#no matter how loud we screamed the world had us on mute

[pblumpkins]

why yes, I do think that there is a reason.

inhales

TW: pedophilia murder homophobia n stuff. basically just think Jeffrey Dahmer, and if what he did is too much for you or is triggering, just scroll on past cuz he's talked about.

but if you need to skip but want the tldr: the line refers to how queer people die a lot and nobody cares lol

since the musical is set in the early 2000s this would be shortly after Dahmer. Back when Dahmer was Dahmer-ing, he utilized how queer people and people of color were seen as not worth the public's time. police wouldn't show up if they needed help.

even though Noel is Canadian, if you speak English you know of Dahmer. most likely it's referencing how during this time period, gay men and trans people would just go missing and nobody searches for them. they just vanish. people in majority queer areas would just say that they moved back home, but everyone knew that wasn't the reality. they were just trying to convince themselves that their loved one wasn't dead.

When Dahmer was caught, his sexuality became the focus. Not what he'd done to young men and boys, not how he preyed on black queer men, not how he targeted children, but his sexuality. the thing that Dahmer was so ashamed of he'd kill for it. The thing he used as a defense.

As an example. Dahmer was on trial for a pedophilic act. (iirc he molested some kid? or exposed himself, apparently he had a habit of doing that.) Knowing he'd get charged, he came out to the judge. The judge was, obviously, put on the spot. And because of that, gave him a lighter sentence for that act.

Which, yeah. That allowed him to continue his crimes without consequence.

And because his sexuality was the talk of the town, he wasn't "Jeffrey Dahmer, the man who killed, raped and ate young black and brown men and boys." he was "Jeffrey Dahmer, the cannibal queer."

And so because of that, homophobic hate crimes got so much bigger. Because what he did, in the eyes of cishet people, confirmed we were exactly what the church and politicians said we were.

Monsters.

Predators.

Coming for your children.

The thing that lurks under the bed, hides behind your closet and waits for you to fall asleep to drag you under.

They thought that they should kill anyone openly queer or who defies the norm - they believed that if they did, we wouldnt have a second Dahmer. That if they did, the new Dahmer would never get the chance to find his victims.

Of course, that never stopped queers from existing. We continued to exist and will always exist.

But that sense of, "They're the undesirables. Why should we care? They had it coming anyway." directly is the reason Noel has that line. In the timeline he lived in a world where that mentality was the only thing people had - Noel was just lucky enough to have parents who accepted his sexuality and have the choir who didn't judge him for being gay.

I'm not sure if cis lesbians got the "went missing, nobody cares" treatment as much? I've seen butch lesbians get coverage when they go missing but usually said coverage will mock them. (and sometimes they're not even lesbians they're straight transgender men)

most sources cite it as being gay men and transgender people but undoubtedly lesbians were equally targeted. especially because lesbians did so much for the queer community. Marsha P Johnson herself stated that lesbians were more kind to her than gay men ever were. (specifically she said "gay sisters" and "gay brothers" so she might've been including bi people in that)

lesbians rock!!!

Say what you want abt HS RTC, this ?? is the funniest shit ever

[bigwhispersbluebird]

Goodbyes with BTS (Maknae Line)

Warnings: Mentions of covid-19, implied smut

 Jimin

“Honey, I am home”, Jimin announced dramatically as he entered his apartment, quickly taking off his shoes and slipping into the home slippers- his heart still thumping in his ear from running all the way to you. 

He had almost screamed in frustration when the group was called for some urgent recordings for the new album that morning. He had looked at you curled up around his body, your big brown eyes staring up at him quizzically and he almost said no because you would be going back the next day and Jimin did not want to spend a single second away from you. 

From the moment you had announced that you would finally be visiting him after being apart for over 6 months, he had been on his toes making calls and plans to assure that nothing would disturb him. But you insisted that he go to work, “At least, I will be able to pack my stuff without you clinging on to my body”, you had joked and he left hurriedly so that he could be back soon. 

But as soon as he walked into the bedroom, his eyes caught sight of the suitcases neatly lined at the farthest corner of the wall, ready to be tagged and carried- Jimin suddenly felt like somebody was plucking his heart out of his chest and without uttering another word, he quietly walked towards you, standing in front of the closet and folding your shirts neatly, and engulfed you in a warm hug; his arms wrapped around your waist and his face deeply snuggled in the crook of your neck. 

Jimin inhaled the sweet scent of lavender mixed with your body musk and realized that it was home to him. Your hands gently carressed his arms as he gently placed kisses on your neck and you understood every word he couldn’t say. 

“I wish I could ask you to stay”, Jimin whispered slowly and you wished you could take away all the pain he was feeling. It was not easy to part over and over again but your studies were important for you and it was just a matter of a few years, then you both would be in the same city. Until then, this was the choice you both had made. 

Turning around, you looked him in the eye before pulling him in for a passionate kiss, growing fervent and rough with all the goodbyes between you two. 

That night, as you both lay in a tangled mess of limbs and rushed hands, you both silently promised each other to wait, no matter how long it took.

Taehyung or V

“5 am tomorrow. Be there till 3 30″.

Taehyung read the message from the notification bar and slid it across the screen, making it disappear. Then, he turned the ring on mute and pocketed his phone, he did not want to be disturbed tonight. 

Standing at the door of the art gallery, for the first time, his eyes did not linger on the beautiful pieces of art that decorated the wall. Instead, he searched for a familiar figure and the same silky locks of hair that were tangled around his long slender fingers all those years ago. 

Granted, he had not seen you since the time you both met in Italy, even then surrounded by art and music- he had searched desperately for you ever since. And it seemed like fate had decided to have mercy on him when he heard about a musical art exhibition at Prague and remembered the way you had laid your head on his chest, your hair spilling on his bare body, and talked about that particular idea being your dream. 

You stood in front of a massive painting in the far end of the room, still as awestruck by the strokes and colors on the canvas as you were the first time a boy with a boxy smile had watched you unwrap it. You remember holding onto this giant board of colors through years of remote silence and wondering if it was just a mirage or the boy that had left without a goodbye had once promised that he would come back. 

“Is this one for sale?”, a voice broke you out of your reverie and if it wasn’t for the fact that you had watched him on social media like an addict, you would have forced your brain to consider it all a cause of sleepless nights and alcohol in your system. But it was him, it was Kim Taehyung and suddenly you were 22 again with small dreams and a boy you were irrecoverably in love with. 

Without even glancing at his way again you replied as calmly as you could muster, “No. You cannot make a home out of this one”. 

Taehyung almost flinched at your words but he reminded himself that he deserved it. 

“Home only demands love”, he spoke only audible enough for your ears. 

“It demands the presence of that love at least, not the promise of one. Not words or music or stupid paintings, Mr. Kim Taehyung”, you had now turned towards him, your eyes boring into his and even though your angry eyes met his remorseful ones, the only thing you both could recognize in them was the love that had been there all those years ago. 

“I missed you, Y/N”, he whispered as he suddenly pulled you into him. His arms holding you tight and you almost stood their motionless until a lone tear slipped down your cheeks and you returned the hug. 

“You’re too late, Tae. Too late”.

He did not reply for a while, not wanting to let the moment slip away until it had to. 

But when he had finally memorized your scent and the familiar contours of your body and how it fit in his like pieces of a puzzle, he pulled back. His hand slid down your arms until they held your slender fingers in his, his thumb gently grazing the big diamond on your ring finger, “I know”.

Jungkook

Jungkook loves being surrounded with familiarity. Familiar faces that he loves and trusts, a bowl of ramyeon in a foreign city, loud cheers from fans that had been there all along, a ticket always back home and you. Perhaps, that is a reason why he hated things that disturbed the peace he had found in his life. 

But when Covid-19 hit the world, it was like his world tilted on its axes and all that was familiar was lost. Already reeling from the shock of the tour being cancelled, Jungkook had held the phone in his hand and couldn’t help but breakdown as you told him that you had no idea when you could fly to Korea. 

You had expanded your business to Korea as well which made it easier for you to spend plenty of time with your boyfriend and you both had gotten used to the travelling if it meant being together for most part of the year. 

Jungkook was not taking it well. He would spend hours at the gym then hours dancing till he could not feel anything other than the excruciating pain in his body. He would barely talk to you, only giving one word answers and never answering video calls- his heart knowing well that it could not bear looking at you and being unable to touch you or feel you. 

However, he loved you and as days passed on and the unfamiliarity of Covid-19 became familiar, Jungkook could finally see how much he had hurt you. Even through all that, you had maintained a brave face and been normal with him in the moments he would actually talk to you. You knew Jungkook and perhaps that is why you could not blame him for acting that way. You knew that this boy is made of love and purity and it would not be long till he finds his way back to you, like he always did. 

So, when one night you prepared to go to bed, a message popped up on your phone. 

“Thank you for making me realize that we can get through anything”

And along with it was an acoustic version of a song Jungkook had recently written and was yet to be released. 

As still with you played in your empty dark apartment, Jungkook’s sweet voice bouncing off the walls and hugging you, you finally let your tears fall as you whispered the words that you both craved to hold each and say:

“I miss you”.

[twinklelilstarkey]

congratulations on 200 angel! sending a request for dad!rafe cameron where he is taking care of his little girl for the first time on his own 💕

A/N: Thank you, my love. Hope you like this.

On His Own - Dad!Rafe Cameron

Words: 3k+

Type: Fluffy

Warnings: I don’t believe there’s any swearing. Female!Reader. Mentions of college, and assignments (I really don’t want to awake anyone’s anxiety at their mention). Possible typos, I’m horrible at proofreading. Gamer!Rafe, Gamer!Kelce and Gamer!Topper.

Y/D/N (your daughter’s name)

DO NOT REPOST, REWRITE OR TRANSLATE ANY OF MY WORK!

“Babe, please don’t leave me” Rafe whines, stretching his hand your way as you stand by the doorway of the bedroom, backpack over your shoulder.

“Rafe, I can’t skip any more classes and you know that. I really need you to stay with her” You tell him, looking down at your phone in a small panic since you need to start making your way to college in 2 minutes.

“Isn’t there anyone that you could call to help me?”

“I’ve tried every single friend I have, and everyone is doing something today” You say, letting out a sigh as Rafe starts sitting up on the bed with a scowl on his face. You walk over to his side of the bed and press a kiss on to his lips when leaning over, “She’ll be asleep for at least 2 more hours, you have all the time in the world to start making breakfast and take a shower”

You try stepping away from the bed but Rafe stops you.

“But what if she wakes up before the 2 hours?” He asks, grabbing your hand before you could walk away.

“She knows where she can find you. She won’t get lost,” You say with a small teasing smile, “And all her favorite cartoons play in the morning, so you’ll be fine”

Rafe gives you a tight-lipped smile and you give him one back while giving his hand a small squeeze of reassurance.  

“Love you” You whisper yell on your way out of the bedroom and Rafe falls back on the bed.

“Love you more” He answers, voice back in his usual sleepy tone and muffled by the covers, making a smile stretch over your lips.

(…)

An hour later, Rafe brings himself up from the bed and drags his heavy feet over to the bathroom to take his morning shower. But before he went to grab his clean clothes from his wardrobe, he quickly wrapped his towel around his hips and ran over to the room down the hall, checking on his sleeping baby.

He walks back to the bedroom once somewhat relieved and starts to put on his clothes, which took less time than he expected.

Y/D/N will sleep until she hears something from the kitchen, or even, smells something, and until then, Rafe knows he’s safe to watch or do anything.

He quickly serves himself a mug of coffee before turning on his laptop, and looks over at the closed cabinets, thinking about what he could make for breakfast.

He doesn’t feel as nervous as he felt when you left the house. He knows that his daughter is way too sleepy and calm in the mornings for him to need any help, but he knows, for sure, that he will need that kind of reassurance once lunch time starts.

You had to go to class today, since you’ve been skipping a lot, and also to work on a group project with some of your classmates. And that meant leaving Rafe all alone with your 8-month-old girl that can quickly become the whiniest, clingy, and hyperactive little girl in the world.

Y/D/N can go from the giggly cute girl to a screaming and crying baby in a matter of 10 minutes and Rafe absolutely hates whenever his little girl cries.

You’re always able to make her calm down, yet Rafe always has a hard time because he never knows what to do.

Rafe pulls out Y/D/N’s breakfast (some sort of paste that he even cringed at the sight of) from the fridge and puts it down on the counter, looking for something else for himself.

Notifications from his laptop start popping up with Discord’s sound and Rafe looks over his shoulder to see the notifications coming from Topper and Kelce. They are overly excited for this morning’s talk, as well as, the whole afternoon that they’ll be spending basically gaming away on their pcs.

“Already?” Rafe questions out loud and looks back at the fridge, pulling out the leftovers from brunch of 2 days ago, “This will do”

The sound of a Discord incoming call sounds through the empty kitchen and Rafe ignores its first tones as he grabs his mug and takes a sip of his warm coffee. He lowers the volume and accepts the call.

“Whadup boys?!” Topper shouts, overly excited, making both Kelce and Rafe cringe slightly at him.

“Why this excitement?” Kelce asks before taking a bite of his avocado toast.

“Do you know for how long I’ve been waiting for all of us to be free and just play for a whole day?”

Rafe chuckles and takes his breakfast over to the table, putting it right next to the laptop.

Topper is quick to start a conversation between the boys, asking Rafe about his test from yesterday, but as well about you and your daughter, in which he got simple and quick answers about your whereabouts.

“I’m going to check on her now”

Rafe, as he said those words, gets up on his feet, taking the last sip of his coffee, and walks over to his little girl’s room.

He opens the door widely, making the morning sunlight shine through the small room, giving Rafe a better field of view.

Once he starts taking a few steps closer to the small bed, he’s met by Y/D/N with closed eyes but with her lips forming a wide smile.

“Look who’s awake” He says with his usual playful tone while leaning closer over the small girl.

He presses a kiss on her chubby cheek, marked by the blankets, and her eyes snap open at the feeling.

“Ready to have breakfast?” He asks, knowing very well that she won’t answer this early in the morning unless it is a babble that makes absolutely no sense.

The little girl’s smile widens as Rafe stretches his arms and pulls her out of her bed, making her wiggle her way closer to the warmth of his chest.

Y/D/N snuggles her face between the crook of Rafe’s neck as he walks over to her small window, in hopes to let some more light and fresh air into the room.

The girl hides from the harsh lighting and Rafe is quick to take her to the bathroom.

Once the girl’s face was washed, diaper was changed and as well as clothes, Rafe takes her to the kitchen quickly, knowing very well how hungry she must be.

As soon as the girl hears Topper’s and Kelce’s voices coming from the kitchen, she lifts her head in hopes to see them at the table, but her eyes only meet a laptop and her dad’s dishes. Which was honestly quite disappointing.

Rafe sits her on her highchair, right at the end of the table he’s sitting and turns his laptop her away, seeing her droopy eyes light up at the sight of her “uncles”, who are mindlessly talking about Kelce’s avocado toast.

“Look who it is!” Topper screams again as his eyes laid upon the baby sitting in front of the computer.

Y/D/N slaps the table in excitement as she hears Topper and her toothless smile makes the boys’ awe at her cuteness.

Rafe smiles down at his baby while petting the top of her head, feeling her soft hair. The girl looks up at her dad once feeling his hand and continues giving out her sweet smile and adoring look.

Rafe walks away from the kid and over to the counter of the kitchen and lets the boys look after her (trusting them and their filters to not say anything inappropriate).

He starts heating up slightly his baby’s food and her giggles start to fill the kitchen as soon as Topper starts to make the silly faces he knows that Y/D/N loves.

Rafe scrapes the food off to Y/D/N’s bowl and grabs her favorite spoon from the drawer, before turning back around to the table. The baby girl’s eyes widen at the sight of the bowl and as soon as it is close enough to her reach, she snatched the spoon off it and started giggling loudly with excitement.

Thankfully both you and Rafe decided to spend some money on those bowls with the suction cups at the bottom off of Amazon, because breakfasts always seem to be way too exciting for your little girl.

Rafe turns his laptop a bit to his side so the guys can, now, see him as well and Topper continues their previous conversation, letting the small girl eat alone in peace.

“I don’t know, dude. That guy has been annoying ever since he and your sister started dating” Topper says out loud as Rafe looks at the mess next to him.

“Wait, we were talking about John B this whole time?” Kelce asks.

“Yeah! He thinks he’s a kook now. All dressed up to events and always on the Cameron’s boat”

As the two men talked, Rafe found a new sort of amusement: his daughter and how happily she’s eating. Since it surely is better than hearing Topper bitch about his sister’s new boyfriend. He doesn’t care what is going back on the island, he moved for a reason. And he does not want to have anything to do with the Outer Banks anymore.

“What about you, Rafe?”

“What?”

“Are you and Y/N going to this year’s Midsummers?” Kelce asks.

“Nah” Rafe says, laying his arm over the back of Y/D/N’s chair.

“Why not?”

“I prefer to stay at home with my girls than go to an event in that island, thank you very much”

As his sarcastic end of his sentence sounded past his lips, Topper was quick to change the theme of conversation, not wanting to go into serious mode this early in the morning.

(…)

“Baby, don’t touch that,” Rafe says while sitting at his desk, muting himself on discord for the possible hundredth time.

Y/D/N looks over her shoulder at her dad and pouts slightly at his warning. She just wants to feel what’s on top of mommy’s bedside table.

The girl sloppily walks away from the table and goes sit back down close to her dad, where her toys are. Rafe’s eyes stay on the little girl as she holds a pout on her lips, visibly upset over being rejected such an exciting experience (feeling and, eventually, letting your alarm clock fall off the table).

“Don’t be sad, princess. I just don’t want you to get hurt” Rafe emphasizes but doesn’t even get a look from the girl.

He looks back at the screen of his gaming computer, still waiting for Topper or Kelce to revive him in-game, and sighs out loud as the two of them hysterically scream, “THERE’S ANOTHER TEAM! ANOTHER TEAM! PUSH BACK! PUSH BAAAAACK”.

“We’ll get you back, Rafe, give us one second,” Kelce says.

“Alright,” He says, unmuting for just that second.

Rafe leans back on his chair, eyes moving from his screen to Y/D/N and he almost freaks out when he notices the trembling of her chin.

“No, no, no, no” He says, taking his headphones off in a quick movement and throwing them to the desk before getting up. Y/D/N lifts her teary eyes over at her dad and stretches her arms up right away.

He picks up the girl from the floor and as soon as she was close enough, she hid her face on his chest as she let out some whiny sounds, close to actual tears and loud sobs.

Rafe takes back his seat at the desk and holds his emotional daughter with one arm as he puts his headphones back on, hearing both Topper and Kelce keep screaming right away.

“Why you crying, baby?” Rafe asks, moving his hand up and down the small girl’s back to comfort her, “There’s no reason to cry”

Those words were enough to worsen the situation. Y/D/N in that same second, stood up on her feet in her dad’s lap, little fists grabbing his shirt tightly and eyes filled with tears.

Probably as her way to show true frustration but failing as she keeps losing her balance.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, helplessly looking at the girl expecting some kind of sign that would show him her reasoning. “Do you really want mamma’s alarm clock?”

The little girl shakes her head violently and falls back onto her dad’s chest, letting a small sob escape her lips.

“Food? Do you want food? Are you hungry?” He asks before starting to move his hand on her back.

No answer, just a louder whine, sounding as she’s getting more frustrated.

“Sleep? Do you want to go to bed?”

Yet another no.

“Rafe, you there?” Topper asks, noticing the silence coming from his (possible) close-to-tilting friend.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m here, just talking to Y/D/N” Rafe answers before muting himself back up.

Rafe looks down at his baby girl once more and she looks absolutely heartbroken.

Over what? He has no idea.

He presses a kiss onto the side of her head and the girl leans in closer once feeling it.

“Do you want me to call mommy?” He asks in a whisper.

Y/D/N lifts her head off Rafe’s shoulder right on that second and she quickly nods, with her pouty lips and red chubby cheeks, wet by her tears.

Rafe takes his phone out of his pocket in a quick movement and unlocks it in record time.

And even though he is being the quickest he could, for the little girl on his lap, it felt like it was taking the whole eternity.

As soon as Rafe starts calling you on facetime, he just starts praying that you’re not in class or occupied with something too important.

He turns the phone to his side on his hands so that only Y/D/N’s face was on the screen and the little girl seems paralyzed with her reflection for a quick second.

Once Rafe hears the sound of you answering the call, he almost gasps and sighs in relief at the same time.

“Oh, hi princess!” You say over the phone as you noticed the sad looking girl on your screen, “What’s wrong? Did daddy do anything bad?”

Rafe stares at the girl silently, watching her eyes lift up with happiness at the sound of your voice and the use of the teasing tone. A babble comes off her mouth, something you’re sure neither you nor Rafe understood, and her eyes start filling up with tears again.

“Oh, baby don’t cry” You say once noticing her small chin quivering.

Rafe decides to change positioning as soon as he notices the girl slightly sliding down his lap, and he positions his phone on the desk, making it stand up by some of your books, and making sure only the small girl and his chest appeared.

The girl turns to follow her mom’s face on Rafe’s phone and sits on his thigh while leaning back onto his chest.

“She said she isn’t hungry or tired” Rafe explains as you continue to look at the screen with a worried expression.

He notices that you must be sitting in a random bench somewhere as you look around you and the phone’s camera tilts a bit to the sky.

“Rafe, MOVE! You can’t be AFK the whole round!” Kelce says loudly, making Rafe take off his headset and setting it down on the desk.

“And I also told her to not touch your bedside table” Rafe continues the explanation while setting a hand at his baby’s stomach so she stops sliding down his thigh, again.

You start to think silently of what would’ve made your baby so upset but you just can’t think of anything.

She isn’t hungry nor tired, she’s getting her dad’s attention and has all her toys.

“Maybe she just misses you” Rafe says, making you snap back to reality.

“But she never is like this when we’re both out and she’s with the babysitter”

Rafe sighs once feeling his small baby grab onto his hand tightly, just like she does with her toys.

“What should I do?” He asks.

“I don’t know,” You start but stop for a few seconds to think, “Honestly, just try to make her watch some videos or one of her favorite shows. Maybe she’s just bored”

You two talk for a bit more before you had to finish the call and run to class, and Y/D/N sat through the whole conversation just watching you and Rafe.

Rafe decided to do as told and go grab your iPad (where every single cartoon episode is saved in) to try and entertain Y/D/N.

And thankfully, as soon as Rafe positioned the iPad on the desk next to his screen with his daughter’s favorite cartoon already playing, a smile spread over the girl’s cheeks and her eyes are no longer holding the sad stare.

Rafe readjusts the kid on his leg so that she can sit more comfortably, and puts his headphones back on, letting one of his ears out so that he can hear anything that Y/D/N says.

“I’m back” Rafe says, unmuting himself, and starts moving in the game again.

(…)

“What about this one?” Rafe asks his daughter and she shakes her head violently, almost choking in her own sob. “Okay…”

Rafe puts the snack back in the cabinet and stretches his hand in to try and look for something else that would satisfy the small girl.

“And this?” He asks, “Do you want waffles?”

The girl stares at him for a second and then nods, a smile growing out of nowhere.

“Can you even eat waffles?”

The girl doesn’t answer back as she grabs her toy from beside her and playfully slams it on the small table attached to the highchair.

Rafe drops the waffles in the toaster and pushes the button down before turning back to the girl.

She looks so carefree that it doesn’t even seem like she was just screaming her lungs out. Her cheeks are still wet with previous tears but the mention of food (and the sight of it) was enough to make her forget about everything.

Both of them patiently wait for the waffles to pop back up from the toaster and as they do, both Rafe and Y/D/N look over at the hallway at the sound of the front door of the apartment open.

That only means one thing…

Their savior (mommy) is home.

[jinmukangwrites]

Whumptober2021 - October 4th - Taken Hostage | Pushed

Gift fic to @fidothefinch <3

Fandom: Nightwing, Batman - All Media Types

AO3

Warnings: Near death experience, hostage situations, implies Bruce as a shitty dad but I don't go into detail on it.

---

If there’s anything in the world that Dick hates more than being restrained, it’s being held hostage. Especially if he’s being held hostage as a threat against Bruce or Batman. One thing they don’t tell you in the foster system is that if you’re adopted by a rich and famous to the Kardashian level man, is that you’re often the target of criminals who think snatching a kid on their way home from school is a surefire way to make a million bucks. It’s no better in the vigilante business either, because often any hero in Gotham is only seen as a stepping stool to getting to Batman.

Honestly, at this point Dick’s used to it. It doesn’t mean he enjoys it, though. Not so much because of the initial kidnapping part, but because he’s worked hard to become his own person, his own man with his own life. He moved to Blüdhaven to be anything other than the son of Bruce Wayne; to be his own hero that villains learn to fear. And then the second he sets foot back in Gotham, for whatever reason, suddenly it’s all about the reclusive eldest Wayne child returning home! Suddenly, when villains see him at night, it isn’t “Oh shit, it’s Nightwing!”, it’s “Shit, it’s a Sidekick! Where’s the Bat?!”

Anyway, long story short, Dick came back to Gotham for one weekend to visit family, and now he’s dressed as Nightwing, standing on a roof with duct-tape keeping his wrists together behind his back and a knife to his throat belonging to a shady businessman who’s finally caught the attention of Gotham’s heroes.

And it’s sorta pathetic how Dick ended up in this situation. It wasn’t like this was going to be a particularly difficult mission. Just sneak into the building, grab the evidence he needed to get this bastard behind bars, and then get out. Unfortunately, someone tipped the man off without Bruce knowing about it. When he went into the main office, he was met with a very strong guard hiding behind the doors, and after a hefty blow to the head and a few concerning minutes of blacking out, Dick opened his eyes—thankfully still masked—to find himself kneeling on the rough cement of a skyscraper’s roof, completely stripped of any of his useful tools. He has a small knife in one of his gauntlets, but it’s not exactly in an easy to reach position. It would take time to grab at it, and that’s not counting the high probability he’ll be spotted by Jerome McCoy--Gotham’s latest shady businessman--or any of his goons.

Besides, Tim is already up here listening to their demands to get Batman up here or Dick dies. It shouldn’t be long before Bruce gets here and kicks his ass. That’s not even accounting for the facts that Jason, Steph, Duke, Dami, and Cass are all in town.

These idiots have no clue how close they are with dealing with close to every single bat if something bad happens to Dick tonight.

And everything was going fine until Tim suddenly stopped mid sentence in reminding McCoy that Batman was on his way and brought his hand to his communicator in his ear. When Tim paled ever so slightly, Dick knew something had gone exactly NOT according to plan.

“What is it?!” McCoy demands, pressing the knife against Dick’s neck with worrying pressure. Dick leans his head back slightly to lessen the risk of his neck being cut and meets Tim in the eyes through their masks.

Tim swallows. “Batman is being held up-”

Dick resists sighing in both disappointment and lack-of-surprise as McCoy practically explodes.

“What?!

“Only for a few hours,” Tim rushes to explain. He’s lifted his hands in a placid manner and softened his voice, which can’t be good. “He’s… met an unexpected complication along the way that he cannot ignore. Please, just tell me what you want, and I can take my partner and be out of-”

“I don’t have a few hours,” McCoy practically screeches. “Either Batman makes it his priority to get here, or Nightwing gets it!” to make a point, McCoy lifts the knife from Dick’s neck and waves it in front of him. Dick slides his eyes over to the other goons on the roof; there’s only a few. Maybe… if Dick plays his cards right… “That was the deal!”

“I understand-”

“Tell Batman to get here now, or Nightwing’s blood is on his hands!”

“He’s busy- I can’t just-”

Dick slams his body back, pointing his elbow the furthest he can with the way his arms are bound and jamming it into McCoy’s stomach. McCoy lets out a startled, breathless gasp as Dick uses his surprise to escape from his grasp and jump to his feet.

“’Wing!” Tim yells at the same time McCoy wheezes “Get that fucker!”

Dick has just a second to notice Tim’s shock at Dick’s sudden attack before Dick’s having to defend himself with his hands literally tied behind his back. Sorry, kid, Dick thinks, ducking around a pair of beefy arms, but we’re out of options.

It was going well until it wasn’t. Tim was even about to step in. However, while waking up from his lovely whack to the head, Dick failed to assess just where he was on the roof.

All it took was for the back of his heel to tough nothing but air for his heart to jump to his throat. Instinctively, he tried to wave his arms to catch his balance, but was quickly reminded of his predicament when the tape tugged against his wrists. For a moment, pure panic filled his entire body, here, wobbling backwards off the edge of a roof dozens of stories above the ground. He could feel his heart pound, hands shake, breath catch, hair rustle in the wind, but he couldn’t do a thing to stop himself from falling backwards. He’s pretty sure he hears Tim scream his codename, but he’s not totally focused on anything other than his pending doom right now-

A heavy hand wraps around his upper-bicep, stopping his almost-promised journey to pancake town. Everything is silent on the roof for a solid moment, as Dick practically hangs over the ledge of the roof with his feet just barely still on solid ground, a goon holding him juuuuuust enough to make sure he doesn’t fall. Tim looks even paler than before, looking like he really did watch Dick go over the edge. McCoy looks a constipating mixture of smug and outraged while the other goons stand nearby like useless props.

Then, McCoy speaks with anger as heavy and level as stone. “Tell Batman I want him here in ten minutes.”

Tim meets Dick’s eyes, and Dick sees everything that he needs to. Whatever is holding Bruce up, it’s more important than Dick, and Tim knows it’s useless to even try.

“Please,” Tim says, voice wobbly. He’s a detective. He knows what’s about to happen. “Just give us more time-”

McCoy snaps a finger, and that’s that.

The hand on his arm pushes Dick away and opens it’s grasp. It doesn’t matter anymore that Dick had his feet on the roof, because the rest of his body is falling.

Falling.

Dick’s completely off the roof in a blink of an eye and he’s falling.

The air is rushing past his ears and through his hair, so loud he can barely think. That’s if he’s thinking at all, as story after story passes him by. He’s falling, and for the first time in a long time, he’s afraid of falling, because this time there’s nothing he can do to stop it. He doesn’t have any tools… he doesn’t even have his hands, nor enough time to even try and get his hands free. He’s falling, rushing to the ground. He can already see in vivid detail what his body will look like when it hits the pavement.

He’s falling. He’s standing at the top of a beam, watching his mama and papa fall. He’s falling. He’s screaming as the sound of their bodies landing and snapping reaches his ears. He’s falling and he’s going to die in the most Grayson way possible.

He’s going to die the same way his parents did, a way that he’s worked hard to not be afraid of ever since he first moved in with Bruce, but was always secretly terrified.

He closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to watch. He’s afraid, and Tim will watch from above and blame himself and he never wanted any of his siblings to blame themselves for his death like how he blamed himself for his parent’s for decades and-

And the wind is knocked out of him, but not from his body slamming on the ground. A strong arm wraps painfully around his stomach, and suddenly the world turns sideways and his eyes shoot open in shock.

“Fuck,” Jason grunts, holding Dick with one arm and the other wrapped tightly in a grappling line. “Fucking hell.”

And Dick… doesn’t know what to do. He feels muted, like a YouTube video playing at 144p and buffering still. The adrenaline is pumping so loudly through his entire body that the fact that Jason’s caught him doesn’t register until Jason’s landing roughly on the ground and lowering Dick to the asphalt.

“Started heading over the second that bastard said he wasn’t coming,” Jason explains. Dick nods numbly, his eyes locked on the oil covered road below him, his mind still trying to process. “Said he ran into some bastard working for Two-Face holding some rich family hostage. Said we could handle it. I can’t believe I got here just in time. Fucking fuck-face fucker.”

There’s a splash of two feet landing on the permanently puddled street beside them, and Dick can hardly contain his flinching at the sound, but thankfully Jason doesn’t notice. He just stands up and faces where Tim has landed quite suddenly from where he must have grappled down from the roof. Dick continues to look at the ground, wringing his knitting together in front of him. He… hasn’t noticed Jason undid the bindings.

“What happened to McCoy?” Jason demands, and Tim takes a gasping breath and shakes his head.

“They ran into the building while I… jumped after N.”

Jason growls, taking a step forward but Tim stops him. “Orphan said she’ll handle it, she sounded pissed.”

Jason backs off, but anger still curls in his stomach like an old friend. His fists clench to his side. “Once I see B, I’m gonna punch his teeth up to his brain.”

And it must be proof of how shaken Tim is, because he doesn’t argue.

Then, like a pin hitting tile, a small sound catches Jason’s ears. He looks down to where Dick is still sitting in the grime of Gotham’s street. His heart sinks to his gut.

“N?” he asks, and Dick doesn’t respond. “Nightwing, you’re… crying.”

That directs Tim’s attention down where tears are certainly streaming down Dick’s cheeks from under his mask. His lips are wobbling, and the second Jason kneels down to put his hand on Dick’s shoulder, a wounded sound escapes his lips.

“Dick?” Jason asks, his voice sounding shocked and unsure.

Dick looks up at Tim, looking one breath of the wind from falling apart. “You jumped after me?” His voice is small and brittle. When Tim nods slowly, Dick whimpers, dropping his head into his hands and letting out a sob. “You almost watched me die,” is all he says before he finally breaks down into mournful cries.

Jason looks up from where Dick’s now shaking and gasping into his hands and meets Tim’s eyes. Neither of them… has ever seen Dick get like this before. It feels wrong, like something in the world has shattered and can never be replaced.

“Lets… get him home,” Jason says, breaking the silence.

“Yeah,” is all Tim can smartly bring to his lips while Jason scoops Dick into his arms and stands up.

Dick’s so out of it with his sobbing that he hardly reacts, just curls against Jason and continues to cry.

“You know,” Jason says quietly, “the scariest way to die, for me, is to overdose.”

And Tim understands.

“I… see.”

Jason nods, swallowing hard. “Yeah. So let’s just call it a night, get him some Alfred cookies, and just… let him take this at his own pace, okay?”

Tim nods, knowing that after years of Dick always going out of his way to help them with their trauma, their issues, and never asking for anything in return… it’s now their turn to return the favor. Dick looks so much smaller than Tim swears he’s ever seen him, curled up in Jason’s arms, trembling and sobbing. He silently promises to himself that he will do whatever it takes to make sure Dick gets through this, just like what he’d do for them, always. And Tim’s positive the rest of Dick’s siblings will do the same.

[angelguk]

→ bad behaviour 03 — a namjoon scenario

member: kim namjoon

word count: 7.5k

rating: 18+

genre: established relationship + smut + college!au 

warnings: we’re ovulating!!! / introduction to the breeding kink that will plague this couple forever / was meant 2 be a drabble?? im incapable we know that / eh big joon!!!! / manhandling kink / pet names used a lot / joon thinks he’s gf is dumb and wants to breed her idk man / size kink / crying when cumming / oc shy for once / discussion of twitter porn / creampie / oc is on birth control (obvs dont do this if u dont want a kid but this is a fanfic u know) / mentions of fisting porn / cock warming!! / if u see a typo no u dont

soundtracks: more than enough + morroco, alina baraz

prompt: “don’t you think there is always something unspoken between two people?” (Something Unspoken, Tennessee Williams).

It’s a rather serene Thursday afternoon, the late autumn breeze sweeping through the campus air. The stillness was ideal for studying, alluding to assignment deadlines creeping round the corner. Which was why your butt is firmly parked in the mess of Kim Namjoon's sheets.

The man in question is hunched in the corner of his dorm room, one large hand idly tugging at the chestnut mane on his head and his neck curved with attentiveness. You wish you possessed the determinate focus that he had, but your thoughts have a mind of their own, spiralling further into the darkest depths of your mind as they gingerly coax forth memories that spark a searing heat deep inside of you. You feel tight, drawn like the bow of an arrow, a stark contrast to the tranquillity spilling around you. The fact that Namjoon is practically naked isn’t helping your consciousness. Your gaze lingers on the rows of muscles lining his broad back, the tension running through them emphasising the dips and curves in his golden skin. His eyes, however, are glued to the myriad of words before him, the pen grasped in his grip swift as he scribbles down notes you know you’ll never be able to decipher. Not that you needed too, it was intriguing that such a put-together man like Namjoon had handwriting that essentially resembled chicken scratch. It was atrocious — but still elegant, very much embodying the person to whom the writing belonged to. You can’t recall what assignment he intended to complete today — something about the presentation of nihilism in Russian literature or whatever — but he’s devoted all his attention to it, meticulous in the numerous sticky notes and page markers that line the novel perched on his desk. It’s bent with the remembrance of his fingers, sepia-toned dogged-ear pages staring at the ceiling of his dorm room. Something blooms within you the longer you look at him, faint but strong like a tide shifting towards the shores. You don’t even register the slip of your laptop from your lap, legs sprawling open unconsciously. It spurs so quick you can’t even clamp down on it, the desire you have for the burly man bent over his world of words just a few steps away. But you know how much Namjoon values his academics. It’s with a muffled groan that you roll over, burrowing your face into his pillows in hopes that the wave will subside. It doesn't — crawling beneath your skin begging you to give in.

It’s the click of Namjoon’s pen that gets you, a sharp note that cuts through the burning of your body. Your thighs seal together, the slick that collects between your legs sticking to your core. With a sigh that you shift again, reaching out for your laptop. It’s best to look for a distraction, give him the space he needs to concentrate. At yet, your gaze can’t help but drift. He’s not covering an inch of skin, burly arms and thick thighs on display like he wants to tempt you. There are no words to describe how much you hate him —  nor how much you long to have him inside of you too.

You recall it with a jolt — the lave of his wide tongue against your folds, licking you apart with deft swift swipes that leave you weeping into his sheets more nights than you’d like to admit. You shuffle again, helpless to the yearnings of your mind. The heat on your inner thighs is a phantom. Namjoon likes to hold you down, press your hips into his sheets against the whims of your squirming. It’s the way he looks at you when you’re on the verge of tears, a wanton hunger in his eyes that unravels you fast. You can almost see it, thighs subconsciously nudging against each other. Then there’s the stretch of his fingers, larger than you own. He’s pushed you to the edge with just two of them before, persistent against that spot inside of you until he’s satisfied with the blissed slackness that descends upon your features. Then he’d add another, and another. There’s an undeclared thought between the two of you. You’ve noted the fisting porn in his Twitter bookmarks. Maybe one day you’ll have the guts to let him try.

For now, you swallow it down. Suffocate that longing until the embers burning within you smother to ashes. Your laptop returns to resting at an angle at your hip, gaze idling running through your readings. The words don’t sink in though, sitting on your skull before hastily floating away. There’s not much space for anything else but Namjoon at the moment, no matter how hard you try to reread the paragraphs or stare at your screen. You don’t even have to open the app on your phone to know what’s going on with your body. This is your first full ovulation with him. Usually, he’s preoccupied with assignments or TA responsibilities that cut your time together short, interrupting this part of your cycle and leaving you to your own devices. You hadn’t fully wormed your way into Namjoon’s life to demand all his attention just yet. This was still new, untested. Namjoon was independent and so sure of himself that telling your boyfriend that you needed him to stop focusing on his future to raw the crap out of you (multiple times) felt incredibly selfish.

You stare at the words in front of you until they swim, wishing you didn’t feel like this. Like you needed Namjoon to breathe. You can wait it out, maybe get what you’re dying for after post-studying cuddles and take-out. Even if it takes every ounce of your willpower to clasp your legs together and not jump the wonderfully large man that is your boyfriend.

Unbeknown to you, the same yearning that plagues you chips away at his resolve. A persistent want that wavers in the back of his mind, clamouring for attention, because even with his eyes stuck on the pages beneath him, he can sense your fidgeting.

Your attention span is incredibly short — Namjoon knows this. It ricochets off the walls even when you’re sitting still. It’s taken time, but Namjoon has gradually adjusted to it, muting the powerful waves of energy that radiate off of you when necessary. Today, however, is different. That energy he’s learnt to ignore eats him alive, sinking below his skin and leaving him buzzed as he scours his brain for any meaningful essay points. He keeps flipping through the pages of the novel, mind attempting and miserably failing to piece together a cohesive argument that correlates with the evidence he’s got highlighted in a loud neon yellow.

All because he can’t stop thinking about you.

He wants to blame it on the fact that he hasn’t seen you in a while (which is a blatant lie). Namjoon saw you two days ago. You were wearing that floral skirt that he loves, the fabric hiking up your thighs whenever you lined yourself against his side, snuggling deep into him like you never wanted to leave. He hates that skirt — hates it —  because now he can’t think of anything but it, thoughts blurring at the memory of your bare skin. Skin that he loves to mark, latch onto until violets and blues blossom. His mind is running before he can catch it, falling into a dangerous reminiscence of images that sit heavy in his gut. That stupid skirt flipped up your waist and his head between your thighs. Nothing feels as good as you do on his tongue. He loves the way you taste, the sounds that drift from your lips, the way your thighs twitch and tremor as you unravel underneath him. You get so loud when your high hits you. He knows his roommates have heard you before, but he truly doesn’t care. He loves hearing you scream his name, drives him to the brink of insanity if he’s being honest. Yet, it’s the way you look at him afterwards, a deliriousness swimming in your eyes that makes Namjoon want to keep you in his bed forever. Fuck you until you can’t walk without feeling him deep inside of you. Paint your skin so that everyone knows who you belong to.

His head hits the table with a muted thud, a low sighing escaping into the air. The tent in his loose shorts hurts. There’s a part of him that’s mortified — how could he get hard just from the thought of you when you're sitting right there on his bed? Perhaps it’s proof that you’ve invaded everything he is. His space, his heart, his mind.

“Namjoon?” You question, tone tentative in the silence that consumes him whole. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he grunts. And then his brain settles, a tightness in his stomach that he can’t deny. “Actually, no I’m not.”

You don’t even have time to register it before he's moving towards you. It's as if he's flown from his desk, gliding through the space between you to firmly plant himself on top of you. Your laptop is knocked to the side, lost in the muss of his bed sheets as Namjoon moulds himself into you. You can't help the breathless giggle that hits the air. It's cut by the weight of Namjoon on you. He's heavy, all hard muscles and broad shoulders. Your fingertips slip against the fabric of his shirt — 100% pure cotton because he's fastidious like that — a lightness forming in your chest just from the feel of him in your hands. He sighs and you melt, losing yourself in him as he burrows his head into the hollow of your neck. The kiss he places there is soft, but it hits like a torrent of rain, drowning you harshly. Your body ignites like the flame you wanted to smother was never extinguished. You cling to him, the only thing keeping you afloat in the wave of adoration that crashes into you.

"What are you doing? What's wrong?" You murmur, vibrating when he kisses you again. Namjoon hums in response, his wide hands shifting to settle on the back of your thighs, gently spreading your legs apart to nestle himself there. Your back jolts when you feel it — feel him. Hard and needy against your core, a heat radiating where you meet. The flutter in your eyes is automatic, brain shutting down when he rolls his hips. He nips your neck then, a light press of his teeth into the delicate skin. You stop breathing when he smothers the pain with a kiss, thoughts dissolving into the air as you stare at the ceiling of his dorm, thinking you're never going to let this man go.

"Namjoo—" His mouth is on you before you can even finish your sentence, swallowing the words with a gentle press of his lips until yours fall apart. Kissing him might be one of your favourite activities ever. He feels good against your lips, ginger but sure in how he works you open, drawing sighs from your throat like he was born to do so. It’s easy to give in, your hips moving against his and your fingers dragging through his hair. It’s with a soft gasp that you part, the air around you electric. His brown eyes are dark but they gaze at you with an adoration that makes your heart swell. There are moments where you feel it on the tip of your tongue, a proclamation that yearns to spill out. But it’s too early to say anything like that yet. So you draw him closer instead, the content laugh that floats from his throat caught in your mouth. This kiss is different, more desperate, a hope that he understands what you mean heavy in your chest. You think he does because he kisses you back with an intent that leaves you breathless, a heady thing that has you arching into him before it peters out into tender little pecks. Your heart is so full it could explode.

And it does a second later when he drops a light kiss on your forehead, his wide hands settling on the backs of your thighs as he presses himself further into you. You know he feels the slick drenching your underwear by the hitch in his breath.

“Study break?” He offers, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes that ensnares you. A danger that glows like stars adorning a velvet sky.

“Namjoon,” you groan in response, legs wrapping around his waist. You can feel the length of him, hard and twitching against you. “You can’t just do that! It’s not fair.”

“Why? You don’t want me to fuck you?” There’s a nudge that coaxes another slip from your core. The whine that leaves your lips is instinctual.

“I do! It’s just that — um — just that I’m ovulating right now.”

The second the word leaves your mouth he freezes, broad body suspended over you and a distant look sweeping over his honey eyes. And then something clicks, his cock settling further into you, a twitch along his length that echoes in your nerves.

“Right now?” The words that leave his mouth are measured, his gaze locking on your own as if he’s weighing the consequences of his desires.

“Yes, right now. I don’t know if we—”

“Can I be honest with you? I haven’t been able to focus since you came over and the idea of you ovulating is doing nothing but making me extremely hard right now.”

“I — what? Really? Are you serious?”

He nods, unabashed as the blush rising beneath his golden skin. Your fingers dig further into his back, the want that sweeps through your system feral. It's so swift that you can’t control the rise of your hips nor the warmth that pools in your gut. Namjoon dissolves right back into you, the groan that slips from his mouth meeting the heat of your skin as he burrows himself back into the crook of your neck. You’re no longer thinking, your brain stuck on the feeling of his cock against you, direct with every drag of his hips.  He wants this as much as you do, a realisation that you’re still trying to comprehend. You have to ask again, terrified of the teetering edge you’re on.

“You sure? Like really?”

He scoffs, shifting back to give you a look. “You’ve seen my NSFW twitter, baby. You know what’s there.”

“Yeah, a lot more fisting porn than I ever expected.” There’s a beat of silence, Namjoon’s gaze shifting into something you can’t decipher. “Not that I’m against fisting,” you quickly amend, “It was just surprising.”

“Fair enough, but that wasn’t the only thing there.”

You know what he's referring to but seeing other people commit the act and then doing it yourself were too completely different things. There are still some things you’re too ashamed to say out loud and that particular kink of one of them. While your ovulation had a rather stronghold over you, so did your inner mortification.

Namjoon, on the other hand, cannot be bothered to beat around the bush. “You’ve seen what’s there right?" He repeats. "Creampies? Cum play? Breeding—”

“Don’t say that!”

He pauses, a playful grin tugging at his lips.”Is that what you want? Because you’re ovulating? What me to stuff—”

“Namjoon, stop it!”

He laughs then, a low sound dangerous that fills the room and swallows the embarrassment that eats away at you alive. “How can I? My pretty girl wants me to breed her, stuff her full of cum until it’s leaking from her cunt. You want that right? Want my cock so deep you feel it tomorrow? Am I right, baby? Hmm?”

You’re not looking at him, cheeks burning with every word parting his lips, but your cunt agrees wholeheartedly, leaking against your panties at the thought of Namjoon fucking you full. He doesn’t take your silence well though, a firm hand clasping around your jaw and tugging your focus right back into him. There's a glint in his eyes, a sharp dark wild thing.

“Baby.” He says it slowly, the word tumbling from his lips and right into the heat forming in your core. “Is that what you want?”

“Maybe,” you retort, feeling the twitch that tremors through his jaw deep inside of you. Namjoon scoffs, hand dropping from your chin. The absence of his touch has you scrambling after it, the movement occurring before you can bite back your desperation.

“Maybe? Then you don’t want it enough do you? I should leave you to study, don’t you think?”

“Namjoon.” Your fingers grip into his shirt before he can shift away, a pounding in your chest that terrifies you. “Maybe I do want it  — a lot — I just can't say it.”

“You can’t say it?” He cocks an eyebrow. “But you know how to use your words when you’re arguing with me.”

He’s infuriating and he’s doing it on purpose from the telltale gleam in his eyes. You don’t know what to despise more; Namjoon and his provocations or your inability to vocalise your desires. But that anger withers into wanting the second he settles back between your thighs, cock hard and heavy where you need him most. Yet, still, saying it out loud isn’t possible for you just yet. But you do want it, a great deal more than you’d ever admit.

“That’s different,” you say instead. “That’s when you’re being stupid.”

The eye-roll you're granted is brimming with exasperation. “Of course, you would say that.”

“And I’m correct.”

“Sure, you are,” Namjoon returns, nuzzling into your chest. He’s saying it to complacent you and it ticks you off

“Why wouldn’t I be?” You ask, a warning in your voice.

Namjoon sighs, perfect face burrowed between your boobs. “I’m not arguing with you right now. You look cute when you get mad and I’m hard enough as it. Besides, that’s not the point.”

That should not have you buzzing, the word cute sticking out from the rest of his horrid statement like a neon light in the dark. But you let it rest, preoccupied with the fact that:

a. Namjoon is horny

b. So are you

“So,” you say. “What was the point?”

“The point is that you’re too shy to say you want me to stuff you—”

Point B no longer exists. You are no longer horny even when he’s looking at you like that with that stupid lopsided grin of his.

“I get it,” you retort, “I get the point. And I’m not saying that. Not today, not ever.”

“Oh? Are you sure about that?” There’s a challenge there, and like an idiot you fall for it, raising an indignant eyebrow in response.

“Yes, I will not—”

He’s got the band of your sweatpants down in a second, wiggling the fabric down your hips and past your butt faster than you can blink. You don’t object, a muffled giggle drifting from your throat when he finally gets them off, tossing the pants somewhere in the corner of his room, something to be searched for later, not now. That giggle shifts to a moan the second his face dives between your thighs, the deep breath he takes in kindling a flame in your gut. There’s the faint press of his tongue through the cotton of your underwear, the low groan he lets out when he feels the wetness seeping through your panties setting something off within you.

“Oh — oh — N-Namjoon!”

“Yes, baby?” Another lick, tongue quick and firm against your drenched core.

“Don’t play with me. I can’t handle that right now.”

“I’m not playing,” he remarks. “Just giving you a reason to say you want me to stuff you full of my cum. I know you want to say it anyway.”

You huff. “You think I’ll give in that easi — hgnh.” He’s tearing your underwear off, tongue landing back onto your wet folds before you can register the fact that the fabric is gone. A few firm wet laves of that muscle against your cunt and you can see your resolve crumbling. He knows exactly where to lick and drag his tongue, nose buried into the apex of your cunt as if he wants to breathe you in. You can’t help the buck of your hips, a tremor running down your thighs when his tongue slips into your hole, pressing in with purpose and leaving you breathless in his sheets. But then he’s drawing away and you glance down to find him staring at your cunt in wonder, his rouge mouth glistening with your slick.

“How can I not,” Namjoon says, offering a kitten lick that spikes a shock in your spine, “Play with you when you’re so fun to play with, angel.” The smile on his lips is dangerous.

Your hand settles on his head and Namjoon curls into it. But instead of dragging your fingernails against his skull and pulling him closer like you know he loves, you shove him away, swiftly squeezing your thighs shut. If you’re going to play this game, you’re doing it on your terms.

“You’re not being fair,” you say. Namjoon blinks at you like you’re insane, obviously thinking with the dick in his pants rather than his head. “Go back to your Isaac Turganife or whatever.”

“It’s Ivan Turgenev, baby,” he replies, sighing slow. “And I don’t want to go? Do you really want me to?” He plants a tender kiss on your bare thigh and you burst with want, slick leaking out even though you didn’t intend it to.

“Not fair,” you say again. But you don’t want him to leave you like this, at the mercy of your hormones and the sudden remembrance of Namjoon’s thick cock stretching you open. “But no, I don’t want you to go. Just don’t play with me please.”

“Okay, that’s fine. But if we’re being honest here all I can think about is seeing my cum leak out of you. I just want you to want that as much as I do.” He says it in a rush like he’s afraid he won’t have the nerve to admit it if he doesn’t do it right now.

But I do, you think, walls fluttering just from the flash of that image in your mind. I do, Namjoon. And yet, you can’t say it.

“I’m ovulating, Namjoon,” you retort instead.

“And you’re also on birth control,” he rebuttals. “PEMDAS or whatever. It cancels out the baby option, right?”

“You are so dumb it hurts, Kim Namjoon,” you murmur, fighting the urge to kiss your stupid boyfriend. It’s a very odd conversation to be having when your cunt is on display and his dick is hard in his pants but you’re having it anyway.

“We’ve fucked raw before though?” He continues, still not piecing it together. “And so far, no baby. So no problem right?”

“When I’m not ovulating. Less risk, at least that’s what I like to believe.”

“Well I suggest you start believing that right now because I would very much like to see you stu—”

“Stop saying that you’re making me want to turn celibate!”

“Oh?” Namjoon remarks. “And yet you’re leaking all over my sheets every time I mention it.”

“I will cut you off from sex for a week if you say something like that again,” you retort.

Namjoon grins like he knows this is affecting you on a deeper level than your cunt being wet. “Fair enough, but I have to ask. Do you want that?”

“Want what?” Feigning ignorance is the safest bet until that shift in his eyes appears.

“Want my cum?” he says it so easily, unaffected while your face rushes with heat.“Inside of you, leaking out of you… All of it?”

And maybe you stop breathing at the thought of feeling full of everything Namjoon had to offer you, your walls clenching tight.

“Maybe. Maybe I do, I don’t know.” You do know and Namjoon knows that you do too. It’s with a defeated murmur that you admit it, voice soft in his room. “Okay, fine. I do. I want that.”

“You do?” There’s an edge in his voice. “You want me to bre—”

“Stop it before I change my mind.”

He laughs, a light warm thing that digs into your chest. “Okay, okay! Sorry, babe. Do you want me to prep you? My mouth? My fingers? You can decide.”

It’s settled so quick in your brain you realise it was never up for debate. ���Neither. Just you. I just want you.”

He halts, honey eyes locked on yours for a moment, before springing to his feet and tugging his shirt over his head with speed. “We can do that,” he mumbles, his knees bumping against the foot of his bed. His pants come off next, plummeting to the ground where he kicks them off a moment later. It’s only then that you see the consequence of actions, straining painfully against his boxer briefs. He shifts to tug those off too but you cut the movement before it happens, shuffling forward until your hand is cupped around his length. Namjoon doesn’t protest, rolling into the tiny palm of your hand. You love the way he feels underneath your palm, thick and hard and heavy, a weight you long to feel inside of you. He sighs low when you grip him, watching your fingers wrap around the outline of his dick through the fabric. It’s only then that you realise, your gaze slipping down his body, subtly noting the sharp intake of breath when your lips mimic what he did to your underwear before he ripped it off, that Namjoon has been holding himself back.

He wants this, badly. It’s evident from the tightness in his voice when he speaks a moment later.

“Angel,” It’s said low, a warning. “I thought we said we wouldn’t play with each other.”

He’s right. With a small pout, you lean away and Namjoon wastes no time moving into your space, strong arms swapping your arm just to land you back at the head of his bed. You suddenly remember your laptop, lost in the mess of his sheets. Namjoon is kind enough to relocate it before climbing right back into your space, cock digging into your stomach when he kisses you again. It doesn’t take long before your top is gone, joining Namjoon’s pants on the floor, and then you’re digging the band of his underwear down, your lips still slotted together and a wetness rapidly forming between your thighs at the feel of his bare cock against you.

But he’s impatient, shuffling you around the second his length is freed. Your back is hard against his mattress, fingers grasping at the sheets when Namjoon knocks your knees apart. There’s a moment of bated breath, his large hands lingering against the bare skin of your exposed thigh, brown eyes locked on your wet folds. His gaze is so intense you instinctively want to clamp your legs shut, shy away from how seen you feel under his eyes. Yes, technically you were naked in his bed but there’s something else that he draws out just from looking at you. Something that makes you nervous because you like it so much.

“Don’t hide from me.” It’s whispered in the heat of the air, Namjoon picking up on how your legs drift together. He’s got them pressed apart a second later, grip firm but gentle, and your stomach does a swoop so dangerous you’re left violently reeling, the ceiling above you spinning. “Don’t do that, angel. Too pretty to hide from me. I want to see all of you.”

You can only hum in response, throat clogged with words that won’t form into coherent sounds. But Namjoon understands you regardless, kissing you senseless as his massive body descends on yours. His hands are on your ass a second later, gripping tight as his length nudges against your core. You just might cry, desperation bubbling in your chest. He draws away gently but you don’t want to let him leave, fingers taut on his broad back, gripping onto the very muscles that had you heady just earlier today. There’s a whine on your tongue that he swallows before you part once more. The laugh that slips from his lips at the sight of your pouted mouth is fond. He grants you another peck, soft and tender, before Namjoon rips himself away, determined this time.

His hips are lined against yours a moment later, cock stiff and dripping with precum. And yet your gaze doesn’t tear from the arms trapping you in his sheets. His biceps look huge, massive actually, all hard muscle and pure strength. It’s doing something to the base part of your brain because you can’t stop thinking about how large Namjoon is. Caving you in, your personal shelter from the world. Is it weird that you feel protected? Safe in the bed of this boy. You wouldn’t mind hiding here forever. A part of you wants to kiss him again, but Namjoon’s focused on other things, oblivious to the cave-woman looking for a mate thoughts running amok in your brain.

They dissipate the moment the head of his cock nudges at your entrance. Just a light tease, but he splits you open quick enough.

“Fuck, you’re so wet, angel. Didn’t need me to prep you at all.”

You mumble a noise that you’re not sure leaves your throat. He’s taking it slow on purpose, pushing in inch by inch so that you feel every part of him filling you up. It’s intoxicating, how the feeling of the slow drag of his cock overtakes everything in your brain. You’ll never get over how big Namjoon is, no matter how many times he fucks you. Each shift of his hips forward coaxing slick from your cunt. It pools at your entrance, dripping over his length until he’s glistening with your wetness.

“F-fuck,” He head drops down to the hollow of your neck the moment he’s sheathed inside, the velvet walls of your pussy gripping him hard. It’s too much for the both of you, bodies strung high on the want that threatened to consume you both. But he feels good like this, lodged in your cunt, stretching you wide and making a place for himself right between your legs. He gives you a moment to adjust and then the coiled spring in him snaps.

“So fucking tight around me, angel. Taking my cock so well.” There’s an edge in his voice, a warning for what’s to come.

You groan when he draws up, a tiny squeal erupting from your throat when he slams back down, hips angled to piston you into his sheets. The pounding is hard and unforgiving, a contradiction to the gentle look in his gaze. He holds you tight, giving you no room to shuffle under the bruise of his thrusts.

You can’t do anything but mumble his name, tongue numb in your mouth as he fucks you senseless.

“You’re dripping so much, baby. Making a mess on the sheets. You wanted my dick that bad, huh? Wanted me to fuck you full? Stuff this dirty cunt of yours?”

“J-Joon!” There’s an arch in your back, a dangerous tingle fluxing through your nerves when his mouth latches on your neck, your chests pressed against each other. Each drive into you pushes out a haggard breath, the heat into the room wrapping around your joint bodies, your arms slung over his shoulders, gripping him tight as he unravels you with his cock. Time stops, nothing punctuating the moment apart from the lewd sound of your meeting, your slick slipping from your cunt each time he hits deep. And he keeps at it, fucking you with a vigour that feels new and vicious.

You can feel him tensing beneath your fingertips, a soreness spreading through your muscles with every hard thrust of his hips into you. But you don’t care, delirious with the feeling of his cock deep within you, slamming right into that spot that has you dangling off the edge. The tight grip on your thighs adds to it, Namjoon pressing you down as he fucks you open like you’re nothing but a toy for his pleasure. He slams into you with abandon, his lips on your neck. Every drag is loud in the room, the slick pooling around your entrance orchestrating the sound of your meeting. You love how he feels over you, broad and big and pinning you down with an ease that shouldn't have you stomach twisting but it does. And he knows that, reading the whimpers that leave your throat well. You can feel it, the knot that tightens with every hard drive of him into you. So close, a blink of your eyes and you could be there. But then he slows, cock squelching against your entrance with a half-hearted thrust.

“Namjoon—" You’re burning, fingers scrambling to push his hips down, shove your hips up. Anything. Anything because if he gives you nothing you’ll implode.

“My baby is so quiet today. Hmm? Why are you so quiet? You don’t want my cum? Don’t want me to breed this tight little cunt of yours?” There’s a  in his tension colouring his deep voice, like he’s holding back from saying something. You want to ask but your needs are forefront in your mind clamouring for attention.

“Joon!” He nips your neck at that whine and you dissolve into his sheets, nothing but pleasure running through your limbs. “Namjoon please, please, please. I want it, Joon, need it.”

He cocks his head, a languid roll into your core that has you squirming underneath his hold. “Need what? Words baby, words.”

“Need your cum.” It’s shameful to say and the heat in your cheeks makes it obvious, Namjoon doesn’t care, shifting his hips so that his cock slowly slips out. Your legs clamp around him so quick that his chest smacks into yours, a muffled sigh escaping into the air.

“Need it where?” He says, hips rigid with how he holds himself back. It takes tenacity to make you work for it. You feel perfect around him, tight pussy stretched around his length and your slick dripping all over. So needy, so wet, velvet walls clinging to his cock leaving him weak even though he tries to hide it. You’re intoxicating, your heat, the feeling of your body moulded into his, the way you moan his name. He wants to hear you scream it though, hear your throat go hoarse with each cry until you're a blubbering mess in his bed. There are other things he wants too, but he needs to hear you say this first.

“Inside,” you reply, a perfect whimper drifting from your bruised lips. “Inside me, Namjoon, please.”

He gives in then and there, resolve shattering when his gaze drifts to the minuscule grind of your hips against his own, his cock sinking deep with every shift of your waist upward. It’s not long until he’s sheathed back inside of you, length twitching against the heat of your walls. He wants to take it slow, make you beg for him a little more, but there’s a weight in his gut that threatens to drop. And then his focus shifts to the span of your stomach and it slams into him so quick he nearly chokes. He may joke about it as a kink, the idea of fucking you until you were bearing his child, but the actual vision of your stomach swelling hadn’t occurred in his thoughts until right then. You would look ethereal, round with evidence of his love for you. He can’t help the palm that settles there as his hips slowly rut forward, forcing himself deeper, needing to see you stretch out for him.

“Joon,” you sigh, shuddering at the press of his balls against your ass.

He hums, thoughtful, dark eyes lingering on the sway of your chest. “Yes, baby?”

“Harder, please, harder.”

“Anything my baby wants, she gets. Isn’t that right, princess.” And then he’s falling out of you, quick when he slams back down. Your voice sounds foreign to your eyes, brain roughly registering the harsh feeling of his hands as he swiftly rearranges you, cock still buried deep, until your knees are folded over his broad shoulders. The quake in your thighs is violent. But you don’t protest, mind unable to shift from the hard pistons he delivers into your cunt, thrusts demanding your release. There’s the sway of the bed beneath you, soft sheets bundling underneath the weight of your joint bodies, a heaviness in the air you breathe. He fucks you with a purpose that wasn’t there before, as if he needs to see you stuffed with his cum, unravelling around his length, a mess beneath him.

And you give it to him, shuddering when his fingertips sneak to your clit, the flickers he lands there unfaltering. That combined with the steady drag of his cock has your vision blanking, contentment spilling through your nerves as your high hits. It’s quick; a hard fast thing and spreads right from your core and through your system. Namjoon fucks you through it, swallowing your incoherent mumbling with a deft press of his lips against yours. You don’t realise you’re crying until he swipes a thumb along your cheeks, dropping a kiss on the damp skin of your face.

“You’re so pretty,” he murmurs. You don’t miss how his hips speed up, muscles tense underneath your trembling fingertips. “So pretty. My pretty girl.”

“Cum in me,” you reply, breaking away to catch his gaze. Namjoon chokes, hips faltering. You don’t let him process it, still riding high on the look colouring his features. This is what he wanted from you, and you’re drunk enough on the feeling of him deep inside of you to say it. There’s still a tremor in your walls that grips him tight and you aid it by raising your hips upwards, the bend uncomfortable but worth the darkness that consumes the brown of his eyes. A part of you wants to say it again and you do, voice low in the room. “Joon, I need you. Need to feel full.”

“Fuck me.” It’s said under his breath but you don’t miss it, stomach twisting when his cock slams into you. It’s hard and mean. Namjoon takes everything you’re giving him, folding you into his mattress and driving his hips hard enough for the bed-frame to shift, a low thud against his bedroom wall. You let him have his way, groaning into his ear, the sheen of sweat that builds on both your bare bodies glimmering under the dwindling glow of the sunlight. There’s a faint tepid heat flickering in your core and it sparks up when Namjoon lands a hard kiss on the span of your neck, moaning low as he splits you open on his cock.

“So fucking tight.” There’s a hitch in your rugged breathing, your grip on his ruined sheets fierce. “So wet. All for me. All mine. Right, baby? This is mine, isn’t it?”

“Yours,” you whisper in return, lost in the feeling of him enclosing you in. “All yours.”

His lips are soft against your own, a delicate press of his mouth that doesn’t match how hard he’s fucking you. But you revel in it, rupturing into something bright and wild and full of love underneath the piston of his hips. It’s good now, the sensitivity you felt a moment ago ebbing into nothing but heat and want. You don’t miss how he twitches against your walls, thrusts growing erratic with every lewd slam of his length inside of you. And you want it, reminding Namjoon of that fact with wicked whispers in his ear. He caves fast, a few last hard rolls before he paints your walls in his release, the moan he lets out bleeding into your skin. You’re on edge now, the feeling of Namjoon’s cum coating your cunt when you’re at peak fertility doing something stupid to your brain. It shouldn’t turn you on — in fact you should be terrified. You weren’t ready to be a parent, yet the weight of him on you, the spurt of cum that slips from your cunt when he draws again, sends your spiralling. It’s swift, the swing of your legs back around his waist.

“No — don’t, don’t move. Not yet.”

Namjoon pauses, checks still warm and his skin a pretty golden rouge. You don’t enjoy the way he reads you.

“We can’t cuddle like this. Remember what we did last time? The cockwarming?” He suggests it easily. He gets what this is doing to you even when you don’t understand it at all. You nod because the idea of Namjoon not lodged inside you sounds abhorrent. He shifts the both of you quick enough, his softening dick back to half-mast the moment your protest emerged. It’s easier like this, with you sprawled on his broad chest. You don’t want to acknowledge it but you’re still somewhat wound up and the feeling of him holding you close, your cunt stuffed full of his cum, is doing unimaginable things to your brain. You pretend it isn’t, snuggling into the valley of his massive chest, feeling safe and secure. And then Namjoon opens his mouth.

“We’re going to have to talk about this. You know that right?”

“No, we don’t have to talk about it. Ever. Pretend this never happened.”

His laughs echoes in your heart. “Baby, I just came in you and you’re ovulating. That’s fairly risky, don’t you think?”

“I told you!” You whack his arm for good measure. “I told you it was dumb.”

“But I liked it,” Namjoon continues, staring intently at the ceiling. “A lot.” You flutter, cheeks hot at his admission, a bubbling in your chest that shouldn’t be there. “And judging from how you’re using my dick to keep my cum inside of you, I’m guessing you liked it too.”

“...Maybe.” You hate it but he’s right. You liked having him use you like that, the prospect of his cum doing more than leaving you euphoric with satisfaction lingering in the depths of your mind.

“Maybe?” He scoffs, wide hand gently pushing you off his chest despite the whine you release. “Get off then, I need to check if my dick is intact. I think I saw the fifth dimension when I came.”

“Shut up, please!” You cling to your boyfriend, viciously wiggling around until you feel him twitch inside of you. It’s too nice of a feeling to lose just yet. “Why are you ruining it?”

“Why can’t you admit what you’re into? Speaking of that subject, I don’t know what your kinks really are. So far there’s been a bit more exhibitionism than I expected from you but the breeding one… is different. Not bad. Just different,” he suddenly rambles.

“Because it’s embarrassing.” Your voice is small, landing on his naked chest in the silence of his room. His hand shifts from shoving you off to gingerly resting on you back, rough fingertips languidly tracing patterns on your skin. The motion is reassuring, yet you can still hear the eye roll in his voice when he speaks.

“You’ve seen the fisting porn on my NSFW twitter, what the hell do you mean embarrassing?”

“It just is!” You protest. “I’m not sure what I’m into.”

“I think you are, you’re just not comfortable admitting it to yourself. Don’t you watch porn? Or have any particular fantasies?” Namjoon’s persistent despite your deflection and while some part of you hates it, you know he’s right. He always is — well most of the time.

“I do,” you retort instead, refusing to give him an ounce of triumph. “You know that don’t be dumb.”

“Well then,” Namjoon returns, curiosity colouring his voice, “What’s your NSFW twitter? I’ve shown you mine, let me see yours.”

“I don’t have one…”

There’s a pause, the hand on your back drawing to a halt. You can hear the cogs in his head turning.

“You don’t? What do you use then?”

“...Yours,” you whisper. The breath that falls from his lips is horrified. “I like most of the stuff you like,” you quickly tack on. Somehow this is more shameful than admitting that you like being stuffed with Namjoon’s cum. The silence carries on and you're left stewing in your thoughts, looking for a way out of this awkward mess when Namjoon starts up again, a tentativeness in his tone that concerns you.

“Most of what I like,” he says. Another pause. “... Including the fisting porn?”

“Namjoon,” you snap, “Shut up.” You can’t believe you’re allowing this man to plug his dick in you after sex, can’t believe it at all. It’s a horrible realisation to come too especially when he breaks out into a loud laugh, his chest shuffling you around with every quick intake of air and the sound of his glee resounding in your heart.

“Sorry, angel,” he offers between muffled laughs. You hate him. You do even if you love him ten times more than you hate him. “We should make you one after this,” Namjoon says. “And then get food. Sounds good with you?”

“Food first,” you retort, mellow in the arms of your lover. “And then the Twitter porn.”

[mypoisonedvine]

Ties That Bind, Debts That Burden | Curtis Everett x reader

for @stargazingfangirl18​ and @navybrat817​‘s august challenge!  my prompt was the gif!

summary: you didn’t expect the man who bought you to be so kind.  you didn’t expect to fall for him, either.

warnings: death of a parent character, kidnapping, implied noncon/mentions of noncon, sexism, sexual slavery (mentioned), dub con (but not in the way you’re expecting), implied age gap (everyone is over 18!! as always!!), semi-public sex, breeding kink, loss of virginity, pain kink (slightly)

word count: a bit over 4k (and I wrote it all in one day... hey that rhymes!)

[this is another one of those things where the fic itself is dark due to the subject matter, but the character in question is not ‘dark’ in the traditional sense.  so, curtis is a good dude, it’s everyone else that sucks; this is a dark fic tonally, but not sexually per se]

Life in the tail section was ruthless.  It was all about survival, and survival was about being stronger than others.  You weren’t strong.  What you did have was your father, and he had kept you safe all your life, even before the two of you had lived in this terrible place.  He was a sort of leader; people looked up to him, and as a result, they obeyed his wishes to stay away from you.  Even so, you could sense that a lot of the men in the train were just waiting for their chance to take you.  Women who didn’t have significant skills to offer, women like you, were seen as a commodity with only one purpose.  Less like wives and more like slaves, they were traded, sold, and bartered for like clothes or rations.  It made you feel sick, but most of all it made you terrified for what would happen when your father couldn’t protect you anymore.  He was strong, but old, and so tired.  You hated to see how hard he had to work so late into his life, just so that you wouldn’t have to suffer.  

When he died, it almost didn’t feel real.  Even though it was sort of expected with the way his health had been declining for months, it was nothing you ever could’ve imagined.  A world without your father meant a world you were truly alone in… and only now did you confront the real cruelty of life in the tail section.

You woke up to being dragged by your hair; you screamed and kicked, but there was little you could do as you were thrown down onto the floor.  Your worthless fighting was muted as rags were used to bind your wrists and ankles, and a gag silenced you.  You looked up to see you were surrounded by men, with one-- you were pretty sure his name was Jamie, you’d seen him around before-- standing up and hovering over you.

“Her father is finally dead!” he announced to the crowd with a dirty smile that was missing a few teeth.  “I got my hands on her first, but I’m willing to sell her to any reasonable bidders.”

“Five rations,” one voice quickly jutted in.

“Five-- what the fuck are you talking about, man?  Everyone’s been drooling over this little tart for years and you offer me five rations?!  Get a grip,” Jamie spat.  

“Twenty,” another called out.

“Getting warmer,” Jamie laughed.  “Come on, boys, she’s never known a man before.  This is truly a priceless opportunity.”

“Thirty!”

“Thirty-three!”

“Best I can do is thirty-five.”

“This is preposterous,” Jamie scoffed.  “She’s a virgin, and look how cute she is when she cries!  If nobody’s gonna make me a suitable offer,” he growled, suddenly grabbing you by your neck and putting his face right against yours, “maybe I’ll keep you for myself, hm?”

You sobbed and tried to squirm away but it was beyond useless, your bound limbs overpowered easily as he held you down and licked a stripe up the side of your face, just to hear you scream behind your gag.

“I’ll take her,” a deep voice boomed suddenly.  “A hundred rations.”

“A-- what?” Jamie stammered. 

You tried to look around at who it was but you couldn’t see very well in the dark.

“It’s more than enough,” the man continued.  “Hand her over.”

“Curtis,” Jamie greeted awkwardly, and your eyes went wide with recognition, “I… didn’t take you for the bartering type.”

That was an understatement.  You knew Curtis, like some of the more chivalrous men of the back car, was a long-standing boycotter of this sort of activity.  He didn’t even seem interested in the women who wanted to sleep with him, let alone those who were being sold against their will.  Seemed like his patience had worn out, and he was finally giving in to his biological needs, no matter who would suffer cruelty along the way.  Just your luck that it would be you for sale when he gave up on his morals.

“I didn’t take you for the type to stall when he’s offered a great deal,” Curtis replied coldly.  “Now give me the girl and take your payment.”

Something must have changed hands, but you were too busy staring at the corrugated steel floor and hoping it was all a dream that would end any moment.  

You lurched back as Jamie picked you up again, tossing you to Curtis who caught you awkwardly.

“Have fun with her,” Jamie encouraged, “make sure it’s loud enough so we can all hear; a little consolation prize for the rest of us.”

Curtis said nothing as he turned and dragged you to his bunk, ignoring your muffled pleas.  When he set you down, he kneeled beside you and put a hand on each shoulder to brace you.

“I’m going to take off this gag, and your ties,” he offered, “but you need to stop crying, okay?  Everything will be alright.  I won’t hurt you.”

You weren’t sure you believed that, but you tried to steady your breathing.  Maybe if you did what he said, he would be gentle with you…

You nodded slowly, and he untied the gag.  Your sore mouth appreciated the reprieve as you wiggled your mouth around to stretch your lips.  You had sort of assumed that whoever bought you would leave the restraints on, so that you wouldn’t fight back.  But Curtis was so strong and healthy, he didn’t even need to bind you: your body tensed up again at that realization.

“Shh, shh, calm down,” he requested as he worked on the knot around your feet, “you don’t need to be afraid of me.”

Finally your limbs were freed, though that freedom was wasted on exhaustedly falling to the cold steel floor.

“Use this rag to clean off a little,” he instructed, handing you a cloth that had been soaked in water, “and go back to sleep for the night.”

“You… you’re not going to…?” you murmured, confused.

“I don’t believe in enslavement,” he shook his head.  “Your father was a good man; he did a lot for me, even when I had nothing to offer him in return.  He told me to pay him back by keeping you safe after he was gone.”

You hadn’t realized your father knew Curtis so well.  You’d seen him around, sure, but he was more a stranger than anything.

“Thank you…” you whispered, your voice hoarse and ragged.

“You need to rest,” he whispered back.  “You can sleep in my bed-- someone’s already claimed yours, I’m sure.  I’ll be on the floor beside you if you need me.”

Your cheeks burned with guilt.  “Curtis, don’t do that.  You spent so much on me... I don’t want to be any more of a burden.”

“Don’t worry about that now,” he soothed, “we can talk in the morning.  Get your sleep.”

After washing yourself hastily with the rag (focusing most on wherever Jamie had touched you), you slipped into the sheets on his mattress, finding him different from the ones you were used to, but comfortable in spite of the unfamiliarity.  

Curtis settled in on the floor, and in the near-darkness you could just make out the silhouette of his face as he closed his eyes and relaxed against a roll of tattered clothes as an improvised pillow.  You’d always thought he was handsome, and the impression you’d gotten was that he was patient, and honorable, but kept to himself.  You could remember just a few nights ago when you never could’ve imagined this being your new life.  Although you did wonder if Curtis was simply waiting for the morning to claim you, in the meantime you decided to take him at his word and just be thankful that someone seemingly kind had bought you instead of Jamie or his fellow bidders.

Two weeks later...

If anything, it was odd how little Curtis had asked of you.  He didn’t even really talk to you.  Even your father expected you to help him with anything you could; sometimes it was just keeping him company, listening to him.  But Curtis all but avoided you.  All that said, his presence was rarely needed to keep you safe.  People respected your father, but they feared Curtis.  He wasn’t violent-- well, he wasn’t violent typically.  Nearly a week ago he had gone to fisticuffs for you after a man had tried to grope you.  The weird thing was that you hadn’t even realized Curtis was nearby: one moment you were alone and being pulled into a stranger’s oppressive form as he purred in your ear, the next Curtis had appeared and shoved him off of you.  That seemed to get the point across that Curtis’ things were not to be touched.

Feeling guilty, you decided to do whatever chores you could think of while he was away from his ‘room’ (which was, of course, not a room at all but a bed draped with a canopy of tattered fabric in order to create some privacy).  You waited for his return with a little smile on your face, sure he would be grateful for your service and maybe would start to warm up to you more.

“Hi, Curtis,” you greeted with a peppy grin when you saw him approaching, jumping up from where you had been sitting.

“You washed my clothes,” he noticed instantly.

Your smile fell when you realized that he wasn’t happy.  “Did I do something wrong?” you asked sheepishly.

“You are not my slave; I cannot make that more clear,” he frowned.  “Never do a chore on my behalf again.”

“Please, Curtis.  You’ve done so much for me, just let me prove my usefulness.”

“You want to be useful?  Stay out of harm’s way.”

“Oh, I see,” you sneered, “you don’t want me to do your chores because I am your chore.  Is that all you see me as?  A debt you are repaying to my father?”

He seemed confused by that question.  “What else could I see you as?”

“A partner!” you protested.  “A woman!”

He grabbed you suddenly, pulling you into him by your wrists.  “Stop talking like that.  I won’t hear any more of it.  Just stay quiet and take care of yourself.”

He dropped you as you began to cry, crumpling into a ball on the floor.

“Don’t cry,” he frowned.  “Why could you be crying, when all I told you was that you don’t have to do anything?”

“I suppose I should be thankful that you’re not sadistic,” you explained with a shaky, weak voice, “but you’re still plenty cruel to me, I hope you know that.  You ignore me completely-- and no one else will talk to me, because they’re afraid to upset you.  I’ve never been so alone.”

He sighed and sat down beside you on the floor.  “I never meant to…” he trailed off.  “I bought you to save you from them.  Not because I had any purpose for you.”

“I have no purpose,” you stated plainly, moving from sad to stoic.  “Don’t you hear how sad that sounds?  Can you blame me for being upset when you’re telling me straight to my face that I’m useless?”

He seemed to at least see where you were coming from with that, looking to the side with an oddly guilty look in his eyes.

Suddenly, he reached to pull up his shirt and you gasped when you saw a cut along his side.

“I fell,” he explained, “and scraped against something.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” you comforted to the best of your ability, “I hope it’s not giving you too much trouble.”

“It’s not, but I’m worried it’ll get infected.”

You thought for a moment.  “I could… help you clean it?”

“Sure,” he nodded, “that would be nice.  Thank you.”

“It’s nothing,” you shrugged as you grabbed a rag to dampen.  “I’ll be right back.”

You cleaned his wound in silence, carefully washing away the dried blood, even when he sucked in breaths through his teeth as you touched the sensitive places.  The task at hand distracted you from your previous outburst; this was exactly proof of why you needed things to do, you’d go crazy otherwise.  

“I don’t think it’ll need stitches,” you informed him as you put the rag away and rolled his shirt back down.  “We’ll just clean it again tomorrow and I bet that’ll be enough.”

“Good,” he nodded.

The day was winding down to a close already, and you looked around to see a lot of the people nearby starting to prepare for bed, if they weren’t already on their mattresses with their eyes and ears covered to block out the distractions of those still awake.

“I think you should take the bed tonight, since you’re injured,” you offered.  Up until now, you’d been alternating nights on the floor; it was the only compromise you two could come to.

“I couldn’t ask you to sleep on the ground two nights in a row,” he shook his head.

“You’re not asking me to.  I’m telling you that I will.”

“I won’t take the bed.”

You crossed your arms and grinned stubbornly.  “Then we’ll both be on the floor.”

“Fine,” he sighed with defeat, “I’ll take the bed, but only if you share it with me.  I can never sleep well when all I can think about is how cold and uncomfortable you must be.”

You were surprised to hear that, because you had always felt the same way on the nights you were in the bed.  Seemed both of you were getting worse sleep than you let on.

“F-fine,” you stammered, realizing how little space the two of you would have to work with on the mattress, “we’ll share it then.”

“Might help with the cold anyway,” he shrugged as he stood up, removing his outermost layer of clothes before slipping behind the curtain that surrounded the bed.  You swallowed, as if you hadn’t realized until now that you were going to be in bed with him so soon.  

You removed your jacket as well; even though you normally liked to sleep in something less bulky than the dress you were wearing now, you figured he would protest if you were in any state of undress while sharing a bed with him.

As you pulled the curtain aside, you found him already on the farther side of the bed, facing away from you.  He was so far off the edge that he surely would’ve fallen if there wasn’t a wall on the other side.  

“Curtis, you’re twice my size and you’ve left nearly two-thirds of the bed for me,” you chuckled, slipping into the covers with him and noticing how much space was still left between you.  “Relax, won’t you?”

“Alright,” he relented, laying back a little as his shoulder brushed against yours.  

“Goodnight, Curtis,” you mumbled as you settled in and got as comfortable as could be reasonably expected, letting your eyes fall shut.  Sure, it took awhile, but with a forced relaxation you were able to drift to sleep and stay that way for quite some time.

At some point, you awoke to the softest noise beside you.  At first you thought it was just your dream, but then you heard it again-- Curtis was breathing strangely, and you jumped up when you heard a strained noise of pain.

“Curtis!” you hissed into the dark.  “Are you hurt?  Is everything alright?”

“What?” he stammered, jolting away from you.  

“You were--” you started to explain, but then you realized he was palming at his trousers; specifically, he was stuffing his cock back into them.  “Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, “I didn’t-- sometimes you just-- I never meant to--”

“Are you feeling… frustrated?” you asked him softly, moving a little closer to where he was pressing himself back against the wall.

“It’s fine,” he assured you, “I’m fine.”

“Let me help you,” you pleaded.  “I wanted to help you so much, but there was nothing I could do.  Let me do this, please.  I want you to feel good…”

“Your father, I promised him--” he began, but you interrupted.

“Don’t talk about my father,” you requested.  “You kept your promise.  I’m safe.  Let me thank you for all you’ve done.”

Your hand reached out and made contact with his heaving chest through the thin layer of his shirt, beginning to trail down over his stomach and finally to the hard outline inside his trousers.

“W-wait,” he stuttered quietly, even though you felt him quietly sigh with relief as you palmed at his erection.

“I don’t want to wait anymore,” you whispered-- so quiet even you could barely hear it-- as you leaned in and your nose brushed against his cheek.  “I wanted you for so long, Curtis, did you not know?  Wanted to touch you… wanted to make love with you…”

He let out a long-held breath as you reached into his trousers and wrapped your arm around his length.  It was so hot in your palm; it warmed you in the most intoxicating way.

“R-really?” he murmured.

“Of course I did,” you answered, moving your hand and slowly stroking him.  God, the poor man must’ve been so pent-up: he was bucking into your touch already, his cock so hard that you wondered if it was hurting him.  “Every woman on the train lusts for you.  To have you so close and not be able to do anything about it, it was torture.”

“Nothing compared to what it was like,” he groaned softly, “to want to have you for so long and feel horrible for it.”

You began to pump his cock faster, seeking more of those beautiful noises he was making.  The way his length flexed against your palm made arousal tingle all throughout your body.

His hand slipped to the back of your neck, his fingertips brushing up against your hairline and making you shiver.  He whispered your name and you felt like putty in his hands, so distracted by your own need that the pace of your strokes faltered briefly.

The two of you stayed like that for a few moments longer-- foreheads pressed together, shivering and shaking and panting in each other’s arms-- before a rush of adrenaline gave you the confidence to speak.

“I want it inside me,” you whispered against his ear.  “Please, Curtis, I want you inside me.”

You swung your leg over to straddle him, pushing yourself up off of his chest.  He whispered your name with shock as you lifted your tattered dress and pulled it over your shoulders.

“Touch me,” you begged.  “Didn’t you want to?  I wondered if you did.  I wondered how your hands would feel…” you trailed off as you grabbed his wrists and guided his hands to your waist.  They were strong and rough, and so hot against your skin that you thought you might just burn up right there.  He moved them on his own then, sliding them up to your breasts which he gently grasped.  You sighed a little and melted into his touch.

His thumbs teased your nipples, which were already hard and alert.  You tried your best to suppress your moans, aware that many other passengers were sleeping nearby.  Secretly, the idea that they would hear Curtis pleasuring you was almost titillating.  You hoped it would make them all jealous.

“You’re so soft,” he whispered, “and… smooth…”

“Did you long for me?” you asked, your curiosity getting the better of you.

“Yes,” he finally admitted, “yes, I wanted you.  I want you now.”

You reached down and grasped his cock again, guiding it to your wet, swollen opening.  He made a noise that sounded something like a whimper and a groan as the head of his cock moved through your folds.

As you sunk down, you tried to ignore the burn of his cock stretching you open, though a pained whimper escaped your lips.  

Curtis’ hands gripped your hips tight enough to bruise as you slowly took more and more of him into you.  His head fell back with a groan, lost in the way your walls gripped him tighter than he thought possible.  In that moment, he wanted more than anything to hold you close and never let go.

You shivered as your hips met his, feeling full in a way you could’ve never imagined.  It still stung as he forged a new path inside you, moulded you to his shape, but you didn’t mind because it was him.  

You were so weak that you struggled to lift yourself on top of him, but he gently guided you to lessen your load.  Your body adjusted to him rather slowly, and every time you rocked your hips made you hiss with discomfort along with the sparks of pleasure burning through your gut.  Even when it hurt, you wanted more; if nothing else, the noises of his restrained ecstasy spurred you on.

Leaning down, you laid yourself on his chest so that you could hear him better, and him you.  His arms wrapped around you and you felt small; normally, feeling small meant feeling weak, vulnerable, scared… but in his arms, it was wonderful.  You felt vulnerable, yes, but protected.

Your name tumbled from his lips like a whispered chant as you moved on top of him, and you whispered his name back.  The way his cock rubbed against your insides felt so good that you couldn’t even remember that it hurt before, but then again, you couldn’t remember anything from before right now and you didn’t want to.

Your moans got louder and louder, though they were still relatively quiet, but either way they were like music to his ears, sweet and soft and all for him-- just like you.

“S-stop,” he groaned, “you have to stop.”

“Why?” you gasped, feeling a little guilty for not instantly obeying, and yet too lost in pleasure to stop moving your hips.

“If you don’t stop, I’ll come,” he explained breathlessly, “and you could get pregnant.”

You bit your lip, feeling your face warm with an emotion you were sure you hadn’t experienced before.  “What if that’s what I want?” 

“Fuck,” he sighed.

“What if I want you to come inside me?  What if I want to have your baby?” you continued.

You managed to suppress your yelp as he grabbed you and flipped you both over until you were on your back and he was hovering over you.

“Is that what you want?” he asked with a low growl. 

“Yes,” you gasped, “Curtis, it’s all I ever wanted.”

“Fuck,” he moaned, pulling back and thrusting into you again.  He lifted your legs to rest on his shoulders, nearly folding you in half as he fucked into you so deep that you could scream.  You didn’t, but you wanted to.  “Gonna fill you up so good… you’re gonna be so full,” he promised, “you’re gonna be mine.”

“I already am,” you promised, “I always was.”

He leaned down to dominate your lips with a searing kiss, fucking you deep and slow but with an increasing ferocity.  Each thrust was harder than the last until the most prominent sound was the slapping of skin, your arousal so prominent that it was beginning to leak and drip down your thighs and ass.

“Tell me who you belong to,” he growled, right against your ear.

“You,” you moaned, “I belong to you, Curtis.”

“Fuck yeah you do.”

You gripped his arms tight as you felt your walls spasming with your orgasm-- it was unlike anything you’d felt before, even though you’d touched yourself plenty of times up until now.  Already you knew you were going to be addicted to this feeling.  Poor Curtis; you were going to be begging him to fuck you day and night if this was how good it felt.

The tightening of your body around him, and the way you bit down on your lip to keep from screaming with pleasure… it was all too much for him to hold back any more, and with a stuttered groan he spilled himself into you.  

You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him into another kiss.  He relaxed on top of you as he reciprocated, both of you basking in the glow of the moment.

“Don’t pull out yet,” you pleaded as the kiss ended, “just hold me a little longer, won’t you?”

“Of course,” he smiled softly, placing one small, delicate kiss to the tip of your nose.

“Did you really want me for so long, like you said?” you pressed, remembering what he’d said and fearing it was just a sweet nothing in the heat of the moment.

“You have no idea how long,” he sighed.  “I dreamed of this; of you being mine.”

“Was it everything you imagined?”

“And more,” he assured with a soft laugh.  “Best hundred rations I ever spent.”

[softykooky]

Sanctuary : One

A/N: This is my first ever fic! I’m a new writer and I’m just starting so please go easy on me :) Also, I edited this way too quickly so forgive me if there are any grammar mistakes. Please let me know what you think and if you would like more parts! Request anything you like! 

Summary: Seoul's drug ring is sovereign of a small group fo 7 men, who have just gotten their hands on the ambassador's daughter.

Warnings: physical/emotional abuse, guns, violence, kidnapping...

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There was always something so surreal and soft about a cup of black coffee in a cafe that you have never been to, sitting across from a ghost in a booth that you have never sat in. You cradled a cup of lukewarm coffee between the palm of your hands, periodically sighing into the cold air of the room. The barista had given you a few side glances. A normal behavior though, you’ve been sitting here for a good couple hours now. There was nowhere else to go, and the cafe would give you a couple hours to think of a place to sleep for the night before inevitably walking around a park and finding a nice cozy bench. You looked outside the window.

Rain. At least it wasn’t hail. Better to go to bed drenched than in pain.

From the corner of your eye, you could see the barista approaching you, apprehensively and like she was there out of obligation. 

“Is there anything you need at all? You want me to freshen up that coffee for you?” Her name tag read Kim. 

Yes, there are a lot of things I need. No, you can’t help me with any of them.

“No, that’s alright. I’m so sorry, am I taking too long here?”, you began to pack up your bag full of nothing and made way to move out of the booth. 

“No, no, I was just checking up. Take as much time as you need.” She left you alone after, walking away with no intent to wait for your answer. People always do that. You looked outside the window again, and the rain had worsened, now slamming against the glass so intensely you felt it vibrating against the table. It was so loud. Almost loud enough so that you couldn’t hear when gunshots erupted through the door of the cafe. 

No. No. Not more of this.

Out of instinct and past reflex, you ducked down under the booth table, making yourself as small as you could. You didn’t dare to let out another breath. The other patrons of the cafe had scattered immediately, some making it out the door in a sonic sprint. Your eyes shot to the barista, who was standing there shaking uncontrollably with a strawberry smoothie nestled in her hands, eyes wide staring at the group of men who had just open fired.

“Ah boys. I was wondering when you would arrive. It’s rude to leave your guests waiting, you know.” The voice came from a man sitting in the corner of the room, still sipping on a cappuccino with his face tucked under a hat.

“Cut the shit, Mino. What happened to our shipment at the port in Gwangju?” His voice was sharp. Seething and filled with an intense hatred that could be heard from the tone alone. You would hate to be Mino right now. You looked around again, and the cafe had already been cleared out. The barista was nowhere in sight. What luck.

“I know what happened.” A different voice from the same group of men.

“You stopped it before it got on the boat. Tipped off Hyun’s crew that our goods were in transit and you, spineless as you are, gave up our protection and loyalty for a couple million that they offered you.” The man’s words seemed to silence the room. You held your breath, only watching the scene unfold before you.

The man named Mino coughed into his cup. He set it down, then idiotically tried to sprint out of the cafe and away from the grasps of a group of heavily armed men. Even you wanted to laugh. They cornered him, backs turned to where your booth was. This was your chance. You can run and they’ll never know you were here. The barista popped into your mind again. You couldn’t leave her alone.

You crawled out of your hiding space under the booth, making your way to the counter and trying to ignore the sound of Mino being beaten to a pulp that made a familiar anxiety bubble in your chest. You had to focus and not blow into a panic attack. Your advance was almost completely soundless, and the mystery men were far too preoccupied to notice you behind them. You peeked through to the counter, finding a shivering barista who still clutched a strawberry milkshake like her life depended on it. Her eyes held your gaze, tears streaming down her cheek. You mouthed for her to follow you as you turned around once again, preparing for the treacherous trek to the door.

“Mino, we could have been such good allies. Is that your price of betrayal? A million and a half?” A punch to the stomach. Uppercut to the jaw. “I would like to think we are more expensive than that, don’t you boys?” You winced, spiritually sending condolences to Mino. Sounds like he messed up real bad.

You held onto the barista’s hands behind you, slowly standing up and walking gingerly out the door with her in tow. 

Okay Y/N you’re halfway there. Just a little bit more. Quietly, you’ve done this before. 

The men turned around.

Oh fuck. 

The only thing you could think of was flinging the barista in front of you and running full speed to the door, now busted in its frame with pieces of shattered glass on the ground. “Shit. Run, Kim! Go!” You yelled in your haste, still pushing her in front of you. If it hadn’t been for the hand that had suddenly encased itself around your upper arm, you would have made it too. You were pulled back into a hard chest, sighing in relief as Kim sprinted out to the other end of the street, not looking back once. Watching her, you wished you could have done the same for your sister. Now you were going to die. But it was okay because you saved someone from the same fate,

“What the fuck is wrong with you? The gunshots didn’t scare you away?” You turned to his face. If this were a normal day, you would’ve been in awe at how handsome this stranger was. Had it not been for his increasingly tight grip on your hand and a gun in the other. You couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even breathe. You thought you had already escaped this part of your life. 

“What? Are you mute?” He squeezed your arm more, eyebrows furrowing as steam seemed to shoot out of his ears. You whimpered in pain, which seemed to soften his demeanor and loosen his grip. 

“I-I’m sorry. I couldn’t get out in time.” Tears had involuntarily made their way down your cheeks. He sighed, turning his gaze to the other men in the room who had been tensely watching. Wow. Leave it to you to get yourself tangled in a shootout with the most beautiful criminals you had ever seen in your life. 

“Whatever. Mino’s taken care of. Just take her with, she’s already heard everything. No loose ends.” The man in the middle said nonchalantly. Your face paled.

“No. No you can’t. Please, I promise I won’t say a thing. I’ll pretend it never happened.” Now it was your turn to hold onto the man, shaking in his grasp as you pleaded. You couldn’t go back to this violence. He stared at you in disinterest.

“Please, don’t take me.” You had begun to cry more intensely, feeling an impending doom over your head. It never matters what you want. What you need. The world just kept going on. The men exchanged knowing glances, restraining and dragging you to the black SUV that had been parked outside. You didn’t fight then. It was useless. This life will always drag you back. 

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When you woke up from a sleep of exhaustion, you were still in the car. Both your hands and legs had been tied with scratchy rope that dug into your bleeding skin. You looked around at the men, who were all occupied with something and chatting with each other as if they hadn’t just shot up a cafe and beaten a man to an inch of his life. You coughed to clear your throat, but were too scared to say anything else. A man with wavy black hair looked your way, almost sneering at your presence. 

“Princess is awake.” He spit out the words, making you confused. Were you so terrible even from such a short encounter? You looked down at your hands instead, staying silent. The car drove for god knows how long before it stopped in front of a house that you assumed costs more than your life. Before you could gawk anymore, the same man gripped onto your bruised forearm and dragged you out of the car. You bit your tongue at the pain, cooperating with everything. 

They seemed to fling you around like you were a ragdoll. Next thing you knew, you were being shoved down ungracefully on a chair in a white room, staring at your own reflection in the mirror you faced. For making it through a gun ambush, you looked pretty okay. The door opened to a man, a gentle smile on his face.

“Hello Y/N.” You froze, wide eyes coming up to meet his gaze.

“How do you know my name?” Your voice shook as you spoke, fear seeping into every word. He held up an ID card that you had left in your bag. 

“What a coincidence, huh? That when we took someone captive it would be the daughter of the Japanese ambassador.” The same anxiety from before bubbled up again, threatening to spill out of you. 

“I...I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

He chuckled humorlessly, taking a seat across from you and tossing a file onto the table with your face plastered on the front.

“Says here you ran away a couple months ago right? I wonder why though...was Daddy not giving you enough weekly allowances? Didn’t get you the latest season of Saint Laurent that you wanted?” He spit the words at you as if they were poison, making you recoil back into your seat. You wouldn’t tell him the reason you ran away, but you wished it was because of something measly like Saint Laurent.

“Ah, silent treatment. Well, Ms. Y/N. I’m sure your father would reward us handsomely for the return of his beloved daughter, don’t you think?” His words made a chill shoot up your spine and tears welled in your eyes.

“No!” You screamed in his face, catching him off guard.

“Please….please don’t do that. Please don’t send me back. I’ll do anything. Anything but that.” 

Your desperation seemed to confuse him further as his frown deepened and he looked at you curiously. He seemed to be deep in thought before his expression flattened once again, cold eyes staring back into your teary ones.

“Do you know how many people would kill to be in your privileged position? The money that your family has? Do you know how fortunate you are?” He judged you, tutting as he flipped open the file to read more. You shook your head, staring down at your tied hands and trying to soothe the sharp ache in your chest.

“Yeah….so fortunate.” You laughed, refusing to meet his gaze once again. If your old life had been considered fortunate, you wouldn’t even want to know what was considered unlucky. He stayed silent, only reading up on the details of your life more. 22 years old. Black hair. Brown eyes. Daughter of the Japanese ambassador and distinguished family. Your father is a business tycoon and your mother his arm candy. One sibling; a sister. Allergic to shellfish. 

“Well, Ms. Y/N, if you are so desperate to not return to your cushy life with a silver spoon, you’ll stay here until we figure out what we should do with you.” He pulled you up from your seat and signaled you to follow him. The house you were in was almost as grand as your own, hallways spanning for what seemed to be miles. You guessed that the chandelier above you was Swarovski; you had the same one in your dining room. You felt annoyance gnawing at the back of your head. Who was he to judge you when your lifestyles were so aligned. 

“You’ll be staying in here.” The man opened a door to a large room with a queen size bed in the middle. It looked like your room back home, and you wanted to throw up. Your expression didn’t go unnoticed as the man rolled his eyes.

“My sincerest apologies if the room is not up to her highnesses’ standards.” He shoved you roughly through the doorway, making you stumble over your own shaky feet. The man turned to leave but was stopped by your meek and quivering voice.

“W-What’s your name?” You muttered, ignoring the fear you could hear in your own words.

“Not that I owe it to you or anything,” he said coldly.

“It’s Namjoon.” 

Namjoon. The name suited him. Suited his confident gait and his cold but calculating stare. You wanted to yell in his face. Tell him that you weren’t the spoiled brat princess he had made you out to be. Scream the reason why you ran away. But you couldn’t. After all your father and family have put you through, you knew how important his job was and what a high government figure he was. You couldn’t threaten that position. Your father was still your father once, and not the monster he has become. 

You collapsed on the soft bed after washing up as best you could, with no intention of sleeping. Sleeping risks having a nightmare, and your state was already fragile as it was. You turned on the bedside lamp and tucked yourself into the goose-feathered blanket, finally processing everything that had happened today. It seemed to crash like a ton of bricks, and you let out the pain on a poor, ill-fated pillow that had the unfortunate fate of being near. 

A knock sounded from the other side of the door and swung open immediately afterwards. You bolted up to a sitting position.

“Could you keep it down? I’m in the room next to you.” His words felt like a slap in the face, and you could feel another bout of tears surfacing but swallowed down to avoid being pummeled by your captor. 

“Oh”, you hiccuped, “sorry.” 

“What? Do the sheets not have high enough thread count? I’ll get someone on that”. His words were mocking and rude, and try as you did, you couldn’t stop the dry sob that forced its way out of your throat. His lips curled up into a smirk. You hated that they assumed everything about who you were. You hated being taken. You hated whoever this is that told you to be quiet.

“Taehyung! What are you doing in there?” A silver voice cut through the hallway and you halted your hysterical sobbing in anticipation and fear. Another man. One of the ones in the cafe. There had been seven of them, you weren’t sure. He looked at you and softened at your red and blotchy face.

“Did you make her cry, you brat?” He slapped Taehyung across the shoulder, making him roll his eyes. 

“I told you to go easy and look at what you did.” He seemed to be lecturing the other man like a parent figure. It would’ve made you giggle had you not been sobbing.

“H-He didn’t make me cry. I was crying before...I was being t-too loud. I’m sorry.” Wiping away the tears that had clouded over helped you see the new man. Of course, dangerously handsome and aura dripping in elegance. 

“Yeah, Jin-hyung, I was just trying to hack the cameras in the embassy but I couldn’t do it while it sounded like a funeral next door.” Taehyung huffed, rubbing the spot where he got hit. So this new guy’s name was Jin. You made a mental list in your head. So far you have figured out Namjoon, Taehyung, and Jin.

Jin approached you and gently wiped away the steady stream of tears on your face. You nearly gasped in surprise. Ever since the cafe, everyone has been so rough with you. Come to think of, it’s been so long since anyone has ever touched you with care and no intent to hurt. You flinched at the unfamiliarity, which made Jin frown before moving away. 

“Come on Tae, let’s let Y/N get some sleep.” He ushered Taehyung towards the door and closed it gently. You were alone, again. With nothing but your thoughts.

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“Y/N, you’re fucking useless. We had you to make our family look better, and you can’t even serve that simple purpose.” Your father spit the words at you, accompanied with a stinging slap across the cheek. Some days were worse than others. At least he wasn’t hitting your sister.

“God, why the fuck did the universe give me this pathetic excuse of a fucking daughter?” He kicked you in the stomach.

“All I asked was to not go out and let the press see you.”

Punch to the jaw.

“And you can’t even do one fucking thing right.”

Another kick. 

He always said the words eerily calm. That’s how you’d know he was angry. He would never yell, just said it simply and without waver as he beat you into the floor and your mother pretended not to hear from the other room. 

“I should just get rid of you now. You’d make a good whore.” His fists rained down on you. By the end of it, you laid still and let him finish taking his anger out on you. It was never worth fighting back, anyway. He would just hit you twice as hard. 

You woke up with a gasp, hands clutching onto the blanket that was held to your chest and gulping in air desperately. You had started crying in your sleep, leaving a wet stain on the pillow and your body felt sticky from sweat. This was why you avoided sleeping in the first place, but it seems you cried yourself exhausted last night and drifted away. A cough came from the open doorway, as a man peered in with a tray of food. His shocked eyes told you that he had been here before you woke up.

“Food.” He uttered. He walked closer to your bedside table and paused, taking in the scene before him. You were having a nightmare when he came in, and all he knew to do was stare at you until you woke up. He swiftly placed the tray onto the nightstand, and you flinched in response, which confused Jungkook even more. He shook it off, turning to make his way out the door. Before he could leave, though, you yelled out and asked for his name. 

“It’s Jungkook.” His eyes avoided your’s.

“Jungkook...thank you for bringing that for me.” His hands froze on the doorknob. He never expected someone like you to have manners at all, much less for the same group of people that kidnapped you off the streets. Jungkook left with no more words exchanged. 

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“Hyung...did you notice something weird about Y/N?” Jungkook fiddled with his fork as they all sat around a dining table eating breakfast. He had been feeling off all morning after Y/N, like something was gnawing at the back of his mind. 

“Who? The girl we kidnapped?” Taehyung questioned, mouth full of scrambled eggs as he insisted on shoving more in. He looked at Jungkook confusedly. 

“Yeah..she’s just jumpy. More than most. And when I went to give her food, she was having a nightmare and pleading for someone to stop.” Jungkook knew the signs. He knew what that looked like. He’s experienced it. 

Jin looked up from his newspaper and sipped a cup of black coffee. “Come to think of it, yes actually. She flinched away from me yesterday and I barely moved.” Jin didn’t give it another thought, though, returning to his newspaper crossword puzzle. 

“I dunno Kook, it’s probably nothing. Probably dreaming about someone stealing her Birkin.” The group chuckled at Yoongi’s jab lightheartedly.

“Yeah, you’re probably right”, Jungkook pushed down his suspicions. He was probably reading too much into things. Those are miniscule signs and he was in no way a profiler.

Taehyung chugged a glass of orange juice after his mouthful of eggs. “Besides, she just got snatched off the street by a bunch of strangers.” He looked at Jungkook, trying to assuage whatever he’s got his head roped up in. 

The group spent the rest of the morning laughing over breakfast and briefing over the duties they were each responsible for. More like a group of old friends rather than business partners of an underground mafia that dominated the entire Seoul drug ring. You really had no idea what you had gotten yourself into, and what being the ambassador’s daughter means for you. Namjoon would have to decide by the end of the day what the course of action is regarding your situation. Giving you back to your father would put them in his favor. They would have an in to high-level government officials. However, keeping you would give them leverage to hold over the ambassador’s head. What Namjoon didn’t know, though, was why you were so insistant on not going back. He was going to make it his goal to find out. 

[mldrgrl]

The New Addition

by: mldrgrl rating: PG-13 Summary: Hanella welcomes a guest for the weekend

Even more rare than a call from Becca was a FaceTime.  Texting was more her style.  So, when Hank picked up his phone and saw the incoming video call, he answered immediately.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“That’s how you answer your phone?” Becca said.  “Why does something have to be wrong?”

“Many apologies, Daughter, but the infrequency with which you grace us with your face from a remote location are rare as natural breasts on a porn star.”

“Do you think that’s an appropriate thing to say to a daughter, Father?”

“Fuck no, but surprise calls make me nervous.  What’s up, Kitten?”

“Don’t ever call me that again.  Is Stella there?”

“Yeah, I think she was grading some exams or something, hang on.”  Hank turned away from the phone and leaned over the sofa to try to see down the hall to the back room she was using as a study.  “Stella!  Stelllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

“Oh my god, why are you screaming at her?” Becca said.

“I like to take the opportunity to rehearse my Stanley Kowalski impression when I can.  Here she comes.”

Stella came down the hall with her hands on her hips and her brows raised.  Hank held his phone up so she could see Becca on the screen and she immediately dropped her hands from her hips and softened her brows, but she quickened her step.

“Becca, darling,” Stella said.  “What’s the matter?”

“This is why I only text,” Becca said.

“Well, if you called more, we wouldn’t think shit had hit the fan somewhere.”

Hank opened up his arm as Stella came around to the sofa and sat down.  She leaned against him and he adjusted his grip on the phone so they were both in the frame and so that she could also see Becca.

“I have someone I want you to meet,” Becca said.

“How the hell did you meet someone during a pandemic?” Hanks asked.  “Oh my god, are you online dating?  You know those people usually turn out to be serial killers.”

“Dad!”

“Darling, don’t worry, it’s still statistically a very low probability even if related crimes have been on the rise.  Give me his name and social security number and I’ll run a background check.”

“Or her,” Hank interjected.  “We’re still holding out hope she’s a lesbian.”

“This is the last time I am ever calling you,” Becca said.

“Does your mother know about this guy?”

“Or girl,” Stella added.

Becca sighed and rolled her eyes.  She leaned down and tilted her phone at the same time so the view was of her ceiling and then she came back into frame with a small, brown poodle.  “This is Ziggy,” she said.  “A friend of a friend of mine was giving away her dog’s puppies and I picked him up this morning.”

“Lovely,” Stella said.  “He’s very handsome.”

“I haven’t even met him, but I guarantee this is my favorite guy you’ve ever introduced me to,” Hank added.  “Now you’ll be far too busy for online dating.”

“I’m not online dating, but I’m wondering if you can do me a favor?”

“What’s the favor?”

“Next month I have the writer’s retreat scheduled upstate.  It’s just for a long weekend, Friday to Monday, can you watch Ziggy for me?  He’ll probably be housetrained by then.  Maybe.  Hopefully.”

“Of course,” Stella answered, as Hank also said “Not a chance.”

Becca grimaced slightly.  “It’s just that I’d really rather not have to put him in a kennel.  I guess I can call Mom and see if she can pick him up, but it’s so far.”

Stella squeezed Hank’s knee.  “You don’t need to call Karen,” she said.  “We would love to watch him.”

“Fine,” Hank said.

“Thank you.”  Becca smiled and held the dog closer to the phone.  “Ziggy says thank you as well.”

Hank ended the call and then turned to look at Stella.  She tipped her head back to look at him as well.  He tried to scowl and she smiled.

“Why did you say no?” Stella asked.

“Why did you say yes?” he countered.

“I asked you first.”

“I asked you second.”

“Because I don’t see a reason to say no.”

“Because I got her a dog once and where do you think that dog is now?”

“I wouldn’t know, where is it?”

“I have no fucking idea, that’s the point.  I went through all the trouble to steal the little fucker from the boyfriend of this woman I was...uh, actually it’s irrelevant how I acquired the dog, let’s just say I got a dog for Becca and fuck if I know what happened to the late, great Cat Stevens.”

“What in the world does Cat Stevens have to do with it?”

“That was the dog.”

Stella patted Hank on the knee and then tried to get up from the couch, but Hank pulled her back down.  “I have to grade papers,” she said.

“I just wanted to make sure you knew about the naked shower party I’m having tonight.”

“Wouldn’t any shower party be naked by virtue of being a shower party?”

“That’s a very good point, Sherlock.  I’d revise the invitation, but I’d rather just be redundant.”

“Mmhm.”  She pushed on his knee and this time he let her up.  “Text me the details, I need to get back to grading.”

“What, like a dick pic?” he called after her.

She glanced over her shoulder at him with one eyebrow raised.  He waited until she was back in the study to unbutton his jeans.

*****

Becca dropped the dog off on a Friday morning, bright and early.  Stella was awake to prepare for one of her classes, but Hank was still asleep.  He didn’t hear the drop-off, but when he woke up and wandered into the kitchen to make coffee, he tripped over the dog, stubbed his toe, and shouted a ‘motherfucker’ so loud he was pretty sure he was going to get scolded for it later.  The dog ran away.

“Yeah, you better run,” Hank mumbled, limping to the coffeemaker.  “Fuck.”

Stella startled him not a minute later when she smacked him on the ass.  He jumped and rubbed at his stinging backside, turning to her with a pout.  She was holding the dog in her arms and it was whimpering and holding on to her neck with its head turned away from him.

“What was that for?” he grumbled.

“First, for shouting expletives whilst I was on a lecture.”

“I’m sorry, Sherlock, I didn’t mean to.  Did they hear me?”

“No, fortunately, I was on mute.  There are student presentations today.  Which I must return to.”

“The damn dog tripped me and I stubbed my toe.  It might be broken.”  He leaned against the counter and lifted his foot up to show her his foot.  “See.”

Stella reached out and took a light hold on his toe.  He made a face at her and she gave it a rough tug to which he yelped and pulled his foot back.

“You’re fine,” she said.

“You’re mean.”

“Please don’t make enemies with Becca’s dog for the weekend.”

“He started it.”

Stella handed the dog over to Hank and gave it a scratch on the head before she walked away.  “I put the instructions on the refrigerator,” she said.  “Give them a read and then make yourself useful and take him for a walk.”

Hank pulled a sheet of instructions out from the magnet on the refrigerator and read through them.  They were very detailed.  Too detailed.  He wanted to crumble them up into a little ball and burn them.

“Ridiculous,” he said to the dog.  “When we left Becca with the babysitter the only unwritten rule was just not to kill her.  You’re a dog, you should be pretty self-sufficient.  Just don’t piss on the rug and don’t shit in any of my shoes and we’ll get along fine.  Deal?”

The dog twisted and wriggled in Hank’s arms to be put down and so Hank put him on the floor.  The dog sat down and then lifted a paw to scratch at Hank’s knee.

“Make up your mind, Zig.  Up or down, what do you want?”

The dog barked once and then sneezed.

“I don’t speak canine.”  

Ziggy whined softly and pawed at Hank’s knee again.  The coffeemaker beeped behind Hank and he turned around to shut it off.  He poured the coffee into a travel mug and left the cap off so it could cool a bit.

“Okay, Stella says you need a walk,” he said.  “I need to put some pants on.  Don’t lay anywhere where you blend into the floor.  I need my toes.”

The dog followed Hank into the bedroom and immediately jumped on the bed.  Hank shooed him off and undaunted, he explored from corner to corner, sniffing the walls and the furniture and the clothes on the floor.  Hank snatched up the jeans Ziggy was nosing and put them on.  He grabbed a fresh t-shirt from the closet and then went to dig through a duffel bag that Becca left for the dog’s leash.

It took Hank several attempts at getting the harness onto the dog.  Number one, because he kept stepping out of it as soon as Hank got it on one foot.  Number two, because he initially put it on backwards and didn’t know how the clip could possibly work when it was under the dog’s chest.  He finally figured it out though and it seemed secure.  He grabbed his keys, his wallet, a mask, and the coffee and headed to the elevator.

The half an hour walk with Ziggy made Hank understand the meaning of the term ‘boundless energy.’  If it wasn’t for the coffee, he couldn’t be sure he’d have made it.  When they got back, he unclipped the dog from his harness and even though it felt like they’d just run a marathon, Ziggy dashed across the room and hurdled himself onto the sofa where Stella was now sitting.  To Hank’s surprise, Stella laughed as she dodged excited kisses from the dog and didn’t scold him at all or tell him to get down.

“I am exhausted,” Hank said, collapsing onto the sofa beside Stella.  He grimaced and let out a pained ‘oof’ as the dog stepped on his crotch and up onto his chest.  “Fuck me, this dog is trying to kill me.”

“Have a nice walk?” Stella asked.

“That thing had to piss every five feet and terrorize all the squirrels and pigeons in the neighborhood.”  Hank pushed Ziggy away when he tried to lick his chin and the dog laid down on his chest, panting hot and heavy in his face.

“How’s your toe?”

“What toe?  Oh.  Not broken, I guess.”

“Lovely.”

“He is a total chick magnet though,” Hank said, waggling his eyebrows at Stella.  “Ladies were flocking to me like flies to honey.  Almost got a few numbers.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t worry I told them my wife would kick my ass before she let me take a hot girl’s phone number.”

“I think I might join you for this afternoon’s walk.”

Hank chuckled and nudged Stella’s leg with his knee.  “Kidding, Sherlock.  Some kid did ask me if Ziggy had an Insta and then had to explain to me that any dog who’s anydog has an Instagram account and we should get on it the sooner the better if we want him to be a doggie influencer.”

“A what?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Looks like you have a new nap partner.”  Stella inclined her chin towards the dog, who had dropped his head down to Hank’s shoulder and let out a deep sigh as his eyes closed.  She smiled a little and stroked the dog’s back a few times.

“I didn’t know you liked dogs so much,” Hank said.

“More of a cat person, really.  I don’t mind them though.”

“Did you read that list Becca left?  It’s more complicated than the Treaty of Versailles.”

Stella chuckled.  “It is a rather overly complicated schedule.  For a dog.”

“I say fuck the list.  I kept her ass alive for the requisite 18 years without a list, I can probably handle a dog for a weekend.”

“Tell that to Cat Stevens.”

“Oh yeah.  Wherever the fuck he is.  Okay, maybe we better stick to the list.  Though I would like to point out, Cat was Becca’s dog.”

“Maybe that’s why she made a list this time.”

*****

Ziggy was sound asleep when Hank turned off the lights in the main room.  The dog was passed out on his back, in his bed beside the couch, tongue lolling out of his mouth.  Hank tiptoed past him into the bedroom and quietly shut the door.  Stella was in the bathroom brushing her teeth.  He came up behind her and pressed her into the counter with his hips, sneaking his hands up her shirt to massage her breasts.

Stella grunted slightly through her nose and pushed her hips back into Hank’s.  She put her hand up to hold her hair back and Hank pulled his hands out from her shirt to do it for her.  She leaned over to spit into the sink and he held her hair with one hand and stroked her neck with the other.

“Thank you,” she said.

Hank finger-combed Stella’s hair up into his fist at the top of her head while she wiped her mouth and then he let it go and rubbed her shoulders.  She turned around and he held her by the hips.

“Where’s the dog?” she asked.

“Outside smoking a cigarette.”

“Do you think he should go outside once more?”

“He’s dead asleep.  He was like…”  Hank imitated the dog, rolling his eyes back and sticking his tongue out of the side of his mouth.

“You’re the one that was worried about him urinating on the rug.”

Hank pouted his lips and then nodded.  “Fine, I’ll take him upstairs.  But, you better be naked when I come back, or else I’m sleeping on the couch with the dog.”

“I don’t think that’s the threat you believe it to be.”

Hank narrowed his eyes and pinched Stella’s hip before putting his mouth to her neck and nipping lightly at the back of her jaw.  She laughed and pushed at his chest until he let her go.  He playfully slapped at her backside on the way out of the bathroom and she swatted his hands away.

The dog was still sleeping when he opened the door, but he whistled softly and Ziggy startled to his feet and then shook himself.  “Come on, hairball, we’re going outside.”  He snapped his fingers a few times and the dog followed him to the door to the roof.

Ziggy was hesitant on the stairs, taking them slowly and pausing every few steps to get his footing as he hopped up.  He ran around the newly landscaped deck, sniffing just about every nook and cranny and lifting his leg on half of them.  It had gotten chilly since the sun went down and Hank, in bare feet and a t-shirt, hopped up and down a few times and rubbed his arms as he called the dog back.

Hank was forced to carry the dog down the stairs when he wouldn’t budge from the top.  He made a few false starts, but ultimately sat down and wouldn’t move.  When he put him down, Ziggy stared up at him and then stayed closed to his legs as he went back to the bedroom.

“You, stay,” Hank said, pointing to the dog bed.

Ziggy sat down next to the bed.  Hank closed the door.  Stella was sitting up in bed, reading a magazine or journal, which she set down on her lap and took her reading glasses off.

“Did you really think that’s going to work?” she asked.

“He’s fine.”

Before Hank even finished, Ziggy was yelping and scratching at the door.  Stella raised her brows and Hank sighed.  He opened the door and the dog came flying through, jumped on the bed and leapt onto Stella with his paws on her chest, wagging his tail and kissing her cheek and chin.

“Settle, darling,” Stella said, turning her face away and pushing the dog back.  He gave a whining bark as he dropped down.

“Do they make ritalin for dogs?”

“He’s just a baby.”

Hank kicked the dog bed into the bedroom and then pushed it against the wall with his foot.  “Go get in your bed,” he said.

Ziggy laid down where he was, next to Stella.  He put his head on his paws and lifted his eyes up at Hank.

“Now he’s giving me puppy dog eyes,” Hank said.

“Shockingly, I believe that’s where that term came from.”

“Well, I don’t like it.  It’s too effective.”

“Resign yourself to the fact that we have a little guest for the weekend.”

Hank grumbled under his breath as he went to the bathroom to get ready for bed.  He stripped to his jockey shorts and snapped off the overhead lights on his way back.  Ziggy looked up from beside Stella like Hank was the intruder.  He even had the audacity to give a little growl when Hank leaned over to give his wife a kiss.  Annoyed, Hank flopped onto his back and the dog scooted closer and rested his head on his arm.

“Oh, now you want to be nice,” Hank said, reaching over to scratch the dog on the head.  “I’m surprised Becca hasn’t called.”

“What do you mean?”

“To check up on the dog or let us know she made it to the retreat.”

“She’s been texting me all day.”

“What?  What did she want?”

“Checking up on the dog.”

“She doesn’t trust us?”

“You didn’t question her motivations five seconds ago when you were surprised she hadn’t called.”

“I like to be fickle to keep you on your toes.”

Ziggy sighed and squirmed until he was on his back, all four paws limp in the air.  Stella chuckled and rubbed his chest before she closed her magazine and tossed it onto the nightstand.

“We’re letting this thing stay up here, then?” Hank asked.

“Yes.”

“I think I’m more of a cat person too.”

*****

Hank was surprised that the dog was no trouble during the night.  He woke briefly when Stella, always an early riser, got up and said she was going to take Ziggy for his morning walk and when she got back, would be entering in project results into her electronic gradebook for a bit.  He grunted in response and mumbled a reminder to leave him some coffee.

When he finally woke fully, left the bedroom far more cautiously than he had the previous morning.  Ziggy was nowhere to be found, but as soon as he started puttering in the kitchen, the dog appeared.  Hank crouched down and gave him a few scratches.

“What were you up to, hm?” he asked.  “Getting into trouble?”

Ziggy followed Hank as he went to the bedroom, most likely interested in the piece of toast in his hand.  Hank held the toast between his teeth, wiped his hands on his jeans, and picked up his phone from the nightstand to text Becca.

Morning sweetheart.  The furball is good.  Not to worry.  Haven’t shipped him off to a kennel yet and probably won’t.  Have a good time at the retreat.

Hank took a bite of his toast and then tore a piece off and tossed it to the dog.  Ziggy caught it mid-air.  About thirty seconds later, he heard Stella calling his name and he snapped his fingers at the dog to get him to follow him out of the bedroom.

“What’s up?” Hank asked, and shoved the rest of the toast into his mouth.

“What did you say to Becca?”

“Hm?” he mumbled, mouth full.

“She just texted me and said you’ve implied the dog has been sent to a kennel and wants proof of life.”

“No I didn’t,” he said.  “I said I haven’t sent the dog to a kennel so she doesn’t need to worry.”

“Why would you say that to her?”

“So she wouldn’t worry.”

“Well, she’s worried.”

“That’s not my fault.”

“I’ll send her a photo.  Ziggy, come here, darling.”  

Stella kissed the air a few times, but Ziggy thought trying to be caught was a game.  He bounded away from Stella and then stopped and bowed down, his hind end in the air and tail wagging.  She patted her knee for him to come, but he just jumped a few feet to the left and went back into the same pose.

“I’ll get him.”  Hank started towards the dog and Ziggy barked and then ran to the kitchen.  Hank ended up chasing him around the butcher’s block several times before he was able to catch him, but keeping hold of him was difficult.  “Stay still, Zig.”

Stella knelt down and quickly opened the camera on her phone.

“What’re you doing?” Hank asked.

“Taking a photo.”

“A selfie?”

“Do you have another suggestion?”

“I don’t know, I don’t do selfies.  Unless they’re dick pics.”

“Yes, I am aware, but we won’t be sending your daughter a photo of your penis.”

“Well hurry up, this guy is a bitch to hold onto.”

“Smile, darling.”  Both Stella and Hank smiled as she held down the photo button, but Ziggy wriggled and squirmed.  

“Anything usable?” Hank asked, setting the dog free.

“A little blurry, but they should suffice.”  Stella got up and texted the photos to Becca.  “She says thank you, and for you to never fucking text her again.”

“Brat.”

“You started it.”

*****

The day passed.  They took the dog to the park.  He napped when they got back.  Hank worked on his book.  Stella worked on a report for her class.  In the evening, they lit a fire in the new firepit on the roof and cuddled up on the daybed with the dog between them.

“Should we get a cat?” Hank asked.

“Do you want a cat?”  Stella countered.

“Not really.”

“Me neither.”

“It is kind of nice having this little hairball around though.  Not that I want him to stay.  He’s also annoying as fuck.  But, nice to have around.  For an hour or two.  When he’s asleep.”

“Kind of like you.”

“Hey!”

Stella laughed and Hank pushed her down onto the bed, rising to his knees to lean over and nuzzle her neck.  It was a ticklish spot for her, especially when caressed lightly, and it made her laugh harder.  Ziggy barked from where he was wedged beside Stella and under Hank.  He wiggled out from under them and then jumped on Hank’s back with his front paws, barking and growling.

“Relax, man,” Hank said, rolling to one hip off of Stella.  

“He’s being a good protector,” Stella said, laughing when Ziggy nipped at the blanket over their legs and tried to pull it away.

“He’s being a cockblocker.”  Hank wrestled the blanket back from the dog and then grabbed him under the chin, giving him a few firm scratches.  “You know what, Zig?  You be a cockblocker.  You be the best cockblocker you can be, at Becca’s place.  Cockblock the shit out of Becca, okay?”

Ziggy barked and wagged his tail.

“Good boy,” Hank said.  “Good little cockblocker.”

“Don’t say that to him,” Stella said.

“Why not?”

“One day you will need to face the fact that your daughter is a grown woman who deserves a healthy sex life.”

“Oh my god, I’m going to throw up.”  Hank groaned and flopped down onto the bed with his arm over his eyes.  “Consider me officially cockblocked.”

Stella moved up onto her hip this time and put her arm over Hank’s chest.  She kissed his chin and then pulled his bottom lip between her teeth.  He grabbed her around the waist and grunted softly into her mouth.  Ziggy trampled the both of them and stuck his cold nose into Hank’s cheek.

“Gah!” Hank groaned.  

The licked furiously at the both of them and Stella released Hank’s lip with a laugh and a scrunched face.  She buried her head down into Hank’s neck while curling into his side and Ziggy tried to wedge his snout down to keep licking her face.

“We are officially never, ever, ever, ever getting a dog,” Hank said.

“No argument from me,” Stella answered, sliding away from the dog and Hank and stepping off the bed.  “Meet me downstairs and I guarantee you won’t be cockblocked.”

“Oh?”

“Naked shower party for two in ten minutes.”

“The naked is redundant!” he called after her as she walked away.  He waited until she had started down the stairs to take Ziggy’s face in his hands.  “Listen.  This is a cockblock free zone, you got that?  Keep it up and you just may end up like Cat Stevens.  We good?”

Ziggy gave a short, gruff bark and then lifted his paw.  Hank nodded and they shook on it.  He got up and let Ziggy explore the roof for a few minutes while he folded the blanket up and put out the fire.  Not for long though.  He had a naked party to get to and he didn’t want to be late.

The End

[crysalita]

Held Hostage

Jason Voorhees x reader

Word count: 1840

Warnings: Death, decapitation.

The day I had found myself in Camp Crystal Lake was the day that my life would be torn away from me. The day that I would be locked away under the ground and held hostage by the man that everyone believed to be a myth.

The day I came, I wasn’t here to party, do drugs, or have sex. Instead I was here to pay my respects for the poor boy that had drowned in the lake. Jason Voorhees, the young boy who had drowned when he was thrown into the lake. He was called names, picked on because of his differences. Due to his death, his mother had gone on a murder spree to get revenge for her son.

All the time I would hear stories about this camp, and each time they had a different outcome. People believed that it was all a hoax, a campfire story they told to scare the kids. Some believed that it was all true and that Jason actually did drown, and then there’s the few that believed he was still alive, and those few people were right.

When I encountered Jason, it was the most unexpected thing. I was one of those people that were convinced that Jason had actually drowned, so when I saw the man in the hockey mask who stood dead silent, I knew it was none other than him.

Jason held a machete in his hand, blood dripping from the blade from what I could only assume belonged to the people that I had heard pull up earlier on.

I was sat by the lake, out on the dock as I looked off into the water. I could only imagine that pain Pamela felt when she found out her little boy was dead, only he wasn’t.

*FLASHBACK*

It was silent, considering the truck filled with people that had arrived earlier on, as a matter of fact, I hadn’t heard them since they took off into the forest.

A part of me was saying that I should leave, and never return, but there was a bigger part of me that was saying that I should say. Something was drawing me in, to sit and acknowledge the people that had died on this land, pay my respects, and apologise for the immaturity of the other trespassers who come to party.

I heard the sound of leaves crunching from behind me and I whipped around, only to find myself frozen in shock at what I was seeing.

A man, I could only assume, covered from head to toe so I could see any skin. He had on a hockey mask that blocked me from viewing his face. “Jason?” I stupidly asked.

I found myself staring down at the machete he held in his hands that was covered in thick coats of blood, dripping from how much was on it. “I wasn’t here to disrespect you, or your mother. I promise.” I stammered, my eyes never leaving the blade. “I wanted to come here and pay my respects and apologise for the actions of others.” I rushed out in an attempt to save myself. My words were true, but they were said in this moment in hope that I wouldn’t be killed.

He remained unbothered as he stood his ground.

“What they did to you, wasn’t fair. You didn’t deserve that. We all have things about us that makes us different. What would the world be like if we all looked the same? Please, Jason. I’ll leave and I won’t come back, I-” I stopped speaking when the man tensed up and he began to charge at me. I frantically looked around when I realised that I was cornered. I was foolish to not have taken those swimming lessons.

The next thing I knew, everything went black and when I awoke, I was chained to the wall, where I would spend all my days for who knows how long.

*END OF FLASHBACK*

My only source of entertainment now a days was wondering if any of Jason’s victims had got away, which never happened, but there was always a slight part of me that believed there was a chance that one of them could flee the giants attacks, and maybe then I would be rescued from this hole.

I stared at Jason as he worked at his bench. I couldn’t see from where I was, but whatever it was, it was certainly important to him, as every time he was finished he hid it in a spot where no one would ever search for it.

His head shot up when the classic sound of the bells ringing throughout the cave caught his attention. He immediately put the item back in its place and gabbed his machete that was covered in dry blood. He glanced back at me before he exited the cave I was trapped in, leaving me all alone.

I waited impatiently for the sound of teen screams, but surprisingly they didn’t come.

My throat was still sore from the last time, but I screamed as loud as I could. “Help me!” I cried. I attempted to hold myself still, as my wrist were sensitive due to the consistent rubbing of the metal chains against my skin. “Help!” I repeated once again.

Then I heard it.

I sighed as I realised that Jason was already coming back, it was a false alarm. These happened more often than you would expect. An animal would fumble into a trap that Jason had set.

This time though, it was different.

I heard a voice. That was when I knew that it was someone else. “Hello?” The voice called out.

“Over here!” I cried. I heard whispering after my call out and then I heard footstep running in my direction.

Two guys came into view.

One of the guys froze in his place whereas the other rushed towards me. “Shit.” The guy mumbled as he looked at my chains. “Is there a key anywhere?” He asked as he looked around. “Dude don’t just stand there. Look.” He said to the other guy.

“I don’t think so.” I mumbled, my voice coming out raspy.

“I’ll have to break it.” He spoke. I watched as he picked up a rock off the ground and held the chain out. He bashed against the chain with all his strength, and then I was finally free.

My arms fell limp to my side, and I felt a breath of relief leave my body when I felt the cool air hit my bruised skin. “Come on, we have to get you out of here. Help-” When the boy in front of me looked over his shoulder, he got front row view of the machete penetrating through the chest of his friend.

Blood sprayed from the wound as Jason retracted the blade. “Run!” I yelled as I nudged the boy to leave, only he didn’t. He was shocked, and because of this reason, he didn’t last much longer.

Jason trudged forward with heavy steps and sliced across the boys neck, his head rolling of his body and hitting the ground. I moved over just in time as the body fell backwards and landed besides me.

I looked away from the bloody mess, as tears began to fall. That feeling of freedom I felt before was long gone and now I filled with fear and panic. Could this be it? Will I finally die?

Jason took slow steps as he walked towards me, I couldn’t tell what his gaze was on exactly as his eyes were completely dark. He didn’t look real. He didn’t look alive.

I crawled back as far as I could, with my arms being weak from how long it had been since they were able to move freely. I was stopped by the wall behind me, and I closed my eyes waiting for the impact, only it didn’t come.

I heard the clatter of Jason’s machete hitting the ground and that was when I opened my eyes.

Jason crouched down in front of me, and his hands came over to my own. He gently picked up my arm and brought my wrist close to his face.

He was looking over my wounds.

He did the same thing with the other one before he placed them back down and he stood up.

I observed Jason as he stalked over to his bench and pulled out the item he always kept hidden, and it was then that I saw the locket.

Jason walked back over to me with the locket dangling from his hand. I stayed still as he placed the locket over my head and pulled my hair out from underneath it.

I looked down at the locket, eyeing it to see what was so special. It had a photo, a photo of Pamela Voorhees. It was Jason’s mothers. That’s why he kept it so hidden.

“Why are you giving this to me?” I asked. Of course I didn’t receive an answer from the mute man, who in return stood up and went back over to his desk.

Jason pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled on it with a chunk of charcoal. He held the paper out to me, and I barely make out what the writing was.

’You are mine. You can’t leave me.’

I looked down when I read those words.

Jason was a broken man, all he wanted was for someone to be with him, so he wasn’t alone once again, but he was a murderer.

“Jason.” His head snapped over towards my direction. “You can’t keep me locked up. Someone will come and they will find me. You’ll get in a lot of trouble.” I tried to explain.

Jason aggressively pointed down to the piece of paper in my hand as if to make a point. He tightly gripped my arm and pulled it back over to the broken chain. “Jason, wait!” He paused. “I won’t leave you.” I breathed out. “Just please don’t chain me up again. You can keep me locked up down here, but don’t tie me up. I need to move around.”

Jason was hesitant, but he eventually nodded his head and silently walked away. He looked over at the exit and pulled it down shut, locking it up with some more chains that he found and a padlock. He pushed against the shut door and then returned back to his previous spot in front of me.

I then remembered the dead bodies that were still inside, and I glanced over at them. “Are you going to get rid of them?” I asked as I nodded towards the body.

Jason frantically nodded his head and threw the two bodies over his shoulder, collecting the severed head along with them. He turned around and looked over at his machete that was left lying on his bench. He looked back over at me before he walked away.

I was once again Jason’s hostage, but at least this time I had more freedom.

[stupid-stew]

A Different Kind of Pain

i forgot what writing was but then boom little venty fic if you please anyways mom eda for the win (AO3 link if you want) content warning for injury and vomiting because yes.

Ouch.

That was all Luz could think. Every bone in her body hurt, her muscles were having a screaming match with each other and she hadn’t even moved yet. Oh no. She had to move. In that moment, that was the last thing Luz wanted, she would rather have stayed there on the floor moving for days. But that wasn’t an option.

She took a deep breath in and lifted her left arm. That was all she had to do, get her arm off the ground, easy, right? Wrong. A burning pain shot from her shoulder all the way through her joints and into her fingertips. Luz had to bite her tongue to keep herself from making noise, her mouth tasted metallic. Great, another injury, what was one more. Maybe the other arm wasn’t as bad. Luz took a deep breath and shut her eyes before trying her other arm-

Huh.

That wasn’t bad.

There was a definite soreness, but nothing comparable to the other one.

Luz took her time testing her limbs one by one, how much did they hurt individually, except for her left arm, not again. It seemed like that was the worst of it, so she pulled her left hand into her body and tried to get up. Not a good idea. Her whole left side had something else to say, an intense numb ache through her entire abdomen stopped her in her tracks, she fell back onto her sleeping bag with a loud thud, the noise however was the last of Luz’s worries at the moment. The impact with the ground had made her unfortunately aware of the fact that her head was throbbing.

“Luz?”

Shoot. Eda must have heard her fall. She didn’t want Eda to know, she didn’t need anything else to worry about.

“Luz are you ok in there?”

She tried to sit up, which led to her having to muffle a pained groan before replying, “yeah everything’s fine i’m ok, just slipped.”

“Are you sure?”

God couldn’t Eda just take her at her word?

“Yep!” Luz put as much false enthusiasm into her voice as she could muster, which seemed to do the trick because Eda just hummed and continued walking.

Luz waited until she could no longer hear footsteps before deciding she had to get up. One intense inhale and a lot of momentum later, she was on her feet, doubled over in pain, but on her feet nonetheless. How could everything hurt? Did she even have enough body parts to be experiencing this? Luz tested her weight, shifting onto her right foot didn’t cause any real problems, but trying her luck on her left foot was a different story. She had to put her arm out to grab something so she didn’t fall, but using her left hand was a mistake. Luz couldn’t stop herself from yelling out as violent pins and needles made their way up and down her arm. She couldn’t move, she felt parylized. There was a set of rapid footsteps coming up the stairs.

Eda.

Luz didn’t want her to know, didn’t want her to worry, but she couldn’t do anything about it. If she moved, let go of the beam she was holding onto, put her leg out, no matter what she did next, it wasn’t looking good for her.

“Luz?” Eda sounded worried, that wasn’t part of the plan, but Luz couldn’t even respond, the pain throughout her body had rendered her mute.

“Ok kid, I’m coming in.” Every part of Luz’s mind was on fire, she didn’t want Eda in here, she couldn’t talk or move, what was she going to do?

A soft sliver of light came from the hallway and illuminated the part of Luz’s room where she was standing, huh, sort of like a really awful spotlight, Luz thought to herself. She closed her eyes, it was the one part of her body she could move and there was no way she was going to let herself see Eda’s face.

“Oh titan.”

Luz guessed she must have had some visible injuries because Eda ran right up to her side and placed her hands on Luz’s back in an attempt to give her arm some relief, which surprisingly didn’t hurt as much as she was expecting.

“Luz, let go of the beam, I’m gonna lower down, ok?”

She tried to open her mouth but there was something sealing her lips, so she just nodded her head and closed her eyes as she let her hand relax. Even without her magic, Eda was strong enough to hold Luz and gently place her on the ground. The problem came when Eda had to move her hands out from under Luz, she ended up running her hands along Luz’s left side, and that set her off.

Suddenly, it was like there were too many things happening at once. She couldn’t pinpoint where the pain was coming from, it was all over. It was hard to breathe, wait why wasn’t she breathing. Luz realized she had been holding her breath. She tried to let it go, but the lack of pressure in her chest made everything worse. Now it was like she needed more, more weight, everywhere. She took a deep breath in and held it. Good, that was better. It was like there was no more pain, she couldn’t feel anything past her thoughts, she rolled over and grabbed Eda’s side, desperate for any sort of contact she could get.

“Woah kid what are you doi- OOPH-”

Luz pulled Eda on top of her and held on tight. The witch was sort of kneeling now next to Luz with her torso laid across Luz’s while the kid seemed to be trying to pull Eda into the ground with her.

“Luz what is going on?”

Luz couldn’t answer, instead she just tightened the grip her forearms had around Eda’s middle and let out a sad sort of pained groan.

Eda realized that Luz’s chest wasn’t moving, was she breathing?

“Kid you have to breathe.”

Luz didn’t process what Eda had said, too busy focusing on the insane amounts of energy that were crashing through every part of her. She needed to move, to go, to do something, but she couldn’t at the same time. She just needed to wait, to have something crushing her, holding her down, keeping her still. Eda, where was Eda going.

Eda had put her own arms out and was trying to lift herself off of Luz, it seemed like the kid needed something but she wasn’t sure what until she saw the look in Luz’s eyes.

The kid looked desperate, she was writhing around, whimpering, looking for anything to grab, to hold onto, how was she even moving with those bruises? Eda didn’t think twice about it, instead she just repositioned herself and took Luz in her own embrace, allowing her to hold on as tightly as she needed. She noticed Luz starting to breathe, they were sharp, deep inhales that the kid was holding in for far too long, but at least there was oxygen entering and leaving her lungs.

Luz suddenly took her hands off of Eda, and Eda took it as a sign to get up, which was apparently the right call because Luz shot up off the ground, and started walking around, ignoring the searing pain that was still deep in her bones, she wasn’t going anywhere, back and forth across the room, moving her arms around in seemingly random patterns. Her thoughts were still too loud, even though she wasn’t thinking about anything, she couldn’t hear, she was flapping her hands and repeatedly popping her knuckles in an attempt to make everything stop. She didn’t know what was going on, there were too many things happening and they all needed to stop. Her prayers were answered when she realized she was nauseous. She stopped moving and walked straight for the bathroom, not even registering Eda behind her.

She made it just in time, her knees hitting the floor just as the first wave of bile escaped her throat.

Eda wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened. First Luz was holding onto her as if her life depended on it, then she was walking around in constant motion as if stopping meant the end of the world, and then she had walked out of the room on a mission? Where was she going? All of Eda’s questions were answered when she heard heaving in the room next to her. Uh oh. Eda briskly walked to the bathroom, and just as she had suspected, found Luz face down in the toilet bowl. If the last couple minutes were any indication, Luz probably didn’t want anyone touching her at the moment, so Eda kept her distance, deciding to leave the kid to it while she went down to the kitchen to get a glass of water ready.

Luz’s whole body was on fire. Her joints, her muscles, her throat now, but she had never appreciated it more. Sure, nobody liked dry heaving into the toilet unable to breathe, but that meant she was done. She could move again. Luz felt tears running down her cheeks, she wasn’t sure if they were out of pain, relief, if it was just because she was overwhelmed, but she wasn’t going to do anything to stop it, she didn’t have the energy. She rolled into a sitting position on the floor, rudely reminded of the fact she was still injured by a wave of discomfort caused by the motion.

Luz took a minute to sit there, just sitting with her head against the wall, crying, letting herself be hurt, and that was how Eda found her.

“Oh, Luz.”

Eda put the glass of water in her opposite hand and took a seat next to the girl. She knew better than to touch Luz anywhere that might cause the kid pain, so she just placed her hand gently on Luz’s knee. If she wanted anything more, Eda trusted her to initiate it. She waited for Luz’s breathing to calm before offering the water.

Luz wasn’t thirsty, but she knew Eda would worry if she didn’t have any, plus it couldn’t do her any harm to get some water in her body given the events of the past half hour, so she took a couple of swiggs before handing it back.

Eda sighed, “we need to take care of those bruises.”

Luz just nodded.

“Anywhere in particular it hurts too much?”

Luz cleared her throat as best she could, deciding it was time to test if her voice had returned yet, “My left side.” it was quiet, but it was her voice.

Eda winced “that’s where I moved my hands after setting you down isn’t it?”

The silence told Eda all she needed to know.

“I’m so sorry kid.”

Luz laughed a little, “it’s ok, you didn’t know.”

Eda hung her head a little and got herself up before extending her hand out to Luz.

“Cmon, let’s get you up.”

Together they were able to get Luz seated onto the counter, the hisses of pain that came from Luz were enough to drive Eda to the edge of tears, but she knew it had to be done. As she helped Luz, the realization of what had just happened to Luz hit her. Eda was familiar with it, it had happened to her a few times when she had first gotten cursed, those transformations had been especially difficult, painful. Eda didn’t have to imagine how much pain Luz had been in to cause that kind of reaction, she had been there herself.

It took a while, but eventually Luz was sitting facing Eda from the countertop.

“I’m assuming your arm hurts the most?”

Eda had noticed Luz treating it with a different tenderness than the rest of her body.

Luz blushed and nodded.

This confused Eda. “You know you don’t have to be embarrassed. It’s ok to be in pain, you just need to let me help you.”

Luz looked up at her with tears in her eyes, “bu-” something stopped Luz’s words. Oh no. Before she knew it she was emptying the contents of her stomach onto the floor in front of her, which was also where Eda was standing.

“Eda I’m so sorry.” Luz was crying now, each of her words punctuated with a sob.

“Shhh it’s ok. It’s just some water and some clothes. Don’t worry about it.” Eda wrapped her arms around Luz’s shoulders, taking care not to hit any spots that might hurt Luz more. She let the kid sob into her chest, not caring the slightest bit about her shirt. Let it get stained by tears, by vomit, as long as Luz is ok. Eda rocked back and forth on her feet, being careful not to move Luz too much, just enough to coax her into a normal breathing pattern. It seemed to work, because she was able to pull away and look Luz in the face, though the kid didn’t seem all that interested in returning the eye contact.

“You,” Eda brought her hand up to Luz’s face and wiped away some of the tears that were still running down her cheeks, “have nothing to be sorry for. And you have had a very long morning.” Eda was now running her nails through Luz’s hair “So, what do you say we get your arm all checked out and then you can go back to bed.”

Luz met her eye, which made Eda feel a lot better. “Nest party?” The kid’s voice was still carrying a lot of unshed tears, but Eda couldn’t help but laugh. Only Luz would be in so much pain she couldn’t move or speak, then get too overwhelmed to sit still, and then throw up, and still be injured with the prospect of a lot more discomfort in the near future, and still be focused on a nest party. Only Luz. “Yes, yes we can have a nest party.”

Luz closed her eyes and rested her head against the mirror behind her.

“Awesome.”

Eda reached out to touch Luz’s arm, not missing the look across her face at the contact, and rolled up the sleeve gingerly.

“Yeesh.”

Luz opened her eyes and looked down. She knew her arm hurt, she was well aware of that, but she really wasn’t expecting it to be this bad. There were two vertical purple and green lines running up what seemed to be the entirety of her arm, starting at the wrist.

“Yeesh indeed.”

Eda picked up Luz’s arm by the wrist and was met by a shout, causing her to gently place the arm back down as quickly as she could.

“Sorry sorry sorry, probably a sprained wrist.”

Luz hissed through her teeth, “of course.”

Several bandages later, Luz was at the point she could move her arm stiffly around without much of an issue, still wasn’t enjoyable, but doable.

After proving to Eda she could at least swing her arm and place it down without much of an issue, Luz was allowed off the counter.

“You sure you can walk?”

Luz wasn’t sure. But she had to try, so she gave Eda a shaky nod.

Eda didn’t look fully convinced, and offered Luz her arm as a support.

With Eda’s help she was able to make it all the way to the red double doors and to the nest. When they got there, Luz almost flopped into the nest, the exhaustion of her short day already catching up to her. Her back still hurt, her neck, her arms, her legs, everything was sore and she didn’t want to move. Eda picked up on this and settled for carefully moving behind Luz in the nest, and was greeted by the girl wrapping her good arm around the witch’s waist.

“Thanks Eda.” Luz’s words were slow, expressing how tired she was.

Eda grinned at this, “Don’t mention it kid.”

“Mkay.” She could tell Luz was really ready for a rest, Eda didn’t even want to think about how long Luz had sat there in her room by herself before Eda had come in, so she settled for helping Luz now. She carefully lifted Luz’s head and placed her own arm under the kid’s neck, reaching around to gently run her long nails up and down her back and up into her hair repeatedly, being extra careful to avoid anything too far to the left for Luz’s sake. The motion was all Luz needed to fall into a deep sleep, and Eda didn’t mind the breath that was blowing her own hair into her face or the cramp in her arm, because Luz was comfortable, and that was all that mattered. Eda knew what Luz had gone through, and it was a different kind of pain, and if she could do anything to take it away, even for a moment, she’d do so gladly, for Luz.

[caxsthetic]

SOLEMN PROMISE — Kita Shinsuke x Reader

Chapter 3: Love Again

Type: TV Series (Multiple Chapters)

Cast: Kita Shinsuke, Miya Atsumu, Kuroo Tetsurou

Storyline: Love couldn’t guarantee that a relationship would last forever. And you learn about it by yourself; with signed paper, and an empty ring finger.

Genre: Slice of Life, Drama

“Yeah.” He patted her back, letting her know that he listened to every word she said. “Relationships are not that simple. You can try to love, you can compromise, but still fail in the end.” He sighed, couldn't believe he let himself think about this too. "But that's just how love is — I guess."

You were afraid to fall in love — again.

He could see it from the very first moment he met you. Kuroo was not that stupid. Yes, he may not be that good with women or relationships in general, but he was observant enough to see right through you.

Lots of his friends had been mourning because of heartbreak. One of his friends that was now an outside hitter for the Japan National Team even once woke up his neighbours while in such an emotional state. Screaming out loud after a break up with his lover.

Kuroo had lived long enough in this world to know, to understand that love was not like how teen lit novels showed. It was not just butterflies inside the stomach, not just holding hands and won’t let go even if sweat already formed, not just kissing under the moonlight with speakers blaring some lo-fi songs.

Love was not just all about those blissful feelings that everyone seeks.

For love could be turned into a curse, leaving the one who got the sickness with misery and tears streaming down their faces. Sometimes — it even made someone lose their willingness to live.

And up until now, he still wonders why he brought you back to his apartment. Around two years ago, where he accompanied his best friend to cheer him up. He never thought that he would find what he hoped was love since he felt that he never had time for that.

Yet he found it inside a woman who drank lots of vodkas, drowning in pain and numbing her heart with alcohol. He found it inside a woman who asked for more liquor, more glasses, more, and more without stopping.

He found it inside a woman who was now lying on his couch, with his arms draped around her. Sleeping peacefully, forgetting the movie that was playing in the background that he muted so it wouldn’t wake her up.

He found the glimpse of love, unexpectedly inside you.

“I think I am gonna throw up.” Kuroo patted his friend’s back, shaking his head in disbelief. He couldn’t believe in himself though, he wondered why he agreed to go here, at the bar downtown while he had to go to the office around 7 am tomorrow.

Maybe because he cared for his friend too much. Yeah, that must be it. The rowdy wing spiker just got his heart shattered into a million little pieces and as a good friend he is, he had to be there.

“I-I am going to the toilet.”

“You okay going alone?” Truth be told, he was extremely worried since he knew sometimes when his friend became too emotional, something bad could happen and he didn’t want that.

“Duh, I am a grown-up.” His friend rolled his eyes, acting so tough. “I can pee alone thank you. I am not going to be hysterical while peeing anyway.”

Kuroo snorted at the answer, somehow doubting that since his mind was already prepared with things that he should do once he heard someone crying and screaming from the restroom. He didn’t show it though, believing that his friend could take care of himself.

He was alone now. Not entirely, but now he hoped his friend chose a table instead of sitting directly at the bar. He could feel the eyes of the bartender staring at him, and it very much made him uncomfortable. He owes me lots. His fingers raked the black strands of his hair as he could only grumble under his breath.

His eyes darted to the non-alcoholic drink that he ordered, sighing as now he thought about something that he never let himself fall into — love.

He knew how it felt to be in a relationship with someone, he had been there, and he didn’t want to go back again. 

Though, his heart longed to have all of that; physical contact, good morning text, knowing someone was there for him, sweet kisses every meeting. He could get all of those again if he wanted, but he decided not to.

Kuroo Tetsurou didn’t want to be with someone again, investing his time to love — not when he knew it was no use. Since in the end, nothing would last forever.

But then again, he never expected you to come barging into his life.

“Why do ya look so fucked up?” He jolted when he could feel someone’s breath on his ear, making him stumble and almost fall from the stool. “Man, yer not even wasted yet so tense! Loosen up, old man!”

Holy fuck, did this drunkard woman really just called me an old man?

“I am sorry, miss. I am here to accompany a friend.” Though no matter how irritated he was from her words, he made sure to stay polite. After all, there was no good outcome from fighting a woman — a drunk woman to be exact.

“Then what’s yer drink? That one you ordered looks so bland.” His eyebrow twitched, letting out a sigh from the blunt statement. “You didn’t look like someone just ripped your heart apart yet you seem more depressed than me, sir.” 

She cackled, making him groan, and hit his forehead on the bar table, questioning what he did in the past life to encounter someone like her. “Hm? I may still have my heart intact.” He said it with an absolute tone, confidence lingering his words. “But that doesn’t mean my life is not troublesome. Grow up, young lady, love is not everything.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

He was a little bit flabbergasted when he heard the sudden change of intonation. She was so cheery and mischievous before. But now he could feel the hair on his nape tingling as he received a glare from the woman. The stranger just sighed and focused on the drink in her hand, staring at it with the same intense glare that he just got.

“Yeah, yeah love is not everything. Even a child knows that.” She scoffed and drank her liquor in one gulp before ordering the same thing again to the bartender. Now she looked stressed, heartbroken — eyes glistening with tears as it almost fell down her cheek. “But he’s everything to me.”

He raised one of his eyebrows when he heard the mumbles that slipped from her tongue. She kept rambling under her breath, saying thanks to the bartender after she got her drink once again, but continued to mutter things. 

Not going to lie, he felt bad now since he thought it was his fault that she cried. If only he didn’t nudge deeper about love, maybe she would just tease him non-stop instead of being a mess like his friend did.

“Hey,” He called out, making her turn to face him. She looked so much in pain, as if needing some comfort, that was what he was sure of as he leaned closer. “I am sorry for being nonchalant. I am all ears if you need someone to vent, okay?” His hand rested on her shoulder, patting it gently, trying to show her that he meant no harm.

She didn’t say anything for the next few seconds. And he could feel himself being awkward now with how the silence ensued. His eyes darted to the restroom, maybe he could excuse himself after this to check out on his friend if she wouldn’t say anything.

“I am in love with this man. He is the definition of perfect.” She spoke up, though her words making him pursed his lips, couldn’t believe that someone could fall in love that deep to the point they called them perfection. “Shin is someone who can keep me grounded, he is like the anchor to my wild life.”

A chuckle slipped from her lips, followed by a little genuine smile. “We are so different, but it makes us complete each other, you know? Just opposite attract thingy~” She looked like a teenager in love, bubbly and rambling about her first love. “Bet if he saw me right now, he would whoop my ass back once we are home — not that I am complaining.”

He shuddered from the suggestive tone that rolled down her tongue, though a little bit amused at how she was so starstruck over this Shin guy. “Ah, no. He… He would not approve this though.” Her voice softened, reminiscing the relationship. “Instead, he would take care of me, changing my clothes gently, tucking me in bed, and preparing some aspirin for me when I wake up the next day.”

From how her orbs glistened with joy, everyone could see how much in love she was with this man she was talking about. “I love him, I am so in love with him. And he loves me too! I know he loves me too. Granny knows that, our friends know that, but—” 

Then came again, the sorrow inside her eyes.

“Like what a wise woman once said to me," She cleared her throat, cleaning it from the alcohol that was coating it before. "Sometimes, love is not enough to save a relationship.”

He hummed, pondering about the sentence. His mind took him back to when he had someone to come home to. How he already fought so hard over it, putting time and effort for them, how even with all the attention and affection that he gave, in the end, it didn’t work out like he wanted to.

Kuroo Tetsurou refused to fall in love — because he knew love was not enough, and trying hard to keep a relationship still wouldn’t guarantee for it to last.

“Yeah.” He patted her back, letting her know that he listened to every word she said. “Relationships are not that simple. You can try to love, you can compromise, but still fail in the end.” He sighed, couldn't believe he let himself think about this too. "But that's just how love is — I guess."

She only snorted and focused back on herself. Maybe feeling a little bit at ease that he finally let out what troubled her. Then she drank her liquor in one gulp, ordering the same thing, again and again as she wallowed herself in sadness. 

Tonight, he didn’t expect to meet someone like her. He was just here to be a good friend and cheering his friend up, letting him drink as much as he wanted. It was late now, almost 1 am. For him, it was late since he had work in just a few hours. His friend was already back from the restroom and decided that it was best to numb himself with drinks.

And now, Kuroo Tetsurou was left with two wasted people.

She was mumbling under her breath with her eyes closed, too low that he couldn’t hear it. While his friend snores so loud that he received an irritation look from the bartender and the few other patrons. Yeah, he had to leave now.

Gently, he picked his friend up, cursing since his friend was almost twice as big as him. Yes, he worked out a lot, but his body was still lean compared to the snoring man that was giggling here and there in his arm. And for sure he didn’t want to know what kind of dream his friend had.

The black-haired man laid his friend on the backseat of his car, locking the door since he still had to pay for the drinks. He almost cried when he heard the grand total. No matter how much money he had right now, he still didn’t like to spend lots in just one night.

He was ready to step out, bringing his friend back home. Though his eyes flickered to the woman who he just met, now still asleep and mumbling under her breath. But something was different — since now she looked like she had a nightmare, gasping with tears streaming down her face. Muttering,

“I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.” Again and again without a pause as if the man that she loved was currently standing in front of her. She finished the apology with a soft, cracked voice. One that made him sighed and paid for her drinks too before taking her to his car.

Kuroo may not know her, but he couldn’t just leave someone who opened up to him about herself. He positioned her on the passenger seat, making sure that she was safe with a seatbelt fastened in front of her body.

He couldn’t leave her there inside the bar, sobbing and crying all alone. She was a woman, with no friends around to protect. Who knows what would happen to her if he left with just his friend.

And of course, he didn’t have the heart to abandon her, not when she was in so much pain, missing the other half of her heart.

“Good morning, sleepyhead.” 

He heard you yawn, followed by a loud thud since you rolled your body to the side, making you fall to the ground not knowing that you were still on the couch.

“Fuck!” His laughter spread all over the living room when he heard you curse. One, two, “Tetsu!” Ah, woman. “Why the heck am I still here?!”

You grumbled, standing up with your lips jutted out to the front, didn’t like the fact that you were now sore all over your body. If you were sore because of sex or something, so be it, you wouldn’t complain.

But to have your muscles all tense and bones felt like it cracked just because of you sleeping on the couch? You were not going to shut up about it for days.

“I can’t believe you.” You scoffed and slipped yourself on the island’s stool, glaring at the man who was now cooking some omelet for breakfast. “I told you that sleeping on the couch hurts.”

“Well, I didn’t want to wake you up.” He didn’t dare to turn his head, knowing exactly that you threw a dagger at him with your eyes at the moment. The pressure you put on was real and now he was stalling the moment by lowering the fire on the stove.

"I am a heavy sleeper, Tetsu." You sighed, popping the seedless grape on the kitchen island to your mouth. "You know that. It would be fine if you drag me to the bed or something."

“Ah, sorry. I forgot you sleep like a log.” He smiled sheepishly before finally turning off the stove, placing the omelet into the pristine white plate. “Here you go.” He gently pushed the plate in your direction, thinking that maybe food could bring your mood back to normal.

But no, you grabbed it and ate with your lips still formed in a thin line. You even cut the omelet with force, making a sound that rang in his ear as the stainless steel knife made contact with the porcelain plate, resulting in him to hiss since he didn’t like the sound of it.

Now he knew that you were trying to torture him. You know some annoying sound that made him feel uncomfortable, and this is one of it.

“Hey, now.” He tried to call you out, wanting to make you stop. “(Y/n), oi!” It didn’t make you stop though. Instead, he ended up fueling you even more, making you clang your knife harder to the plate. “I have a gift for you before but now I don’t know if I should give it or not.”

Then you stop moving, lips parted as your eyes meet with his. Gotcha.

“What is it?”

“Like hell I’ll tell you after that little stunt you did.”

His voice sounded mischievous, the smirk that plastered on his face right now just showed how he felt like he won this fight. “I will tell you if you stop pouting and acting like a child.”

You held his gaze for a few seconds there, contemplating if surrendering was the best choice. But you were too curious, he was not really the type to give you something out of the blue. So it must be pretty special — and you wanted to know.

“Alright, alright.” You gently put the knife and fork down, resting both of your hands on the kitchen island. “So? What is it?”

“Hehe,” The black-haired man didn’t say anything, though his hand went to his back, grabbing something from the pocket on his pants. “Here you go!” And he slammed it in front of you, pulling his hand away to reveal the item.

It was just a piece of paper with a metallic print for the text. They finished the whole paper with a glossy coat, making it more resistant to water. Though, the material was not the thing that caught your eyes.

But the text, what emblazoned there was the one that made your eyes go wide.

VIP PASS

TOKYO OLYMPIC MEN’S VOLLEYBALL — DAY 12

Having a boyfriend who worked in the Japan Volleyball Association really intrigued you. Sometimes you would ask here and there about who was the best player at the moment, and even though you wanted to bury your old life behind, you couldn’t help but be proud when a certain setter, middle blocker, and wing spiker was mentioned.

“You like it?” Your body jolted when you heard his question. Muttering a simple ‘Yes.’ as you were still in shock with the gift. “You said you wanted to know the fields that I work in, so I think this will be a good time.”

He walked towards you as you grabbed the ticket, thumbing the smooth surface of the glossy coat. “Let me show you the world that I am in.”

Something tugged at the string of your heart. Volleyball. The said sport had been important to you since Junior High, you couldn’t shake the feelings that started to brim in your heart. You tried to shake it off, but it was still there, screaming out your name.

“What—” You swallowed a huge lump, letting your boyfriend rest his chin on your shoulder as your eyes still focused on the metallic lettering. “What match? What team is it?”

Kuroo hummed softly, nuzzling his head on your cheek, didn't realise how uncomfortable you were at that moment. He didn’t even notice how your voice trembled a little. He was just there, feeling certain that you were excited.

“Japan versus Argentina.”

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[dragons-socks]

bby bumblebee chptr 6

A tall woman stood in front of Bee with an ever present scowl on her face. A handful of shoeless kids in all white clothes were practicing movements behind her. Bee turned back to Lennox and shook his head. He wasn’t going to put on pajamas and make a fool of himself. He’d rather be at the hands of Starscream.

“Too late, we’ve already paid for you to be here for a month. So you’ll have to tough it out.” Lennox shrugged.

‘That kid just fell.’ Bee watched as a kid kept tripping over his pant legs and then knocked over another kid and like a domino effect they all toppled to the ground. The woman closed her eyes as she heard the commotion and her students started to fight.

“Silence!” She yelled over the noise and the kids got back into their lines. “Jacob, I thought you said your mom got the right sized gi this time.”

“She said I’d grow into them.” The boy that was the epicenter crossed his arms. “I tried to explain it to her, but she said not to argue with her.”

“Alright, alright. Go get the spare out of my office. The rest of you continue practicing.” She turned back to Bumblebee and Lennox. “Is he deaf?” She asked.

“No, he can hear you just fine. He’s just mute.” Lennox answered.

“Ah, I understand. It’s nice to see a parent taking action to help their child’s confidence. I’ve had many kids here come in mute and leave little chatterboxes.” The woman said.

“It has to be some miracle to get Bumblebee to talk. He lost his voice in an accident when he was younger. His vocal chords are all but ripped out.” Lennox explained, motioning Bee to tilt his head up and reveal the gruesome scars around his neck. Bee didn’t really care for his scars. He came to terms with them long ago.

“That would be difficult to restore his voice, but no matter, we aren’t throat doctors and I have a harsh zero tolerance policy on any sort of bullying so rest assured your son is in a safe place.” The woman knelt down to be at the same height as Bee. “Hello, Bumblebee, I am Laura Alves. You may call me Sensei Alves or just Sensei. I’ll be your instructor until you decide to leave my classroom.”

“Alright, Bee, I’ll be back to pick you up in about -”

“We train for two hours a day.”

“Two hours, kid.” Lennox ruffled Bee’s hair and walked out. Bee slumped in defeat as he was left with the angry looking woman and about fifteen other kids.

The first thing she had Bee do was take off his shoes and socks. The floor was cool on his feet, making his toes curl. And then the woman led him into her office and handed him a box with the same white pajamas as the other kids.

“This is called a ‘gi’. It will be your uniform when you come here. It will be your responsibility to bring them back each time. I like to start each of my students with a practice match against me. Don’t be frightened, I’m not going to go all out, my young student. It’s just for me to see your capabilities. Sometimes you kids soak up some knowledge in fighting by watching television.” Laura talked almost as much as Raven. Bee nodded along and made a few clicking noises to let her know he was listening. “After that we’ll decide on the disciplines to start you out with.”

The class was surrounding the mat. A girl with a high ponytail let out a whoop and told the sensei to ‘have his ass’. Laura told the girl to stand in the corner for time out. She looked about Annabell’s age.

“Okay, are you ready, Bumblebee?” Laura asked. Bee nodded, mimicking the teacher’s pose. He took a deep breath and nodded.

Bee was a trained soldier, he wasn’t just a scout. He was the scout for Optimus Prime. Or was the scout for Optimus Prime. He wasn’t going to go down so easily, and he never has. Even when Megatron ripped out his voice box it wasn’t without a fight.

The height difference was like fighting Optimus Prime in his original form. Laura towered over him. He blocked a few blows and threw a punch of his own. This body’s muscles didn’t have the same extreme training as his old one had. This body wouldn’t listen to all of his commands like it was breathing. He hit the floor.

He hit the floor in a matter of minutes.

“That was really good, Bumblebee.” Laura held her hand out to him. He was about to ignore it, but decided not to. He wanted to be angry with the teacher for his defeat. He even wanted to be mad at himself. He couldn’t. He knew how much work and skills he had. He survived in a multi-century old war when a lot of his race was killed out. It wasn’t his fault. It was the decepticon’s fault. It was Knockout. It was Starscream. It was Megatron, who was to blame for this and any future failures of his. This was the first step in making sure he’d be able to make Megatron pay.

With a determined look, Bee threw the first punch to the air along with a group of earth children.

___________

Annabell was hiding from Sarah again and it was up to Bee to find her. It was surprisingly difficult to find one five year old in just a two story house. There were a few places he could instantly cross off his list. Lennox’s office was off limits to anyone who wasn’t ‘physically an adult, don’t argue with me, Bumblebee,’ and Annabell was terrified of the attic storage space. That left a lot of places to cover.

Sarah had started using Bumblebee as her own scout, searching out her daughter. Bee couldn’t deny the fact that he sort of enjoyed this intense version of hide-n’-go-seek. Until today when he searched up and down the normal spots and still couldn’t find Annabell. He took a long look at the office, but still didn’t dare go there first. He walked to the attic stairs, looking up the darkened path to see if he could get a glimpse of the little Lennox.

“Bee!” Annabell popped out of the shadows, giving Bee a heart attack. “Look what I found!” She held out a small violin. Bee’s music teacher had one of these hanging on his classroom walls. She strummed the strings violently. Bee waved his hands to stop her, but it wasn’t fast enough. One of the brittle stings snapped and lashed back at the girl. Her high pitched scream alerted the mother to the mess. Bee tried to see if she was seriously hurt, but Annabell kept pushing him away.

“What’s wrong?” Sarah ran into the hall, oven mitts still on.

‘She found an old violin and the string snapped.’ Bee pointed to the busted instrument he had pushed away.

“Alright, alright. Let’s see the damage.” Sarah said, her voice calming down and coaxed her daughter into moving her hand away from her face. There was a scratch across her cheek, and a little blood was coming out, but nothing that looked too serious. Sarah picked up Annabell and brought her to the bathroom to get cleaned off and a few bandaids where the bleeding was originating.

Bee went back to the hall and picked up the violin. It fit right in his hands. He didn’t touch the strings though. He used to use the lyrics of musicians on the radio for his voice. He could communicate with his team and with Sam by switching through thousands of channels and stations to construct his own thoughts. Or he’d use the radio waves and the makeshift coder Ratchet had fixed him up with. It would translate the thoughts he wanted to speak into binary code and beep it to the world, which was automatically translated by the other transformers. His music teacher keeps saying music had a voice of its own. Even the instruments and their notes could give a message to people.

Bumblebee didn’t know why, but he found himself stashing the violin under his bed. He’d get his strength back with Laura and her class. With Sign Language, he’d have his words back. But with this violin, he’d get his voice back. He’ll move waves of people if it meant crashing on a safer shore.

It wasn’t until after the three ate dinner that Lennox came home from work that day. Ironhide’s loud rumble alerting them to their arrival. The man came through, ruffling both his kid’s hairs and giving them a kiss on the cheek before going to his wife to properly greet her. It had been established after the first week that this process was to take place. Even so, Bee never really got used to the contact. It made his skin tingle and cheeks warm up. He brushed the ‘older’ man away each time.

“What happened to Bell?” Lennox asked, inspecting his daughter’s battle wound.

“She had a fight with your old violin. I told you to throw that thing away.” Sarah said. Bee’s heart started to pound in his chest. He kept his head down, but an eye on the couple.

“Well, I guess it has to go if its already got a body count.” Lennox walked to the attic before Bee could stall him. He came back down with an empty case. “Where is it?”

“Bumblebee said he put it back? Bee, where is the violin?” Sarah asked. Bee shook his head and shrugged. He tried to get his breathing under control.

“Come on, Bee. Go get it.” Lennox’s voice was stern, almost a sprinkle of disappointment could be heard. Bee couldn’t stand when the man was disappointed in him. He shuffled to his room, already uncovering his hiding spot. It hadn’t even been two hours since it was there. His declaration crumbling in his hands. Lennox was at his door, but instead of a scowl, a soft smile was on his face.

‘What?’ Bee asked, hunching his shoulders around the violin.

“Do you want to learn how to play?” Lennox smirked. “Don’t be shy to ask if you want to do something. I know I’m sort of forcing you to take self defence classes, so its only fair for you to do something you want to do.”

Bee nodded his head so fast it almost felt like it could pop off. Lennox laughed, taking the violin from Bee’s hands and walked back into the kitchen. Bee followed, his feet lighter and heart fluttering in excitement. Until it dropped when he saw the instrument in the trash. He ran to get it out, but was stopped by Lennox

“Woah, there. What’s wrong, Bee?” Lennox asked, hands solid on Bee’s shoulders

‘I thought you said I could learn how to play it?’ Bee signed frantically.

“Yeah, but Bee, that one is broken and busted. We can get you a new one.” Lennox explained. Bee shook his head. He hadn’t cried for a week, not since he ran away. And yet here he was, breaking that record.

‘I can fix it!’ He tried to push Lennox away, but again the man was stronger. ‘Please, it can be fixed. Don’t throw it away!’

Lennox made eye contact with his wife. It would be cheaper just to buy a new Violin, he’d probably have to buy a new set of every piece of equipment for it, not to mention he hasn’t touched the thing since he was fourteen, and its been sitting in his childhood treasures ever since in various attics and storage units. The repairs would be expensive. But he also had a feeling Bee was panicking about more than just a broken instrument. How could he explain to the kid that he wasn’t going to throw him away even though he was ‘broken’ when his last family all but decided to do just that?

“Now, Bumblebee. It’s just a violin, sometimes -” Sarah began, but Lennox gave her another look. “Will, you can’t be serious. No, Will- Fine, fine.” Bee trilled happily as he fished the violin out of the trash. Sarah brought the mood down as she told him and Annabell to get ready and go to bed. Bee wanted to fight back, it wasn’t eight yet and so it wasn’t time for that. He had already lost the fight of ‘he’s not technically a child and didn’t need a bedtime’ long ago. Sarah wasn’t having any of it.

Bee was crawling into bed when he realised he had left his blanket in the living room from earlier that day. He tried to assure himself that he wasn’t a child and didn’t need that specific blanket to fall asleep. He had plenty of others he could use. He changed his mind after shifting and shuffling about his bed for half an hour. As he crept out of his room he could hear Sarah and Lennox talking about something. The closer he got to his living room the easier it was to hear.

“- but you’re taking him to his lessons.”

“That’s not fair to Bee.” Lennox shot up. “You know that I keep odd hours for tracking down decepticons. It’s my job. Even if Prime is at an unknown location, Ironhide and I still have that job to do.”

“Then find a more stable one. One that has a less possibility of getting you killed by giant robot aliens. I can’t take care of both Bee and Annabell by myself. And Annabell is our child.” Sarah’s voice was cold steel to Bee’s spine. “If I had to, I’d choose her every time.”

“Bumblebee isn’t some dog, Sarah. He’s a kid too. You wouldn’t seriously just throw him out?” Lennox wasn’t shouting, but he didn’t have too. Bumblebee could see his blanket draped across the same couch these two were having this conversation. He couldn’t bring himself to peel away from the wall’s shadows and get it.

“He’s not a kid, though. He knows it, you know it. I know it. It’s his favorite argument. He loves pointing it out.” Sarah ran a hand down her face.

“You know that isn’t completely true. Sure, Bee has more memories than most eight year olds, but he’s a kid. He’d be helpless on his own. I couldn’t just do that to him.”

“I know. But it just feels like I’m the one taking care of him, while you’re off doing god knows what. My life has been flipped upside down and you seem like none of this ever happened. You get to come home and in an hour or two he’s asleep. Do you know how hard it is to juggle a job, taking care of those two, and learning a whole new language, just so I can understand one of them. You brought Bumblebee home. I wasn’t a part of this decision.” Sarah’s voice was thick and full of tears.

“Stop talking like he’s an expendable animal, Sarah. Yeah, I was the one to decide that Bumblebee doesn’t deserve to be thrown to the dogs. But you said it was fine. You didn’t think it was such an awful idea seven months ago. You can’t turn back around and act like I twisted your arm.” Lennox stood up, pacing the length of the couch.

“I’m just asking you to switch your MOS to give you more time with your family, and make sure you have more time with family.” Sarah stressed.

“I’m not mad about that. I’m mad that you think tossing Bee aside is okay.” Lennox’s voice was like gravel at this point, but still didn’t rise in volume. Bee was choking. He couldn’t breath, his heart was beating and body was burning. He thought he was finally getting along with Sarah. They threw snacks at galra after she helped him with his homework everyday. She taught him how to make cookies last week. She was nice. And she hated him. He couldn’t even run away again, Lennox would be devastated.

“It’s not like I want to. Just make sure I don’t have to make that choice.” Sarah was outright crying now. Bee’s stomach dropped as Lennox promised his wife he’d look into changing jobs. Bee sunk back into his room, foregoing his blanket for tonight. He had others that were just fine.

He couldn’t go to sleep. The conversation ran through his head, bouncing between one ear to the next. An emotionally draining game of ping-pong. And the blue blanket was too scratchy, the green one too large, the one with trucks on it was too puffy. They all lay, kicked off, on the floor. He held his stuffed bunny tight to his chest, the soft ears positioned over his eyes to soak up his tears if they ever decided to spill.

He didn’t move as his door was cracked open. He made sure his breathing stayed even and calm. Soft footsteps approached his bed, and a familiar warmth was draped over his body. Large, rough hands tucked the blanket snuggly around him.

“I won’t let you be thrown away again, Bee. I promise.” Lennox whispered.

With tired hands, Bee found himself signing ‘good night, dad.’

“Good night, kid.”

[springtimebat]

Gold Dust (Short Story)

The clouds were beginning to roll in and a thousand city lights switched on.

The girl took a silver spoon from the checkerboard, twisting the handle in her fingers. It had a mer creature carved into the hilt, and she rolled its breast on her nails. Charles Newbury watched with hooded eyes. The girl watched him too, her eyes a similar pair. Her mouth twisted, distorted in the space just above her chin. Her lips are blood red, her shoulders hunched, her eyes yellowed and thirsty. 

There's a long silence, then Charles cuts through it with his stupid, useless words again; a butcher cutting through an animal with their disembowelling knife. 

“May I-may I hold your hands?”

The girl lowers her gaze and peers at her palms, claws with sharpened talons. She looks back up, slowly, then nods her head. Charles Newbury reached out for her.

“They’re cold.”

The girl nods.

“So terribly cold.”

The girl nods. Right again.

“Are you ever lonely?” 

“Sometimes.” And it's the first word the girl has spoken to him. Her voice is small, hazy. She’s like a mouse. 

“Do you have friends?”

“You’re my friend,” The girl insists. But she hesitates.

“What did you do before me? What did you do a week ago?”

“There was never a time before you. There was only me and the city and the lights. A long moment where I had to shield myself from the lights. I lived life under an umbrella.”

“First you’re mute but now I’ve got you talking you’ll never stop!” Charles laughs. The girl looks down, embarrassed. 

“I can stop if it bothers you.”

“No no, not at all! Please talk! I demand it!”

“What did you do before me?” The girl cloaked in midnight hours asks, and Charles Newbury’s face falls, “Do you know anyone?”

Silencio. Silencio for a short while. Then-

“No, no there’s no one else.”

“Just me?” And the girl’s eyebrows raise, “Just me and the empty spaces?”

“Lonely,” Charles Newbury agrees, “Ever so lonely.”

“Stuck in places you don’t even understand? That you don’t ever agree on?”

“Mostly. Always.” 

“Is that why I found you dying on your back?” 

“Possibly.”

The girl cackles, “You always speak in uncertainties! Possibilities, instead of certainties!”

“I wish I could speak like this all the time. Speak with others the way I can speak with you. But when I do I end up lying on my back, awaiting my saviour in an alley.”

The girl says nothing, but she smiles smugly. She takes her seat at the table, a shadow in the electric lamps. Her face is a painting. Charles is a painting too, only his image is marred by a dust cloth. Both duck to catch the others’ features.

Finally, the man sighs.

“That's how I got into the gold dust you know. That’s not really a question, I’m just explaining. I feel like an explanation is in order.”

The girl nods and allows him to continue.

“I felt...old? But young somehow. I felt so out of place. The last few years have been hell. Hell on ground.”

“Xul,” The girl agrees. Charles looks down to the floorboards. 

“The trees turned red, turned hollow. So I went to the city, ‘cause that’s where everyone goes don’t they? That’s where all the people are! But none of the people want me. None of the people can stand me. So I started the steps to take my pain away. I started on the dust.”

“In my country...” The girl croaks, “...The dying country... gold dust is a thing in the air. It’s something people quest after. Something people try to catch in jars. We experiment with it. Children play with it. It’s as harmless as a kitchen carpet.”

“Still,” Charles growls, “There are times when the kitchen carpet takes it upon itself to fly about the room. Oh that’s how they drag you in. The magic, the air, the mountains! And all the singing that goes with it! But no. No no no! It’s all of a different sort! It’s gold, it’s dust but it stinks to high heaven. The stink repels but it drags you kicking and screaming towards it. It catches you and you spiral down. Down down down...until you meet strange girls in alleys and they turn out to be the nicest people you’ve ever met!”

The girl giggles. Charlie lights a cigarette. 

“Silencio,” And this time, the forbidden word is spoken out loud. The girl smiles again and Charles starts to join her.

“Silencio?” Charles Newbury asks

“Silencio. Appropriate as it is, sometimes people can’t stand it.”

“It sounds strange. It sounds like calm waters.”

“It is the cure for dark nights and purple eyes. Silence is the cure for all ills.”

“What’s your name?”

The girl freezes. 

“Do you have a name? What’s your name?”

“You’re drunk,” The girl bristles, “You’re drunk and you don’t know what you ask of me.”

“If you’d like, you don’t have to tell me. Not just yet. Just, say anything.” 

“I will not lie.” The girl frowns.

“It is not a lie. It is silencio. It is just as good. Just as needed.”

“Surely you don’t think knowing my name will make things better do you? You must have more sense than that. Mr Newbury; are you new? Did someone ever bury you?”

“You’ll never know if you refuse to ask.”

“My name,” The girl curses, “Is none of your concern. It is about as helpful to you as the golden dust that kills you.”

Charles continues to smile, “When we are confined to the lonely places, a cluster of the grotesque and the pain, what should I call you?”

The girl lifts herself from the table and glances out at the concrete roads behind the window. 

“I’m a shadow. I’m shallow, flat and stupid. I have no need for a name.”

“But you have one,” Charles insists, “What is it?”

The girl turns. She grins, “You won’t let this go, will you?” Her voice is paper thin. She’s beginning to cry, “Won’t you please let this go?”

Charles Newbury is a ruthless man. He props himself on his elbows and continues to smirk at his crying friend. His only friend in the world is crying and he laughs. 

“Just tell me what your name is, please?”

The girl wipes a pale cheek with a black sleeve. She takes a deep breath. Two hours ago, outside was bleak and grey and worthless. Now she’d give anything to be out there again, just a silhouette on the bricks. 

“Rain,” The girl confesses, “That’s my name.”

Charles rolls onto his side, satisfied and giddy. The girl's frown deepens as she listens to Mr Newbury laugh. Her fists clench.

“Why am I with you?” She whispers, to herself more than anything else, “Why you of all people? We shall die and no one will care except us. And... maybe this empty flat. And that cigarette. That’s all that will be left of us. You won’t care but I will! Will we be lost to the sands of time, to the...to the gold dust?”

The hairs on Charles’ arms stand up. 

“Yes!” The girl yells, and her voice is the voice of a snake’s bitter poison, “Yes we will melt in the rain! In our rain! We shall build our own graves! And we shall die copies, stuffed and filled with gold dust! No blood, flesh tissue. Only straw and dust. Our remains; lost to the city sights and sounds. Petrified. Petrified body bags! Is that what you want? Is that really what you want?”

She’s shaking, but Charles crosses over and holds her in his arms. Her own arms, wire lines, grab onto his shoulders.

“We won’t forget each other. We will be together, intertwined. And that’s all that matters.”

“We barely know each other.”

“And that’s why I trust it. I trust it more than the gold dust. I trust it more than Xul. Tonight you have opened me up more than years upon years of shrine worship ever could! And that is why I trust you, more than outside. I want to spend the rest of my life with you Rain. Rain, I love you.”

He says it again and again. Begging the girl to life. It works somewhat, but they spend the night lying on the kitchen floor, dreaming on a static wind, holding each other's palms. They trace their lifelines with the others fingers.

Outside, the electric lights continue to buzz.

[alkhale]

Enough for Two (Tendou x Mute!Reader) Ko-fi request

So sorry but here come the waves of request that i have for you.if you cant write some it doesnt matter.I like being able to make requests but i especially want to support you. Can i get a Tendou x reader fic please?

If and when your commissions are open would you be open to writing about a Soulmates AU Reader/Satori Tendou or what ever AU/Non AU you want? If you have too much on your plate, then no worries I just really enjoy your writing!

Also found here on AO3 if it’s more convenient to read, please enjoy!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24785287

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

Sometimes people do things without reason to give themselves reason.

It’s a bit of a strange thought, but it’s really the only thing that makes sense to you in this situation right now at lease.

You watch your notebook go sailing across the hallway floor, sliding like a hockey puck until it smacks with finality against the opposite wall. You stare, still on your hands and knees from where you’d been about to pick it up and feel an incoming sigh well up in your lungs, hefty and full of power.

The sigh leaves your lips, nothing but a quiet, big gust of air. It does nothing compared to the racket of laughter filling the hall, shrill giggles that make you wonder if your own laugh sounds like that. You pray not.

In a perfect world, you imagine yourself turning your head to the trio of girls behind you—always in threes, isn’t it?—turning around to face their laughter with a disgusted frown and opening your mouth and spitting out, “ What the hell is your problem?” They’d probably turn white as ghosts and go screaming for the hills.

But the girls don’t go screaming for the hills. They continue to laugh and those words never leave your lips. They can’t, anyway, and your notebook is all the way at the other end of the hall since one of them sent it flying with a good kick. You remain there on your knees, staring after it for a long while before you turn back to the three girls.

They smile at you, bright, glossy sneers pulled over their lips.

You’re not really sure what it is but you think this is where you hypothesis comes into play—bullying doesn’t quite make sense, but at a school like Shiratorizawa where the students are rich and wonderful and have mostly met the hierarchy of needs necessary for a good life—they get bored. And when students are bored their minds wander, their hands wander, and their eyes wander too, all the way until they land on the girl who never says a word in the corner of their class they like to call a freak even though her problem isn’t freakish—it’s perfectly diagnosable.

When people get bored they sometimes need a reason to remind themselves they exist, even if there really is no reason for that at all.

“Oh, sorry,” the first one says, exactly the way they would in a drama—it’s a little amazing, actually. Maybe art imitates life more than you thought. “We didn’t see it there.”

“You shouldn’t just crawl on the floor like that,” another says. “What if someone tripped over you?”

“You look sad like that,” the last one says, pitifully. “Need some help?”

You gaze at them for a long moment, meeting their eyes in silence. They snicker, putting hands daintily over their mouths. They’re the annoying types who like to make sure their arm sleeves are folded up nice and neat so everyone can see the ink black words scrawled out on their skin, make sure it’s not hindered at all, bold and visible.

They start shooting each other looks. “Can you believe her?” they say to each other. “Look at her, oh my god. Is she for real?” and “Wow, this is so sad. We should stop.”

But they’re bored, so of course they’re not going to stop.

It’s useless, but you move your fingers anyways, aggressively shifting your hands in the air.

“ No, thanks. You can scram you pieces of shit. I’m tired of choking on your perfume. ”

It’s quite a hefty amount of words leaving your fingers. They take it as your way of feebly apologizing or saying something that fits their narrative and they giggle, turning on their heels and leaving you behind. This probably won’t be the last you see of them, not until graduation, but that’s fine.

It’s just one more year.

You wait until they disappear around the corner and finally stand up, brushing dust off your skirt and your knees. You stare at the floor for a few minutes, thinking up words and sentences in your head and using the memory of voices you like to imagine your own voice sounding just like that—telling them off and giving them a scare.

“W-What? You’re not mute? Oh my god!”

Yeah. You think, scoffing in silence at yourself. As if.

You feel a bit more resentful than usual even though this isn’t really anything new. They’ve done worse; tripping you in the halls or shoving you on their way to their desks. You’re just a picture perfect target in their pitifully cliche world to give them more meaning to their otherwise useless lives.

When you think of it in such a haughty manner, it does make you feel a bit better. Just a bit, because this still sucks.

You shake your head, reluctant to go get your notebook but knowing you need to do it anyway. You rub the etched, pale marking on your wrist for reassurance and start the long trek down the hall, keeping your eyes on the floor.

If it gets anymore annoying or anymore physical, you’ll bring it up to the teachers. You hate the thought of getting the staff involved but you’re not stupid enough to let them get bold enough to shove you down some stairs and risk your life. Who knew what the hell these pigeons were capable of? You’d just be the sad, bullied mute kid telling on the teachers but who cared?

No one.

Your stickered notebook pops up in your vision, grinning food stickers beaming back up at you. You blink, briefly terrified for a second before your head quickly snaps upwards.

His shocking red hair juts up in your field of vision first, followed by the easy, sneaky looking slant of his eyes and the almost perched little way his lips curve up into a tiny, peckish smile. Beside his face he throws up a giant peace sign with his two fingers.

“Hiyah,” he says, grinning cheekily at you. “This is yours, rrrrriiiiggghhhtt?”

He’s in your class, you realize, mind racing. Tendou, I think. He’s on the volleyball team and he sits two chairs behind you. You remember all this because you always collect the papers up at the front and see his name, messy and hurried. And he talks a lot too. He’s loud and laughs and teases people all the time in class—you watch him sometimes because you’re a bit jealous of how much he talks, how much he’s able to talk, shifting the tone of his voice in all these little creative ways, whether because he’s making fun of someone or just answering a question.

He feels like someone who really, really makes good use of his voice. Makes sure it's used, you mean. Doesn’t waste it.

You like that.

Tendou flaps the book once in front of you. You blink, quickly nodding and reaching out to take it.

He holds it up over his head, grinning down at you.

You stare up at him in disbelief, feeling your stomach sink.

Not him too. You knew he was notorious for being disliked amongst some of your peers—people tended to forget you were mute, not deaf—and he teased people however he liked. He was a generally tough nut to figure out no matter how you looked at it, but you never took him for a small time school bully either.

Disheartened, you wordlessly look up at him, frowning. Tendou continues to smile, holding your notebook over his head.

“Is that what you say to someone who helps you?” he says. “Nooooothing?”

I can’t. You mouth, pressing your hands to your mouth. I can’t. Sorry. You move your lips, exaggerating how you mouth the words. Thank you. Please give it back.

“Nope!” Tendou says. “Try again.”

He’s ridiculously tall. He really must be good at volleyball too. There’s no way you’re getting it with a measly jump. Your hand clenches into a fist at your side, your free hand twitching on instinct to sign out your words but you wordlessly try mouthing them at him again, feeling your frustration bubble up useless into your throat.

“Come on, I know you can do it,” Tendou says cheerfully. You clench your fist harder. His free hand moves sloppily in the air in front of you, waving his fingers in a lazy sort of manner that matches the easy look on his face, amused. “Try again!”

Wait a minute.

Your eyes quickly hone in on his free hand, staring at him in stunned disbelief. Tendou’s smile widens and he moves his hand again, shifting his fingers. With purpose. Not uselessly. You stare at Tendou’s hand, eyes growing round in shock. Your jaw drops and you look back at Tendou.

“Try,” Tendou signs and says, grinning like an imp, “Again!”

Your hands quickly move, “Thank you.”

Tendou drops your notebook right into yours hands, grinning. You stare, stunned and disbelieving, a part of you realizing he signs terribly—he must’ve just learned—and Tendou throws his hands behind his head with a whistle. “There ya go! You’re not so mute now, are ya!”

Your eyes shoot up to Tendou’s but he’s already turning, waving his hand at you and disappearing around the hall. “Bye bye (L/n)-chan!”

You’re still standing in the hallway like an idiot, staring at the spot where Tendou had been in disbelief.

Tendou, the loud, tall, bright red-head kid in your class, the same kid you never saw yourself ever communicating with, the same kid who was on your school’s top notch volleyball team, the same kid who made fun of people and scared others off and only hung out with his team—

Knew how to sign? A bit? Badly?

You blink, stunned.

Huh?

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

“Wow! This thing is practically empty!”

Your head shoots up in shock at the familiar voice, eyes going round as Tendou sits in the desk in front of you—it’s very much not his desk and you think you can see the bothered student at the front by the door, but his friends shoo him away from saying anything as Tendou continues to flip through your notebook. It’s nothing private—small questions to people or asking someone to hand you something when you couldn’t speak up or gesture. This notebook was the one you carted around to try and communicate with your classmates, hoping to start conversations and talk with them.

No one used it, so you didn’t either.

Tendou doesn’t look the slightest bit bothered, big and lanky and taking up all the space as he continues to flip through the notebook. He hums to himself, lips pursed in that funny little way of his until he gets to the empty pages.

You stare at him like some kind of exotic bird, a bit mystified by his presence.

“Say, (L/n)-chan,” Tendou says. “Isn’t this kind of sad? You even wrote Communication Notebook on this, but there’s not much communication going on, is there?”

You move your hands, signing, “ Not many people to talk to. It can’t be helped.”

Tendou’s eyes rapidly follow your hands and he squints, making a constipated face. You exhale quietly in amusement, signing again, slower, watching to see if he understands. Tendou’s face becomes unreadable and then he turns to you, lips pulled up into a massive, almost creepy grin.

“(L/n)-chan, how bold! Didya just say you like me?”

You shake your head. Tendou blows a loud horse sigh through his lips, flapping them. He’s clearly upset you didn’t make more of a show of the whole joke. Instead, you take your notebook from his willing hands and write. “Sorry. I was wondering if you knew how to sign. There aren’t many people to talk to so it can’t be helped.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Tendou says, waving a hand. “I only learned a little to get your attention anyway. Makes sense~”

You stare at Tendou, stunned by his honesty.

“Aren’t ya bored of just sitting here all quiet?” Tendou asks.

You write, “I guess.”

“Ugh. I’d get bored. I like talking, you know? It fills up the silence real nice. You know what I mean?”

“ Yes. I like it when you talk too.”

“That was supposed to be a joke. I was kinda making fun of you. (L/n)-chan are ya not good at picking up jokes too? Or are you just flirting with me?”

“No. It’s just how I feel.”

“Haha, okay, you weirdo! Why don’t you teach me some more sign language then, hmm? I bet you’ll get awful tired writing in that all day and I’m a pretty quick study~”

You stare at Tendou, lowering your book and frowning at him. Tendou continues to grin, his little perched lip look, sneaky and unassuming as he waggles his brows at you. You sort of understand why your classmates call him creepy, but it’s mostly from his heights and mannerisms more than anything else. Otherwise, Tendou Satori is just… another teenage boy.

You pinch your fingers together into an okay sign, still marveling at the strange creature in front of you.

Tendou’s eyes drift absently to the pale mark on your wrist and he grins, holding up his fingers in a peace sign, using it like scissors to cut your okay sign in half.

You stare at him.

“Sheesh, can’t get any reaction out of you, can I? What a tough crowd!”

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

This is the first time you’ve ever had class with Tendou. It’s your first time properly “talking” to him too. You know him from the announcements, from the rumours that spread here and there about his unsettling ways and most importantly, you see him on the screens when your school calls the students together to watch the boys’ volleyball team dominate Sendai’s qualifiers all over again.

Outside of staring at him from time to time and appreciating the way he talks, that day two weeks ago now in the hallway is still the first time the two of you have ever properly interacted. The day after that he approached you in class and now everyday since—Tendou talks to you.

And he talks a lot too.

Between classes he talks to you, sidling up with his lanky, swaying body like some kind of cowboy from a foreign western. He perches over and sprawls across your desk like the two of you have been friends for years, talking about school, about class, about your classmates even or this and that, but he mostly talks about you, anime, or volleyball.

He walks you between classes since the two of you mostly share each one and he stands or crouches by your desk, talking and talking while you frantically scribble or take a few minutes each class period to try to teach him new phrases and words. He didn’t lie about being a quick study, but he’s still sloppy so it’s funny to watch.

This whole thing is a bit bewildering, to be honest. You don’t know what prompted Tendou Satori to start talking to you and make such an emblazoned effort, but maybe it’s for something similar to why those three girls like to pick on you. For no real reason at all.

You don’t really mind it, to be honest. Reason or not—he’s an entirely welcome presence, jokes, teasing, and strangeness—all of it.

“Did you like this week’s Jump ?”

“Yes,” you sign and then switch to writing. “The new chapter for Chainsaw Man was good. It made me sad though.”

“Wow, wow, (L/n)-chan you like the gorey stuff, huh?” Tendou muses, tapping your book. “Scary! I thought you’d like We Never Learn better or one of the other ones.”

“ Act-Age is good,” you write. “I’m invested. Which one do you follow? ”

“The classics! One Piece! My Hero! All the typical, easy to understand, not too complicated—I’m just kidding, don’t you think Denji’s an idiot?”

“ Yes, but I like him too. ”

“(L/n)-chan, don’t tell me that’s your type of guy,” Tendou gasps, looking scandalized. “Uneducated perverts?”

“ No, ” you sign and then write, “ I like guys that seem hard to understand but aren’t.”

“Ugh, that sounds like a headache!” Tendou flops entirely onto your desk and you raise your notebook to write. “I can only talk about Jump with you, Wakatoshi said he won’t read it until the end of the season for us! Can you believe him?”

“Yes. ”

“Traitor! (L/n)-chan, you beautiful traitor~ How cruel~”

You turn your notebook over so Tendou can read it. He squints up at you.

“Not that I mind, but Tendou, is there a reason why you started talking to me?”

“The golden question!” Tendou shouts, not even trying to sit up. You move your notebook so you can see his face and Tendou just grins back up at you, looking satisfied. “Does there have to be one?”

You shake your head. Tendou hums, content. “Perfect! We’re on the same page then.”

Tendou nearly cracks the spine of his Jump that he leant to you, opening up the pages and holding it over both of your heads. You have to weasel awkwardly under his arm and crane your head to look up at what he’s looking at too, faces side by side and Tendou grins. “Now, what did you think about Promised Neverland’s finale?”

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

You stare at your empty shoe locker in silence, frowning at the sight of it.

The shoes that were supposed to be there no longer are. You stare at it for a moment longer, glancing down to your school slippers and then silently turning over to the trashcan a few feet away. You gaze at it for a long time before walking over to it with your head held high, ignoring the outburst of giggles and feigned gasps of disgust as you come to stand in front of it.

You tuck your notebook into your bag, lifting the lid of the bin up. Some students look over in confusion and several make faces as you roll up your sleeves, spotting your shoes under a heap of lunch trash and papers. The snickers and giggles grow louder and louder, a waste of the sound you wish you could emit yourself.

“ Flying super Satori kiiiiiiiiick! ”

A long leg snaps into view before a foot promptly smashes into the trash bin, knocking it sideways and spilling trash into the shoe locker entryway. Students jump aside, shouting in disgust while you gape in disbelief, staring at the pile of trash before your head snaps over to the criminal, eyes bulging.

Tendou stays crouched on the floor, sticking his tongue out and throwing you a peace sign from where he sort of crab walks beside you like some kind of creep, uncaring in how the other students gape at him like an alien. “How was that? Pretty cool, right? Ten points?”

You stare at Tendou, mouth slack.

His hands swipe out and he snatches your dirty shoes, shooting up to his full height and nearly forcing you to jump back in surprise. He grins at you, wiggling his brows before he grandly turns on his heels, your shoes in one hand while he loudly shouts with the other, “Oh, my goodness! Who made this mess? Someone better clean it up before a teacher comes!”

“Hey!”

“Tendou, what the heck you crazy bastard? You’re the one who knocked it—”

“Sorry,” Tendou shouts in horrible English. “I don’t speak Japanese!”

“Tendou—”

Tendou snatches your hand with his free one, breaking out into a gleeful sprint. You hurry to keep up after his long, lunging legs, practically huffing in exertion while Tendou holds your dirty shoes and he tosses his head back and laughs and you stare at him in disbelief, throat constricting tightly as you leave the other students and noise behind.

The evening glow turns his hair fiery and redder. Tendou’s laugh seems almost insane and infectious at the same time. It makes you feel a little hysterical, chest growing tighter. You can’t hear anything else but your own pants and his racket of laughter.

He runs with you in tow all the way to the volleyball gym, right where the two of you normally part ways and he goes to practice and you go home.

Tendou tosses your shoes into the nearby watering sink with a flourish, twirling on his heel like he’s dancing for you and moving his lanky body in all sorts of funny ways before he tosses the spout on and watches the water pour over your shoes, humming.

You stare at his broad back. You stare at it for what feels like an eternity, panting heavily, shoulders and legs trembling because you don’t do sports like this monster of a young man in front of you. Tendou turns the water off and turns to you with a peckish grin, twirling a bandaged finger. “Out of breath already? You should get into better shape, (L/n)-chan!”

Tendou fishes your soaking shoes out from the trough, gives it a quick inspection before nodding, flapping them out with one hand while he casually continues speaking, “You know, now that I think about it, the name was a bit cheesy. Maybe something like, Flying Kick of Justice or maybe—”

You quietly hold your arms out in front of you, spreading them a bit. Tendou arches a brow, looking at you with his little impish smile.

You take a few meaningful steps forward. Tendou doesn’t move, staying still until your face collides with his chest and you wrap your arms around him. Tendou just continues to smile, looking amused while you raise your hands and sign above your head at him.

“Thank you.”

“Oh, (L/n)-chan,” Tendou sighs, but he throws one arm around you anyway, patting your head. “You’re so awkward. Lucky for you, I’m great at dealing with verbally stunted people. My best friend hardly speaks a word after all!”

The door to the volleyball gym slides open, revealing none other than the superstar himself—Ushijima Wakatoshi. Tendou blinks and you look over at the volleyball legend, blinking as well.

“Tendou,” Ushijima says. “Practice in two minutes.”

Without another word the door slides back shut. You stare at it while Tendou breaks out into laughter. “See! What did I tell you?”

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

It’s three months into this—hanging out, getting to know each other, learning, communicating, becoming friends with Tendou Satori that you first notice.

You hadn’t meant to look in the first place since you didn’t think about soulmates and what-not often, but it just happened when Tendou was playing with your hair, trying to arrange it into a set of funky looking braids and you’d caught a glimpse at both his wrists.

You reach out, grabbing both of them in surprise. Tendou blinks over the top of your head, sitting cross-legged on your bed— “(L/n)-chan, invite me over! Let’s play some video games or read manga!” and he lets you pull his arms closer, quickly inspecting his wrists.

You blink rapidly, a little stunned. You look again and again to make sure what you were seeing wasn’t wrong and Tendou hums in amusement above you, letting you finish up until you finally look back at him, hands moving to sign, quick and clear.

“Tendou, you…” you pause, unable to finish moving your fingers.

“It’s blank! You’re not crazy, don’t worry,” Tendou says, finishing it for you. He proudly shows off his bare wrists and you stare at them a second longer before looking back to his face, brows creasing in worry. “Aw, don’t make that face, (L/n)-chan, you’ll get wrinkles!”

You know it’s possible, people not getting marks. Most people are all born with them—the first words your soulmate is supposed to say to you tattooed in simple ink onto your skin, always on your wrists, right there for anyone to see.

Tendou’s wrist are bare of any mark, not a single piece of ink in sight.

“I think you know better than anyone,” Tendou teases above you. “Words aren’t everything to a relationship, right~”

You smile at Tendou, but your chest still aches a little bit. Tendou’s strange, but he’s funny. He’s funny and kind. Very, very kind, even if he likes to act like he isn’t or seem worse than he really is. He deserves someone kind too, even if the statistics for actually meeting your soulmate are low.

You show Tendou your mark, a simple black V and nothing more. He stares at it, looking bewildered for once himself while you simply shrug back at him, holding up two fingers like a peace sign but as a V instead.

Tendou suddenly bursts into laughter. You stare at him, pouting in silence while he clutches his stomach, rolling around on your bed and wheezing.

“Well, (L/n)-chan, how about this,” Tendou says once his laughter dies down. “If you don’t like them, how about I take their place, hmm?”

You pretend to think it over for a bit. Tendou nudges your head with his foot and you swat it aside, turning over to him and pinching your fingers together in an okay sign.

“You’re so boring! Have more of a reaction, why don’t you? You know how hard I’m trying here?”

You smile at Tendou, chest full.

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

Maybe it’s not always that people do things for no reason to find a reason themselves.

Maybe these people just aren’t reasonable to begin with.

“Guys, look at how creepy this is! She’s writing all over it like she’s talking to herself—yikes!”

You stare at the three tormentors, frozen in place for a moment as you watch them flip through your notebook, fuller then it’s ever been. You watch them, second after second ticking as they laugh and point to the stacked conversations, the doodles and jokes and the pages stuffed full of proof that you and Tendou have built something, something dearly precious over the course of this year—

Two of them look at you and laugh, watching you at the entrance of the classroom. The last one holds up your notebook, her glossy lips moving, and then her perfectly manicured nails start ripping one of the pages.

It’s Tendou’s page. It’s terribly unlucky or lucky she picked that one. He’s written all over it, trying to be quiet that day.

“(L/n)-chan do ya get sick of me talking? People say I talk too much all the time.”

“No. I like it.”

“Aw, you’re just flirting!”

“No, I really, really like it.”

“Hahaha, then maybe I’ll talk enough for the two of us, hmm?”

You feel it tear all the way down to your bones.

“What a freak!”

Something snaps.

They clearly don’t see it coming when you go flying across the classroom, lunging for the monster with your notebook. Her eyes go round in disbelief and then furious anger when your hands find hers, ripping the book from her grasp as she fights you for it, shouting and cursing. Her two cronies are quick, grabbing at your hands and trying to haul you back but your mouth is parted in a soundless, furious scream, flailing your fists and hitting, pulling and tugging at them as you scream and scream and scream even though no words come out.

One girl nearly slaps you but you duck and shove your foot into her stomach, knocking her back into a desk.

You shout at them. Shout and shout and shout and shout . You imagine the words cutting them in half. Imagine how they’d feel hearing the horrible things spat right back into their face—

She looks up at you, eyes red with rage and the other two thrust your hands down, stomping on your feet to try and hold you down while she raises her hand to strike again.

“All three of you are ugly pigs! Don’t you have anything better to do with your lives? Did all your parents ever teach you to do is bully the quiet kid? That’s terrible! You’re all horrible!”

The shrill, overly high-pitched voice catches all four of you off guard, staring at each other, stunned. The three girls share quick looks, looking startled out of their minds while your shoulders heave, ragged from the panting and soundless screaming. You don’t understand—

Firm, large hands suddenly grab you by your waist, hauling you up into the air and away from the other two girls. You quickly grab your skirt from flying up and whirl around, eyes round in disbelief when Tendou’s sleazy, easy grin meets your gaze, his eyes crinkled.

Your already quiet world quiets further, soft and silent as you stare at him and he gazes back at you for a second, assessing your disheveled form before he promptly sets you down onto your feet behind him like you’re some kind of toy. Tendou even takes a second to brush some dust off your shoulder, fixing your jacket with a happy little hum before he ruffles the top of your head and grins at you.

His eyes are crinkled at the corners, narrowed into dangerous slits. You freeze.

“Don’t worry,” Tendou chirps. “I’ll speak for both of us~”

He turns around with a flourish, blocking your view of the three girls and holding his hands out. “Sorry, ladies! I know you all might want a piece of her, but as her manager, I’ve got to be her translator and I believe my client says—oh, yes, yes, I hear you loud and clear! She says you’re all a bunch of useless bimbos with too much time on their hands!”

You gape at Tendou, clasping your hands over your mouth even though no words come out. The three girls look stunned and Tendou sweeps on in his fake, shrill voice, “Your perfume smells cheap and your nails are so last season—wow! Did you get enough sleep? Your pores are huge!”

“Asshole!” a girl shouts.

“Tendou, you freak!”

“Tendou, what do you think you’re—” one girl starts but Tendou thrusts a finger out, pointing it right at her face.

“And now this one’s from me! ” Tendou says in his own voice, a little huskier than you remember, a little firmer, clearer, and he grins devilishly at the three girls. “So listen up, hmm?”

Your classmates always complain if there’s anything about Tendou, it’s that he tends to come off as a bit scary sometimes.

You’d never really thought so until now.

“Find something better to do,” Tendou says cheerfully, eyes narrowed into dagger thin slits as he brings one threatening hand up into the air. He smiles, dripping malice, “Or you’re going to regret it, okay?”

One girl swallows, looking ready to argue despite her ashen face. The other two grab her hands, furiously shaking their heads as they drag her away from the two of you, shooting you and Tendou glares. “Freaks! Both of you!”

They run anyway though when Tendou arches a dangerous brow at them, tails between their legs. You stare at the empty classroom door in disbelief, not quite able to wrap your head around the entire exchange or how all of this happened in so little time—

“Hmph, they can’t appreciate art when they see it,” Tendou complains loudly, dragging your attention back to him. He picks up your fallen notebook, flipping through the pages and idly smoothing out creases. “Girls like that are never going to get a boyfriend, don’t worry, (L/n)-chan. You’re much cuter than they are~”

Tendou.

There’s something loud pounding in your head. Maybe it’s your heart. You’re not really sure what it is in the quietness of it all as Tendou calmly turns to you, holding out your notebook.

Tendou.

Your fingers twitch. You feel your fingers moving, spelling out his name. Your mouth parts, breathing.

Tendou, thank —

He brings up one hand, winking at you in an expression that doesn’t fit his face at all while he throws up a peace sign, the same one he always does, just like when the two of you first met.

“Our victory this time~ If they try it again, I’m not afraid to block them! I’ve got a mean—”

You freeze.

Victory?

You stare at Tendou’s peace sign.

V.

Your brain short circuits for a second. Something like adrenaline starts to pump rapidly through your body and you gape in disbelief, turning your wrist around and staring at the large, bold V on your skin. Your parents always joked with you about the kind of situation you’d have to be in for the first word your soulmate ever said to you to be V , but what if it wasn’t a matter of saying it but—

Signing it?

You feel your heart almost stop. It kicks back into gear, loud like a set of drums. You quickly grab Tendou’s blank wrist, surprising him as he blinks curiously down at you. “Hmm? What’s gotten into you, (L/n)-chan—”

“Tendou!” you sign, cheeks flushing. “Tendou, this might sound crazy but—”

You grab your notebook, quickly flipping to a blank page and hurriedly writing onto it. Tendou blinks, looking playfully confused until you turn your page to him.

“I think we might be soulmates!”

Your heart threatens to burst out of your chest. Tendou stares at your page for what feels like eternity before he pushes it down with one long, bandaged finger. He grins at you over the top of your notebook, waggling his brows.

“(Y/n)-chan, are you trying to ask me out? You could’ve just said so~”

You toss your notebook to the desk, lunging at Tendou with your arms thrown wide, mouth parted in a soundless, desperate laugh and Tendou simply grins in that sneaky little way of his, looking as content as a cat as he wraps his arms around you anyway and hoists you up.

“Ara, was I found out?”

In your flurry you abruptly press your lips to Tendou's unable to contain your excitement or words, hands no longer enough. Tendou goes stiff, eyes round as saucers when you pull back and stare at him, beaming brightly and quickly signing. "You're so dumb!"

The top of Tendou's ears start to turn red. You stare at him in surprise, pressing a hand to your mouth.

"Tendou,"  you sign. "You're so honest."

"Bzzt! Wrong answer! Better kiss me again or I'll drop you."

Without hesitating you quickly duck your head in close and this time Tendou meets you have way with his cheeky grin, both your lips molding together in a kiss that floods with laughter, even though not a single sound escapes either of you.

----------

"I never said I didn't have one. My soulmate just doesn't have much to say~"

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

Bonus:

- Tendou gives you a whistle for when you go to his games. He always waits and then when his team scores or he blocks, a furious sound of tweets and whistles goes off, making everyone look up into the stands to find you, crazy-looking and furious waving your hands and blowing the whistle. Someone has to ask you to stop before it confuses the players. - Tendou collapses onto the floor, laughing so hard he starts to cry and Ushijima tells him he should give you a bell instead. "Bells are also soothing," he says. "Or a drum."

**** please don’t ever make fun of someone’s pores! I think I’d cry ;-;

[fandom-sheep]

Eret 11 MAY 21

Cat and DSMP Part 1/1

Cat! Goose!

Goose my beloved.

Eret’s streaming very late for me again. So I’m not staying the whole time.

Hello Elaina. Enjoy Goose.

Fundy! Kinda...

Fundy hearing the donations. LOL.

Fundy enters a stream and it starts to scuffed. Scuffed just follows Fundy wherever he goes.

A wild my beloved on the cube.

The Drista stairs.

Wait what. Why is the tower gone?

I have missed some lore.

Ah... it’s part of the nightmare thing.

Eret offering Fundy housing like a good almost adoptive parent.

Sneeze? OH WOW SNEEZE.

Sounds like Fundy about lost a lung. Good gracious.

The bargaining between these two.

Cat, Handsome, said cube was massive

You know what that works.

It’s hard to keep the audio right for Eret’s stream for my headphones. It’s either too quiet or the loudest my headphones can go and my family can hear it.

On stream explosions. Noice.

Wow youtooz. Not super cool. Permission is usually a good thing.

Eret keeps on sizzling.

Getting dirt for scaffolding. Going old fashioned Minecraft for this.

“Why is the Cube kinda hot” cue Eret losing faith in her chats sanity.

Cube go poof.

Oh. Red stone. That’s dangerous.

I like this song. Oh klahoma. Gorgeous song.

Love joy is such a fun band. I want to make a plushy of the cat.

It’s kinda sad that Eret can’t see themselves the way chat and their little fandom sees them. Most all of us think they look fabulous.

Not Arson. Just bombing. A bit of anarchy by the king.

Demolition. Now there’s the word.

Controlled ish demolition.

Ah I’ve almost saved enough channel points for water. Nice. I’m not going to redeem it I’m just going to keep hoarding the points.

Flame Arrow. Nice.

Eret cleaning up the SMP eye sours.

Watch me attempt to sleep to Eret here in an hour or so, but keep getting distracted.

Explosion time.

Someone get ready to clip it.

Bye Bye Cube. Let’s go.

Gotta get a song that fits the vibe.

Hayloft. Time to go poof.

Turning up my brightness just to watch this explosion in the best way possible.

Still wearing the red dress I see.

I hope the music isn’t too loud to get this part muted.

Drum roll...

Drum roll continues...

Drum roll still going...

THERE GOES THE CUBE!

That was so smooth and good looking!

Overall a very good explosion.

Just a little bit of a hole in the other building.

Twitch Pr-

Poor being’s so confused with his hair. Someone help them.

Twitch bleep.

Everyone attempting to give hair styling advice. Everyone’s trying to help the being.

That bird is majestic. I remember seeing that tiktok.

Animals just decided Eret was the animal whisperer.

Yes! Disney Princess Eret fanart! Someone make it, I shall reblog all of it.

Likes to hug cute animals and cute animals like being hugged by her. Nice.

It’s alright. Names are difficult. I have to like put name tags on people to learn who they are. That or name tags on their space (like on campers bunks and door decs on dorms)

It does feel very February. But I’m very ready for summer because that means I get to do my favorite job.

Hooray. I hit 15k points.

Eret trying to prove to us a ponytail won’t work. Like we aren’t going to hype them up no matter what.

Gotta heart in the chat. All Eret’s chat does is hearts and encourage. It’s a lovely place.

Oh Eret forgot his cat ear sub goal. It’s alright I know I forgot.

Pride is next month. Nice.

Oh. We’re almost halfway already. Why does the world spin so quickly?

We forgot a dirt tower. Whoops.

I would wear Eret merch. I like it when people release merch around Christmas. Then I can ask for it as a gift.

Oh it wasn’t a dirt tower.

Just looking at Elaina’s stream in the stream selection screen it like very cozy.

All the way up the Drista stairs.

Look it’s the museum!

Eret’s got most of the builds around there. The museum. The fortress. Nice.

Some things are too historical to remove. Somethings are historical because they are being removed.

Oh no. L’sandburg.

It’s taking over the summer home.

Ah the lore is coming. It just seemed to be too early.

Hello unofficial ranboo Raiders.

Foolish making the awesome tall thingy!

Foolish’s builds are so neat. I want to watch Foolish’s streams more. Maybe just in the background but I start wanting to delayed liveblog and that requires attention.

Oh the giant portal turned out well. Sorry that was the lady’s foolish stream I watched.

Shulkers. The forbidden mob.

Eret with just a pit in the desert filled with llamas. Bones. And discus.

The mansion has been finished?

Alright is better than bad. It’s alright to be alright.

Lucky being not getting tired. I got the Johnson and Johnson vaccine and I was so so tired. I also had just no appetite.

Eret doing an smp tour. And looking at foolish’s builds.

Flickering the switch on the rainbow beacons.

Eret just knowing where everything is.

Kinoko is super pretty. Just for the aesthetic value of the kingdom I appreciate it.

Yeet. Just defenestrated himself out the window.

Oh? Spectator fly over the smp?

That would be really neat to like. Watch in VR. I think I’ve only used VR maybe twice.

Pretty Rainbow beacons.

The nurse who gave me my vaccine hid the needle from me because I mentioned to her that I was afraid of needles. It wasn’t a big deal at all.

30 minutes till I attempt sleep. Woo.

Goose my beloved. Someone make the gif because I’m not quite sure how to make it.

Oh yeah. Goose in Marvel. I hear MCU and think Minecraft cinematic universe. Not marvel.

Ghibli is so nice. It really romanticize small moments of life.

Yeah the characters are all really supportive in Ghibli movies.

Someone subbed for nine months “that’s enough to make a child” -Eret

That mansion is like a maze. I’m so lost already.

Everyone encouraging Eret and telling her she looks pretty. Good.

Eret needs all the hype and encouragement.

Antarctic empties flag. Yeah it does have a similar color pallet.

Michelle! Hello!

Fortress work. Nice.

Do it. I’ll listen the Eret play other games.

I don’t usually watch game play for non Minecraft games. But I’ll listen to it all.

Hbomb and Eret living in the same city feels like two worlds that shouldn’t meet. But it’s awesome that they have.

TOS means against twitches terms of service. Nice. Glad to finally have an explanation of what that means.

Look at our handsome and pretty streamer. All the hype.

I keep turning down the stream to hear the show my mama has on because I’m curious about what happens.

Yeah. Backseat gaming can be annoying. That’s part of why I share my thoughts here just in case I do start backseat gaming.

Almost to the sub goal. Hooray!

Ooo food.

No no. I see where they are coming from. Eret does give a bit of cat bus vibes. I can’t explain it but the vibes are there.

Creeper causing issues at the fortress.

Ed Sheepran my beloved.

I should draw more ferrets. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe I’ll draw us doing stuffs.

Actually I kinda want to make a little animatic of some heels walking across the screen followed by a hoard of ferrets. I think it’ll look cool. But I need the artistic ability and the ability to not scream making that.

Woop. Ad time. Off to the void of where ever the ads game me.

OH THE NEW VOID LOOKS COOL!

Bread. Flowers. Ted. Crown. And of course Eret.

We V O I D and get our streamer bits.

Hush the chat is V O I D and the occasional emoji or emote.

The void being centered looks good. Maybe that’s just the symmetry speaking but it’s good.

Oh. We hear the being. The being in void mode. And spooky mode.

Chat just starts yelling corpse.

Hydration. I try to stay hydrated. But I fail often if I’m not doing something active.

Tree!

Casually makes and snags tree.

Eret does read chat often. It’s strange. And it is weird how often it ends up being you.

You can tell I’m a tumblr peep. I may say stuff in chat but I’m fully not expecting or wanting to be noticed by the streamer.

Others hitting darkness o’clock and saying goodnight.

It’s sleep to the stream hours y’all. Whoop.

I need to visit the parks out west. I’ve only really seen the eastern US ones. But I have been to the Great Smokey Mountain park which is gorgeous.

Eret thinking of his friends triggers when naming his cat.

Eret’s builds are so casually pretty. Not like Foolish’s which are intricately pretty. Not like Phil’s or Sam’s which are complicated pretty. All pretty. Just different breeds of pretty.

Alrighty. It’s sleepy hours for me. As much as I love Eret I want to read some fanfiction and daydream a bit before I head to sleep.

Have a good rest everyone and may all your coming meals be delicious.

Wait no is it our turn with goose?

OUR TURN WITH GOOSE!

Eret honey that’s the ceiling.

Cat stream. Cat stream.

Sleepy kitty. A cat cam would be good.

Yeah. That happens with cats. Especially strays.

Goose captured the computer mouse.

Goose straight up chose Eret and Elaina.

Goose really just chose not to leave.

Oh my stream connection is acting sad. But I want Goose content.

I want to draw Goose now.

Maybe I’ll do water color for Goose. I know I tried to do that with Boots (Fundy’s cat)

Hopefully there will be some Goose face screenshots I can see. Maybe I can see him well in the Tiktok.

Artists just violently refusing payment. Sounds about right. The MCYT artists just kinda go “yeah give credit and we cool”

Cowboy cat. Nice.

I want to paint Goose in the cowboy hat.

Hype train! That we are zooming.

Bucket sponge?

WATER BUCKET FROM WET SPONGE! Tiktok people giving all the cool info.

Go Goose. Catch the computer mouse and the screen mouse.

Just sitting here at 11:30 at night getting screen shots of Goose for painting purposes.

Goose please. Look at the camera babe.

My phone is dying. And I can’t charge it and type.

Alright the camera is off the cat. The cat is also blocking the screen.

But no cat on camera means I’m getting some sleep. If I do any of the projects I’ve mentioned I’ll let y’all know.

Have a good rest everyone.

[221bsunsettowers]

idk if you're still taking prompts, but if you are... Eddie saying #14 from the caretaker dialogue prompt to Buck?

I’m always taking prompts, they are what keep me writing! :)

14) “You’re so cold...”

(This takes place during 3x05, in the grocery store, post Eddie and Buck’s fight. From there, it veers off canon. Also, there are a few mentions of blood in the beginning.)

Buck watched the team run out of the grocery store and into the parking lot, watched them start to handle whatever road rage incident was currently occurring. He stood there, an observer, a damn outsider, seeing Eddie with his back unprotected, an empty space where Buck knew he should have been.

But he’d blown that, hadn’t he? He’d tried so hard to get back to his team, to Eddie, and instead he was alone in a grocery store, holding a jar of that applesauce Chris liked the best (Buck had promised him they would learn how to make homemade applesauce, but that was never going to happen now, was it?), no one to share it with.

Another loud yell came from the parking lot, startling Buck out of his isolated mind, and the jar dropped, smashing on the floor. “Shit,” Buck muttered, bending down without thinking to clean up the mess.

A sharp slash of pain shot through his hand, and Buck winced, glancing down to see a large gash sliced across his palm, blood pouring out onto the piece of glass that had caused the unexpected issue. 

Rational Buck knew he was still on blood thinners, knew this was most likely a highly problematic injury, but the Buck who had been left alone in the aisle of the grocery store simply went through the motions, figured he could fix this up himself when he got home. Added gauze and large bandages to his basket, apologized for the mess as he paid for his groceries, and began walking out the door.

The door seemed really far away, much farther than normal, and the sounds from outside that had previously been so loud were now almost completely muted. Buck felt like he was trudging his way through swamp mud, every lift of the foot an effort, and why was he so damn cold all of a sudden? Was the cashier yelling something? Buck was suddenly too tired to turn around to find out. 

Too exhausted. Too exhausting. Right. Made sense. Too exhausting to be Buck, to be around Buck. Buck was glad he was too tired to hold onto any of these thoughts for too long, he imagined they might finish what Eddie had started, finish ripping Buck apart from the inside out if he could really get at the root of them.

Stumbling into the door seemed to make it open, so Buck found himself tripping an exit from the store, falling onto his knees. He let out an involuntary scream as he landed hard on his injured hand, then stared at the blood as it made rivers, following cracks in the sidewalk, creating pools in the crevices.

Oh, Buck thought. Oh, that’s bad. Oh, shit. He had never even considered this pathetic way of dying alone when he thought about it.

Then there were hands on his forearms, and he knew those hands, knew them better than his own, but when he tried to focus on Eddie’s face everything blurred together, so he closed his eyes.

“Buck! Don’t you dare close your eyes! Buck!” Eddie was screaming, and then-”Open your eyes, Evan!” 

Oh, Buck thought. That was new. That was nice. Evan sounds nice.

Buck tried so hard to blink his eyes open, he didn’t want to disappoint Eddie yet again, but everything kept getting just that little bit darker, that little bit heavier. He felt the combination of familar touches on his hands, Eddie’s skin, gauze wrapping tight, and then he was swaying backwards, the effort of staying even a little upright completely impossible.

“Hen!” Eddie screamed, his voice sounding hoarse, and then Buck felt the pressure switch, someone else tying the gauze off tight while Eddie encircled Buck from behind, arms around his chest, and Buck’s head landing limply on Eddie’s shoulder.

“You’re so cold...” Eddie choked out, voice shaking with a terror and sorrow Buck couldn’t understand, not in any sort of recent context, not in any world where that lawsuit existed. 

Buck knew the answer to this one, tried to get out "From blood loss," show he still knew what he was doing, but he was just too tired. The last thing he sensed was being picked up and carried off in Eddie's arms.

***

The beeping was what woke him up. By now, Buck thought, you would think that sound wouldn't even phase me, the number of times I've been in this hospital. He kept his eyes tightly closed. If he didn't open them, then he didn't have to see that he was alone again. That Eddie had just done what any firefighter would have, got the patient to the hospital and left.

"Didn't leave, Buck." Buck felt the comforting pressure of Eddie's calloused fingertips circling around his wrist, Eddie's breath on his skin as Eddie let out a soft, sad chuckle that sounded so much like a sob, Eddie's voice shaking as he said, "I never should have left you for even a second."

"Add thinking out loud to the list of stupid things I've done," Buck whispered, keeping his eyes closed as he turned his head away from the sound of Eddie's voice.

"Buck, what were you thinking?" Eddie asked, but there was no anger in his voice, only sadness teetering right on the edge of full despair. "You know you're on blood thinners, you saw how much you were bleeding, and your plan was what exactly? Did you really think you could get yourself home and just wrap that up with some gauze and be fine? We were right outside!"

"I'm already too exhausting," Buck mumbled, tears stinging his eyes as he pressed them tightly closed. "Didn't need to add to that. I need to get used to being alone, taking care of myself. Was always going to end up alone anyway."

"Buck, what-I don't-Buck, please look at me," Eddie pleaded. Buck felt Eddie's hand graze his cheek, cup it gently. "Evan, please look at me." Buck let himself lean into Eddie's touch, couldn't stop himself even if he could bring himself to try. Opening his eyes, there was Eddie, looking absolutely wrecked. His eyes were red and watering, hair disheveled, nails picked at to the point of splitting. 

Buck opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Eddie put a finger up and shook his head. "You are not allowed to ask if I am okay," Eddie choked out, rubbing his hands over his face. "It doesn't matter how I am, it matters how you are, Buck." Reaching over, Eddie grabbed Buck's uninjured hand, clutching it to his chest. "I need you to believe that, I need you to believe that it matters how you're doing."

"But I screwed everything up," Buck insisted, and Eddie shook his head.

"Buck, you just wanted to get back to doing your job, none of us could have known what that lawyer would do," Eddie assured him. "And we, the team, we want you back. I want you back."

"You do?" Buck hadn't known his voice could come out sounding so small. Apparently Eddie hadn't either, and Buck watched as fresh tears sprang into Eddie's eyes.

"There's nothing I want more in the world," Eddie promised, before taking a deep breath and lifting Buck's hand to his lips. "I'm so sorry. I screwed everything up. You matter so much to me, Evan. You are worth everything to me and to Christopher." He punctuated his words with soft kisses to Buck's fingertips.

"That's really nice," Buck said, voice stronger, a smile catching the corners of his lips, and Eddie sighed in relief, shaking his head with a laugh as he kept a grip on Buck's hand.

"What, the apology, or the kisses?" Eddie teased, resting his chin on their intertwined fingers.

"Well, both of those of course," Buck teased back, and then his voice grew serious. "And the part where you called me Evan, and when you told me..." Buck tilted his head back, trying to blink back tears. "When you told me I matter. That I'm worth something."

"Everything, Evan, you are worth everything," Eddie said firmly, pushing the chair aside to climb onto the hospital bed, carefully perching himself as close as he could to Buck. He carefully picked up Buck's bandaged hand, holding it delicately between his own like it was something precious. "You have to take care of yourself, and you have to let me take care of you, please. When I saw you outside the store, I was terrified. I can't lose you. I get worried when you get a damn papercut, let alone when I see you seemingly bleeding out like that."

"I'm so sorry, Eddie," Buck said earnestly, looking up at Eddie. "I had every intention of fixing myself up at home, I really thought I could do it by myself."

"I know," Eddie sighed, "I promise I know that. But you don't have to, okay? You don't have to do that alone, you don't have to do anything alone. I'm here. I'm not leaving. Christopher will be here as soon as Carla gets him from school. The whole team is out there in that waiting room, Maddie's on her way from work. You're not alone, Buck. You can let that worry go."

And oh, Buck thought, that's new. That's nice. Not worrying about being alone.

And then Buck found himself sobbing, full body cries, and Eddie was pulling him into his chest, holding him tight, murmuring soft words into his hair, words like love and got you and it's okay, it's going to be okay, always, Evan always.

When Eddie's lips moved from Buck's hair to Buck's mouth, it felt like a natural progression, that this was always where they were heading, all along. Together.