have an excuse to take care of the big guy once in a while. 

Shane grunts from beside him, grimacing when he tries to sit up from where he lay on the couch.   

“Woah there.” Ryan reaches out to pull him up, “You want some more tea?“ 

“Yeah, that’d be great.” Shane’s voice is scratchy. He rubs a hand down his face, tucking his legs close under the fleece blanket, making an appreciative noise in his throat when Ryan hands him the steaming mug. 

“Ugh, remind me not to get sick again.”

“Oh I did plenty of that.” Ryan smirks, because he really, really did. “‘Shane don’t run in the rain’ I said, ‘you’ll get sick’. Then 20 minutes later the suspect was discovered with a severe case of cold.” Ryan pitches his voice down into his theory voice, and he can’t help the giggle when Shane scrunches up his nose at it. 

As much as he’s glorying in Shane’s misery, it is a nice memory, Shane’s wide-eyed grin as the rain rapidly plastered his hair onto his forehead, long limbs twirling in the downpour, drops painting across the joy that had been in the other man’s gaze, warming Ryan under his umbrella. 

Ryan thinks he’ll store it away, in a deep-down place. 

“You’d think you’ve never seen rain in your life, you were so excited.”

“That’s because LA is a desert that rains never, Ryan, I need my comfort rain-running.”

“Well, you get rid of the fever first, then tell me about your freaky love for rain and how us Californians are soft lilies.”

“You are.” Shane mutters, shifting to brush a kiss into the back of Ryan’s hand when Ryan reaches to feel Shane’s forehead. “Oops, sorry, go, go wash your hands!” Shane calls, nudging at Ryan insistently until he got up, leaving Shane chuckling to himself nestled under the blanket.

After his last dose of medicine Ryan fusses Shane to bed, almost cooing when the taller man curls up under the comforter. Ryan is the one that usually needs comfort, hollow from overexposure on shoots or tossing and turning for days when he gets sick, so it’s kind of nice that he gets to mother his boyfriend a little now. 

He climbs on the bed and tucks the blanket tighter around the two of them, settling down to face Shane. 

“You wake me up if you need anything in the night?”

“Sir yes sir.” Shane salutes him, it’s crooked and there’s way too big of a grin on Shane’s face, it’s so hard to not lean in. That’s what this whole ordeal has robbed him of, Ryan thinks glumly, the careful small touches and caresses that they had always taken for granted. He’s so going to double down once Shane gets better.  

Shane’s looking at him through his down tilted eyes, already sleepy, “You’re a gorgeous pizza.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Ryan murmurs, giving the other man a peck on the nose, but his curiosity nudges him on, “You got any specific kind in mind?”

Shane hums, tucking himself against Ryan’s side through the blanket he’d wrapped around himself, “Definitely deep dish.”

“Oh yeah?” Ryan’s heart skips a beat, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He’s kind of fishing for compliments now, but it doesn’t really matter when he gets to curl up with Shane at his side, “Because that’s your favorite?”

“Cause it’s like home.”

Ryan stares, his breath caught in his throat, because he can’t bring himself to do anything else. Shane says it so easily, voice thick from the fever and sleep. Time stays still around him, the tenor of Shane’s words hanging in the air for seconds, minutes, hours even, Ryan’s not sure. 

The next time he focuses on Shane’s face, the other man’s eyes are already closed, breaths evening out as he drifted away, the huffs of air tinged with barely-there snores. 

Shane looks so young like this, the lines of his face smoothed out in sleep and hair still soft from the shower. Ryan looks at him, then looks some more. He’d never get tired of looking, even before Ryan caved and confessed his heart out, their lives were already tied so close together that Ryan hadn’t been exaggerating when he said Shane’s the person he sees the most for the last four years.

Even Obi likes him now, and that should be a pretty big accomplishment in anyone’s book. 

He knows things could change, how the rapid flow of the devouring internet and humanity itself could rush in and tear everything apart any second. And Ryan’s really not the praying type, but for god’s sake, he hopes they could stay like this through it all. 

He searches Shane’s face, and he’s almost glad that he’s already too far gone.

“I love you.” Ryan whispers, testing the words on his tongue, just to see how they feel. He’s been avoiding them on purpose, Ryan thinks, guilt clenching in his gut. But it’s difficult to face them when the words still hurt, spikes of broken hearts sharp and piercing to the touch. Words that were broken with halfhearted goodbyes and see-yous that should have lasted forever. 

But it feels right here, now. It fits right into the dynamic of the two of them, Ryan and Shane, together.

Ryan thinks he could say it again. 

His eyes prickle, and he smiles in the darkness, pressing a hand against his mouth to muffle the sob that’s trying to form.

“Love you Ry.” Shane murmurs. 

It’s a wonder Ryan managed to fall asleep, but Shane and Obi’s purring combined is a force to be reckoned with. 

He wakes with a fuzzy weight on his chest, and a cursory stretch reveals the kitten had somehow deemed him worthy of a pillow at some point in the night, Obi’s little soft face tucked against Ryan’s chest, his whiskers tickling bare skin. It’s another bright sunny weekend in LA, and as far as Ryan’s concerned it can stay that way forever. 

“Mornin’.” He murmurs, reaching down to scratch behind the little hellion’s ears. 

Obi shoots him a dirty look but accepts the touch, then he pads over to nestle right into the curve of Shane’s neck. The other man wakes in a half start. 

“Wha-” Shane sputters, fluttering hands coming up to investigate the warm scarf that Obi has become, “oh, it’s you.”

“Hey sleepyhead, feeling better?”

“Yeah,” Shane sounds strained, trying to speak without jostling the kitten too much, the animal’s purrs sounding in time with Shane’s voice. “Movement’s out of the question for a bit though.”

“He was sleeping on me all night, you’re on nursing duty now.” Ryan gives Shanes ribs a light poke, delighting in the pained way he tries to shift without actually moving.

“We’ve got a homicide going on here officer, you’re not going to investigate that?” Shane does a rapid-fire series of blinks, maybe there’s also a wink in there, but Ryan really can’t tell, he really hopes Shane isn’t having a stroke. 

Obi’s tail flicks and curls around to rest across Shane’s nose, and the man lets out a strangled sound. 

“That depends,” Ryan grins, tapping his chin, “It just so happens I might suddenly not see anything, you know, cats are such gentle animals.”

“Oh, you’re evil.” 

“I’m not the one that put that characteristic in my sims character,” Ryan reminds him, laughing, “Come on, you think your throat can take waffles?” Shane’s eyes light up. 

“Oh yes please, they are the superior batter food after all.”

“Why you gotta keep shitting on pancakes?”

“Cause it’s fun to see you get all puffy about it.” Now that’s definitely a wink. How the fuck does he have the energy to do all this when he was burning up with a fever just yesterday? Evolution is so not fair. 

“You,” He flounders, “your mom gets puffy. You’re just a sore loser” Ryan huffs, and has to take a leaping jump off the bed when Shane reaches out a hand to swat at him.

“Oh I’m not the one that should be worried about that getting sore.” Shane raises an eyebrow and his eyes go dark. Ryan shivers. 

“Promises promises.”

Shane flails again, but Ryan’s too quick for him, already jumping back with a giggle. And Shane just lays there with an arm and half his torso dangling off the bed, a little ball of orange fur draped across his throat purring like an engine. 

He blinks up at Ryan with that shit-eating grin on his face, and Ryan falls for him a little bit more. 

Ryan busies himself around the kitchen, sliding a cup of tea onto the counter when Shane ambles into the room, rubbing at his eyes. Obi pads over to the corner and starts on his breakfast. 

“You were pretty out of it last night.” Ryan leans back against the sink, sipping at his coffee. 

“I say anything stupid when I was high on cold medicine?”

There’s a twinge in his chest, “Oh I dunno, what counts as stupid?”

“Hmm, a lotta things.” Shane’s palms are wrapped tight around the mug, and it must burn, but his hands clench around it like they need something to hold onto. He meets Ryan’s eyes, “But nothing I regret.”

There’s a slight ringing in his ears. Ryan swallows, pushing down the thoughts that erupt at the words. He cracks a smile, “You sure that’s not because you don’t remember what you’re supposed to regret?”

“Pretty sure.” Shane grins back, but his gaze turns serious again, settling on Ryan with a steady weight. “You said things too.”

Ryan’s breathing is coming short. He wonders idly if there’s a tea that can fix that. Shane can probably find one. “I did.” He hedges. 

“Anything you regret?” Shane’s fingertips are white against the navy blue mug, and there’s a vulnerability in his face that Ryan wants to kiss away.  

It may be a lazy number nine their kitchen clock’s pointing at, but it’s still too early to have this sort of conversation.

But it would eventually come to this point, Ryan thinks. No matter what they can and may do or say in the dark of night under the haze of sleep and liquor, no matter how passionate or desperate or all-encompassing it gets, it will always come down to this, the reckoning in the sobering light of morning. 

And maybe it’s better this way, when the harsh sunlight throws no more shadows to hide, leaving truths bare in trembling hands. 

“Never.” Ryan breathes with what’s left of the air in his lungs, and watches the tension in Shane’s shoulders melt away. 

“Oh thank god.“ 

Shane is even less of the praying type, but the hushed words scrape closer to divine gratitude than Ryan’s ever heard.

Then Shane’s pulling him close between the counters, enveloping him in a hug that shakes slightly with the effort. “Thank God,” Shane says again, breaths hitching against Ryan’s chest. 

Ryan returns the pressure, rubbing small circles between Shane’s shoulders and murmuring I’ve got yous and I knows into his shoulder. 

“Oh look at me, crying on a Saturday morning.” Shane sniffles, pulling back and wiping at his eyes. The sun catches the wet patches trailing down his cheeks and Ryan is dazzled by the light. He brushes at the tears with a hand at the other man’s face.

“I love you, Shane Madej.” He says, loud and clear into the whole damn universe. It sounds nice, and makes Shane’s face light up in the prettiest way. Ryan’s never going to get tired of saying it. “I love you.” He repeats.

Slowly, Shane cups Ryan’s hand with his own, turning his head to brush a kiss to Ryan’s palm. It’s stupidly tender, stuff Ryan’s seen in every romantic movie, and Shane makes it even softer.

 “I love you too.”

Shane’s eyes do the crinkly thing at the corners, and Ryan just wants to kiss this insanely kind and caring of an idiot he’s fallen so completely for. So he does. 

“Wanna hear what other stupid things you said last night?” Ryan teases, breathless when they break apart, and Shane wheezes out a laugh. 

“Yeah? Let’s list my crimes.”

“You were super paranoid about me getting sick,” Ryan says, catching the corner of Shane’s t-shirt and tugging slightly, “You kept talking about how cold I was in your sleep and-”

“That’s cause I had a fever and your heart is made out of ice.”

“Is that why you like me!” Ryan grins, pointing an accusing finger, “I called it you yeti!”

And Ryan relishes in the fact that Shane doesn’t have a comeback to that, because Shane leans in again, and Ryan thinks as their lips meet, that he’ll even be generous enough to not hold it against him. 

Yeah. He definitely won’t.