#my hands are messed up and brain is bad so here's some real low effort art of my favorite guy

[exotic-inquiry]

-✨

[fruitcoops]

I'm not the anon that asked about Remus and subspace/aftercare but I'd love to see more of it if/whenever you would like/have time💜 The way you write these things is so respectful, loving, and comforting and I love it so much!

Thank you so much, anon! I hope everyone who requested this enjoys it <3 Coops credit goes to @lumosinlove!

TW for implied smut (not super explicit), nudity, aftercare, subdrop/ subspace, restraint, tears (the good kind)

“Easy,” Sirius murmured into the sweaty skin of Remus’ neck, holding him close as he splayed his hand over Remus’ belly. The muscles jumped under his palm and a shudder ran through him as he scrambled for a clumsy hold on Sirius’ arm and shoulders. “Re, easy.”

A hoarse whine slipped out beside his heaving breaths and he let out a low moan when Sirius adjusted his grip to keep him upright. “More,” Remus begged, grinding his hips back even as he shook through the aftershocks. “More, more, more—“

“You’re done,” Sirius interrupted gently, pressing a kiss to the junction of his neck and shoulder.

Remus shook his head frantically. “No, no, I can do it, I gotta, no, please.”

“You’re done.” Sirius leaned back to take more of his weight despite the fact that he was practically holding Remus already. He slid the arm locked across Remus’ chest up to brush the damp hair from his eyes and guided his head to lay back against Sirius’ shoulder. “Deep breaths for me, just like that. In and out.”

“I can’t,” Remus panted, swallowing hard as he gripped Sirius’ thighs weakly. “Baby, please, just—just let me—one more time, just one more.”

“Remus.”

“I’m sorry.” A tear squeezed from the corner of his eye, following the path of many from the throes of pleasure that had left him gasping in the way Sirius loved. “Fuck, it’s always so much. ‘m tired, and ‘m horny.”

Sirius kissed his cheek and ran slow fingers through his curls until Remus went boneless into his chest with a punched-out sound; he closed his eyes and snuggled into Sirius, rubbing his cheek along his collarbone. “There you go,” he praised quietly. Slipping into subspace wasn’t super common for either of them, but when it did happen, Sirius was only too happy to help him through it.

If his memory served, Remus’ adrenaline would finally be draining and the steady slide into the land of the living was beginning. His own drop was a little different, but he recognized the signs well enough. “Love you,” Remus managed, watching him with hooded, adoring eyes. “Love you. Y’know I love you, yeah?”

“I do,” he assured him, laying back to pull Remus onto his chest—they were entangled almost instantly as Remus mouthed aimlessly along his chest and shoulders. Teeth sank into the ridge of his collarbone. “Ouch.”

“Sorry,” Remus mumbled, snuggling closer. His hair was a mess from both their hands and his lips were swollen red, sure to be chapped when the shine faded. Sirius felt guilty for half a second before remembering that Remus was the one who bit his own lips when he got close. And, fuck, had he been close.

“How are you feeling?” He inspected the light scratch marks on his forearms as Remus’ heartbeat went from rabbit-quick to just-worked-out. Maybe we should have chosen a different position for the end, he thought, then shook his head. Marks on his forearms would be less likely to get chirped than ones on his back.

“Alright.”

“How can I help you?”

Remus made a face, but didn’t open his eyes. His thigh was slick and tacky where it rested on Sirius’ hip. “Warm. Uncomfy. Don’t wanna go.”

That was the hardest part of aftercare, in Sirius’ opinion. Remus’ accent was pretty mild most of the time, but it came out full force after something intense and the small fragments of words rarely connected with Sirius’ limited English as his own brain came back online. Still, it was the least he could do after Remus worked him through five straight minutes of rambling French each time he dropped.

“Water,” Remus sighed, toying at the sheets with a trembling hand. “Sticky.”

“I’ll get a washcloth when you’re ready.”

“Take m’ with you.”

Sirius laughed softly and kissed his forehead, pushing the heel of his hand along Remus’ spine to work out any knots or stiffness. His knees ached, and he wasn’t even sure if he could carry his own weight before a few moments of rest. “I can’t carry you yet, mon coeur.”

“Sexy nickname. Sexy times.” Remus hitched his leg up over Sirius’ hip with great effort. “More?”

“Not right now, sweetheart.” A dopey smile spread over his face and Sirius felt a well of affection bloom in his chest. Remus hummed, running his thumbs over the middle of Sirius’ ribs. “Good job. Are you coming down a little more?”

“Mhmm.”

“I’m going to keep holding you, then get a washcloth, then some water, okay? But I’m not going anywhere right now.”

“Sticky.”

“I know. We’ll fix that in a minute or so. Was that good?”

Remus squirmed around until his front was pressed against Sirius side, sharing their radiating warmth. “Real good.”

He traced the outline of his mouth with the pad of his thumb and smiled when Remus nipped at it. “Your lips look sore.”

“Hmmm.”

“Next time, we should remember to use a gag if I’m not keeping an eye on you.”

Remus looked up at him eagerly, his gaze clearing of some of its fogginess. “Yeah, yeah, for sure.”

“How’s the rest of you?” Sirius watched him carefully as he straightened all his limbs with a heavy sigh, making faces here and there. “Nothing too bad?”

“Knees hurt, but I like it. Fingers are a little sore.” Mischief flickered over his face. “Ass hurts.”

“Color me shocked,” Sirius deadpanned, drawing a snort from him. “It wasn’t too much?”

Remus shook his head and stretched; his back arched, then popped, and he flopped back down with a contented noise. “Nope.”

“You look better now.”

He raised an eyebrow and rolled to face Sirius, bringing him closer with a hand on his cheek. “I needed that.”

Sirius nuzzled their noses together. “Any time, mon loup.”

They had moved well past adrenaline, latent arousal, and dizziness, and he was willing to bet Remus would be okay in bed alone for longer than a minute or two soon. The stress of a week of back-to-back interviews from people questioning every aspect of Remus’ life as the new rookie had just built and built and built until he had snapped over dinner, his rare temper flaring up before he looked Sirius dead in the eyes and all but demanded to be fucked until he couldn’t think about anything else.

“Way-it,” Remus said into the skin of his shoulder. Sirius hummed in question and felt a hand pull at his waist. “Weight, please.”

Sirius gathered him close and maneuvered until he could press down on Remus without making him feel trapped—my own personal weighted blanket, Remus teased. “Better?”

He felt the steady rise and fall under him and the buzz of a happy sound in his neck. Remus always got cuddly once he was done with the desperation and the confusion; that was the part that stuck around longest, and if Sirius was being honest, his favorite part of the whole process. For someone who was usually so ambiguous about physical contact, he could be wonderfully tactile.

There was a fine art to making sure the transition was as smooth as it could be—it was a team effort, despite the fact that Remus was fairly out of it for the first half. Sirius rubbed his back to get his attention and rested their foreheads together. “I’m going to get a washcloth and water, d’accord?”

Remus held him tighter.

“Re.” He trailed his finger along the slope of his nose, then tilted his chin up. “I need you to trust me. I’ll be right back for snuggles, but you’re sticky and we’re both dehydrated.”

Rebellion and familiar stubbornness sparked up. “No.”

“Three minutes. You can time me.” God, I hope that’s enough time.

“Stay with me.”

“You were just telling me you were uncomfortable and sticky.”

“Take me with you.”

“My legs are tired.” He combed both hands through Remus’ hair and watched his eyes, still a little red from tears and exertion, flutter slightly closed from the feeling. “Three minutes, and then I promise I’ll be right here. Do you trust me?”

Slowly, Remus nodded, and his hold released.

“Thank you.” Pull it together, Sirius reminded himself as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, using the edge as a crutch for a brief moment. His muscles begged to be left alone on the bed with Remus, but they both needed to get cleaned up before sleeping and Sirius really had to pee. Who knew holding a 180-pound hockey player in place as he shook and writhed would take so much effort?

Sirius. Sirius knew. And it had absolutely been worth it.

He rinsed his face in the sink and ran the damp washcloth over his arms—the scratches didn’t sting, but they were fading to a nice pinkish crosshatch with small lilac bruises where Remus’ fingertips dug in as he finally came, clinging to the forearm that held his back to Sirius’ chest. Without Sirius’ other arm applying pressure to his hips while his hand moved tight over his shaft, Remus would probably have slid right down onto the duvet in a puddle of endorphins.

“Stay awake,” Sirius reminded him as he entered their bedroom once again and settled into his old spot to lean Remus against his ribs so he could drink.

“I’m—” He cleared his throat and took a sip. Remus wasn’t much of a howler or moaner, not like Sirius, but his babbling and breathless sobs of overwhelming pleasure had certainly done a number on his throat. “I’m awake.”

“You sound stronger and look more like you.” Sirius stabilized his chin between his thumb and pointer, carefully wiping Remus’ face clean with the small towel; some of the frazzled edges smoothed out, and soon he just looked tired. Settled. Sated.

Those were all good things in Sirius’ book as he washed away some of the mess along Remus’ thighs once the tear tracks were gone. They would need to shower later, but he didn’t think either of them could stand long enough at the moment, and a bath would quickly turn into a nap. “You’re so good to me,” Remus whispered.

“Because I love you and you deserve good things.” He set his supplies aside and relaxed into the pillows, pulling Remus down with him. “Are you okay with not seeing my face at the end?”

“Yeah. It’s nice to change up sometimes.” His thumb moved in curling patterns over the light, mouth-shaped bruises littering Sirius’ skin. “You’ll tell me if I go too far, right?”

Sirius smiled and turned so they were face-to-face. “That’s my line.”

“You’re always bruised.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I really like it.”

“Kinky motherfucker,” Remus teased, poking his sternum. Sirius didn’t protest, just admired the grounded look on his face and the happy post-orgasm glow that rose high on his cheeks. “You’re staring again.”

“I stare at you all the time. You’re too pretty not to be looked at.”

Remus smiled, slinging a leg over Sirius’ hip and drawing him closer with an arm around his ribs; callused fingers tapped in random rhythms between his shoulder blades, and Sirius let the tension flow from his whole body. This is what people mean when they say ‘warm and fuzzy’, he thought sleepily, sinking into a gentle kiss from plush lips. The drop could be difficult to navigate sometimes, but it was always, always worth it to melt together at the end.

[phoenixyfriend]

Thoughts on “Auntie Soka and Little Leia” now that I’ve actually got it posted:

Call it a director’s cut! The process of actually writing the thing, and also jokes made along the way. Link to the actual fic.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the energy for image descriptions, even the text screenshots. Might come back that later. Most of this was DMs with @atagotiak​.

This was an entire thing before I even started writing:

Before I decided on ages and stuff Ahsoka, to Jango, who has had zero contact with Kaminoans: Okay I know I'm a Jedi kid so you hate me but this toddler is your clone from the future. Jango, tired: What the FUCK are you talking about. Rex, barely able to talk: Don't you dare leave me with him, Commander! Ahsoka: I'm not going to leave you I just--I'm so tired I'm so fucking tired I haven't slept in five days and someone tried to kidnap Leia two days ago I am so fucking tired I need help

Ben: [twenty years of depression followed by a 'now I'm safe' breakdown over the course of weeks] Sokari: [whatever the FUCK this mess is]

When Ahsoka mentions there only being three other Jedi at the time of her death,  I was thinking Kanan, Yoda, and Obi-Wan (Leia told her about the latter two living past her). She's not counting anyone that received training after the Temple fell, and she didn’t know about Cal.

When Leia says  “I was adopted and raised by one of the founders of the rebellion, a movement built on the desire to instate freedom and democracy in a galaxy that had lost even the pretense.”

Depa: I'm no therapist but I diagnose you with "incredibly fucked up." Ahsoka: yeah, that’s fair

"Why did you pick Depa for--" She's pretty and I'm gay. Also because of the Kanan thing But mostly I'm gay "It's not a visual medi--" GAY

Empty of context beyond general post-fic AU: "Hey Sokari, we need to engage in psychological warfare against this individual and--" "I'm going to break into his office and leave a threatening note on his desk and leave no other sign that I was there. He'll see that his security is nothing and the only reason he isn't dead is because I'm too nice to kill him." "...okay, not what we were planning, but that works. Why is that your first choice?" "I really like breaking and entering, it's soothing." Ben just standing there with a bland smile like This Is Normal.

"We need someone to infiltrate a highly guarded facility in hostile territory." "So we're sending the Torrent kids?" [sigh] "We're sending the Torrent kids."

Rex and Sokari insist on both going by "Torrent" even though Rex could be a Fett. Jango really wants him to be a Fett. Rex has too many grudges to agree to being a Fett for... a while.

I really hope it's blatantly obvious that Ahsoka's not a reliable narrator for some things Ahsoka: Fett could care less if I died Jango: jfc even if you are older than me I can see you're fucked up. Drink your hot chocolate. Hells. She's got good reason to expect him to hate her as a Jedi! BUT. THAT IS NOT REFLECTIVE OF REALITY

We don’t get a lot of actual characterization for Jango, but the way I played him out here is he has never really parsed that Jedi are people before all this. It's a lot harder to treat them as a monolith when the traumatized former child soldier is having regular breakdowns in your shitty little kitchen

Fett: I respect you Ahsoka: No, don't do that

Ahsoka’s vigilantism is something that, in my mind, she's associating heavily with Zygerria and then the clones.

I figured that she never bothered to learn Quinlan’s teacher’s name but in the process of looking up some basic facts (whether he had a surname), I found that Wookiepedia was forced to give us a VERY wide range of possible death in Legends.

Please take a moment to imagine Quinlan's FACE when Ahsoka initially dismisses him. Quinlan has put a lot of effort into being rogueishly charming! It's very useful for his line of work! He knows to expect either irritation or a return flirtation when he acts like this with people his own age! Ahsoka is not flustered OR rolling her eyes and insulting him, she's just ignoring him and it's a bit of a blow to the ego

This just makes me really happy:

This was the initial comment I made, as a joke What if Maul is just. There. On one of the planets they make a pitstop at. What if Maul exists as the walking problem he is, but fifteen, and Ahsoka immediately tries to kick his ass and drag him back to Coruscant. I do not have room for this plot but What If

Despite not having room for this plot, I proceeded to write this plot.

Maul is kidnapped and it’s the best thing that ever happened to him HE'S FIFTEEN HE'S DUMB AS SHIT AND HAS A BAD ATTITUDE AND YEAH HE'S A DARKSIDER BUT HE'S FIFTEEN

Ahsoka: I sense... Maul [takes off sprinting] Rex: [immediately takes Jango's blaster and runs after her] Jango: Wait who Tholme: Who Quinlan: Who Jango: [looks at Leia] Leia: I don't know who that is either! Ahsoka, already wrestling a teenager to the ground: Oh no, you're a child, REX STUN HIM AND GRAB THE CUFFS, I'M SURE FETT OR THOLME HAS SOME

Fighting him isn't even legal, they have NO evidence of criminal wrongdoing, so first she needs to yell until he admits to something she can fight him about

Ahsoka: When I see Maul, it's on SIGHT Maul: WHO ARE YOU

Ahsoka: The Force didn't give me hands just to NOT throw them when I run into That Crafty Son Of A Bitch

Ben, when they arrive, after the tearful reunion: You... you brought Maul. Ahsoka: Well, yeah, he's fifteen and kinda dumb. I figured we could drag him here and force him into therapy, see what happens. Ben: I can't quite tell through the gag, but I think he's threatening to feed you your own spleen. Ahsoka: Lol, yeah.

Ben is absolutely on team "get Maul therapy" and will fight the Council on rehabilitating the baby Sith But also it's like. Here's your daughter! And your niece! And your daughter's QPP! Also your best friend, but baby, and his teacher, and the biological origin of a number of people you cared for deeply! AND ALSO THE GUY WHO SPENT LITERAL DECADES CRAVING YOUR DEATH, FOR SOME REASON

I just really want Ahsoka lovingly bullying Maul She gives him noogies and the horns don't protect him because girl has reinforced gloves

Maul's only allowed a low-power training saber and his fights with Sokari involve Much Taunting by her and Eventual Screaming by him, and everyone pops by to see: 1. Sokari doing the most absurd flips, for fun. 2. The bullshit that is ataru-shien reverse-grip jar'kai in the hands of someone who makes it work 3. What a Sith lightsaber form looks like 4. Just the general nonsense that is the way these two fight

Tia said “Wrt ridiculous flips. I'm remembering that time she beheaded four Kryst'ad at once.” and I just Rex brings up the quadruple beheading at one point to get someone to stop asking questions and the awkward, horrified silence almost makes him regret it. And then Sokari just snorts and makes a joke about how Rex once speared a slaver point-blank and everyone's just like hello??? "are you two okay" "no"

Maul absolutely starts crushing on Sokari after a 'sword under chin' moment and she's just very "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh you're fifteen, bye" GO MAKE PUPPY EYES AT OBI-WAN OR SOMETHING

The crushes are the worst part of everything, really, she's an attractive young woman that can kick a lot of ass, and a lot of people are into that! Unfortunately, most of those people are a decade younger than she is, mentally, because all the people her actual age look at her and see a child on account of the 17yo body.

It’s almost a good thing she’s in no place mentally for a relationship.

I just want Ahsoka to wear beskar.... I think that would be Nice........

This AU is also what caused this post.

I'm deeply enamored by the idea that Ahsoka can win fights against "older" padawans pretty much unilaterally, even when they team up 2v1 And then she offers to fight 5v1 "But only if I have permission to fight dirty." Ben approves it, a horror show full of "I fought many wars and will scream in your face or kick you in the balls if that's what it takes" follows She wins. There are no permanent injuries, but her reputation certainly gets weirder. Nobody under the rank of Knight agrees to let her fight dirty again. She just lets that stand because, well, she's not actually a padawan, she's thirty-three.

I’m not going to write this but my brain was EVIL and suggested it:

IT WOULD BE REALLY SAD IDK maybe 9yo Anakin has nightmares about what's happening to baby Ahsoka because bullshit about time-traveling force bonds IDK ANYWAY he cries to Sokari about the nightmares and she's like "oh shit" and it's time to go rescue herself from motherfucker unlimited

It's either that or she's like, expecting to welcome mini-me aaaany day now, for like, several months, before she realizes Something Went Wrong. Anakin’s dreams could even start right as she’s starting to realize something’s off.

Obi-Wan has never had a padawan that doesn't at some point bite Even Luke will, when pushed

OH also once the twins get Baby's First Lightsaber (training sabers, not real kyber), Sokari begs to borrow them for a dumb joke and tells Rex to get on her shoulders for a "Grievous Greeting" and they do The Thing

Jango and Ahsoka wrt Quinlan is just “Do I need to beat him up for you” “You realize I’ve beaten up sith lords before?”

JANGO'S TRYING He's just. "Can we be friends? Can I--can I be the guy that just noticeably gets in the way of a creep on the subway so you can be more comfortable without someone making a scene? I'm fucking trying here, give me a hint."

We didn’t actually figure out Jango’s age until this point. The only reason Fett's age matters is for Quinlan making a Wild Oats quip after Jango says he didn't know about Rex until a few weeks ago, and Fett going "How old do you think I am? And how old do you think the kid is?" and Quinlan getting Very Awkward as he does the math. Rex overhears and lets Quinlan sweat for a bit before saying "I'm a genetically-modified clone someone grew in a tube, he didn't know or have reason to know until he saw me with Sokari." Which is like. Eight additional layers of WTF, obviously, but at least Jango gets to avoid awkward wild oats jokes

Like, you’d expect the rebuttal to be ‘he’s my brother just with a biiig age gap’ or ‘he’s my nephew’

I find it very unfortunate for Quinlan that I've decided his defining characteristic in this context is going to be repeatedly putting his foot in his mouth

He’s trying so hard but "That sounds like a cool thing, maybe I'll ask ab--and it's another fucking trauma."

I'm doing Ahsoka&Jango t w i c e (there’s another fic where I’m doing it)

It’s just a fun dynamic! So much resentful respect.

Like she's twenty seconds away from calling him a bitch at any given time and he's just there like "I don't like you but I do see you move like you're about to tell an entire building to get on their knees with their hands in the air and I can respect that" Also she's probably much less judgmental about using blasters than Obi-Wan is The Maul subplot actually started with me daydreaming about Ahsoka grabbing a blaster for Reasons

I like the idea of Jango just deciding the most Useful thing he can do is help teach the Smol how to fight. He's AWKWARD around Rex and Soka because he doesn't know if there's anything he CAN teach them.

I didn’t actually plan for Tholme to figure out the age thing, he just SAID it and I had to sit there like Wait.

Ahsoka, Rex & Leia: ahhh, children Tholme: you say that like you aren’t children

I liked getting to write Rex's little "I have worked with all of them, and they're all Terrible" He loves them But They once got stranded on a planet that didn’t exist and Ahsoka died and Anakin killed a god.

There was research and discussion as to whether Ahsoka could win against Tholme but seeing as she held her own against Vader, and fought Grievous at that physical age without dying, etc.... yeah, the only thing holding her back was her body not being what she was used to, and she’s had a few weeks go adjust.

“I miss being able to just jump off skyscrapers” is such a jedi thing

Jango: I'll take the gun back if he tries to leave, they can't get far before--WHAT THE FUCK He knows Jedi are scary but he’s still not really used to just how over the top ridiculous they are He knows how to deal with Jedi in battle, not Whatever The Fuck These People Are Doing

Rex isn't even a Jedi, he's just so used to working with them. “Oh yes time for free-falling without a parachute again, same shit as always.”

Tia: I’m imagining Jango freaking out and Quinlan and Tholme being like. Concerned but mostly exasperated Clearly if they’re jumping off buildings it must be serious? But jfc they could’ve maybe communicated a bit more?

Leia: I want to finish my juice Tholme: Quin, stay with her while we go figure out what those two are doing. Quinlan: Wait what

Jango: Oh now he’s jumping off a building too??? Tholme: Sokari, you are not registered! You can't legally jump out windows yet! Jango: What the hell is going on? Is this normal?

We don’t necessarily know how often Ahsoka and Maul ran into each other after Mandalore. There was the later thing on Malachor, but other than that I'm just going with the idea that they ran into each other every year or two and just went for the eyes like feral cats

Ahsoka: I need to kick ass and you're coming with me. Rex: Yeah, okay. [several minutes later] Rex: Whose ass are we kicking?

Ahsoka and Rex

Neloms aren’t a SW fruit to the best of my knowledge, I just wanted to mess around with lemons/melons

Jango: you didn’t think any of this through, did you? Rex: you were there, you know we didn’t "When the Jedi says to jump out a window, I jump out a window."

Tholme’s real composed about stalking the ancient nigh-mythical enemy of his people, very “Life is already so goddamn weird”

This fic has been so heavy on the trauma but then I introduce Maul and suddenly it's the worst kind of comedy Nobody is competent, everyone's a little dumb, the bad guy is just grocery shopping

My propensity for banter has turned this into a six-person buddy cop comedy about Maul buying grapes They spend a significant amount to time ineffectually stalking Maul before Quin suggests the sensible option Quinlan just "You remember this is my literal job and specialty right"

Ahsoka sees Maul and all her brain cells go out the window except "Fight good" Usually she doesn’t need to worry about doing things legally. Maybe she needs to worry about someone seeing her do illegal things but she spent the past 15 yrs in a place where her existing was illegal

I feel like he’s also maybe kinda wanting to reassert that yes he is competent. Bc like. Ahsoka’s been kinda condescending this whole time and also can beat everyone up so. It's not his fault that he's actually the youngest person there, but.

Jango is finding this whole being friendly to Jedi thing a lot more overwhelming than he thought it would be. And overwhelming in different ways.

Maul usually signifies things getting worse and more horrifyingly tragic but he's just a dumb teen that they needed to arrest for his own good.

Quinlan: Look, I'm useful! Ahsoka: I've been through hell, wanna hear? Quinlan: NO. I DON'T. WHY.

Quinlan: I understand the concept of joking about your traumas, I do it sometimes myself! But sith hells that’s a lot of trauma.

Quinlan just wanted her to treat him as a Competent Individual, and here she is whipping out stories about Dying and Gods and the Force insists it's the truth and he just???? And apparently emo darksider over there is a Sith. And just, sure. Why not

A lot of people’s interactions with the time travelling disaster lineage is just

Tholme and Fett arguing and  Ahsoka's just waiting for a moment to pop in with "Hey, when's the last time either of you worked with the other's culture before this mess? Yeah, that's what I thought."

Much like Leia and Ahsoka hurting each other earlier, and Tholme figuring out the de-aging, we ALSO have Fett’s confrontation with Ahsoka being something the characters just did, rather than something I planned.

FTR the only time I managed to trigger myself while writing this fic was the “your behavior isn’t actually acceptable and we’ve all been trying really hard to give you room to recover but you have to at least make an effort to not be a bitch”

Writing about people having PTSD and symptoms of such: Yay! Writing about people having PTSD and engaging in toxic behavior to cope: Shit Ahsoka had... basically my exact reaction. It's "remind yourself that you're in the wrong, that they have a point, and then be overly formal in the apology because fuck if you accidentally make them feel sorry for you when they're the injured party"

Quinlan: Can we be friends? I mean, you're an asshole, but you're really cool. Let's be friends. (He MIGHT be nursing a crush) (Neat mysterious girl who can beat him up.)

Also he realises she's probably nicer when not having a slow-motion breakdown He's like "Huh, you'll probably be less of an asshole once you've gotten therapy."

...also, she pretty and got Nice Biceps

I love writing a good mental breakdown

I was so close to including a "he tried to kill me" just early enough for Jango to wildly misinterpret as her thinking Quinlan tried to kill her. He'd have been very confused, considering Quinlan's the one that called them down in a panic and currently has Ahsoka having her massive breakdown in his lap But

Tia:  I could see Jango interpreting it as idk, Quin resembling someone or for a moment acting like someone who tried to kill her and she had a flashback or something like that

There's absolutely room for a couple reasonable interpretations there And "trapped in a flashback about someone who tried to kill her" is absolutely what's happening! Just. You know. For a different reason. Jango probably wouldn’t assume Quin would hurt her, for one thing he seems to like her, for another even if he did he’s smart enough to pick a way that wouldn’t be so likely to get him caught

I had to step back and actually say “Also I'm just. Wow. I'm really just shoveling QPP Rex&Ahsoka at full speed”

Me, a few weeks ago, joking: Two halves of the same idiot black ops specialist Me, now, entirely seriously: Two halves of the same idiot black ops specialist

Me, belatedly: Oh, Ahsoka being joyfully mean to people was a form of mania she was unconsciously using to build a barrier between herself and her impending meltdown

She went from "just died" to "in charge of Rex and Leia" in like. Two minutes.

Confession: I've been delighting in the mental image of this whole Mess leading Jango to try to retake Mandalore, and Ahsoka loans him a saber for a 1v1 to get the darksaber.

“Can’t I just fight him barehanded? That’s how I did it on Galidraan.” "But the drama, Fett!"

Probably Rex has learned how to use a saber as well, because you never know when you have to borrow a weapon

I later changed my mind to Jango asking her to help, rather than her just sneak-teaching him, but it was funny.

Background nonsense to all this is Ahsoka and Rex, despite Rex being as force-sensitive as a lump of coal, having developed a process where she can extend her sensitivity to him mind-to-mind for weird symbiotic battle trance that scares everyone around them. It’s very similar to Battle meditation.

CONTEXT FOR LEIA BEING WORRIED ABOUT THOLME HIDING THINGS: Tholme is hiding the fact that the Council reached out and told him that the people he picked up might be connected to Ben and Luke, who showed up after the Depa thing but a solid week and change before Jango's ship makes it to the Temple. They asked that he not share that information to avoid getting anyone's hopes up in case the two situations aren't related. Ben and Luke haven't shared enough information for anyone to really be sure if the other three are connected Because the info Tholme has isn't quite the info Jango has, etc. And they can't just say Ben is a future Obi-Wan over comms

I just have a lot of feelings about people trying to do something right and just. Nobody's at fault! Not really! It's just complicated!

Tia: I like how when Ahsoka isn’t doing maladaptive trauma response stuff she’s very mature. And of course she’s had to be but it’s a good like, contrast. Where when she slows down to think about things she’s very sensible

Jango just spends most of this story lowkey wanting Ahsoka to Be His Friend but there's too much baggage that he's only metaphysically responsible for

Local aroace(?) has a squish

Ahsoka: He just wants to get on my good side because of Rex. Jango: I'm pretty sure you could kill an entire army without trying but you wouldn't because you have actual morals and stuff... and when I met you it was because you were killing yourself trying to keep (what appeared to be) children safe... you seem cool please be my friend.......

Ahsoka’s #1 weakness: mountains of trauma Ahsoka’s #2 weakness: she just doesn’t get why so many people think she’s cool and want her to be their (girl)friend

Jango, a 27yo massacre survivor who's killed Jedi masters with his bare hands: [gets lectured on various government structures by a tiny girl that's missing several teeth and needs to sit on books to see the table properly]

Ahsoka was raised in a religious meritocracy but developed all her opinions during a galactic war and then became a vigilante spy, Rex comes from a military cult, Leia is from an inherited monarchy that participates in democracy, Quinlan was originally from what appears to be a dynastic dictatorship, and IDK about Tholme other than that he is also from the religious meritocracy. And in legends Quinlan came to the religious meritocracy after his aunt sacrificed his parents to a vampire cult and then forced him to experience the psychometric echoes of that. There's just. A lot going on.

Leia at least has knowledge about structure and admin in theory that isn't based in either the military or populations under 10k

Jango: I want to be your friend. Ahsoka: Sounds fake.

I am unfairly fond of "Rex destroys a conversation by bringing up his own horrifying childhood and calling it a cult"

"Why does Sokari call you 'Rex'ika'?" "Because she's older than me." "...can I--?" "No."

Nickname privileges are extended ONLY to Ahsoka and older clones. There are no more older clones, so it's just Ahsoka.

Me joking about Star Wars AUs: Would you like a crackship? Me writing actual Star Wars fic: My favorite character type is apparently “too traumatized to have a relationship” so this is at least 90% gen.

I had to pull a scene opening at one point because Ahsoka's skill with not getting shot is actually much less useful than Tholme's clearance levels.

Now I really want a team-up of Ahsoka, Rex, and Jango where they do have to get in a dogfight of the "she flies, we shoot" variety and Fett just has to scream because the speeder thing to catch Maul was one thing, but this....

Ahsoka, before TCW: I know all the traffic rules but I'm not that great at flying! Ahsoka, after TCW: I'm great at flying but if you let me behind the wheel we are absolutely getting arrested.

She went from "knows the rules but doesn't have the skills" to "has the skills but primarily in the form of not getting shot" which! Is delightful! "Bet I can get us through that alley--" "DO NOT"

Jango and Ahsoka are both just very "Is this friendship? Is this camaraderie? My heart's been fried on platonic love by so many murders that I'm not sure anymore." "I've lost a lot of friends. I kind of forgot how to make those."

I have no idea if "hasn't been closer than Alderaan except that one trip to Chandrila" is canon-compliant but ehhhhhhhh It feels plausible enough?

Belatedly realized that I could just explain my optimal Rex&Ahsoka dynamic as just... drift compatible. It's vague enough on the specifics while still digging into the meat of what they mean to each other and how they work together. The terminology is already in existence. I can just use it.

Romantic? Platonic? Familial? Doesn't matter! They're drift compatible.

They are important to each other and that is what matters

I really like the Leia&Quinlan thing. He's just like "This small child needs a friend that isn't super depressed," and decided he's going to be her friend. I keep trying to toss in "Quinlan volunteers to 'baby'sit." She's not much older and she has a Baby Brain, it works out

There's a running bet as to whether Leia will leave the Order the second she turns thirteen, or if she'll let Sokari "train" her for a few years first. And... that’s how I came up with Leia Antilles, Senator of Serenno.

They'll be bullshitting Ben as her new master to "finish out the padawanship" since they can't tell everyone she's really in her thirties and he's conveniently there and already knows everything and was half her master anyway. Like Ben was planning on taking on Luke, but Luke is "six" and even he can't swing that as old enough to be a Padawan, and it's not like Sokari will take more than a handful of years to justify knighthood, sooooooooo

[literaila]

always, kitchen floor

loki x gn! reader 

summary/request: reader is tony’s sibing, they’ve had a fight with him. loki just happens to be there... and again, a while later. 

content warning: alcohol, fighting, sibling things, murder. 

*

so you weren’t expecting the crash.

so you weren’t exactly the picture of grace on the floor.

so you weren’t supposed to be in here.

it’s not like he knew that. but what he did know was that as soon as he bashed into the room, you were falling towards the floor.

the small chuckle you could hear from behind the cabinet did not soothe any anger you were feeling. it was just digging itself a deeper hole in your chest, just making itself a home while whoever had scared you laughed along. it might’ve made you angrier.

“it’s alright,” an unrecognizable voice said, low and sour. someone was moving around. you didn’t even attempt to get up off the floor. you didn't care. 

“i’ve been told i have that effect,”

an audible sigh from you made the movement stop.

you closed your eyes, rapped your head against the floor softly. this was only one of the many things you couldn't deal with right now. a human interaction, a conversation. an effort. maybe you’d drunk a bit too much, maybe this was a dream.

you really didn’t want to get up. you were hoping for a hallucination. anything non-real.

“do i know you?” you croak out instead of crying. at least, if you’re going to die, you’ll get to know who killed you. at least, if you have to do this now, you can call the bastard by their name. 

“probably,” the voice sings out. perfect.

probably.

you stop your head, squeeze your eyes until they sting. you’re not sure why you’re not supposed to be in here again, but maybe it has something to do with this.

meeting perfect strangers you probably know.

“do you have a name?” you croak— again —your patience gone from every trace of your body. your effort extinguished from the fire that is building in your chest. the fire that's been there a while. 

“the god of mischief.”

you sit up. only a little. just enough to lean your head towards the voice.

it’s not like you were expecting that response.

“excuse me?” you say in your half-deflated, half surprised voice. your neck is straining from the glance you’re trying to get at the voice, but you keep attempting to lift your head

the footsteps start again, and it’s only a moment before the person comes into view.

before you see them, you hear the bells ringing in your head. this isn’t your house, this isn’t their house. you don’t know this person, and you’re acting completely sane.

it’s honestly not that bad of a situation.

it only takes one more pinch of your ligaments for your eyes to meet their face.

for your brain to touch them with all the memories you have.

probably.

yeah, well, probably was right.

maybe you’re starstruck for a moment, maybe your eyes widen, and maybe you’re staring at this giant person in front of you for way too long.

it doesn’t matter, because in what seems like a second to you, you lay back down. close your eyes.

“i’ve seen you on the news,” you say, a nonchalant mention, a passing sentence.

you were wrong, then. an alien interaction. 

the god of mischief— actually, if the news anchor from earlier had anything to say about it —is standing right next to you. right next to your practically dead body, and you don’t move an inch.

you’re sure you can feel his eyes on you, but you don’t check. who cares, anyway? hes going to kill you soon. 

“have you?” he asks, an annoying disruption to your wallowing.

you grunt, don’t say anything else.

it’d be nice not to die in your own home. at least then no one will have to clean up any blood. they can sell the apartment again. it’d be nice to watch your brother's face as a ghost when he realizes. it’d be nice to get your revenge in the form of a bloodstain on the hardwood. it's a terrible thought that almost fills you with glee.

loki, who moves past you, opening cabinets and carrying around a ridiculous scepter (?) does not turn to look at you when he asks

“you’re not supposed to be here, are you?”

your snort is nothing more than a yes. is it really that obvious? i mean, yes, you look pretty bad, but that shouldn’t indicate to him that you’re in the wrong place.

he shouldn’t know that already.

“what makes you say that?”

loki puts down the bottle he’d been messing with, some expensive thing your brother would kill him for touching. not that you’re going to tell him that, you don't really mind. he turns and bangs his scepter against the ground, not completely on accident. “this countertop is engraved ‘tony stark’”

you roll your eyes, but he doesn’t notice.

“and, from what i’ve seen on the news” he teases the unfamiliar word around his lips “you aren’t him”

“ha,” you say, voice void of any emotion. it must really be that obvious, even to a god who has only been on earth for a few days and has never met you before. even to you, who’s been trying to catch up to tony for so long. “you’ve got me,” 

you grab the bottle you have next to you, the bottle you’ve been cradling all night in your hands like its some childhood blanket you dont want to let go of, and take a sip. its hard on the floor, and that fact is maybe the only thing that could actually convince you to sit up at this moment. 

so you do, and you look loki straight in the eyes while taking another sip. 

theres still half a bottle left, you dont really need to slow down. 

loki looks amused, looks so much less threatening than you would’ve thought after watching him get a group of well over a hundred people to kneel before him. so much less threatening without his words to back him up. or maybe, thats what makes him a villain. 

he looks kind of cute. 

“can i help you?” you say then, looking him in the eyes, bottle in hand. its your best impression of a salesperson, but he doesn't know that. hes just a god, after all, hes just a murder, definitely. 

“actually yes,” he moves towards you, scepter banging, his voice a slow river. “i was looking for someone-” 

“if its tony, you’re fresh out of luck, mr. mischief,” you sigh and stand up, pretending not to notice the substantial difference in heights between the two of you. “it would seem i’ve run him off,” you pause, take a sip, hold your finger up in a gesture for him to wait. “must’ve been my ceaseless charm.” 

loki doesnt say anything, just watches you with irritating eyes and waits for you to take another drink. you do, but not because of him. you’re thirsty, obviously. 

you hate that hes already predicting your movements, you hate that he looks so calm. you hate that if you werent still in your right mind you would probably tackle him without a moments notice. 

still, you watch him anyway. this isnt scary. nothing is scary right now, not even the prospect of death and the murderer in the room. not when you’ve just been left alone in this stupid building while tony runs off to do something else. 

not when your voice still hurts from screaming at him. 

“when will he be back?” loki asks, interrupting your thoughts and looking you up and down. any other day, you might’ve taken it as a compliment, might’ve smiled at him.

“never, if i had anything to say about it.” 

loki doesnt hesitate. “you seem awfully angry for such an angelic-looking person,” 

you snort, turn around to go searching through the cupboards again. “and you seem awfully murdery for a god,” 

“you’d be surprised,” he moves forward, leans his scepter against a chair, and continues to watch you. something about this, something about him is easing that feeling in your chest. the annoyance is almost gone, you know, if it werent for the fact that hes still certainly going to kill you. 

you know that he’d brainwashed other people, maybe thats what was happening now. 

you grunt instead of answer and grab a glass. its strange, this need you feel to keep him from murdering you. loki watches with curious eyes as you poor some of your bottle in the glass, then offer it to him. 

in fact, his eyes almost bludge out of his head as soon as you lift it towards him. 

“you’re giving this to me?” 

you smirk instead of scoffing, as a peace offering. “is it really that obvious?” 

he doesnt acknowledge the snide but takes the glass with careful hands. maybe he thinks humans have murderous cups. maybe hes just very untrusting. it doesnt matter, it makes you smile anyway. 

you grab the bottle, now more than half gone, and take a sip as loki thinks deeply about this drink you’ve given him. at least he isnt asking you why you’re angry anymore. 

“is it good?” he asks while staring at the contents of the glass. 

“you could just try it, you know.” 

he quirks a brow. sets the glass down on the counter. takes a step back. “how do i know you havent poisoned it?” 

you set your bottle down, lean your hands on the counter, and lean closer to him in a challenge. “you, quite literally, just watched me pour it.” 

loki considers this, tilts his head, and then steps forward and takes the glass. you laugh when he sniffs at it, but watch with hopeful eyes as he finally takes a sip. 

then promptly gags. 

“humans are disgusting creatures,” he says while gagging, moving far away from the glass. 

“and thats why you’ve come to conquer us, right?” you’re still smirking, still sipping, and still wondering what the hell this god is doing here. 

“think of it as a favor,” hes wincing, opening his mouth in what looks like an effort to get the taste out of his mouth. but still, he doesnt threaten you, doesnt curse you out, doesnt accuse you of poisoning him again. but then, he looks up. “in return, you might tell me where stark is?” 

there. thats it. no threatening, no murdering, no accusation. but still, he just wants something. your brother, of course. 

whats different from usual? 

“i dont know,” you answer, smile gone, moving away. you make sure to take the bottle with you, wherever you turn to go. wherever you want to run away to. 

you dont know, you’re not sure. this place is so big, and all of it is a prison you’ll never actually leave. the curse of blood relations. 

loki though, stops you before you can even attempt to leave, before you can make your escape before you start sobbing to this god who isnt even here for you. 

really, you should be thankful, really, you shouldnt care this much. really, you should’ve left ten minutes ago. you’re not even supposed to be here. 

the thought fills you with dread. effort, effort and pain. 

“you dont know?” he asks, doubtful. as if he knows you, as if he can already tell you’re lying. you scoff, then scoff again. damn the god of mischief, and damn your brother. arrogance does not look good on anyone. 

you try to push past him, shaking your head with hurt eyes that arent really for him. you try to move forward, but hes so much bigger than you, and hes got the upper hand. he knows you wont try to murder him, no matter what he wants to do to everyone on earth. 

“you are related to him, are you not?” another question, another shot of fuel to the fire that you thought had burned out. to the flame inside of you that doesnt seem to leave. 

“i dont like that you know that,” you say it softly, much softer than you mean to, and without noticing take a step back. put up the walls, so to say. get away from this alien that knows more about you than you do him. guard yourself before you actually get hurt. 

dont give him yet another reason to yell at you. 

“its not hard to guess. you have...erm” he pauses, looking small, looking more nervous, looking anything but godly. “the same mannerisms. and you talk a bit like each other.” 

you frown. dammit. 

“also, the way you talk of him reminds me of my brother.” 

you look up then, look up and see this god, this alien, this murderer that you dont even know. is he drunk now? you wouldnt have thought him to be such a light-weight. 

“okay...” maybe you’re weirded out, or maybe you’re tired, but you try to move away from him anyway. this is effort, and you dont need it. 

“you really dont know?” loki says, before moving out of your way. he sighs, looks defeated now. you’re not lying, but something in you kind of wants you to be. just so he’ll leave you alone, of course. just for some peace. 

just so he stops frowning at the floor. god, you dont even know him. 

and you, you just dont understand. hes the villain, hes evil, so why is he looking so innocent? why arent you scared of him? why havent you run in terror yet?

maybe you’re about to ask something, but loki moves first. he steps back, or forward, and grabs the glass you gave him, again. takes another sip. he doesnt gag this time, doesnt change his expression at all. 

“i thought you hated it?” you ask, shocked by this small thing, hurt still, by his words. maybe by his defeated look. 

loki sighs, smirks, does something with his face you cant comprehend. “its better with disappointment.” 

now its your turn to sigh. you cant leave this alien alone in tony’s kitchen. that’d be rude, plus, curiosity is human. 

its not his fault, really, that he needs to murder your brother. 

you go back, back to the counter, back to the floor, back to loki with his sad eyes and your bottle. you just go back, sitting down on the floor, where you were when he came in, and waiting for him to join you. 

it doesn’t take long, you can feel his cool from the five feet of distance between the two of you. 

its a moment before you ask. “do you really need my brother? i can probably call him.” an olive branch, so to say. 

loki laughs, chortles, something. maybe you’re feeling the effects of the alcohol now. he doesnt speak for a moment, just looks around, observing the room once again. you look with him, wait for his answer, hope its “no”. 

“no, not really.” he pauses, sighs. “well, yes. but, you seem very opposed to seeing him, so i’m guessing talking isnt on the table?” 

“you’d be right,” you take another sip, give him a smile you dont really mean. 

you’re not even sure why you’re here now. this is surreal. this is stupid of you. its in the name. 

“is he really as bad as he seems?” loki asks, tracing something on the floor. maybe gods are similar to humans, because you think you’ve seen this somewhere else. 

you laugh, though, anyway, and forget everything. “not really. hes sort of a good person, he just.. doesnt come off well.” to say the least.  

never has. never liked you much in the first place, but you have memories of him gifting you toys when you were kids. you have laughs, smiles. you had a family, once upon a time. 

you dont tell loki that though, you have enough sense not to. 

“i wonder if my brother would say the same thing about me?” 

and something about the way he says it, something about his face, about his words on the news, all of it. all of it reminds you of where you are, reminds you of who you are, and who you’re trying so hard not to be. 

emotionally compromised, you’re sure. this is a stupid thing to be doing. 

“well, you were going to murder me.” its a joke, but its better than what you wanted to say. its better than the truth you want to tell to this stranger you’ve just met. this god who feels peaceful somehow, behind all the terror. 

loki scoffs, so you know its okay, so you know you havent said the wrong thing yet. you know you havent gone insane, not yet, not now. 

“i would never murder someone so beautiful,” 

and maybe its the alcohol, maybe its your fight with your brother, maybe its loki’s kind words, maybe its everything. maybe you really are insane. maybe you’re angry enough for this to seem okay. maybe you’re stronger than you think, than tony thinks, to be here. maybe it’ll turn out okay. 

it doesnt matter, because the next thing you say, changes lots of things. 

“i guess you’re not so bad.” 

* 

“i’m old enough-” 

“you’re a child.” 

“tony, you dont get to decide whats best for me! in case you forgot, you’re only my brother. not my dad, he already died-” 

“in case you forgot, i’m in charge. you’re the most irresponsible, reckless person, and you’re not leaving here until i say so.” 

“you dont just get to decide-” 

“you will stay here. try not to mess anything else up.” 

*

2 years later.

the hallway is cold while you speed through it. 

you’re not actually moving that fast, but everyone else insists on keeping the air conditioning on at all times, so even the slightest of movements invites the goosebumps to attack your arms. 

maybe you’ll complain some more about it today. its a trivial thing you care about. it matters. 

what else matters? well, theres a meeting-- one you’re late to, who cares? theres a meeting and you were supposed to be there over a half an hour ago. 

but, to be fair, you were sleeping, everyone knows you were sleeping-- what else do you do during the days when they dont invite you anywhere? so why, honestly, would they schedule a meeting for now? why would they expect you to be awake? 

why are you so goddamn late. 

these are the irritating thoughts that get you moving faster to the conference room. these are the things you can think about while you prepare your excuse out loud, and hope that no one is listening. 

and these are the thoughts that you’re thinking as you crash through the door. 

literally. 

“oops,” you mutter before looking up. this is normal for you, but, you could’ve picked a better time to fall on the floor, or any other time rather. you’re already in enough trouble as is, you dont need the shame on top of that. 

it takes a moment, but your eyes glance forward, cautious. they scan the windows, the chairs you can barely see, and hesitantly, they look at the people sitting in them. 

tony, of course, is the first one you see. head of the table as usual. arrogant and staring at you like only a brother can. 

and then, with one more tilt of your head, you see someone else. you see him, sitting next to thor, next to all of these people who are staring at you-- most of them with amusement, all of them with amusement. you see him. 

hes here. 

but, you... you thought? you cant even get up-- now. because now you’re on the floor, and now those memories are flooding back and now, oh god, your brother is coming over to you and you’re still on the floor. 

this is ridiculous, this is impossible, and this is so so embarrassing. 

“loki,” tony starts as he reaches a hand out to you, throwing you a glance that is completely rude and not necessary. “this is y/n, our clumsiest avenger.” you’re sure you can hear him mutter something after that, and judging by the snickers across the room, you’re guessing it wasnt good. none of this is good. 

as soon as you’re standing next to him, you elbow him. small enough no one could see. he deserves it, and honestly, you need it. at least, you can get this shock, these pricks of pain on your heart, out somehow. 

“sorry,” you say, maybe to everyone, maybe to yourself. but you’re still looking at him, and hes still looking at you. you cant stop staring, cant stop, wont stop. 

you wonder if hes thinking the same thing you are. if he remembers like you do. 

loki stands then, presence of a god, smile of a bastard, lips that you’re sure you recognize. is this the same person? the same god of mischief? is this him? really? 

“hi, loki, lovely to meet you.” 

and, hes definitely got to be kidding you. hes definetly got to be joking, right now. 

you dont reach out to grab his hand, you dont move away from tony, and you dont even try to hide the glare from your eyes. you dont even attempt to make an effort. 

really? i mean, really? hes going to just.. 

okay, fine. fine. breathe, smile, breathe, yell. 

theres nothing you want more than to scream at him, in so many ways, for so many reasons. 

“yes, sorry, i dont shake hands. just bodies.” 

theres a chorus of clearing throats across the room. you pretend not to notice. instead, you smile at loki, pretend to also not to notice the threatening eyes tony is trying to throw you. pretend, again and again, that you dont know who this is. 

loki’s hand slowly falls, and he glances toward his brother worriedly, but even that couldnt annoy you more than his face does at this moment. 

“i’ll let you decide how, my prince.” you snide, smile, hate. 

and then, you walk to your sit and promtly sit down. you dont bother to look up from where your glance has landed on the floor. 

and you remain like that for the rest of the meeting. its fine, you’ve already missed half of it anyway. 

who cares? 

* 

“no, but really, where’d you get that?” 

“its asgardian,” loki leans forward, teasing you with his raised eyebrows. 

“i want it. how much?” you lean forward as well, completely serious. alcohol be damned, his scepter will be yours. you’re not one to kid. 

“you cant bargain with me, tiny human. you have nothing i want.” 

“im sure i could think of a few things... you dont even know how to be a proper villain!” you exclaim with a smirk of your own “you’re gonna want money when you’re thrown in jail.” 

“ill just take it off of you when i’ve decided im bored and offed you. plus, i’m a prince. and a god. i dont need money for anything.” 

“ha! like i could ever bore you. you seem awfully interested in me, prince loki.” 

you’re both closer, faces inches apart. really, its just the alcohol talking, but still. 

you’re smiling pretty big. 

*

you’re not sure how you got here again. how you ended up on this floor, in this kitchen, with this bottle, with these thoughts. not sure, but still. you cant really bring yourself to care too much. 

at least your throat doesnt hurt this time. at least you’re older, smarter, and most definitely not drunk. at least its not exactly the same. 

it takes more than that, now. it takes more than anything to make you angry, now. it takes a lot more to push you over the edge. you’ve grown, at least, in that aspect. 

but, you’ve been thinking of this for two years, you’ve been watching and waiting with hopeful eyes and this... this just isnt it. this isnt the dream, this isnt anything like what you’ve wanted. 

you’re still brainwashed and you’re still angry. you’ve been on the edge of the cliff for years now. 

it doesnt take much to fall off. 

you dont even know why, why you’re here, why this is happening, and its making it worse. 

you havent even seen him in two years, so why do you care so much if he wants to pretend that you’ve never met? you havent so much as spoken of him in two years, so why does it matter now that hes here? why is it so significant that he doesnt seem to care? 

you’re a fool. immature, idiotic. you’ve known this, you know this. you could’ve mentioned it every time you sat with hopeful eyes when an alien showed up, when a certain god of a certain storm appeared and you thought that maybe this time, he might’ve taken someone with him. 

you could’ve told yourself this every time you thought of him, every day you’ve thought of that night. you’re ridiculous, hopeless, and drunk. 

you’re drunk now, and you were drunk then. so why does it matter this much?

you’re drunk.

and really, this time you really arent expecting it when he walks in. 

its different from last time, different because you were already on the floor. different because now you’re mad at him, and because now for some reason you cant even explain, you know that its him. you can feel him from across the room. 

and this time, you’ve drunk a lot more. you’ve downed more than half a bottle, and you’re angrier. you’re happier, but so mad.

still, his quiet “hello” into the kitchen leaves your flame sparking. the lights are on, so he knows someone is in here. he knows you’re in here.

you’re not going to answer though, why would you? 

he doesnt repeat it, but his footsteps are clear, not accompanied with the banging of a gold scepter this time, no horns in sight. this is different, but you know exactly whats happening. you know exactly how he looks, now. 

these two years have felt like nothing, these two years of making up with your brother, of dreams of a certain god’s lips, of hoping that one day he might appear again, all of it means nothing now. there are too many memories, and you have known you’re insane for years. 

the footsteps stop again, and you know this time, hes waititng for you to answer. 

you’re drunk. that explains this feeling. you’re drunk now, you were drunk then. loki should leave because you really dont have the energy for fake pleasantries. 

“can i help you?” you ask, and try and breathe while you wait. you’re different now. 

“actually yes,” he says and its quiet. 

it leaves your stomach aching. 

“i’m looking for someone,” 

* 

“no! never, i will never ever-” 

“technically, you just did,” 

“i hate you.” 

loki laughs, throws his head back in a motion that is unnecessarily attractive to you. “you dont even know me, darling.” 

“i can hear your thoughts, actually.” 

you’ve been leaning on him for maybe the past five minutes. you’ve been sharing this second bottle for the last half an hour. somehow, it tastes better when he’s put his lips on it. 

“is this a human trait i’m unaware of?” he sounds so serious you giggle. 

“no, just me. you picked the wrong person to drink with,” 

“and what am i thinking about now, then, since you can hear it?” 

you turn to him, you turn and theres something different in your eyes. 

“exactly what i’m thinking,” you whisper, staring down, staring at him in the same way hes staring at you. 

what are you thinking of? well, thats simple. 

*

“fresh out of luck, prince. theres no one here.” 

your voice is quiet, your head is pounding, but you cant have a hangover already. you cant be sick now, in this moment. 

its not pounding because of that, and you cant even pretend. 

its dark outstide, which you know, considering that its the middle of the night and you shouldnt even be awake. you shouldnt even be in here, considering tony banned you from stealing from his cabinets. considering, you’ve been here before. considering, all of it. 

arent you only supposed to make the same mistake once? 

“really?” he asks in an amused voice you recognize. hes closer now, you can feel it. you can hear it, the goosebumps are all over you. the buzzing started minutes ago. 

you lay down, on the floor, breathing in and out, feeling your stomach clench with every step he takes. this is ridiculous, you should be asleep, he should be on a different planet. 

“its late. go to bed, loki.” your voice is still quiet, but theres a warning in it. 

“i have a vague inkling that you arent strict with bedtime,” 

his voice is stupid, you’re stupid. why are you just sitting on the floor? 

“no, but i am strict about lying. in that, i hate it. go away.” 

maybe he wasnt expecting the sharpness in your voice, or for you to be laying on the floor. but his eyes when he stands over you, his eyes are almost how you remember them. 

* 

“did you brainwash me?” 

you’re breathless. you cant breathe. and you cant be drunk now, because you never want to forget this, you never want him to move away. 

he tastes alien, he tastes different than anything you’ve ever tasted before, and you just cant stop. 

you lean in again, let your mouth be filled with the sweet cold of his. hes cooling you down in only the best kind of way. 

“not yet,” he says, he says and lets his hands roam across your hips, across your skin in a completely tantalizing way. you cant be drunk now, because you’d never feel like this if you were. 

you’re both breathless. you both cant breathe. 

“are you going to?” 

another kiss, another moment, another taste. you want to smile, but that would require you to move away from him, and you just cant do that.

“i dont need to,” he says, he promises. he smiles, and its evil. evil in how much it stops your heart. this cant be happening. “you’ve been dreaming of this.” 

you’re sure, he knows something you dont. hes done something to you, but you cant complain. 

you really can’t stop.

*

“are you upset?” he asks. its nothing he would’ve said before, its not a question that would’ve crossed his mind two years ago. this isnt him. 

you dont know how you know that, but you do. you know. you’ve met him before, and you’ve known him since then. in case he forgot. 

you laugh at the thought, laugh and laugh. you’re drunk. “is that sympathy i detect in the god of mischief’s voice?” you ask, and laugh. 

maybe he’ll leave just because you’re laughing so much. wouldnt that be nice? wouldnt that break your heart again, off you for good, finally?  

“well, you’re definitely intoxicated.” its sarcastic, its serious, and it makes your blood boil. who is he to judge you? who is he to say anything to you? to be here now, and expect you to answer questions?

you sit up, stare at him for too long, and then your face is a scowl hotter than the sun. you hope hes terrified, but you feel so small. you hope hes terrified, but you know hes not. how could he be, when you’re sure you look like a mess, worse than last time? 

“you would know a lot about that, wouldnt you loki? considering you were so drunk that you’ve forgotten all about me?” its rhetorical, its cruel, and it makes his eyes falter the tiniest bit. 

this. this is what you dont need. this is an emotion you never want to feel again, because you’re tired of the anger. you’ve been living it all your life, and you’e tired of it. but maybe thats what drew loki to you, maybe thats what he likes best. maybe thats why hes still standing in front of you. 

maybe thats what makes him a bad guy. 

he doesnt answer, and so you continue. you continue and you should just stop speaking. “excuse me, your highness, but i really just want to be alone right now. so, if you wouldnt mind, i’ve already claimed the kitchen floor.” you laugh, gesture somewhere you dont know. “tony has plenty of other spaces for you to infiltrate.” 

you think maybe its enough. you think hes going to leave, you think you’ll get to be alone for the rest of the night, maybe drink enough to forget that you ever met him, but then hes still standing there. he doesnt move an inch. 

you dont know what hes still doing here. you can see the light reflecting on his face, you can see his blank eyes, you cant see anything in him that you want anymore. of course, except everything. 

“loki,” you groan and stand up. you set the bottle on the counter next to you, and cross your arms. waiting. for anything, for everything. 

“i didnt forget you, and i wasn’t drunk.” 

oh, really? you scoff, scoff and take another sip before answering. 

“well, thats lovely for you, but-” 

“i was trying to be considerate, in case you didnt want your brother to know we’d already met.” 

some part of you, one you left behind two years ago when you woke up all alone, some part of you thinks thats sweet. some part of you wants to smile just because he said it. some part of you. 

the other part, just wants to scream. 

“well, thanks loki, but ‘considerate’ would’ve been, maybe, not leaving me to wake up alone in the morning.” 

really, its time for bed now, so, promptly, you try to past him, you try and try and. 

you’re back in the past again. goddamn, him.

*

“we shouldnt be-” you gasp before you can finish. you gasp and loki laughs against your skin. “this is a kitchen-” 

“there are worse places,” he promises in an awfully smooth voice, a voice you think you’ve maybe been dreaming of for years, a voice you want to drink. you’re intoxicated, and its not the alcohol. 

“loki, i’m drunk, you’re drunk.” 

“i am not drunk,”

“okay, mr. god, but this is still a kitchen.” 

he smiles up at you, kisses your skn again. 

“shh,” he says. 

you gasp again. 

* 

“..i had to leave. i didnt think it would...” he stops, stares at you for a moment before looking down. hes standng in front of you, not letting you move, not letting you think. “i didnt think it would worry you. i’m terribly sorry,” 

it sounds sincere, but then again, so did his promises before. 

“okay, loki.” you relent, you sigh, you take a step back and smile at him. none of it is real. “cool, thats nice. i’ll be going to bed now-” 

“i’ve wanted to see you for two years,” 

your mouth drops open. your eyes buldge, and you almost want to smack him. this, this is really all grand. 

this is so unfair. this is a cruel reminder you never wanted. this is a nightmare, come true. 

“i’m drunk. i’m leaving,” 

but again, he stops you, he stops you and you dont know why. why he wont just let you go, why he sought you out tonight, why this matters, why you care. 

why you got so goddamn attached to him that night, why you’d felt like a new person when you woke up the next morning and he was gone. 

you take a breath in. you smile again, you push down the flames burning at your throat. “we can both forget it, if you’d prefer. i promise i wont tell anyone, and we can just move on.” 

the words, the words you’re trying to offer him as a method of peace, those words, they send loki away from you. they make his face shift, they make him move back. 

he looks angry now. he looks how you feel.

“you want to forget it?” he asks, even though you just said it, even though you’ve already answered that question. even though, he knows what you meant. 

you arent slurring your words. 

“i just want to...” you cant finish that sentence though, and instead you nod. its enough, it doesnt take effort and its nothing special. it’s the truth, so, he’ll have to accept it.

you’ll go to bed now, you’ll forget that you’ve wanted to talk to him, that you still want to kiss him now. you’ll forget, and so will he. 

it will be easy. nothing more than a piece of cake. 

* 

“i’m sorry,” he whispers later, later when you cant remember your name, when you’ve remembered that you still havent even told him. 

“for what?” 

he kisses your neck instead of answering. 

‘you’re beautiful,” he says, you cant breathe, and hes still speaking. “i didn’t tell you before,” he breathes in and you can feel it in your stomach, can feel that sweet swirling deep inside. “i’m sorry”

“don’t worry about it..”

its late now, too late. you dont want to go to sleep. you never want to fall asleep again, not when you’ve just.. 

not with him. 

the kitchen floor is awfully comfortable. your eyes are falling, faster than you want them to.

*

“just want to what?” hes not hearing the words, and no matter what you might’ve said, you cant read his mind. 

“loki,” its another warning, because hes moving closer, because you can feel him again, because you still remember how he tastes. because that buzzing, the buzzing you’ve felt for so long, its digging itself deeper into your skin. 

“i dont want to forget,” he saiys, and no matter how much you want to believe it, it just sounds like another empty promise. sounds like something you’ve already heard. 

its not enough, but its just want you want. what you want is just there.. 

“i was drunk that night, i was sick. i was...” 

angry is the word you’re thinking of, but his lips are the ones you can feel. but his smile is the one you want, but his eyes, but his face, but his skin. 

his lips, his face, his skin, his touch. its been in your mind since then. its been glued to your thoughts. its stuck, and you want to peel it off. 

you arent supposed to be here, you arent supposed to be in this room, you arent supposed to be drinking this liquor, and you arent supposed to kiss him. 

you’ve gone insane for sure now. you aren’t supposed to do this.

and so, you do. 

*

you’re on the floor when you wake up. your head is pounding, your eyes are glued shut, but somehow they’re open. 

you dont remember where you are, you dont remember why you’re here. 

but you do remember... loki. loki, murderer, god, thief. he was here, you’re in the kitchen. 

his eyes, his lips, his peace, his lips, his skin, oh god. 

he was here. 

you look, you look around, you feel the pain in your body, you feel the anger piling up, you feel the ache in your neck, you feel it all and you look around. 

hes gone. he is. 

your head is pounding and hes gone. you cant remember why. 

*

masterlist here. 

[hangekitty]

I love that Er*n is in your no no rules- lmao.

Also may i request some soft Miche headcanons where he's comforting a female reader please? I've been very stressed from life recently and would really appreciate a bit of love and comfort from my fav character, smut is optional although i am above 18. Thank you so much in advance💛

Oh my gosh my first request thank you! And what a lovely way to start things out, I hope this brings comfort to you as I know how hard things are in life right now! And yes, we don’t accept Er*n in this house no thank you ~ 🌸

Did I listen to Bubble Gum by Clairo on loop because of the vibes? Maybe. Did I get upset writing this because I am touch starved? Also maybe 😌

Miche comforting his S/O after a bad day

Genre: fluff, NSFW 18+

Warnings: mentions of having a bad day, mental health, smut, swearing

Universe: canonverse

NSFW below the ‘read more’

SFW

Although Miche is a man of few words, he definitely knows how to show you how much he cares.

This man is a master of being able to sense whenever you’ve had a bad day, you wouldn’t even need to tell him; I suppose its because of his immaculate sense of smell, or that he takes good care to be finely in tune with your emotions.

Most of your worries and stresses stem from expeditions, having to fight off titans and watching your comrades fall certainly took a toll on your mental health; this at least was a stress you could share with Miche.

Miche’s love language is touch, so although he isn’t much of a talker, he would still want you to know that he is there for you all the same. This may look like hugs from behind, forehead kisses and holding you close to him whenever he can.

If you’re both standing, he will most definitely be the kind of guy to cuddle you and gently rock you - not quite a dance, but something that helps calm you down.

There is 110% chance that if he starts rocking you, he will rest his head on yours and hum a tune to you

Will ask Levi for your favourite kind of tea, another love language of his is acts of service. So bringing you tea, tidying your room or even cleaning your clothes without asking is a way of him showing how much he cares about you; the last thing you want to do is chores so he would run you a bath (if baths are available) and he would do the smaller things that would usually be too much effort.

Just because he is very quiet, doesn’t mean he won’t talk to you. He is more of a listener, but if you need words of affirmation or advice Miche is on it and usually says the right things. All this time of him being quiet, he has every opportunity of thinking up something to say.

Are you prone to nightmares? Miche has your back. Quite literally, he will roll over and hold you close to him. He is definitely the big spoon and will make sure to make you feel as safe and comfortable as possible.

In public, if Miche notices you tensing or begin to fluster out of stress or anger, he will hold your hand. He isn’t much for PDA, however he will push himself in situations where you need him. He would often take you out of a situation or to another room and hold your hands close to his chest, rubbing your hands with his thumbs and looking in your eyes.

Bedtime is the best time for cuddles, here he will give you the maximum affection of kisses, hugs and tickling sessions.

He will stroke your hair until you fall asleep, even if he is in an uncomfortable position, once he knows you are asleep he won’t budge.

Miche has a habit of holding you close to him when you are stressed and smelling your hair or rubbing his stubble on your exposed neck. You can’t help but giggle, even when sometimes you wanna be angry, this man never fails to make you smile.

If you suffer with panic attacks, Miche knows exactly what to do to help you. Whether grounding helps, giving you space or words of affirmations this man has it together and will do whatever he can to help. At first he might of been a nervous wreck, anxious to make sure he gets it right, but as you trust him, you tell him how he can help in that situation and Miche learns it and etches it into his brain.

“There’s my girl”

Bunny kisses! Lots of bunny kisses!

Random modern day AU head canon: this dude would turn on his LED lights and put on soft LoFi tunes on to calm you down!

NSFW

Sometimes when you are stressed, you require other means of ‘letting go’

Miche knows exactly what to do, but will wait for your social queues to make the first move

It’ll start off as giving you massages, touching you in all of your sensitive, aching areas.

You will most likely make some remarks that are passive aggressive (and suggestive) which makes Miche kinda /ZING/

He is the kind of guy who would come up behind you and lift your breasts up and claim “these are heavy, let me help you carry them” or some shit, even though you are clearly frustrated, this usually earns an annoyed giggle or two.

He will let you take control, if you have a particularly stressful day and all you want to do is have angry sex, he will let you take the reins or call all the shots. Honestly, any other time he would let you take control anyway, seeing you be so passionate is a real turn on; but given such a stressful day its sort of expected - unless you just want him to fuck you silly, he will happily oblige.

I don’t care what anyone else says but this man is canon a master of oral. With a nose like that, you could not convince me he wouldn’t use it to his full advantage okay??

He is more a giver than a receiver, so Miche would be in his personal heaven whilst giving you head. He particularly likes it when you’ve had a bad day to surprise you and lower you onto his face, you will probably squirm out of embarrassment but as soon as you’d gain your confidence he would go in hard; enjoying every bit of view he has.

If you are feeling particularly low due to a bad day, he will set up the bed with lots of pillows/blankets and have you lay down, legs open and him laying between them, licking at your pussy.

Miche is a thigh guy, a man of taste. Will leave kisses up and around your thighs before going anywhere near your pussy. He probably enjoys the smell whilst he’s down there, admiring your soft flesh and kissing every inch of you.

If you want to be in control, lets say you have a frustrating day, you would ride him. Heck, he wouldn’t even mind if you wanted to peg him. This man is up for anything and would do anything to please you.

If you want him to be in control, you’ve definitely unleashed an animal. As I’ve mentioned before, he is a giver and if he knows you’ve had a bad day, oh boy this man will do all he can to help you forget your troubles. Rough but steady is his strategy.

I promise you after a night with him in control, you won’t even remember what stress feels like.

Expect some marks, this man is a sucker and a nibbler, especially on your neck and breasts.

King of aftercare, lots of hugs and kisses; will also clean you up after any messes made.

If Miche is not a man of many words, he has them all for you in that moment. Telling you he loves you, how much you mean to him and how sorry he is that you had a bad day. “Today might have been hard, but tomorrow is another day my love”

“I’ll be right here”

I hope you enjoyed! Thanks so much for the request 🌸

[plus-ultra-oof]

Pretty | SakuAtsu | Haikyuu!! | Tickle Fic

A/N: Ok hi so I wrote this a little while ago bc my SakuAtsu brainrot never stops and I figured I might as well share it. This is my first time posting a T-fic so please be kind lol. Also, sorry if the formatting is a mess I am on my phone.

Disclaimer: This takes place post timeskip so minor spoilers for Haikyuu! It’s nothing to major other than some vague things mentioned in passing. Also includes swearing and centers around tickling within a romantic setting (all sfw).

Summary: Sakusa’s stubborn as hell, but Atsumu is more than willing to get his boyfriend to go to sleep by whatever means necessary. Especially if that means he gets to see that pretty smile of his.

——————————————————

“Ya know, yer hair is really soft Omi,” Atsumu said, breaking the calm silence that had settled over the room. It was actually Kiyoomi’s room in his apartment this time. Atsumu was lying on his bed, running his hands through Kiyoomi’s dark curls as the other man laid across the bed, head placed conveniently in the setter’s lap as he attempted to read a book. He was far too tired to do so, in Atsumu’s professional opinion. The way his eyes kept falling shut for longer between blinks and how his grip on the hardcover kept shifting until he was barely holding it open where it lay against his propped up legs supported it too.

“You already- said that,” he replied, trying for flat and uninterested but the cute yawn that interrupted his sentence completely contradicted his unbothered persona.

It’d been a long practice for everyone, but especially the spikers. Both Bokuto and Sakusa had to run an insane amount of cut shot drills on top of their usual work. Just watching it had made Atsumu tired, so he could only imagine how Omi was feeling. The man had been practically dead on his feet when they’d gotten back to their complex, so the way he had melted into their bed upon finally brushing his teeth was unsurprising. His attempts at staying up were though. Atsumu blamed that on his insistence on keeping his routine no matter what.

The stubborn bastard could barely keep his eyes open, but sure, making it through a whole chapter of that thick ass book was totally plausible.

“It’s true though,” Atsumu was quiet for a moment and then, when he got no response he added on, “and it’s so pretty too,” For that he received a half hearted glare that was dampened by the way he could feel the man leaning into his touch as his fingertips scratched lightly again his scalp. The twin smiled, his boyfriend really lost his filter when he was this tired.

Gone were the biting remarks and cold expressions, leaving him far more pliant than he would ever admit to. Hell, here he was, letting Atsumu play with his hair and letting out little sighs of contentment. His eyes were even gradually falling closed as he relaxed into his boyfriend’s touch.

The harsh lines of his face were softened by the low light in the bed room, and with his brows uncreased by any worries and his hair pooled around his head like a dark halo, he looked almost angelic. Like something out of one of those fancy paintings.

“Yer so pretty Omi,” Atsumu murmured absently, the words falling from his lips easily. It was a statement to him. A simple truth of life.

The sky was blue, volleyball was the best, and Atsumu’s boyfriend was a damn masterpiece.

This was only proved further when his cheeks began to warm, the pink flush only complimenting smooth skin and pouty lips, twitching down into a petulant frown despite his flustered state.

“Shut it,” he mumbled in reply, unable to come up with a proper comeback in his half asleep state. Atsumu smirked. Another thing he loved about sleepy Omi was his inability to disguise any of his reactions. It always made messing him even more fun.

“Omiiii, Yer so cute m’gonna dieeeeee,” he teased, leaning down to admire his expression more closely. The new angle let him see the minuscule twitch of the corner of his lips, a sign that his adorable boyfriend wasn’t really as grumpy as he was trying to appear, “Aw is that a smile I see?” Said boyfriend had abandoned all hopes of reading his book in favor of moving off of Atsumu’s lap and onto his side of the bed, laying back and closing his eyes.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about Atsumu,” he stated, his voice still managing to stay level and unaffected, a true testament to Sakusa’s insane amount of self control, “Now its late, let’s go to sleep,” Too bad Atsumu was too much of an asshole to let him be. And, he knew him well enough to chip away at that carefully crafted mask until his boyfriend was puddy in his hands.

Miya pouted and moved closer, letting his right hand come back up to rest in his curls again and the other land at his back, rubbing slow circles into it the way he knew Sakusa liked.

“Oh c’mon baby don’t be like that, I just want ta see that gorgeous smile of yers,” he let his chin rest on Kiyoomi’s shoulder, pressing close to his back as his arm trailed down to wrap around his waist. He placed a light kiss against his boyfriend’s temple. The first in a trail that led down his cheek to his jaw and then took a detour down and up his neck to reach his ear again, earning soft sighs and hums as he went. Atsumu smiled, his Omi really was sweet like this: All peaceful and relaxed and unassuming, “Do me a favor and lemme see it?”

He shifted from kissing at his neck to mouthing lightly and letting his lips graze the expanse of soft pale skin at his disposal and the reaction was immediate, even if Sakusa tried to hide it. Sure, he stayed quiet, but Atsumu could feel the shivers that ran through him when he started and how his shoulders began to shake the longer he went on. He felt him jump when he let the fingers at his waist trace lazy shape into his toned stomach.

“Atsumu-“ His name was rushed out in a breathy way that only Atsumu got to hear.

“Yes Omi?” He purred, directly into his boyfriends ear, savoring the little squeak that came from the man shaking in his arms.

“N-no,” he whined, actually whined, shaking his head in an attempt to rid himself of the tingly sensations that were quickly perforating his sleep addled mind and making him want to give into the bouncy feeling rising in his chest.

“Why not Omi? M’just tryin ta kiss ya?” He followed his movements easily, continuing the playful torment of his boyfriend.

“You- you know exActly whehy not!” The squeak was louder this time and Kiyoomi even let a few titters loose as Atsumu started using his other hand to lightly scribble at the other side of his neck while simultaneously blowing into his ear.

“Ooh was that a giggle there Omi? What’s happenin’ baby? Somethin’ funny?” Atsumu knew that if he could, Sakusa would be griping about the teasing and how this whole thing was immature and unfair. For now though, he was too busy trying (and failing) not to devolve into a ticklish mess, so Miya was content.

“Nahaha stahahap yohuhu bahahastard!” He forced out through his giggles. The sound was light and filled with gasping breathes and squeals. Kiyoomi hated it, but it was one of Atsumu’s favorite sounds. Especially when he knew he was the cause of it.

Whether it came from unraveling him like this or timing a sarcastic joke just right, he savored it each time he got to hear it, so he didn’t appreciate it when both ungloved hands flew up to muffle it.

“Hey what’dya do that for?” He asked, his own pout forming on his lips as he leaned up to see his boyfriend’s face. His eyes were squeezed shut again and the flush was even brighter now. What was really captivating though, was the way his whole face seemed to brighten, even with his open mouth smile covered up.

Atsumu couldn’t help but stop and stare for a few seconds before remembering the task at hand. To see that pretty smile for real.

“C’mon Omi, just pull yer hands away or m’gonna haveta resort to extreme measures,” Atsumu increased his effort at leaving barely there kisses along Kiyoomi’s neck, feeling his heart race against his lips when he reached the pulse point. This got a cacophony of muffled squeaks and giggles before he finally gave into instinct and moved one of his hands away to push at his face.

As soon as it came up, Atsumu saw his chance and took it.

The hand that was drawing shivery patterns over sharp hip bones immediately skittered up Sakusa’s side to find its mark just above his ribs, sending the arm crashing right back down with a muffled shriek.

“Pffft phmp uff,” Came the dampened response as the other hand stayed stubborn in its quest to deprive Atsumu of his happiness. He decided to take it up another notch, because despite his tiredness, his Omi-Omi was still able to put up a good fight. He wouldn’t have him any other way: As headstrong as he was talented.

“Fine, don’t say I didn’t warn ya,” Atsumu leaned back just enough to leave some space between himself and Kiyoomi’s back. For insurance and safety purposes, he threw a leg over his waist to make sure he would fall off the bed.

Then all bets were off.

He started actually scratching at his armpits in tandem with leaving sloppy kisses along his spine and shoulder blades and any other part of his back he could reach at the moment, and the reaction was instantaneous and oh so satisfying.

“Mmmmphhhuhuhuck AtsuhuHU! NaHAHA STAHAP!”

“What babe? Somethin’ wrong?” He made sure to speak against the skin of his back, his words sending ticklish tremors through Kiyoomi as his worst spot was attacked.

“NOHOHOT THEHERE AHATSUHU!” Something seemed to switch off in his brain as his arms finally fell limp at his sides and he threw his head back against the pillows, laughing fully now. When they did, Atsumu immediately toned it down, abandoning his underarm in favor of leaving feather light scratches down the sides of his boyfriend’s back, making him shiver and keeping him caught up in his giggles without torturing him too bad.

Omi could never say that he was anything but nice about this....Well at least at this particular moment. Sakusa definitely kept a dated list of the times that his boyfriend had ruthlessly abused this specific weakness, but that was besides the point.

“Ahatsuhuhu,” Atsumu looked up at the sound of his name falling from upturned lips and found himself mesmerized by the sight.

Now that Kiyoomi had given up on stopping him he’d shifted to flop down on his stomach, bracing his head on his arms as he tried to contain the shaky laughter still spilling easily from his mouth. His hair was tousled from the struggle and his eyes were teary from laughing so hard and he was in an eternal state of flushed and fuck he was beautiful.

Too pretty for his own good. And Atsumu’s. At this rate, he was gonna die before he got to the Olympics.

He could just see it now: Miya Atsumu, beloved son, brother, boyfriend, and teammate. Cause of death: Seeing his godlike boyfriend laugh his heart out.

Shit, ‘Samu was right, he was whipped.

“Tsuhuhuhumuuu, m’tired,” Whiny giggles followed by a familiar yawn brought him out of his thoughts and he let his fingers slow to a stop, moving up in the bed to be beside his still giggling boyfriend. He turned him over onto his back before placing his book onto the nights stand and turning out the light.

“A-asshole,” Sakusa groaned, through breathy pants, giving him a half-hearted shove as he turned to face the blonde.

“But ya love me,” he teased moving in closer to lay his head on the dark haired man’s chest, listening patiently as his heartbeat finally started to slow down.

“You suck,” he murmured in response, his tone empty of any real malice. Plus, the way he was snuggling closer and lacing their hands together across Atsumu’s waist contradicted his words anyway.

Atsumu smiled and took a final look at his boyfriend before closing his eyes to follow him into sleep. And as a man of a limited vocabulary when it came to most things other than volleyball, his last thoughts prior to drifting off were as simple as they were true: Omi’s so pretty.

[lisinfleur]

Santa’s Roots

The request:

Author’s Notes | Some historians claim that Santa Claus’ figure was inspired by Odin. What if it was true? For a certain Modern Viking, it is! Inspired by Harbard’s interaction with young Ivar in the series. I hope you’ll like it! Universe | Vikings Pairing | Ivar x Reader Info | Modern AU, made for Patron’s Holiday Event Words | 1092 ⁑ Warnings: Religious re-readings, unconfirmed comparisons, and sources.

"Why do we have to make this stupid trip?"

Of course, he was annoyed. Even more, because he was planning a trip with Y/N to spend the Christian Christmas in a tropical country enjoying the heat; and now he was forced to drag his limp pained leg through the snow of the Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi.

Yeah. Lapland.

In the fucking FREEZING FINLAND!

"It's Yule and Christmas and no matter how you look at it, Ivar, it's a family holiday and we'll spend it together."

He loved his beautiful mother, but sometimes that need she had for them to be all together all the time was suffocating. After growing older, he was starting to understand his father's constant trips and to wish Aslaug would do something like fulfilling Sigurd's emptiness and his lack of motherly attention.

But this time, not even Sigurd had escaped that torture. And for the first time, they were both grumpy and moody at the same time.

At least, Y/N had come with him. Sigurd's girl was waiting for him with her family at the beach they had planned to go to together and that trip had forced him to delay. Ubbe as well was grumpy: dating Björn's ex-wife, he saw his hopes to send Torvi's children with Björn that year going down the drain. After all, what kid would want to exchange Santa Claus' village for a trip to the boring Mediterranean with daddy's brand-new chick?

Hvitserk was the only one having fun along with Y/N and the children - the bastard was finding every source of food, candies, and delights through their ways, putting so many smiles on Y/N's face that Ivar was asking all the gods to get his brother fat at the end of that cursed trip. Or at least some good, long and intense diarrhea, so he would have something to laugh at in the middle of all that red, black, gold, and white mess.

"Sorry!" A gods damn dwarf?

Gnome?

Grinch... No. Elf! A gods damn elf stumbled on his crutch, almost taking Ivar's balance, forcing him to stop his already slow steps to straighten the damn titanium braces under the trousers with a loud grunt of anger.

Because of course, his day wasn't doomed enough. No. The pain of that cold shitty place wasn't enough. Nor the elves everywhere, nor the repetitive music, nor the children's noises, fake gift boxes, bells... Not even the irritant bells weren't enough! Someone had to fucking misplace his braces to get him left behind by his whole family...

Kinda his fault: Ivar had walked slower than them all the whole time, trying to get himself distant and leave clear he wasn't happy. Even Y/N had started walking with Hvitserk since his mood was so terrible that not even her was able to hold it this time. He couldn't blame them for avoiding his presence enough not to notice he had to stop...

But where were they after all?

They wouldn't just disappear like that in a matter of minutes.

Ivar had just lowered himself for a moment to straighten the braces... How come they had managed to disappear in the middle of that fucking colored place?

For a moment, Ivar's heart filled with a cold sensation that spread all over this spine. He searched his pockets. Of course, his cellphone hadn't a single bar of signal in that place. His blues ran around searching for his brothers, the noisy children, his mom, Y/N.

And then it was when he realized...

There was no one to be seen.

The noisy children had gone. The elves were gone... Everything was, all of a sudden, silent, except for those bells.

With his crutch, Ivar walked around some steps, trying not to get lost in whatever the fuck was happening around him. But with a few steps forward, as if everything wasn't strange enough, a thick fog started to move around his legs, covering the place, flying ghostly through the gift boxes and colored trees.

Ivar felt the urge to get the heck out of that place. With some effort, he started walking at a quicker pace not observing when the decorations around him started changing from the usual plastic balls and ribbons to colored flowers, painted pine cones, straw animals... His eyes betrayed him, but his ears weren't failing: the bells were becoming higher. And higher...

"I don't know what kind of stupid prank is this! But I don't like it! I didn't pay for this package! I want this to stop right now!" he yelled.

Just to almost lose his balance once again when a horse exhaled behind his back, forcing him to turn around in a quick movement that cost him a grunt of pain, bending Ivar's body over itself when his hand touched the knee of his right leg. The braces had made a loud sound indicating it was a forced movement and now his knee was horribly aching once again.

However, the pain was something usual for him. Unusual was to see Santa Claus not dressed in the traditional red clothes... Unusual was to watch the old man coming down from a horse... Wait. How many legs did that fucking horse have?

And how the fuck did he have a horse? Shouldn't it be reindeers?

And a sled?

"What in..." Ivar started, swallowing dry and lifting his face to see the man in front of him was smiling.

A visible and open smile in the middle of the big and voluminous white beard covering his jaw and cascading down to his belly.

"Hello, Ivar," the man said with a surprisingly cozy voice, causing Ivar's face to twist in a frown of pure surprise, full of wrinkles on his forehead that earned one of the usual laughs from the white-bearded man.

"What the heck?" Ivar said, straightening himself even with pain on his leg. "Who told you my name? And why the fuck are we alone in this place?"

The man continued calm and smiley despite Ivar's clear annoyance.

"I know many names, boy. And I know you, since you were, in fact, a boy," the man said, looking down to Ivar's legs. "They still ache a lot, I can see."

Ivar's frown gained two more wrinkles on his forehead.

"What? Where do you know me? Who are you, man?" he asked, fully annoyed by what he was sure was a ridiculous prank his mother had paid for him to fall on, in the hope he would, somehow, like that trip into the middle of the freezing nowhere.

But the man just laughed once again, touching Ivar with a gentle pat that soon became a heavy hand weighing on Ivar's shoulder, forcing his whole attention to detail he wasn't able to notice before but now was clear like crystal in front of his eyes.

That man... That strange Santa Claus...

He clearly didn't have one of his eyes.

Ivar's blues were somehow attracted into the emptiness of that missing eye. And he swore he could hear the bells stopping, and crows cawing. The fog became stronger, but Ivar couldn't stop looking at that empty hole on that man's face until something formed into the dark.

Something that made Ivar's blues large when the voice of that man sounded once again, rumbling into Ivar's chest like a clap of thunder.

"I know everyone that was and everyone that will be. I'm the one who was and remains. And after you're gone, I'll still be here, until the wolf comes to swallow me whole. But before you go, I can still grant you a gift, son. Let us say you were good this year," the old man joked.

His words filling Ivar's ears while his eyes were locked at the image into that man's empty eye-hole.

"Yggdrasil..." Ivar mumbled.

And his eyes blinked, seeing the whole man once again in front of him, smiling.

"Odin?" he asked.

Receiving nothing but a new pat on his shoulder and once again, the traditional giggle that came along the whole noisy environment around, all at once invading Ivar's ears like a wave of noise and mess once again.

"Ho ho ho... Merry Christmas!"

Standing in front of him was nothing but an actor, fully dressed like the old Santa. Nothing different from the usual along with the fake gift boxes and all the rest Ivar could see when he turned his head, confused, searching for that whole illusion he was thrown into one second ago.

Was that a delirium? Was that somehow real?

"What's wrong, Ivar?" Y/N's voice woke him up and called his attention causing Ivar to once again turn himself too quick to look at her.

Another clang from his braces. Ivar waited for the wave of pain...

But it never came.

"Are your legs ok? Are you in pain, love?" she asked, fully worried.

But Ivar looked shocked down to his legs, feeling nothing. Absolutely no pain. Like one of his best-bones' days...

The days he used to say were gifts from the gods into his life.

"I... I... I think I... I'm fine I just... For a moment..." Ivar gasped with the words.

His eyes were still searching around for that image so vivid of Odin he had seen. He was sure he had seen! It was real!

And he took his pain away for a day...

"You see? The cold is starting to freeze Ivar's brain! Can we go home or at least somewhere warm now?" Sigurd complained.

The kids coming closer to Ubbe with their hands full of candy canes from Hvitserk's bag.

Everyone was so close... They didn't have disappeared.

But Ivar was sure he was the only one who saw that man.

"Are you ok, Ivar?" Y/N asked again and Ivar finally focused his eyes on her.

"I am. I'm just... I think I just need some warm chocolate and we can stay a little longer... For the kids, I mean."

"What?" Sigurd complained immediately. "See? Frozen brains!" he said, pointing Ivar's head.

But Ivar just approached Y/N's, speaking low, almost like a secret.

"Do you believe this thing about... Santa and Odin... Being the same person and stuff?" he asked, causing Y/N to smile.

"Oh, this is why you're so bothered, isn't it? Babe, don't be like this, uh? Some historians say that our Santa is somehow inspired by Odin with his eight-legged horse, granting gifts to his followers and knowing who was acting bad or good along his way. If it makes you feel more comfortable then think about this place as Odin's village!" she joked.

Getting a small curve from Ivar's lips.

"Come, let's get you that hot chocolate, uh?" she said, enlacing his arm with her own and starting to walk at his pace towards the coffee shop Hvitserk was already entering for what? The third time?

Ivar's eyes looked back at that man dressed as Santa Claus, complimenting everyone. His steps showing him his legs weren't aching at all anymore. Whoever it was, Santa Claus, Odin... It had really granted him a gift for that day.

The Santa turned looking at him once again.

And Ivar could swear that one-eyed man winked at him before it was nothing but the actor once again.

"Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!" the man yelled.

Santa Claus' Village... Odin's place... It wasn't that bad to make that trip after all.

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[babbushka]

Hide Your Smile

Flip Zimmerman x Reader 

11.5k ; Warnings for: Dark!fic (graphic depictions of violence [drunken violent outbursts, domestic violence, domestic abuse {physical and verbal}], blood and gore, graphic brutal murder, mild stalking, possessive behavior), & NSFW content (Car sex/fingering)

Also available on AO3!

(this fic was written in collaboration with my amazing friends and followers here. Thank you all so much for voting in the polls to determine this oneshot, I hope you enjoy it!)

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

You don't own me I'm not just one of your many toys You don't own me Don't say I can't go with other boys

And don't tell me what to do Don't tell me what to say And please, when I go out with you Don't put me on display 'cause

You don't own me...

Darkness, all around.

Nothing but hot wet earth, mud sinking under your feet, swallowing you whole.

Rain, thudding against the ground, against your back as you are chased by a monster in the night, bitter breath haunting the back of your neck, the hair rising on your arms only to be drenched down by the torrential downpour flooding your lungs.  

The world blurs around you, and you can’t tell, can’t tell which way is up, which way is forward. Things feel slow, thick, you blink but the spots only multiply. There’s a rush in your ears, a gruesome thud thud thudding – is that your pulse? You don’t know.

Blood stings your eyes, dirt caked into the backs of your molars. You can’t see, you can’t hear, you don’t know what’s going on, you see lights in the distance but when you run towards them they seem farther and farther away. Claws and teeth nip at your heels, you can’t stop running, can’t stop no matter how badly your legs ache, because if you stop even for just a moment, he’ll get you, and who knows what will become of you then.

Somewhere far away, a million miles away, Leslie Gore sings and your friends dance in a cookie cutter house in a cookie cutter town. But there in the woods, as something closes around your arm and drags you down to the ground,

you scream.

The party had been going well enough, hadn’t it? Josh hadn’t taken his hand off of you all evening, and wasn’t that something just dandy. Things had been getting tense between the two of you lately, you try not to think about all those heated arguments and cold shoulders that your boyfriend had dropped atop your head. You could ignore all of that now, he didn’t mean it, you knew that.

Maybe he did mean it, but he wasn’t meaning it now, as he dances with you in the dimly lit living room. You weren’t so sure what time it even was, gosh the rain was coming down so hard and making the skies nearly pitch black; why, it coulda been two in the morning for all you knew!

You give a strained smile to Josh for a brief moment, before laying your head back down on his chest. You think he looks relatively dashing tonight, dressed up for the party. New Year’s Eve 1962, could you believe it? Or well, it’d be 1962 in a couple minutes, but still.

You wore a mini-dress with the grooviest pattern you could find, some bright purple tights and white block heels, and you’d done your hair up so high you were sure you could feel it swaying on top of your head. It was very on trend these days, this sort of hairstyle. From what you could tell, anyway. You knew that this party was important for Josh, was important that he show up and make a good appearance with his football buddies, there were guys here that knew NFL draft scouts and he needed to impress them so he could get on their good side.

You wanted to look nice. He looked nice too, in his letterman jacket and jeans. Maybe he could have dressed up a little more, put a little more effort in. It was alright, it was fine. He gelled his hair down, that was more than you were expecting.

Thunder cracks across the sky and you involuntarily press yourself closer to him – he’ll hold you, won’t he? You wait for his arms to tighten around you, but they never do. Disappointed, but not surprised, you think.

“What’s your problem babe?” He asks, his voice slurred. You realize you’ve stopped dancing, stopped the short back and forth of your feet and he’d picked up on that.

“Nothing Josh. Just you know, the thunder and all.” You shrug, but he only scoffs and rolls his eyes.

“It’s not even real, it can’t hurt you, get a grip.” Josh steps away from you, away from the dance floor.

There are prying eyes there in the dark, and you’re embarrassed by the volume in his voice. He doesn’t realize how loud he can be sometimes, you know that, especially when he’s a little more buzzed than normal. He’s been getting more and more buzzed these days, you didn’t think it was good, was healthy. Just because he was of legal drinking age didn’t mean that you should dump alcohol into your body, not the way he did anyway.

“Right, of course Josh, sorry.” You grit your teeth, clench your jaw.

“Why don’t you go get me another beer, make yourself useful.” He dismisses you, turning towards his group of friends on the football team, towards bigger and stronger boys than he is, an attempt to weasel his way inside their group.

You’ve had quite enough of being dismissed, pushed aside. You’ve had enough. You’d been thinking of leaving him for a while, thinking about telling him what for, for once and for all. It never felt like the right time, something about him always made you feel like something bad would happen if you tried. But you’re at a point where you’re not being given any other choice.

You watch him laugh with his friends, with these college seniors, big boys on campus, and your heart races in your chest. A very small part of your brain fantasizes late at night about killing him, pushing him off some cliff or into traffic, an accident. Always an accident.

You’d never do it of course – of course not. Good girls didn’t kill their star athlete boyfriends.

But.

But maybe…maybe if something were to happen to him, you wouldn’t be so upset, would you?

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink?” The words tumble past your lips without much thought, and you don’t really even register it until the whole group of jocks go silent and Josh turns around slowly, menacingly, to stare you down.

“…What the fuck did you just say?” His voice is low, angry.  

“You’re supposed to drive me back home after this, I just want to make sure you’ll be alright to drive.” You’re unrelenting, shoulders square and jaw tight. If he thought he was going to be a jackass to win brownie points, then he had another thing coming.

The jocks only sip their beers, carefully watching. You wonder if any of them would come to your defense, but their silence is telling. You decide you hate them.

“I didn’t ask for your fucking opinion, I asked you to get me a fucking beer.” Josh shoves his red cup into your hand and you decide you hate him too.

Without another word, you accept the cup and with a forced smile, make your way to the kitchen where people are crowded by kegs and bottles.

You give a small sigh while you pour a cup of whatever shitty draft they’d gotten for the party. Part of you wishes you hadn’t come at all, you knew it could have only ended like this, being ignored and belittled all evening.

You wish that Flip were there, and you sigh again.

Philip ‘Flip’ Zimmerman, your best friend. The handsome basketball player, the guy who’s got his life together. A good job at the lumbermill, probably going to be a manager or something, the CEO one day. Smart, so smart! You can’t help but think of how many nights he tutored you for math with gentle eyes. And funny, and kind, and nice to you. He’s a couple years older than you and probably doesn’t think of you as anything other than a friend, but…but for a moment, you imagine what it might be like to call Flip your man.

You wonder if Flip would hold you tight when the thunder cracks across the sky, and a small smile threatens to creep up on your face. He definitely would, he’s done it before, hasn’t he? Given you his jacket to keep you dry from the rain, strong arms around your shoulders. Your cheeks begin to warm at the thought, at the way you can practically smell the cologne he wears whenever you’d rest your head on his shoulder.

You wish Flip were here. Or maybe no, maybe you just wish you were with him alone, were with him anywhere that wasn’t here. You wish you were cozied up on the couch in his Ma’s house, watching some scary movie and tucking yourself under his chin while you share a bowl of stove-top popcorn.

Lightning splinters across the clouds through the window in the kitchen, and you sigh again.

You had asked him to come, you really did try. But he said he was busy with work stuff, and he couldn’t. You admired that about him, his work ethic. He was so dedicated to everything he did, and even though you wanted to be selfish and whine and complain about needing his attention, you respected when he put his foot down.

Watching the froth begin to fade from the top of the beer cup, you think to yourself that tonight’s it, the last night you’d deal with Josh. You decide that you’ll go over, give him his beer, and then as soon as he drops you home whenever this party is supposed to end, you’ll tell him not to bother calling you ever again.

Something inside of you lightens up at the thought, like a weight slowly slipping off your shoulders. You can’t help but smile a little bit, at the thought of no longer being with him. Maybe…maybe if Flip saw you were single, he’d make a move of his own. Your head is in the clouds thinking about Flip, when you accidentally bump into someone on your way back to the living room.

A little bit of beer sloshes onto a boy’s shirt, and you recognize him as one of Josh’s new pals.

Before you can even open your mouth to apologize for the mess, he grabs you by the arm. His grip is harsh, and he yanks you around for a second, the beer spilling everywhere, all over the floor, onto your new white shoes.

“Hey J, are you gonna control your woman or what?” The guy – was his name Tommy? – sneers down at you. He’s tall, and he’s strong, you can start to feel a dull ping of pain on your arm where his fingers are digging in deep.

“I’m not his to control.” You wrench yourself out of the guy’s hold, stumbling backwards a few feet from the force of it.

Josh is up off the couch in an instant, infuriated with you.

He’s drunk, eyes glassed over like some shark, dark and empty. He backhands you across the jaw, sends you falling to the floor despite your best efforts, the crack of your skull against the wooden panels calling spots to your vision.

“Don’t ever speak back to someone like that, are you out of your fucking mind?” He wrangles you back up off the floor, grabs you by the front of your dress and hauls you up roughly, unkindly.

“Don’t touch me!” You shout, your nails scratching at his face, teeth bared in a rage of your own, pent-up anger that you’ve been swallowing for six months as you smack him across the face back in retaliation, angry and spitting, “Get off of me!”

Josh doesn’t let up, in fact he doubles down, kicks at your ankles so your knees cave in to try and support yourself as his hand shoots up from the collar of your blouse to wrapping around your throat. He drags you like that through the party, and you can’t help but wonder why no one is saying anything, doing anything? Do they not hear you? Do they not care?

“I’ll make you regret that – I’ll make you regret everything.” Josh hisses lowly in your ear as he forces you through the house by the scruff of your neck, sour breath of a drunken stupor stinging like a brand across your cheek.

“I already do.” You choke, struggling against his hold, against his hands.

You manage to elbow him in the stomach, hard, hard enough that he doubles over from the wind knocked out of his lungs, and you run.

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

Don't try to change me in any way You don't own me Don't tie me down 'cause I'd never stay

I don't tell you what to say I don't tell you what to do So just let me be myself That's all I ask of you

Shoving through the crowd of people, a hundred faces you don’t recognize, smiles fading into confused glares, you run. 

Thunder, rain, lightning, music deafens in your ears as you look for the door. Why is it so dark at this party? Where in the house are you? Hallways lead to doors that lead to nowhere, and you can hear his footsteps, can hear him running running running after you.

Didn’t you pass through this room before? Where was a telephone, surely whoever’s house this was, surely they had a telephone. But who would you call? You couldn’t call your parents, couldn’t let them know you snuck out of the house. You could call Flip, yes, that was it! You’d call Flip, if only you could find a phone.

They laugh at you, the people at the party. Laugh with their drug addled eyes, high off mushrooms and LSD, acid trips going wrong wrong wrong. They dance and laugh and laugh and dance, chugging spiked drinks with wild abandon, lights flashing red yellow purple green blue, a cacophony of psychedelics.

He’s there, somewhere among them, he’s there, you know he is. The smack of your footsteps sound like gunshots against the wood, your head throbs. You want to sob and scream and shout and cry cry cry but you can’t do that until you are safe, and if you stay in this house, there’s no telling where you’ll find safety again.

Or at all.

You try every door, locked ones, unlocked ones, looking for a way out. Eventually you lock yourself in a bathroom, lucky that there’s a window. It’s a single story house, the jump isn’t far.

You abandon your shoes, they don’t stay on your feet that well anyway, and you don’t have the time to groan about the frigid mud that squeaks between your toes as you splash down onto the ground from the window.

“Help!” You cup your mouth and shout, hearing something, a twig snapping not too far away. You see him, he’s coming after you through a side-door, and you have to run, you have to go. “Oh fuck – ”

You bolt, freezing rain soaking your clothes.

You don’t know where you are, don’t recognize this part of town.

Josh knew the area, not you, not you. These were his friends, not yours, not yours.

You just run, hoping your legs carry you to safety, carry you away. There’s woods, in the distance. You whip your head around, try looking for a road, any road. Where’s the driveway? It must be on the other side of the house, it must be –

Josh is gaining on you, athletic legs more powerful than your own.

“You can’t outrun me, don’t even try, don’t bother, get the fuck over here!” He hollers at you, voice guttural and deep, primal in a way that strikes fear into your heart.

You wish you had something, a weapon of some kind, any kind, to fight him with, but you don’t.

So you run.

“Shitshitshitshitshit – someone help!” You toss your voice to the wind, the howling wind which carries sheets of rain, pounds it down sideways against your back, your face, hair sopping wet and sticking to your eyes, nose, getting in your mouth as you pant pant pant, sobs of terror spiking through your chest, salty tears whisked away by the rain.

You don’t know how far you’ve gotten, you don’t know if anyone can hear you, don’t know if anyone would even come if they did. You need to form a plan, need to put enough distance between you and this monster of a man, need to catch your breath.

Your adrenaline pounds in your ear as the earth slips and slides underneath your feet, your nylon stockings not doing anything to help gain traction. You skid your knees on rocks and trip over gnarled roots, but every time you get up, each and every time you have to get up, otherwise he’ll get you.

You can feel how close he is, his hands reaching out to tear away at your clothes, can feel the ghost of his fingers trying to hook around your dress, and you can’t help but let out a high-pitched scream, something that pierces into the blackness of night, something that sends the birds from their branches.

“How dare you! How dare you embarrass me like that!” Josh manages to snatch you, the both of you tumbling down to the ground from the momentum, rolling in the mud. It’s in your eyes, mouth, a sharp hot pain at your temple makes you think you’ve hit your head, maybe on a rock? You don’t know, you taste copper in your mouth. You feel hands, no, fists, hard against your jaw. “I’ll kill you, you whore, I’ll fucking kill you for embarrassing me.”

“Don’t touch me – !” You scream, searching the ground for something, for anything, relief flooding through your body when your hand closes around a rock large enough to do some damage.

“Quiet, just be quiet!” He’s annoyed with you, annoyed with how loud you’re being, as if you’re inconveniencing him by not taking a beating politely. You take in a deep breath and muster all the strength you possibly can, to slam the rock against his face, making him knock backwards with a loud, “Fuck!”

“Someone – please!” You cough and sputter as blood streams down your face, washed away by the heavy rain which does not relent.

In an instant, the hands are yanked away from you, and you scramble to get away as fast as you can to catch your breath. You cough and hack up blood, dirt, mud which grinds between your teeth, the pounding against your temple making you dizzy, making you sick. You feel like you’re going to be sick, the adrenaline rising up up up your throat.

“Who the fuck are you – ” You hear Josh start, before the sound of punches and grunts cuts through the air again, and you squint in the dark to see who came to your rescue, who heard your calls.

“Flip?” You nearly can’t believe it, can’t believe your widened eyes, but there he is – you’d recognize those broad shoulders and the pattern of his breathing anywhere. Despite all better judgement, you rush back to his side, slipping and sliding on mud as rain beats down with such fury as your best friend’s fists, “Flip!”

“You don’t get to touch her, ever again.” Flip does not yell, he does not scream.

He does not raise his voice, he is calm, eerily calm, unnervingly calm.

You almost don’t hear him speaking at all, from how softly his voice comes out as he kicks the shit out of Josh, as he holds his head in place and knees him so hard in the face once, twice, three times, hard enough that the sick crunch of bone and cartilage echoes the thunder all around you, and he goes limp.

But Flip doesn’t stop, he doesn’t stop beating Josh’s face in with his fist until the man is a mess of blood, teeth coming loose, broken nose and busted lip bubbling hot, steaming in the freezing cold air. He doesn’t stop still, and you watch in awe, in twisted admiration as Flip hauls the ragdoll of your former boyfriend up enough to get him in a chokehold and snap his neck.

Only then, does Flip drop him, face down into the mud.

You look at the lifeless body, and then up at Flip, who you find is already looking back at you. His chest is heaving, he’s panting, out of breath and exhausted. The rain has soaked him through too, but he’s not shivering, not the way you are. He must have ran too, had to have ran to catch up with you. You don’t know how deep in the woods you are, how deep he had to go to find you.

But he did, he did.

You’re numb, standing there. Numb from the cold, from the shock, you don’t know. You want to comfort Flip – and isn’t that fucked up? You wanting to comfort someone else right now? But you do.

Everything feels like it’s going to be okay now, now that Flip’s here.

“Oh my god.” You say, because you don’t really know what else to say, don’t really know what else to do other than stand there. You’re frightened, you can feel the fear bubbling up in your stomach, but there’s calm now too, a calm that’s got you more afraid than anything. You look at Josh, then back to Flip once again. “Do you think…”

“Are you okay?” Flip pushes the hair out of his face with a bloody hand and takes a cautious step towards you.

“Me? Yeah – yes I’m…Do you think you killed him?” You ask, holding a hand out to Flip.

You know he’s worried about scaring you, and warmth cuts through some of the chill in your bones at the thought. You extend a hand and encourage him to take it, smearing blood between your palms which the rain washes away, carries down into the wood in thick muddy rivers.

You’re not afraid of Flip, could never be afraid of Flip.

“Look at me,” He’s hung up on it, presses his forehead against yours and goes nearly cross-eyed in the dark to peer into your eyes, your soul, “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.” You finally answer truthfully, taking another step closer to him, trying to get as close to him as possible. You feel safe, your brain screams safety with this man, with your friend, your Flip. “But I’m better now that you’re here. What are you doing here? I thought you had work.”

Confusion dawns on you, and you frown a little bit, just because it doesn’t make sense for him to be here right now, it doesn’t make sense for him to be here at all. Flip’s eyes widen a little, and even in the scant moonlight you can tell he’s blushing. He tries pulling away, but you don’t release your grip on his hand, warm and solid and real against your own.

“I just – I’m sorry I – well I got off early and I wanted to make sure that you would be okay so I came over and just kind of watched from the car in case you needed me for anything.” He rushes out in one big breath, winces, waits for you to berate him.

“Do you do that? Watch me from a distance.” You ask him, the both of you standing there in the rain.

You know it’s absurd, somewhere in the back of your head a small voice tells you it’s absurd to have a conversation like this while standing over a body in the middle of the woods, but you push it away, push it away and step closer to Flip. You’re not accusatory when you ask, you’re not condemning him – you’re just curious.

“No – I – well yes, sometimes, but only when you’re out with him.” He admits, nudging Josh’s back with the toe of his boot. His voice is dark, low, gritty in the back of his throat but he doesn’t yell, you sigh against him, your heart breaks for the anger in his voice, the sadness. You wish you never started dating this schmuck, wish you never said yes to him, wished that it had been Flip who asked instead. “I don’t trust him, (Y/N), I don’t like how he treats you. I worry, and I know that it’s creepy I know, I’m sorry, I’m not a creep I swear, I just. I care about you.”

You’re quiet for a little while, and then you move away from him only far enough to plant your stocking-clad foot onto the back of Josh’s head, push him deeper into the earth, the mud. The body gives no resistance, and a sick satisfaction makes your vision go blurry.

“Have…have you done this before?” You ask, that numbness starting to fade, the tremble of shock at what you witnessed, experienced setting in.

Flip looks like he would fall to his knees before you in that moment, as he blinks water out of his eyes, as he trembles too.

“No, I swear. I don’t even know what came over me, but I heard you screaming and begging and I couldn’t stop, I had to help you somehow.” His voice breaks, and all you want is to be close to him, so you go, go rushing into his arms, and he holds you tight.

He holds you and you hold him back, two people under the moonlight as lightning illuminates the body with picture-perfect clarity for a split second. He’s face down in the earth but you can tell, you can just tell he’s brutally mangled by the damage Flip did to him, and as you shove your face into Flip’s chest, for the briefest of moments, you smile.

“We have to get rid of him.” You say softly, trying to think of a plan, trying to think of what to do.

Flip gently pushes on your shoulders to separate the two of you, and shakes his head with a frown.

“We? No (Y/N), you can’t be involved at all, you can’t, just please go to the car and get dry and warm, I can handle this.” He’s sweet, so sweet with the way there’s sincerity in his eyes, but you’re not having any of it.

“I’m already involved, Flip, I’m not going to let you do this alone. Whatever it is, we’re in this together now. We can’t go to the police, they wouldn’t understand, they wouldn’t believe us. I’m with you.” You squeeze his hand lovingly in your own, and you can’t help but think how good it feels, how right it feels, to hold his hand.

“I think I have an idea, but first, we need to get him to the car.” Flip chews the inside of his cheek, a nervous tick of his that you always scold him for.

You don’t scold him now, there’s no time, that’s not what’s important now.

What’s important is hauling dead weight down the woods without a trace, without any evidence other than what will be washed away.

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

I'm young and I love to be young I'm free and I love to be free To live my life the way I want To say and do whatever I please

And don't tell me what to do Oh, don't tell me what to say And please, when I go out with you Don't put me on display

The body rolls around slightly, in the trunk. You’re in Flip’s dad’s '58 oldsmobile, the heat is blasting, and you hug your knees in the passenger seat, as Flip maneuvers through the winding Colorado roads. It had taken quite some time to get back through the car, out of the woods.

He had been parked out front, only a few feet from the driveway the whole time. All evening, sitting, watching, waiting. Hoping you wouldn’t need him, but prepared to do anything for you if you did. He’s silent on the drive to wherever it is you’re going, the radio is playing softly. The music helps calm your nerves, and you’re thankful for it, you try not to freak out.

The little clock on the dashboard says it’s only about midnight, but you feel like it’s way later than that. The rain fucks everything up, you think, the rain’s been pouring for hours and hours now, but it feels like days.

Every time the car makes a sharp turn, or goes up and down a hill, the body thuds against the walls of the trunk, and you just hug your knees tighter.

“Where are we going?” You ask eventually, voice soft. You’re afraid if you raise it, you’ll scream. Your throat hurts, you’ve done enough screaming already.

“Hospital.” Flip replies easily, not taking his eyes off the road, his hands at perfect ten-and-two. You wonder if he’s afraid of screaming too.

The thought of the hospital sends a spike of fear through your blood, makes all the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

“What? Why?” You demand immediately, confused, scared.

“You still haven’t stopped bleeding and I need to make sure you’re okay.” Flip says evenly. You can tell he wants a cigarette, you can tell. But this is his dad’s car, and he can’t smoke in it. You wonder what his dad would say to knowing that there’s a dead body in it, wonder if smoke would be more of an issue.

“No!” You shake your head, turning yourself towards him fully, a hand on his arm. “No, Flip please, they’ll call my parents and they don’t know I’m out this late, please just – let’s just get rid of him, and then take me home, Flip I’m begging.”

“But what if you’re seriously hurt? What if he did something severe?” Flip’s grip on the steering wheel is white-knuckled, and your stomach flutters as the windshield wipers beat back and forth, whisking the rain away.

“I’m okay, I promise I’m okay, I’ll be fine.” You don’t know if that’s the truth, but you have to believe that it is, you have to. “Philip, please.”

The use of his full first name convinces him, you don’t think you’ve ever said it before, not out loud anyway, not like this. He chews on his lip and sighs, nods his head to your supreme relief.

“Thank you.” You want to kiss him, want to embrace him desperately, but now isn’t the time. He’s driving, there are more important things right now, more important things to deal with. “What are we going to do with him? We can’t bury him in the woods, the rain’s logged all the dirt.”

“Logged – we can go to the mill.” Flip snaps his fingers, and it’s like a light bulb has gone off inside his head.

You just sit back and press a bundled up wad of wet napkins against the wound on your temple, hugging your knees, knowing that you’ll be okay, as long as you’re with Flip.

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

The lumbermill is a family-owned and operated affair. Flip’s grandfather had founded it sixty-two years ago way back during the turn of the century in 1900, and it had remained in the Zimmerman hands ever since. Once a small business, now stood a proud industrial center for logging and clearing away trees to produce more logs and square away neat pockets of land. Where there used to be only hand-held tools and traditions, now there were the highest-end types of machinery.

You thought Flip was brilliant, absolutely brilliant – you knew exactly what he was thinking.

Just last month, Flip’s dad had been bragging about the new woodchipper that had finally been ordered. You remember sitting at Flip’s Ma’s shabbat table and listening to him go on and on about the new sharp blades, how much more efficient it would make everything, not to mention how little waste they would have, considering the wood chips could be sold for all kinds of uses.

At the time, you had thought it was a little annoying how he wouldn’t let anyone else at the table get in a word, but now you’re thanking your lucky stars that you had been paying attention.

It’s strange, being here this late, being here at all. You’ve visited before of course, Flip has always been eager to show you around. It never felt like you were sneaking about or anything, not considering his family owned it, considering he’d own it one day too.

But it’s strange, with the flood lights filling the night sky with a brilliant white, the usually bustling lumbermill quiet, nothing but the sound of harsh rain clanging on machinery and metal roofs. Flip parks the car in the lot, reaches into the glove compartment and pulls out a key-ring. There must be a dozen keys on the little circle, but Flip seems to know exactly which ones are for what.

“Emergency backups of all the gates,” he explains, jingling it on his index finger for a second, “No one will suspect anything.”

You nod, chew on your cheeks. The thought of going back out into the rain is unpleasant, but you suck it up and open the car door, bracing yourself for a minute before the icy water plunges down the back of your dress once again, body already shivering.

He meets you at the trunk, pops it open. With the flood lights, you can see the extent of the damage to Josh’s face – if you could even call it a face anymore. It was nearly caved in completely, soaked with blood and mud, all the planes of a face that should push out were indented inwards. You manage a glance at Flip’s knuckles, and you see they’re busted wide open, and you suck in a sharp breath.

“Follow me.” Flip says, hoisting the body over his shoulder like a fireman would rescue someone from a burning building, and his boots splash in the mud towards where he knows the woodchipper is set up.

You regret not going back for your shoes now, as more freezing mud stains your tights. You regret dressing up at all, dressing for fashion instead of comfort. Flip is in a flannel and jeans, and normally you tease him for being like a cartoon character always wearing the same thing, you wish that you weren’t in a fucking miniskirt and tights in the dead of winter.

Lightning backs the machine dramatically, after a few minutes of trudging. The ground here is much more substantial than the woods, and you push your legs across a developed terrain instead of through the wilderness of the mountains. It stands tall, proud, the woodchipper, and you swallow a lump around your throat.

“Is that it?” You ask, close enough to Flip that you only have to raise your voice a little bit to compete with the sound of the rain.

Flip dumps the body onto the ground, goes over to the woodchipper and turns it on. You can tell that using it in the rain is a poor decision, but it’s the only option you have. Flip adjusts some settings, and the thing roars to life, metal blades whirring whirring whirring.

“Yeah but it – he’s too fucking big he can’t go in all in one piece, it’ll get jammed.” Flip runs a hand through his hair as he comes half-jogging back over to you, and you just blink for a moment.

“Okay then we cut him up.” You say matter of factly, your heart pounding in your chest, aware that time is not on your side, that you have to get this done and get out, have to get this done and go as quickly as possible, in case someone comes, in case someone sees.

“(Y/N), are you sure you want to do this?” Flip asks you seriously, puts his hands gently on your shoulders and looks into your eyes.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life.” You whisper, eyes wide, feeling more liberated and free, feeling so light, determined. Maybe it’s the shock, maybe you’ve lost your fucking mind, you don’t know. But you can’t stop now, you’ve done this much, you can’t stop now. “It can’t be too hard, like breaking down a chicken, right? Split at the joints.”

The analogy is lost on Flip, because as much as you love your friend, he cannot cook to save his life. Flip isn’t one to smile, and he doesn’t smile then, but you know he’s agreed with you because he looks around, tries to find something.

“Hold on.” He runs across the yard, finds one of the sheds that’s tucked against the back wall of one of the main buildings.

You stand there and wait, arms crossed, staring down at Josh. While Flip searches for whatever it is he’s looking for, you just grow more and more angry, watching rain flood the spaces in the dips of his shoulders.

“Fuck you.” You say to his lifeless body, “You say I embarrassed you? You tormented me. I wish I could have killed you myself. You’re lucky Flip did it, I wouldn’t have been so merciful.”

You don’t know what’s come over you, but the words sound like the most truthful ones you’ve ever told this boy, this husk of a monster, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. You can’t help yourself, spitting onto the ground in his direction, sneering through the rain, blinking it and the shocked fury out of your eyes.

Flip returns with an axe, brand new from the looks of it. The blade glints in the floodlight, freshly polished metal dripping with silver rivers of water as Flip swings it lightly in his hand.

“This should work, fuck, okay. Okay. Okay alright okay, you come over here, stand over here I don’t want you getting hurt accidentally.” He’s steeling himself, psyching himself up for this, and you put a hand on his back to calm him.

“Want me to do it?” You offer, not knowing the first fucking things about even how to hold an axe, let alone swing one.

“No, no let me.” Flip huffs out a laugh, shakes his head. You can’t help but feel silly for asking, you know there’s no way you’d have the upper body strength to cut through a person. You’d never even chopped wood before, and well, Flip was an actual lumberjack.

“Okay, I can count to three?” You acquiesce with a tremor in your voice.

“Please.” Flip whispers, getting the body into position.

You stand where Flip tells you, a little ways away, as he raises the axe high above his head.

“One…”

There’s a ringing in your ears, a pounding in your chest. You’re doing this, you’re really doing this, you can’t help but think. Flip plants his feet firmly on the ground, takes in a deep breath. You can see his hands flex and grip the handle, as he liens himself up.

“Two…”

Your face shakes, teeth rattling in your skull from where your jaw chatters, shivers in the cold. It’s so bright, so bright with all the floodlights, you feel like you’re being watched, you feel like you can hear the whispers, the murmurs of ghosts all around you, the ghost of this monster you’ve killed.

“Three!”

Hot blood sprays from Josh’s shoulder as the axe swings down, cleaves into his shoulder. The blade is bran new, terribly sharp, and it nearly goes all the way through. The bone splinters, you can hear it, can hear it slicing into pieces. Flip pries the blade out and lines himself up again, does not wait this time for your count before taking aim and slamming it into the body again.

Blood hot and thick bubbles up, gurgles around the wound, and when Flip tosses a severed arm away from the rest of the body, despite yourself, you turn around, brace your hands on your knees and throw up. Everything you ate and drank at the party comes back up in an acrid stinging cough that has you nearly choking, but you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand and get yourself together.

You don’t know how Flip has the stomach for this, for it, but he has a steady hand as he works on the other arm, separating it from the body.

The machine is still on, the machine is hungry.

You want to give it what it wants, you want to see the spray out the other end. Without waiting for his instruction, you pick up the arm, grab it by the wrist. You make sure there’s no jewelry, no watches or anything that could get jammed, and you rush it over to the woodchipper, drop it into the basin.

The sound it makes is horrific, the sick squelch and crunch of bone, the shredding shredding shredding of the blades. Mincemeat blasts out the other end, and even as some of it sprays back against the wind, even as some of it lands on your face, speckles of blood and guts and shards of crushed bone, you find that you’re grinning, because it worked.  

“Another one, give me another one.” You say eagerly, holding a hand out to Flip.

He smiles too, eyes too bright, as he gives you Josh’s other arm, hacked away in nice clean segments. He watches as you dump the second arm into the machine, gets to see as it eats up the flesh, grinds and slashes it into nothingness, watches as the bits of this man land in wet smacks on the dirt.

Piece by piece, you obliterate the monster that had tormented you for months.

Piece by piece, you free yourself of the hurt and pain, the lies and manipulation he shackled you with.

Piece by piece, you destroy the evidence, watch as it washes away, watch as the rain carries it down the drain, into the sewers where he’ll rot among the rats like he deserves.

The rain absolves you and Flip of the muck and grime of the deed, and now that it’s over, now that he’s gone, you close your eyes and tilt your head up towards the sky, letting the rain patter down onto your cheeks, your forehead. You feel clean, though you are cold, so so so cold, the only thing you can focus on is the cleanliness, the relief.

“You never should have fucked with her.” You hear Flip say, and that makes you open your eyes, makes your turn towards him.

Flip looks down to the drain, and you smile, because he looks lighter too.

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

You’re leaving the lumbermill, when it hits.

You’d been so caught up in the euphoria of getting rid of him, of this man who had made your life a living nightmare for far too long – that you hadn’t stopped once to think of the consequences of these actions.

“I – holy shit I can’t believe we did that.” It slams into your chest, the realization that you’re a murderer, you’re both murderers, you’re going to go to prison for this, they’ll send you to the chair for this, they’ll kill you for this the same way you killed Josh. Your heart races, pounds pounds pounds as dread and terror and fear all come rushing back, all come slamming down inside your brain. “What the fuck did we just do? Flip what did we do?”

Flip must have willpower of steel, because he doesn’t even blink when you whip around to face him, when you immediately freak the fuck out, when you start to hyperventilate, holding the sides of your head.

“It’s okay, it’s fine. Things like this happen. It was an accident that spiraled out of control, it wasn’t your fault, you didn’t do anything wrong.” Flip is calm, so calm, and that almost freaks you out more, maybe you were going to scream, maybe you were already screaming, you don’t know, you don’t know anything except you just murdered a man.

“Oh my god what are they going to say when he doesn’t come back to the party? Or go home?” You panic, shifting around too much in your seat, legs bouncing, back aching from the way you keep twisting and turning, “What’ll they do if they find the pieces of him?”

“You have to breathe it’s going to be okay, we’ll be okay – fuck, what was that?” Flip is cut off by a loud thud, the car coming to a complete stop.

Your eyes begin to well up with tears as you hiccup out terror, hands shaking. You want to slam your fists against the window, want to throw yourself onto the street and beg for forgiveness, you want to be sick, you want to tell Flip to drive and never look back.

“Oh no, oh no no no this is it, this is the karma catching up to us already.” You can feel the tethers of reality start to slip, black splotches dancing in front of your vision – will you pass out? Are you at your limit? You don’t know, you don’t know but the car isn’t moving, it’s not going anywhere no matter how hard Flip pushes on the gas pedal.

“Stay here.” He says, and you’re in no mood, no state to defy the instructions now.

Flip puts the car in park, gets out and shuts the door so water doesn’t come pouring in. You watch him through the warped view of rain on the windows as he walks around the car, his hands on his hips, trying to figure out what the fuck happened.

It doesn’t take him too long to find the problem, and he comes back into the car with a sigh, soaking wet and unsure of what to do.

“We’re stuck.” He tells you, and that’s the last thing you want to hear. A flat tire you knew he could change, even in the rain like this, but being stuck left nothing to do except wait for someone to come un-stick you.

“So we’re stranded out here?” Your voice creeps up higher and higher in octave as the consequences of that stab you through the chest.

You never should have snuck out of home, you lament, hot tears finally stinging the rims of your eyes. You never should have left home through your window, never should have agreed to the party. You never should have agreed to date this fucking guy, you think, because if you hadn’t maybe you’d be safe and warm somewhere, maybe you’d be asleep soundly in your bed and not stranded in the pouring rain, in the middle of you don’t even know where.  

“Yes but – but this is good. This is good, this is our alibi. We don’t know anything, because we were stranded in the middle of fucking nowhere in a ditch.” Flip knows you’re freaking out, he knows, he can feel it, can see it, it’s happening right in front of him.

“Wh—what will we say that we were even doing out here? What if someone asks why we’re here in the first place?” Your whole body wracks through with terrified sobs. “They’re going to kill us for this, Flip if they catch us they’re going to kill us – I don’t want to die, I don’t --”

He collects you in his arms and holds you tightly against his chest, rocks you to soothe you, calms you. The rain is unrelenting, and you wonder how much water the sky can hold, how many clouds are up there to maintain such a downpour. Flip’s arms are so warm around your shoulders, and his neck is blazing hot where you tuck your face against it.

“You called me to pick you up from the party, I came, we got lost, wound up here. It’s dark and raining, that’s all the truth.” Flip whispers, “We don’t know anything, we’ve been here, waiting for someone to pass by.”

You nod, because it’s all you can do right now. You had almost forgotten how cold you were, the stark comparison of your own body temperature compared to Flip’s making you feel even colder.

“I’m f-f-freezing.” You say, because you don’t have anything else to say, and Flip hums in the back of his throat.

“I don’t have any spare clothes, I’m sorry.” He frowns, but then you pull away for a moment, begin stripping off your dress. You peel away the layers until you’re in your bra and underwear, just wanting the wet cold fabric off of your skin. Flip’s hands drop from your body, and he nervously looks away with a very gentlemanly, “What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry – I just – I figured maybe if we use body heat – ” You explained, suddenly feeling stupid, feeling unwanted, feeling --

“Don’t stop, I’ll do it too, if you want. I’ll keep you warm.” Flip nods, understands what you’re doing now, what you mean. He looks at you cautiously, not ever wanting to be imposing, not wanting to make you comfortable. “Only if you want.”

You lick your lips and nod, and in mere moments, he’s shedding his clothes too, until he’s just in his underwear.

Flip climbs over the bench seat and lands in the back, laying down on his back and spreading out. There’s significantly more room in the back seat, and without another thought, you unclip the straps of your bra, letting your breasts breathe, before arranging all the clothes in the direct line of the heater so they might have a chance to dry, before climbing over too.

Flip welcomes you with open arms, and as you settle against him, body flush with his, your heart pounds. He rubs your back, warms you with his palms, palms which feel like the most comforting iron brand, heating you through.

“You know…” You whisper, listening to the sound of his breathing and the rain that pitter-patters onto the roof of the car, “I’ve been thinking about doing something like that to him for a long time.”

“Yeah?” Flip asks, voice thick.

You’re nuzzled against his chest, feeling the most safe that you ever have. The panic has subsided for now, for now at the very least.

“Yeah. It was never a real idea that I had, at least not in the beginning. But more and more lately, I’ve been thinking about how good it would feel if he were gone forever. I don’t know what I ever saw in him. I guess I just…I liked that someone liked me, wanted me. It felt good to be wanted, for a minute there.” You’re honest with Flip. Sometimes it feels like Flip is the only person you can ever be honest with.

“Just a minute?” He asks softly, teasing and playful in a way that makes you want to cry.

“Yeah, just a minute.” You whisper back, propping your head up onto your hands, looking at him.

“There are…other people, you know. Who are out there, who like you. Want you.” He looks back at you, eyes filled with apprehension, but hope.

“People like you?” You ask, hope in your own lungs, in your heart.

“Yeah, people like me.” Flip nods, caresses the back of your head with his strong, capable hand.

“You know, the entire time I’ve been with him, I wished I were with you.” You confess, because now feels like as good a time to confess something as any, doesn’t it? What’s this admittance, compared to the thing you have just done together?

“This isn’t the shock talking, is it?” Flip’s hand smooths around to hold your cheek, pinch at the apple of your smile, because you are smiling now, smiling how he hasn’t rejected you, how he never would have, now you know.

“No, no I promise. This is me talking.” You turn your face into his palm and press a light kiss to the creases in his hand, those hands, the hands which have only ever protected you, defended you, loved you.

“Why are you crying?” Flip frowns, confused, worried, but you shake your head, unable to stop, unable to quit the smile, the tears.

“Because I’ve dreamt about being in your arms like this for what feels like forever, and I – I kept thinking that there’s no way you could ever want me, I thought I was just delusional for thinking maybe we could be something. And here you are, coming to my rescue, the way you always do, and we’ve just killed a man but all I want to do is kiss you.” You huff out a laugh, a laugh that’s tinged with regret for the past, all the time that could have been.  

“Can I?” Flip asks suddenly then, innocent and gentle, “Can I kiss you?”

“Oh Flip, yes, please.” You nod, pushing yourself up a few more inches so that your lips can meet.

They press together in the softest, sweetest of kisses, and all at once it feels like the gates of your heart have been unlocked, and all the love you feel flows out with wild abandon.

Flip deepens the kiss when your mouth opens in a small gasp, and you let yourself be rolled underneath him. The car rocks a little from the effort, but you don’t care. A kiss or two becomes making out, and you feel your head fill with the thick perfume of lust, your whole body warm now, on fire almost. His mouth is hot, tongue thick and heavy against yours, but he tastes delicious, tastes like home.

He kisses you until your breathing begins to quicken, until the smallest noises start to moan and hum in the back of your throat. Your nipples are stiff, so hard from where they’re brushing against his chest, your arms looping around his shoulders, legs parting so he can settle between them.

“Did…did you two ever…?” He pulls away, lips kiss-slick and flushed, and you blink, forgetting all about your boyfriend, or one you used to have.

“No, no I didn’t want to, it didn’t feel right. Not with him.” You tell him honestly, suddenly feeling inexperienced, feeling self-conscious, “Have you?”

“No, I’ve been waiting for the right person.” Flip shocks you by blushing out his own truth. Your eyebrows shoot up, you really would have pegged him for a womanizer type, he was certainly handsome enough for it. But thinking back, you realize in all the time you’ve known him, he’s never once mentioned a girlfriend or even a fling, nothing. It’s always just been you, and him. Flip blushes deeper when you don’t say anything right away, stammers out, “I know it’s cheesy.”

“It’s not cheesy.” You shake your head quickly, dismissing the idea that you’d make fun of him for something like that. You’re relived, it means you can be together for the first time truly together.

You kiss him, invigorated, no longer feeling shy or inadequate. He kisses you back, and when your eyes close there’s nothing but the welcoming embrace of his warmth and affection to pull you in. Your mouths and tongues slide against one another, and your hips raise up, your underwear rubbing against his, wishing there were no barrier between you.

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to, I don’t ever want to pressure you or – ” Flip shakes his head, so caring, worried, nipping at the corners of your mouth.

“Maybe, maybe you could just touch me? Just for now, touch me and then, then we can see where we go.” You’re desperate for him though, desperate for him in every way.

He smiles against your mouth, and you smile too, his hands sliding down your body. He shuffles back a little, straddling your hips, knees digging into the upholstery as his hands roam your body, touch where he didn’t have permission to touch before.

He’s drawn to your breasts immediately, kneads them. He licks his lips and rolls your nipples between his fingers, and your back only arches for him, pushes your chest up into his hands further. His breathing is heavy, and you decide that you’re tired of holding yourself back from the things that you want – after this, after tonight, you won’t deny yourself anything ever again, you’ve spent so much time bending to the will of other people, from now on you are going to ask for what you want.

You cup the back of Flip’s head and push him down, gently nudge him. He takes the hint, immediately nuzzles his face into your cleavage, rubs against your breasts. His mouth latches around one of your nipples and he kisses and licks and sucks, and you moan, the pleasure going straight to your pussy.

So does his hand, tentatively skimming over your panties until your legs spread enough to give him permission. He tugs the cotton aside and you hiccup out a little cry of pleasure when he reverently pushes his fingers through your folds, pushes his way through into the tight wet heat of your cunt.

“Oh, oh, that feels good.” Your eyes fly open, hand tangling in his hair where he makes out with your breasts, grunting and groaning with need that the praise spurs in him. His fingers are more insistent, more purposeful, and his thumb swirls over your clit making your hips lift up up up against his hand. “Yes, yes! Flip – do that again, please do that again.”

“Good?” Flip lifts his head from where he’s been smothering himself in your tits, eyes so big and brown, eager to please.

“So good! Phil, it’s so good, I’ve wanted this for so – ah!—long.” Your head tips back against the seat as your toes curl, his fingers moving faster, your stomach expanding with each deep breath you take, trying to suck down the air, trying to lose yourself in the bright white hot light of pleasure.

“This doesn’t count as our first time, okay?” Flip bites a mark around the bottom of your ribs.

“Okay.” You grin, elated that this means maybe maybe maybe he’ll want to have sex with you again, maybe he’ll fuck you with his cock. Maybe he’ll want you forever, maybe he’ll ask you out and take you on dates and do all the things that you’ve always hoped but never dared to dream for.

“I want our first time to be sweet and good and gentle, and not in the back-seat of this car.” He fingers you faster and faster, and you struggle to pay attention to his words because his fingers are so thick and so full and they know just where to touch you to get your feet searching for purchase as you moan and whine and gasp. “I’m going to take you out to dinner and then a movie, and then I’m going to make love to you on a big bed with rose petals like you deserve.”

“Oh fuck – I’m – I’m gonna – ” You gasp out, hips rolling, undulating against his palm, grinding your pussy against the warmth of his hand to chase your orgasm, your body thick with pleasure, sweet and sticky like molasses in your veins.

“Come on my fingers, it’s okay, you’re okay.” Flip encourages you, presses a little harder, moves a little faster, the car shaking shaking shaking from the way your body trembles, rain thudding against the roof as your orgasm crashes through you, a wave of nothing but good, nothing but love.

“Fl-Flip!” You shout, eyes shut tight, the first couple hints of tears clinging to your lashes.

“You’re so beautiful, holy shit.” Flip strokes your pussy through it, coaxes out come that shines on his palm, shimmers on your inner thighs. He kisses your neck, your chest, bites and sucks and marks you so thoroughly, marks you as his, you’re his you’re his and he’s yours and, “(Y/N) you’re – you’re so beautiful.”

“Can I, I want you to come too, I want you to feel good too.” You try, you offer, but he’s still sliding his fingers through your pussy, two – no, three? -- stretching you wide, stretching you for him, for his cock. You want it, you want it so badly, want to be filled, but an aftershock of pleasure builds builds builds and you’re not sure it’s just an aftershock anymore, as your toes curl again, knees shaking, bones aching to come again, “Flip I’m, I think I’m – oh!”

“No, it’s okay, you don’t have to do anything for me, this is more than enough, you’re more than enough, thankyouthankyouthankyou.” He smudges the words into your chest, your throat, litters you with sweet nothings and gratitude, and you want to ask for his dick right then and there –

But there’s a sound, coming from the window.

A knock on the window.

Someone is there, knocking.

“Wait – what was that?” You freeze, the rose-tinted glasses ripped off.

Flip carefully pulls his hand away from your pulsing cunt, sucks your come off of his fingers until they’re clean. He reaches for something, anything, to cover you with, to cover himself with.  

“Cop.” Flip says quietly, and you want to panic but he shakes his head, “Don’t, it’s okay, follow my lead.”

You are suddenly very very aware, of what you both look like. Flip with his torn up fists, you with the split lip and wound on your temple. You’ve both finally stopped bleeding, but you know – you just know – that this officer is going to question you on it, normal people don’t go driving around in the rain with head wounds and split knuckles.

Fuck, you think, you haven’t even cleaned the car yet, there’s bound to be blood in the trunk from where the body had been stashed, what if the officer decided to search the car? There were no weapons in the car, but there didn’t need to be. Your stomach does little flutters of panic as the impending anxiety drips cold down your spine, and just hide yourself behind Flip’s denim jacket, cover up as much as you can, cover your face.

Flip rolls down the window, and a flashlight peers inside the car for a few moments, before you hear a resigned sigh.

“Alright you kids, come on, break it up.” The cop says, tapping his flashlight on the roof of the car. “The middle of the road isn’t the place for this kind of shit, let’s go.”

“Our car is stuck, we’ve been waiting for someone to drive past to ask for help. Could you help give us a push?” Flip asks, and the officer looks at him like he’s crazy.

“No.” The man scoffs, before sighing again, realizing that he can’t just leave the two of you out here. “But I’ll call someone. Then off you go, okay? It’s late.”

“Thank you.” Flip says, and then, like some miracle, the cop goes back to his car, radios for a tow, and leaves.

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

You both are dressed by the time the tow arrives and pulls you out of the mud. Leaving the clothes in front of the heater did wonders, and though your dress is still fucking filthy and caked in mud, it’s not freezing, or soaked. You feel awful, Flip’s dad is going to be pissed when he sees the car like this, but Flip assures you that he’ll have Jimmy help deep clean the whole thing before his parents come home after the weekend.

The tow truck driver doesn’t ask any questions, doesn’t really talk to you at all. By the time he arrives, the rain has stopped, slowed enough as the storms moved across the mountains. You don’t say anything, just sit there and wait for the wheels to come free, holding your breath until the tow driver leaves too.

The radio is soft and gentle, the time on the little clock reads just past three. Flip drove all the way to your house with a hand on your knee, reassuring, comforting. You can’t help but think it feels so different from Josh’s hand, how gentle Flip’s hold is on you. You wonder if he’s trying to ground himself, or keep you calm. Maybe it’s both.

He shuts the lights off and the radio when he rounds the corner. Puts the car in park, and the two of you walk the last few yards to your house. It’s not raining anymore, not at all. That feels like a good sign, somehow.

“Will you come in?” You ask him softly, standing under the streetlamps, careful not to step on cracks in the sidewalk.

“If you want me.” Flip nods, and you smile, and he smiles, because you both know that you always will.

The climb up through the window is a little difficult because of how wet everything is from the rain, but you both manage easily. Your bedroom is warm, and you both shed your clothes in the tub of your private bathroom, knowing your parents wouldn’t ever look in there. You want to shower desperately, but doing so this late would raise suspicion, so you don’t, you’ll have to wait until morning.

But that’s alright, because for now it’s enough to be in clean clothes. Sheepishly, you offer Flip some of his own clothes, clothes that you’ve accumulated over all the time you’ve known him; jackets accidentally forgotten on your couch, sleep shirts and pajama pants he let you borrow that you never returned.

Flip doesn’t tease you for them, he only accepts them gratefully, and the two of you lay down on your bed in the dark. You face one another, so close that your noses almost touch. He’s so handsome, you think. You’ve always thought it, but up close, this close, it’s like the thought consumes your whole mind.

“We can’t ever tell anyone about this, ever. Not even when we’re old. This is something we take to the grave.” You whisper, rubbing the tip of your nose against his.

“Agreed.” He breathes, tucking some of your hair behind your ear. You lean into the touch, lean into him.

“I don’t want to think what would have happened if you didn’t show up.” You confess, and in the silence of the room, the thought of what might have been is more terrifying than anything you two had done together. Flip is quiet, but his jaw clenches as he gently touches the closed wound on your temple. You don’t know what prompts it, but suddenly you’re asking, “Do you believe in alternate universes?”

“Hm?” Flip frowns, and you shrug in the dark.

“You know, like, a different version of our world, existing in some other dimension out in space.” You explain, shuffling close to him, tucking yourself under his chin.

“I never thought about it.” He admits with a shrug of his own and you close your eyes against his throat, warming yourself with his heat as his arms wrap around you.

“Maybe there’s a world where this never happened.” You whisper, “Maybe there’s a version of us out there that never had to do this. Maybe there’s a universe where we’ve always been together.”

“We can be together now, here in this one. If you want.” Flip whispers back, and you can feel the rabbit of his pulse jump jump jumping in his chest, and you smile.

“Phil?” You ask, not opening your eyes, not moving, barely breathing, “I love you.”

“I love you too.” He responds right away, with enough feeling behind the words to make you think that maybe he’s loved you just as long as you have loved him, maybe even longer.

A grin spreads across your face as you snuggle up closer to him, impossibly close, suppressing a thrilled little bubble of laughter as he cards his fingers through your hair.

“You’re stuck with me now, you know that? Forever.” You tease with a smile in your voice – but you both know there’s some truth to it. No matter what happens, you’re bonded by this, this nightmare of an evening.

“Happy New Year, (Y/N).” Flip teases right back, kissing the top of your head, before you reach up to kiss him properly.

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

When the sun rises the next morning and you find him gone from your bedroom, tub empty of soiled clothing and the car driven away to the cleaners, you aren’t afraid, because there’s a note on your nightstand written in the most incomprehensible handwriting that could only be Flip’s, asking you on a date, and a brand new pair of heels to wear for it.

And when they ask about Josh you’ll say you don’t know, and when they launch the investigation you’ll testify lies, and when you attend his funeral you might shed a tear, but only only only if Flip’s there by your side, so you can stand behind him, and hide your smile.

You don't own me

I'm not just one of your many toys

You don't own me

Don't say I can't go with other boys

You don't own me

You don’t own me

You don’t own me.

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

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[13uswntimagines]

Badass to Mushball (Alpha!Ash x Alpha!Reader x Omega!Ali)

Request: Ash and Reader are alphas and Ali is their omega and they go out and Ali gets threatened by someone, so her mates come and save her

Author’s Note: So a couple of things my dudes. The TJ that is mentioned is TJ Dillashaw, who is an MMA fighter in the UFC’s bantamweight division. Most fighters participate in Weight cutting, where their every day (walk around) weight is much higher than the cutoffs for the division they fight in.  This means that they lose lots of weight (usually in water) days before the fight to weight-in, and then they gain it back overnight to go into the fight with a distinct advantage. I hope you enjoy this! hit me up with requests, questions or if you have questions!

Ali tucked herself closer to Ashlyn as the entered the crowded bar, nosing her pulse point in an attempt to drown out the assault of pheromones that met them the second they walked through the door. Ashly rubbed her back, trying to soothe her mate. They were always on edge when you weren’t with them. Between your anger leaking through your mating bond and the insane amount of pheromones in the club that Kelley has chosen, both women were a little jumpy. 

Ashlyn placed a kiss on her little one's forehead, before craning her neck to find the table she was sure her teammates had commandeered. She smiled and nodded when she met  Alex’s eyes, using the hand on Ali’s back to guide her towards the table. 

“Hey, Krashlyn is here!!!” Kelley cheered, leaning drunkenly into her alpha. Alex rolled her eyes at the woman, still wrapping her arm around her waist. Ali waved as Ash settled them down into the booth. 

“Where’s the big bad Alpha?” Alex asked the women and Megan snorted at the implication. Sure you were a big bad UFC fighter, but around Ali and Ash, you turned into a puppy. 

“She said that her fight press conference is running longer than she thought,” Ash murmured, running a hand up and down Ali’s back and pumping out her calming scent. Crowded bars had a habit of throwing off the omegas delicate systems. Ali wasn’t your typical omega, having dealt with some very dominant and assholey alphas on the pitch, but Ash’s alpha instincts wouldn’t let anything mess with her omega. 

“The champ still running his mouth?” Kelley smirked at the pair, remembering what happened the last time your opponent talked shit. 

“Yeah, he was saying some stuff about us before we left to meet you,” Ali shrugged. You had a bit of a reputation for being stoic before a fight, and making the people you faced pay in the cage. She did not doubt that you would make TJ eat his words when you finally got to beat his face in (as you so lovingly referred to it). He was trying (and failing) to get under your skin, and she was sure he would regret his efforts later. 

“Stuff? I wouldn’t call him talking about her taking it up the ass stuff,” Alex rolled her eyes. It was supposed to be the ultimate insult to an alpha. A way to question their dominance, and with one of your mates being an alpha it was an insult you heard rather often. You were secure in your mates and how powerful of an alpha you were. You loved Ashlyn and Ali, and that didn’t make you wear. It made you stronger. 

“And she didn’t blow up at him?” Kelley asked squinting at the pair. You had tried to explain how the mind games in the UFC worked, and she still didn’t understand. If someone called you a bitch, weren’t you supposed to defend yourself? That’s what you had used to justify almost starting a brawl with Connor Mcgregor at the weigh-ins before your last fight because of an off-handed comment. 

“She said something about saving it for the cage,” Ashlyn shrugged. You were very tactical and you knew how to best deal with each opponent you faced. Getting riled up would only egg TJ on further. At least that’s what you said when they asked you the same thing. 

“Isn’t she afraid of that making her look weak,” Megan questioned, leaning forward at the table, glad that she was a beta and that she didn’t have to deal with the pheromones and dominance battles that the two other bearings brought. 

“After what she did to the last guy who talked shit, I don’t think so,” Ali snorted, remembering your very impressive 5-second flying knee knockout. 

“But like just between us, is she as much of a badass outside the cage as she is inside?” Kelley asked, her smirk aiding when she saw the blush bloom across Ashlyn’s face. Your bedroom preference was no one else’s business but your own. 

“Kelley, you’ve met her. Several times,” Ali huffed, shoring uncomfortable in her seat. 

“Yeah, but like, I don’t follow you guys into the bedroom,” Kelley laughed, ignoring her Alpha’s warning glare. 

“I think that’s my cue to go get our drinks. Whiskey on the rocks?” Ali grumbled, standing and gesturing towards the crowded bar. 

“You know it, babe,” Ash winked, patting her omega’s butt as she left, casually scenting her so no alphas got any ideas. 

“What’s a little omega like you doing ordering a glass a wine and a whiskey straight?” The alpha’s smell met her before she saw him, and unlike her mate’s scents, there was nothing soothing or arousing about it. It didn’t hold a candle to their dominant pheromones. 

“Not interested,” She said dismissively, waving him off and turning back to the beta bartender. The oblivious alpha took a step closer to her, so his front was pressed against his back. 

“Oh come on baby omega,” He said in what she assumed was his most seductive voice, nosing her shoulder. Her inner omega growled in disapproval. The only people who had the right to call her that and touch her there were her mates. 

“Don’t call me that,” She hissed, jerking away from him. 

“Then don’t act like a whiny little bitch and I won’t. I’m trying to be sweet with ya,” The alpha growled, cupping the back of her neck. She tensed at the contact, his finger grazing your mating bite that adorned her neck. 

“I already told you, I’m not interested,” She spat, turning away from the man, and standing to face him. She tilted her head to the side slightly, making her two mating marks even more visible. Though she was sure he had already smelt her mates all over her. The alpha’s features darkened and he took a dangerous step towards her. 

“Listen here,” He growled low, and not nearly as dangerous and dominant as she knew a growl could be. 

“Whoa there, I think you need to take your hand off my mate,” Ali relaxed at Ash’s calming voice. Her scent wrapped around her like a blanket. She stepped backward into Ashlyn’s arms. The other alpha rolled his eyes. 

“You wanna try and play that card? I’m not fucking falling for it. Find your own hookup,” He glared at Ashlyn, stepping forward and grabbing Ali’s wrist and releasing a puff of dominant pheromones. Pheromones that were weakly demanding their submission. 

“I don’t need to find a hookup, take your hand off my mate,” Ashlyn rumbled, releasing her own very dominant scent. A sick smirk stretched across the alpha’s face, enjoying the reaction he could elicit. 

“Well if that’s the way you wanna play it, I could make you both very happy. Show you what a real alpha is like,” His voice turned cocky again, winking at the women, not noticing the presence making her way behind him. 

“Mm, no thanks,” Ashlyn scrunched her face up in disgust, pulling Ali behind her. 

“Now, with a little firm guidance I think you two will be perfect,” The other alpha smirked, looking Ali and Ashlyn over. He took a step forward placing a hand on Ashlyn’s shoulder and releasing a sickening puff of his weak scent. 

A loud growl sounded from behind the alpha, a dominant wave of angry pheromones wrapping around them. 

“I believe the ladies said no, and I suggest you remove your hand before you lose it,” You hissed, stepping up behind the man and clamping your hand on his shoulder. A low and dangerous rumble starting in your chest. You were not in the mood to play. You could fear the frustration leaking though your bond, and your alpha was pissed. Demanding that you show this asshole that he was way off base. 

You were already in a bad mood because you had to deal with a jackass champion. Walking up to this scene had just been the crap icing on top of the shit cake. Your fists clenched as you tried to control your inner alpha, who demanded you destroy this man. 

“Who the fuck are you?” He asked whipping around to face your towering form. 

“That real alpha you mentioned,” you snarled, your lip curling. You knew your mates could handle themselves, but your alpha couldn't and wouldn’t tolerate some asshat touching her mate. 

The alpha pressed out his own scent, calling for your submission, and you laughed at his attempt. 

“Get your pathetic ass out of here,” You growled, stepping toe to toe with the man, a vicious smirk making its way across your features. 

Your body reacted before your brain registered what was happening, the fighter in you taking over this interaction and shoving your very angry alpha back into its cage in your brain. You blocked his very sloppy punch, twisting his arm behind his back, and pulling him close to your chest. He yelped in pain as you made the arm lock as tight as you could without ripping his shoulder out of socket. 

“I’m gonna give you a chance here because you’re probably drunk out of your mind. Walk out of here or find out what happens,” You growled lowly into his ear, smirking when his head tilted to the side in submission. No sober person would think it was a good idea to fuck with a well-known fighter. 

“Get the fuck outta here,” You barked, shoving him towards the door, cockiness oozing off of you as the crowd parted for him to leave, your signature half-smile plastered squarely on your face as you watched him go. 

You jumped as a soft hand was placed on your shoulder, and two arms wrapped carefully around your waist. The soothing scent of your mates cut through the cloud of angry alpha pheromones that surrounded you, making your inner beast purr. You took a deep breath, shaking your head and pulling you out of the mentality you took on when you were in the cage. 

“You alright my darlings?” You asked softly, turning in Ali’s arms and burying your face in her neck, Ash’s hands on your back further bringing you down from what you all dubbed the ‘fight high,’. 

“Real alpha?” Ali laughed into your ear, bringing a hand up to scratch your scalp, sharing a smirk with Ash when you began to literally purr. It always made them feel good when you melted in their arms. When you stopped being the big badass protector and allowed yourself to be protected. 

“I thought it sounded good,” You huffed into her neck, placing a sweet kiss on your mating mark on her neck and leaning back to look her in the eyes. You shot her a crooked smile before leaning down to place a sweet kiss on her lips, 

“Mm it did,” She moaned into your mouth, and your alpha perked up. 

“Hey, what about me! I protected Ali too!” Ash whined from beside you, and you grinned, placing a sweet kiss on the alphas lips, literally kissing away her pout. 

“How was the press conference?” Ashlyn asked, rubbing her nose on your neck, just over your mating mark. A shiver ran down your spine. 

“Horrible, TJ doesn’t know when to shut his mouth,” You grumbled, allowing Ali to lead you back to the table where Alex, Kelley, Megan, and Sue we’re sitting. 

“You’ll show him,” She said with confidence, nudging your shoulder.

“And I’m grumpy cause I’m cutting weight and this place had wings,” You whined, pulling Ali to a stop and pouting at her. The weigh-ins were in 3 days and that meant you really couldn’t cheat. It sucked. She rolled her eyes and placed a peck on your lips. 

“Come on big bad alpha, let’s get you some celery,” Ali laughed, and you smiled against her lips. 

“I’ll get the wings and let you smell them,” Ashlyn giggled, placing both hands on your shoulders and trying to rub the tension out of them. 

“Do that and you’re on the couch,” Ali mumbled seriously, shooting the other alpha a pointed look. Kelley’s cackle brought you all out of your thoughts. You glanced over at her and sent her a small wave, shrinking slightly behind Ali’s 

“It’s hilarious how you go from badass fighter to mushball I’m like 2 seconds,” Kelley said jubilantly, pointing and laughing. She winced when Alex slapped the back of her head. 

“Only for them,” you murmured, sliding into the booth. It was the truth and you weren’t ashamed of it. You were only soft for your mates, and if anyone deserved it, it was them. 

[artificialqueens]

The Crying Reflex (Rosénali) - SnowBun

A/N: Did I use this to procrastinate from working and finishing I’m Not Into Sometimes? Absolutely. But never fear, I will finish that fic (at some point.) Posted about writing this a few weeks ago and I actually got around to it, what a shock! Idea taken from Rosé posting that Denali’s IG story made her cry.

Thank you to Hollie for always being the most amazing beta. Don’t know what I’d do without you. This is for dawningofdrag and pinkgrapefruit for making me feel like this was worth putting out into the world.

Summary: Denali always makes Rosé cry.

–

Rosé isn’t sure how they become friends. She doesn’t believe in destiny or cosmic jokes. She doesn’t think that there’s a higher being out there that writes a script to the whole universe in the stars.

Being friends with her feels more like a reflex. A meeting of the eyes across the room to stimulate, react with a friendship that feels so real she can almost hold it in the palm of her hand.

Look at me the way you do and that’s it, I’m yours.

“Can we talk?”

There are 11 other drag queens and a small but very present television crew in the room, but there is nothing else in her line of sight but Denali. All she can see is the way she dabs at her eyes and the way that they’re flitting from light bulb to light bulb in an effort to look anywhere that isn’t Rosé.

“I don’t know what it is about you,” She throws out her arms with a little laugh, like she’s about to explain that this all just some ridiculously mean joke that’s unfolding before them. “But I couldn’t even look at you. There’s just something about you.”

“You don’t have to look at me. You wanna know why?”

“Why?”

“Cause you’re going to have a lot of time to look at me.”

Every word that tumbles out of her mouth is a reaction to a tear that Denali blots away with a balled-up tissue paper in her fist. She encourages, even jokes, until she sees her crack a smile that reminds her of the way the sun breaks through hotel room curtains.

She doesn’t realize she’s holding her hand before her thumb is already stroking skin.

“I need you to do it not just for you, but I need you to do it for me; because I really need you here with me.”

Rosé is many things. She is a queen with unending wit and talent. She is that person who won’t stop toeing the line between hot mess and professional, purely for fun. She is the girl that everyone in the werkroom is eyeing with cautious curiosity.

“I know I can make it to the top.”

One thing she has never been is a crier.

“I know you can too.”

Well, at least she didn’t think she was.

Glass beads form in the corners of her eyes, so unlike the bright plastic ones that Lagoona had bought bags of weeks ago. No, these are Denali’s beads. Crystals of chandeliers draping from ceilings, as clear as the fact that she’s barely holding together.

She’s about to say something, even lets the air pass through her teeth so the words can come out; but then she feels her bottom lip quiver and she buries the reflex with things she prays she can admit to later.

“You know what to do.”

–

Denali shuts her eyes. Well, the non-prosthetic ones at least. Against the stark black of her dress, the orange hue of the setting sun washes her skin a beautiful shade of orange. Her radiance only serves to remind Rosé that she hates the way she looks right now.

“You okay?”

“Just tired.”

They lean against the wall, holding hands as they bathe in the last vestiges of daylight. She hums the disco number that’s been on repeat for the past two days if only to make Denali laugh, all low and breathy. It’s these small quiet moments that make the stamp of ‘you’re safe’ more sweet than bitter.

“You were amazing out there, angel.”

“So were you.” Denali turns her head to look at her and she can’t help herself from laughing when all eight black eyes stare back at her. “Still wasn’t enough for the judges, though.”

“Oh no, baby,” Rosé tuts. “I don’t need the judges to tell me shit. I’ll let my delusion tell me how great I am.”

They look out at the lot, watch crew members bustle about as they keep their distance. It’s simple really, how one person is point A and the other is point B. So easy to model with mathematical functions that distance is proportional to safety.

Even easier to prove that distance is proportional to the loneliness that threatens to swallow her whole when she’s trapped in her hotel room.

The thought of having to return to it in a few hours feels like a punch to the gut, the type that’s so strong that tears form in her eyes. To have thoughts, hopes, fears that she can only voice to a void sends her spiralling down.

She presses the back of her head into the concrete wall so she doesn’t cry. She still has to return to the runway after all. She blinks away her tears like the exhaustion and loneliness will disappear with them.

“Rosie?”

“Yeah?”

“Ever want something so bad it hurts?”

She knows Denali is talking about the competition. She knows that she’s talking about hearing, “condrag-ulations,” instead of, “you’re safe,” the next time they step out onto the stage. She knows that she’s talking about the things that they’ve both come here to achieve.

But then she notices that she’s been drawing on the back of Denali’s hand with the pad of her thumb this whole time. She feels the weight of loneliness lift ever so slightly off her shoulders and she knows without giving it any serious thought that she has all she wants right here. At least for now.

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

“Another cocktail.”

“I hate you so much.”

“I love you too.”

She colors those words shades of orange and black, permanent marker and invisible ink just for her.

–

“You’re going to win.”

It’s hard to be sure of things when the world is falling to shit. Being sure of things is reserved for statements like, “the earth isn’t flat,” or, “my dress is definitely a warm yellow and not orange.”

But Denali sounds so sure of it. She sounds like she’s turning theories into laws, like anything else is a deviation from the reality she’s living.

Rosé is holding a cocktail in one hand and Denali’s in the other, and the only thing she can really be sure of is that she isn’t willing to let go of either right now.

“I swear to God, if you’re jinxing this for me–”

“I’m not!”

Thank you.

It’s the first thing she writes on the skin of her hand in a code only they will ever understand. There are ancient languages lost to time, but she knows that when they leave this competition, those words etched into flesh will be a relic only she can read.

“I’m going to sue you for $5000 if I don’t hear RuPaul say, ‘condrag-ulations, Rosé’ by the end of tonight.”

“Shut up.” She giggles. “I promise that you’re going to win this. There is literally no way you won’t.”

Rosé doesn’t have to think too hard to know that Denali is right. In fact, her reflex is to believe her; but if she pauses, lets the lull of laughter set in for too long, then she hears that little voice in the back of her brain, telling her over and over again that it wasn’t good enough.

You’re right.

Of course, she can’t admit it out loud, but she knows whispers of fingertips will be enough for her to understand.

“In case I do win, I’m going to have to ask you to promise me shit like that every week.”

“Mmm, no way.” She pops the plastic straw of her drink out of her mouth, leaving a ring of black staining bright pink. “I have to leave some of those promises for myself. You know, share the love.”

The room is buzzing with nervous energy from the idea of either Kandy, Tina or Symone having to lip sync, but on the couch alone with her, it feels like a bubble. All she can hear is laughter and promises bouncing off fragile walls.

“I’m proud of you, Rosie.”

Her drink is halfway to her mouth when she says it. It takes a moment for her brain to process, but her body reacts right away. The tears in her eyes don’t come from the pain of having just laughed too hard or from the exhaustion that keeps threatening to knock her out.

No, they come from the way Denali looks at her, like her color blindness takes off the green on her face so she can see all the dreams she hides underneath.

I love you.

“Thank you, angel.” She gives her hand a final squeeze before letting go.

–

It doesn’t register that the hand he’s holding isn’t Denali’s.

Most of the queens have fallen asleep, the emotions from the long day leaving them all drained of energy. There are snores and whispers filling up the empty seats of the van, but he doesn’t notice. All he knows is that something is wrong, something he can’t quite place.

The way he writes it’s okay is more than just a habit that he’s acquired over the past few weeks. It’s become a reflex, no different to breathing. The words he writes need no introduction or conclusion. It’s something he knew how to do before he learned he was doing it.

When he turns his head, he’s almost surprised to find that it’s actually Olivia, hiding half his face in the sleeve of a baggy sweatshirt so no one can hear him sniffling. One look at him and everything comes rushing back.

Denali is gone and no one can understand the words now.

He isn’t angry at him, couldn’t be even if he tried. He sees the bloodshot eyes when they pass under a streetlamp and he knows the way it feels. He knows how it feels because all he can think about is how Denali used to sit there, buzzing with the idea of making his dream come true.

“Sorry, Liv.”

Rosé isn’t sorry that he can’t let go of his hand or that he’s caught him crying. If he’s honest, he isn’t really sure what he’s sorry for. It just seems like the right words to say to tell him he’s not suffering alone.

Is this what it feels like to lose half of something that’s still whole? Things won’t fall apart now that he’s gone. He’ll still push to get to that finish line until his lungs give out and breathing turns into a sting in his chest.

But how he wishes he could get there holding his hand.

“Me too.”

Olivia lets out a shaky breath before leaning against him. Rosé is thankful that he can’t see his face. All the easier to hide the tears that threaten to pour out of him.

–

The hotel door shuts behind him, the sound reverberating all throughout his mind, soul and body until all that’s left in his brain is a single thought:

I did it.

His reflex is to belt, “The winner is Rosé!” to his hotel room. Then he looks around, sees the grand emptiness of it all, and lets the pain in his chest shock his body, a billion volts to the parts of him that even he can’t see.

The void pokes, prods, stimulates, and his body’s first response is to turn and look for Denali. He knows that the doors are locked, that telling him he’s in the top four is nothing short of impossible when he’s probably already hundreds of miles away.

What would it be like if he’d been there?

What would it be like to see him wipe off the makeup, revealing nothing but the look of purest joy and pride underneath? What would it be like to hold his hand until the end so he can learn how the words we did it feel on his skin?

What would it be like if the vision of him that still lives in his mind actually paid its three weeks long overdue rent?

What happens when he comes home? What happens when he has to tell him that he’s achieved something that they both deserved to have?

Questions, questions, and more questions. They occupy his brain and it spins the way he does across the stage. There’s a hurricane in the room, tearing everything apart, and he can’t find his way into its eye.

For the first and last time during the entire competition, he lets himself cry. It is free, messy, ugly with its heaving sobs that wrack through his whole body. It’s the type of crying that would be a meme tomorrow if it had gotten caught on the set of Drag Race.

He isn’t sure why he cries, not when his dreams are literally coming true. He’s always known that things will never be as he sees it in his head, but he never imagined that the pleasure would come with a pain he can’t even understand.

It takes a moment for the hurricane to pass. It leaves him drained of emotions he didn’t know he had, but he’s alive and it’s all he really cares about. He lifts up the covers of his bed and crawls in, hoping that he’ll forget the complex cocktail of emotions that he’s just unearthed when he wakes up the next day.

Before he falls asleep, he rehearses his script in his head.

Hey, D. You were right, I did it.

–

It’s in the last few seconds before falling asleep and in the pauses while finishing his makeup that he spends thinking of what he’ll say to him when he gets home. When he finally gets a chance, none of what he plans ever gets said.

The first thing he does when he gets home from Drag Race is to collapse onto his bed. He fills his senses with the smell of his sheets. It’s a familiar embrace that pulls him into the deepest, most comfortable sleep he’s had in months.

When he wakes up, the room is so dark that he can’t tell he’s even opened his eyes. He drinks in the idea that he can leave it behind, that there is light beyond these walls and he can touch it with his bare hands again.

Instead, he grabs his phone off the nightstand. He forgets what he’s meant to do in the first place, but his fingers are already searching for the message that Denali sent as soon as he got home to Chicago. He doesn’t realize what he’s doing until the words are jumping out of the screen at him, breaking him until he smiles.

Denali: hi rosie! Idk when you’ll be back but since you’ll probably make it to the finale, that might be a while. Ilysm and i’m already so proud of you. Call me when you get back, miss you!

Denali: PS it’s all your fault that i keep singing pretty witty fashion clown, i hate you

The picture of Denali sitting on his couch, typing out something so incredibly sweet then following it up with his own brand of ridiculous, is so vivid in his mind that he can’t stop himself from laughing. Otherwise, he might start screaming about how the feeling of the bones caging his poor heart are breaking.

“Hello?”

“Rosie!”

Nightmares start where dreams end, and this one had started the moment she’d walked off the stage, leaving her hopes at Rosé’s feet, clad in chunky Tina Burner heels. He wakes up when he hears him say his name, even if it isn’t the real thing.

“Oh my god, you just got back. Does this mean I was right?”

“Why do you sound like you were doubting me, baby?”

If he’s honest, he’d been scared of this moment. It was an unspoken contract: we’ll be there together. It felt like breaking his end of the promise, even if it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

“I knew it!” He paints the dark of the room with the joy in his voice and Rosé watches all the colors she’s ever worn on runways tint the bare walls. “I swear Rosie, I knew from the day I met you that you’d make it there.”

I thought the same about you.

He bites back the words, swallows them like a bitter pill.

“Aww, you’re so sweet, D.”

“God, I miss you so much.”

The pill gets stuck in his throat, making his eyes water. He knows he’s been missed and he knows he’s missed him too, but to hear the words burst into a flash of light that fills up the darkened corners of his room makes him remember that everything they have is more than just an intersection of a dream and a nightmare.

What they had in quiet conversations on van rides and tipsy chats in the werkroom was real, and he had come home to it, even if it’s just a phone call that will never be enough.

“I miss you too.”

–

It doesn’t hit him how lonely he’s felt for months until he isn’t alone anymore.

After his third glass of wine, he settles on the edge of Symone’s bed. He watches his sisters talk about nothing and everything all at once. He tries to cut in every once in a while with a song or a joke or his usual mixture of both, but he’s perfectly content just to see all of them together again.

Days, weeks, months have passed and not all of them are spent alone, but loneliness still mars every interaction he has. In the middle of a world that’s going forward and nowhere all at once, he can’t help but feel like he’s in the middle of the ocean with water filling his lungs.

Then he hears them all laugh and he rises to the surface with a breath of fresh air and the sun shining down on his face.

“Rosita!”

Denali whines and immediately plops down beside him, laying his head in his lap. Rosé knows that he’s drunk or at least close to it, but he’s almost certain that he’d do this to him completely sober too.

It’s been four hours since they’ve reunited after months apart, but how they are hasn’t changed. The safety that he’d thought had just been there to shield him from the impending doom in a bright pink box is still there.

He won’t admit it to anyone, least of all to himself, but as he runs his fingers through his hair, he knows that he’s missed this the most.

“I’m going to fall asleep if you keep doing that.”

“Are you a fucking cat?”

“I’m a pussy, sweetie.”

He looks around the room again and it sinks in how lucky he is to have this. In a universe that he believes is constantly on the brink of implosion, he’s found people like them to hold on to. They didn’t know it at the time, but all the sacrifices they’ve made have led them to this.

Most of all, he’s found the living embodiment of growth and joy, and he has strands of his hair slipping between his fingers. He blames the fact that he almost cries on how Denali won’t stop making feminine moaning noises, causing everyone in the room to break into laughter.

Soon, he will have to go home to empty spaces. He will return to the loneliness, but the dullness of its knife will have faded. When it comes to him in the night, making the world stop again, he will greet it with this memory of contentment.

–

There are millions of things that she’s willing to do to make it stop. He could turn the universe upside down, inside out for him. He could yell at the top of her lungs for highways and mountains to move for him. He could fly a damn plane to Chicago for him.

Nothing is too much to stop being a helpless soul, watching him cry over Facetime calls.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s stupid.”

“Your feelings will never be stupid, angel.”

Denali tries to laugh, but it doesn’t come out quite right. It is too full of tears and fears, too loaded with emotions that Rosé begs to understand. It is the saddest sound she’s ever heard and shards of glass appear where her heart used to be.

“Everyone loves me now.” He says as he wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Yeah, because your lipsync was that fucking good, diva.”

“And what happens when I disappoint them?”

Rosé takes a deep breath, lets it settle where shattered glass lies. After a long night alone, he’d once seen a video where they turn the pieces into the most beautiful new figures. He wonders if he’ll know he’s turning his heart into something new for him.

“Listen to me, Denali. You are not and will never be a disappointment to anyone.”

“What happens when I’m eliminated? What happens when people figure out that I’m not as good as they thought I was?”

They’ve only talked about it once before, while drunk in his room after a long day of promo. If the others noticed that Denali was talking to him in whispers and holding his hand too tight, they didn’t mention it.

Does he know that he cuts her fingers when he tries to pick up the pieces for him? Does he know that he believes that nothing in the world could ever be so wrong? Does he know that he loves him too much to ever think of him the way he thinks of himself?

Months ago, he’d questioned how he could ever be so sure of anything. Oh, how the tables have turned.

“Yes, you will.” He doesn’t know how he manages to keep his voice steady for him. “One bad day won’t change how much people love you. You’re a fabulous performer and an even more fabulous friend. Don’t ever doubt it for one minute, bitch.”

“But–”

“No buts here, baby. The only acceptable one is the fat ass you’re sitting on.”

It’s only when Denali laughs that he realizes he’s been crying too. How could he not when nothing in the world could be as clear? To love him is a reflex and to stop is in the realm of impossibility.

“I’m sorry I ruined your makeup, Rosie.”

“Don’t worry about it.” It’s easy to brush off, especially when it comes to him. “Maybe the people that booked Cameos are into the smudged mascara look.”

People never told him he could love someone’s laugh so much before.

–

Denali makes him realize what it means to daydream. One minute, he’s out of his own body, watching them dance in a whirlwind of giggling grace together. He spins across the dance studio and when he opens his eyes, they’re suddenly drunk off of bad cocktails in his living room, trying to do the choreography to Phenomenon.

“Wait, no!”  He almost falls over when he throws his arms over his head. “We really have to put our whole body into the wiggle. Like this.” It takes a single demonstration for Denali to crash onto the couch, burying his face into a cushion to hide his scream from Rosé’s neighbors.

“I’m just trying to be accurate here.” He says when he plops down beside him. “Utica said wiggle to the top, so I’m wiggling to the fucking top, baby.”

“You can’t make a top out of a bottom, Rosie.”

“Well, I made it to the top four, didn’t I?”

They’re both laughing so hard it hurts. It’s the type of laughing that makes their eyes tear up and their vision blur. It’s the type of laughing that makes them struggle for breath until they can’t tell if it’s them or the room that’s spinning.

The cocktail of alcohol and absurdity settles at the bottom of his stomach and he lets the laughter die. He reaches out for his hand, writes down words from memory to flesh.

Thank you.

You’re right.

I love you.

He wonders how many new words he’ll learn during his stay in New York.

Denali writes something back and it’s all Rosé could have ever hoped for. It’s not that he didn’t know it before, but having the words burned on the back of his hand is still the sweetest sensation he’s ever felt.

It happens so quickly that he doesn’t know where it starts and ends. All he knows for sure is that Denali kissed him, a peck on his lips that feels like the quick burst of a bubble.

When he wakes from this dream tomorrow, he’s not sure he’ll even remember what it felt like. All he’ll think of is the way Denali presses into his side, like none of it ever happened.

“Maybe you really are a cat.”

“Just go to sleep.”

Rosé doesn’t find trouble shutting his eyes. He doesn’t need to see him to know he won’t leave.

–

Maybe it’s the power of TV magic or maybe it’s the wall of makeup that Tina had plastered onto his face that makes it look like he isn’t holding back a gallon of tears. Instead, he looks as happy as he always does, bouncing across the runway like seeing Denali leave didn’t break his heart right in two.

The thought of having to act happy feels ridiculous now that they’re both sobbing silently over the phone. Neither of them have said anything since Ru told him to sashay away and as Untucked starts to play, they remember that they have to breathe again.

“Are you okay?”

Denali is almost uncomfortably quiet. The streaks of foundation missing from his face tell Rosé all he really needs to know but he asks anyway, if only to make sure that he doesn’t get trapped in his own head. Beautiful minds make the ugliest nightmares, after all.

“Why do you always dance like that during lipsyncs?”

He stares at him in open-mouthed shock. After the emotional ringer that they’ve both just been pulled through, all he can focus on is the fact that only his knees move when he’s dancing in the background?

“Are you fucking kidding me, Denali?”

“This episode is way too tragic.” He’s brushing it off so easily that the concern Rosé feels grows with each passing second. “My elimination, your makeup, your weird dad dancing. We have to address those things one at a time.”

“And can that first thing be your elimination?”

Denali quits rambling when he says it. They listen to the synced buzz of their TVs, watch as Rosé writes it’ll be okay on her hand. He wonders if the words are still there, wonders if he can still feel them when he needs them the most.

“I don’t know if I’m ready for it yet.”

To love him is to accept it.

Tonight won’t be the night for them to talk about it. It probably won’t even be tomorrow; but when he’s ready, Rosé will keep his end of the promise. There will be other times to love him in the ways he knows how.

“Why won’t people just leave my dad dancing alone?”

“Oh, Rosie,” he giggles and Rosé thinks it might be the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. “I think it’s adorable.”

–

Denali: have you seen the response online omg

Rosé: I told u so

Denali: what

Rosé: told u they’d love u as much as i do

[liibrii]

Ojiro Aran x Reader

Part 2 of this scribble

Genre: angsty with a happy ending 

Warnings: Inarizaki shares 1 brain cell and the manager is using it 24/7 ; some cursing

A/N: after that first part I felt really bad for breaking reader's heart so here we go. 

For the remaining days of the training camp Aran can't look you in the eyes. Somehow that hurts more than his rejection. Your heart lays in shards and pieces yet that doesn't sting nearly as much as the awkward glances and silence and the careful tip-toeing he does when you're around. You try your best to act as if nothing happened. Hiding behind laughter and smiles is so easy nobody on the team notices you're heartbroken.

It all changes once you return home. Your room is so silent when you hide under covers and hug your favourite plushy. Your throat itches and every breath hurts. It's just a stupid crush, you keep telling yourself, just a crush that will fade away. Yet in that moment it doesn't hurt any less. You burry your face in the pillow to muffle your sobs.

Before the summer break started you made plans with other third years to meet at Kita's and watch the stars. Hours before you were supposed to meet you come up with an excuse and stay home. You aren't sure you could handle Aran's presence without bursting into tears.

You shudder at the though of the coming weekly practices. If only you had put more effort in finding another manager. Quiting the club would be so simple then.  

Summer practices were the ideal time for mischief. With no homework so much time was left to freely ponder how best to rig the vending machine. At turn you saw a prank practically begging to be pulled. Watermelon dowsed in chilli oil, some salt in a water bottle, volleyball covered with slime that could easily be blamed on sweaty hands, ah the opportunities really were endless. It was the time when your talents shone the brightest.

At least they did in previous years. Now you just want to reorganize the storage and return home as soon as possible.

“Are ya feelin' okay?“ asks Kita after helping you move some very heavy boxes.

Your heart drops. Has he noticed you've barely been holding back tears? “What do you mean?“

“You've been behavin' these last weeks.“

Ah. His reasoning catches you by complete surprise. Part of you wants to laugh, part of you wants to smack him. A part of you is disappointed he hadn't noticed you really need a shoulder to cry on. “Such observational skills Shinsuke, no wonder coach picked you to be the captain.“

“Did somethin' happen between you and-“

“Nothing happened.“

He knows you're lying. The light pat on the head he gives you tells he sees the hurt you've been so thoroughly concealing. Your throat starts itching again and tears threaten to spill before you bite your lip, too stubborn to let them fall.

You take a moment to compose yourself before returning to the gym, glad Aran is nowhere to be seen. Some of your boys are gathered by the bench and you hear the twins arguing. At first you don't care, after all it's a normal occurence. Your curiousity is only sparked once you hear the mention of your name.

“What are they fighting about this time?“ you ask Omimi when you come closer.

Immediate silence falls on the group as they all look at you. Great, what did you do this time?

Atsumu grabs the letter laying on the bench and hands it to you. Your heart drops. You don't have to read it to know what it is.

Your name on the envelope is written so big it's impossible to overlook and it's sealed with a glittery heart sticker.

“Open it, open it,“ urges the blonde and Osamu immediately berates him to leave you be.

You wonder who it could be from. Or maybe you don't want to know. It doesn't fill you with any kind of giddines or anticipation, just with slight nausea accompanied by shaking hands.

You hear a fight erupt behind you.

“Senpai, should we stop them?“ Ginjima points at twins rolling on the ground. You shrug, not really caring what they are up to.

“They could get hurt,“ says Omimi.

“Don't worry Omiren they have no brain so there won't be any permanent damage.“

You stuff the letter in the pocket of your jacket. The tears you've been trying so hard to hold back start running down your cheek and you hurry away before boys could notice.

The letter lies unopened on your bed. You've been contemplating throwing it away on the way home but decided against it. It would be too harsh, throwing someone's feelings away without even considering them. You remove the glittery heart sticker and read the paper inside.

Dear y/n,

you're truly amazin'. Everytime I see ya my day becomes better-

You stop reading. Not because you wouldn't care, but because you recognize the handwriting.

The plan was genius. Bulletproof. Absolutely fantastic without any loopholes and no way of anything possibly going wrong in any way.

All Twins needed to do is make Aran believe someone else is competing for your heart. Stoke his jealousy till it becomes stronger than his utter embarassement over having completely misunderstood your confession.

Only they had no idea you knew the handwriting of everyone on the team in case you ever needed to forge their signature.

Moments after reading the love letter you decide to talk to Osamu the coming day. What point would there be in playing with him? You weren't looking forward to the conversation in the slightest still, better let him down gently as soon as possible.

You try to get him outside after practice ends but his brother doesn't seem pleased only one of them is having your attentin. You grab Osamu's arm, ready to drag him away. “Sorry but we gotta speak in private.“

He doesn't even flinch under your tries to move him. “'Bout what?“

You don't want to do it, but if he refuses to move you had no other choice. You pull out the love letter and watch as all the colour drains from his face. “This.“

“Why would 'Samu know anythin' bout that?“ interferes Atsumu waving frantically and as if that didn't already raise your suspicions he continues to blabber on and on till Osamu stops him.

“Stop Tsumu. We've been found out.“

After they explain their genious plan you need a moment to grasp what is happening. “Okay. Let me get this straight. You thought making Aran jealous would make him confess?“ They nod. “Right. How does me thinking Osamu's got a crush on me help?“

“Yer weren't supposed to know who wrote the letter,“ mummbles Osamu.

“Samu sweetie, you have the most memorable handwriting I've ever seen. By that I mean unreadable. And you used the wrong kanji here, by the way.“

God, when did your boys become such idiots?

“We're sorry.“

If you weren't feeling so many emotions at once you'd find their crushed faces hilarious. Instead you sigh. You're exhausted. And in a need of ice-cream, preferably with some cookies on the side. “Right. Let's never mention this again.“

“Then Aran-san and ya-“

“Aran doesn't like me, alright? It's fine, I'll get over it. Now get your asses back to practice!“

“I never said I didn't like you,“ says a familiar voice from behind your back.

The faces twins make while backing away to leave you alone with Aran make you wish you'd disappear into thin air. It takes all the strength you have to turn. It's the first time in your life you aren't happy to see him. You stand in silence, avoiding his gaze and condidering running away. Aran speaks up before you can act.

“Sorry for avoidin' ya. I've been meanin' to talk with ya but couldn't think of what to say.“ He fidgetes with a rose in his hands. “I'm sorry.“

“Why?“ you weakly ask, unsure if you want to hear the answer.

“When you... confessed. I thought it was a prank. And I never let you explain cause I got scared. I like ya, y/n. But I could never tell if you were messin' around with yer flirtin' or I was just readin' too much into it.“

“Why would I mess around?“

“Well... I never thought you'd actually be interested in me... I mean yer so amazin' ya know. It's no wonder ya have secret admireres. Ya keep track of everythin' the team needs, yer always cheerin' me up when I need it the most.“ His shoulders slump as he utters his next words. “I never believed ya could be in love with someone as borin' as me. I just want ya to know I do like you. More as a friend. Though ya deserve someone better.“

Aran is confessing to you. He is proclaiming his love for you, holding a rose, looking like the prince charming straight out of your dreams. And yet your annoyance grows with every word that comes out of his mouth.

“Excuse me?“ you interrupt. “What the hell do you mean I deserve someone better?“

Your words take him aback. He tries to mummble his way out of this particular pickle but you're having none of it.

“Gosh Aran you can be real impossible sometimes! First of all, how dare youeven think I would ask you out as a joke?! Is that how low of an opinion you have about me?! We're friends for fucks' sake you know me better than that! Second of all, why on earth can't you see I've been head over hills in love with you since we were first years?! And I swear, if I have to hear one more oh I'm nothin' special, I'll throw some hands, you hear me?! You are amazing! The best possible friend one could ask for, you have the patience of a saint, you're fun to be around, and so much more! What do I have to do to get this to stick in your head?! Use super-glue?! I don't want anyone else! I want you.“

Aran looks completely shocked as tears form in his eyes.

Oh no. Now you've done it.

“Please don't cry cause then I'l cry and this will get even more embarassing.“

He chuckles. “Sorry y/n.“ He takes your hand in his. “I really, really want to be your boyfriend.“

You're the one trying not to sob now. Ah, how the tables have turned, you think and nod. You can hear cheering somewhere in the distance but you couldn't care less. You grab Aran’s jacket and pull him down, crashing his lips to yours. They're soft and warm and you don't want to part from him, ever. He hugs you and you're glad he's holding you so close because right now you couldn't stand on your own. When you part he presses a kiss to your nose and then forehead.

“I love you,“ he whispers.

[vinylhazza]

Okay but like think about how cute it would be if you have a crush on Grayson and the whole group knew about it and Ricky is your wingman🥺🥺🥺🥺 I cantttt

oh absolutely he’s always trying to get you to admit it like

“just go on and tell him already i’m sure he feels the same way, i see the way he looks at you.”

and for a minute you’re all suprised because he looks at you? like looks at you looks at you? in the same way you look at him? no. no way grayson feels the same way you feel. which is maddening and makes you want to bang your head against the wall most of the time.

he’s just so charming. dashing really. he’s always smiling and it’s always so genuine, like he really appreciates your jokes or your observations or just your simple presence. it’s nice to be around someone to positive for a change. ethan is always trying to out you to his younger twin, winking when something suggestive comes up in conversation because he knows you’ve said things dirtier than satan could think up to ricky in texts.

ethan doesn’t like secrets so when ricky started hiding your text messages - ethan wasn’t having one bit of it - stealing his phone and almost falling over himself at the topic of discussion - you fantizing about “fucking the life” out of his brother. honestly it made him laugh more than anything, knowing already that you had feelings for him - maybe not those feelings. he was thinking more along the lines of sweet and innocent crush, but it’s clearly more than that.

it wasn’t just your fantasies you talk about with ricky either. it’s how maddening it is to be around him and not have him all to yourself. how bad you want to tell him that you don’t want to wake up and not have him there like he is on the days you stay the night and find yourself in his bed at some point - feigning that you’re scared of the dark. no. you’re scared of not being with him.

he makes you feel so safe and secure. you even caught him rubbing the spot right by your temple when he thought you were asleep, stroking back the fly away hairs that decided the stick up during your slumber. he’d been having trouble sleeping and when he saw you looking so peaceful...he just couldn’t help but take in the moment and tenderly caress you when he knew he wouldn’t be caught red handed. but you’d been awake.

you felt his pulse quicken through his wrist, his hand on your skin, touching you so soft...it seemed so innocent back then. just a caring touch of a bestfriend that loved showing affection. but was that all it was? was his quickened breathing all because of the storm that has been raging outside? or were his actions speaking words he couldn’t form aloud? your brain was on overload now that ricky had said he “looks” at you.

and when the time finally comes that you’re sick and tired of their relentless nagging? you’re building your own nerve up, because you WILL tell him even if he doesn’t feel the same. you have to give yourself a fair shot and not back down from the fear of rejection. you knew that even if he didn’t feel the same he’s not the type of guy to treat you any different. if he doesn’t want you as a lover, he’d always love you as a friend.

once you tell ricky of your plan to tell him one night out in the pool, maybe just go for it when you finally get the nerve, he’s screeching through the house “FINALLY I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING” and when you give him a pointed look he covers his mouth with a goofy grin ,whispering, “my best friends are going to date this is so cute.”

“not yet ricky,” you remind him softly, blushing from how happy he is for you and how freaking scared you were to do this.

ethan found out later in the day, making sure you picked out your “best” swimsuit and hyping you up until you physically wanted to die from all the attention. you had to tell him to shutup a few times just to have a moment of silence. you know he means well and just wants the people he loves to be happy so you don’t get too mad at him when he tells you to throw on a little mascara to make your eyes “pop”. waterproof of course. never thought you’d hear ethan dolan say that in your lifetime but life surprises you everyday.

it’s nerve-racking to be standing in the mirror in graysons bathroom, doing a once over on yourself to make sure that the swimsuit is fitting but not slutty, because well, you weren’t. but you still wanted to catch graysons attention, and the red bikini that leaves some to the imagination should do just fine. your would be ruined by the water anyhow so there wasn’t much point in putting effort into it.

Jesus you were fucking nervous. you could see him out back through the many windows of the house, splashing around in the pool, floating on his stomach for a moment, and hanging off the edge to get a drink of water when he got a bit too parched. he’s gulping down quite a bit right now actually, eyes closed, lips puckered while he drinks his ice cold water, kicking his legs in the water.

you can’t waste anymore time. by the time you get to the backdoor, ethan is laughing and ricky is trying to hold in his squeal by the looks of it - his hand hens tightly against his mouth, eyes crinkled at the sides, nose scrunched up. he just can’t contain his excitement that you’re doing something to bold when he knows normal you would never think of doing something this out of the box.

you slip out before they can throw anymore teasing compliments and well wishes at you, sliding the glass door closed behind you with a satisfying click.

it’s hot out here. and not just because of the sun blazing down on the greenery and cement of the twins backyard, but because he’s out here. he’s fucking hot. you’ve said it a thousand times but you have never found anyone as attractive as your own bestfriend and that should mean something because you’ve seen your fair share of attractive men. but none like him. chiseled but not too buff that he looks like he’s drowning in his own biceps, smile that takes over his own face when he’s truly happy, hair that’s usually flowing and floofy, now slicked back and wet, legs filled with tattoos that express what means the most to him, muscular thighs you’d like to...

focus.

you need to focus. you’ve been sitting there staring at him for long enough you’re surprised he hasn’t seen you and thrown relentless remarks about a staring problem at you. with love of course.

you can hear the annoying tapping of ethan on the glass, waving him off with one arm without actually having to look at his overly giddy face grinning at you. you take a few steps closer and with a large breath in and out, you’re walking over to grayson himself - who is now glancing up at you with a friendly smile and a little red to the apple of his cheeks.

“hey you.” Jesus hey you? what are you 12? fucking try again you moron.

“uh i mean hey.” much better.

he’s smiling. oh God it’s like the gates of heaven opened. why are his teeth so bright? and why is he smiling at you like you’re a nerd that decided to do something naughty for the first time? can he stop?

“hey,” is all he says, grinning but giving you a pass without a teasing remark. you appreciate it because you don’t know if you’ll be able to stand it if he teases you when you have so much to say to him right now.

“can i uh...join you?” you giggle at your own nerves, sitting down on the pavement beside the pool and dipping your feet in

“you know you can always come in the pool dork, get in.” without waiting for your response he’s splashing through the water to take your hips in his large hands, kneading at your skin before tugging at you, grinning when you let out a squeal from shock.

the water is cold considering the sun scorching down on the pavement and grass all around you, but inside the pool, the only thing seemingly warm is graysons hand still resting on your hip which dips into the strap of your swim bottoms, tugging you back to him with a childish giggle.

“that’s what you get for taking so damn long.”

jesus christ.

was this what it felt like? to accept that he’s the one you want and to be so close to having it? is this what it felt like to be this close to his...wow you’re so close to his lips...

“so listen,” you start, hand pushing lightly on his chest, the water sloshing around the both of you until his back is pressed to the wall of the pool and he’s sitting on a ledge in the corner, looking at you with...panick? curiosity? something else? he’s always so hard to read, “i uh i need to talk to you about something. just you and me.”

“mhmm,” grayson hums softly, a finger tracing a pattern on your thigh beneath the cool water, goosebumps making their appearence on your skin. if only ricky knew how fucking hard he was making this, always flirting but never really making a move, touching you like this but acting as if it meant nothing. you just hoped ricky was right - that this little - whatever it is between you - was real.

“i uh don’t really know what to say or how to say it,” you’re stumbling on your own words, tumbling out of your mouth so fast and jumbled together it almost sounds like jibberish. you’re nervous.

“you know how we’ve been friends for like a long time right? and i know you love our friendship and i really don’t want to ruin it for you. but i just can’t really keep it inside anymore but i love you so much and if you don’t feel the way i’m feeling i totally understand.” God you sound like a fifteen year old, not noticing that you’ve miraculously ending up straddling graysons lap, his bulge digging into...well...that’s new. oh my God that’s what it’s like?

he’s staring at you, really staring. with this smirk that tugs at the corner of his mouth in a delicious way, like he knows exactly what you’re trying to say, but loving the fact that you’re a blabbering mess on his lap in his pool - probably presuming it’s been inevitable.

“mmm...and how exactly do you feel?” he’s humming slow and patient, sending a surge of heat straight down to your stomach, butterflies erupting at the low tone of his voice.

“uh well like okay so i um...sort of...okay i do...uh love you. and not in a friend way, more like i want this to not really be a friendship anymore. i want you to be more than....this...i just want more...” you’re voice is much more confident than you’d imagined it would be. knowing ricky is probably watching from some window somewhere in the house, laughing to himself and screaming that you’re sitting on graysons hardening dick right now.

he’s looking at you, not a word passing from his lips. you take in the rosy flesh of his cheeks, growing redder by the second, a bright smile aimed right at you, eyes searching to see if you’re lying.

that’s all you receive before he’s reaching a hand into your hair, making a fist and pulling you down to kiss you hard. a kiss that takes your breath away. better than you ever imagined it would be. he’s moving with purpose, massaging your lips with his and delving his tongue in your mouth when you let out a small gasp.

“i love you too,” he’s telling you between kisses. God it sounds so wonderful coming from his mouth. it only makes you kiss him harder. and harder. and harder, until your grinding to your core on his length in the water, the fabric of your swim bottoms rubbing in the most astronomically erotic way - causing a shiver to erupt from your toes and up in your shoulders. he’s so big.

“why didn’t you tell me?” you’re just curious to know how long and why he hasn’t said anything before.

“you act like you’re someone that’s easily attainable,” he’s mumbling against your lips, just stopping long enough to mutter out something before he’s back to kissing you so deep you wonder if he’ll ever stop.

“mmm to you i am,” you’re humming, grinding just a bit harder. honestly anyone could be watching, but neither of you seem to care.

“you never made it obvious enough to make a move, i just didn’t want to read the signs wrong and mess this - us - up,” he explains, pulling back with his chest heaving, out of breath.

“tell ricky that, he’s been begging me to tell you for months,” you chuckle, eyes rolling in annoyance just remembering his teasing and begging. little bastard wouldn’t shut up about it.

that stops him short.

“wait ricky knew?” his eyes are bulging.

“yeah and ethan.” you nod in affirmation, scratching your nails up and down the tanned skin of his shoulder blades.

“that little shit, i’ve been telling him the same thing,” he’s doubled over now, laughing to himself, his forehead leaning against your chest, only raising his head enough to latch his lips to the skin of your neck.

“i guess we owe it to him to tell him there’s a happy ending yeah?” you suggest, giggling at the cool droplets falling from his hair and onto your wrist.

“i suppose, the poor romantic would never forgive us if we didn’t,” he agrees, nodding and securing his arms around your body, walking across the pool to the stairs, climbing out without ever letting you down.

but by the time you get though the door and walk into the living room, graysons tugging you to his bedroom, wanting you to be his secret for just a bit longer. the world could wait a few hours. and so could ricky.

[iwantitiwriteit]

Love Lockdown - Part 4

Begin Again

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader

Summary: You and Chris have your first serious conversation after being apart for the first few weeks of lockdown.

Warnings: Angst, Pandemic backdrop, Profanity, dash of Fluff, sprinkle of Sexual suggestiveness

Notes: Another In My Feelings Monday™ yesterday! Hopefully there’ll be more musings as the weeks go on, but I loved the whimsy the mindset added to me day! 🥰 This part y’all! Whew! Tried to get as much angsty good tension in there as I could muster-- I won’t rest until we’re all bawling lol Read the previous part here!

Let it be known, that for a professional writer, you were shit with words. 

Though you were a force with pen to paper, fingertips to keyboard, and a mirage of emotions… maybe some wine, when it came to verbal expression, you were more tongue-tied than a motherfu—

“What do you mean?”

Your mouth is dry as it opens and closes like a fish out of water, a lame attempt at finding the words to answer Chris’ valid question.

“Baby, please talk to me. What do you mean ‘you don’t wanna do this… with me’?”

His heart is on the fritz. His mind is everywhere and nowhere. Chris decides to focus on what he sees, what is real, like that will do him any better. Seeing the soft lines of your face tensed into sharp, anguished angles and you’re hugging yourself so tightly only makes him want to replace your arms with his. 

To Chris, you’ve never seemed to need his help, though. You seemed strong, self-sufficient, self-healing, even. He loved and admired that about you. How you didn’t need, but just wanted him around. But if he thought too hard about it, it scared him. He wanted you to want him as much as he wanted you. He’s never really been sure of how much you wanted him. You also seemed to struggle with saying how you felt. The one thing he was probably too good at. The one thing he could help you with. 

But he’s the one who’s got the two of you thousands of miles away from each other. Now, you’re having this make or break your relationship discussion over FaceTime. He doesn’t get to do that. He doesn’t get to jump in. Might not be the worst thing in the world, considering all his efforts of jumping to “make things right” in the past few months have landed you both in your current situation.

His options are limited now. It feels like his hands are tied behind his back, and you’ve got your finger on his chest. Will you use the slightest force to push him away forever, or open your palms and bring him closer to you?

Chris is trying his best to maintain composure, but his voice is giving him away as he asks one last time, ‘what do you mean?’.

You, too, are trying to remain composed.

You’re not entirely sure what you meant, but felt compelled to say it. You’re trying to be vulnerable and let your heart speak for once, so aware of the discomfort in your chest that your arms are crossed tightly over it. You weren’t one to let your heart move on it’s on volition, finding it smarter and more self-preserving to let your brain take the wheel. Your aversion mostly coming from what it makes you look like. Take your state at this moment: lip quivering, throat constricting, eyes burning, and rimming with tears. On the verge of being a mess.

You always hated when people cried in uncomfortable situations. “It’s a cheap shot,” you’d say, feeling like it wasn’t fair to make the other person feel bad. You refuse to cry. Instead, you screw your eyes shut, and take a few deep breaths. There’s an intense white noise in your head keeping you from thinking straight. Maybe taking a moment will give you some clarity.

After a few seconds, your senses come back to the room. You hear the rustling of wind outside the window in front of you, the hum of the A/C, and Chris shuffling on his end of this caustic call. You can’t bring yourself to open your eyes just yet, but you found your bearings enough to speak.

“Ok…” Your eyes finally meet Chris’ eyes through the camera. He’s poorly holding back his pain in those ocean blue eyes of his. You consider backtracking, engaging your filter. You could ease his mind like always, telling him “never mind” or “it’s nothing”. You could just let him speak like always. He’s always been better with his words. You loved and admired that about him.

He always seems to know how to poetically and intellectually verbalize exactly how he feels, be it about a movie he’d seen, a tweet he read, a song he heard, a woman he loved. A woman he probably was tired of her tongue-tied bullshit. Not that you weren’t a little exhausted from his B.S. You could just let him break up with you, say “ok”, and go your separate ways. A nice, clean break. The hell it would be. You’d be wrecked, you just know it.

But your sister’s words from a moment ago ring in your head:

It’s good to feel. It’s okay to show it sometimes, too. Especially with the ones who showed and proved they won’t judge you for it.

Chris has never judged you. Maybe it’ll be ok to lose composure just a little, halt your filter for just a second or two.

“Chris, I don’t wanna do this with you— this acting like strangers, acting like nothing’s wrong. This hurting each other, but still holding on to each other? I don’t wanna do that to you. I don’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry that I hurt you. That I let contempt build up until I explode instead of just talking to you about what I was feeling. I understand if—“ you take a breath to keep calm and keep your emotive stride, “I know what you wanted to talk about, and I understand.”

“What do you think I wanna talk about?”

“I—” your filter kicks back in as you hold back your thoughts. Despite your front, you hadn’t fully come terms with it. Saying it would make it real, and you weren’t ready for that.

“You thought what?” His tone was slightly accusatory, causing you to cover your face with your hands, engulfing you in embarrassment over your doubts as you realize that ending your relationship was not what Chris wanted to do. You let out a baited breath, as you drop your hands. You had nothing to say, casting your eyes down to your twirling thumbs in your lap.

Chris’ eyes grow ever so slightly wider as his jaw relaxes and lips form into the slightest frown. “I would… I would never…” he stutters out. Chris goes to bring his hand down his face, a subconscious tick for when he’s exasperated, but stops short with the thought in his mind of germs and viruses and fucking Corona. He’s settled on a sigh, it all settling in the difficulty of everything in life at the moment. It’s exhausting.

You’re hurting. He’s hurting. It feels like a never ending cycle. But he’s determined to break the cycle. 

“Do you remember what I said that night in my kitchen? Back in December?” All you could respond with was a nod, your eyes still fixated on your lap. December’s events still left a little bit of a bad taste in your mouth, but with each passing day you were sure you were getting over it. “Well, I fucking meant it.” Slowly, you raise your head to your screen. Chris looks like a wounded puppy that’s still game to play.

“And I should be the one apologizing. Obviously I haven't been doing the best job of living up to my words from that night. I’m sorry.” Then you couldn’t help it. But what would one tear hurt? Chris clocked the tiny droplet streaking your glowing cheeks. His soft smile at it was so small and so brief before he continued. “I never meant to hurt you with my ignorance. But I did, and I’m doing the work and the reading to be better. What happened when you were here should’ve never happened, but I made it worse by not listening to you, really listening to you, and—“

“My love,” your voice stops Chris mid-ramble. That pet name. He hasn’t heard it from you in a long time. Too long, in fact. Hearing it now almost makes his heart burst. “You’ve got to stop beating yourselves up about it.”

“But aren’t you mad?” He was projecting. 

“Mad about what happened? Yeah, kinda. Mad at you? No… not anymore. I stopped being mad as soon as you did listen to me, really listen to me,” you echo his words. A small smile graces your lips, and you’re able to coax one onto his. For a moment it’s sweet. You then notice his smile disappear as the gears in his head start to overwork again.

“But then I did it again! With the shitty shit with my shitty friends. I’m sorry for my shitty friends.”

“I feel sorry for them too,” you joke with a tentative smirk.

Chris laughs, appreciating that you’re able to find humor in any moment. His chest feels a little lighter now. He thinks back to your earlier statement. “I agree; I don’t wanna do this. Cos it just feels like I’ll lose you, and I don’t want that. I want you. For as long as you’ll have me. Can you forgive me for all the stupid shit I’ve done in past few months?”

“As long as you can pardon my behavior as well.”

“Of course. I love you.”

“I love you,” you stress to him.

Chris places his arms on the table, leaning into the camera, his gorgeous face taking up more of your screen. He’s got a sort of glossed over look in his eyes as he says matter-of-fact-ly, “I wish I could kiss you right now.” There’s no suggestiveness, just a statement of a very pure desire. Yet, your face heats up at his words. You take a quick glance down and bite your bottom lip to hide your smile. 

“It’s too bad you can’t.”

“I know, I know. That’s my own fault.”

“Not gonna fight you on that.” you lightheartedly say. At least you meant it that way. Although he should’ve expected it and is usually a good sport with digs, it still… stings. He grimaces and you know that it’s just too soon.

“But maybe…” your low, sultry tone brings his attention back to you, “you could…” you purr slowly and suggestively as you lean into your computer while pouting your lip.

Chris raises his brows as his jaw slacks. “Yeah…?” 

Your mischievous smile is met with his eager one. “KISS ME THROUGH THE PHONE?!” You belt out the familiar melody, shocking Chris to point that he jumps a little in his seat. You’re in stitches, clutching your chest. You hadn’t laughed this hard in a while. You get a good belly laugh out of Chris as well, his head tilted back, the glorious sound filling your ears as the sight of all 32 of his teeth please your eyes. His spirits are instantly lifted. You love that you can make him laugh like that, it satisfies a part of your soul you were unaware of.

The two of you come down some from your laughing fit. “Cute… real cute,” sarcasm never more evident in Chris’ voice.

“Hahaha you thought you were gonna get a show! Nope, buddy… not this time.”

There’s a quick quirk of his brows at the possibility of him getting to see you in all of your hot, sexy, naked glory. His mind gets lost in the last time he had you like that: your back arched, your nails dug into his back, your legs—

“Ahem! Eyes up here dude!”

“Oh my g— I’m—“

“You’re forgiven, you’re only human,” you smile at him coyly.

Silence settles around you, as you steal glances and smiles at one another through your screens. The air is free of pleas and sighs and stupidity and jokes. Hopefulness moves in for the first time in weeks, evicting the uneasiness that had made a home out of the deepening space between you two. You just watched each other, adoringly and longingly, watching your love for each other begin again.

Part 5

[angstyaches]

Alone (Hitori de)

So I feel like I’ve been teasing this OC’s introduction for... a long time?! So finally, here’s your invitation to Ryan Aldridge’s 200th birthday party! 

CW: nausea, emeto, loneliness, jetlag, character overwhelmed by language

He was swaying a little – hopefully not noticeably – as he passed countless faces. Countless strangers who, no matter their differences, were all dressed in black and white attire; monochromatic dresses and stiff-looking suits were the order of the evening. All blending in, all the same.

However, most other people at the party weren’t hiding sweat patches under their suit jackets, or struggling to stand upright because of stomach cramps and dizzy spells.

Conversations blew past, the onslaught of the known, yet vaguely unfamiliar, language making everything worse. His hands were shaking, and the loneliness felt like an alien thing attached to his stomach lining, niggling away with the possibility that he wouldn’t find who he was looking for.

He lingered by the refreshments table, resigning to just grabbing a cup of water. There was a selection of food – as well as goblets of blood and various entrails for the strictly carnivorous guests – on display in giant, elaborate glass bowls, anyone’s for the taking. He averted his eyes from all of this; the thought of putting anything in his stomach right then made him want to retch, despite the fact that his last meal had been on a plane ten hours ago.

It could have been the three plane rides that were making him feel so horrible, or maybe it was the fact that his eating and sleeping schedule had been shaken around relentlessly over the past three days. Or was it two days? He couldn’t even get it straight in his head.

The cold water settled in his belly for all of a couple of seconds before he felt it gush back towards his throat. He hiccupped deeply, pressing a hand to his mouth just in case anything had made it all the way up. He glanced around, noting that none of the nearby guests had turned to look at him.

Feet swirled in and out of his vision as he stared at the floor and shuffled away from the table. Arms brushed against his and made his clammy skin crawl. His agoraphobia didn’t usually affect him as badly as his claustrophobia, but right now it felt like the two were ganging up on him.

He needed to get out of there.

He weaved through to the other end of the hall, mumbling “sumimasen, excuse me, I’m sorryyyy” all the while. He began to feel off-balance, like he’d accidentally put his tight dress shoes on the wrong feet. He somehow made it out of the function room and through the foyer, stumbling out into the night.

At the top of the glossy marble staircase that overlooked the mansion’s car park, he loosened his tie and undid his top button. His shirt felt soaked with sweat under his jacket, his hair curled and sticking to the back of his neck. Now that he was away from the party, he could hear his own stomach groaning in discomfort.

He sat down at the side of the top stair, leaning his head against a cool marble column. He was tempted to close his eyes for a bit, but he was afraid his jetlagged brain would put him straight to sleep if he did. He couldn’t imagine any of the Elder and elitists would be too pleased to find an unconscious Japanese boy slumped at the top of the stairs of this very fancy mansion. He could just imagine the scolding phone call he would get from Yumi if she caught wind of it all.

The cold air relaxed him for a few minutes, before he heard footsteps coming up from the car park of the mansion, as well as low voices speaking to each other. He lowered his head a little further, curling an arm around the side of his face to hide from whoever was coming, waiting with the other hand pressed into his gut for his moment of solitude to be restored.

Not that he wanted to be alone, exactly.

“- hear what she said?”

“I heard her, boo, but I still don’t think she meant it the way you’re taking it.”

“Yeah, well, I think you give them too much slack, honestly.”

He lifted his head to see the two figures who had just walked past him towards the entrance to the mansion. One of them was a tall, dark guy whose suit jacket was slung over his shoulder, revealing suspenders worn over a grey-and-white pinstripe shirt.

The other was a lot shorter, paler, and had vibrant blue-green hair. His suit jacket was nowhere to be seen, and his shirt was silky and patterned like a chessboard.

His heart grew lighter in his chest and tears sprang to his eyes. A brand-new wave of energy struck his bloodstream and his nervous system, and if he’d been in fox form at that moment, he’d have wagged his fluffy white tail.

His legs carried him back inside without much input from his thoughts, and he couldn’t stop smiling to himself. Even the pain in his belly faded to the back of his mind; even the unsteadiness left him alone. The crowd didn’t freak him out as much as he joined it this time; because in the sea of black and white attire, he could see that mint-coloured hair.

It had been a silvery shade of lilac when he had last seen it, and it was about thirty feet away, buried in the crowd.

He couldn’t wait any longer.

“Fee-kun!”

Heads shot up from drinks and conversations, but none of them were the right heads. Kazu began to giggle as more and more attention was drawn towards him, and it only made him more and more excited, more and more eager to –

“FEE-KUN!”

He looked this time, blinking in disbelief.

“Kaz?” Felix asked, eyes widening as started to push his way back through the crowd.

Kazu allowed himself a shaky smile.

“Kaz?” Felix squeaked, starting to run a bit now.

Kazu managed to brace himself in time for Felix to throw his weight towards him. He scooped the smaller boy into a hug; there was so much adrenaline in his blood that he mustered the strength to lift Felix up off the ground and spin him slightly before setting him back down.

Just like he used to.

“Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it’s really you,” Felix gushed, clinging to Kazu for dear life. Kazu was a little wary of the pressure this was putting on his stomach, but he still laughed and continued to squeeze his friend back.

He also noticed the disgruntled looks that some of the older guests were throwing their way, but if Felix didn’t care, then Kazu certainly didn’t.

“Hisashiburi, ne?”

“Hisashiburi.” Felix’s voice cracked a bit as he nodded violently, his chin knocking against Kazu’s collarbone. It certainly had been a long time. Six years, to be exact. Felix still looked like the same twenty-three year old Kazu had known back then, whereas Kazu had gone from nineteen to twenty-five in that time.

“Genki?” Felix demanded to know, his voice warm beside Kazu’s ear. Are you well? His Japanese was nowhere near the level of Kazu’s English, but Kazu appreciated the effort. The rushed little greetings were making him feel a little less overwhelmed.

“Genki,” Kazu muttered, though now that he thought about it, he felt far, far from genki, and he didn’t feel good about lying to his friend. “Ah – I – I’m tired.”

“You look it, buddy,” Felix said as he pulled back, frowning as he scanned his friend’s face. “When was your flight in? Today?”

“Ah, uh, yes,” Kazu said shakily. “For me, yesterday.”

“Right, right.” Felix turned his head, beckoning for his taller, darker companion to join them. So far, he had been hovering a few steps below, but he silently came back up, letting Felix take his hand. The rest of the party had gone about their business by now, Kazu noted.

“Elli, you remember me telling you about Kazuhito, right?”

The guy nodded quietly.

“Kaz, this is Elliott,” Felix smiled.

Kazu glanced down, gulping back a mouthful of sour spit as he saw how the two of them were holding hands. He’d never felt anything romantic towards Felix, but he’d also never had to share him with anyone; when he’d come to Japan, Felix had been alone and completely helpless until Kazuhito had offered him somewhere to stay.

Now Kazu was the one in a foreign land. Now he was the one who was alone.

He was working himself up to repeating the name Felix had given, briefly panicking that he was going to mess up the L-sound. He wondered if he should just lean into a funny mispronunciation, to try to break the ice.

“Ni-nice to mee–”

Kazu swallowed mid-speech and clamped a hand to his mouth. The crashing waves in his stomach were even more unsettled after the jumping and hugging and spinning. The excitement and relief he’d felt upon seeing Felix was already ebbing away, leaving just nausea and exhaustion. He really didn’t feel like talking, not with how horrible his body felt, and not while there were so many people around. What he wanted was a bed, preferably his futon back home, but he’d have settled for anything.

“Hey, are you okay?” Felix asked, his eyes widening again.

“Ore – kibun –  I…” Kazu mumbled into his hand, too dizzy to try to explain in English. He gently placed his other hand on his stomach for emphasis. “Onaka ga itai.”

“What, really? Your stomach hurts?” Felix glanced around, stepping closer again so he could put a hand to Kazu’s elbow.

Kazu moaned. He felt like the world was tilting on its side. He wanted to warn Felix of just how bad he felt, of the very real danger of –

Before he could make up his mind what to do or say, his body made a decision of its own, and his head shot forward with incredible force. His hand flew away and his jaw fell open, and he emptied out the scarce remains of his in-flight meal and all of the water he’d drank.

A beat of silence rang through his head after the splash.

His mouth was still hanging open wide as saliva and vomit dripped from his lips to the polished white floor. He slowly looked up to see that he’d puked all over Felix and his boyfriend, coating their shoes and the fronts of their clothes with thick white chunks and yellow liquid. The nearby guests had leaped back, shuffling about and looking at their feet and exclaiming things that Kazu couldn’t focus enough to hear.

With his stomach feeling somewhat relieved, Kazu felt his shoulders begin to tremble with a weak roll of laughter.

“Fucking hell, Felix,” the boyfriend growled, as though Kazu’s vomit was somehow Felix’s responsibility. His hands were hovering out from his body as he looked down at his destroyed shirt, his spattered suspenders.

Felix just gave a shaky smile and put his hand on Kazu’s shoulder.

“Fee-kun, gomen,” Kazu giggled, sorry, covering his mouth in response to both the laughter and the nausea that was rolling around for a second appearance. He gulped loudly, making Felix jump. “Go-gomen, ne…”

“Don’t – don’t be sorry, okay? Let’s just get you out of here. Excuse us, sorry, can we just –?”

Kazu let himself be directed back out through the doors and towards the top of those outdoor marble stairs again. His vision was fuzzy, but Kazu broke away and threw himself against a wall, doubling forward and ejected another stream of sick, this time into an elaborate flowerbed about ten feet below.

“Oh, gosh, the hydrangeas.”

Kazu tensed as he felt Felix come up beside him.

“Sorry, it’s – don’t worry, just get everything up. You poor thing,” Felix sighed, rubbing his back firmly despite the fact his dress shirt and jacket were now soaked through with sweat. With his free hand, Felix reached around and laid a cool palm against Kazu’s forehead. “I think you might have picked up a bug, maybe on one of your flights. You’re a tad hot. Atsui.”

“Atsui,” Kazu agreed, spitting away some of the sour fluid still pooling around his tongue and teeth. He lifted his head back from over the wall. He scoffed with nervous laughter as he looked at that first wave of sick again, soaking into the laces of Felix’s shoes. “Yabai. Sorry, Felix.”

“Daichi Kazuhito?”

A woman’s deep voice made Kazu turn his head. His guts felt even wobblier under her pale yellow gaze. She had frosty-white hair, almost as white as the streak that ran through Kazu’s, breaking up the silky black. He didn’t have to wonder who she was.

“Ka-Kazuhito desu,” he muttered. “Ryan-sama, hajimemashite. Tanjoubi omedetou…”

Felix cleared his throat. “He – he said it’s nice to meet you, and happy birthday –”

“Yes, thank you, Felix,” Ryan said evenly. Without any change in her expression, she began to address Kazu, in Japanese, explaining that she was good friends with Yumi, which he’d already been aware of. He had to really focus on what she was saying, not just because of her accent, but also because his belly was still churning, despite its contents now being spread out across Felix, Elliott, and the mansion’s hydrangeas. His ears pricked up at certain words, especially when he realised she was asking him a question. “Hitori de?”

Kazu nodded miserably as his fever- and jetlag-induced fear was pounded into his chest. He began to press a hand against his belly again, as the nausea began to melt into a dull, twisting ache.

“Hi-hitori de,” he said in a quiet voice. He had come here alone. One person. Just Kazuhito. He mumbled softly that Yumi sent her apologies, but work had been too hectic for her to take time off to travel.

As he spoke, he felt Felix reach up to brush his hair back from his sticky forehead. Kazu felt goosebumps breaking out all down his back and his arms.

“He can stay with us, can’t he, Ryan?” Felix asked softly. “Seeing as he’s sick. He helped me out a lot, back when – well, when I was in a much worse state than this.”

Ryan pursed her lips. “Elliott’s already headed for the car.”

A warm glow spread through Kazu’s chest as Felix linked an arm through his elbow and pulled him close. “Thank you, Ryan. So, we’ll see you at home tomorrow?”

“You will, indeed.” Ryan looked Felix up and down swiftly, eyeing the vomit stains on his pants and shirt. “Wash those trousers immediately. You can burn the shirt. It’s an insult to good taste.”

Felix laughed to himself as she stalked off, and Kazu finally eased the last of his weight up from his elbows, up from the edge of the wall. He felt his stomach gurgle, the sound traveling right up in his throat. He burped uneasily into his fist and smiled awkwardly at Felix.

“Come on,” the bright-haired boy coaxed. “Let’s get you out of here, before you puke all over these lovely steps.”

[tripleaxeldiaz]

all was golden when the day met the night

chapter 1/5

for @hearteyesforbuck (it’s for EVERYONE but definitely for eli)

read on ao3

Eddie’s bad at words. 

He can talk, of course, will happily go on for hours about how great Christopher’s latest art project is, can give a sermon about the Rangers’ chances of winning the World Series. But when it comes to discussing what’s happening in his brain, the gloomy, sticky parts that follow him around and keep him awake, he clams up. Keeps them locked in because it’s easier than exposing to anyone just how gross it all is, how dark everything is, how dark he is. He wants to talk about things, he does. Wants to make sure Chris knows that he should talk about his feelings, especially the bad ones. And he does his best to be open with him as well, but he’s the only one he seems to be able to do that with. Anyone else — his parents, Abuela, Shannon — he just...can’t. He’d rather save them the trouble.

Eddie’s bad at words, but he’s good at flowers.

He partially blames Abuela for making him spend hours with her in her garden when he was a kid. She taught him different planting methods, how to cut the flowers so they stayed alive longer, and a few basic meanings she learned from Good Housekeeping. After his first tour, they didn’t have the money for him to even try and get into med school, so he got a job at a local flower shop to help with their landscaping team. The owner, Mrs. Negrelli, saw he was better with the roses than the mulch and took him under her wing, teaching him everything she knew. When she retired shortly after Shannon left, she handed him a check with a lot of zeros and said, “It’s time to go plant your own seeds.”

So he did. The Greenhouse has been up and running for just over a year, and it may very well be the best year Eddie’s had in a long time. They’re in a small plaza just outside of LA proper, with an apartment above the shop that makes early morning deliveries much less horrible. Chris is doing great in school (“very popular and excellent in all subject areas”, according to his homeroom teacher) and he’s made some good friends with the other local business owners. It’s the peaceful, quiet life he always dreamed of having when he finally got out of the Army.

Peaceful except for—

“Morning, Diazes!”

“Dad! Buck’s here!”

Eddie pokes his head through the doorway from the back room in time to see his son crash into his friend’s legs, Buck scooping him up and throwing him over his shoulder. Chris laughs loudly, echoing through the whole shop, and starts talking animatedly about his latest drawing when Buck sets him on the counter. He listens intently, throwing a wink towards Eddie when he catches him lingering a few feet away.

As usual, Eddie has to school his face into something other than heart eyes as he watches the two chat. Buck’s in his standard uniform of ripped black jeans that hug his thighs in all the right places and a t-shirt featuring some grungy rock band he’s never heard of. He’s a stark contrast against the rows of hyacinths and magnolias currently on the wall, and Eddie feels a blush rise on his cheeks as he tries (and fails) to stop staring.

When he first met Buck, he was pretty sure he was getting robbed. When a six foot whatever stranger in all black and combat boots and covered in tattoos comes barreling into your newly opened flower shop, that’s kind of the first place your mind goes. He had 9 and 1 dialed on his phone before the stranger ran up to the counter and frantically asked, “What kind of flowers can I buy to apologize to my very intimidating adoptive mother for sideswiping her brand new car?”

Eddie figured an actual criminal would have bigger problems to worry about than his mom’s Nissan.

They formally met the next day, when Buck came to thank him for the bouquet (a small arrangement of broom for humility and common rue for regret; all the yellow tended to make people happier and more likely to forgive you for being a dumbass). He told Eddie he could come by the shop anytime for a tattoo, on the house.

He’d been in Armageddon Tattoo when he was first looking for a space, had met Maddie, the co-owner, and Chimney, their head artist. If he had known the other co-owner looked like Buck, he would have signed the lease much faster. Faster still once he saw how quickly and easily he and Chris got along.

A year on and Buck’s in the shop almost every day, either to buy a bouquet or to give Chris tips on a drawing or to complain about an annoying customer who changed their mind about a design after it was halfway done.

For all the peace that Eddie’s found, Buck is the one chaotic spot that keeps his reflexes in check. He’s a microburst, a runaway firework, an ATV rolling through a field of wildflowers. He blasts his music as he drives in in the mornings, and he opens doors so hard they almost fall off their hinges.

Eddie is painfully, unbearably in love with him.

Which is funny, really, because his whole life, Eddie has always been “the good guy” or “the good son” or “the good soldier”. He was homecoming king, set multiple records on courses in Basic, and became Staff Sergeant quicker than any of his superiors had seen in years. He was always by the book, always tried to be the best, and he usually was the best. 

Until he wasn’t. Until his brain was so full of sadness and horrors that it was a battle to get out of bed each day. Until he was missing so much of Chris’s life that he might as well not have been in his life at all.

Until he wasn’t enough.

His marriage crumbled from there. He knew any path he and Shannon tried to take to move forward would be foggy with the guilt of all he hadn’t done in the past to help their family, so when she left, he didn’t go after her. And that guilt — knowing that he could have fixed it if he tried, if he had just been better — follows him wherever he goes now. He second guesses himself with Chris all the time because he knows one wrong move will lead to whispers among the PTA moms about the single dad who isn’t doing it right. He almost withdrew his lease application for the shop four times because he was constantly worried that it wouldn’t work, that he’d invest all this money and time and effort and it wouldn’t matter. He had done things by the book for so long because that was supposed to be how he succeeded. But now the books are empty and he’s in free fall, hoping he finds a soft landing before splatting on the asphalt.

When he met Buck, the complete antithesis to doing anything “by the book”, a voice whispered in his head that’s your landing. He’s the opposite of everything Eddie knew how to be, and that was thrilling to see. Freeing. To see someone living a happy life by making their own way and not giving a shit what anyone else thought. Not to mention that he was gorgeous, a gentle soul armored in chains and ink, and so unabashedly himself that he drew everyone to him like a magnet.

So Eddie fell, hard but quietly. Because on top of all that, Buck is the best friend he’s made since moving to LA, and he’ll be damned if he screws that up for himself or for Chris.

He finally gets himself moving to the counter, pulled by that damn magnet, where Buck is now showing Chris his latest tattoo — a small skull with a string of roses weaving in and out of the eye sockets and mouth on his right bicep.

“Does it mean anything?” Chris asks, running a small finger over it, taking in the detail.

“Chim says so, went on and on about how it symbolizes life after death and blah blah blah. I just thought it looked cool.”

“Peach blossoms would have been better.” Eddie mutters absently, eyes glued to Buck’s arm and the pale skin under the ink. He blinks as his words register, meeting Buck’s eyes and internally wincing. Thankfully, Buck just looks amused, not mad. “They’re a sign of longevity and immortality in some Eastern cultures. Would’ve fit the life after death idea a little better.”

“See, this is why I need you and your flower wisdom on retainer at the shop. You’d save me a lot of time researching, and our stuff would be even cooler because it would make sense.” He leans down to stage-whisper to Chris. “Between you and me, I think roses are the only flowers Chim knows how to do anyway.” Chris giggles, and Eddie huffs out a laugh too. 

“Any real flowers today, Buck?” Eddie asks. He grabs the craft paper, already knowing the answer.

“Of course! Whatever feels right to you.”

Buck gets a bouquet for the shop about once a week, claims they’re good for inspiration and help some of the more nervous clients relax among the black leather chairs and tattoo guns. Sometimes he has very specific requests (“I just want orange. Like so much orange you could die.” or “Someone asked for tulips on their arm, can I get those in every color so I can practice?”), other times he tells Eddie to put together “whatever feels right”. At first, Eddie never put too much thought into those, just used whatever he was running low on and still looked okay together. But one day, one particularly dark day, when all Eddie was doing was feeling, he took Buck’s words to heart. It was a pretty morbid bouquet — cyprus for despair, peonies for the anger that never seemed to leave him, vervain as a plea to whoever was listening to protect him from the evils of his own mind. His internal mess must have been written all over his face too, because when he handed the flowers to Buck, he just looked at him for a while, like he could feel the sadness that Eddie had physically given him, like he knew the weight of what he was holding, even though Eddie knew he didn’t really. When he said thank you, it was more sincere than usual, laced with something like empathy that Eddie wasn’t ready to look at too closely.

Buck kept those flowers alive for three weeks, said he just couldn’t bear to let them go.

Luckily for everyone, Eddie is in a much less terrible place this week. With his son’s laughter still floating in his mind, he puts together crocuses and daisies, youthful joy and innocence, and ties them together with a dark blue ribbon, Chris’s favorite color. He wraps them in paper and hands them to Buck, who beams as he helps Chris down from the counter.

“Oh, these are beautiful. Almost as beautiful as the man who arranged them.” Eddie feels his cheeks get red and sees Buck’s smile turn smug. “How much do I owe for this masterpiece?”

“Please, you haven’t paid for anything here in months.” Eddie stopped charging while he was only using almost bad flowers, and told Buck as much. He just didn’t tell him when he started using the good stuff.

“I know, but I’m a gentleman, I always have to try. Remember that when you’re older, buddy.”

“I will.” Chris replies. “Dad, we’re gonna be late for school.”

“Okay okay, go grab your backpack.” Chris heads towards the back room as Buck heads towards the front door.

“Well, I’m off to stab people with needles for fun. See you later, boys! Bye Hen!”

Eddie whips his head around and sure enough, there’s Hen, leaning on the far side of the counter, looking far too smug for Eddie’s liking.

“When did you get here?”

“My shift started 20 minutes ago, boss. Glad I got here in time for the show.”

“The show?”

“Yeah, the show. You really should get an Oscar or something for how hard you act like you’re not head over heels for that man.”

Eddie’s jaw drops and Hen cackles. He doesn’t even have time to explain himself before Chris returns with his backpack and starts shoving Eddie towards the door.

“Don’t worry,” Hen calls as she opens the register for the day, “at least you’re cute when you blush!”

Eddie pointedly ignores Chris’s questioning look as he drives, his face and neck still blazing.

He can only hope Buck is less perceptive than Hen. If not, they’re going to have to move cities. Maybe countries. Maybe to the moon.

[silverhandy]

Verbatim

read on ao3!

Summary:  Having climbed all the way up from Heywood’s slums to Miyabi, one of the most high end casinos in Night City, Santiago "Sanny" Garcia thought himself a lucky man, right until the point when his employer, an Arasaka board member with a gambling business on the side, caught him stealing and offered an impossible ultimatum. Forced to pay off his debt or die trying, Sanny has to renew some old friendships and form some new ones to keep himself afloat.

On top of everything, when his cyberware starts malfunctioning, there’s only one person on his long contact list that he can call.

“Where’s your Trauma platinum when you need it, pendejo?”

“Kicking a man when he’s down? Never expected that from you” Sanny groaned, burying his face in a pillow. He’d give anything for the world to stop spinning, just for a second. Faced with a heavy silence, he cracked one eye open to see Maria’s disgruntled expression on the holo. “It got revoked, okay? I’m literally begging here.”

“You're not,” she replied, the frown still not leaving her face. Sanny could swear at least some part of her was enjoying it. “At least not yet.”

“C’mon, hermana. I’m-” before he could finish that sentence, he was cut off by another wave of nausea strong arming its way through him. He barely had the chance to haul himself over the edge of the bed to vomit into the bucket he put there, anything to avoid ruining his ridiculously expensive, silk sheets.

Sanny could practically feel Maria’s judging stare on him as she got a front row seat on her brother puking his brains out. He understood her, in a way - their last conversation wasn’t exactly a pleasant one. Maybe he went a little overboard with his bragging. Still, she was his only sibling that still kept in touch with him, all the rest a step away from declaring him a total stranger.

As he wiped his mouth, desperate to get rid of the bitter taste of bile, he entertained the thought of apologizing to her. Was that his new low? At the mercy of his older sister? Certainly not a position he thought he’d find himself in, not after he decided to say goodbye to Heywood for good. She had every right to resent him just as the rest of the family did, but despite it all, they still kept in contact. A sporadic, passive aggressive contact, but a contact nevertheless.

She let out a heavy sigh. “Fine. You’re lucky my day freed up, otherwise you’d have to call some other sorry fucker. Text me the address, I’ll be there in an hour, maybe two.”

“Two hours? You for real?”

“Don’t push your luck, Santiago.”

                                                              ***

“That ripperdoc of yours, how reliable is he?”

“He knows his stuff. Just bear in mind he doesn’t usually take on corpos.”

“Not a corpo.” Sanny mumbled, resting his forehead on the cold glass of the passenger's window.

“You sure as hell look like one” she replied, not taking her eyes off the road.

“When in Rome, do as Romans do…”

The car hit a bump, making Sanny smack his head against the glass. An explosion of pain followed as an array of angrily white stars danced in front of his vision, sprinkled with not less alarming system failure warnings. If he didn’t know better, he’d say Maria did that on purpose, but she wasn’t responsible for the state of the neighborhood's roads. Not directly, at least.

“We’re here.” Maria’s voice snapped him out of his stupor. Some time must’ve passed because when he opened his eyes they were parked on the edge of a wide, busy street, various shops, and nightclubs drawing customers in with their loud neons and whatever else they had to offer. Luckily for Sanny, they didn’t have to walk all the way through it, loud sounds and aggressively bright lights coming at him from all directions, mercilessly aggravating his headache before they turned the corner and walked through the gate leading to a small, crumpled backyard. Maria led him down another set of stairs to an unlabeled basement, one of those places you needed to know were there to find them.

“Hey Vik!'' she said as she passed the gate to the underground clinic, walking in as if she owned the place. Sanny followed behind, his usual confidence shrinking. If what Maria said was true, there was a real chance that the ripperdoc would turn him away and he doubted he had the resolve to drag himself to another one. Suddenly Fukuzawa’s offer of a bullet to the head seemed much more appealing.

When the ripperdoc turned his head towards them, a warm smile appeared on his face as his eyes landed on Maria. Tossing the screwdriver he’d been holding aside, he got up to greet her, though Sanny could tell he was eyeing him over her shoulder as well. He couldn’t blame him - he probably looked like a breathing trainwreck.

“Hey, good to see you.” the ripper said to Maria. “So you must be Sanny?” he asked, suddenly shifting his attention to the younger man, extending a muscular arm towards him. The ripper was built like a fucking truck and Mal could feel his mouth go dry, and only partially because he must be severely dehydrated at this point. Suddenly regretting that he didn’t at least take a shower before Maria came to pick him up, he took a step forward to shake the man’s hand.

“That’s me.” Sanny smiled nervously, his paled face twitching with the effort.

“Viktor Vector’s the name. Heard a lot about you.”

“Oh yeah?” Sanny could hear his voice cracking, mind racing at all the things Maria could possibly say about him while in her ripper’s chair. There were many and only a few made Sanny proud of himself.

“I’ll leave you boys to chat. Don’t want no part in this.” Maria said, a crooked smile on her face. “I’ll wait in the car. Vik, feel free to add this to my tab.”

“Sure thing, sweetheart.”

And just like that, she left him there. Great.

“Alright, let’s get you seated, don’t want you to crack your head open if you fall.” Sanny heard Viktor say. Too busy trying to keep down the few sips of water he got before leaving the apartment, he didn’t even notice how his silhouette started to sway to the side, only stopped by the ripperdoc’s strong arm on his shoulder, steadying him and gently ushering him in the direction of the chair.

Looking back, the whole thing couldn’t have happened to him at a worse time, shortly after he got dropped from the Trauma Team health plan, his regular ripper bidding him farewell with an apologetic smile, even taking a step further to wish him luck. So much for the Hippocratic oath. Sanny watched silently as Viktor kicked himself a chair and sat down to fire up the monitors, typing away at the beat up keyboard until eventually, he reached out a hand.

“Your personal link, please.”

“‘f course” Sunny mumbled, handing him the cable and watching as the doc jacked it into the port, on the first try even. Must be the practice, Sanny thought and allowed his head to rest on the headboard, the blue leather cracking slightly as Viktor started running diagnostics on his cyberware.

“That’s an impressive set you got there”

If he wasn’t feeling so damn miserable, he'd smirk. Impressive was an understatement, with his array of the state of the art cyberware, from behavioral boosters to those refining his fine motor skills to a point he was practically a magician with a deck of cards. Or a lockpick, but he was yet to get desperate enough to give that career path a try.

“My job has its perks.”

“You a croupier at Miyabi?” it seemed that Viktor was rather keen on small talk, a quality that Sanny didn’t quite share, but hesitantly welcomed.

“Figured it out from my tech or did my sister tell you?”

“Bit of both, I suppose.”

Jacked and insightful. What more could Sanny possibly want?  Then again, it wasn’t a time in his life for romantic pursuits, both this specific moment, lying sick on the ripperdoc’s chair and in a broader sense, when he had a figurative gun to his head, a literal one soon to follow if he doesn’t resolve the mess he got himself into.

“Other than dizziness, anything else bothering you?

“Uh,” Sanny turned his head to look at the other man. There were many things bothering him and most had little to do with his current physical condition. “I haven't been able to keep anything down for a few days now. Not even the damn pills for the headache. Running self diagnostics didn’t spit out anything useful either.”

Viktor’s brows furrowed as he shot the younger man a glance from behind his shades. Disapproval? Concern?

“It’s been this bad and you’re only now seeing a ripper?”

“Maria told you where I work but didn’t share why I’m visiting a back alley doctor? How considerate.”

“You guys don’t get along too well, huh?” Sanny frowned at the direction this conversation was going, but there was nothing he could do but enjoy the ride.

“It’s...an on and off thing between us.” he just mumbled, desperate to avoid Viktor’s gaze. Lucky for Sanny, the ripper’s attention seemed to be entirely on the monitors in front of him.

“Just remember, kid,” Viktor said, finally turning to look at Sanny’s face. “she cares about you a lot. Wouldn’t bring you here if she didn’t.”

Sanny just hummed in response. Deep down, he knew the ripper was right, but the whole exchange only made him even more curious about what exactly Maria had been saying about him. It couldn’t be half as bad as he thought he deserved because not only had Viktor not kicked him out of the chair, but was even nice to him. Go figure.

“Alright then,” Viktor said, unplugging the younger man’s personal link. “had to do some cleaning in your CPU, you should be up and running in a few hours. Take this before going to bed for the night,” a strip of pills was placed in his hand “and in the future, watch what you plug your personal link into. I know you guys working in high end casinos get a fancy firewall as part of the package, but it’s not foolproof.

“It sure ain’t, doc. Thanks for the advice,” Sanny smiled, motioning to get up from the chair. “and everything else.”

Whatever Viktor did, the effect was immediate; the clinic was no longer swaying and his stomach didn’t threaten to twist itself inside out every time he moved his head. He still felt like he was experiencing a crescendo of the worst hangover of his life, but it was nothing that couldn’t be managed with a shower and a fresh change of clothes. Who knows, he might even get bold and eat something, though he still wasn’t sure about that one.

“Don’t mention it, I don’t often get the chance to tinker with Miyabi tech. And if you’re open to some more pieces of advice, you should be thanking your sister, not me.”

“I’ll make sure to do just that.”

“Should you run into more trouble with software, my clinic’s always open. I’ll send you the number, so don’t hesitate to give me a call.”

Did he just…? No fucking way, Sanny thought as he walked up the stairs, leaving the clinic behind.

                                                            ***

“So...how’re the Valentinos treatin’ you?”

“Actually, I…puta madre!” she shouted, blasting her hand against the car’s horn as she slammed the brakes to make her disdain loud and clear to the driver who tried to cut her off at the intersection. A litany of insults from the would-be culprit followed, another sound in a cacophony of Heywood’s streets. Maria shook her head, dark locks of her hair shaking with the movement like a swarm of angry bees. “I left.”

“And here I was thinking the position of the family’s black sheep was already taken.”

“Don’t ever think you’re the special one just because you shuffle cards for the big guys.”

“Oh, I could never. So what do you do now?”

“Independent. It took a while, but a friend got me hooked up with some reliable fixers.”

“A “friend”? Don’t tell me that on top of everything, you got yourself a man. Or a woman?”

Maria shot him a warning glare. “It’s nothing like that. Jackie just helped me get back on my feet, introduced me to some people. I’ve been fending for myself since then.”

“And how’s that working out for you?”

“Way better than for you. The hell did you do to piss off your corporate overlords?”

“All I can say for now is that you can leave Heywood, but Heywood never leaves you. Took one too many risks and all it did was land me before the one and only Akio Fukuzawa, who apparently doesn’t take kindly to humbled employees when his eddies are missing.”

“And yet here you are, still alive.”

“What can I say? I’m a charming guy.”

They spent the rest of the car ride in silence, Maria’s eyes fixed on the road, maroon painted nails tapping on the steering wheel in the rhythm of whatever was playing on the radio while Sanny pretended to be mesmerized by whatever they were passing on their way, in reality pulling up his comms interface to scroll through all the text messages he sent to fixers before the damn virus made it impossible to see straight. Almost all of them were left on read and unanswered. Sanny presumed they were bound to remain so. He didn’t have the reputation necessary to land any of the bigger contracts and no time to build it up before Fukuzawa’s minions showed up on his doorstep.

They parked in front of his building, mere centimeters away from bumping into a lampost. Sanny choked down a sigh. There was no escaping it now.

“Thanks, hermana. I owe you one,” he uttered, motioning to get out of the car. Just as he pushed the door open, his comms chimed with a text message from an unknown number. Getting out of the car, he waved to dismiss it, thinking it must be another of those spam chains that’d been flooding his inbox from time to time, but froze halfway through when his eyes landed on the text. The contract was vague on details, but the reward was crystal clear. Sanny could almost feel his jaw dropping as he looked at the impressive number of zeros that followed the first digit. It should be enough. More than enough to pay Fukuzawa off, even if, as per the fixer’s demand, he’ll have to cut the amount in half and share with a partner. He was so dumbfounded he didn’t hear Maria’s reply, or if she replied at all, but when he turned back one last time, she was eying him from head to toe suspiciously. Then she just shook her head slightly as if shushing away a thought.

“And Sanny?” she said, rolling down her window and shooting him a glare from behind her shades. “don’t you dare fuck my ripperdoc.”