#made of glass chapter fifteen

[next-autopsy]

A/N: Well, hi there! Tipsy Birdie gets kinda philosophical, ponders life and such. I had so much fun writing this chapter so I hope y’all like it!

Lmk what you think x

Based on the actors portrayal/hbo show and written with no disrespect to the real life veterans. Also all images found on Pinterest.

TW: slight drunk behaviour, smoking..... i think thats it?

Tags: @malarkgirlypop, @panzershrike-pretz

Made of Glass

Chapter fifteen: Scorpion   

Stepping outside into the night air made goosebumps appear on Birdie’s skin. She quickly pulled her jacket onto her shoulders but didn’t push her arms into the sleeves, letting it hang down her back instead.  

As she began to walk, the woman checked her pockets but quickly realised she must’ve forgotten her pack of smokes behind. A vague memory of her handing over the cartoon to Toye and not getting them back played in her mind.   

She wondered if she should go back inside and wrestle them off her best friend, but he’d probably smoked them all already. She seriously doubted Toye would have saved even one cigarette so going back would be pointless. Besides, the fresh air was helping sober her up and she felt better for it.   

An idea tingled in the back of her mind, it felt like she was forgetting something, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure it out. Birdie shrugged off the niggling thought and stepped in the direction of her barracks. She was barely out of view of the celebration when she heard a voice.   

A voice that spoke to her. “Coldwell.”   

A voice that she was hoping not to hear tonight but had been plaguing her thoughts for weeks.  

The last time she had really talked to Joseph Liebgott had been one of the most uncomfortable nights of her life and she had done some pretty embarrassing things in her teen years, so that says a lot.   

“Lieb-” Her attempt at addressing him was thwarted by her own body, she had twisted around to look at him and her ankles gave way. Her body dipped forward and collided with the dirt ground beneath her.  

 ‘Smooth.’ She told herself. She just laid there, face down and hoped he would go away but her dreams were smashed when his shiny boots came into view. Birdie’s head panned upward; Liebgott was smirking at her. Of course, he was.   

“Have a good trip?”

God, she wanted to smack him, that stupid smirk he always had plastered on was particularly annoying tonight. Maybe it was the alcohol, but she began imagining ways to maim the man standing over her.  

“Geez, you hit your head or something?” Liebgott spoke up again and it was then that Birdie saw that extended hand, offered to her for who knows how long. She scoffed and slapped it away, pushing herself up and standing on her own.   

Which was a mistake as the sudden height change made her dizzy and she swayed on the spot, her arms instinctively flew out to balance herself and Joe grabbed onto her flailing limbs.   

“Woah-” The man had begun but Bernadette, filled with liquid courage interrupted him, “What do you want?” She rolled her eyes and tugged her arms away from him as if he had just insulted her mother and spit at her feet.

Joseph seemed to register her standoffish attitude and took a step back, hands raised in mock surrender.  

“I just thought you might want a smoke, that’s all.” Had he been watching her? Or reading her thoughts? Could he do that? Suddenly Birdie felt self-conscious, and her mind overflowed with every embarrassing thing she’d ever done which, in turn, caused her cheeks to flush and her vision dropped to the floor.  

“So.... did you want one?” He held out his pack for her. She was acting weird, and he couldn’t help but remember their last evening like this. He had walked around, taking the longer route back to his barracks that night so he could calm his rapid heartbeat and allow the pink tint to fade off his cheeks. He told himself it was because of the awkward energy between them, nothing more. Although, since that night he caught himself glancing over at her every time her face popped into his mind (which lately was an abnormal amount).  

He watched as Bernadette plucked a cigarette from him and placed it between her lips. She leaned closer to him, waiting for him to pull out his lighter and flick it on. He did just that, eyes fixated on her the entire time. The orange glow of the flame illuminated her face, showing him every tiny detail up close.   

“Thanks.” She told him, pulling away and breaking his trance. Bernadette hadn't noticed his intense gaze, instead her focus was on the night sky above them. She wanted to count every shining star and burn it into her memory. She took a minute to admire the night sky while she finished off the cigarette.

“You find anything up there?”  

“Mhm...” Birdie hummed dreamily, stargazing was always her favourite pastime, “Orion's belt... it’s my favourite constellation.” Her father would take her and her siblings out into the night, sometimes to check on their horses, sometimes just for fun but every time without fail he would point out a new star or cluster and tell them stories about the twinkling pictures high above them.  

“Where?” Joe asked her, surprising the woman. Birdie looked at him for a moment to gauge whether he was making fun of her. His eyes were searching upwards as if the belt would have an arrow pointing straight at it that he somehow missed. She deemed him sincere enough and pointed to the three stars that lined up and created the belt of Orion.  

“Riiight.... there. You see it?”  

“Uh... no?” Honestly, she could have been pointing anywhere, it all looked the same to him. He tried to inspect the general direction she had her hand aimed towards but nothing over there looked like a belt. Maybe it was metaphorical?  

And then he felt warm.

Bernadette had pushed her body right up against him, her face was touching his- cheek to cheek. She was impossibly close, and Joe could only focus on her arm that wrapped around him and pulled him closer or her torso that melted into his. He felt her soft breasts molding to the shape of his arm and had to reign in his thoughts.

Joe stared straight ahead, ignoring the physical touch between them. She was still pointing but this time he could actually see what she was pointing at.

“Look... see that?” Considering how -not far- apart they were, she whispered it. His eyes followed the extended index finger and at the end were three stars… was that it?  

“Mhm.” He was pretty sure they were looking at the same thing, maybe he would have asked her, but his voice was stuck in his throat.  

“That’s Orion’s belt.” She was still whispering, “And that’s his head.” Her hand aimed up slightly, “He’s got one arm up and he has a sword...”  

“A sword?” Finally, he spoke. Then instantly cringed at the sound of his own voice, it came out rough and gravelly like he hadn’t cleared his throat in years. Joe turned his neck so he could look at Birdie, the light of the stars shimmered in her eyes, and he was mesmerized.  

Bernadette felt him staring and adjusted her head, their eyes met and for a split second she recognised something. It was warm and familiar, something she wanted, yearned for, but as quickly as it came it was gone and Birdie found herself having the first coherent thought of the night: step away.  

“Yeah. And a shield.” She moved backwards from him, speaking in her normal tone now. Liebgott found himself missing the warmth and hoping she would come back and point more stars out to him, but she didn’t. Joe mentally shook that thought from his head. 

“So, he’s a warrior.” Joe deducted; he didn’t want to stew in the awkward silence like last time, so he willed himself to keep talking.   

“A hunter.” She corrected, “He bragged that he could kill any animal. And then one day a tiny scorpion snuck up on him and stung him.” Birdie was back to watching the night sky, “And he died.”  

“Jesus, that’s depressing.” 

“Why?” Her amber eyes jerked to his, curious for an answer. Bernadette’s father had explained his take of the meaning behind the tales that were passed down from generation to generation. Orion’s was about hubris and the importance of humility, even the greatest can fall. She had always imagined herself as the little scorpion, taking down giants.  

“A mighty hunter brought down by some little sting? How sad.” Liebgott voiced, deep in thought. The stars had captured his attention, he wanted to talk about them with her forever. Because the tales were so intriguing. That’s all.  

“I don’t think so...” She prompted, genuinely interested in his thought process. Birdie had never imagined Joe to be this... soft? Thoughtful? Whatever side of him he was showing to her, she decided she liked. This was a version of Joe she could be friends with, she wanted to be friends with.  

“Yeah?” He pulled his gaze from the starry darkness and focused on her. He too was curious to hear her take on it, a silly story about some guy dying had Joe fascinated.  

“It’s a cautionary tale. About pride and not letting it overtake you. No matter how great you are.”  

“Well from the scorpion's perspective, it’s about conquering your fears; no matter how big they are...”  Joe mused.

“Huh...” Maybe he actually could read minds? Bernadette smiled; her head tilted to one side as she pondered the complex man in front of her.  

“What?” He had no idea how thought-provoking he was, which only captivated her further.  

“You are.... not what I thought you were...” She murmured under her breath, so quiet he almost didn’t hear her, “You got a brain in there.” Birdie spoke louder, shaking her distractive thoughts and brushing off the weird connective feeling she was sure she was imagining. 

“Oh, Har. Har.” He too snapped out of the daze, ignoring the swoop of his stomach, “You doubted my intelligence? Come on Birdie, I’m the smartest man in the company!” Joe exaggerated, laughter in his tone, he starting walking and she fell in step with him, leading the way to her barracks.  

“You called me Birdie.”  

“What?” Of course, he had, that was her name.  

“You never call me Birdie... Always Coldwell.” The woman explained, noticing his quirked eyebrow, “Or woman, loser, annoying.... but never Birdie.” Said with a smile, tossing around the names in a joking manner.  

“What? Yes, I have.” His eyes rolled, she was being vexing on purpose, trying to wind him up but not out of anger or malice like usual. This was different, friendly. And he found himself enjoying this side of her.  

“When?” She queried. 

“Uh...well...” He scratched his head, thinking. He usually did call her Coldwell, but surely, he’d said Birdie at least once? 

“See! You can’t think of one time-” 

“That day...” He broke off her thought, “When those guys cornered you.” The southerner became silent, listening to his recount. “I was asking if you were okay, I said Birdie. You yelled at me and told me to ‘fuck off’ so I didn’t try to call you Birdie again.” 

“Oh... right.” Suddenly feeling sheepish, “About that, I-” 

“Don’t. I was a dick, don’t apologize.” Joe chuckled though there was no humour in his tone, he was serious. He felt like her should be the one apologizing to her, his comment was unnecessary, and she had every right to be pissed at him for it. 

“Yeah, you were a dick... but I shouldn’t have yelled at you.” She also laughed, if neither of them said the word 'sorry', it cancelled everything out and they were even. But she did want him to know she regretted it, just like he had let her know. 

The barracks came into view and the pair slowed down. Unlike last time when they were both trying to get away, this time neither wanted to leave.  

Birdie briefly wondered if he would go back to calling her names the next time they saw each other or if this meant that they were friends now. 

A/N: Aww! Aren’t they the sweetest? Are they friends now? Or will they fall back into their rivalry?

Btw the story of Orion is just what my dad used to tell me when I was a kid… idk if it’s very accurate

~ next-autopsy ~

Chapter sixteen

[torpublishinggroup]

This advertisement is for Swordcrossed by Freya Marske.

WHAT’S IT ABOUT

Mattinesh Jay is the chronically responsible eldest son and dutiful heir striving to keep his family’s business running. Luca Piere is a menace of a con artist desperately trying to escape his past by taking up the blade. When the pair meet, swords clash, and sparks fly. Soon, they’re entangled in a conspiracy that may bring Matti’s house to ruin if they don’t work together.

Want to see if it’s to your liking? We’ve included an excerpt from chapter one below.

Chapter 1 Matti laid his fingers on the polished edge of the bar’s wooden surface and forced himself to stop counting sheep. And yards of twill. And looms in need of repair, and outstanding debts.

Instead, he counted today’s collection of ink smudges, bruise-black on the brown skin of his hands: six. He counted the number of blue dyes that would have been used in the fabric of the bartender’s layered skirt: four, possibly five if the palest shade was true dimflower and not just the result of fading.

The tense throb of pain like a fist clenched in his hair eased, grudgingly, to a quiet ache. Bearable. Normal.

It was busy in the drinking house, the post-dinner hour that usually found Matti heading back to his study to finish the paperwork that a member of his family had tugged him away from in order to eat. Matti counted the number of flavoured jenever bottles on the shelf behind the bar—fifteen—in the time it took Audry to finish serving her current customer and sweep her sky-coloured skirts to stand in front of Matti. “And here’s a face we haven’t seen in a while! Something tells me you’re here for a celebration, Mr. Jay.”

Matti hoped the smile he’d pulled onto his face wasn’t the wrong size, or the wrong shade of abashed. “News travels fast.”

“Mattinesh Jay and Sofia Cooper. A match surprising exactly no one.”

Matti kept the smile going. There was a silence in which Audry politely didn’t say, Pity she’s in love with someone else, and so Matti didn’t have to say, Yes, isn’t it?Audry said, “Wait here a moment. I’ve got something in the back that I think will do nicely.”

Matti cast a glance over the room as Audry disappeared. His cousin Roland made an extravagant sighing motion and pretended to check his watch when Matti’s eyes landed on their table. A burst of laughter came from a dark-skinned woman nearby; she was wearing a dress that rode high at the knee to reveal a fall of lace like frothing water, a northern style of garment that Matti’s own northerner mother seldom wore these days.

At the closest table the Mason Guildmaster, Lysbette Martens, was deep in conversation with a senior member of the Guild of Engineers. Martens met Matti’s gaze with her own and nodded brief acknowledgement. He was sure she was weighing his presence as consciously as he was weighing hers. This was a place to be seen, after all.

“Here you are. Red wine for young lovers.”

Matti turned around again. Audry named the price for the bottle as she uncorked it and set it on the bar. Matti paid her, ignoring the lurch like a fishhook in his stomach at the amount on the credit notes he was so casually handing over. Mattinesh Jay, firstborn of his distinguished House, had no reason not to indulge in one of the finest bottles of wine that money could buy.

No reason that anyone here would know about, anyway.

Matti took the bottle in one hand and hooked three glasses with the other. Making his way over to the table, his mind circled back to dwell on the wrong sort of numbers. The money in Matti’s purse was painstakingly calculated: enough for the first round of engagement drinks, and enough for him to hire a top-of-the-range duellist who would step forward in the awkwardly likely event of someone challenging for Sofia’s hand at the wedding itself.

Matti’s skin prickled cold at the very thought of what might happen if Adrean Vane challenged against Matti’s marriage to Sofia and won. His family’s last hope would be gone. Matti would have failed them in this, the most useful thing he could do for them.

He was so caught up in this uneasy imagining as he wove through the room that he collided, hard, with another person’s shoulder. Matti was both tall and broad, not easily unbalanced; the unfortunate other member of the collision made a grab for Matti’s coat, couldn’t get a good grip, and tripped to the ground with a caught-back “Fu—”

Matti tried to step backwards. They were crammed into a small space between tables and there were people moving around them. His first panicked instinct had been to keep the wine bottle upright and the glasses safe, so he didn’t have a hand free to steady himself on a chair.

He wasn’t quite sure what happened next, except that he ended up wobbling and stepping forward instead, and he felt his boot come down on something that was not the floorboards. A small, pathetic, grinding mechanical sound crawled up Matti’s nerves, heel to head, and reached his ears even amidst the noise of the busy room.

“Sorry!” he said at once. “I’m sorry. Was that—Oh, Huna’s teeth.”

The man on the floor jerked his head up, staring at Matti, and Matti stared back.

For a moment all that Matti could see was the wide, straight line of the man’s mouth, set beneath an equally straight nose, and the frame that set off the whole: the dark, luminous copper-red hair that seemed to be trying to grow in about ten different directions.

The man’s tongue darted out in a nervous mannerism, wetting his lower lip. Something in Matti’s own mouth tried to happen in a yearning echo.

“Would you please lift,” the man said precisely, “your godsdamned foot?” Heat flooded Matti’s face. He snatched his foot backwards with enough force that his heel collided with a chair leg.

The redheaded man stood, his fingers closed convulsively tight around a small velvet bag. His brown coat was shabby and made of a coarsely woven fabric, though his shirt was good and his trousers had probably been equally so before they’d been overwashed into a patchy shine.

“Fuck fuck shitting—fuck,” the man said in tones of despair, with a lilt to his accent that placed him at least one city-state farther east: Cienne, or possibly Sanoy. He shook the contents of the bag into his palm and ventured into new realms of inappropriate language as he did so.

Enough people had witnessed their collision, or had their heads turned by the stream of expletives, that there were a fair few necks craning to see what was in the man’s hand. Matti, at whom the shaking fingers of this hand were pointed most directly, couldn’t help seeing for himself the ragged, glinting pile of cogs and jewels and glass. Only the intact cover—monogrammed in a swirling, engraved H—spoke of this pile’s previous existence as a pocket watch. A very expensive pocket watch, by the look of it.

The man’s breath hissed out through his teeth. “Guildmaster Havelot is going to use my arm bones as a fucking lathe. He only had it made to order, and he only trusted me to pick it up, didn’t he? Two hundred gold. Fucking fuck.”

“I’m so sorry,” Matti said again. He recognised the name: Havelot was the Woodworker Guildmaster in Cienne. “Truly. I can—” He stopped. The abrupt lack of his words created a silence that seemed to suck noise into itself, as conversations died to murmurs and the onlookers sensed something interesting.

The man looked straight at Matti with a stubborn lift of his chin. His brows, the same absurd colour as the rest of his hair, had sprung up into the beginnings of hope; as Matti’s silence grew longer, they lowered again. And then lowered farther. He swept a look down and then slowly up Matti’s own outfit, and now pride warred with scorn in the way those maddening lips pressed together.

Matti felt sick. His own coat was made of the finest wool, a midnight blue cut perfectly to his figure, and the rest of his clothes were of the same quality. He was holding a bottle of extremely good wine. Anybody looking at him would make immediate assumptions about the amount of ready money that Matti might have, and the ease with which he would be able to reimburse a poor clerk, if he’d just ruined a pricey piece of artificer’s skill that the man’s employer had trusted him to travel all the way to Glassport to collect.

Of course they would make these assumptions. That was the point.

Matti swallowed and felt the burning heaviness of his purse redouble. He’d be left with enough to a hire a duellist, yes, but not one of the highest skill. It wouldn’t buy himself and his family the absolute security they needed.

His friends were looking at him. It seemed like every pair of eyes in the drinking house was looking, and in another moment the murmurs of curiosity would turn to murmurs of disapprobation. I thought Matti Jay had more honour than that, they would say. What’s two hundred gold to someone like him?

Besides, the plain fact of the matter was that Matti had broken the watch. And he couldn’t pretend that he and this man with his proud mouth and poor coat, patched at one elbow, were on an equal footing. Even if he were left without a bronze, Matti would still have influence, connections, the weight of his family’s name. That was still worth something. For now.

So that was that.

“I—I really am sorry.” Matti set the wine and glasses down on the corner of the nearest table and pulled his purse from inside his coat. He kept his gaze on the man’s face, on a pair of eyes that were either grey or brown—impossible to tell from this angle—and urgently willed them not to look away. To a degree that seemed irrational, he wanted to banish the judgemental expression from the man’s face. “Of course I’ll cover the cost. Two hundred gold. Who did the work?”

The man glanced down at the metal scraps in his hand, as though the answer might be hidden in the pile. “Speck,” he said at last. “Frans Speck, in Amber Lane.”

“He’s a fair man. Tell him what happened and he’ll rush through the repair job,” Matti said. He held out the century notes.

The man tipped the wreckage of the watch back into the bag and closed his hand around the money, slow and wary. His fingertips had rough patches that scraped against Matti’s own, sending a tingle up Matti’s arm.

“I appreciate it,” the man said. He looked less cold now, though still nowhere near warm. “You’ve saved my life. Really.”

Matti forced himself to smile. Forced himself to say, “It’s nothing,” as though it really were nothing.

The man nodded awkwardly at Matti and tucked both money and bag into a pocket. Then he turned and was gone, headed for the door.

Matti somehow made his way to his table and sat down. His heart was pounding so loudly that he could barely hear anything else, and he wanted to shout at his own blood to be quiet and let him think. He needed to be alone in his study. He needed to contemplate his options, and make lists, and pore over the accounts for the thousandth time, in case they transmuted themselves into a picture of prosperity instead of the ugly, desperate reality that nobody outside of Matti’s immediate family knew about.

“Two hundred gold,” he said, before he could stop himself. “Two hundred.”

“We saw. Hard luck,” his cousin Roland said, making a face.

Perhaps it was stretching the term to call Roland and Wynn his friends, but they were the closest thing Matti had to members of that category, and the only people he’d been able to think of to form his wedding party. At least the three of them never found it too hard to pick up their acquaintanceship again, even if it had been months since their last conversation.

Wynn turned the bottle of wine to inspect the yellow butterfly on the label. “How appropriate that we’re drinking wine from your betrothed’s own winery.”

“Audry’s idea of a joke, I think,” Matti said. The word betrothed had landed in his ears like a piece of music played in an unfamiliar key; his mind was still turning it over, trying to decide how it felt about the melody. His hand was shaking as he poured the first glass, sending the stream of dark wine shivering and slipping. He’d steadied it by the time he poured the second.

“Huna smile,” he said, opening the toasts by lifting his own glass. “Thanks for agreeing to stand up with me, you two.”

“Drown your sorrows in this one, and by the time we hit the next bottle you’ll remember that you’re here to celebrate. And that once you’re married to Sofia Cooper,” Roland went on, lowering his voice sympathetically, “Jay House will be rolling in enough money to replace a hundred watches.”

Except that Matti had to get himself successfully married in the first place. And he’d just lost his best guarantee of doing so.

He let the old, gorgeous wine flood down his throat until a good third of his glass had vanished. He felt lightheaded; it had to be panic, because the wine couldn’t be working that fast. Panic and a sense of becoming unmoored. And the image of the man’s face, pale and sharply beautiful, gazing up from where he was kneeling at Matti’s feet.

“A fair effort,” Wynn said, when Matti put the glass down. “But I’ll show you children of Huna how it’s done.” He raised his own glass. “Agar fill your plates and cups.”

Matti smiled and drank again, accepting the toast. Maybe the wine was working after all. He could still feel his panic, the wound-up watch of his worry, but he shoved it away into a recess of his mind: its own small, dark velvet bag. It would be safe enough there. It would last until tomorrow. Matti’s ability to worry was shatterproof.

For now, he was going to drink.

[slytherinslut0]

MATTHEO RIDDLE- Beg For Me

Chapter Two. Info: You and Mattheo have been butting heads for months, since you were assigned as his tutor, and one day during a session full of tense bickering, he has enough.

(This will essentially be a toxic book where we are Thèos fucktoy. No love here, very minimal fluff.)

Tags: 18+, PURE SMUT, Sub!Reader, Dom!Mattheo, Oral Sex (M Rec), Throat Fucking, Toxic Behaviour, Blackmail, Praise Kink, Degradation Kink, DubCon, CNC.

****Find the rest of the chapters HERE.

"You're fifteen minutes late."

Mattheo rolled his eyes, slumping down in the creaky wooden chair with an exasperated huff, running his tongue over the split-open cut on his lip as he fiddled with the gauze wrapped around his battered knuckles--the fresh blood seeping through the material told you that he had ever-so-shockingly taken part in yet another degenerate fight, this time coincidentally directly before your once-a-week tutor session.

"I'm fine, by the way." He said, not bothering to look at you. "Thanks for asking."

"Why should I?" You tilted your head, already feeling the heat of his suffocating arrogance filling your lungs. "It's not like you've ever cared about my well-being, or as you've so clearly proven today; my time."

Riddle scoffed, rolling his eyes yet again as he ran a hand through his hair. "You sound entitled, princess."

"I sound entitled?" Gods, he was doing it again. He was absolutely getting you fucking going with little to no effort spent. "My dearest apologies, Riddle...I was under the impression that entitlement was believing you can treat people however you like without consequences...silly me."

At your retort, he glimpsed you, pausing all his movements as a sly grin crawled across his face.

"Giving me attitude already, Raven?" He purred, dark eyes slithering down to your lips, before falling lower to your chest, lingering there for far-too-long before they slowly travelled back up to meet your sight.

Throughout all of that, you weren't sure if you'd blinked once--your pulse increasing to a rate so fast you were certain your heart was about to burst from your chest.

Mattheo moistened his lips, his tongue darting out to remove the blood from the split in his lower one.

"...I'd have thought that after our little agreement last week, you'd have come to your senses..."

He leaned forward in his chair, long fingers curling in on his palms and forming tight fists as he rested his hands on top of the desk--eyes darker than the midnight sky as he studied your tensing reaction.

"Would you like to start over? Or perhaps, that filthy fucking mouth of yours needs to be taught a lesson?"

You swallowed, something in your lower abdomen tingling at this words. You shook your head, dropping your eyes to your lap. "I'm sorry."

His eyes lit up. "What was that?" The sadistic arrogance in his tone made you want to scream. "I didn't quite catch what you said."

Your jaw clenched, teeth gritting--Gods, how you wanted to tell him to goto hell; to kick rocks and get the fuck out and never come near you again--but you knew you would never, and could never do such a thing. Instead, you inhaled a sharp breath in through your nose, before slowly releasing it, shooting him the best fake smile you could possibly muster.

"I said, I'm sorry." Your voice was tight, tone as sharp as glass. "Now, can we begin? You're already-"

"No." He said flatly, cutting you off. "I don't accept your apology. I think you need to get on your knees-"

Your jaw dropped at his words, and you involuntarily slammed your hands down on the wooden surface in front of you as you stood up, leaning across the desk towards him. After all these months of sticking your neck out for him, going out of your way to tutor him and attempt to teach him some form of educational material to at least help him fucking graduate on time--he's really going to sit there and degrade you like a piece of shit under his shoe just because you retaliated against his arrogant attitude?

Not going to fucking happen.

"Cut the shit, Riddle." You hissed, leaning down to meet his dark, intoxicating eyes. "You may be in charge here, and I may need you in ways that are entirely taxing to my mental state...but just as much as I need you--you need me, too...so how about you show me some fucking respect?"

At your words, Mattheo's confident facade wavered, only-slightly, his dark eyes widening with surprise as your words pierced through his stoic composure. Blinking, he considered your defiance for a fleeting moment before abruptly standing up, as well--his face, which was usually a mask of calculated control, portrayed a mix of curiosity and smug arrogance.

As he rounded the desk and approached you, his eyes locked onto yours; unyielding and intense--making your entire body freeze in place. The room seemed to hold its breath, the charged silence amplifying the tension between your bodies, as if the very air crackled with anticipation of what would unfold next, your shoulders slouching as he stopped in front of you, tall frame towering over you.

And then, his perfect fucking lips curled into a sly smile.

"Respect? Oh, I respect your desperation, Raven...that's about it..." his voice was slow, calculated, and of course; sadistic. "It would do you well to remember that in this little alliance of ours, I hold the key to your entire fucking future...so, perhaps a little lesson in humility is what you truly need, hm?"

He brought a battered hand up to your face, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear, his head tilting as his dark eyes studied the movement of his fingers.

"How about you show me just how much you respect me...and maybe, just maybe, I'll consider playing nice, yeah?" He paused, his fingers lingering against your skin. "Until then...it seems as though you're at my mercy, little girl."

Your fingers quivered at your sides, your heart pounding in your throat, but you were resolute in not allowing him to win so easily. Despite his immense power over you, giving in without a fight wasn't an option you were willing to entertain. It was times like these where your brash, unyielding nature was both a curse and a source of strength, propelling you toward your demise.

"Not if I goto Dumbledore first..." you whispered, glimpsing his lips. "Not if I tell him that you were entirely uncooperative...defiant...wouldn't be that hard to believe, considering your troublesome track record..."

He huffed, fingers trailing from behind your ear and running along your jawline, his lips parting as he stared, lost entirely in his own little world--until he blinked, meeting your eyes.

"And how would that look on you, Raven? As a future Professor..." he murmured, leaning closer. "Don't you think it would look rather...perturbing, that you weren't able to get me under control? That you weren't able to find some sort of compromise to ensure my cooperation?"

His rugged fingers trailed along the contour of your jaw, finding a firm hold at your chin and sliding underneath it, his thumb caressing your cheek with a touch that held both tenderness and threat. A lump formed in your throat, your lips parting in sheer exasperation as his eyes darkened, their intensity sending shivers down your spine. Your entire body quivered under his grasp as he leaned in, his lips barely grazing your temple.

"You're shaking, Raven..." he purred, hot breath washing over your face as he used his grip on your chin to tug you closer. "Why so nervous, hm? What happened to all that fire you had?"

Your voice faltered, barely a whisper, as you tried to find words under the weight of Mattheo's power.

"I...I'm just..."

You hesitated, unable to meet his intense gaze, your words trailing off into a nervous silence. The sheer dominance he exuded left you speechless, your heart racing, and you struggled to articulate your thoughts, feeling completely overwhelmed and out of your depth.

Mattheo's lips curled into a subtle, self-assured smile as he sensed your growing vulnerability. His eyes, dark and smoldering, held a predatory gleam, and he leaned in closer, his face mere inches from yours, his breath grazing your skin as he revelled in the palpable effect he had on you.

"This vulnerability...it suits you, I must admit..." his voice was a low, seductive murmur, pulling back to meet your eyes. "Don't worry, little Raven...I won't bite...unless you ask me to, of course..."

With an amused huff, he shifted, his lips brushing over your ear, and you pulled your lip between your teeth to restrain a whimper as you felt his free hand move, long fingers ghosting over the fabric of your skirt as he grazed your hip.

"Mattheo, I-" your body reacted in a way you hadn't anticipated, utterly frozen under Mattheo's commanding presence. Desire coursed through your veins, a mixture of fear and a thrilling, unfamiliar attraction, and you struggled to string together a sentence. "I've never-"

"Never what, princess?" He purred, voice reverberating as a deep hum, the seductive pitch doing inexplicable things to your body. "Don't be shy..."

As his grip on your hip tightened, your lungs stalled, a small gasp slipping past your lips; and as though you'd somehow snapped Mattheo out of a hypnotic trance, he pulled back--his widened obsidian eyes meeting yours.

"Holy fuck, Raven, are you a fucking virgin?" His voice was barely above a whisper, the husk of it sparking fire through your veins. "You haven't even kissed someone, have you?"

Embarrassment flooded you, a heat hot enough to melt the Arctic. When you nodded, almost impenetrably; his stare intensified, the excitement practically radiating from his flesh.

"Shit...I'm going to fucking ruin you..." Mattheo's fingers tightened around your jaw, once again tugging you closer--your heart stalled as he crouched down slightly, bringing himself eye-to-eye with you, his face mere centimeters from yours. "That's what you want though, isn't it? I see the way you look at me...I feel the way your body responds to me...even when you fucking despise me..."

Mules of power coursed through Mattheo's fingers as his hand left your hip, snaking around your waist as his eyes scanned your features--watching every single ministration of your face as though he was afraid you'd disappear; as though he'd miss something if he blinked.

"You want this," he whispered, his breath hot against your face. "You've been aching for it ever since we first met...admit it."

Your adrenaline surged. You knew you were playing with fire here, but you couldn't control yourself.

"Don't flatter yourself, Riddle..." you murmured, voice unsteady. "Unlike you I actually harbour a modicum of self control."

Upon your utterance, Mattheo's entire demeanor shifted abruptly--something dark and unsettling creeping behind his eyes. His grip tightened aggressively, applying force with enough intensity to leave bruises.

"There's that mouth again." He growled, his tone dark and rough. "You just can't fucking help yourself, can you?"

You snuffed a gasp as his fingernails dug into your skin, the intensity radiating off his flesh.

"You think you're so fucking smart, hm? Little good girl, top of the class, never stepping out of the lines..." he tilted his head, leaning closer, mouth so close to yours you could practically taste the blood seeping from the cut on his lip. "I'm going to have so much fucking fun with you, Raven...we'll see just how smart you are when you’re on your fucking knees for me like a dumb little whore..."

Your breath was hardly filtering, lungs sputtering. "Mattheo-"

He shifted your body, shoving your ass back against the desk as he pressed himself against you, one hand behind your neck with the other tightly gripping your hip; eyes drunk on a dark hunger--one that intoxicated you without effort.

"That's what I want, Raven...I want you on your knees for me every single week...and in exchange, I'll pay attention to your dumb lessons and make sure I pass...the second I fail to do just that, it all stops, okay?" His voice was tight, focused, but serious--as serious as you've ever fucking heard him. "I won't tell a fucking soul about any of this, and I know you won't either...both of our reputations depend on it..."

Gods, you fucking loved this, even though admitting it felt like peeling away layers of denial--but deep down, you knew the truth, even though it clashed with your feelings of utter disgust and irritation towards Mattheo Riddle. Something about the images swirling inside your mind as you thought about it, thought about the mere prospect of having him at your mercy, his pleasure intertwined with your control, stirred a complex mix of emotions within you.

It was as if a forbidden fascination had taken root, coaxing an unexpected excitement from the depths of your being. If surrendering to this unconventional desire meant he would finally invest effort in your tutor sessions, you found yourself reluctantly willing to explore this uncharted territory.

But not before teasing him a little.

"Don't you have enough girls on their knees for you, Riddle?" You whispered, fingers clutching the desk for dear life. "Do you really need that from me?"

He huffed, amused. "Sure, but those girls expect something from me in return...with you, it'll be all about me and what I fucking want..." he purred, wetting his lips as he glimpsed yours. "I have no interest in taking your virginity, Raven...you can save that for your wedding night, or whatever the fuck it is you're waiting for...I just want those pretty fucking lips...I just want to finally put that annoying mouth of yours to good use..."

Your entire body was vibrating, every word from his mouth did something foreign to you lower abdomen--something you'd never felt nor experienced before. There were so many emotions pummelling through your veins right now; from desire to irritation to defiance to submission--every one melding inside your mind and rendering your mouth utterly mute. You had no idea what to fucking say.

Until Riddle leaned in, closer, his lips brushing over yours. "Do we have a deal?"

You swallowed, your sight flickering from his lips to his eyes and back to his lips, examining all the small cuts and bruises and scars he had peppering his skin. When you nodded, he tightened the grip on the back of your neck, forcing a squeal from deep in your throat.

"Words, Raven," he said sharply. "Use them. I want to hear you say it."

You weren't breathing, you wondered how the fuck you were even conscious. "Yes," you whispered. "We have a deal."

Mattheo exhaled. "Fuck..."

In the span of a single breath, his lips found yours, soft and yielding--conveying a desperate, yet gentle craving. You became a candle, his touch a flame, liquefying you from the core, heat spreading through your every fiber, reaching down to your very toes. He pulled you closer, deepening the kiss, immersing you in a passionate embrace that seemed to defy time itself.

Your mind spun in a whirlwind of realization: this was your first kiss, an intimate moment shared with a boy you openly despised. His lips bore the remnants of alcohol and cigarettes, a taste accentuated by the faint hint of blood. He desired you for a singular purpose, and you saw him merely as a means to solidify your post-graduate fate. Despite the inherent wrongness of the situation, you couldn't summon the care to stop it, succumbing to the inexplicable pull between you two.

His low growl echoed in the charged air as his tongue danced with yours, emboldening you. Your fingers threaded through his thick, curly hair, exploring the contours of his mouth. Meanwhile, his hand roamed up your thigh, tracing your curves until it found the top of your uniform. With a firm grip, he pulled at the fabric, and then, shifted his hand to your wrist, directing it toward the insistent bulge in his pants.

As your fingers grazed it, something surged through you; something suffocating, something intoxicating--and involuntarily, you moaned into his mouth.

"Shit..." he breathed, grip on the back of your neck intensifying. "You feel that, Raven? That's all for you..."

Your breath was shaking, your lungs on fire. You had no idea what was happening to you, you had no idea what you were even thinking, let alone saying--a haze of pleasure and adrenaline and arousal was clouding your cognitive capacity, words spilling from your lips without thought as you squeezed the outline of his dick.

"You're so big..." your voice was a whisper, lesser even. "I-I don't think I'll-"

"You will," his voice cracked, cutting you off, already knowing what you were about to say.

With a smirk, he stepped back slightly, using the hand behind your head to gently guide you toward the floor, a silent yet compelling command. When you met his eyes, a clear nervousness in your expressions, he smirked.

"Don't worry Raven, I'll go easy on you for your first time..." he whispered. "Unlike you, I'm actually a patient teacher."

When you finally landed on your knees in front of him, his fervent fingers moved to his belt, swiftly undoing the latch and tugging his trousers mid-way down his thighs. His eyes never once left yours, his bottom lip pulled tightly between his teeth as he moved to his boxers next; finally freeing his thick, throbbing length, the veins in his hand tensing as he wrapped his fist around its girth, his mouth falling open in relief.

Your stomach twisted, your entire body fucking screaming at the sight. "Holy fu-"

Your words were cut short as his hand thrust through your hair, fingers entangling through your soft strands, cranking your neck back slightly to meet his eyes again, slowly fucking into his fist as he watched you; examined you.

"What would your friends think of this, huh?" His voice was hoarse, arrogant, and of course, sadistic, like always. "Little good girl Ravenclaw on her knees for the big bad Slytherin fuck up...it's almost poetic, isn't it?"

Your fingers trembled, and you clutched the fabric of your skirt for dear life. "Are you going to let me suck it or are you going to hold me here all day instead?"

"Eager little thing you are," he huffed, smirking; jaw tensing and throat bobbing as he swallowed. "Drop your jaw, princess."

As you did what he said, he hummed in satisfaction, directing the head of his throbbing cock past your lips, hissing through his teeth as the wet warmth of your mouth enveloped his shaft, involuntarily gagging as he continued to push into throat until your hands shot up to his thighs, silently pleading for a mere second to adjust to his size.

"Use your hands then, Raven..." his voice was a breathless whisper, fingers tightening their hold on your hair. "Unless you want me to fuck that filthy throat of yours."

You glanced up at him, his appearance doing inexplicable things to your cunt, undeniably at this point--and you wrapped your hands around the base of his shaft, twisting and stroking as you moved your mouth against the remaining length--suctioning your lips around him, eyes watering and cunt clenching as he groaned, head falling back and lids fluttering shut.

"Mm...that's it..." he muttered, using your hair like reigns to direct your head. "Your mouth feels so fucking good when you're not using it to be an uptight little bitch..."

You hummed in assent, pressing your wet tongue against the throbbing underside of his cock. Your heart was beating out of your chest, thighs clamping in lust--even though he was being a sadistic asshole per usual, and there was not one part of this you should be enjoying--you couldn't deny the heat that was pooling between your legs, the unfamiliar desire that was growing in your lungs only intensified with every deep, breathless groan that left Mattheo's lips.

You dropped your hands, taking more of him now, slowly but surely, and you tried your best to ignore the pain that Riddle was inflicting on your scalp; his cock twitching more insistently between your lips with each passing second. Cranking your neck back, he slowly started fucking into your throat, groaning as he'd almost entirely pulled out, and you tightened your lips around his girth, wanting to trap him.

"So fucking good, Raven..." he huffed, and eased in again, holding your head in place, watching as his length disappeared into your mouth. "Are you sure this is your first time? Shit-"

His voice was heavy with pleasure, igniting a thunderstorm of arousal on your skin, growing more intense with each second his eyes were on you--his breathing grew heavier as your lips and tongue worked in unison, the sheer hunger in his gaze nearly palpable.

"Look at me," he muttered, cranking your neck back further, thrusting deeper. When you met his eyes, your thighs screamed in need. "Good girl...just like that..."

Mattheo's hips moved quicker, his groans of pleasure filling the room. Sparks were buzzing over your skin, air squeaking into your nose, tears welling in your eyes as he thrust into your throat again and again. His gaze was trained on you, his breath coming in shorter bursts the faster he moved.

"Fuck..." he sputtered, fingers bruising your scalp. "Far better use for that filthy mouth..."

You gagged, swallowing against him, and he yanked your head back further; entirely losing himself and any ounce of his self control in the heat of your throat as he neared his peak. You worked your tongue along the underside of his dick, pulling your lips in over your teeth, a quiet groan leaving him as you hollowed your cheeks and sucked him.

"You look so good taking my cock..." he said. "You don't know how many times I've imagined doing this to you-fuck...every time you gave me attitude...shit..."

A moan rumbled through you, spurred on by his words, and his head fell back, breath sputtering in his lungs as he squeezed his eyes shut; fingernails digging into your scalp as he held you in place, hot jets of his release shooting down your throat without warning. You panted against his dick, swallowing every last drop of his cum without complaint, and when he finally released you--slowly tucking himself away, he stared at you with an astounded expression on his face, chest heaving.

As you wiped the drool off your chin with your sleeve, you slowly peeled yourself off the floor, meeting his intense eyes--which were still staring at you as he did up his belt.

"What?" You said, anxiously. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

He blinked, throat knocking as he swallowed. "I'm just trying to figure you the fuck out." He said. "You took my cock and swallowed my cum better than some of the sluttiest whores in this school have..."

Your face burned, entire body tingling as you readjusted your uniform. "Is that a bad thing?"

"Not at all, Raven." He huffed, throwing himself into the chair next to yours. "Think you just needed a bad boy like me to give you permission to finally let loose, yeah?"

"Permission?" You cocked an eyebrow, taking a seat next to him. "I'd think not, Riddle."

"Denial is a river in Egypt, princess." He sneered, that devilish smirk teasing his lips per usual. "You have no idea what you've just gotten yourself into. Better hope you don't get attached...I promise, I'm nothing but bad news..."

Your rolled your eyes, straightening out in the chair and flipping open the textbook to the appropriate chapter.

"Believe me, I won't."

——————

Chapter three->

[betweenstorms]

hey, this is the anon from before :) honestly would you consider writing a simon pov? cuz i’d like to see what he thinks during all the silence, the sudden stride forward to grab your chin?? immaculate. did he think of you too during those years gone? argh so much to talk abt.. honestly i picture he noticed you in the bar before you noticed him outside but wasn’t sure if he should come up to talk, which is a pretty simon thing to do.

Hi! I'm so glad you sent this ask—I absolutely love it! Writing from Simon's perspective is something I've been itching to dive into. But I have to admit, a full POV would give away a bit too much of the ending. Still, I didn’t want to leave you hanging, so I’ve written a short drabble! Thank you again for the thoughtful message—it really made my day!

Drabble One of Where We Part (previous chapter) (next chapter) (masterlist) Childhood Friend!Simon x fem!Reader

The streets of Manchester hadn’t changed, not really.

Returning here was like walking through a graveyard of memories he’d long buried, each street corner a ghost, each familiar landmark an infected scar. Selling his childhood home felt like cutting loose the last thread of a life he had tried so hard to leave behind, something he hadn’t let himself think about for years. He’d avoided this return like the plague. It was a place he never wanted to think about, let alone see again, yet here he was. He was back, and the weight of the past was heavier than he’d imagined.

He hadn't meant to stop by the old pub.

He hadn’t planned on drinking at all, but there he was, in the heart of his old neighborhood, the one place that had remained untouched by the passing of time. Stepping inside, the familiarity was suffocating—same stained floors, same worn barstools, and faces that blurred into ghosts from his past.

He sat in the shadows, nursing a glass of whiskey that tasted too much like pain. But he wasn’t here to reminisce, wasn’t here for the memories that lingered in the corners of this place. He was here to forget, just for a few hours.

But then, there was you.

Bloody hell.

The sound of your laughter reached him first, sweet and familiar, cutting through the haze of voices. He didn’t need to look to know it was you, but when he did and the sight hit him like a punch he hadn’t braced for. There you were, sitting with old friends, the same group from high school—familiar faces he hadn’t thought of in years. Time had touched you too, but softly, like a breeze, not the storm that had weathered him down.

For a moment, he could only stare.

The sound of you twisted something inside him, both sharp and soft, like a knife dulled by time. He hadn’t prepared for this—hadn’t even considered the possibility of seeing you again, not here, not like this. Fifteen years had passed, but looking at you now, it felt like no time at all, like the years between you had been nothing more than a blink. You were laughing, as if life hadn’t crushed you the way it had him.

He couldn’t tear his eyes away, even though every instinct told him to look away, to run before the memories dragged him under.

But the pull was too strong.

And when you ended up outside, in that small, dimly lit smoking area, he knew he was done for. It was like being pulled into a gentle current he didn’t want to fight. The moment you stepped into his space, the air felt different, heavier. The distance between you had been vast for so long, but now it was nothing—just a few steps and you were close enough to touch. Close enough to undo him.

He didn’t have a chance.

Not against you.

Not when you looked at him like that, with the same eyes that had once seen the boy he used to be, the boy he’d tried so hard to forget. He had no chance, not here, not in this place where the air still smelled faintly of the life he should’ve had.

You were everything soft, everything he craved and feared in equal measure. And as you asked for a light, as you came closer to him, the memories came crashing back. He had spent years building walls, but with you, they never stood a chance. The years fell away in that instant, and he was drowning in you all over again.

So he just stood there, watching, waiting, wondering how it was possible for someone to still hold this much power over him after all these years. Simon Riley, the man who had faced death countless times, felt his heart stumble in his chest as your eyes met his.

He really had no chance.

He could already feel himself drowning, sinking into the memory of what could have been, and he wasn’t sure he even wanted to swim to the surface.

[allthelovehes]

Unholy*

Summary: You follow a course through your job and the teacher who's giving the course is everything you've ever dreamed of.

Pairing: teacher!harry x reader

Word count: 6.2K

Warnings: Pussy eating, protective sex, squirting, p in v.

A/N:  This is partially based on a true story. Nearly everything but the smut is what actually happened and I just had to write it.

Ever since starting your new job, you must attend an internal program at headquarters for three-ish months, completely designed to train you for all the ins and outs of your position. It’s not like you have to go there every single week. But you have a perfect little schedule; you go to headquarters two weeks in a row, two days a week followed by a week where you practice all you’ve learned. Then two weeks of your training, two days a week and you repeat it over and over again for 11 weeks total. 

Since headquarters is an hour and fifteen-minute drive from your home, they offer you to stay the night at a hotel near them so you don’t have to keep on driving back and forth. They also pay for your dinner in the restaurant of the hotel and since you’re not the only student taking the course who lives relatively far away, you made some friends and all eat together. After dinner, you all hang out, down a few more glasses of chardonnay, and have a great night. 

The course itself is presented by two men, Chris and Harry. Chris is a couple of years older than you are and Harry is roughly the same age. Both of them are a treat to look at so whether you like the course or not, there’s always something interesting to occupy your brain with. Although if you’re truly honest, you do have a favorite and it gets worse when the end of the three months is in sight.

***

It’s the second to last week of your program. Normally you travel by train, read a book while you’re at it, and enjoy the peaceful start of your day. But today was different, you’re a bit in a hurry and decide to take your car and make the long ride yourself. Putting up some music and singing along at the top of your lungs.

Traffic isn’t as bad as you expected and instead of being stuck in your car for over two hours, it only took one and half hours. Normally the route is packed with traffic, causing a lot of slow-riding cars and traffic jams. But again, today was different.

Being 55 minutes early before the start of your training, you’re left with some more time to yourself. The book you normally would read on the train is in your bag anyway. So you grab a cup of coffee, pull the book out of your bag, and start reading to somehow still get a bit of the quiet morning you’re used to. 

You just finished reading your chapter when the door of the room swings open. You look up and your eyes meet the pretty green eyes you’ve grown to adore. You never imagined you’d still crush as hard at 26 as you did at 16. It’s like the teen inside you is awakened by Harry’s chocolate curls, green eyes, and puffy lips. 

“Good morning!” You greet him.

“Good morning. You’re early!” He chirps with a warm smile on his face. He always seems cheerful, just happy to be here. It makes you feel so welcome in this company. “How long have you been here for?” He adds.

“Not more than 15 minutes I think, honestly didn’t really track time.” You answer.

“Did the elevator work when you got here? I just had to climb the stairs.” He continues, there’s not even a shortness of breath even though he just climbed all 17 flights of stairs to reach the level on which the company is located. 

“You’re kidding! How are you still breathing?” You joke, but you’re actually not kidding. If you had to walk all those stairs, you’d be out of breath by the time you reach the 5th floor. Harry however just laughs at your statement before he puts down his backpack behind his desk. 

He made up this little routine of settling down for the day. First, he places down his backpack and takes out his laptop. Then he opens his laptop to boot it before he pulls his sweater over his head. This man doesn’t like to wear coats, he just puts a sweater on top of his outfit and uses that to keep himself warm. 

You thought you sort of removed him from your mind after not seeing him for a couple of weeks. Harry went on a well-deserved vacation and Chris took over during that time. So the last time you actually saw Harry was 5 weeks ago. But the second he pulled that sweater of his over his head, pulling his shirt a tiny bit upwards in the process had you melting right in front of him. The waistband of his boxers peeks out from his pants. You immediately recognize the brand he’s wearing by the colorful print on them. And let’s not even get started about his delicious happy trail. It’s a good thing his view is blocked by the fabric of his sweater because you for sure are struggling to keep your eyes to yourself.

“So, would you like some coffee?” He suggests as he folds his sweater over the back of his chair. You’re quick to agree on his offer. “Cappuccino right?” 

“Yes, please! I’m surprised you remember how I like my coffee.” You giggle, feeling a blush creep upon your cheeks. 

***

Throughout the entire day, you can’t help but notice how Harry’s eyes meet yours a lot more often than he does with your classmates. Whenever you look at him, his eyes are already on yours. He compliments you when you’re working on assignments and you just feel like there’s a mutual connection there. 

His distance to headquarters is even bigger than yours, so they offered him a similar deal as they did you. If he has to work multiple days in a row, he can stay the night in between in the same hotel as you all do. He gladly took upon the offer, for him it’s at least a two-hour ride home and that’s if he doesn’t include traffic. And since he works 5 days a week, it’ll save him a lot of time.

During the lunch break, you and your friends are making plans for the evening. Many of your nights in the hotel are spent drinking some wine and just catching up with each other. And today’s plans are like no other. Harry can’t help but overhear you guys talking about the hotel and starts bragging about the room they gave him. 

“I slept in room 405 last week. Apparently, all rooms on the fourth floor are deluxe rooms with a bathtub, double bed instead of a twin bed, and a filled mini fridge.” He joins your conversation, immediately planting the idea of asking for room 405 when you check into the hotel later today.

“I never had a bathtub during any of my stays. But all six times I slept in that hotel, I never slept on the fourth floor.” You reply.

“Don’t worry, you’re not missing out. The tubs are too small anyways.” He reassures.

“Your legs are just too long to properly fit into any tub.” You pointed out. 

***

All of you enjoy your dinner together. Harry is always left at work for a bit longer after you’re done with the class so he can prepare for the next day or finish up some other leftover work. And to the question of whether he will join you all at the dining table, his answer is always the same. “If I make it in time, I’ll happily join.” 

And today was one of the days he made it in time. He sits next to you in the only chair that’s unoccupied. Your friend shoots a glance at you, and that’s when you realize she made sure you sat next to the empty spot.

All of you welcome him to the table before starting small talk.

“Oh, by the way, Harry, I meant to thank you for your advice.” You start causing a confused look on the man’s face.

“My advice?” He asks. “What did I tell you?”

“When I was checking in I asked for room 405 and now I ended up in a deluxe room just like you told us about earlier today.” You giggle.

“Hold on, what room are you in??” He asks, clearly even more confused than he was at the beginning of this conversation.

“407.” 

“Ah, right! You got me confused for a second as I am booked in room 405 again.” He explains. “So, we’re practically neighbors!” 

Your brain spins a bit at how coincidentally it is of you asking for the exact room Harry is in. And on top of that, you are indeed practically neighbors. Suddenly you feel glad that you aren’t actual neighbors for the night, cause the rooms are very noisy and there’s a dividing door between every other room, allowing them to connect two rooms if needed. You’re not sure what your nighttime activities will turn into, once you’re left alone in your hotel room with just your unholy thoughts of the man next to you. 

Your food gets served, you and Harry both choose a different dish. He chose the tilapia filet and you went for a steak. Both are served with some veggies and fries. 

“That steak looks good.” He says as he puts a bit of fish into his mouth. 

“Would you like to try some?” You ask him to which he agrees. His fork is all covered in the sauce that comes with the fish. So, you cut off a piece of steak and hold your fork out for him to take it. He hums softly as the taste of the steak hits his tastebuds, sending vibrations through your fork. 

Harry insists on you trying some of his fish too. So he cuts a piece of, similar as to how you did it and holds his fork out for you to try it. 

You’re not much of a fish eater but you can see how people like this particular dish. It’s good as far as how good fish get. 

***

After hanging out with your friends on the terras, drinking some wine. All of you decide to call it a night. It’s nearly 11 p.m., and all of you need to be up bright and early the next day for your course. 

You hop into the elevator together, all of you pressing different buttons for different floors. Soon enough you’re the last one standing as you’re the only one whose hotel room is located on the top floor, and Harry’s of course.

Your pace slows down when you reach room 405. A deep voice is heard on the other side of the door. This confirms your suspicions, Harry is still up. It seems like he is currently on the phone with someone as a one-sided conversation is heard from his room. You decide not to snoop around, for all you know he’ll walk out the door any second and see you lingering around his door. That’d be weird.

Once you reach your door, you open it with the card and enter the room. You were smart enough to turn on the air conditioning before heading down for dinner so the room was cooled perfectly. 

You let yourself fall backward on your bed with a deep sigh. This massive crush on what essentially is your teacher was unexpected. And now you’re full of nerves, jitter, and a lot of unholy thoughts to think about.

You open up your book and try to set your mind in another direction. You have to face the man you’re thinking about tomorrow and above all you need to be able to concentrate. 

After 45 minutes of reading your mind is still on the one topic it was before. So the plan to distract yourself failed miserably. The only other option you can consider is taking a cold shower, cause there’s no way in hell you can masturbate to the thought of him and look him in the eye tomorrow.

You hop into the shower. You start at your regular temperature and decrease the temperature with small steps to end with a cold shower. Your hands travel over your body and you notice how sensitive your skin is. You take some soap and spread it all over your skin. Once your hands reach your breasts you give some extra attention to your achy nipples, pinching them between your fingers. You moan softly, god that feels good.

You realize what you’re doing and stop immediately, turning the water ever colder causing you to nearly squeal at the temperature. You step out of the shower and wrap a towel around your body. 

As soon as you’re all dried up, you crawl back into your bed and grab your phone to scroll mindlessly through TikTok. First, you clear your notifications but you notice one particular Instagram notification that catches your eye.

harrystyles liked your story 8m ago

It’s fucking past midnight, what is this man liking your Instagram story for?? As if you weren’t thinking about him enough already. 

You decide to get out of bed and go outside for a little midnight stroll. The cool and fresh air will do you good. You take your AirPods out of your bag so you can listen to some music while you're at it. 

You’ve been walking for about 25 minutes when you step back into the elevator and press the button to the fourth floor. Harry has finally disappeared from your mind, I mean, he’s still there but just less present. You are tired and just need your sleep.

Room 407 is two-thirds down the hall, luckily the floor is covered with carpet so your feet don’t make as much sound. You don’t want to wake anyone up at this ungodly hour. Nerves kick back in the closer you get to room 405. What if he’s still awake, or what if you woke him up when your door fell closed on your way out?

The sound of a door opening is heard and you’re too afraid to take your eyes off the floor. It takes every bit of strength in you to lift your head up, but when you finally do, your eyes are met with the ones you’ve been thinking about all night. He’s changed out of his dress pants and blouse and into a plain white shirt and some grey sweatpants.

“Oh, hi.” You mumble. Fuck, you think. You did wake him up on your way out. And now he’s here to complain about it.

“Hi.” He replies in a whisper. Harry heard you walk through the hallway, at least he was hoping it was you. But now that he’s standing eye to eye with you, he suddenly becomes nervous and doesn’t know what to say.

“I hope I didn’t wake you up when I left my room.” You apologize. 

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve been struggling to fall asleep anyway.” “Yeah, me too. I’m gonna go give it another try though.” You point to your door, gesturing for you to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Wait!” Harry whisper-yells. “I- uhm. Do yo- uh.” He stumbles over his words. You turn your body back to him, looking at him with your big eyes.

“Do you wanna come with me to my room?” He finally asks and he holds out his hand for you to grab. You’re taken by surprise but after looking at him for a bit too long you grab his hand with a little nod and let him lead the way. 

He closes his fingers around yours and takes a couple of steps back to his room, opening the door with his room key. He steps inside the room, holds the door open, and pulls you in by your hand. The door is slammed closed right after you’re through the opening and Harry's strong arms push you against the door. 

“Hi.” He says giddy when looking at your lips, earning a smile from you.

“Oh fuck, just kiss me already.” You demand, and he is eager to please. 

His lips crash onto yours and his tongue slips inside your mouth. He’s gentle but demanding, it’s nothing like you ever thought it would be. This kiss makes you realize what people mean by melting when they’re being kissed. It’s like every inch of your body becomes one with his.

Your fingers graze his hair, pulling him closer as his hands find their place on your hips. He pushes his body flush against yours, earning a moan from your lips. The fingers of his right hand sneak under the hem of your shirt to dig into your skin. 

He pulls away after what feels like minutes of making out, panting slightly. His fingers play with the hem of your shirt and he looks down.

“Can I?” He asks to which you agree. Your shirt is pulled over your head in a swift motion, revealing your peach-coloured bra. Suddenly you feel glad you decided to put on a bra when you went for a walk because you nearly decided to not wear one.

“Fuck.” He moans at the sight of you. His hand comes up to cup your left breast through the padding of your bra. “You’re so beautiful.” He kisses your neck, up to your ear. You gain confidence from his words and let your hands travel over his chest, down his sides all the way to the hem of his own shirt. You look him in the eyes for permission. 

“Do it.” He whispers in your ear while he keeps on kissing every inch of your ear, neck, and jawline. You pull the shirt over his head revealing his perfect abs. You can’t help but put one hand flat on his stomach to feel his muscles and moan softly. Your eyes meet his and he has a beautiful smile plastered across his lips. 

His lips are back on yours and his fingers hook in the waistband of your jeans. He’s greedy to get you out of your clothes as soon as possible. He opens the button. His left hand grabs your face and he kisses you passionately on your lips as he puts his right hand in the back of your jeans to squeeze your bum. 

“Hmm, you feel so good.” He squeezes your flesh one more time before he pushes the fabric over your ass. You step out of your jeans and push him further into the room. Your lips reconnect. 

Harry leads you to the chair in the corner of the room and pushes you down in the chair. Your eyes fall down his body and stay glued to the tent starting to form in his sweatpants. His fingers wrap underneath your chin to pull your face up. 

“Eyes up here, baby.” He says. He spreads your legs to stand in between them and strokes his hand over your inner thighs, to your stomach, and up to your lips. He puts his thumb against your lips with his fingers resting on your cheek. You open your lips and softly suck on his thumb getting it slightly moist. 

He takes his finger back out of your mouth and his hands explore down to your chest. Both hands grab one boob each and massage your skin through your bra. He makes sure to flick his thumbs over your hardening nipples every now and then. 

You sink further down into the chair, practically laying on your back with your bum on the edge of the seat. Your feet are tucked around his waist and your legs are spread open to reveal your clothed crotch. Harry is standing right in front of the chair, causing his crotch to gaze over your most sensitive spot when he moves close enough. 

You moan at the pressure he’s applying to your chest. His big hands fit perfectly around your tits and it’s all you’ve been thinking about. Well, not all, but you get the point.

He pulls down the cups of your bra, to expose your breasts. Your nipples are hard and needy. His lips attach to your right nipple to suck on them before he lets go and gently strokes his fingers down your stomach, back towards your inner thighs. The soft touch of his fingertips tickles, sending a buzzing feeling straight to your clit.

He kneels in front of the chair you’re sitting on and wraps his hands around your waist. He places a couple of kisses on your thighs, right next to your core. But never touching where you need it most. He’s making you all needy, drawing moan after moan. 

“Are you sure you wanna do this?” Harry asks. But the view in front of him already gives him the answer he is looking for. You’re dripping through your panties, completely ruining them and every touch is rewarded with another moan coming from your lips.

“Mhm, fuck yes.” You half moan.

Harry finally places a kiss on the wet spot forming on your panties. You immediately put your hand in his hair. After a few more open-mouthed kisses on top of the fabric, he finally pulls them to the side. He lets out a low moan at the sight and smell in front of him. 

He attaches his lips to your core, leaving another open-mouthed kiss on your labia before he sucks the juices into his mouth. Another loud moan escapes his lips, you’re sure anyone who’d walk by would be able to hear the both of you.

“You taste so fucking good, baby.” Harry moans. He pushes your panties further to the side and you help him hold them there, giving him full access to taste every single inch of you. He licks up from your bottom all the way to your clit and you can’t help but whine. He continues to gently lick around your clitoris, making sure not to apply too much pressure at once. It feels like pure ecstasy. 

His hands stroke the insides of your thighs again while they travel to your core. With two hands, he spreads you open to allow him to stick his tongue inside of you. He pushes in and out of you a few times before his tongue travels back to your clit. Licking and sucking softly, building up the pressure. He for sure is taking his time with you. His eyes are locked on yours to gauge what you like and don’t like. But so far you seem to have entered another world. With your left hand locked in his hair and your head thrown back.

Harry starts to put more pressure on your clit with his tongue making you all squirmish. Your soft moans go up in loudness. His lips leave your clit but his finger is quick to stroke circles around it before he inserts his finger into your pussy hitting you right on that spongy part. His finger pushes in and out of you and his tongue gently swipes from left to right. 

He applies even more pressure to your clit, sucking on the sensitive bud every now and then. His one finger inside of you pumps in and out, building up a faster pace. More juices start to spill from your pussy so he licks from down all the way up to your clit again to collect your wetness and slurp it all up. It’s a sign you’re coming close to your orgasm. Your legs start shaking around his shoulders and he continues his work, going faster and sucking harder.

Soon you can’t contain your moans and your orgasm hits you harder than it has ever done before. Harry’s fingers don’t seem to slow down though, and his tongue is still attached to your sensitive clit. Your moans turn into high-pitched whines mixed with curse words falling from your lips.

“Fucking hell, please” You moan, trying to push his face away from your cunt. His finger falls from your pussy and he softly caresses your mount with a flat hand, his lips are still attached to your clit but he stopped sucking as he moans loudly. The vibrations of the sounds he’s making shoot right through your body. He completely removes his face from you and wipes the wetness from his chin. 

“God, I wanna do that again. You sound so fucking pretty.” He tells you before he connects his lips to yours. The tangy taste of yourself is all you can focus on, making you feel dizzy. 

Harry looks you up and down. He gets up off his knees so he can finally drop his sweats to the floor. The erection in his loose-fit boxers makes you curious, but it gives you a good idea of how big he is. 

He holds out his hand for you to help you get up from the chair. His arms wrap around your body once you’re on your feet and he kisses you deeply. His hands take hold underneath your bum. 

“Jump.” He commands and you listen without a second thought. You wrap your arms around his middle and his erection softly presses into your core. You moan and nestle your face into his neck. Your hips try to grind down on him, although you’re not as successful as you’d hoped. Harry walks to the end of the bed to place you down. 

“Let’s get you out of these.” You say as you put your fingers into the waistband of his boxers. You pull them down so he can step out of them. He pushes you on your shoulders, tipping you over so you’re lying on your back and his hands hold your knees to spread them open again. With one hand he pumps his cock a few times and with the other, he pushes your panties back to the side before he pushes the tip of his cock through your folds. 

“Shit, a condom.” He curses. “I don’t know if I have one.” He says honestly. It’s not like he thought he was getting laid during his work trip so he didn’t pack any. He rushes to his wallet in hopes of finding one in there. He opens the coin section and is happy to be greeted by a silver foil. He takes it out before he returns to you and puts on the protection. 

He goes back to what he started. He rubs the tip of his now rubber-covered cock over your clit, stimulating the sensitive nub. You immediately are a moany-mess again before he slides his tip down and inters your cunt. He pushes in and out, going deeper with every thrust. His thrusts are gentle as he knows you’re close to being overstimulated. 

His hands hold your thighs down before he starts moving back and forth at a faster pace. He bends down to attack your right nipple with his mouth. He sucks sharply and licks over the hard bump. 

The bed starts squeaking loudly when he holds you down around your hips to be able to fuck up into you faster. His skin slaps against yours making the most erotic sounds audible in the hallway and possibly in the neighboring rooms. 

Harry wraps his hand around your neck, not really applying pressure but just holding you in place as he trusts into you slower but with more power. Smacking his pelvis against your clit with every trust. Your panties slipped back down covering half your labia again. 

“Let’s get these out of the way.” You laugh. Harry pulls out so you’re able to remove your underwear but he’s back inside of you as soon as possible. He’s bucking up, trying to hit your G-spot every time he pushes in. And he knows he’s doing a good job as your moans went up a pitch again. 

He grabs your hips and keeps fucking you hitting your G-spot hard every, single, time. The trusts change from hard and deep to soft and fast. Giving you a whole other sensation. He keeps switching between the two different paces until he finds you squirming underneath him again. He bucks his hips hard and deep into you and after a few more trusts you reach your second orgasm, screaming and squirting all over him. 

You were about to apologize but Harry has already attached his lips to your cunt to lick up all the leftover juices. He’s moaning loudly as he’s trying to clean you up. Your own moans become quieter and turn into soft hums as you nestle your hand into his hair, grabbing him tightly. 

He starts assaulting your clit like he used to when you were sitting in the chair. His tongue is doing wonders on your overstimulated clit and it only takes a couple of strokes of his wet muscle to get you to reach your height again. This time however it feels shorter and less intensive, but still your moans picked up again. It’s like music to Harry’s ears.

“Fuck, Y/N, you are so fucking perfect.” He moans, kissing you sloppily. His hips meet yours and both of you hum to the feeling. Harry takes a hold of his cock and guides it back inside of you. His hips grind over yours, giving you way too much stimulation but god does it feel good. 

He places his left foot on the bed next to your bum and starts pounding into you. He puts one of his hands on top of your mouth as you can’t contain any of the sounds you’re making. Harry knows it’s already too late when it comes to waking up the neighbors but he doesn’t wanna keep bothering them all night.

Never have you been fucked this hard, fast, and deep all at the same time. It’s starting to feel overwhelming and you can’t stop whining at how good you feel. Harry keeps miraculously pounding into you as he starts to moan loudly himself as well. 

His moans send shivers down your spine, he sounds otherworldly. The deeper his moans get, the sloppier his trusts become. He spills all of his cum inside of the condom before his moans quiet down and he pulls out. He’s panting loudly and he gently swats the back of your thigh twice. He rubs his cock up and down your pussy one more time before he kneels down again and licks your pussy clean. 

“Stay where you are.” He says and places a quick kiss on your lips. He walks to the bathroom to toss the condom and grab a damp towel to properly clean you up. He dabs the lukewarm towel to your overstimulated core and softly strokes the fabric down once or twice. He puts the towel down on the floor where all of your juices squirted in an attempt to minimize the mess.

“There, now let’s get comfy.” He says and gets into bed. “Do you want a shirt?” He asks to which you nod. He gets up to grab his white tee from before and hands it to you. It smells deliciously like his skin in the best way possible. You put it on and it reaches up to your upper thigh. 

Harry lays back down in bed and you crawl next to him. He naturally opens his arms for you to cuddle up to him. 

“I‘ve never been fucked that good.” You chuckle as you take a deep breath. The room smells and looks like sex but neither of you seems to care. 

“Hmm, you felt so good.” Harry’s ego boosts at your comment. And if he’s honest, he’s never been with someone he enjoyed so much and he simply can’t wait to do it again. “I hope you’re going to stay the rest of the night, right?” He asks. 

“I didn’t plan on getting up, I’m way too comfortable here.” You reply to which Harry only pulls you in closer. He places a soft kiss on your forehead with a soft hum. 

“Goodnight, baby.” He whispers to which you answer a simple goodnight. 

***

You wake up the next morning with Harry’s body wrapped around yours. The sound of your alarm was ringing from the nightstand. It’s a good thing you charged your phone last night when you were trying to sleep otherwise it would’ve been out of power and therefore not been awakened. 

“What time is it?” Harry asks, his voice low and sexy as he’d just woken up. 

“7:30.” You answer, to which he shoots up. 

“Shit, I forgot to set my alarm. I need to be at work in an hour.” He sighs, but actually, he doesn’t really care. He has the most beautiful girl lying in his bed, breakfast can wait for once and he can also head to work half an hour later, he already prepared everything for today anyway. 

He lays back down and rolls on his side to face you. 

“Hi.” He says. 

“Hi.” You reply, and both of you laugh softly. 

“So, I hope you have no regrets from last night. I didn’t mean to push you into anything you didn’t want.” Harry says, to which you take his face between your hands to pull him closer. You connect your lips to his. 

“Not one single bit.” You reply before Harry deepens the kiss. His cock is already hard, as most men wake up with an erect member. But the beautiful girl in his T-shirt next to him is making him lose his mind. 

His hands travel down her side and cup her pussy. One finger gently slides between her already damp lips and rubs circles around her clit. 

“Har, we don’t have time for this.” You whine and he knows you're right. He sighs before he takes his fingers back from your pussy and licks the tip of his finger clean. 

“I’m sorry. You’re just irresistible.” He flirts. 

“It’s gonna be a long day then.” You joke, neither of you had thought about having to go through today and act like nothing has happened. 

“We’ll see about that.” He argues as if he doesn’t think there’s going to be a lot of tension. “Let’s just get ready for breakfast.” He says and gets out of bed to get dressed. 

You sit up and think for a bit. All your stuff is two rooms down the hall and you don’t feel like getting into your nasty clothes from the day before, especially those panties which are ruined. 

“Can I borrow your sweatpants for a bit?” You ask Harry. “I need to go to my room to get ready.” You explain. He grabs his sweats off the floor and hands them to you. You’re now wearing the complete outfit Harry was wearing when he pulled you into his room. 

“I’ll see you in a few minutes.” You say before kissing him once again and head out to your own room. 

You took a quick shower to rinse off the sweat of the night before, brushed your teeth, and got dressed in a fresh set of clothing. 

When you’re all set and ready, you grab your room key and exit your room. You walk the short distance down the hallway to Harry’s room and raise your hand to knock on his door but he already has it opened before your hand can hit the wood. 

“Let’s go get some fuel.” He says and grabs you by your hand. He leads you all the way to the elevator. He pressed the button to the ground floor where the breakfast buffet was. 

The elevator stops at the second floor. You quickly pull your hand back as you know there are classmates sleeping on that same floor. And since Harry and you haven’t discussed anything about how to move forward, you’d rather not get the confrontation in the middle of an elevator. However, luckily it wasn’t someone either of you knew. 

Once the both of you enter the restaurant, Harry a few steps ahead of you, you notice all your classmates who also slept in the same hotel already sitting at your designated table. 

“Wow Harry, we thought you had already left. You’ve never been this late before.” One of them recalls. 

“Yeah, you’re always the first to eat and the first to leave.” Someone else joins in. 

You don’t know where to look or what to say. It feels like getting caught as you are well aware of the reason why Harry hasn’t eaten yet. Both of you decide to go fill up a plate with a delicious breakfast and just try to ignore the comments. 

“I feel like we’re already getting caught.” You tell him as you stand next to him putting some eggs on your plate. 

“Don’t worry your pretty head over it, there’s no way for them to know.” He reassures. 

You sit back at the table before Harry does. He’s in line for the coffee machine. 

Your friend looks at you. “Spill. The. Tea.” She mouths so no one can hear, but you can see. You giggle to yourself and shake your head no. But she just knows something is up. 

Harry walks back to the table with two cups of coffee. He puts the black coffee in front of himself and the cappuccino next to your plate. 

“Thank you, ba-“ You quickly stopped saying what you wanted to say, hoping no one had noticed. You look around the table but there are no suspicious looks. Harry places his hand on your knee and squeezes softly. 

“You’re welcome.” He says. 

Taglist: @justmystyles @bitchybabyharry Let me know if you want to be added to my taglist! 🤗

[voxsmistress]

Mama Didn't Raise No Bimbo - Part 13

Sorry guys this is a little short but I'm currently away on holiday so internet is hell and trying to type everything on my phone is nottttt fun!!! so it might be short and sweet but as soon as i have my laptop and internet more chapters are on their way!!! Are there any scenes you'd like to see Y/n involved with in with the Vee's or just in the Hazbin Hotel world?

Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight / Part Nine / Part Ten / Part Eleven / Part Twelve / Part Thirteen / Part Fourteen / Part Fifteen / Part Sixteen

“You fuckin’ did WHAT?” A glass flies and hits the wall a few meters from where you are sat sipping on your own glass of gin.

“Vel will you just listen- “another glass went flying at Vox’s head, she still managed to miss him but, she was getting closer. Leaning back in your own chair you hid your smirk by taking a sip from your drink. It was safe to say that Velvette was not at all impressed by the news that you had made a deal with Vox and Valentino. Fortunately for you, she wasn’t pissed at you. The other two … now that was a different story.   

“No this was my fuckin’ deal why the fuck are you two deciding to high jack it you square faced pri- “

“Enough Vel!” The static in Vox’s voice made you all turn, he was starting to get mad himself – his one eye starting to warp and sparks appearing. Another sip from your glass you get comfortable in your armchair.  You were all currently in the Vee’s (and you suppose yours) living area. After dragging them both here you had basically made Vox and Val tell Velvette about the deal. Better for her to hear it off you all now than from someone else. “Now Velvette”, Vox tugged on his bow tie a little bit calmer than a few moments ago: “you’ve got to learn to share my dear”. Amused at the way both these powerful Overlords were running with their tails between their legs because of Velvette was something you’d remember for ages. Of course you keep your thoughts to yourself. Vel could take them on. Something told you that you wouldn’t be quite as lucky.

“Why the fuck would I share when she WAS mine?” Quirking an eyebrow up at her, you take another sip. Not sure when you agreed to be hers specifically?

“Mi amor, she is ours now. Not yours. Ours” Valentino finally spoke from between a few puffs of his cigarette, arms crossed looking more displeased than angry, though he threw you a small smile when he saw you looking his way.

“Yes OURS. Remember the agreement we made Vel!”  Agreement? You perked up at that admittance from Vox. What agreement?

“Uh, excuse me? What agreement?” Putting your drink down on the table next to the armchair you stand up so you were level with the three. From the wince on Vox’s face added with Velvette and Valentino glaring at him – you figured he’d let the cat out the bag when he wasn’t supposed to.  

“Listen sweetheart”, his eye started to warp causing you to snort in annoyance. Did he really think that was going to work on you?

“Cut the bullshit mind tricks Vox, you know that doesn’t do shit to me, I want to know about this agreement you all made.” Moving closer to them you crossed your own arms. Surrounded by them:  Velvette on your left and Valentino on your right, Vox directly in front of you. The latter now was giving you a sheepish smile. “Is anyone gonna tell me?”

“Y/n, our Princessa – we already told you that we saw you that night at the club preforming when you didn’t know we were there …” Val started them off, one hand waving his cigarette around and another coming to play with the hair on your shoulder.

“Yes?”

Vox sighed before continuing from Valentino: “We knew there and then that you held power. We observed you for a few months, to see where you were getting your power and what it could do – where it came from. Impressive. No one else seemed to see what we did. Not even that old timer: Alastor. Course we didn’t even know your capabilities as you hide certain parts so well”.

“We each knew we wanted you babe. Each of us craved you. After manyyyy arguments, tantrums and backstabbing we decided enough was enough. So, we made the agreement. All of us would have you or none of us.” Velvette looped her arm through yours, a small squeeze and a wicked smile directed at you. Uh huh.

“Lucky for us you agreed to have us all. Though some of us seemed to forget that”, Vox glared at Velvette while he moved closer to you. A huff came from your left and a chuckle from your right. A gloved hand caressed your face, lifting it slightly so you were looking up at Valentino who out of the three of them had been the calmest one. Shocking. So much for him being the emotional brat.

“Now that we have you” he crooned down at you, smoke encasing you all in your very own bubble.

“And I have you” you continued, face flushing from the attention of the Vee’s.

“Y/n, we are going to have so much fun” Vox chuckled. Arms encased you from all around, flashes of smug smirks and tightening hands made your own smirk widen. Why yes. You tightened your hands in Vox’s suit and Val’s jacket pulling them closer as Velvette pressed snuggly to your side. You were going to have some fun.

Taglist

@tasha-1994 @azullynxx @reath-solia @leathesimp @klorinda @twinklethewarrior @martinys-world @rosiethevoxobesser

@the-maladaptivedaydreamer @songbrita @midge7838 @joumi13 @wonderlandangelsposts @th3rizzler

@ace-spades-1 @iamferalfordilfs

@justgiulia @kittycatkrissa @qu1cks1lversb1tch @martinys-world @superwholatacohunters @mysticvoide

[babymetaldoll]

Are you mine - Chapter fifteen: "Love is pain"

Summary: Cat Adams kidnapped Diana Reid and Spencer has to do whatever it takes to bring her back safe, including facing his marriage ain't perfect in front of Adams. Will the Reids be strong enough to fix this?  Word count: 9.480  Warnings: Cursing, spoilers of Criminal Mind Ep 22, angst  A/N: So, Spencer didn't go to jail, but life wasn't easy for him either.  I hope you guys enjoyed it. 

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Spencer’s point of view

The minute I stood before Prentiss and she said Cat Adams had my mother, my entire world crumbled. It was the worst plot twist in history. It meant my darkest fears were becoming true. A fucking psychopath was after my family, and who knew how far she could get to hurt me.

- “We need your help”- Prentiss went straight to the point- “If we want to find your mother, we need you to talk to her.”

- “No fucking way!”- (Y/N) reacted right away.- “That fucking lunatic is obsessed with Spencer. If you take him to her, you are giving her what she wants”

- “It’s the only way we can find Diana.”- Emily added and looked at me. (Y/N) dropped my hand and widened her eyes, shocked.

- “It’s ok, Chipmunk.”- I whispered.- “I have to do it, for my mom. Before she hurts her.”

- “Then I’m going with you.”- my wife replied, and before I could argue, she added- “And this time, I am not taking no for an answer. If you wanna go, I’ll be there with you.”

- “(Y/N), I don’t think…”- but whatever Emily was about to say to my wife, was never heard by anyone, ‘cos one look from (Y/N) silenced her in her spot.

- “The jet is ready. JJ will be going with you.”- Prentiss finally said and I just nodded.

We didn’t talk much during the flight to Iowa, to the Mount Pleasant Women's Correctional Facility. (Y/N) drank coffee while I just stared out the window, thinking about every single word I had said to Cat the one and only time we had talked. She kept asking about my mom, and she knew I had a pregnant wife. She had clearly done her investigation about me, the same way I had done about her. But why couldn’t she let go? Why did she say we had unfinished business?

I knew Cat had been in solitary confinement for almost six months. I knew what that could do to the psyche of an inmate. At best, they suffer from delusions. At worst, they're psychotic. And I knew with her, it was always the worst scenario possible.

As we walked into the facility, I tried to focus. I wanted to be able to treat that case as I’d treat any other. I wanted to take my mother out of the equation, but I couldn't. Of course, it was impossible. My head and my heart were one. And though I knew I had to try to keep a cool head to save my mother’s life, the fact I had to break a psychopath’s act to get to her made everything impossible to bear.

- “Remember Spence, I’ll be here the whole time.”- JJ said and I turned to her in silence. My wife held my hand and didn’t say a word. I knew she would never leave me alone. I stared at Cat Adams from the other side of the glass, sitting at a table in the interrogation room and I knew I was ready to get my mother back.

- “If she gets too close, I’m gonna kill her.”- (Y/N) whispered as JJ walked to the door and opened it.

- “I’ll be ok, chipmunk.”- I replied and squeezed her hand. My wife tried to smile but failed miserably.- “Please, stay here.”

- “No, I’m going in there with you.”

- “(Y/N), I don’t think it’s a good idea”- JJ said, supporting me.- “If Cat has any fantasy about Spencer, having his wife around won’t help her at all.”

- “Trust me, I’ll be fine. And you’ll be near me the entire time.”- I whispered to my wife.- “Please.”- she just nodded, and I quickly kissed her forehead.

- “Ok, ready?”- JJ asked, and before I could say a word, I found myself walking into the interrogation room.

- “Spencie.”- Cat said and smiled at me like she was actually happy to see me.

- “Where is my mother?”- I demanded to know immediately.

- “I missed you.”- she ignored my questions and sighed, staring at me, while I did my best to remain calm. Which, of course, didn’t work.

- “What did you and Lindsey do to her? How did you…- but my questions were ignored, Cat raised her hand and stopped me.

- “Now stop. You don't get to walk in here and hiss at me like I'm the criminal.”- I had a million comebacks for that statement, but I let her talk. I needed to read her and force her to make a mistake.- “Now, we do this my way.”- Cat kicked the chair in front of her and I took it right away.- “Have a seat. How is (Y/N)? And the kids?”

- “We are not talking about my family.”

- “I thought we were gonna talk about your mom. She is family too, right?”

- “Where is she?”.

- “It's not fun, is it? Not being in control of the whole situation?”- a silly grin hung from her mouth as she stared at me. JJ stood against a wall, crossing her arms on her chest, keeping an eye on every move Adam made.

- “What do you want from me, Cat? Revenge ‘cos I put you here? This is where you belong. I didn’t lock you here, you got yourself in here.”

- “How do you stay sane with two kids?”- Cat asked the most random question, trying to force me into her conversation.- “A brain like yours needs stimulation, and I don’t think kids provide any.”

- “Being a father is the most rewarding thing I have ever done.”

- “Yeah yeah, whatever you say. I bet you miss reading.”

- “I still read.”

- “You need time for yourself. Time to be the boy genius you are. Being a genius and being a dad are two way too different things.” - she smiled at me like she knew how I felt. Like she could relate or understand how it felt to be a parent.

- “My kids are the best thing that has ever happened to me, Cat. But I don’t expect you to understand that feeling. It involves thinking about someone else except yourself.”

- “That's still not enough. You have to go someplace up here.”- she said pointing to her forehead. - “Somewhere to hide from all that madness, yells, diapers, Play-Doh... plus your mom around. That had to be crazy.”

Cat made a brief pause and stared at me. I just kept looking at her, trying not to move a muscle.

- “Do you want to see where I go? I'll show you. Come here.”- she moved her index fingers as she spoke, so I leaned on the table, resting my hands on it. Cat smiled and raised her hands to my eyes, but before she could do anything, JJ commanded.

- “No touching.”- but of course, Cat ignored her, she just touched my eyelids gently as I closed my eyes.

- “Close your eyes. Good. Now keep them shut. Sit back and relax. Now, when you open your eyes, I want you to look at me like I'm the first woman who’s not your wife you've seen in your life. Now... Open.”

- “Hello, Cat.”- I whispered as I played along with her fantasy. She giggled and stared at me pleased to see me. Honestly.

- “You're here! You're really here.”

- “There's nowhere else I would rather be.”- I replied and smiled at her.

- “You're good at this. You're so good at this, I almost believe you don't want to kill me.”

- “I don't want to kill you.”- I replied as she raised an eyebrow and kept looking into my eyes seductively. I wasn’t lying, I didn’t want to kill her. Unless she hurt my mother or any other member of my family.

- “No?”

- “No.”- I shook my head and did my best to remain calm.

- “What if I let your mother die? Then would you kill me? Or would you just… hurt me?”- the way she said that last word let me know she didn’t mean it in a bad way.- “Would you pin me down and leave bruises that don't go away?”- I leaned over her and kept staring into her eyes. I knew my wife hated every second of that conversation, but I had to get in Cat’s head.

- “Is that what you want?”- I whispered in a low voice.

- “I guess I just want to know if you would. If you could.”- she murmured looking at the ceiling, trying to look innocent and sexy.

- “No.”- I simply replied, not breaking eye contact.

- “No?”

- “It's not the kind of man I am.”- I guess she was pleased with my answer, ‘cos she bit her lips and simply demanded.

- “Do me a favor and tell blondie over there to step aside, because we're gonna play another game. And this time, we're going to find out exactly what kind of man you are.”- I didn’t say a word, I just turned to JJ and nodded. She hesitated for a second before walking toward the door to meet my wife at the other side of the glass.

- “Let’s play.”- I said staring at Cat's psycho smile

- “Let’s!”

I don’t know if my wife was ready for what was about to happen, but I knew it was going to be way worse than last time.

- “Are you hungry?”- Cat asked randomly.

- “No.”

- “Me neither.”- she replied, looking bored of the conversation.

- “So the same game as last time? I answer every question you ask honestly?”- I tried to set the course of the conversation, sitting back on my chair and looking at her.

- “No, this time you get to ask the questions.”- she proposed and I raised an eyebrow, trying to look intrigued.

- “About what?”

- “Well, I know a secret. About you. And you can ask me as many questions as you like to figure it out. But you only get one guess as to what it is. Now, guess correctly, I take your phone, I call our friend Lindsey, and I tell her to release your mother unharmed. If you don't…”- Cat tried to look all innocent as she put two of her fingers inside her mouth, pointing like a gun, and pretended to blow her brains out as she giggled.

- “Is there a clock?”- I asked, trying to look unaffected by her performance.

- “There's always a clock. Give it to me.”- I handed her my wristwatch and she stared at her carefully. - “Now, you'll have 4 hours.”- I opened my mouth, but she stopped me in a second.- “Not yet. You have to wait till the second hand comes around.”

- “You want to give me a hint before we start?”- I whispered as she kept staring at my clock.

- “Do I look like a girl that gives hints?

- “Actually you do.”- and I did my best to sound like I was flirting a little bit. I knew a little would go a long way in her head.

- “Ok, how about this? It's a secret you'll never admit to.”- there was a long and tense pause between us, where we just tried to read each other, and failed in the process.- “Go!”

(Y/N)’s point of view

Hell is a place on earth, and for me, that place was right there, in that waiting area, hearing that interrogation. It was ten times worse than it had been two years before, when Spencer and Cat had that “dinner date”, if you can call what they had a date.

I had to stare at her flirting with him, and my husband was letting her, even making her believe he was enjoying her attention. ‘Cause, of course, he is not enjoying her attention. No way. I am not even going to consider that thought.

- “I know what the secret is.”- Spencer announced.

- “You do?”

- “Why else would you put me through all this?”

- “Ooh. Phrasing it in the form of a question. That way it doesn't count as a guess. Very smart, doctor.”- Cat replied, playing with Spencer’s watch. I hated watching it in her hands. Something that was so Spencer’s. Something that he loved, tainted by her.

- “I'm gonna walk you through a scenario and your face is gonna tell me how close I am.”- my husband used his softest voice as he stared at her. And she didn’t move, she looked hypnotized by him. - “From the moment I arrested you, you watched and waited for the right time to take your revenge. When you learned I was taking my mom to live with us, you took it. You and Lindsey planned to kidnap my mother so I would know how it feels to have a parent manipulated because you want to prove that you and I are the same. Am I right?”

Cat yawned as Spencer stopped talking, I clenched my fists and just stared at the scene unfolding in front of me from the other side of the glass.

- “Mmm, sorry, I couldn't hold that in any longer. What were you saying?”- Cat teased, but Spencer didn’t even move as he replied.

- “Psychopaths get bored easily.”

- “You're right. Let's speed this up. Shall we?”- Cat stood up and walked toward my husband. My first reaction was to take a step closer to the door because I wanted to get there and stop her, but JJ grabbed my arm.

- “Wait. Let him do this.”

- “Sure, let’s leave Cat sit on my husband’s lap and fulfill her fucking dream.”

- “(Y/N), I don’t think she’s…”- but JJ couldn't go on talking. Cat Adams was, in fact, sitting on my husband’s lap. And he wasn’t arguing with her.

- “He is doing what he has to do to get his mother back”- I whispered and closed my eyes, trying to convince myself it wasn’t such a big deal.

- “Why don't you think about all the pain you've suffered in your life.”- Cat’s voice was soft and seductive. She even dared to play with the buttons of his shirt. - “What would I capitalize on, do you think? Is it the death of your mentor, SSA Jason Gideon?”

- “No. Because we caught the man who killed him.”- Spencer replied, not reacting to any of her movements, even when she was moving her fingers against his chin clearly mimicking oral sex.

- “What about Agent Morgan?” Cat paused and stared at his reaction. Still, Spencer didn’t give her any, so she moved closer and whispered in his ear. - “And your guilt over not visiting his little boy.”

- “He understands, I was taking care of my mother.”

- “Yeah, but you could make the time if you wanted to.”- Cat whispered and her lips were too close to his neck. I was getting close to my limit. I wanted her away from my husband.- “Why didn't you go?”

- “Truthfully, I got distracted. I was trying to figure out a way to help my mom. She didn't have time.”- Cat nodded and moved her lips closer to Spencer’s ear, ready to kiss it, but he just continued talking.- “Morgan, Savannah, and little Bobby did. So there's absolutely no shame in admitting that. Morgan would understand.”

So that was what Spencer was trying to get. How Cat had all that information. And by saying baby Hank’s name wrong, he got it.

- “I agree. That's why that's not the secret.”- Cat stood up from his lap and returned to her chair. JJ grabbed her phone and dialed Emily. As for me, I let out a small sigh and wished I could hold my husband tight. I knew he was going through hell. He even turned to look at the glass when Cat had her back at him, and I wish I could smile at him.

- “I love you, honey.”- I whispered, though I knew he couldn’t hear me.

- “Go ahead, JJ.”- Rossi’s voice on the other side of the line took me to reality. JJ had called the guys to tell them what was happening, ‘cos we needed to make progress and find Diana soon.

- “So Cat has a deep background on Spence. She knew about Gideon’s death and Morgan leaving the team for his family.”- JJ explained quickly.

- “She's throwing him off-balance.”- David pointed out.

- “Yeah, but Spence also purposely gave the wrong name of Morgan's son, and she didn't correct him.”

- “She must have gotten her hands on Reid's confidential FBI file. It would mention relevant team information but wouldn't name Morgan's baby because of confidentiality reasons.”- Emily barely breathed as she spoke. I turned to look at JJ, and she locked eyes with me as Rossi added

- “We were thinking she's been getting help from someone inside the prison. This goes deeper than that.”

- “So there is someone from our side helping Cat?”- I asked before JJ would hang up.

- “(Y/N), you know technically you shouldn’t…”

- “Oh come on, Emily!”- and I snapped before she could finish talking.- “We all know it’s impossible to keep any of us away from an investigation. So don’t waste your time, and tell me, is someone from our side giving Cat information? Does someone hate Spencer that much?"

- “We don’t know that yet, but we’ll tell you as soon as we can.”- Prentiss replied. JJ rubbed my arm, trying to calm me down, and I whispered “Thank you” to everyone and anyone who could hear me.

I turned to the glass again, Cat was still playing with Spencer’s watch, the one I was clearly going to replace with a new one ‘cos I didn’t want to think of her every time I stared at it.

- “Working deductively, the secret wouldn't be any of the topics you've already volunteered, because you wouldn't want to make it that easy on me.”- Spencer said and Cat looked annoyed by every word.

- “Genius, truly.”

- “So what is left that I wouldn't want to admit?”- my husband paused, and I hated the word that left his lips next- “Love. Is that what this is all about, love?”- Cat didn’t even blink as Spencer added- “Or my mother?”

Adams stopped moving, and kept her hands still for a moment, as Spencer played to read her. I don’t know if he was actually going somewhere with that statement, but I guess he had a plan.

- “No.”- he finally whispered- “For you. You want me to admit that I am actually in love with you.”

So far, I wasn't excited with that statement.

- “Don't get me wrong, I love my fairy tales, clearly, as much as the next girl, but I'm not delusional. I know you have always been in love with the same boring woman”- at least that bitch knew where she was standing.

- “Are you sure that’s not what you wanna hear?”- Spencer asked, raising an eyebrow as Cat laid back on her chair and smiled.

- “Very sure. So sure, in fact, that I had Lindsey leave a clue for you in your little scrapbook in your house.”

I remember Spencer had told me JJ found an XY written on Diana’s scrapbook, he thought it was related to Mr. Scratch, but clearly, it was part of Cat’s plan as well.

- “I couldn't have you come all the way down here and make a guess until I was positive. That is... Until I tested positive.���- and just like that, Cat rested both her hands on her belly and looked at it with… tenderness?

- “What, you're pregnant?”- Spencer spat those words in disbelief, lost in the way that conversation was going.

- “We're pregnant.”

What the fuck had Cat just said?

- “No.”- Spencer shook his head as Cat just smiled and lifted an imaginary glass to toast.

- “Oh, yes. Mazel tov.”

Spencer’s point of view

What Cat was implying made no sense whatsoever. I knew I hadn’t slept with her, I hadn’t even touched her. There was no way she was pregnant if she had been in solitary confinement, and if she was carrying someone’s baby, it wasn’t mine. We had never slept together.

- “It's not possible.”- I argued right away as I stood up and put my hands in my pocket, turning to stare at Cat’s reactions- “Even if you are pregnant, the baby's not mine.”

- “Except for the part where it is.”- she argued and smiled as if she had just won the argument.

- “That's completely preposterous. You've been in prison!”

I moved back to the table and sat down again. Cat wanted to take my mind off what was important: finding my mother. And to be honest, she found an effective way to do it. Now I couldn’t stop thinking about (Y/N) on the other side of the glass, hearing every single word that we were saying. Of course, Cat knew she was there, and she was enjoying torturing my wife.

- “And?”

- “And we've never…”- before I could say it, Cat interrupted me.

- “I know. We've never…”- she didn’t say it either, she just smiled pleased and demanded- “Ask me how I did it. Come on, ask me.”

- “How did you do it?- at that point, I was annoyed and tired of playing her game.

- “I had Lindsey dose you in Mexico. You lost time.”

How on earth did she know I went to Mexico? And how was I going to explain that to (Y/N)?

- “Mexico?”- the word was a whisper that let Cat know she had hit the jackpot.

- “What? You don’t remember that fun weekend? or… wait… your wife doesn’t know you went to Mexico to get your mother some experimental natural drugs?”

- “How did you know about that trip?”

- “I had eyes on you, Spencey.”- she replied, grinning like a Cheshire cat. - “Lindsey went on that trip along with you and you never noticed. She managed to drug you and that was it. And I gave her very specific instructions to get you in the mood.”

- “What, did she pretend to be you?”- the sarcasm in my voice was clear, and Cat replied the same way.

- “Why? Would that have worked?”

I leaned on that table and kept my eyes on her as I simply answered:

- “No.”

- “Yeah, I know, I know. Believe me, I know exactly where I stand on the Spencer Reid hot or not list. I told her to pretend to be (Y/N). The love of your life. Who you managed to love in silence for over four years, Spencer. That has to be a fucking record. I bet your balls were blue the entire time. So silly... Yet so useful.”

- “You're lying.”

I knew very well that none of that was true. Cat just wanted to drive my wife crazy. Create doubt, considering the only thing that was real about her speech was my one big mistake: I had gone to Mexico behind my wife’s back.

- “Honey bunny, it's (Y/N). It's ok. Honey, hon... It's ok. Come here. Shh. You want this. It's ok. You want this.”

The words “Honey Bunny” felt tainted after leaving Cat Adam’s lips.

- “It didn't happen.”- I shook my head and tried to remain calm. But none of that mattered to her. She just went along with her lie.

- “Hey, I was thinking, if it's a boy, we should definitely call him Spencie Junior. And if it’s a girl…”- I stood up and stormed out of that room. But Cat just kept talking, and nearly laughing.- “But if it's a girl, I think we should call her (Y/N). I mean, it could be a tribute to your ex-wife, ‘cos after this, I don’t think she is gonna want to see you, ever again!”

- “Chipmunk, let me explain.”- I whispered as I stood in front of my wife. Her eyes were puffy and filled with tears as I tried to hold her hands, but she yanked them away quickly. - “Please, (Y/N). Let me explain. Yes, I went to Mexico behind your back, but none of what she is saying actually happened!”

But my wife didn’t even open her mouth. She just turned around and walked out of the room. I tried to follow her, but J grabbed my arm and gave me a file.

- “Spence, we might have something. Cat is three months. The timeline matches, but that doesn't necessarily mean…”

Of course, Cat wasn’t going to pretend to be pregnant and just leave it at that. No. She was going to ruin my life along the way. I threw the file against the glass and turned around to hit the wall.

- “I'm sorry, it's not you. I just need a minute.”- JJ stared at me in silence and nodded as I made my best effort (probably failing) in keeping my shit together. I looked at Cat on the other side of the glass. It took all the energy and sanity left in me not to open that door, walk in, and kill her. That woman, that psychopath, just wanted to ruin my life. And she was very good at it.

Instead, I walked out and tried to find my wife. I needed to explain and come clean in front of her. Tell her what had really happened. Why I had ended up in Mexico, and how I had never been drugged or whatever Cat had implied.

- “Not now, Spencer.”- (Y/N) whispered when I found her. She was just walking out of the bathroom, trying not to cry. I shook my head and held her hands. They were cold and still wet.

- “She is lying.”- I tried to explain

- “You didn’t go to Mexico then?”- my wife raised an eyebrow as her eyes were glued on me. She wasn’t even trying to read me, she didn’t need to. She knew me that well.

- “I did, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lie, I just didn’t know how to…”- (Y/N) raised her hand and pointed at me with her index, and I stopped talking right away.

- “Stop it, right there. We’ve known each other for almost twelve years, been married for six. I know this is not the first time you lied to me. But I want you to think very wisely about the next words you’ll say, ‘cos if you try to tell me you felt scared and didn’t want to let me down, or that you didn’t know how to deal with what you were feeling ‘cos you were scared to lose me, I swear, I’m taking all my things, the kids, and you’ll never see me again!”

It wasn’t a threat. It was a fact. I knew my wife enough to understand where that was coming from. We had a history, a past of fears and hidden truths I couldn’t escape from. It wasn’t just my story with Dilaudil when we were just friends or how long it took me to deal with my feelings and tell her I loved her. It was how my fears would constantly make me trip and overthink every single thing I did. It was me getting Dilaudil when they told us Emily had died, and keeping it behind (Y/N)’s back instead of telling her how I actually felt. It was me being constantly afraid of not being enough for her. It was so much to even begin to deal with that day outside a bathroom in a high-security prison in Iowa.

- “I just didn’t know what else to do to help mom.”- I whispered and sighed. It was my truth. At least the majority of it.

- “We are a fucking team, Spencer. Not just for work. For better or worse, at home, you and I are the ones calling the shots and making shit work, together. If we don’t do it together, then we are fucked. And right now, it feels like we are fucked.”- my wife’s eyes were filled with tears as she looked around the hall and shook her head.- “But we have no time for this ‘cos we need to find Diana. So let’s go back to the room and you are gonna keep talking to that psycho until she gives us something that’s not a lie.”

- “I am… so sorry, (Y/N).”- I whispered and held her hands as I did. - “But believe me, I never… she is not pregnant with my baby.”

- “I know.”

I kissed my wife’s forehead and whispered I loved her before I walked back to the interrogation room. Cat was sitting with her arms on the table, looking rather bored.

- “Let's pretend you're telling the truth.”- I said.- “That means I guessed it, right? The secret, the one I don't want to admit to? It's my child?”

- “Is that your guess? You only get one, remember?”- she replied and looked at me, honestly bored. I made a pause, playing the part. I knew now what I had to do to make her trip.

- “No. It's too easy.”- I murmured.

- “Believe me, getting pregnant with your baby was not easy, kudos to your wife for doing it twice.”- Cat stated and I sat in front of her, correcting her.

- “You misunderstand. It's too easy emotionally. Because I can take your child from you. The child I had absolutely no role in creating, but a child that I would care for better than you.”

- “That's rude.”

- “It's true. You can't be a mother, Cat. I'm not trying to insult you.”- those were facts.- “It's your psychological makeup. You literally do not have the emotional skills to care for another human being. You'd lose interest in your own baby the way a 6-year-old loses interest in a pet hamster.”

- “Does that happen to Raven a lot? I know she is not six yet, but it sounds like you know the feeling.”- Cat smiled as she rested her back on the back of the chair and looked at me.- “You are such a good father. I’m happy our baby will have a strong father figure.”

But I choose to ignore her.

- “This baby is simply a means to an end, which is to keep me here playing your game, guessing like a fool, assuming something I never should have assumed in the first place.”

- “And what would that be?”- Cat was honestly intrigued, I could tell by the way she asked immediately about my inference.

- “My mother's already dead. She was dead before I walked in here.”

- “She's not dead.”- her words were filled with anger as if I had just insulted her.

- “Yes, she is.”- I answered as I stood up and walked toward the door.

- “No, because that would be cheating and I don't cheat. You cheat!”- I cheat. Why would she think so? Because of my stunt with her all those years before?

- “I'm done playing.”- I ignored her and continued walking.

- “Get back here!”

- “Goodbye, Cat.”- I opened the door and was about to walk out of that room when I got what I wanted.

- “I'll let you talk to her!”

Bingo.

I looked at my wife from the corner of my eyes and she nodded. I turned around and walked back to Cat. I knew JJ was going to arrange for Garcia to trace that call from my phone. I took it from my pocket, unblocked it, and gave it to Cat. She dialed and put it on speaker, and her eyes were glued to mine the entire time.

- “You're early.”- Lindsay’s voice announced at the other side of the line.

- “Yeah, I know.”

- “Did he guess?”

- “No, not yet. We need proof of life.”- Cat said as she kept staring at me. I was anxious, I needed that call to last enough so Garcia could track it.

- “All right. Hold on.”

- “Spencer!”- I heard my mother’s desperate voice and my heart broke into a million pieces for the hundredth time that day.

- “Mom! Mom! Are you ok?”- I asked as I quickly grabbed the phone from Cat’s hands.

- “I don't... know.”

And before I could ask another question, or mom could tell me how she was, a gunshot interrupted us and I never heard her voice again.

- “Mom!”- I lost it at that minute, I couldn’t keep it together any longer.

- “Gotta go.”- Lindsay announced and ended the call.

- “Mom!”- I yelled and turned to Cat, walking closer to her as JJ and (Y/N) stepped into the room. - “What the hell was that?”

- “I don't know!”- she replied and I could hear JJ behind me, telling me to calm down. But I couldn’t.

- “Lindsey said you were early. Was that a signal?”- no answer, I hit the table and kept looking at Cat, trying to make sense of what had just happened. -“Was that a prearranged signal to kill my mother?! Tell me the truth!”

- “I am!”

- “Tell me the truth!”- I hit the table with my fist again, and Cat just started yelling.

- “I am!! Do you want to know the truth? Your mother is an Alzheimer's-ridden moron who's getting dumber day by day, and if she's dead, it's your fault.”

And that was when I actually lost it. I pushed the table and the chair away from us, grabbed Cat by the shoulder, and pushed her against the wall, as hard as I could as my hands wrapped around her neck, choking her.

- “Spence!”- JJ yelled and tried to stop me.

- “I'm going to kill you.”- the words left my mouth with venom, as an honest threat. I wanted to do it. End her right there, and avenge my mother and my family for all the pain that woman had put them through.

- “Spence!”- JJ grabbed my arm but I continued squeezing.

- “I'm going to kill you!”

- “Spencer, she's pregnant!”- it was (Y/N)’s voice that brought me to reality for a second. She grabbed my shoulders and tried to force me to stop hurting Cat.

- “I'm going to kill you.”- I repeated as a mantra, my eyes stuck on hers, evil filling her look. I was choking her and she was in fact enjoying it.

- “She's pregnant! Stop it! Spencer, please!”- my wife repeated and pushed me harder. My eyes were glued to Cat as I dropped my hands and watched her coughing a few times. My wife and JJ pushed me out of that room before I could finish what I had started.

(Y/N)’s point of view

I had never seen Spencer lose it the way he did that day. Never. It was a side of him that only Cat Adam brought up and I didn’t like it. It wasn’t normal. She was a nemesis. It was toxic, and somehow I was in fact jealous of her. But I couldn’t deal with it at the moment. Calming my husband down, trying to keep a cold head, and bringing Diana back were the only things I had to worry about at the moment. And trust me, it was enough with all that.

He had stormed out and JJ kept telling me we had to go after him.

- “Give him a moment to breathe”- I replied the third time JJ said we should keep an eye on him.

- “Did you see what had happened there? I had never seen Spence acting like that.”

- “His mother might be dead, what did you expect?”- it felt like I had to draw a picture so JJ could see things clearly.

- “Why are you so mad at me? I haven’t done anything to you!”

- “I am not mad at you! I’m just telling you, you have to let Spencer breathe!”

- “We don’t have time, (Y/N)! We have to catch Lindsay!”- JJ’s phone rang and ended our argument. A very hyperventilated Garcia started rambling about an explosion reported in Richmond County, which gave us hope Diana was still alive and well.

- “Thank you, Garcia.”- I whispered before JJ hung up the call.

- “We should let Spencer know this. He is probably sure his mother is dead.”- I sighed and nodded, and JJ nearly sprang out of the room to find my husband.

He was sitting on the floor in one empty cell. It broke my heart to look at him like that. I was mad at him, of course, but I still loved him and I didn’t want him to be so miserable. I knew both his mother’s health and what he had just done to Cat were hunting his head.

- “Richmond County police just reported a gas station explosion. One victim, a male. Whatever Lindsey did, we have to assume your mom's still alive.”

JJ whispered as she sat on the floor next to him. I stood in front of him and locked my eyes on his features. His hair was a mess, he looked exhausted. His head was clearly going a hundred miles per hour. And yet, he looked so sweet and caring. It was hard being mad and worried about him at the same time.

Spencer looked at me and I held my breath for a short second. He wanted to tell me he was sorry and ashamed of what he had done. I knew it. It wasn’t himself at that minute, and to be honest, I couldn’t blame him. Cat Adams brought the worst of him every time they were in the same room. It was toxic.

- “I'm really scared this is who I am now.”- my husband murmured and looked at his hands ‘cos he couldn’t look me in the eyes.

- “No. Don't say that.”- JJ replied and reached for his hand. I just stared at them, not really knowing how to act or even reply to Spencer at the moment.

- “Jennifer, I want to kill her.”

- “But you didn’t.”- JJ caressed his arm and I sighed, kneeling to look him in the eyes, even when he couldn’t look at me as I spoke.

- “Spencer, you can’t blame yourself for losing it with Cat Adams. She knows how to push the right buttons to drive you crazy.”

- “I shouldn’t let her get in my head.”- he replied, still beating himself for his actions.

- “She messed with your family. I understand why you did it.”- Jennifer tried to console my husband, but he didn’t take it.

- “You wouldn't have.”- he said looking at JJ.- “Neither would have you.”- Spencer finally looked at me and despite the fact I was still crazy mad at him, I cut him a short smile and held his hand.

- “I would have if anyone tried to hurt my family and come up with a crazy plan to convince my husband I’m pregnant with some other man’s baby. Trust me. This prison would be on fire right now.”- Spencer tried to smile but his lips barely curled up.

- “What happened doesn't make you a bad person, Spence.”- JJ added- “'Cause you know who does think like that? That... that in you doing what you had to do to survive somehow makes you a psychopath? She does!”

JJ said those words and somehow it all made sense.

- “That's the secret. What I don't want to admit about myself.”- Spencer said as he looked at me. I knew immediately what he meant: that Cat knew there was a dark side of him he didn’t want to deal with. A dark side who was sick and tired of his mother’s disease. A side that wanted to give up, that was too tired to continue trying, and just wanted to quit taking care of her.

A side of him that didn’t even want to try to fix things anymore.

- “And she knows ‘cos Lindsay told her everything happening at our place”- I added, embarrassed, mortified, but yet at the same time, relieved we knew what Cat wanted us to figure out.

- “She must have heard every argument, every little fight…”- Spencer’s eyes were bursting with anger one more time. We just looked at each other for a few seconds, reliving in our heads our worst moments in the last couple of months. It’s sad to admit there hadn’t been a few. And the fact Cat knew about it made them ten times worse.

- “Hold up.”- JJ said, lost in our conversation.- “Let's play this out because she will not lose to you twice. She already said that this wasn't about the two of you being the same.”

Spencer and I stood up, and both of us started pacing across the room as JJ looked at us, trying to make sense of our ramble.

- “She's all about the game. She thinks that I cheated last time because I lied about her dad, so it's integral to her that she beats me by following the rules.”

- “Yeah, but, be honest: she is not gonna let you win this one. She wants to hurt Diana. She’ll make sure she’ll win.”- I added, knowing I was speaking a very painful fact.

- “Which means she needs to make sure I’m at my lowest with you, with my mother. Playing by her rules a game I can't win, so she…”- my husband stared at me and for a second, I could see a hint of hope in his eyes.- “I got it.”

Spencer’s point of view

I stormed back into that room and looked at Cat. She was sitting, playing with my watch, like there weren’t lives at risk as we spoke.

- “Guess that's one way to get you to put your hands on me.”- Cat said and didn’t even look at me.

- “Dance with me.”- I demanded as I stood in front of her. She didn’t pause her movements, but raised her eyes at me, curious by my demand I guess.

- “Why?”

- “Because I don't want the people watching us to hear what I'm going to say next.”- that was enough for her to yield and stand up. I held her right hand and wrapped my arm around her waist as I felt hers on my shoulder. I hated every second, and it only made it worse to know my wife was watching from the other side of the glass. But I needed to get that shitty situation over with.

I knew there were cameras in that interview room, and that Penelope could stream everything that was happening in there to any computer she wanted.

- “You had eyes on me besides Lindsey, didn't you?”- I whispered as we danced to no music, making circles slowly.

- “Spencie, don't ruin the moment.”

- “I don't want to, but I'm on the clock. Answer my question. Am I right?”- Cat had her head on my chest as we danced and moved to lock her eyes with mine to answer.

- “Yes, you're right. I wanted to make sure things were just as uncomfortable for you at home as they were for me inside this hole.”

So someone else was helping her. Someone who probably had connections at the bureau and could tell her all the details of our life to a serial killer in jail. If it was a guy, he was the one who got her pregnant, that was for sure.

- “That's how you timed everything so perfectly. Like kidnapping my mom the weekend we were out of town and my relationship with my wife was in a rough spot.”- I murmured and we continued dancing. Cat moved her arms and wrapped them both around my neck as she stared at me, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

- “Rough spot? Aren’t you going easy on that description? You were hating your wife, your mom, and your life.”

- “No, I wasn't.”- I replied staring right into her eyes.

- “Please Spencie, she can’t hear you. Just face it.”- I sighed, pretending to struggle to find the right words. That was what Cat wanted. She wanted me to face the fact I was a bad husband, a bad son. A bad father. Just like hers.

- “Look, you are the last person on earth I want to discuss my marital issues with. But if you must know, things aren’t always easy, and sometimes you…”- I paused as she stared at me in silence.- “Well, sometimes you just wanna leave.”

- “Well, look at that. You might end up saving your mother's life after all.”

We continued dancing in silence for a moment. My mind kept going a hundred miles per hour, keeping my facade in front of her, and trying to be two steps ahead of her.

- “They won't get there in time.”- Cat said suddenly, letting me go. - “They must be on their way, right? Your team is too good to wait around, but, you know me. I always have a contingency plan. So, they're walking into a trap.”

My heart stopped as she spoke. I hated her so much it was taking everything in me not to kill her.

- “And the only way out is if you give me your phone and your guess, right now.”- she added, as she played with my necktie. I reached for my phone and gave it to her. She grabbed it quickly and sat down on the chair. All I could think of at the moment was about all the pictures of my babies I had in there that I didn’t want her to see.

- “When we first sat down, you said you were going to show me what kind of man I am. And you have.”- I said as I sat on the table in front of her and watched her dial a number.

- “Every time I touch this, you're getting warmer.”- she replied and bit her lower lip. I hoped Penelope was ready to stream that conversation.

- “At first I was furious because the secret had to be the baby inside you. How could it be anything else? But then I realized that somehow, you knew how I felt about my mother and my marriage.”- I confessed, and she smiled.

- “So which is it, Spence? Come on. Don't fumble it now. You're at the one-yard line.”

- “You're not pregnant with my child.”- I said and leaned closer to her.- “You got pregnant with Wilkins to put me in as compromised a position as possible. But it should be mine.”- I paused for a second, ‘cos I knew what I was about to say was going to hurt my wife, and I didn’t want her to listen.- “I wish it were mine. Because you and I... We deserve each other. That is the real secret.”

Cat Adams stared at me with tears in her eyes as she held my phone tight between her fingers for a few seconds, until she finally dialed.

- “Kill her”- I froze but tried my best not to show. That was what I knew Cat would say, but apparently nothing happened at the other side of the line, ‘cos she stood up and repeated her command- “Lindsey, I said…”

- “You bitch. You're pregnant?”- I overheard and Cat turned around with fire in her eyes and looked at the security camera on the wall.

- “Lindsey, sweetheart, it's complicated, ok?”

There was a long silence, all I could hear was my heart beating on my throat. Until the door opened and JJ stormed in.

- “We're clear.”- I took my phone from Cat’s hand immediately and turned to Jennifer.

- “Is my mom ok?”

- “Yeah. She's fine.”- she replied and I felt my whole life returning to my body. (Y/N) was standing behind JJ, tears rolling down her cheeks. I wanted to run and hold her, but Cat’s words stopped me from moving.

- “We do deserve each other, by the way. You guessed right.”- she sat down and pretended to be unbothered by losing her game.

- “You lied, by the way. You were going to kill my mother regardless.”

- “Yeah, I think you are actually sorry I didn’t kill your mom. I wanted to do you a favor, you know. And all those arguments with your wife, that’s gonna leave a nasty scar in your perfect marriage. You have thought about leaving this behind, and once you cross that line, you can't ever go back.”

I walked to her in a quick move and handcuffed her to the chair. I kept my eyes on her the entire time and before I left, I simply whispered:

- “Watch me.”

But Cat was right about one thing though: my idea of leaving the BAU behind was stronger than ever. She thought I wanted to leave my family. But in reality, I was planning to leave my job.

I walked out of that interview room and rushed to hold my wife tight. I knew we were at our lowest. I knew things were tough. But there was nothing I wouldn’t do to fix it. To show her I was the man she wanted me to be. I needed to prove to her I loved her more than anything.

- “Let’s go to the jet.”- JJ whispered and rubbed my back.- “We shouldn’t be here when they take her back to her cell.”

But my arms were wrapped tight around my wife and I didn’t want to let her go. She took a deep breath and moved her hands from around my neck to my side.

- “I can’t do this without you.”- I whispered, and though it was a statement, it sounded like a plea. I didn’t want her to lose her faith in me after what had just happened. I knew we had to talk and fix things, but it was a fact: I was never going to do anything right in life if she wasn’t by my side. No doubt.

- “You won’t have to.”- my wife replied and held my hand.- “Let’s go get your mom.”

The jet flight felt eternal. We called (Y/N)’s parents to tell them my mother was safe. The kids were already asleep so we couldn’t see them. It just made the trip feel longer. I needed to make sure my whole family was safe, hold them close to me, kiss their cheeks, and tell them I loved them.

Of course, I couldn’t talk to my wife about the trip to Mexico and how to fix our problems. I knew she was still mad at me, but I also knew we were going to fix things between us because we loved each other. Marriage isn’t easy, not even when you are crazy in love. Love is not enough, who would have thought? You need a lot more than just love to make it work. Luckily, we wanted to make it work.

I held (Y/N) close to me the entire flight. My arms were around her waist, my hands held hers and when I stood up to get us some tea, my eyes never left her for longer than 30 seconds.

- “She is going to forgive you for lying.”- JJ whispered when she stood next to me- “You did it to protect her.”

- “I think I did it ‘cos I was embarrassed.”

- “Of what?”

- “Not being able to deal with everything.”

- “No one can.”- JJ rubbed my arm a few times, trying to be comforting.

- “I thought I could.”- I confessed and turned to look at my wife, who was wrapped in a blanket looking at the night outside the window. - “Now I know I just need her by my side to deal with life.”

When we got to the BAU, at three in the morning, the entire team was waiting for us with my mom outside the elevator. I held her tight and broke into tears. She asked me to never leave her again and my heart broke at those words. I loved my mom. No matter how bad things were, she was the only person who took care of me growing up. I couldn’t leave her. I was the man I was because of her effort and work.

We drove to Sofia’s house ‘cos (Y/N) didn’t want to go to our apartment yet. It felt like a crime scene after what had happened, and it was the last push I needed to finally start looking for a house to buy.

My mom and wife fell asleep as soon as they rested their heads on a pillow, but I wasn’t as lucky. I kissed (Y/N)’s forehead and looked at her sleeping as I held Vincent in my arms. He was drooling, looking adorable. Raven was hugging her mother as she dreamed, and my whole world felt at peace, finally. They were safe.

Derek Morgan knocked on the door at five am, holding donuts and coffee. I had barely slept an hour, but I needed to talk to him more than I needed to rest. Sofia woke me up, saying someone was looking for me, and of course, the first thing on my mind was that an unsub was going to try to hurt my mom or the kids.

I was shocked when I saw Morgan there, with a short smile, donuts and coffee in hand.

- “I got the feeling you need a good talk right now.”- I didn’t reply, I just hugged him and broke into tears. Morgan tapped on my back a few times.

- “I’m here kid. Tell me everything.”

It only took Morgan half an hour to understand everything that had happened in the latest months. How living with my mom had been a noble gesture, but a critical mistake for our family. How I had messed up everything by taking one trip to Mexico to get experimental homeopathic drugs to give my mother. How for the first time, me and my wife had fight after fight, knowing it was all due to exhaustion and not because we didn’t love each other.

- “You know kid, marriage is work. No matter how much you love each other. You have to remember that.”- my friend tapped on my back as we sat on Sofia’s front steps, eating donuts and drinking coffee.

- “I know. I just… never imagined we would be like this. I love her so much it hurts, I can’t picture my life without her. I would kill for her… but I also have to do the dishes.”

- “Yes, and you have to do the fucking dishes, man..”- Morgan chuckled and finished his coffee.- “Now, don’t be a stranger, Reid. I miss you”

- “Me too. A lot.”

- “I’m a phone call away. Maybe you and your pretty girl could come over with the kids for a weekend. I’m sure you two need to get out of town as soon as you find a new facility for your mother.”

- “We do, we definitely do.”

- “Then it’s settled. You are all coming to visit and you’ll get away from all this…”- Morgan made a pause, trying to find the right words to define our job.

- “Murder?”

- “I was going for chaos, but that works just fine.”- I chuckled and we both stood up.- “Now, kid, I have to go. My wife and baby boy are waiting for me back home.”

- “Thank you for your visit. It really means… the world to me.”

- “You are my kid brother, forever. I will always be there for you. Never forget that, ok?”- Morgan hugged me and I just nodded, a knot in my throat made it impossible for me to speak.

- “And take care of that pretty girl of yours. She is a force to be reckoned with, and she loves you more than anyone I have ever met.”- I nodded and felt Morgan tapping on my back one more time before he walked away.

I wanted to spend the day with my wife, our kids, and my mother, after the hell we had been through. But as soon as I stepped into the house, I found (Y/N) rushing down the stairs, holding her phone as tears fell down her eyes.

- “Scratch has Emily.”

I surely didn’t see that coming.

- “And Stephen is dead.” 

Series' Masterlist - Author's masterlist

Next chapter

[ellesthots]

Fateful Beginnings

XXXV. “bittersuite domesticity”

parts: previous / next

plot: you and Bruce bond, a task more pleasant than either of you anticipated.

pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x fem!reader

cw: 18+, substance use, fluffy fluff 😏

words: 8.1k

a/n: i think y’all are gonna like this chapter 😇 yes the title is a play on words... iykyk (🎵)

Suddenly, idling at Rai’s had much higher stakes.

You tried to relax and peruse the back aisles, but more customers arrived. You got in line behind the older lady while Rai attended to his kind community member duty of speaking with her like an old friend. Elderly residents nearby weren’t able to get out much, and he picked up a lot of the slack. Except right now, that duty had you frustrated and overwhelmed in waiting, the grumble in your stomach starting to have a bite. At this point it had to have been fifteen minutes, meaning Bruce would be up in your apartment in fifteen… fuck.

You did a last circle around the store, eyes flitting between snacks, slushies, candies… You kept looking back trying to catch his eye, hoping he might get the hint and step aside for a second to help you. It wasn’t working, and your leg was beginning to sore. Glancing at her cart, they still had a bag or two to fill. Shit.

You grabbed a few extra candies and got in line behind her, resigning to stay put and let fate take over. Upon hearing the rustling of your items, she looked over her shoulder and grinned at you. “Skittles! Oh, I love those little things. Have you tried the sour ones? I keep them stocked for my grandson. Speaking of…” She held up a hand to Rai and wandered back to the candy aisle. Fate!

“Can you check me out really quick?” You showed your few items, and he nodded. “In a hurry, huh?”

“Yeah. Would you be able to grab me some uh,” You peered through the glass and saw the tabbouleh was out, and you chose the item falling into vision next. “Chicken tenders. Can I have half a pound?”

“Sure.” He bagged it, glancing as he closed the bag to see the woman arriving back. He handed it over and winked at you. “You can come back sometime this week and pay.”

”Really? I can—”

“Here you go.” The lady placed a few bags of sour skittles on the counter with a smirk. You nodded to Rai who nodded back, and after a quick thanks, hurried back up to your apartment. He’d be there in seven minutes. He seemed like the person who was usually early.

By the time you made it back to your apartment, it was the time of his arrival. You hoped he was caught up in traffic or something (not likely…) and tossed the food on the counter, the legs of the dining table scraping against the floor in the most grating fashion as you pulled it in front of the couch. Midway through unplugging the television in your room and prepping to carry it out, you heard a knock at the door. You hoisted the TV into your arms and staggered through the door to place it on the table, where it looked unseemly. On your way to let him in, you noticed you didn’t have an outlet nearby. Ugh.

Bruce had given himself a pep-talk on the drive, coaching himself on what to say to you. He knew he wanted to apologize, that much was extremely clear. He went back and forth on telling you the pity thing, because the revelation was genuinely so simple, but endowed crucial context…

It was starting to sprinkle; end of August meant Fall was practically a week away, which was a slippery slope to the highest crime events of the year. Going into 2024, he didn’t think he’d have to worry about an election for at least another year or two, and he wrestled back fears of another Election Night 2022 debacle.

Soon he’d be able to get back out there; usually this time of night he’d be headed down to the basement after a quick meal with Alfred. Drawing up some plans for the evening (that were usually disposed of due to unforeseen circumstances) before suiting up. He expected his body to feel more antsy to get back to it, or feel considerably slower, neither of which he did. His wounds were healing, his left leg still ached but nothing he couldn’t drag his mind away from. Tonight felt quiet. Nights like these invariably left him suspicious.

He waited a few minutes in his car, parking in the same alley he’d dropped you off in. His palms were starting to perspire, knowing he was going to answer to you in whichever way you held him. As much as he desired to spend the whole night stalling, that was his problem. He’d been avoiding you earlier, avoiding being cared about, and avoiding being caring. While he didn’t much care about the implications of isolation and avoidance as far as he was concerned, he didn’t like you being in the blast radius. If the hugs had told him anything, it was that you were already hurting more than enough. He was done putting you in jail for the crime of caring.

You deserved a proper apology, and that was what he’d give you.

Walking toward your apartment while the nightcrawlers were just getting started made him uneasy. Every man he passed on the sidewalk that looked down at his phone had him biting his cheek, gripping the fabric of his jacket pocket, enraged. Which of these pathetic freaks wrote about you?

As he reached your unit, the rage was dimming. When you opened the door, he noticed you looked tired, but not exhausted–that was good. You stepped aside for him to walk in, and he shed his top layers, fighting against his manufacturing to make sure the apology actually got past his lips.

Bruce was in a black outfit, with his usual thick jacket and hoodie pairing. Your body had an immediate response to his presence after the argument, reflexively turning away from him and stiffening. Locking the door behind him felt superfluous in his presence, but you did it anyway.

He removed his jacket and hoodie as he walked the expanse of your floor, draping them over the back of a chair. Your eyes searched his body for evidence of injury or duress, and for about the millionth time since you’d been around him or Alfred, you wished they didn’t read body language like the written word. His tone was soft, apprehensive. “I thought you might want some company.”

Thought I might want some company? You narrowed your eyes and crossed your arms. “So you’re not in crisis?”

“You thought I was in crisis?”

You looked to the ground. “We argued again, so.”

He didn’t appreciate being perceived to the point of recognizing character changes, like how strange it was for him to request a movie night. He rarely asked it of his parents as a kid, their busy schedule leaving the invitation up to them on the rare occasion it ever came. Alfred was always the one to initiate after their deaths, but he’d stopped asking after the twentieth time Bruce had isolated to his bedroom instead.

Thinking back to how busy his mother had been, a thought struck him: were all the ‘vacations’ she went on actually her being admitted to Arkham? Had they hid it that well? Something must have flit across him then, because your eyes were darting across the plane of his face with increasing confusion.

He shook his head while he recovered words. Even thinking about the photos of his mother Riddler had posted didn’t render him as discomposed as this morning, when simply being around you felt like a knife lifting his nailbeds. Alfred had made some unfortunate points that painted you in a much better light. “I’m not in crisis. I wanted to apologize for how I acted earlier. I was avoiding you.”

You didn’t know why you got anxious when he said that, but you did. He put his hands in his pocket and struggled to make more than intermittent eye contact. He heaved a large sigh, which made you especially attuned to what he might say. Swore you could feel the hairs of your inner ear buzzing with anticipation.

“I appreciate you opening up to me.”

Hearing words like apologize and appreciate felt foreign from Bruce. You’d heard variations of them before, yet it remained uncanny. Like his mouth wasn’t used to forming the words. They didn’t seem to roll off his tongue.

“But…?” You braced yourself for him to assert that the two of you couldn’t speak anymore. That a boundary had been crossed. That he appreciated you opening up, but he didn’t want that to happen anymore. That he was glad to have helped you, but he didn’t want to make it a habit.

His brow cocked. “What do you mean?”

Your tone was petulant, brittle. “You appreciate my opening up, but ‘we don’t have to do this anymore’. Or maybe you’d rather ‘I don’t want it’?”

An extended silence, leaving a lot of room for your mind to fill the blank. Some time for your eyes to roam about his outfit, his hair, his face. The wear evident in his shirt, seeing some of his skin peeking through. A hole at the bottom of his left pocket. How he double-knotted his Converse.

When he spoke next, it was through closed eyes. “I’m not good at this. I’m not used to any of it.”

The hugs? The conversation? Being cared about? The whole city cared about him. The whole internet. In some ways, the whole world. “Used to what?”

“The only care people have shown me is through pity.”

You felt one of your defenses shatter, your shoulders becoming a bit lighter. “About your parents?”

He nodded, becoming sheepish. He detested being this open, it drained him, but he wanted to return the favor of your earlier vulnerability. “Yeah. Everyone still looks at me like I’m that kid. No one saw me, they saw what happened to me.” And you saw me hung unsaid, on the edge of his teeth. “You checking on me and opening up felt like pity. Everything does.”

It felt fucking weird to use his words like this. His voice was going dry from talking so much, even though he really hadn’t talked much at all. Maybe it was the things he wasn’t saying. He wanted to look over at you, but the adrenaline coursing through his veins at feeling exposed was excruciating. If he looked at you right now before you spoke, he’d fill in the blanks. The valley between his share and your response felt painfully raw.

You said what you thought, your mind thunking the pieces into place plainly and neatly. “That makes sense. I never thought about that.” It wasn’t the most flowery response, but you noticed his shoulders stop tensing. “I’m sorry if I played into that.” You sighed, feeling like you should’ve put the pieces together sooner yourself, without him having to hand it to you on a platter. Hmm. Why might someone who endured a national tragedy as a child be annoyed with people’s concern?

The sound of a knock at the door startled you. You and Bruce exchanged a look, and you backed off while he walked to the peephole. It was then that you realized you hadn’t checked it before opening it earlier, assuming it was him. You couldn’t forget again.

His hair rustled against his forehead as he turned around. “It’s Gordon. Probably here for your statement.”

“You can hide in my room.”

He walked into it and shut the door seconds before you opened to two officers, only one of whom you’d seen before.

“Is this the residence of Y/N Y/L/N?”

You nodded. “Yeah, that’s me.”

Detective Gordon, as you could see via his badge, stepped in alongside a mustached officer. Martinez was his name tag. “We’re here to collect your statement on the assault that occurred 28th of August, on the corner of Bushnel and Tally. I’d ask if now is a good time, but we’re already late to collect, our apologies.”

You invited them in and tried to play off that they had nowhere to sit. “I’m waiting on some new furniture,”

Det. Gordon shook his head, taking out a notepad. “All good, ma’am. We should be no longer than a few minutes.”

And a long few minutes it had been. They asked only the most basic of questions, such as where he kicked you, any words he said, any threats he made, and if you were aware of any prior history between you and the assailant. Martinez held up a camera, asking if there were any visible injuries. You held out your hands initially, seeing the scabs on top of the knuckles, but you’d forgotten if they’d come more from trying to stop Bruce than the man himself. You stuck to showing them the bruise on your thigh, which you hadn’t had the chance to look at. Deep red, purple and gravelly, looking like you’d been skidding against the sidewalk. You figured falling out of his vehicle didn’t help.

Surprisingly, they knew about that too. You figured a certain vigilante had been the informant.

“Let me summarize to make sure we’re on the same page.” Det. Gordon flipped a few pages back, adjusting his glasses. Martinez was looking at the ground in front of him, his hand situated on his hip. He seemed to only be here for backup, maybe they had to come to these things in pairs. “Wednesday evening, you received a call from…” His voice dulled as he recited the events in perfect detail, each additional sentence drilling into you how intense the past two days had been. After what felt like a lifetime, he finished. “Is that correct?”

You nodded, your throat closing. Bruce had really saved you twice in forty-eight hours. Probably an attempt to cope, you thought about how Walter never had to worry about anything like this.

“I need verbal confirmation, ma’am.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

Det. Gordon sighed, scribbling something else. “Looks like we’ll need to pay Mr. Wayne a visit.” Martinez perked at the statement, and you suppressed the ghost of a laugh. If only he knew Bruce was in the next room.

Det. Gordon closed his notebook, tucking the pen into the spiral. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Y/L/N. We’ll get back to you sometime in the next week with further details. Sorry that happened to you.”

“Yeah, sorry that happened.” Officer Martinez tipped his hat at you in apology, following behind Det. Gordon, gently shutting the door. Not three seconds later did Bruce step out of your bedroom, face contorted in serious consideration.

“It never takes them that long to get a statement. Something big must have happened.” You could see in his eyes he was thumbing through all sorts of information in the back of his head. You giggled, a sound Bruce didn’t find completely unusual (everyone had different reactions to traumatic events, after all), but the sound itself embedded in his chest. You laughed again, and it pushed deeper. “What?”

“You just look so serious.” Another laugh slipped out, which snowballed into a laughing fit. Bruce wondered if you might start crying again, like you had the last time you laughed in front of him like this, but you didn’t, doubling over in bursts of giggles. His body was a disorienting blend of feelings in response.

When you opened your eyes after gathering yourself, your vision was hazy, your head a bit dizzy. Your chest felt light, and your eyes caught on the tenders sitting to your right on the countertop, your stomach grumbling. You fished one out of the bag, your eyes rolling back at its decadence. God, so fucking good!

Oh, fuck. You’d taken an edible an hour ago. You didn’t think you’d taken that much.

Bruce side-eyed you, having averted his eyes after feeling his stomach jump at the rolling of yours— suspicious of how quickly your face had fallen and how fast you moved from task to task. “Are you o—”

“I took an edible. Right before you called, I forgot.” You cracked a laugh at the absurdity of it all, unable to contain the humor bubbling inside, but quieted yourself by focusing on eating the food. Your stomach was like an empty pit. You finished eating your singular chicken tender without further accidental innuendo, and became worrying, serious. Your shoulders deflated. “I’m sorry. If you don’t want to be around someone high, I know you don’t do substances, it’s probably weird,”

He interrupted with something he hoped might break you out of your slumped state, because he didn’t feel weird. “I actually took some of the edible you gave me back in spring.” As expected, your face lit up… with confusion, and awe.

“You said you never do them.”

“It was an interesting night.” You didn’t need to know that was precisely when he’d decided his persona, developing it while his brain was slow and the world was blurred. You sat in thought for a moment.

“But that doesn’t mean you’re okay with being around someone who is.”

“I’m more concerned if you are comfortable with it.” He’d noticed the TV wasn’t plugged in, but before moseying over to try and find a plug, he wanted your answer.

You shrugged. “I mean, yeah. We’re just watching a movie or whatever.” You messed around in the bag some more, procuring a bag of Skittles. He hadn’t had one of those since he was a kid.

Even lacking sobriety, your perception skills remained intact. You held the bag out to him. “Have some.”

He took the bag and opened it, pouring a few into his palm. You dug around some more, the sound of thin rustling plastic filling the silence, and pulled a pouch of Sour Patch Kids. He didn’t know if he’d ever tried those.

You opened the bag and each ate some handfuls of the respective candies in silence, your face puckering a bit at the sour sting. Bruce noticed a small bottle of rosé in the corner by the bread cabinet, unopened. It was far from the best idea on a night like this, both inebriated, a day after a man had threatened to have you killed, but he gestured to it regardless. “Mind if I have some?”

“Don’t just have some because I’m high, dude.” You popped another candy in your mouth. Bruce shrugged and walked toward it. You shook your head, but with his back turned he couldn’t tell, forcing you to voice your concerns. “Seriously.” Your tone fell from its casual cadence to a darker tone, firmer. “You said you never do it,”

“I’ve had alcohol before, I’ll manage.” As he approached the bottle, he hadn’t quite known what had possessed him, but as his ears attuned to the rustle of the plastic and his eyes acclimated to the physical space, he realized he felt more free. If he drank at home, he’d either have to be alone in his room or in the kitchen with Alfred. He could never at a social event, because he didn’t attend them to be social, he attended them to analyze. Letting anything lower his inhibitions around the likes of Convoy and Gavenstein wasn’t an option. However, now it felt fun. He grabbed the neck of the bottle, and you spoke with a start.

“Wait, your meds. Can you drink on them? Will it make your symptoms worse?”

Bruce recalled a ‘use caution when consuming alcohol’ warning on the outside of the bottle. It didn’t say no… “Should be fine, won’t have too much.”

“Bruce.”

He glanced over his shoulder at you, your face knit with worry; it ruffled him, but he blocked his thoughts before they became too rigid. This isn’t pity, this is concern. Concern was borne of care. You cared. Instead of turning away, he’d care back. He hummed on ideas for a shake. “Would it make you feel better if I called Crane?”

You nodded, bewildered that his tone bore no sarcasm or annoyance. He took out his phone, and you counted the subtle rings barely heard on the other end. Dr. Crane picked up after two. You couldn’t hear his voice, too muffled, but you could hear Bruce’s.

“It’s Bruce, yeah. I had a question about my medication.”

You watched as he pressed the phone to his ear, how he slowly meandered around the kitchen, looking at his shoes as he spoke. Warmth flooded you seeing him seem perfectly fine. This was the first time neither of you had been in crisis since. All you were going to do was watch a movie. No trying to stop him from hurting himself, no worrying about where he was, or what he was doing, none of him saving you.

Bruce hung up, thwarting your daydream. “Should be fine. Are you fine with it?”

You met his steady, bright blue eyes and felt a jolt in your chest, like falling down the stairs in a dream. You looked down at the bag from Rai’s, the red THANK YOU in copied prose crinkling about. “Yeah.” You shoved the feeling away, cracking a joke instead. “If you’re fine with not having million-dollar wine.”

He chuckled, the same way he had when he held you. Mostly internal, through his nose, his chest moving more than anything else. You studied him unwrapping the lid, reaching into his pocket for his keys that, of course, had a pocket knife attached. Watching him uncork it put you in a trance; the subtle ripple of his back with the movement, the pop of the cork coming undone beneath his fingers.

You’d been curiously silent behind him; when he finished opening the bottle he turned around, meeting your half-lidded eyes. Your head was in your hands, framing a sleepy grin. His stomach lurched, fluffs of anxiety toiling within it. The last time he’d felt this way was when Selina had unexpectedly kissed him. Confusing to have it appear now, in such a different context.

He channeled his focus instead on finding a glass. You didn’t have any flutes, but he withheld a joke about it, not wanting to make you uncomfortable or come across pompous. He poured a hefty glass, his wrist tipping further the more he felt your eyes on him.

The high created a delayed reaction, and you realized too late that he’d watched you gawking. Gawking? Was that what you were doing? You grabbed another tender and your juice before turning around to scoot the table closer to the outlet, desperate to shake off whatever stupor you’d been unconsciously put under.

Bruce would’ve jumped in to help, but he thought the distance would be good right now. He didn’t like the way his attention pulled toward you, or the way his hands shivered around the glass. Thankfully, his voice was unaffected. “Anything you had in mind to watch?”

You finally plugged the cord into the wall, and unceremoniously plopped onto the far side of the couch, leaving the whole right side open. “You can pick.” A wash of relief settled over you at having been the first to sit, not wanting to be the one to gauge how close to get if he’d sat first. Bruce wandered over with his very full glass of wine, and sat about a foot away. It still felt too congested.

“I got nothing.” He adjusted into the cushions, taking his first sip of wine. His left side was lit like a live wire.

You turned on the TV and flipped through some channels while he sipped. You had to force your eyes to remain strictly contained to the screen, a task that was monumentally difficult through the peak of your edible. “There’s this one show everyone’s talking about online. We could try watching the first episode, it’s like an hour.”

Bruce nodded, resting his hand with the glass on his right thigh. “Sure.”

You clicked it, thanking the ultra-fast wifi in the building for an immediate loading. You might have died if you had to stare too long at a black screen, the uncomfortable portrait of you sitting together reflecting back.

You both sat like that for the duration of the episode; in silence, with the occasional sip from Bruce. The first half was one of the more awkward things you’d experienced; you were acutely aware of how high you were, and how alone you were with him. You’d nearly taken double the dose earlier, and you probably would’ve freaked the fuck out if you had.

About halfway through the episode, you began to get sucked into the show—in a bad way. The acting was terrible, absolutely piss-poor; this resulted in a few sideways glances to Bruce which he reciprocated, each time his cheeks becoming a little more flushed from the alcohol. As the episode ended, you became one with the couch, the high beginning to taper, and your nerves the same. Bruce was about three-quarters done with his drink, probably the equivalent of one and a half shots if he downed the last bit.

As the first episode’s credits ran, you sat in a dumbfounded hypnosis. This was what everyone had been raving about? Huh? Your high’s slow descent left you less inhibited. “…That was so fucking bad.”

Buce nearly choked on his wine, evidently having taken a sip just as you spoke. You turned toward him. “You don’t agree?!”

He shook his head, licking his lips to catch the drops of wine that’d escaped in his almost-coughing recovery. His voice was more animated than you’d heard it before. “I was hoping you wouldn’t click ‘next episode’.”

A second of silence and you both laughed, his cheeks moving from a light rose to sunburn in tandem. He gave the impression of a lightweight; for once not drinking with Mar, you weren’t the least liquor-experienced. His laugh was cute, more full than you’d anticipated, but you could barely hear it over your own. “I don’t know how people can stand it.”

He stuck his hand out to the TV, his brow furrowed with such pure befuddlement you started laughing again, to which he giggled through his next sentence. “The officer was so obvious. Anyone with half a brain would’ve figured it out… is that the premise of the show? Whodunnit?”

“I thought it was the unassuming friend, I thought that was obvious.”

Bruce’s hand slapped to his thigh, his head cocking toward yours with a gentle eyeroll. “You’re joking.”

“Let’s go to the last episode! I’ll be right.” You grabbed the remote and clicked through the fifteen episodes between, each click evoking a scoff from him.

“The friend would be so cliche.”

So disdainful for someone wrong. “And the suspicious officer wouldn’t be? It’s so on the nose.” You clicked PLAY, now taking a while to load up.

“Which would make someone overlook it, like you’re doing now.”

“Alright detective.”

The episode opened to a black screen fading in, showing someone’s hands, lingering there, the metal handcuffs clinking. You and Bruce sat forward in your seats as it panned up to reveal the friend in custody.

“I TOLD YOU!” You paused the show and tossed the remote aside, gloating.

Bruce smirked, taking another sip of wine. “What if it’s a fake out?”

You’d never pulled out your phone so fast, and shoved it in his face when it confirmed your suspicions. “Hmm!”

“Alright, alright.”

“Hand over the baton, bucko.”

He side-eyed you, his mouth curling into an amused smirk. “‘Bucko’?”

“Can’t believe I outsmarted the ‘world’s greatest detective’.” As soon as the words passed your lips, the reality set in of who you were sitting next to, and anxiety nipped at your skin again. It was easy for you to dismiss his power when you were angry at him, or begrudging about it; when he had all your systems activated, wanting to run, scream, fight. Not when your guard was down, and you were under a green haze. Not when he was sitting comfortably on your couch.

“Suit might be a little short for you.”

His attempt at humor shocked your nerves again, dulling them. “Didn’t know you were capable of making a joke.”

He grinned, cocking an eyebrow as he sipped the rest of the wine. You’d never imagined him this relaxed. His shoulders down not from defeat, but relaxation; his eyes half-lidded not from desperation, or succumbing to whatever darkness lay within him, but wine’s subtle embrace. Even his legs were more splayed out, casting their net wider, his normally chiseled jawline dulled as his head sank into the back cushion.

You liked him like this, and felt braver. You sat back against the couch to match, tilting your head toward him, his already tilted toward you. “So what else does Bruce Wayne do?”

He looked confused.

“Public you. Do you just go to City Hall meetings, occasionally a shopping spree that totally isn’t a photo-op?”

He chuckled under his breath, his words coming out a little slower. Whoa, you really liked making him laugh. You wet your lips, subconsciously shifting nearer. “About to go to campaign events.” He met your eyes again, an act that was rapidly becoming a slippery slope. Every time he did it you felt more and more comfortable there. “What about you?”

“Campaign things? Yeah, I don’t have much else to do. I’ll try to be at every event.”

“You’re genuinely interested in Gotham politics?”

“Would I rather be home? Maybe, but it’s fascinating. The fact it got sprung on so quickly…”

“Been meaning to pay Reál a visit.” He stayed looking at you the entire time, and you drank up every second of it.

“I was thinking that too.” You mimicked his earlier laugh without conscious awareness. “If only we could pair up. Alas…”

He shrugged, the ripples in his shirt moving with his shoulders. “We could.”

You laughed again; whether it was the weed or his more friendly company, you’d figure later. “No way.”

“You could chaperone my visits. Be my transcriber.” He grinned at you, not giving away how much of it was a joke.

You rolled your eyes at him, playfully. “That’d be making me your personal assistant, Bruce.”

He liked when you said his name. “Guess you’re right, Y/N.”

A few seconds of silence rattled around your chest like a ping-pong ball. “If that happened, shit. Whatever credibility I have left would tank.” You looked at the screen, still paused on the friend’s form in the striped outfit.

“Don’t want that.”

You stared at each other, then busted laughing again. It felt different than how Dr. Vry had sneered at you in the meeting, mocking the notion of you having a name to protect; this was harmless, and if you hadn’t already picked up on it, you could tell by his smiling glances between laughs. Mmm, this wasn’t…

Wanting to ask him this since the candidates were first announced but never having the opportunity, you shot your shot after the din lowered. You grasped for anything platonic to settle the rhapsody that threatened to overwhelm you. “Which candidate are you liking?”

Bruce shot you another look, making your stomach flip. He was teasing. “You care about the billionaire’s opinion on city politics?”

“I am rubbing off on you!” You beamed.

He rolled his eyes in that same way, the grin sneaking into your eyes filling his chest like a balloon. He could hardly breathe around it. “I won’t endorse.”

You squinted. “Why not?”

“People could think whoever I endorse paid me off. Could have the opposite effect.”

You nodded, pondering it for a second. You were more relieved than you’d let on. “That’s better than what I thought your reasoning was. Thought I’d have to fight you.”

“And what did you think it was?”

“Some apolitical bullshit.”

He sighed, the whisper of a smile on his cheeks lifting it nearly into a laugh. “For someone who acts like they know me so well,”

“And when did I claim to?” This was the most pleasant ‘argument’ you’d ever had.

“Maybe it’s more your tone.” You could’ve sworn he winked at you.

This conversation had the aura of a flotation device; barely holding you both afloat. “I don’t know how I feel about a man talking about my tone. Especially one as sunshiney as you.”

“Touché.”

Laughter filled the room again. It was becoming easier and easier now, like a contagion. Bruce lightened his inflection, making it almost sing-songy. “What about you? Who do you like?” You held in a laugh that would’ve projected flecks of spit across the room. You felt ridiculous, and weird, alongside such vast enjoyment. You never, ever thought his company could be so agreeable.

“Only barely looked into them, but March seems about as stellar as a politician can be.” You were surprised you could still think so clearly; usually by this point of the edible, you were crashing into your pillow. His presence tonight was captivating, and you held back a flash of panic having thought that.

You hadn’t been looking at him, holding in a laugh having forced you to stare at his frayed black shoes, but you caught him laughing in your periphery, shaking his head. Your suspicious glare prompted him to elaborate. “You missed when he came to a meeting, it was like you were speaking through his body.”

“Now look who claims to know me so well!”

“That’s right, you hate the idea of taxing the rich and using the funds to help the less fortunate.”

You blushed, biting back a wide grin. “You’re so annoying.”

“Mmhmm.”

You gave him a once over while he checked his phone, mulling over how this simultaneously felt incredibly natural and out of character for him. Was this one of the ‘last good days’ people talked about? What Dr. Crane told you to look out for? An unusually elevated and expansive mood, inevitably leading to a crash, or signaling a resignation to the end? You didn’t want to kill the vibe, but felt that same pull to be the responsible one. “Really, are you okay?”

Bruce attuned to the shift in your body language as if it were his own. His knee-jerk response was to deny and reassure you he was fine. Truly, he wanted to tell you to stop asking him, and stop concerning yourself with his wellbeing. The alcohol had infiltrated, his walls dropping with far less resistance than usual, allowing him to start thinking through the tunnels of emotion without much fight. He felt okay right now, unnervingly so, but when he thought back to going home, about stepping out of the confines of these walls, it all felt heavier.

“It’s okay if you’re not. I’m not fine, either.”

He glanced over at you, your eyes blinking more than usual from the marijuana, slightly unfocused, but trying. He looked at his hands in his lap, fiddling with the tip of his pinky.

“And you don’t have to share because you think you owe it to me.”

Any other day he would’ve bristled at such blatant concern, but right now it cocooned him in comfort. Made his cheeks warmer than they already felt. He recalled your head snapping to the conference door when he’d slipped into his Batman modulation, an action that had him staring at you too long, only half-hearing Gordon on the other end. Had his breath catch before leaving.

“I want to. It’s just new to me. Talking, socializing, parading those rooms.” That physical pain returned to him, and he gestured to you. “Someone knowing besides Alfred. And the mental stuff.”

He expected you to be bored, for your eyes to have glazed over, but your attention was eager. You weren’t even wringing your hands together as you usually were. You spoke gently, but in a fashion nowhere similar to coddling. He wanted to lean closer to you.

“How’s that been?”

His chest puffed with a sharp breath, the rosé swirling in his gut. “No more owls, if that’s what you’re asking. The medication’s been fine, makes me feel a bit jittery, not hungry. That’s about it.”

“It’s gotta be hard to adjust to.”

He nodded, opening his mouth to speak. You spoke first.

“You’re also under the influence, I don’t want you to regret sharing anything.” Now you wrung your hands together.

His eyes searched yours, continuously floored at how often you chose the response least expected. No one else would look out for him like this. None of the people at City Hall, at least. No one in any rooms he’d ever been in. The next words out of his mouth spilled from unadulterated confusion, unable to scour his mind for an obvious answer. “How are you able to do that?”

His brows were knit together tight, all semblance of humor gone. Your voice was softer. “Do what?”

“Look past my reputation.”

You didn’t know how much he’d like the answer, but you said it anyway. “I guess I don’t idolize that stuff. Supreme wealth and influence. I actually hate it.”

“What makes you hate it?” He leaned closer to you, feeling the strongest pull to completely unravel you like a spool of thread.

You noted his swerve from questions about his wellbeing, but didn’t tempt it again. You’d given him an out for a reason. You kept to task, shifting your body toward his without thought. “I don’t like hoarding resources when so many people are without.”

“That’s why you’re watching a movie with him.” You were like a hearth, warm, bright, and he wanted to keep adding kindling.

“Touché.” You grinned, hoping he wouldn’t see the color brought to your ears, but resigned to the reality he undoubtedly did. “I do hate that about you.”

“Would it help if I hated it too?”

“But you’re still not doing anything about it.”

Even when you were interrogating him, listing off his inadequacies, it didn’t dampen the hospitality he felt toward you. He didn’t even care it felt disorienting to admit he liked it. Alcohol was a dangerous drug, his eyes in a constant deliberation between focusing on yours or your lips. “What do you think I should do?”

“You really want to hear it?”

He nodded. He could listen to you talk all night.

You released a sigh from the bottom of your lungs. You floored it without thought for how it might come out with your jumbled, free-flowing mind right now. “I think people should be housed. Given food, access to resources. Like actual access, not handing them a paper or telling them a phone line when half of them don’t have phones. There are more empty apartments in the city than people houseless.”

Damn. “Really?” You were so passionate about this… it was enchanting.

“Yes.”

“So, subsidizing those units?” He’d hand you his card right now. He’d do just about anything you asked right now, his focus growing increasingly singular, the room crowding.

You nodded. “Making it free until people get on their feet. Work with the next mayor to draw up a new budget.”

Underneath the bloom of the alcohol, he felt himself beginning to simmer. He sat back a little. “And what if they just want to loiter?”

“What if they deserve to?”

Bruce didn’t have a response, thrown yet another curveball by you.

“Wouldn’t you want to relax and recover if you spent the last few years out on the streets, and you finally had a shower and a warm bed that’s all yours? A kitchen with food? We could partner with local charities and businesses to provide food and stubs.”

We. His mind zoomed on it like a magnifying glass. He shifted his weight, feeling unsettled. This was verging on a massive argument, tempting a trigger on his fight or flight, your conversation yanking him in opposing directions. “What about people with criminal convictions?”

“Your moral compass needs some nuance.”

Bruce bristled, the thought of criminals being handed a check to live comfortably off the government feeling as wrong as kicking a puppy. What did criminals do to deserve comfort, safety? They’d taken his parents from…

Something flashed across Bruce’s face for only a millisecond, his shoulders slumping. His brows knit together, barely, like a half-formed thought. He scanned the ground in front of him before subtly clearing his throat.

They hadn’t taken his parents from him. One person had. One man pulling the trigger. Christ.. He blinked a few times, vowing to dig into it more later. Something about the greater revelation hidden inside made that thought feel like the inaugural brick.

Thankfully, all he had to do to abandon the thought was focus back on you. The alcohol rendered his ruminations less sticky, but you stickier. He was starting to recognize the contours of your face. His initial balk melted into trust. “Nuance. I’m listening.”

His gaze falling on you was beginning to feel like a third place. Maybe a first. “You’re actually listening to me?”

Your pleasant surprise did heavy-lifting on the mood. He razzed. “Guess it’s the alcohol.”

You paused before sinking into his capturing charm, fretting over how out of character this was. Mood lability was one of the terms Dr. Crane had taught you, but before you could get too wrapped up in your thoughts, Bruce pulled you out of the early waves like a trained lifeguard. He positioned his body toward you, leaning even closer, tilting his head to better meet your wandering eyes. The second he tethered you there, he let down the anchor. “I’m safe.” He nodded slowly, just enough for you to register it.

Soft ebbs of his wine-tinged breath caressed your nose. You looked away, but his lullaby ‘hey’ drew your eyes back. He nodded firmer now. “I promise.”

You bit your lip, tears studding the rim of your eyes.

“I’ll keep promising until you believe me.”

Instead of the whimper that wanted to escape, a single tear fell, and his eyes followed it until it dripped off your chin.

“I don’t take your trust lightly.”

He’s so sweet like this. Another tear, overwhelming sensations swinging on monkey bars in your chest cavity. You brushed it off with the back of your palm, shaking out your hands as much as you could in the small space between you. His focused attention felt permeating, like standing too close to the sun. You let out an embarrassed laugh, struggling to play off your emotionality. “I know every time you bring it up I start crying, and I don’t know why, but. I can handle it. I want to be a resource.”

He mused on that a moment, the only evidence of it being the subtle shifts of his eyes focusing on yours. “If I ever feel like that, I’ll call you.” He measured your reaction with a fine-toothed comb, not wanting to ask too much, needing to straddle the line between comforting you and burdening. You nodded and withdrew your phone from your pocket, leaving him swimming in repose.

You handed him your phone on the New Contact page, and you watched as he input his number. Your breathing was deep and shallow altogether, confused, like the tendrils of flame that scorned your stomach lining as your eyes outlined the shadows of his hair across his forehead, like the electricity that zapped your nervous system when he spoke to you like that, the undulating depth of his blue eyes…

You busied yourself flipping through more streaming channels. Another popular show made you click, this time one Mar had personally recommended. He handed the phone back, glancing at the TV. He didn’t want to watch anything right now, he wanted to keep talking to you. But he didn’t really want you to keep feeling upset, either. He nodded for you to press PLAY.

It started how any flashy drama does, with a wild cold open. Your attention followed the commotion, flashing to a scene in a silent office. Pretty soon, the screen fuzzed out to unintelligible static. Tears streamed down your cheeks from the emotion of the scene, and Bruce leaned closer. His voice was hot in your ear, peppering goosebumps across your skin. “Let me.”

He pressed his lips to your cheeks, kissing away your tears. The clip of your heart thundering in your chest had you gasping at the contact, pushing yourself up to your knees to bring your mouth to his. His lips were soft and enveloping, turning your gasps into panting whines. His cologne squeezed your throat, leaving you breathless.

“Y/N…” he moaned your name into your mouth, a sound that went straight between your thighs. Your phone thudded against the ground, freeing up your hands to thread through his hair. The sounds he was making… Your arms collided, both having the same idea at the same time to pull the other’s shirt off.

Just as his shirt pulled over his head, you opened your eyes, jolting up. You felt your phone slide from your thigh to the couch cushion, still open to New Contact: Bruce. He rustled beside you, blinking slowly back into the room. You both looked entirely unmussed, a foot away. Everything still intact. You both had dozed off, apparently.

It was a fucking dream.

Looking at the screen showed you’d both been out for around half an hour, the show playing on. He ran a hand through his hair, stretching his neck from side to side while he yawned. You averted your eyes in case he could beam into your thoughts. “Um, I need to pee.” You gulped and rose unsteadily to your feet, all but racing to your bedroom.

You rested your forehead against the door once it shut, a gasp of breath leaving you. You twitched hard at the ghost of his lips on your neck, shaking your head while you ran to the bathroom, running ice water in the sink. You cooled your hot hands and placed them on the back of your neck and cheeks, letting your eyes shut.

Dreams are strange. Fickle and unintelligible. The coolness was bringing you back down, settling your heart rate before you inevitably passed out. You spent another few minutes there, avoiding your hair as much as possible as you tethered yourself with each press of your fingers to your face. You shook your hands out, jumping in place. Whew. The images and sensations were fading safely into obscurity, the temperature defogging the haze of your high.

Padding back to your bedroom showed the time to be around ten. The nap had only made you more tired. When you walked back out you focused on your kitchen island, ignoring the giant, screaming, flashing lights coming from the couch. You yawned, and he got up in response. “We fell asleep quick. Don’t know what that says about the show.” He said it so casually, but your mind was positively tumbling all over itself. You nodded, your mouth drying.

You weren’t aware that he was internally stewing over how seamlessly he’d followed your lead once you’d passed out, and all of the embarrassment that was following now that he was awake. He didn’t know that you were holding in a scream.

You brightened so he wouldn’t pry, watching him stretch himself more alert. “I know, I guess the week caught up with me!” Forced to look at him, you clamped your teeth against your tongue in preparation. It was needed.

“I’ll walk. Text you when I make it back?” He wanted to get ahead of your anxieties, knowing if the roles were reversed he’d demand it of you. He simpered. How egalitarian.

“Oh uh, yeah! I’ll text you when I get to bed.” Suggestive. “So you can have my number.” The recovery was far from smooth, but you were struggling to capture an impossible feat of looking at him but not perceiving him. He gave a small thumbs-up as he pulled the hoodie over his head and buttoned his jacket. Once his back was turned toward the door it was easier, but not by much.

He opened the door, peeking over his shoulder. “That was fun.”

“It was nice to have company. Even if it was yours.” In anguish, you clawed back to jests in a futile attempt at normalcy.

He laughed under his breath once more. “Even if it was yours.” His barely-there grin was the last thing you saw before the night crashed to an end.

Jesus fucking Christ.

[brummiereader]

Unchained Melody | Sneak peak

Here's a little sneak peak from the first chapter of my new series Unchained Melody that will be starting friday. Get ready everybody, it's gonna be an angsty one!

"Calling at Birmingham New Street ladies and gentlemen, Birmingham New Street " the ticket conductor shouted walking briskly along the carriageway, going from coach to coach announcing the last and final call. One year, seven months and fifteen days. You thought to yourself picking at the frayed upholstered chair you was sitting on as a single solemn tear slipped over the curve of your cheek down into your lap, escaping the pools of your eyes too quickly for you to brush away. Not now Y/N. Don't start. You scolded yourself, not wanting to bring your fellow passengers' attention to your escaping emotions as you let yourself sink into the guilt you had been keeping tightly against your chest for almost two years, keeping it hidden from the vicious judgment and critical eyes it was undoubtedly worthy of as you did every Sunday you made the journey back to Birmingham, every Sunday you desperately tried to get a glimpse of your son from afar. Brushing the steady flow of tears from your face you turned your head to the window, wiping the condensation that had built up on the tempered glass to see your reflection staring back at you, cruelly forcing you to see what you had become. Ragged clothing, unkempt hair and chapped hands, reddened from the countless hours you had worked night and day laundering linen for people that resembled your former self. You were unrecognisable, a far cry from the woman you once were, the wife and mother you once were. Broken and beaten, you were barely getting by with the hand life had dealt you. How had it come to this?

[alittlebitofsainz]

a place in this world - ch1

a dream come true. you, a race engineer in formula one, having built your way up through the ranks. sure, the 2020 season hadn’t exactly gone the way that everyone had expected, but this was your chance, your moment to prove to the world of racing what you and your driver, carlos, were made of. but carlos isn’t staying at mclaren forever, and eventually, you’ll have a decision to make…

pairing: carlos sainz x f! reader. slow burn colleagues to friends to lovers (please, from my own experience, don’t follow this pipeline)

info: reader lives in the uk due to working at mclaren, and is somewhat implied to be british. it is also implied that they listen to bbc radio 2 and support leicester city football club. this may or may not be because these things are true of me and I wasn’t planning on publishing this, sorry!

warnings: cursing, a lil’ bit of angst, very infrequent use of y/n, one (1) google translated spanish sentence, a dry british writing style xoxo a/n: hello! welcome to a little passion project I never thought I’d share with the internet. this will eventually become a sort of ‘choose your own adventure’ type series, where you can make decisions about your career that can eventually lead you to different teams and drivers. will be posting a masterlist soon with more info so bare with me! any feedback / comments are always welcome

Masterlist | chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4

Chapter One: … Ready for It?

it had started out like any other wednesday. except it hadn’t, not really. the nature of your job meant that there was no ‘any other wednesday’. most wednesdays meant that you were jetting off to some new country, your wide eyed face in the window seat, reflecting back off the pane of glass separating you from the dancing lights of some exciting new city, 5,000 feet below. race engineer to mclaren-renault formula one driver number 55, carlos sainz, wasn’t exactly what you had listed as what you wanted to be when you grew up, but you were far from disappointed that that’s what your linkedin profile now read, a metaphorical middle finger to everyone who’d said you’d never amount to anything in motorsports.

but by all accounts it had been a relatively uneventful wednesday in your life, in fact even more so than usual compared to the early morning check ins at Stansted airport that you’d grown accustomed to. this week was silverstone, your home race, if race engineers could call it that, and that meant no early mornings, no check ins, no flights, no decanting your liquids into tiny bottles and zipping them into a plastic bag to take through security. this wednesday was a stop at sainsburys to fill up the tank of your vw polo with petrol, and an 80 mile drive west towards silverstone circuit. the most exciting part of your morning was getting stuck in half an hour of traffic on the m25; you didn’t even need the dulcet tones of Richie Anderson on radio 2 to tell you there’d be traffic at Potters Bar. as a native southerner, you could just feel it in your bones.

still, only fifteen minutes late to track wasn’t too bad, considering your lengthy journey, and you were by far the last member of the team to arrive. you would’ve been even less late, but for the fact that you’d sat for the best part of five minutes in your car, engine off, staring at the notification on your phone. there were so many questions running around in your head, first and foremost of which was why on earth did dan from engineering have your number? but the second question, which was possibly the more important one, was why did carlos ask him for it? he said that it ‘might be useful to contact each other.’ if the current expression on your face could be summed up in a noise, it would be a very confused and very emphatic ‘huh?’.

sure, you and carlos interacted a lot during race weekends, that much was a given. you were forever catching up to discuss data, strategies, the car setup, the sandwich options at the hospitality, why the leicester city football team would beat real madrid in a fist fight. so okay, your conversations weren’t allstrictly work related, and you could’t deny that the two of you got on well and seemed to really understand each other, but that was all part of being a driver and race engineer duo; you had to be on the same wavelength. it was non-negotiable. but swapping phone numbers? you couldn’t imagine why the two of you would need to text or call each outside of work hours, and you had work phones for that. which led you to your third and fourth questions: number three, why did you suddenly feel so nervous and giddy with excitement when you re-read his message for the seventh time? (question three point five was why did you re-read his message seven times?) and number four, what the hell were you supposed to message back in reply?

you typed in a thumbs up emoji and then immediately deleted it. how fucking old were you, 65? what next, start talking to him about the cold war? no, you had to keep it fun and casual, not too overfamiliar but not too weirdly distant and cold. god, why was this so difficult? you felt like a schoolgirl with a teenage crush, constantly typing various replies and deleting them again, letter by letter. eventually you settled on a cool, calm and collected response, typing it out and shoving your phone into your pocket before you had time to overanalyse what you’d just sent. quickly gathering up your stuff from the boot of your car, you spammed the lock button on your car keys, just in case the first five times didn’t stick, and trotted off towards the entrance to the paddock.

as it was approaching the hour mark since he’d sent his text, carlos had been starting to worry that he’d overstepped an unwritten boundary. why had he even asked dan from engineering for her number in the first place? it just felt like something that he should have. lando had will’s number, he’d already asked him that. but once he’d sent the message he realised that he couldn’t really come up with an excuse as to why he’d needed it, why he couldn’t have waited until he’d seen her this weekend and ask for her number from herself. like a normal person. deep down he knew why, though he was in some sort of state of denial about it, and it was the same reason that he hadn’t asked for her number two weeks ago in Hungary, or at the previous race in Austria, or when he’d first met her at the start of the season. 

he breathed a sigh of relief when her reply came through, 57 minutes after he’d sent his message. well, the first one that is. the second message came two minutes after the first; god, he couldn’t believe he’d been stupid enough to forget to include who he was at the end of the text the first time around.

but it didn’t matter now, because she’d replied, and her words on the screen made him smile to himself, her voice in his head as he read them through three, now four times over. his fingers hovered over the keypad, contemplating a reply. he checked the time - it wouldn’t be long until she arrived at track anyway and they could chat in person, so he closed the messages app on his phone and tucked it away in his pocket, deciding against committing any words to the everlasting aether which was the iPhone messages app.

it was nearing the end of a lengthy strategy department meeting when your phone went off, a few pair of eyes glancing your way as you apologised profusely, eyes scanning over the text before sheepishly putting your phone on do not disturb and placing it back on the table face down. shit, this meeting wouldn’t be finished for another ten minutes at least, and by that time all the bacon and brie toasties would be gone (everyone knew they were the best lunch option). worse still, you hated the fact that you had to leave carlos hanging; pausing the strategy meeting to send off a quick text was equivalent to a cardinal sin, even if it was to carlos sainz. your eyes were flicking increasingly often down to the time on your laptop, the seconds crawling by as the time approached one o’clock. it felt like whichever godlike entity governed the laws of time was toying with you; surely it wasn’t possible for time to move this slowly? the head of strategy wrapped the meeting at 13:04, and you were out of your seat like a rocket.

amy, one of the strategists, fell into step beside you as you paced it down the corridor.

“you’ve heard about the brie and bacon being back on?” she asked; you only had to reply with a grin to give her the answer that she needed. she eyed you up, as much as anyone power walking down a busy corridor could whilst still maintaining maximum straight line speed.

“everyone from strategy and engineering has been in meetings. so who’s your source?” came her second question. you picked up your pace, under the guise of trying to get to the canteen quicker.

she had a habit of taking just enough time to respond to carlos’ messages to keep him guessing whether she actually would respond at all. it wasn’t entirely her fault, carlos realised; she’d apologised for earlier, explaining that she was busy driving. of course she was, how could he be such an idiot? maybe a part of him was hoping that she’d been acting coy, teasing him by waiting, purposefully trying to keep him on the edge of his seat.

carlos saw her enter the canteen, watched with a small, self satisfied smirk as her face fell, the rattan shelf where the brie and bacon toasties had been, now depressingly empty. he left it just long enough so that she was forced to consider which disappointing option to go for instead, before finally calling her over.

“Y/N!” carlos called, watching as her head whipped round, and he had to stifle a laugh at her confusion. he waved her over.

“sorry, I was stuck in a meeting.” she sighed, her voice slightly breathless. had she ran here? he fought back the urge to tease her about it, shaking his head slightly.

“don’t worry about it.” he replied, gesturing to the seat beside him as he spoke. her eyes lit up when her gaze fell on the plate on the table, in just the way he’d pictured in his head. god, he’d never get over the way the simple things pleased her, and he didn’t mean that in a bad way. over the past couple of months that he’d known her, carlos had learned that the little things really mattered, in a way that was almost rare in this environment. she looked upon a brie and bacon sandwich like it was the sun that shined, and if she’d have looked up at carlos in that moment, she’d have seen that he was looking at her in the exact same way.

“is that for me?”

“no.” carlos replied, deadpan. she shot him a look, her face screwed up in a pout that he’d grown more accustomed to the more he teased her like this. eventually he let out a soft chuckle, as a way to say I’m only joking, of course it’s for you, and she sat down in the seat next to him with a playful scowl, which only caused him to laugh more.

“thanks, carlos. you’re the best.” she told him through a mouthful of brie, bacon and toasted bread.

“I know.” he replied, a cheeky grin dancing across his face. “it was the last one as well.”

“amy’s gonna be pissed.” she giggled, glancing over her shoulder to watch as her colleague was forced to settle for regular ham and cheese.

a podium finish to p13. was it worse to fail because of your own shortcomings or because of something that was out of your control? if you’d asked carlos sainz right now, he would think about it for a moment, and then tell you to vete a la mierda.*

his phone screen lighting up in the darkness was the only thing that brought his attention to how dark it had become in his hotel room. christ, how long had he been sat there, staring at the wall, trying to process how frustrated and angry and upset he was? he’d put his phone on silent, tired of all the commiseratory messages that had been coming through, but apparently his bedtime reminder didn’t obey the laws of do not disturb. sighing, he unlocked the device, and quickly scanned down the many notifications he had been ignoring for the past few hours. one stood out above all the rest, because of course it did. he felt guilt clutch him as he noticed the message from well over an hour ago. from her.not only guilty at the fact that he’d not seen her message, but for some reason guilty for perceiving that he’d let her down at her home race. it was stupid, he knew, to feel that way - it wasn’t his fault that his tyre had blown out with just a few laps to go, but he knew how excited she’d been for her first ever british gp, and it had all ended in disappointment. his fingers hovered over the keyboard at the bottom of his phone for a moment, a million different emotions whizzing round in his head, bouncing off the sides like a demented pinball machine. no wonder he had a headache. he drew in a sharp breath before typing out his reply.

*I’m hoping this means somewhat akin to ‘fuck off’

you’d almost forgotten that you’d sent carlos sainz a message of commiseration, which was shocking considering how long you’d been deliberating over it only a mere hour ago. you were back in your own bed in your hometown, seeing no need to stick around seeing as there would be no celebrations this weekend, and carlos had disappeared as soon as the team debrief had ended, making it very clear that he wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. which made it all the more surprising when you leaned over to your bedside table, bleary eyes blinking back sleep as your vision adjusted to the pitch black of your room, to pick up the phone which had woken you from your sleep.

your eyes blinked again against the harsh light of the phone, taking a moment to focus on the big bold numbers on your lockscreen. 01:03? who was texting you at this time? eyebrows knitted together in an increasingly deep frown, you scanned carlos’ message. as was becoming customary, you read it several times over, this time to check whether you’d read it right. why would he want to ring you, at this time of night as well? your mind started to reach for wild possibilities - was he in trouble? hurt? worse?

before he changed his mind, carlos hit the telephone symbol next to her contact details.

“Carlos, are you okay?” her voice came through almost immediately, sounding equal parts panicked yet somehow sleepy. shit, not only had he caused her to worry, he’d probably just woken her up in the middle of the night as well. what kind of dickhead rings a colleague that he’s only known for a few months at 1am? he cleared his throat.

“fuck, sorry, I woke you up.”

“don’t worry about it, I was awake.” she replied. a blatant lie, but carlos appreciated the attempt to make him feel better. 

“can I help you with something?” she continued, still sounding concerned. he shook his head even though she couldn’t see.

“yes, no. fuck, I don’t know.” he growled at himself for being so confused, so confusing, for not even really knowing why he’d called her. was he going insane, or did he just hear a soft sigh on the other end of the line? he squeezed his eyes shut, collecting himself to try again, but she beat him to it. 

“I’m sorry about today, carlos, it must be tough to deal with.”

sometimes it felt like she knew him better than he knew himself. he dragged a hand down his face.

“yeah, I’m- it’s not great.” he stumbled over his words slightly, his voice catching in his throat. usually he’d be reluctant to show this vulnerability, embarrassed even, but something about the late hour combined with how oh-so-soft her voice was… it made him forget his pride for just that moment. 

“I can’t stop thinking about it.” he admitted, feeling a ramble coming on but equally feeling powerless to stop it. “I know that it was a problem with the tyre, I know that it wasn’t my fault, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating. and then there’s always a part of me that wonders whether there was anything that I could’ve done. like, maybe if I’d driven less aggressively or something, or changed the way I braked around a certain corner. I still feel like I’ve let myself down, let the team down, let you dow-“

“you didn’t let me down, carlos.” her abrupt reply broke him from his monologue, stopping him in his tracks and allowing him to fill his lungs with air, not realising how out of breath he was becoming with his run-on sentences.

“what?” came his soft reply. he’d heard perfectly clearly what she’d said the first time. but a part of him needed to hear it again.

“you didn’t let me down, carlos.” she repeated, with the same clarity, the same sincerity, the same low tone that he’d never heard from her before that made her sound so wise beyond her years.

“you didn’t let anyone down. this wasn’t your fault. I know it doesn’t make it any less frustrating or easier to deal with - there’s nothing I can say that will change that. but please, please don’t blame yourself for any part of it.”

there was silence on both ends for a moment, before carlos let out a long sigh.

“I- yeah, I guess you’re right.” there was something still on his mind, something that one am carlosknew that one pm carlos would never want to talk about, least of all burden his race engineer with it. but that was all the more reason to say it now.

“I just feel so much pressure to perform, now that I have the ferrari contract.” his voice dropped even lower as he spoke, as if whispering it quietly enough could make it not be true. “I feel like I have to earn my place there, you know?”

“carlos, you were P-fucking-3.” 

something about the way she stressed the syllables made carlos chuckle despite himself, and from the way she let out a small giggle on the other end of the phone, he guessed that that had been her intention all along. 

“anyone can see that you’ve earned that seat at ferrari. you’ve proved that time and time again already. this isn’t about anyone else, this is about you, and what you believe you deserve. the only person you need to convince is yourself.”

carlos chuckled again, feeling some sort of playful nature already coming back to him. maybe he’d finally figured out why he wanted to call her in the middle of the night, maybe it was even the reason he wanted her number in the first place. maybe it was because he knew that no matter how crappy he was feeling, talking to her always seemed to turn the day around. she always seemed to make him smile.

“very inspirational.” he replied, his tone almost teasing over her ‘believing in yourself’ speech. the corners of his lips curved upwards as he could practically hear her rolling her eyes on the other end.

“this is what I get for trying to be nice.” she muttered, but her tone was light, reciprocating the teasing. carlos smiled, his first genuine smile in several hours. probably since the last time he’d seen her.

“thank you, really. talking to you it… it always puts me in a better mood.” carlos confessed, glad that this was a phone call so she couldn’t see the way his cheeks lit up a soft shade of pink.

“anytime, carlos.” 

when they eventually hung up the call, carlos felt lighter than he had in weeks, like she’d melted all his problems away with her soft voice and warm heart. he slept easy that night. meanwhile, she was now wide awake.

you groaned when the sound of your phone pinging dragged you from your admittedly tumultuous sleep. it had been difficult to drift off again after that call with carlos, a million thoughts buzzing around your brain like a swarm of bees on cocaine. you felt bad for carlos, sure, but that wasn’t enough to keep you awake on its own. there was another feeling there; if you were to flip through an oxford english dictionary until you found a word that summed it up you might settle for ‘intrigued’. 

you were intrigued that carlos that had decided to ring you of all people last night; surely he had family, or at the very least close friends, that he would rather turn to? but you were also intrigued by your own reaction - why were you feeling so warm and fuzzy that carlos had chosen you, the knowledge that when he was feeling low you were the one he wanted to hear on the other end of the line creating some sort of feeling in your heart, like someone was squeezing it not-quite-too tightly?

it was these questions, and an incessant amount of bin lorries driving past at 5am, that kept you from falling back asleep, and were the reason that you were grumbling now, as you reached over to pick up your phone. the grumbling ceased the moment you read the message and saw who it was from, replaced by a softly murmured ‘oh’, and that strange feeling in your chest again.

as always feedback and comments are welcomed with massive appreciation and open arms! a second part is written and will be out soonish! much love, Katie x

[misty-slays-blog]

So as promised, here's the translation of the interview Morfydd did with Knack in August. I am by no means a translator but I did my best. It's not too long. Some rather interesting bits about how she views Galadriel (also the author of the interview gets Haladriel lol). If you want to read the entire interview in Dutch, it's here (I archived it since you need an account to read it on the Knack site, this way you can read it in its entirety): https://archive.ph/HekvQ

Morfydd Clark keeps getting calls for freaky roles (like for a Galadriel who flirts with Sauron)

During the second season of Rings of Power, the young elf Galadriel will be haunted by the ghosts of her past. Much to the delight of Morfydd Clark, who previously made name for herself as a possessed nurse in Saint Maud. “I love looking for those extreme roles.”

“I would have to board a plane to go home and I can't do that, I thought.”

When Morfydd Clark arrived in New-Zealand five years ago, she had no idea what awaited her. The production for The Rings of Power was notoriously secretive. She knew she'd auditioned for a prequel to The Lord of the Rings. But that she would be playing Galadriel, was new information. Clark had been introduced to the franchise as a child, during a family outing to The Hobbit: A Musical in London. Throughout the following years, she collected illustration books about The Shire and the Peter Jackson movies in her bedroom in Wales. “Unknowingly, I've been preparing for a role in the Lord of the Rings universe for fifteen years”, she tells us through Zoom.

But no book could have prepared Clark for the massive scale on which The Rings of Power operates. It isn't the kind of production with casual fans who are willing to swallow everything. And on top of that: the production value was through the roof. Costing a total of 465 million dollars, the series is the most expensive one ever made. One didn't have to look hard to see where this impressive budget went. From the underground dwarven kingdom Khazad-dûm to the eye-catching splendor of Númenor: even those finding the prequel rather lacking – the series has some flaws – has to admit that the cinematography is breathtakingly spectacular, paling other fantasy franchises in the process.

On top of that, there was the fact that Cate Blanchett's adaptation of Galadriel in the original trilogy has turned into movie heritage. “It helped that I play Galadriel during an entirely different moment of her life, long before she became the Lady of Lothlórien. I delved into the history of the elves, who were pretty wild actually. Did you know that they used to throw each other off of buildings all the time? I wanted my version of Galadriel to be strikingly different from the Galadriel she would eventually become.”

Clark's version of Galadriel is a young, brave warrior who indeed barely resembles Blanchett's ethereal elf. The consequences of a rather unfortunate romantic experience might change that (spoiler: the hunk Galadriel flirted with the entire first season? He happened to be Sauron. Even elves can miss red flags). “She realizes now that she, too, might have darkness within her. Her sense of self is in shambles. We all experience this feeling sometimes, but not everyone revives the evilest being in all of Middle-Earth in the process.” The second season is all about the consequences of this error of judgment. “Sauron haunts her the entire time. She finds herself stuck in her own horror movie.”

Clark describes this new and spooky chapter of her life as 'coming home.' Before her career took her to Middle-Earth, she was well on her way to becoming a Welsh Mia Goth. She played in BBC adaptations of Dracula and His Dark Materials, and in 2019 she was promoted to indie darling thanks to Saint Maud, a psychological horror movie made by Rose Glass (who continued her streak with Love Lies Bleeding) in which she played the titular character. “My parents keep asking me why I am always cast in those terrifying roles. But I think it's wonderful. I love looking for those extreme roles. Although, it is kind of strange to always receive calls for freaky parts. Is that the kind of vibes I have?”

Her freaky vibes are definitely lucrative. Among future roles are a Hamlet adaptation and a slasher, earlier this year she acted alongside Matt Smith in Starve Acre, a British indie horror movie. “That was a lucky coincidence. Matt Smith just finished his takes for House of the Dragon, he has given me so much good advice”, Clark says. It was the first time being back to a small set “where the entire crew fits into one room.” “I don't think the sets for Rings of Power will ever feel like the norm.” Because while every series goes for as much CGI as possible these days, with Rings of Power, the crew aims to build as many of the sets as possible. “Wandering around in such a magical world still feels like winning the lottery each day.”

Despite her success, Clark's acting career started quite accidental. When she was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of seven, a directionless school career followed. She quit when she was sixteen. According to British GQ, her teachers called her 'hollol di gwilydd', meaning 'completely shameless'. It wasn't until she began acting, that she found some sense of peace. And when playing in paranormal and magical fiction, she discovered a world in which she can be herself. “Fantasy like Lord of the Rings reverses the status quo of how we think the world should be. I wanted Galadriel to be free of the things that were imposed on me when I was younger. She isn't apologetic. She never doubts whether or not she said the right thing. And that might be the best part about playing her: Galadriel is shameless.”

[thehypnone]

Symbol on the Surface Chapter 18

WC: 3,8k

Relationship: SwissAlps

Tags: Transmasc Swiss, Pregnancy, Fluff, Surprise!

He’ll make it up to Mountain; he could suck his brains out through his dick later, for one. Or let him suck on his tits again—that would be quite beneficial for both of them, considering how sore Swiss’ chest is because of the lactation.

Notes: Tysm to @jimothybarnes for being the best beta ever!

Chapter 1 here or on AO3.

Read chapter 18 under the cut or on AO3.

Swiss is woken up—after yet another restless night—by a soft kiss on his forehead. He purrs, leaning into the warmth next to him and getting engulfed in it as Mountain pulls him in closer.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, my heart,” he whispers into his ear and Swiss is suddenly very awake. His eyes shoot open and he would swiftly sit up, if not for the current size of his stomach and his mate’s arms tight around him.

“It’s–it’s Valentine’s Day? Fuck, I’m so sorry, I completely forgot. I don’t–I don’t have anything for you…” he mumbles, guilt already eating at him. Mountain’s been taking such good care of him and dealing with all his cravings and mood swings and he forgot to get him a Valentine’s Day gift? How could he!?

“Hey, no worries, it’s okay!” the earth ghoul assures, though—meaning it. “It’s alright, my heart, you’ve been busy growing our babies!”

“I know, but…fuck,” Swiss whines and hides his face against Mountain’s chest in shame. Never before has he forgotten anything like that. “I feel so bad.”

“No need, darling, I promise,” the other repeats, holding his mate close. The multi ghoul stays there, shuts his eyes, and tries not to let the guilt consume him.

He’ll make it up to Mountain; he could suck his brains out through his dick later, for one. Or let him suck on his tits again—that would be quite beneficial for both of them, considering how sore Swiss’ chest is because of the lactation.

Anyways, Mountain has gotten his mate a stockpile of his favorite sweets—a highly appreciated gift. They made out about it for a solid fifteen minutes, before Swiss’ back cramped and he needed to pull away and get up.

“I need to get out of here,” he groans when Mountain pulls him up from the bed, “and walk. I feel like all my muscles and joints are stuck.”

“That’s fair,” Mountain agrees, waiting until his mate is standing steadily before letting go of him—but even then he keeps a gentle hand on the small of his back. “Do you want some space or for me to come with you?”

“Not necessarily space, but yeah, I wanna go alone. Just for a little bit,” Swiss says and regrets it immediately, remembering the date. First he doesn’t get the love of his life a gift and then he’s running away from him? “Unless you want to come with me?”

“Actually, there is one thing I have to take care of in the greenhouse,” the other says, “and it’s freezing outside, so I wouldn’t want to drag you out there. I’ll do my thing when you get your walk and then cuddles?”

He nods. “Sounds good.”

“Are you gonna be alright on your own, though?” Mountain asks as his brows furrow in concern. “Do you want me to borrow a cane from Rain at least?”

“I’ll be fine,” Swiss smiles at him; always charmed by his protectiveness, “I’ll be careful.”

“Alright. You can go through the glass link into the papas’ wing to avoid stairs.”

The multi ghoul salutes. “That’s what I’ll do.”

“And I’ll be in the greenhouse if you need anything.”

“Mhm, love you.”

“I love you, too.” Mountain leans down to kiss him before the multi ghoul turns to the door and slowly waddles out of their room. His mate smiles and watches him walk away for a few moments; then he’s grabbing his stuff and also leaving.

Swiss’ walk is nice—the first couple minutes he felt like he barely had any control over his limbs, but now he’s walking quite surely. As surely as he can, considering he’s been cramping since the morning.

He’s been cramping a lot lately, though; as well as kicked. He paid it no mind at first. Walking helps a little, both his mind, stomach, and the muscles all over his body.

But then it stops helping.

Then it all becomes worse.

Way worse.

“Ugh, what the–what the fuck is going on…?”

Swiss doesn’t really know where he’s going anywhere, clutching his bump with one hand and leaning against the wall with the other. His jaw is clenched against the pain and his vision is getting slightly blurry.

He blinks it away and stops, looking around and breathing heavily. Why is he so sweaty?

And why is he hurting so much?

What’s even stranger is that there aren’t any alarms blaring in his mind. His consciousness provides that all of this is wrong, but his instincts, his subconsciousness…simply doesn’t. It’s all quiet.

Swiss has made it to the papas’ wing, it appears. He sees Copia’s door at the end of the corridor, and it looks both as if it’s right in front of him and miles away.

He now realizes that his mind isn’t quiet, after all. It’s telling him to find shelter, to get to safety, even though it’s not telling him he’s in danger. Why?

The multi ghoul looks around again. He’s right next to some door, he could go in there; or at least try. But he doesn’t know who or what’s behind it and that’s…it’s not safety.

He grunts and wills his legs to move. He looks down and even though he can barely see his feet, he stares into the floor as he puts one foot in front of the other, but his legs are wet and there’s–

There’s a puddle under him.

Is it urine? Blood?

Swiss can feel wetness on his face, too—sweat, tears, or both—as he pushes what feels like all his limits and walks on towards the only door that his instincts accept as safe. When he gets there he slumps against its frame, weakly lifting his arm to knock on the thick wood.

The pain is all but excruciating by now, even with his high tolerance.

“Oh, Swiss, hello, what–what’s wrong?” Frater Imperator greets him with a kind smile—always happy to see his ghouls—but it quickly fades upon noticing the other’s discomfort.

“I was nearby and–and I thought I pissed myself again, but–AH,” Swiss’s grunt turns into a wince, and then a painful moan, “I’m pretty sure my water just broke.”

Copia is only standing in front of him with his mouth agape, processing the ghoul’s words very slowly. Too slowly.

“The kits are coming. They’re coming now, Papa.”

“Oh…OH!” 

(SURPRISE!!! It’s baby time!!! Don’t proceed if birth is a trigger, or you simply don’t want to read about it. It’s not graphically described, but it's better to be safe than sorry. You can scroll down to an “END BIRTH CW” divider and read on.)

Swiss invites himself inside the room and—for some reason—chooses one of the corners over Copia’s bed; maybe it feels safe because of how tight it is in there for a ghoul his size. He slides down the wall, clutching his stomach, and curls up against it.

“What do I–” the man starts, looking quite pale.

“Call Omega,” Swiss pleads, kicking off his soiled sweatpants. The original light gray of the fabric is mostly darkened by colorless moisture, but there’s some deep red of blood there, too. “Mountain’s gonna know.”

“Uh, shit, fuck…” Copia swears under his breath as he’s frantically looking around for his phone. He keeps glancing down at the ghoul in the corner of his bedroom in active labor, his hands shaking as he searches for Omega’s number. When the other picks up, the man struggles to explain the situation, “It’s, uh–Swiss, in my room and he said…something about water? And that–”

“I’M GIVING BIRTH HERE!” the multi ghoul himself shouts; loud enough that Omega hears him through the phone. 

“Yes, it–it appears so,” Copia adds with a nervous chuckle, as if Swiss wasn’t clear enough. Omega tells the him he’s on his way and immediately hangs up, leaving the confused and, frankly, terrified man standing awkwardly over one of his ghouls yet again.

“Sorry for–UGH–yelling,” Swiss says, getting interrupted by contractions. “It’s coming, fuck, fucking–fuck!”

“Do you need me to help somehow?” Copia asks tentatively.

“No? Yes? I don’t know, Papa, I just–I need Mountain. Need my mate,” the multi ghoul hiccups, bearing down when his body tells him to.

He does not know what he’s doing, but then suddenly–

“Oh, shit…” Swiss whispers in disbelief as high-pitched noise sounds out in the room. Copia gasps and then his jaw drops.

The multi ghoul leans over his own stomach as much as possible and he sees–there’s a tiny kit, right there between his legs on the floor; all fuzzy and wet and crying.

Swiss is in a daze as he places his shaking hands on either side of the kit and gently lifts them up. Just as he’s doing so, the door swings open and Mountain’s breathless form appears in it.

“Oh, Lucifer,” his voice cracks when he takes in the situation his mate seems to has found himself in, “I knew I felt something happening, fuck.”

“‘S okay,” Swiss mumbles and then his face twists in pain again as he contracts again. “C’mere, Mounty, h–help me with ‘em.”

Mountain falls to his knees in front of him and extends his hands, waiting for Swiss to decide what he needs from him. Tears are streaming down the multi ghoul’s face as he shakily hands his mate their kit, the cord still attached.

Mountain’s eyes are wide as the baby is placed in his hands—the tiniest creature he’s ever seen. Having his own hands empty for a moment, Swiss shreds his sweat-soaked shirt with his claws and peels it away. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, it’s as if his body is moving on autopilot, but he then pinches the cord and slashes through it with a claw, too.

The earth ghoul tears up when Swiss grabs the kit again with all the gentleness in the world, and brings the small whining thing to his chest. He looks down at it and then back up at Mountain, locking eyes with him.

He grins and laughs weakly and Mountain knows he’s never going to forget this moment. He is also sure that Swiss would love to be done here, but there’s two more babies on the way—the earth ghoul thinks he needs to remind him.

“Two more, darling,” he whispers, “you’ve got this, it’ll be over soon. Two more.”

Swiss’ smile fades at it and a little sob leaves him, but then he takes a deep, determined breath and nods. He looks down at the kit already nursing on him and coos before starting to lick at its fuzzy little head—still going purely on instinct because, consciously, he has no fucking idea what he should be or is doing.

“You’ve got this, my heart,” Mountain repeats and squeezes his thigh reassuringly as another wave of contractions hits him. Just then the door to Copia’s room opens once again and Omega bursts inside, making the earth ghoul let out a loud possessive growl.

“Oh, my–” are Omega’s first words at the sight of Swiss cradling a tiny kit to his chest. He respectfully stays at a distance, but looks over Mountain’s form to assess Swiss and the kit’s state. “How much blood is there?”

“Doesn’t look like too much,” his mate replies, not bothering with apologizing for his defensiveness. It’s more than understandable now that there’s not only Mountain’s vulnerable mate in the room, but also his kit. “I think it’s the normal amount.”

“I agree, that’s good,” the quintessence ghoul hums, “How’s the little one?”

“Came out crying,” Swiss breathes out, “feedin’ now.”

“I see you’ve cut the cord, good job,” Omega praises before turning to Copia, “Do you have any idea how much trust this means Swiss has in you? And Mountain? This is such an honor, Papa.”

“Oh…oh, well, uh–that’s…nice,” he blushes a little, “Yes, very nice. Thank you, Omega.”

“The–the second one’s comin’ out,” Swiss interrupts them with a grunt. The kit on his chest pulls away from his nipple and mewls, as if voicing their impatience to reunite with their siblings.

“Do you think you could get up on your knees and lean forward on Mountain?”

Swiss shakes his head, “No, hurts too much…and the kit.”

“Okay, okay, that’s fair.” Omega sighs. “What about sliding down some more?”

The multi ghoul nods and wiggles down a little, ending up more laying down than sitting up. Omega praises him once again for it.

Swiss moans against more contractions and digs his claws into Mountain’s arm and then–

Another cry rips through the relative silence of the room.

This time it’s the earth ghoul that picks the kit up off of the floor into his big hands. He stares down at them and wonders how could a ghoul like him help create something so tiny, so innocent, so precious.

He’s full on sobbing by now, tears and snot running down his face as he tries not to quite literally drop his second child onto the floor.

“Why cryin’?” Swiss asks weakly as he lifts an arm and reaches out both for the kit and his mate.

“Sorry, I’m just–it’s from happiness, my heart,” Mountain chuckles. “Look at them; they’re absolutely perfect. You–you’re perfect, Swiss. Thank you, my darling.”

The other grins as best as he can in his exhaustion and then points at the kit. “Cut the…the cord. You cut it.”

The earth ghoul stares at his mate as if he has hung the moon and the stars in the sky and does what he was asked to; cautious at first—not knowing exactly how—but Mountain cuts the cord and the second kits joins their sibling on Swiss’ chest.

They also whine and wiggle a little before starting to feed and the multi ghoul delivers a couple of small licks to the top of their tiny head.

“One more to go, Swiss,” Omega rumbles from where he’s standing next to Copia. He’s got an arm on the man’s shoulder in a comforting gesture, because while he seems very proud of his ghouls, he also looks as if he’s about to pass out.

Mountain squeezes Swiss’ thigh again. “You can do it, mama.”

The multi ghoul nods in determination to have all his kits out—and for this awful ordeal to be over. He takes a couple deep breaths and pushes when another wave of contractions hits him. Two more times and the third kit is born; the tiny one.

Yet again the cord is cut and the baby placed on Swiss’ chest. They get in between their siblings and Swiss is about to start crying about only having two boobs again, but then the smallest kit forces the biggest one away from the multi ghoul’s nipple and starts feeding.

“Good job, that’s it,” Omega praises, “You did it, Swiss. You’ve got your kits, you’re nearly done.”

“Nearly?” Mountain turns to look at him with a questioning look.

“Yeah, unfortunately there’s more that needs to come out now, but that’s the easy part,” the other explains, and indeed, it doesn’t take long for it to be all finished. Swiss doesn’t even notice, really; he’s too out of it and focused on his kits by now.

(END BIRTH CW)

“We should get them to your room,” the quintessence ghoul says, placing a cautious hand on Mountain’s shoulder. He flinches and shrugs it off but doesn’t bite it, so Omega considers it a win. Mountain nods. “Can we get a…a blanket or something, Papa?”

Copia does hand them one from his bed and the earth ghoul nods at him with a thankful look. He wraps it around Swiss and tucks the kits under the top of it a little bit, too, before going down on one knee to bring his arms under Swiss’ body.

He is extremely gentle when picking his mate up. Mountain holds him securely against his chest with one of his arms shielding the kits cuddled up together on Swiss’ chest away from the world.

“I’ll, uh–” Omega starts, awkwardly looking at the mess left on the floor, “I’ll get someone to clean it up ASAP, but you might want to spend your afternoon somewhere else, Papa.”

Copia only waves a hand in a disregarding gesture, “Go take care of them.”

The quintessence ghoul nods and turns to follow the pair. Because Swiss didn’t get too far on his walk, it’s only a minute for Mountain to take him and the kits back to their room. Omega follows, needing to take a look at the kits and make sure they’re all okay.

The earth ghoul lays Swiss down in their nest and climbs in behind him to hold him up and stay close. Omega sits on a chair by the bed—avoiding touching the nest so as not to invade their space. It would not be a great idea on any day, but now?

He would rather not trigger the earth ghoul’s instincts into a fight over his mate and kits. He’s buffer, older, and his magic is more powerful than Mountain’s, but Omega seriously doubts the odds would be in his favor, here.

That’s why he’ll quickly do what he needs to and get out of there as soon as possible.

“Swiss? Swiss, I need you to focus on Mountain and the little ones in your arms, okay? I have to check on them one by one and it’s going to suck, but I have to. I’ll be quick, I promise.”

The multi ghoul nods in agreement, even though he doesn’t realize why Omega’s warning him. He’s so exhausted and in so much pain; he’s barely with them at all.

“Mountain,” Omega turns to the other, speaking quietly this time, “I need you to hold him down. His arms, most importantly. I’d rather not lose an eye today.”

Mountain also agrees, but he’s visibly confused. He doesn’t understand why the quintessence ghoul is making such a big deal out of this—even though his instincts are all but boiling inside him and he has to hold himself back very hard, lest he lashes out at Omega.

He probably should’ve explained the works of ghoul birth in advance instead of assuming it would happen right at Swiss’ due date and that there would be time for that.

The thing is, that the bond between the mother and the kits that forms in the womb isn’t purely biological for ghouls. It’s closer to magic, and it never truly fades. Swiss is always going to have a sixth sense for knowing when his kits are sick or in danger.

Right now, though—with the kits freshly out of him—that bond is pulled taut…and on fire. It’s going to hurt Swiss’ soul and mind and body to get them pulled away from him, even if only for a second.

That’s why Omega has to be fast.

Once Mountain is holding Swiss’ arms down securely by his sides, the quintessence ghoul reaches out and grabs the kit furthest away from him. He cradles them in his hands and pulls them away from Swiss and towards himself.

Pure panic immediately fills his eyes.

“N–no, give–give ‘em back,” he slurs; half delirious, “Give ‘em back, Omega, ‘s my baby. My baby…”

“I’m sorry, Swiss,” the other says with a sad voice, “just one second.”

The multi ghoul starts breathing more heavily and wriggling in Mountain’s hold as he whispers some calming and reassuring words into his ear. They don’t work, but then Omega finishes up his checkup of the first kit and carefully places them back on their mama’s chest.

But there’s two more left.

Swiss starts to cry and fully thrash around when Omega grabs the second baby and him taking the third one makes the multi ghoul wail. That and the pain radiating from him through their bond makes Mountain’s start crying again, but instead of tears of joy, these are of despair.

Not for long, though, because, thankfully, it only takes a few seconds for Omega to check all three of the screeching newborns.

“Perfectly healthy, all of them,” he assures as the last—the smallest—kit returns onto Swiss’ chest. They wiggle their tiny tail and latch onto the multi ghoul’s unoccupied nipple right away again. Omega chuckles, “She’s hungry, look. Look at her, so small but so hungry.”

The multi ghoul calms down instantly and does look down, only half conscious and with his vision blurry, but there’s a big dopey grin on his face. He’s so proud of himself; and so are Mountain and Omega.

“Good job, Swiss,” the latter praises before pulling back. “I’ll let you all get some rest and bonding time in, now. I don’t want them to smell me too much, they need to know you two are their dads and the next twenty four hours are crucial.”

Mountain nods at him in acknowledgement and mumbles out a quiet ‘thank you’. Omega leaves with a wide grin on his face, quietly shutting the door behind him. He starts heading out of the ghouls’ wing, but then he stops, turns on his heel and goes for the common room. 

He finds the whole pack there. They all know something has happened, but not what, so they’ve been quite worried. Seeing the older quintessence ghoul’s smile calms their anxieties, though.

“Your pack has grown,” Omega announces, his voice full of pride. “Swiss gave birth to three healthy kits.”

Shrieks of joy sound out, the ghoulettes hugging each other and the ghouls patting each other on the backs—all of them ecstatic. They ask some questions and Omega tells them what he deems appropriate, but leaves the important information for the new parents to share before saying his goodbyes and returning to the infirmary.

In the meantime, Swiss and the babies are resting. He’s barely awake; leaning heavily against Mountain as their kits suckle on his chest.

The earth ghoul sniffles, still so overwhelmed by joy that he can’t stop crying or tear his eyes away from the three tiny—adorable—lumps of fuzz. He keeps crying and staring as he nuzzles his face into the top of Swiss’ head; not intending on sleeping tonight.

Mountain doubts his mate can hear him—or if he can, that he will remember it—but he voices the beautiful thought he’s just gotten anyway.

“This is a better Valentine’s Day gift than I ever could have wished for, my heart.”

Taglist: @arkeusruin @skele-bunny @everybodyshusband @ratsummer @jazz-bazz @mac-and-thefox @karmicbias @wine-irytatus @ghoultrifle (if anyone from here wants to be removed lmk, and also if anyone else wants to be added)

[tgmsunmontue]

Season to Taste - 32/42? WIP

Explicit Hangster - Celebrity Chef Bradley and Naval Aviator Jake Seresin who have a relationship spanning the globe before they realize how tightly bound they are to one another. Heading into this little world.

PROLOGUE/ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN (interlude) ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN FORTEEN FIFTEEN SIXTEEN SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN NINETEEN TWENTY (interlude) TWENTYONE TWENTYTWO TWENTYTHREE TWENTYFOUR TWENTYFIVE TWENTYSIX TWENTYSEVEN TWENTYEIGHT TWENTYNINE THIRTY THIRTYONE

(And we have an estimated final chapter count!)

CHAPTER THIRTYTWO

                “Hey baby… how was work today?”

                “Busy busy, usual stuff. Lots of prep. Lots of high pressure so there was a bit of yelling,” Bradley admits, because Jake never believes him when he says he sometimes yells at people.

                “You were yelling at people? I can’t believe that…”

                Bradley laughs, because Jake hasn’t ever seen his infamous temper. Not that he really feels he has one anymore, capable of putting it when the cameras are rolling, but otherwise he’s pretty even keeled.

                “God I miss you.”

                “I’ll be back before you know it.”

…            …            …

                “Seresin’s Sauce. This why you always insist on having sauce with every meal you egotistical dick bag?”

                He ignores the insult. Gravel is, and always has been, incapable of handling Jake being better than him. The fact that there are so many aviators better than Gravel doesn’t seem to ping his radar, but Gravel is not Jake’s favorite person. However he is holding something that Jake’s recognizes.

                “Where did you get that?” Jake asks, reaching for the bottle. It’s plastic, not like the glass ones he gets with little love notes written on them from Leo. But the logo on the front is the same, and he knows Maria and the others have been doing something, and it’s involved making this sauce and blah blah blah. He really doesn’t care about the business side of the farm, just knows that they were making sauce now, and it had their name. He unscrews the lid.

                “Hey! Hands off! What the fuck do you think you’re doing! Don’t stick your finger in the bottle? Oh for fucks sake…”

                “Where did you get it?” Jake repeats, and he licks the sauce off his finger. It’s just the plain one, not one of the variations that Leo had made him try.

                “I bought it at the grocery store, like a normal human being you asshole.”

                “Huh. Like… This is my sauce though.”

                “Just because it’s got your name on it doesn’t make it yours.”

                Jake wants to argue, say that the tomatoes in it are grown on his family’s farm, that his boyfriend made the sauce but if it’s gotten to be a big enough operation that they’re somehow stocking grocery chains enough that his dickhead colleagues can just buy it then maybe they’re getting the tomatoes from somewhere else because this tastes different.

                Jesus.

                He can tell the difference.

                Leo will be so proud.

…            …            …

                Bradley reaches for his phone, sliding his thumb across to answer it when he sees Ice’s name pop up. They’re about due for a catchup.

                “Hey Ice.”

                “It’s not Ice. He’s sick again. Please don’t hang up.”

                He doesn’t hang up but he does suddenly sit down, his free hand scrambling for the nearest chair. Vi is looking at him with concern so he figures he’s probably gone pale. Again? What the fuck does Mav mean again?

                “I’m listening,” he croaks out.

                “The cancer is back…”

                Bradley closes his eyes, feels the world tilt and can’t believe that this is the first he’s hearing about it. Fucking Ice and Mav both. There’s Maverick living dangerously and dodging the grim reaper at every turn. And now here is Ice, who quit smoking years ago and yet somehow still inviting death in. He shakes his head, refuses to borrow trouble before he even knows the whole story. It might be different than it was with his mom.

                “How bad?”

                “He’s undergoing some scans right now. I needed to tell you, because… shit. I need to tell you something else as well.”

                “Okay?”

                “Your mom asked me to make sure you never flew.”

                It hits out of the blue.

                The air in his lungs punches out of him and he doesn’t know what to say at that declaration following on from finding out Ice has had cancer and didn’t tell him. He knew there was something that Ice knew, that he’d never felt like he could share with Bradley, and he has no idea what he’d been expecting but this had not been it. What is up with the two men and keeping everything locked down and secret? As the thought skitters through his brain he realizes that’s their entire lives, living under DADT, both of them career Navy. So is Jake of course, but he has five older sisters who have helped mold him into the man he is.

                Well shit.

                “Why now? Why are you telling me now? Why didn’t you tell me back then?”

                “I didn’t want you to resent her!”

                “It wouldn’t have mattered if I had resented a dead woman Mav, it was far worse to be betrayed by someone alive. Who I thought loved me.”

                “I do love you.”

                Bradley’s hands are shaking and he runs his knuckles over his forehead, not sure what he can say or do right now. He wants to go home, so have Silvia fuss over him, to have Leandro make him pasta and push a glass of wine toward him and ask him what he thinks. They’d both be urging him to calm down and he realizes with startingly clarity that if Maverick hadn’t done what he’d done, he’d have never met Silvia and Leandro.

                Oh shit.

                Would he have ever met Jake?

                Thousands of different lives flash through and he forces himself to refocus.

                “I was eighteen Mav…”

                “I know. I’m sorry. I just… I panicked and did the only thing I could think of. Ice was… well. He went after you. Made sure you were okay. Asked the Gallo’s to keep an eye on you. Refused me when I said I wanted you to come back to the States.”

                He had no idea that any of that was going on back then, not about Mav wanting things and Ice denying him, nice to know that that’s even possible. He can only imagine what Ice said, and he desperately wants to talk to him; figures he must be somewhere that he can’t take his phone, given that Mav is calling him using it. And it’s taken Ice getting sick for Mav to finally tell him.

                “You could have told me this years ago. Why didn’t you?”

                The silence at the other end is telling and he takes in several deep calming breaths, waves away Vi’s concerning look when she realized just who he was talking to.

                “I… I didn’t want to admit I was wrong.”

                And there it is. He feels like crying, so lets a few silent tears just slip down his face, which makes Vi flail angrily before she settles at his side awkwardly and wraps her arms around him and there’s another person he wouldn’t have in his life if it had been different.

                “So. I was wrong and I’ve felt that guilt for years and I’m very sorry but… Jesus Bradley. I’m so proud of you. What you’ve accomplished all on your own.”

                “I wasn’t… I wasn’t alone. I didn’t do it on my own,” Bradley says, looking to Vi but also biting back the fact that if he was alone it was because of Mav. He’s still a little angry and bitter, but he also wouldn’t change anything. He’s more than happy with his life.

                “I… I know,” Mav says, voice breaking and he’s pretty sure Mav is also crying. “I’m sorry.”

                He wonders if Ice already knew he was sick again the last time they spoke, when he said with certainty that Maverick would call him. He’s going to have words with him.

                “So. What does Ice need?”

                Then Mav is off, listing a whole range of things and Bradley realizes that Ice doesn’t talk very much anymore, his phone calls with Bradley one of the few times he solely talks. Fucking martyr. He’s definitely going to be having words with him.

                “I never blocked your number Mav. You can call me if you want. I won’t always be able to pick up, but I’ll try to.”

                “I… thank you.”

                “Hmm,” Bradley hums back, because it’s going to take a bit to completely let go of the anger. But he realizes he’s holding onto it out of habit now, rather than actually feeling angry. He doesn’t know if he’s ever going to utter I forgive you when he still really doesn’t understand why Mav did what he did. He guesses he was trying to do what his parents wanted but… well. He sort of has different parents now and they might have entered his life once he was officially an adult, but he feels like he got third time lucky.

THIRTY THREE

[estellan0vella]

Sunshine's Guide To Murder│Lee Minho

Chapter Fifteen: Who's The Daddy? SS: 8 (ignore time stamps and dates) Word Count: 1K Content Warnings: Discussion of sex and Daddy Kink, Discussions of anal Previous Next Masterlist

Hayun lounges comfortably on her bed, dressed in black shorts, a white t-shirt, and fuzzy black socks. Her face, like Jisung’s, is covered in a green clay mask, and both of them wear animal headbands to keep their hair back. Felix, sitting beside them, sips on his wine while lazily scrolling through his phone.

“Okay, from the top,” Hayun says, nudging Jisung. “Tell us what Hyunjin said.”

Jisung sighs dramatically, swirling the wine in his glass like he’s in some tragic soap opera. “So, I asked him what I am to him, you know? And he said family.” He grimaces. “I just didn’t expect those words from him, like, I’ve made it pretty clear I’m interested in him, right?”

Felix cocks his head, a thoughtful frown forming on his face. “Well, you kinda sprung the question on him out of nowhere. Maybe he panicked?”

“I gave him the opportunity to say something!” Jisung protests, eyes wide. “I mean, what else could I have done?”

Hayun snickers. “Why don’t you just ask him to clarify? Like, make sure you didn’t misread the situation.”

Jisung sits up straighter, waving his hands in the air dramatically. “Clarify?! What am I supposed to say? ‘Hey Hyunjin, when you said I was family, did you mean like a brother or a daddy?’”

At that, Hayun chokes on her wine, snorting with laughter.

Before anyone can respond, Jeongin appears in the doorway, frowning in confusion. “Why would Hyunjin think of Jisung as his dad? Hyunjin’s older than Jisung. That doesn’t even make sense.”

All three turn to look at Jeongin, completely dumbfounded. Jisung groans. “Is he serious?”

Hayun raises an eyebrow, studying Jeongin’s face. “I’m thinking he might be.” Felix glances at Jeongin before looking at Hayun and Jisung. "That boy is serious"

Jeongin crosses his arms, looking genuinely perplexed. “Well?”

Hayun takes a deep breath, shaking her head. “Jeongin, I really don’t think we want to get into the who Jisung being Hyunjin’s daddy conversation.”

Suddenly, Minho pokes his head through the door, eyebrow raised before he walks in and settles himself in Hayun's desk chair. “I just got here to work on the case, but I’m invested in this now. Daddy who? Who’s the daddy?”

Felix jumps in immediately, pointing at Jisung. “Jisung’s the daddy.”

“What? No!” Jisung waves his arms frantically. “Context! You’re missing context!”

Jeongin furrows his brow. “I’m still confused.”

Hayun pats the bed beside her. “Sit down, Innie. Close the door, we need to have a little chat.”

“Why do I have to close the door?” Jeongin asks, his suspicion rising as he leans against the doorframe.

Hayun gives him a knowing look. “Because this is a closed-door conversation.”

Jeongin’s eyes widen. “If this is a closed-door conversation, then I definitely don’t want to have it with you four.”

But despite his protests, Jeongin slowly walks over and sits on the bed next to Hayun, Felix, and Jisung. Minho casually leans back in Hayun’s desk chair, clearly amused.

Hayun sighs, setting her wine glass on the nightstand. “Alright, Innie. I’m not letting you embarrass yourself like that again, so let’s get down to business.” She turns to face him directly. “Innie, do you know what sex is?”

Jeongin blinks, completely blindsided by the question. “Do I know what sex is?”

Minho, barely containing his laughter, leans forward. “Well, do you?”

Jeongin rolls his eyes. “Yes! I know what sex is!”

“Thank god,” Jisung mutters, leaning back against the headboard. “At least we don’t have to explain everything.”

Hayun continues, her tone serious, though her lips twitch with amusement. “Okay, so, sometimes, during sex, people call their partner ‘daddy.’”

Jeongin’s eyes go wide as he stares at them, his mouth hanging open in pure shock. The silence in the room is deafening as they wait for his reaction.

Felix raises an eyebrow, leaning closer to Jeongin. “Is this not at all familiar to you?”

Jeongin’s voice is incredulous. “Why would anyone do that?!”

Jisung slaps a hand to his forehead. “Wow. We seriously misjudged you.”

Jeongin shakes his head, clearly uncomfortable. “I wish we weren’t having this conversation.”

“Same here, Innie,” Hayun sighs, rubbing her temples. “But you pretty much told us you have no clue what sex is.”

Jeongin looks around the room, bewildered. “It’s not my fault! I didn’t know this part!”

Felix shakes his head, sipping his wine. “We all just assumed you were... you know... well-versed in this.”

“What?!” Jeongin looks horrified.

Minho smirks, watching Jeongin’s flustered expression. “You’re like the poster child for daddy issues. How did this escape you?”

Jeongin huffs. “So what if I’ve got daddy issues? Loads of people do! I mean, look at Chan!”

“Yeah! Look at Chan!”

Jeongin glares at Jisung. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Felix grins mischievously. “Look at the men you hook up with, that’s all Jisung's saying.”

Jeongin looks between them, completely lost. “I respect Chan too much for that!”

Minho snorts. “You’re disrespecting that man by not calling him daddy.”

Jeongin groans, throwing his hands in the air. “Shut up.”

Hayun laughs, winking at Jeongin. “I’d call him daddy.”

Jeongin covers his face with both hands. “Shut up!”

Felix leans back, smirking. “Jeongin, you basically just told us you’re a massive virgin who knows nothing about sex.”

Jeongin lets out an exasperated groan. “It’s not my fault! I know sex. I’m good at sex! I just didn’t know this part of it.”

Jisung snickers. “Chan’s failed you, my guy. I was convinced you’d be all ‘baby boy’ and ‘daddy’ up in Chan’s love nest.”

Jeongin’s head snaps up, his face red with embarrassment. “Wait. Is that why Chan calls me ‘baby boy’?!”

At this, Minho, Jisung, Felix, and Hayun all erupt into laughter. Jeongin glares at them, but the sight of them laughing so hard they can barely speak just makes him more frustrated.

“That’s it!” Jeongin huffs, his face bright red. “Laugh at my naivety!”

Minho wipes tears from his eyes, still chuckling. “We are.”

Jeongin groans louder. “I can’t believe Hayun is the one teaching me about sex. She’s younger than me!”

Hayun grins, shrugging casually. “By two weeks, Innie. And clearly, I’m vastly more experienced in this little thing called life.”

Jeongin shakes his head, still flustered. “God, it’s like Hayun and Minho are my mom and dad, and Felix and Jisung are my uncles.”

Jisung pats him on the back, still laughing. “Be more knowledgeable, and this embarrassment won’t happen again.”

Taglist: @hityoulikebahng @drewsandsebastianswife @fackeraccount @lily-loves-kpop @stilldontknowhoiam

@ziggy1221 @justaspoonofjam @tr-mha-fan @candycurshidkwhatthehell

@heeseungspookie

THIS CHAPTER WAS INSPIRED BY AN AOT SKIT BY SARAJAMSS ON TT

[alexfromjersey]

𝓒𝓸𝓷𝓯𝓮𝓼𝓼𝓲𝓸𝓷𝓼 & 𝓐𝓻𝓰𝓾𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓼

jenna ortega x g!poc

summary: two months go by after the premiere of Scream 6. after not speaking for a month, Jenna finds you and has some intense news to share.

warnings: mature language, angst, fluff, mentions abortion

a/n: I'M NOT SCARED OF LIONS, AND TIGERS, AND BEARS...oh and I totally forgot that the Met was May 1 sooooo pretend it was a little bit later in the month. 3.7k words

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MAY 2023

Life has certainly skyrocketed for you after you released your vlog of the Scream 6 red carpet premiere. Everyone loved the funny moments between you and Davis and the cast appearances. The fans also noticed the interaction between you and Jenna, which blew up. You gained a lot more followers, going from 16.6k to almost 50k in a couple of weeks.

It was a tad bit overwhelming, having more eyes on you but it’s what you signed up for. You just had to adjust. 

“Chat, I got word that my special package is coming soon for the stream. I’m mad excited to show y’all this shit” You beamed. 

You sat back in your gaming chair wearing black basketball shorts and a black tank top. You had your reading glasses on because you were blind as fuck. You just finished playing the new season of Call of Duty and now you were talking to your chat for the last hour of your stream. 

Lately, you’ve noticed that you've lost focus a little bit. Ever since that night with Jenna, it replayed on your mind over and over again. The way her lips felt against yours, the sounds she let out when you pleasured her, and her beautiful body. 

You hate to admit it but you were starting to feel the actress. You’ve had your fair share of women, some that were relationships and some that were just for fun. But you never felt this way about a girl before and it kinda scared you. 

“When are you releasing new music? Whenever I can find studio time. On some real shit chat, I’ve been writing a lot more lately and I really wanna hit up the studio so anyone that can squeeze me in, DM me please” You spoke to chat. 

It didn’t help that Jenna stopped contacting you after a month and some change. You haven’t gotten any DMs, texts, or FaceTime calls in weeks. At first, you figured she was busy doing her job and she didn’t have any time to talk. A quick little text would be enough though.

But you had to remember that y’all are not together. No use of crying over spilled milk. Davis was upset when you told him.

You stupid motherfucker - again his exact words.

“I haven’t looked at my Reddit in a minute, let’s see what’s happening there,” You said and clicked to Reddit.

The first thing that popped up was a picture of you and Jenna at the restaurant. The caption said, “not Jah tryna rizz up MY WIFE!?!?”

You continued to scroll through the Reddit seeing nothing but edits of you at the premiere. There were some edits and pictures of you and Jenna with outrageous captions which made you laugh. You continued scrolling through and interacting with chat for the last fifteen minutes before getting off for the night.

Now you are bored and hungry. You threw on your slides and grabbed your accessories before leaving the apartment. You were craving a baconeggandcheese on an everything bagel from the bodega around the corner. 

( your outfit ^ )

You got to the bodega and ordered your sandwich, grabbed a soda, and some snacks for the rest of the night. About five minutes later, your sandwich was done. You bid goodbye to everyone in the store including the cat at the register before heading back towards your apartment. However, the loud sound of a horn can be heard throughout the night air. You ignored it, thinking it was not for you, and kept walking. But the horn sounded again and a heavy-tinted black SUV pulled up next to you. You were on guard now, you thought you were about to either get got or robbed. You freed your left hand just in case, you had to pull out the tool. But then the back passenger side window rolled down and a familiar face was seen.

“Yo Hollywood, word to you was about to get got. Why you roll up on me like that?” You questioned as you relaxed seeing her face. 

“We beeped the horn twice to get your attention” Jenna replied. 

“This is New York, car horns are heard every second and can mean various things. We beep and shout out the window here” You joked.

A small smile appeared on her face for a second before she turned to someone in the vehicle with her. 

“I need to talk to you…it’s important” She mumbled loud enough for me to hear. 

“Nah I ain’t getting in shit. You ghost me for a month and then roll up on me like this. How did you find me anyway?” You questioned. 

“Davis…I called him. It took a while for him to tell me where you lived but after I expressed how important it was, he gave it to me. Look, I know we haven’t spoken in a month and there’s a reason for that. If you would just get in the car, I will explain everything” Jenna answered. 

You sighed, contemplating getting in the vehicle or not. But after a small inner battle, you walked to the back driver's side and got in the SUV. Inside the vehicle was the driver, an older woman in the passenger seat, Jenna, and a boy who looked around your age. You were highly confused about what was happening.

“Where are we going?” You asked anyone.

“Somewhere we can talk privately” Jenna answered when no one did. 

You hummed in response, you looked down at her and took in her appearance. She was dressed in Adidas pants and an oversized sweater. She had shades covering her eyes which you found odd since it was nighttime. She kept picking at the sleeves of her shirt and bouncing her leg nervously. 

A clear throat made you look away from Jenna to the unknown boy next to her. He was glaring at you and clenching and unclenching his fist. You raised an eyebrow at him before you snorted. Jenna turned to you at the sound but you didn’t spare her another glance. 

You took out your sandwich and began chowing down on it. It was getting cold and you didn’t know how long this talk was gonna take.

Shortly, you all arrived at a building, it looked like an office building. You finish your meal and throw away your trash before following everyone inside the building. You all walk to the back of a conference room. 

“Okay, so what’s this all about? Cause homeboy over there look like he wanna pop off” You said and pointed to the boy sitting next to Jenna. 

“Jahaziel, I’m Nancy, Jenna’s manager and that gentleman next to her is her friend Hudson Maverick. It’s to our newfound knowledge that, you and Ms. Ortega slept together two months ago right?” Nancy inquired.

“I don’t really put my business out on who I sleep and don’t sleep with, with strangers.” You gave a fake smile to the older woman. 

Nancy sighed and ran her hand through her hair, “Jahaziel I’m -.”

“For godsakes Nancy will you just spit it out already to this girl” Hudson interjected. 

“I don’t know how to come out with something like this Hudson. I told you Jenna should be the one talking” Nancy sighed frustrated. 

You looked back and forth between the two with agitated eyes. They were wasting your time. 

“Listen, if this is about you worrying about running around tell people that we slept together, I’m not that kind of person. I don’t go around telling people who I stick my dick in no matter if they famous or not. So if this is what everything is about, you could have just emailed me” You said and went to leave the room but a soft voice stopped you.

“I’m pregnant”

You stopped in your tracks, Hudson and Nancy quieted down. It was so silent in the conference that you can hear a pin drop in the next room. You turned around to face Jenna who stood up from the table and pulled off her sunglasses. Her eyes were red and puffy like she’s been crying for days and hadn’t gotten a lick of sleep. 

“What?” You whispered.

“Can I talk to her alone please?” Jenna asked quietly. 

Nancy and Hudson looked at each other for a second before nodding. The two got up and left the room, leaving only you and Jenna. 

Jenna stepped towards you, "I'm pregnant. I found out a few days ago when my period didn’t come on. It didn’t come on last month either but I thought it was due to the stress I was under cause it’s happened before. I haven't slept or eaten properly. All I've been doing is crying and crying, wondering how I'm going to tell you. Then I got the courage to finally tell you but then Hudson found the pregnancy test and they started bombarding me with questions."

You felt your heart pick up pace and your palms started to get sweaty. You felt like the oxygen in your body was leaving, you couldn’t breathe. You stumbled into a seat and that’s when Jenna noticed your state. 

“Hey Jahaziel, look at me, breathe okay,” Jenna said and kneeled in front of you. She placed her warm hands on your cheeks and forced you to look at her but you were too busy freaking out.

“I’m a fucking dumb ass bitch, I fucking got a big ass actress pregnant. An actress I barely even know. Do you understand how fucking insane this whole thing is? I just started this YouTube shit, I still live in an overpriced shitty-ass rat-infested apartment complex in a neighborhood where I don’t know if once I step outside I’ll get shot or not. How the fuck you not freaked out right now” You ranted.

“You don’t think I’m losing my mind? Ever since I found out, I have a fucking panic attack every time I wake up. I’m twenty years old, I just booked several movies. I don’t have any time to have a child.” Jenna exclaimed.

“Well, it seems like you getting an abortion is the only option then” You argued. 

“Don’t make that decision for me” Jenna boomed. 

“What the fuck! You just fucking said that you won’t have any time to have a child. What the fuck you gonna do Jenna? Are you gonna fucking wish the baby out of you and everything will fall into place in an instant? You fucking Harry Houdini now?” You yelled, your Bronx accent getting heavy as you shouted. 

“Oh you are just fucking hilarious, huh, your a fucking comedian” Jenna growled.

“You not saying what you want to do! You say you don’t have time for a child then when I say abortion is the only option, you fucking lash out at me.” You roared. 

“Because I don’t want to get an abortion, I want to keep the baby!” Jenna belted. You looked at her face properly now and saw tears were now falling freely down her face. You closed your eyes and take a deep breath in, holding it for ten seconds, before releasing it. You repeated this process a couple of times before you felt yourself calm down. It was a technique the Marines taught you while you were in service, it came in handy most times. 

“I’ve always wanted to be a mom. Being a mom was something I knew I wanted to experience. Having a little mini-me running around with my and my partner’s personality. The experience came a lot earlier than I expected and not the ideal way but I have the chance and I’m not passing it despite what I said because I’ll figure it out. I always figure it out” Jenna confessed. 

She then pulled out a folded Manila envelope and slid it toward you. 

“So if you don’t want anything to do with me and the baby, you can sign your rights away. Nancy’s number is on that business card and she’ll come pick up the papers in the morning” Jenna continued. 

She then got up and walked out of the room.

“Jenna” You called out but she was long gone out of the room with her people following her. 

You sighed and rubbed your hands down your face, extremely stressed out. 

Honestly, you didn’t know what you wanted to do. You never thought about being a parent, especially after the way your father up and left you, your Mom, and your older brother years ago. You never gave parenthood a thought. You needed a second opinion and a blunt.

🤰🏻🩵

It was now 2 in the morning, you sat on your fire escape looking down at the streets with the papers in your hand. You just finished your second blunt of the night to help with the racing thoughts but it only increased it. You kept staring at the signature on the paper, wanting to write your name but not wanting to also. 

“You stress anymore, you gon’ pop a blood vessel” Davis said as he stepped out onto your fire escape. 

Once you found a way back home, you immediately called Davis and told him everything that happened. He told you as soon as he finished with his project, he was rushing over. 

“I feel like I’m about to have an aneurysm,” You said. 

“I would be too if I was in your position. This shit is a mess” Davis stated and took the papers from your clenched hand. He looked over it and exhaled deeply. “So you sign this and all your rights are taken away. No seeing the baby. Nothing?”

“Nothing. I won’t have a say in anything, can’t see them. I’ll literally just be the sperm donor” You said. 

“Is that what you really want? To be known as the sperm donor. You realize that she’s a mega actress and once the news gets out, it ain’t gon’ be long til people figure who the other parent is” Davis stated. 

“I don’t know what I fucking want. A part of me is ecstatic that I have a child on the way.” You exclaimed. 

“What about the other part?” Davis questioned.

You sat in the chair with cloudy eyes. Once Davis got a look at your expression, he immediately realized what this was all about. 

“Your father. You don’t want to end up like him” Davis nodded. 

“It’s been six years and that motherfucker still finds a way to haunt me. It’s pathetic” You scoffed. 

“No, it's human. Jah, he is your father-”

“Was. That bitch ass motherfucker ain’t shit to me now” You seethed. 

Davis sighed, “Either way, who said you was gonna end up like him. You plan on signing those papers and ditching your child? That ain’t you.”

You looked down at your hands, finding them more interesting. 

“Look, all those feelings you feeling right now…is that how you want your child to feel about you when they grow up. That you ain’t nothing but a bitch ass motherfucker?” Davis questioned. 

You took in your best friend’s words. “Look I know this whole situation is unconventional but you have to own up to it. You and I both know for a fact that you don’t want to sign these papers. You want to be in your child’s life. So stop being a fucking idiot, rip up those papers, and apologize to Jenna.”

Suddenly, the alarm on Davis’ phone starts to blare. You checked the time and saw that it was almost 3 o’clock now. 

“I have to get some rest for tomorrow. But on some real shit Jah, really think about what you want” Davis added before disappearing inside your apartment. 

Once again, you were left alone on the fire escape with nothing but your thoughts and the occasional crackhead shouts. You looked down at the papers again before shoving them back into the envelope and heading inside for the night.

🤰🏻🩵

The next morning, you were up and ready. You only got like an hour of sleep but that hour of sleep gave you a mindset. You texted the number on the business card and finesse your way to getting information about where Jenna was going to be today. She had a fitting for her Met Gala dress at the moment at a studio Downtown, so that’s where you were. You parked your car and paid the meter before heading inside the studio where she would be.

(your outfit for today ^ )

You texted the number that you were downstairs with the papers. After waiting for about ten minutes, you expected to see Nancy but Hudson came downstairs. 

“Jahazel or whatever you name is…” Hudson greeted with no emotion. He held his hand out, waiting for the papers but you never put them in his hands.

“Firstly it’s Jahaziel and secondly, I know I’m probably the last person she wants to see right now and I don’t want to mess up anything she’s doing right now. But can I talk to her please?” You pleaded.

“Absolutely not. Not after what you said to her yesterday, I’m not letting a hoodlum like you step near her again. You ruined enough for her already” Hudson hissed. 

“Who you calling a hoodlum skinny Fred Jones” You questioned offended. Hudson attempted to grab the papers from your hand but you moved them away. The move made his whole face start to turn red from anger. 

“Give me the papers before I call the cops on you” Hudson threatened.

“Call the fucking cops pussy” You snapped and stepped towards him. Before either of you can lay a hand on one another, a brolic man stepped in between y’all. You recognized that it was Big L and he was pulling you away from Hudson while another security guard stood next to him.

“I need you to calm down” Big L’s rough voice ordered. 

“Alright, alright I’m calm” You grumbled and pulled your arm from him.

“Listen, meet in the back alley in ten minutes” Big L instructed in a tone that only you and him can hear.

“Big L…my man you attractive and all but I don’t swing that way” You joked.

Big L rolled his eyes, “I’ll take you to see Jenna.”

“Oh, that makes more sense. I thought you were about to suggest something to me” You lightly chuckled. 

Big L just looked at you with a neutral expression before walking away toward Hudson.

“Damn not even a little giggle?” You pouted as you left the building. 

You waited in your car for ten minutes before going into the back alley like Big L said. He was waiting for you at the door and motioned for you to speed up. He then took you through various rooms and floors. By the 10th floor, your legs were jelly.

“Aye yo, Black Panther why didn’t we take the elevators? I’m not that fit like you. I’m skinny fit I was born with abs I didn’t work for these like you did” You complained out of breath.

“Because Hudson told every guard in the building to have you arrested for trespassing if they spot you” Big L answered.

“Is it really that serious though, you would think I be fucking aggressively stalking Jenna” You huffed and walked up another flight of stairs.

“Hudson has always been overprotective of Jenna, ever since he started working for her last year” Big L commented.

“Overprotective? For what reason?” You asked.

“Don’t know. I don’t get paid to ask unnecessary questions” Big L replied. 

You hummed in response and walked up another two flights of stairs before Big L opened the door to the 13th floor. Big L checked to make sure no guard was in the vicinity before he motioned you to follow him. You felt like you were on a James Bond stealth mission, it was exciting. He took you to the last door on the floor before knocking. 

“Ms. Ortega, Nancy will like to come in” Big L said.

“Okay, send her in” Jenna spoke after a moment. 

That was your queue to enter the room. You closed the door behind me and took in that you were in an open floor room with racks of clothes against the windows. It smelt expensive as fuck in the room.

“What are you doing here?” Jenna’s voice brought you back to reality. She was standing in front of you with a familiar flannel on. It was buttoned to cover her chest area but unbuttoned around her stomach area. Through a tiny gap, you can see her belly protruding a little.

“I…uh wanted to talk to you” You spoke. 

Jenna scoffed, “I think you spoke enough last night.” She walked away from you and into a different room.

“Wait, look I apologize for the way I reacted last night. It’s sincere too cause people from New York don’t apologize” You stated. 

“If you came here to be a comedian, you can go Jahaziel” Jenna grumbled. 

You sighed, you have to be serious. You can see that she’s stressed and not in the mood for jokes so you had to be serious. You walked up behind her and grabbed her shoulders. At first, she shrugged you off but you placed your hands there again and more firm. You turned her around to face you.

“Real shit, I’m sorry Jenna. For everything last night, you didn’t deserve me talking to you like that. Truth be told, I was mad scared when you told me that you are pregnant. My father up and left my family when I was 15 and it left some deep wounds in me. When I was younger I aspired to grow up, get married, have a family, and have a love like my Ma and Father did but then he left without saying a word and it tainted that aspiration. I got scared because I didn’t want to be like him” You explained to the shorter girl. 

“You could have told me that. I would've understood completely” Jenna mumbled.

“I know and I should’ve but I’m not really good at explaining my feelings.” You responded. 

Jenna glanced at the envelope in your hand, “I’m guessing you made your decision.”

“Yeah, I did” You replied and ripped the envelope in half. Jenna gave you a surprised look. “Look, me and you made this baby together even though we ain’t in a relationship…yet. I don’t want to be like my father. I also don’t want you to do this by yourself. Our baby, our responsibility. I’m with you to the end Hollywood” You smiled and stuck your hand out.

She looked down and chuckled before shaking your hand. The two of you looked into each other’s eyes and never stopped. The room felt hotter and your hand was still holding hers. Suddenly, Jenna took your hand and placed it on her small belly. 

“Til the end NYC” Jenna smiled.

taglist: @grandpatrolnut @raven-ss @fanboy7794 @morganismspam23

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WASTELAND BABY! (Chapter Three)

Chapter List Masterlist 📼

Word Count: 1k

Content: sexual innuendo, friendly banter, Neville being all cute and flustered

September 5th ○ Gryffindor Dorms

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

"Ron get up" Harry shook the sleeping figure of his best friend and watched as his one of his eyes opened, his long red hair still splayed across the pillow.

The rest of the boys were already up, having been woken by the bell rining in the corridoor fifteen minutes prior.

"Lemmesleeparry," Ron mumbled before turning onto his other side. Harry rolled his eyes, though he had grown used to this over years.

"Tell him that he'll miss breakfast," Dean laughed from where he was making his bed on the other side of the room. "That should get him up quick enough,"

"Or..." Seamus buttoned up his shirt before grabbing his pillow and holding it up, a michevious smirk on his face.

The other three boys realised what he was getting at and picked up their pillows, quietly walking over to Ron's bed. Seamus counted down from three on his fingers before they all jumped on the bed, bashing the sleeping boy with their pillows.

Ron covered his head with his hands, in a futile attempt to protect himself from the suprise attack. Feathers flew around the room as laughter erupted from the attackers, only stopping once Ron held up his hand in surrender. "Alright alright! I'm up, I'm up!"

Seamus, Dean, Harry and Neville retreased back to their own beds, still chuckling to themselves as a loud knock sounded on the door.

"Shay, you in there?" The sound of an Irish accent made Neville turn his head towards the door quicker than a racing broom.

"Yeah, come in Y/n" Seamus called out from where he was digging through his trunk.

The door opened and in walked y/n, carrying a small pile of clothes. She put them on Seamus' bed, not noticing Neville trying to fix his hair as much as he could.

It had been a few days since their dance on the top of the astronomy tower that had made his affections for her stronger than ever.

"Ma put these in with my stuff before we left. She leave anything with you?" She asked, peering over her brothers shoulder into his trunk. It was often that their mother got their clothes mixed up while doing the laundry.

"I don't understand why there's a charm on the stairs to the girl's dorms but not the boy's. What if we weren't decent or something?" Ron muttered grumpily as he sat on the edge of his bed, pulling on a pair of grey socks.

Y/n turned to face him. "Dumbledore trusts us more than you bunch of perverts I suppose," she let out a laugh, crossing her arms.  "Besides, if you weren't decent, Ron, I doubt there'd be much for me to look at anyways,"

A smirk climbed onto the girl's face as a chorus of "oooh" sounded across the room. A red blush started to connect the freckles on Ron's cheeks as he stuttered trying to defend himself.

Inbetween fits of laughter, Harry handed Ron the glass of water from his nightstand. "You'll need this, mate"

"For what?" He looked up at his friend in confusion.

"To cool down that burn!!" Dean called out, both of his hands cupped around his mouth to project his voice, the room erupted into laughter once more.

"Oh shut up," Ron rolled his eyes and walked straight to bathroom.

Laughter died down as everyone went back to what they were doing. Seamus pulled a couple of t-shirts out of his trunk and set them down on the bed. "Here, these are yours... and, em," he spoke embarrasedly "so is this,"

Y/n watched as Seamus picked a black bra out of his trunk like it was a contaminated object and flung it towards her. Her face immediatley went red with embarrasment as she tucked the bra away under her jumper in an attempt to hide it.

It was poinless though, because Dean let out a whistle from where he was sitting on the edge of the bed. "C'mon y/n/n, show and tell," he joked.

"Piss off Deano," she cracked into a laugh before picking up her other clothes from the bed and started to leave. "Hey Nev, I need to drop these back to my dorm. Will you save a seat in the Great Hall for me?"

Neville looked up from where he was studying his timetable for the year and gave y/n a smile. "Yeah of course,"

Seamus' eyes glanced between all of his friends' faces in suspicion. He waited till his sister had left the room and was out of earshot before turning back to his mates. "You guys better have had a good look because that's it," he spoke just as Ron walked back into the dorm, toothbrush in hand.

"That's what?" Harry asked, confused.

All of the boys turned their heads to Seamus for an answer.

Seamus crossed his arms before speaking "Y/n's off limits, starting now,"  he nodded decidedly.

Neville looked at Seamus with confusion. What did he mean off limits?

"What? That's crazy! we wouldn't go after your sister," Dean shot back, a look of shock on his face.

"Speak for yourself, Thomas." Ron scoffed, a smirk on his face. Seamus, who's face was turning quite red, was about to speak up before Harry interrupted him.

"Do you think if I asked her out she'd say yes. You know, because I'm The Chosen One and all," he grinned, sharing a look with Ron. Of course neither of them was serious, they were just trying to get on Seamus' nerves... and it was working.

Once Dean realised what they were doing, he chimed in too. "On second thought, she does give me the look sometimes"

Seamus almost had smoke almost blowing out of his ears at this stage, but before he exploded he turned to Neville. "I suppose you wanna get in on this aswell, Longbottom?" He asked.

A state of panic came over Neville and he could feel the colour drain from his face. "What? I don't wanna say anything!" He held his hands up.

Seamus' anger was halted as he flung one of his arms around Neville's shoulders. "See! Longbottom's the only one with the decency to not want to snog my sister!" He smiled, pointing at Neville between every word.

Nevilles face went from white as a ghost to red as a tomato in a matter of seconds and he felt his heart racing in his chest.

Only if he knew...