#not me delaying posting this because i was trying to figure out

[iolitemoth]

Meet Solam! She’s a quantum physics major who joins Wild Ventures after her classmate Gab (Gabbro) talks her into it. She’s excited and ready for adventure!

Some Facts:

Solam uses a text-to-speech device as well as sign language; I’m not sure if she’s mute or has trouble speaking or something else, but she gets by well enough.

She plays piano! She brought a keyboard from home and set it up in her dorm room as soon as she could.

Her favourite animals are goats :) Some of her other favourite things are science, mysteries, and learning.

Solam is fairly tall and has a habit of walking on her toes.

[zriasstuff]

Slytherin boys x reader (kinky shit vol.2)

Warnings: 18+ sexual content, orgasm denial kink (?), not proof read, long lost trashy & horny draft from my wattpad era (a moment of silence for that), cringe, enjoy ?

(not that anyone rlly cares, but i thought I’d at least pull this out since i haven’t posted actual writing in 1,5 weeks, vol.1 in case you’re curious)

Mattheo Riddle:

Mattheo was incredibly skilled with his mouth, knowing just where to flick his tongue and how hard to suck on your clit to make you melt. Shaking and squirming, you’d grab onto his curly hair, and he would hold your thighs over his shoulders and bury his face deep within your sweet cunt. Always licking up every drip coming from your precious cunt and sucking his fingers clean after stretching you out.

Eventually he figured that he could make you even needier by removing himself for a few seconds. In response you would desperately pull his head closer to your cunt and whine him “don’t you dare fucking stop now”, but he’d just tease your entrance by slowly licking stripes, so you wouldn’t be able to reach your climax.

It was torture, yet you have to admit he made it worth it. “Please Matty keep going”, you’d plea, “plea- please just pleasee”, you’d just repeat that as often as you could, but he enjoyed seeing you on edge.

Tom Riddle:

It’s his favorite form of punishing you for when you act bratty towards him, or when he’s in an angry mood in general, which is quite frequently. His practice of orgasm denial involves painstakingly long teasing until your cunt is all worn out and until you basically can’t think properly anymore. All your thoughts just revolve around one thing, riding out your orgasm completely without feeling as if something was being ripped away from you instead. Tom always fucks you first, pulling out just when you’re about to cum. Instead he releases himself all over your thighs, and leaves you to your own devices. The more needy you become, the longer he’ll torture you to see your breaking point. He has a dildo his size, which he’ll fuck you with, always pulling out just when you’re about to cum. It was an endless circle, even bringing out tears in you because it’s too unbearable and you just desperately want to experience that intensive orgasm. Usually he doesn’t let you have it though. Because of that you become unbelievably horny during the next few days, wanting Tom to use you and fuck you in any sort of way, but of course he’d rather watch you squirm and whine under him. “Should’ve thought twice before being a brat”/“Only good girls derserve to cum”/“You look so pathetic, begging for my cock”

Theodore Nott:

Instead of the popular silent treatment you gave to Theo sometimes when you were mad, you also enjoyed seeing him all fidgety and out of control. “Please don’t do this”, he’d beg, but it would all be in vain. Once you decided to bounce up and down on his swollen cock, he couldn’t keep it together anymore. You didn’t allow him to grab your tits, nor to cum. Once you rode his cock long enough to get you close, you got off of him and fingered yourself in front of him until you made a mess of the sheets. His cock would just leak precum from watching you get off, but he was gonna try to not disobey you. He wasn’t allowed to cum until you gave him explicit permission. After you rode him, he was most likely a swearing mess, desperate to touch his own cock and replicate what you do to him. “That’s what you get for making me mad”, you’d tell him and he’d apologize about a thousand times. Sometimes, out of pity, you then satisfy him by allowing him to touch himself, but other times he wouldn’t be so lucky and had to wait until the next day possibly. “I swear I’ll never do it again”, he whines or “Please I’ll do anything”

Blaise Zabini:

He knows that you enjoy your orgasms way more when they’ve been delayed because then they’re just so much more intensive that way. So, when you do it, he obviously wants to make you feel good, even if that means making you feel incredibly bad, even if it’s in a good way, for a moment. His cock was big by all means, it stretched you out perfectly and fit you just right. So after he comes inside you, he makes you cockwarm him instead of pulling out completely. This way he’ll watch you struggle to not roll your hips because if you did you’d try to get him to hit your g-spot. Then, all of a sudden, he’d grab your waist, make you straddle him, and control your body movements with his hands on your waist. Blaise will pull down, and thrust into you from under you. You can’t help but let out a series of cries because Blaise pounded so deep into you that you were sure you’re insides would never recover. Although he’s lying down, he’s still the one in control, so any pleasure you get is decided by him. “Not yet babe��/“Hold on a little longer ok” As you finally get to have your orgasm, it’s the most intense yet satisfying feeling in the world.

Enzo Berkshire:

Broken was the only word to describe Enzo when he was suffering from not being able to cum due to having a cock ring on. You used it for punishing him sometimes, for unintentionally flirting with other girls, but also just for fun and to spice up your bedroom activities. It vibrated his inflated cock, but also restricted it from shooting out his sweet release. The entire room would be filled with Enzo’s variations of noises, begging and whines. “How much longer”, he keeps asking while making filthy sounds and “I can’t keep it in anymore please” he’d always plea. Enzo would also always come close to tears, though he definitely enjoyed the sinful mix of pleasure and pain too. There were also several intensity settings on the useful cock ring and any time he’d swear, you put it higher. He was entirely under your control, and anything he did would result in his cock just suffering longer from the prolonged torture. You watched him squirm in his bed, completely naked, and even humping the bed at times to get some sort of friction, but that never ended well as you would set the vibrations even higher. His cock was so close to coming, yet only measly drops of precum came out. It was truly a sight.

Draco Malfoy:

Combined with public factors, orgasm denial is your favorite way of watching your boyfriend struggle to keep it together. Otherwise everyone would find out what an obedient boy he was for you, totally unlike the usual bad boy persona he puts on. When all your friends hang out around the common room couch, near the fireplace, a blanket always covers you two. It’s normal, since everyone shares a blanket with either a friend or partner. The twist comes when you slyly slide your hands all the way down to his crotch and rub him through his pyjama pants first. Draco always inhales sharply, knowing he’ll have to be on his best behavior. He shifts all the time, trying to secretly hump himself on the palm of your hand, acting like a stupid fuck toy. So, to tell him to cut it out, you lightly squeeze his length, sending him a warning sign. He should remember that you were the one in control. When you decide he deserves it, you start massaging his cock, pumping it ever so slowly and circling your thumb over his crown. As soon as you hear the grunts, signaling that he can’t keep it in any longer, you slide your hands out of his pants again and act as you were. Draco’s own pleasure had to wait until you were in private, until then he’d quietly whine “Please let me cum, pleasee”/“I swear I’ll do anything you want”

[mariasont]

hiii! I read your last spencer one shot AND I LOVED IT! IT WAS SO SWEET AND YOU'RE SO TALENTED!! Would you write something about post prison reid and shy reader? I was thinking of her as the media liaison (in my mind she is old-fashioned in music and clothes I'd wear skirts everyday, her emotional intelligence makes her good at her job, despite her shyness). Maybe she's clumsy, especially when she gets nervous and more especially (I don't even know if that's grammatically correct) when she's around Spencer.

Thank you so much for reading this, you're doing an EXCELLENT job, your works are a masterpiece!! 💕💖💝💓💓💖💞💕💖💓

Make a Wish - S.R

a/n: eekkkkkk post-prison spencer reid has me in a CHOKEHOLD! thank you so much for requesting, i'm so sorry for the delay! i hope i did your request justice!! I LOVE LOVE YOU!

masterlist

pairings: post prison!spencer reid x shy!reader

wc: 0.9k

You had been meaning to give the reports fastened in your hands to Spencer for give-or-take two hours now. Each time you gathered the courage to approach him, just one glance, one simple stupid glance from those piercing eyes set your nerves on fire and sent your brain in overdrive.

As the new media liaison from the narcotics unit, you were warned about the BAU's intimidating figures, particularly Rossi and Emily. However, no warning came regarding Spencer Reid. They mentioned his tendencies for long-winded explanations and awkward social interactions but not the aura of intensity he exuded. Whenever he entered a room, you instinctively started looking for an exit, not because of his criminal record, but because you found yourself hopelessly mesmerized by him.

He was perfect in every sense of the word—brilliant, compassionate, selfless, and an exceptional agent. At least, this is what you had observed from afar. A part of you was scared that any real interaction with him would shatter the idyllic image you had crafted in your head, and you weren't confident you were prepared for such disillusionment. However, you needed to give him these damn papers, dreading the alternative, which was getting summoned to Emily's office.

"Hi."

You did it, okay, first step complete. You opened your mouth, determined to get out the next part you had practiced a little over twenty times in your head, but the words seemed to dissipate into a misty fog in your brain.

"Um, these are for you," you said, rocking back onto the balls of your mary janes, placing the report on his desk. "It's the Henderson lie detector test transcript?"

"Is it?"

You realized you had said it like a question.

You paused, the part of your brain stuttering for a second, trying to flip over the thousands of scenarios you had rehearsed in your head for this interaction. None of them had included those words.

Just a little off script and you felt your fight or flight kick in—nails digging into your palms as you avoided eye contact.

"Yes." A little more confident this time, not by much, and it quickly deflated as you second guessed yourself, stepping closer to peer over his shoulder at the document. "At least I think."

"I'm just messing with you, it is." He said, eyes flickering down to the document, then to you. "You okay?"

"M-Me? Okay? Yeah, of course." The words were stumbling out of your mouth at a rate that was hard to keep up with. "Do I not look okay?"

"No, of course you look okay," he responded, brows knitting together as his gaze traveled down your body, no doubt dissecting your every thought. "You just seem... a bit nervous."

You opened your mouth, aiming to articulate a coherent thought, but it fell short and was quickly interrupted by Spencer.

He suddenly leaned in, his eyes narrowing. "Wait, hold still; you have an eyelash."

He was so close, you swore you feel his breath on your cheeks, instantly warming them. Your body was in overdrive, trying to recalibrate as his finger grazed the area under your right eye. You closed your eyes, almost unwillingly, relishing in the unexpected touch.

This was weird. Every nerve in your body was on high alert, and you balled your hand into a fist, attempting to mask the way you were shaking.

The sound of your name snapped you out of your daze. Your eyes followed suit, meeting Spencer's prying eyes. His finger was raised, your eyelash perched on the tip. Your face could have been a furnace, flames of heat spreading from your neck to your nose.

"Do you want to make a wish?"

He looked at you expectantly, eyes darting from your face to his raised pointer finger.

"Okay."

You closed your eyes, forming the wish in your mind before blowing on the lash. You watched it float to the ground, settling gently on the toe of Spencer's shoe. 

"What did you wish for?"

"I feel like I'm not supposed to tell you that," you say, pulling at the ends of your hair.

He was undeniably good-looking. It wasn't like you were just realizing it; you had eyes and you were only human. But up close, you could see every detail—the dark circles under his eyes, the rough stubble under his jaw.

"I think you're right."

The sudden intimacy of the moment made your heart skip a beat. You stepped back, nodding at his words and also nothing in particular.

"Anyway, yeah, those are the papers—," you began, turning to walk away. As you did, you bumped your hip into the desk beside you, hissing under your breath in response.

"Christ, are you okay?" His hand was on your hip as the words came out of his mouth.

The touch only seemed to intensify your embarrassment. You stepped out of his grip, dropping your phone as you did which you quickly bent down to pick up.

"Sorry, yeah, I'm fine, just forgot I have a meeting with Emily, so I'm just gonna—," you pointed towards her office, quickly making your escape from Spencer as you tried to catch your breath.

Once you were a distance you deemed safe enough, you allowed yourself a quick glance back at him. He was smirking, and you felt that all familiar heat rising into your chest once again.

You really hoped that wish would kick in soon.

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[osarina]

ᡣ𐭩 ICARIAN

FEATURING: beast dazai osamu

SUMMARY: dazai had known he was flying too close to the sun, he should have stopped himself while he still had the chance. {wordcount: 11.5k; fem!reader, romance & tragedy}

AUTHOR'S NOTES: installment fiveeeee otherwise known as part 2 of installment four LOL! ugh guys i'm dragging myself thru the trenches right now i'm so miserable - i wasn't even up to posting this today i won't lie but </3 i pulled thru </3 if only barely. fun fact this is actually only a 3 scene chapter but the second scene is just MASSIVE. i wasn't up to restructuring so you guys are just going to get it as it is. this is also unedited because i just wasn't up to it so bear with me regarding mistakes. JUST TO REMIND YOU ALL: the last installment is DELAYED - i have 3 finals next week and haven't had the time to finish it. it will be up by the end of may </3 sorry guys. wow this actually is attempt number three trying to post this correctly - i'm so shot

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR 17 & UNDER FOLLOWING THE SERIES: partially copy and pasted from badlands - if you guys read badlands, you know the deal. y'all knew what you were getting into. this is the smut chapter. but again, i'm not going to ask y'all to not interact/read a whole 12k chapter just because there's 4k words of smut, but i am going to say here the smut is in the SECOND scene. there is very little plot development in the smut itself, so i ask you guys, again, to respectfully scroll past it. i'll make the sentence when the smut starts red like this so you know that's when it starts, and then you can continue reading at the next divider. thank you for understanding! there is NO plot development in the smut, i'll reiterate that at the end where i put the summary in badlands, i restructured to make sure none of it was in it.

SMUT WARNINGS: unprotected sex, dazai cries </3 poor baby, sub!dazai, as always pussy drunk!dazai, bit of overstim on dazai's part too, jfhsuhdfsu i will say it starts on the bathroom floor so that might be a bit gross to some of you but dazai hardly even uses his apartment anyway so trust it's clean. bear with me. it just flowed from there i had to go with it. the story writes itself, i'm only the scribe. LOL let me know if i missed anything, i might have

SEE: UNREAL UNEARTH SERIES MASTERLIST READ: BADLANDS SIDE A

Dazai is hardly listening to the conversation at hand. They’ve been going back and forth for thirty minutes about inconsequential matters. Tolstoy is getting increasingly heated as he goes tit-for-tat with Nabokov, evidently the tripartite alliance between the Russian mafias is not quite enough to quell all of the bad blood that’s simmered between them, but something about the situation isn’t sitting right to Dazai. He can feel it in his gut, swirling in the depths of his chest—something is wrong but he doesn’t know what.

Mishima looks equally put out, gaze trained on Tolstoy and Nabokov’s conversation, occasionally looking back at his executives. Cao seems bored, head tilted back against the red cushions of the round booth as he smokes a cigarette; in all regards, he seems relaxed, but Dazai notices the way the fingers of his free hand are tense on the table, as if he’s bracing himself for something.

Something isn’t right.

Dostoevsky is cunning. Intelligent. He’s been lethally sharp in every universe that the other Dazais have encountered him in. He wouldn’t send Tolstoy and Nabokov into this meeting with them at each other’s throats like this without an ulterior reason. Dazai is missing something critical; he knows it’s not something as simple as wanting to give off the appearance of a divided front as means to get Dazai and Mishima to lower their guard. Nothing is that easy. There’s some ulterior motive that Dazai has to figure out.

Cao’s presence. Tolstoy and Nabokov’s blatant hostility toward one another. Mishima’s words from earlier, warning him that something seems to be brewing, that Tolstoy and Nabokov had been on edge since he arrived at the event hall. Dazai’s head hurts, and he can’t focus, not when you’re in the other room without him.

Already, he feels as if he’s been separated from you for too long, he’d been hoping this meeting was only going to last thirty minutes at most, and it’s been thirty minutes already and hardly any progress has been made. If Dazai didn’t know any better, he’d think that…

He’d think that Tolstoy and Nabokov were stalling.

At once, Dazai starts catching onto the things that he missed. The way Nabokov keeps glancing up at the clock on the wall above Cao. The way Tolstoy’s gaze keeps flickering to his phone. The way Cao’s attention seems to be elsewhere. 

Cao Xueqin. A Dream of Red Mansions. A scrying ability.

His heartbeat slows and Dazai blinks. Once. Twice. Blood roars in his ears as his gaze twists down to where his phone is laying on the table in front of him, on its face. Tachihara should have texted him to let him know that he got to you. Him or Chuuya. He usually reports to Chuuya anyway, so Dazai figured that Chuuya would’ve gotten the confirmation. He turns his head to the side to look at the executive from the corner of his eye, trying to keep his breath as slow and steady and natural as possible when he realizes that Chuuya is frowning with furrowed brows, looking at his phone. Unsure.

Dazia reaches for his own phone, fingers deceptively steady despite the way his insides are curdling with a sudden jolt of anxiety. His eyes zero in on the top right corner of his phone. No signal. Dazai has been to this event hall countless times in this life and dozens of others—there’s always service throughout the building. 

Unless it’s being jammed, that is.

Dazai’s blood runs cold, gaze dragging from his phone to the door that leads to the hallway connecting to the event hall where you are. He feels as if he’s been doused with icy water and lit on fire all at once. For a second, he doesn’t move—he’s not sure if it’s anxiety or fear, or both, but he knows it’s because you’re out there and Dostoevsky is plotting something while trying to keep him out of the picture in this meeting. 

He should have known better. Mishima had assumed that Dostoevsky wasn’t in the building—he had his three best scouts prowling the whole building trying to place the real leader of the tripartite but had failed. Nabokov had apparently told him that Dostoevsky had to stay back to handle residual business in Russia, a blatant lie, one that has had Mishima on edge all night.

The one with the overcoat. The clown.

Dazai stills as he remembers the white haired man who hung around Dostoevsky in some of the other universes. Not all of the other Dazais encountered him—in fact, Dazai thinks there were only half a dozen other universes where he met the man, he can hardly remember his name, but when he did…

Spatial linking. Of course Mishima’s men hadn’t been able to hunt down Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky would’ve predicted that the Sun and Steel would seek out the mastermind with their scouts. He used the clown to enter the building without anyone knowing after the scouts finished their hunt.

Dazai had missed a critical piece on the board.

Dazai rises to his feet abruptly, mind numb, eyes distant, and lips parted to speak but no words escape them. Tolstoy and Nabokov exchange a sharp, pointed look, pausing in their hostilities, and Dazai knows. He knows.

Dostoevsky is going after you. 

He hears Chuuya and Kouyou calling after him but it sounds like a distant buzz. His throat feels clogged, his heartbeat is erratic and uncontrollable, his ears are ringing. His surroundings are blurry, a part of him doesn’t even know where he is: the event hall, your apartment, in the cafe below the Armed Detective Agency, it’s all blurring together.

This is it.

His vision swims and his head spins. The hallway seems impossibly long, much longer than it was to walk to the room. He can hear Chuuya spitting curses, scrambling out of the room, and he’s sure that his other executives and the other mafiosos aren’t far behind, but Dazai’s mind is on a single track. He doesn’t know how fast he’s moving—fast enough that Chuuya is chasing after him but can’t catch him. Something is heavy and cool in his hand—his gun—numb fingers moving to click the safety off.

This is it.

He might enter that hall and find you dead, slumped over the bar he’d last seen you sitting at, blood splattered across your face. Limp, cold. Just like you were on your bedroom floor. In the booth at the cafe. He’s pulling you from the water. He’s screaming for Yosano when he’s with the Agency. He’s screaming for Mori when he’s with the Mafia. Sometimes he’s alone, and he has no one to call for help, so all he can do is hold you and cry. 

It’s his fault. He knew this would happen from the beginning. He knew that being with you would lead you to the same fate that you’ve met in every other universe because of him. He knew that being with you would be your death sentence, but he couldn’t stop himself. 

His vision swims again, the red and gold patterns on the walls of the event hall are indistinct blobs, he feels someone try to grab his wrist—Chuuya, probably—but Dazai rips himself free and pushes himself into the event hall.

He ignores the eyes on him and the way people all instinctively move away from the sight of him with his gun out, he’s sure he must look deranged but he’s hardly even keeping himself grounded to this reality. Pages pile around him, every single one has variations of the same scene that’s haunted him for almost eight years written on it; one is being written before his eyes, he can see the words appearing on the blank sheet. He needs to find you before it’s complete. He has to stop it.

His eyes cut across the room, toward the bar he’d last seen you at, and you’re there. You’re there. It’s almost enough to make him scramble to put his gun away, cover up his steep spiral of paranoia even if you are looking right in his direction and see the gun in his hand. He can hardly come to terms with the consequences of this, how you’re seeing him right now, because his gaze tunnels right in on the person sitting next to you and his world comes to a halt. 

He lifts the gun. He ignores as people shriek and scramble to the edges of the room. He ignores the look on your face as he moves closer to where you’re sitting with Fyodor Dostoevsky. He ignores the way Chuuya and Kouyou and Piano Man have all skid to a stop somewhere behind him, trying to figure out what to do. Dostoevsky’s hand is mere inches away from brushing against your body, it would only take the slightest movement and you would be dead. It would be a game of who’s faster: Dazai’s trigger finger or Dostoevsky’s ability. Dazai’s always been quick to pull the trigger but now, faced with your life on the line, when he should be at his best because of what’s at risk, he finds himself scared and unsteady. 

He can’t lose you. He can’t watch it happen.

He paces toward you slowly, steadily, he swears each step he takes echoes across the suddenly silent event hall. He doesn’t stop until the muzzle of his gun is pressed against the back of Dostoevsky’s head.

“Stand up.” Dazai’s voice is deceptively cold and steady for the rage and fear that’s clawing at his chest, threatening to take control.

Dostoevsky turns his head to the side to look at Dazai, faint amusement in his eyes. “Are you sure you really want to do this here, Dazai?” 

The mocking lilt his voice takes is almost enough alone for Dazai to pull the trigger. And if that wasn’t, the way Dostoevsky smiles at Dazai like he’s won is certainly enough to push him over the edge.

Before he can, he feels Chuuya grab his bicep hard. 

“You can’t do this here,” he hisses quietly. “If you kill him now on neutral territory, we’ll have all of the mafias in the Eastern Hemisphere coming after you and the government on your ass. You can’t do this here and you can’t do it in public.”

Dazai doesn’t care. He doesn’t care how many mafias come after him for killing on neutral territory when invited as a guest. He doesn’t care that the government will come after him for such a blatant murder. All he cares about is getting Dostoevsky away from you.

“Chuuya is right,” Kouyou murmurs, low enough for only Dazai to overhear. “We can cover this up as is. If you pull the trigger, there’s no hiding what happened here. You know better than this, boy. You won’t be the only person this affects if you do this. Think of her. She will be implicated for coming here with you. Lower the gun and let us handle sweeping this under the rug.”

Dazai can’t even bring himself to look at you. He’s scared of what he might find. But he doesn’t even consider lowering the gun, not until Dostoevsky raises his hands and slips off the bar stool to step away from you. Even when he does, Dazai keeps it trained on him, still tempted to blow his head right off his shoulders.

“I meant no harm,” Dostoevsky says smoothly. “I was intrigued, wanted to know the girl who’s managed to capture your interest. I must say, I see the appeal. Beautiful and intelligent, you have quite the eye, Dazai.”

Dazai’s lips stretch into a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s not kind, and it’s mildly feral, and Dazai’s pretty sure he must look entirely deranged from the way Dostoevsky’s eyes widen in a mixture of surprise and entertainment, just enough to be noticeable.

“If you ever go near her again, I’ll put a bullet through your fucking skull, Dostoevsky.”

He should do it now. He should. Fuck Chuuya and Kouyou’s warnings, he should put a bullet in his head and be done with it, move onto handling Christie so that both of the major threats to your life are gone. But he can’t. If he takes this opportunity now, if he kills Dostoevsky so blatantly on neutral territory, the Pale Flame and Three Deaths will come at him in full force, and Dazai is sure the Red Chamber won’t be far behind them with Cao’s recent interest in expanding his business into Japan. And you’ll be caught in the crossfire of all of it, Dazai has ensured that by bringing you here. Dostoevsky must have accounted for all of this. He knew that Dazai would be put in a situation where either way, whether he kills him or lets him go, he’d be throwing himself onto a blade. 

Is that it? Killing you wasn’t the goal, was it? Exposing Dazai was. Forcing him into this impossible decision.

Did he really just fall into Dostoevsky’s hands so easily? Even with all of the forewarning the other universes have given him?

It’s you. You always make him reckless, his mind is never as sharp whenever you’re involved, muddled with thoughts of you, plagued with spirals of paranoia and anxiety that make him double guess himself. It’s like this in every universe—he becomes stupid, he becomes rash, he becomes careless. It’s you.

You.

Suddenly very hyper aware of your eyes on him, Dazai lowers his gun, gaze turning in your direction. Dostoevsky lets out one last snide comment, something toward you, telling you ‘don’t you see’ but Dazai doesn’t even process it, heart in his throat as he looks at you. He doesn’t know what he expects—fear, betrayal, even anger. He’s not prepared for the emptiness. He can’t read a single emotion on your face, your eyes eerily void of any feeling as you stare at him. 

He says your name quietly. His voice cracks. He should be embarrassed, so many people watching the scene play out, so many of his enemies and allies and subordinates, and he’s staring at you like a lost child with an unsteady voice, but he can’t bring himself to care. The fingers of his free hand are trembling, and the ones wrapped around the grip of his gun are so wound so tight that his knuckles are white. 

You’ve never looked at him like this before. Not in any universe. 

He thinks he might throw up. 

You’ve been mad at him before, scowling at him whenever he distracts you from your work and snarling whenever he makes messes that he never cleans up, but your eyes always stay soft in spite of the venom you spit. He’s seen betrayal on your face a few times before, screaming at him through tears when he got a bit too close to a successful attempt, cursing at him for trying to leave you, but you hold him so gently that it makes up for the harsh words. You’ve been scared of him once, when he lashed out so badly during one of his slumps that he nearly hurt you, but even then, you were more concerned for him then you were scared for yourself, speaking to him softly to settle him down.

He’s never seen this. He wants it to go away. Desperately.

“I’d like to leave,” you finally say after a few moments of silence, and your voice is so vacant of emotion that it leaves him feeling even more sick.

Dazai nods, because he can’t bring himself to speak. 

He holds his hand out for you, waiting for you to take it.

You don’t.

You haven’t spoken a word since the event hall, and Dazai doesn’t know what to do. He used to find peace in silence—for years, he’d become accustomed to it, isolating himself from everyone around him, keeping everyone at arm’s length. The most he ever spoke was a few sentences to give out orders to his executives; his voice had become hoarse and raspy over the years of self-imposed isolation, unused to being utilized. But the past few months with you have utterly obliterated any semblance of comfort Dazai had found in solidarity. 

It’s become entirely intolerable, the silence is making him sick with anxiety; he has hundreds of lifetimes worth of memories with you and he can’t even vaguely predict what to expect from you right now. You’ve been tense and cold since leaving the event hall. Dazai tried to open up a conversation in the car once but found himself promptly ignored. Chuuya tried to say something to you but only received the same cold shoulder. Even Albatross tried to lighten the mood when the four of you got in the car, but all you did was stare out the window with your back to Dazai. 

Now, you’re back up in his penthouse with him. You haven’t sat down. You’ve hardly budged from where you’re standing near the elevator—Dazai wonders if you’re scared of him now, if you want to be as close as possible to the only exit in fear of him lashing out at you. The thought makes him even more nauseous.

He doesn’t even know what to do with himself. He doesn’t want to sit down, he’s uncomfortable standing in the living room, waiting for you to say something, and he can’t bring himself to try to break the silence because if there’s one thing he learned very swiftly, it’s that he can’t handle being ignored by you. He’d prefer anger and hate to the stonewall iciness you’re giving him.

He can’t even fathom what you might be thinking right now. You’re not looking at him. You’re staring at the window that looks over the city, he can see the bright flashing lights from Cosmo World flickering faintly in your eyes. It’s so quiet that he can hear the distant honking of horns, police sirens coming from the streets below. 

He just wants you to say something, do something. Yell at him. Scream at him. Hit him or punch him. Anything is better than this. 

It feels like an eternity before you finally move away from the elevator. You still don’t speak, but Dazai watches raptly as you make your way into the kitchen. You fling open the cabinets, searching for something, and Dazai’s lips part to ask what you’re looking for but he decides against it. You stop with your jerky movements when you catch sight of the numerous bottles of sake Dazai has stored in his cabinets—room temperature, because Dazai can’t stand cold drinks, they make his teeth hurt. He watches you struggle to uncap it and his body itches to move toward you to help but he knows it won’t do any good. It’ll probably just piss you off more.

When you get the cap off, you’re immediately bringing it to your lips. One. Two. Three. Four large gulps before you put the bottle back down on the counter and turn to look at him. The emptiness in your eyes is gone, replaced by something caught between hurt and anger and betrayal. It makes his heart sink, but he thinks it’s preferable to the emptiness.

“You lied to me,” you finally rasp out, shaking your head as you pace behind the counter. There’s a whole length of a room separating the two of you and Dazai longs for your touch but he forces himself to stuff his hands in his pockets and keep still. “You lied to me, Dazai.”

“Osamu,” he corrects quietly without thinking, not liking the switch up. He’d finally gotten you to call him by his given name earlier in the night, he doesn’t want to lose it so quickly.

For the briefest of seconds, the hurt and betrayal in your eyes disappears and only fire rages in them. “Dazai,” you spit out pointedly. 

Dazai almost draws back, not having expected that. In all of the other universes, you’ve always been gentle with him even when you’re livid. You speak his name softly, even with a tight jaw and fisted hands—his given name, you’ve never used his surname against him like this before. Probably because most of the major fights he had with you in those other lives, it was months into the relationship; it’s only been a few weeks in this life so of course-

Dazai realizes, a bit dizzy, that he’s about to lose you.

You found out too soon. You found out through Dostoevsky, through Dazai's own loss of control. You found out in the worst possible way and you found out too soon.

Dazai is about to lose you.

“Okay,” he murmurs, not wanting to test your temper anymore, giving in as a means to try to soothe your anger, regardless of how much it might wound him because being wounded is nothing compared to losing you. “Dazai.”

His compliance seems to do nothing to quell your anger from the way you just scoff and shake your head again, looking away from him. You stare out over the city, dozens of emotions cloud your expression but Dazai still can’t predict what you might do next. He feels out of his depth, in murky waters with an anchor tied to his ankle.

“I knew it, you know?” you finally say quietly. “I knew it from the beginning, honestly, but I kept making excuses for you. I mean, the guns. The secrecy. You weren’t really subtle about it. Did you think I was stupid, or something?” 

“Never,” Dazai says honestly, without hesitation. He sees your gaze flicker down to the ground at his words, but you don’t make any move to speak again so he takes the opportunity to, in hopes that you’ll finally listen. “You’re the smartest woman I know. I-”

You interrupt him with a sharp laugh, it’s loud and almost cruel, and Dazai turns in on himself at the sound of it. He feels small and unsteady, like a child who’s being scolded by a parent. When you look at him again, your eyes are wide and wild, half-crazed in sheer disbelief. You don’t believe him. Of course, you don’t. It’s plainly displayed on your face. And why would you anyway? He’s given you every reason not to. 

“If you think I’m so smart, why didn’t you think I would figure it out?”

He tries to say that he knew you would. That he’s been living in fear for weeks that you’d finally see him for what he is but when he opens his mouth to say it, no words leave him. Like he’s frozen in fear, ice crawling through his veins, stones weighing on his tongue; he can’t respond, and he knows that he’s only condemning himself more. He tries to force something out but he can’t even make the barest hint of a sound. The mindkiller. He’s never responded well to fear, much less when you’re involved. 

You click your tongue, as if to solidify that his silence proves your point, or maybe you know what he can't bring himself to say and you just don't believe him. His stomach churns again, and dread spreads through chest when you say: “If I’m so smart, and I was going to figure it out anyway, why didn’t you just tell me?”

“You would have left.” Dazai is finally able to speak, but he speaks the wrong answer, clearly, from the way you let out another humorless, breathless laugh, eyes wide in disbelief. You look at him like he’s the most audacious man in the entire world. Maybe he is.

“Yeah, I would have,” you agree and Dazai flinches. “Without hesitation, without even looking back. And now, I can’t because you made me fall in love with you without even warning me about what I was getting myself into.”

Dazai’s heart should be leaping through the roof at your confession, but if anything, he feels even worse. His throat feels clogged and his chest feels so heavy. You’ve never regretted falling in love with him before. Not in any lifetime.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes out, because he doesn’t know what else to say. The words are still foreign on his tongue, he doesn’t think he’s ever apologized to someone in this life before the last twenty-four hours.

“No, you’re not,” you say bitterly, looking away. “Isn’t this what you wanted? For me to care so much about you that when you finally tell me who you are and what you do, I won’t be able to leave.”

Dazai stares at you, lost. He remembers how just the other day he was finding comfort in the way you could read him so easily, knowing he didn’t have to speak for you to know what he needed at the moment. He thinks he hates it now, because you’re finally reading deeper into his soul and seeing him for the sick, twisted monster he really is. Just like he feared from day one. Manipulative. Selfish. Undeserving. His fingers tremble in his pockets, nails biting into his palm so deep that he can feel blood trickling down his skin, but not even the stinging pain can distract him from the numbness spreading through him. 

“I didn’t-”

“Didn’t what?” you interrupt him. “You didn’t think I’d be upset? You didn’t think I’d be angry? Or maybe you didn’t think it would happen this soon? Is that it, Dazai? You thought you’d have more time to win me over in hopes that I’d take the news in stride. News flash, Dazai, no amount of time or charm would have made me accept this easily. Accept you easily. How could I ever accept any of this?”

Nausea rises to his throat so suddenly that he almost gags. He feels dizzy, taking a step back so that his back is against the wall, keeping him steady. Your last words echo through his head over and over again, he can’t escape them. The one person who’s always accepted him in every lifetime, the only person he was ever able to find a home in—how could I ever accept you? 

His cheeks feel wet, his eyes are wide as he stares at you. He doesn’t know how to respond to that. He doesn’t even think he could if he knew how to respond to that. His lungs are burning and his throat feels so swollen that even just the thought of trying to speak is painful. 

You let out a sharp breath, caught between a hysterical laugh and a sob as you press your hands to either side of your neck and pace across the kitchen. “What am I supposed to do, Dazai?” you ask, voice hoarse. “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

He thinks it might be a rhetorical question, but he still forces out: “Don’t leave me.”

You scoff again, louder and harsher this time. Dazai’s eyes flutter shut as if to futilely minimize the blow. “I wish leaving you was still an option for me.”

Oh. He’s going to throw up. 

He wants to blame it on the alcohol he drank earlier in the night. He wants to blame it on the stress of the past few weeks. He wants to blame it on anything but this, even though he knows damn well that this conversation is what triggered the bile that rises to his throat. He forces himself to move, nearly tripping over his feet to get to the bathroom because he doesn’t want you to see him vomiting up his guts.

He hardly makes it to the toilet, crashing to his knees and clutching at the seat as he dry heaves. Nothing comes up—he hasn’t eaten enough the past few days to have anything solid in him, too busy with preparations—but he can’t stop gagging, eyes stinging with tears and throat burning. He doesn’t know how long he stays crumpled at the toilet, losing track of time entirely, a part of him just wants to stay there forever so he doesn’t have to go back out and face you. 

Evidently, he doesn’t have to go back out and face you because you come to him. 

He’s gagging again when he feels your hand brush his back, hesitantly at first and then firmly. Your touch is warm, and Dazai thinks he must look pathetic as he turns his head to the side to look at you. Your expression isn’t as harsh now, your eyes are still conflicted but your face is softer. After a moment, you take a seat on the floor next to him—you don’t say anything, but you let out a soft puff of air as you slip your arm around his shoulders once he stops heaving. 

He crumbles into your chest, body collapsing against yours. You wrap your arms around him, and at once, the numbness starts to fade away. His fingers clutch at your dress desperately, afraid that you’re going to disappear, but you only hold him tighter. You bury your face in his hair, forehead pressed to the top of his head.

“You’re so unfair, Osamu.” Your voice cracks, you’ve lost all of your fire, but Dazai finds no solace in it.

“I know,” he croaks out, throat scratchy and voice wavering. “I know.”

And then words are spilling from his lips before he can stop them, jumbled and hardly intelligible and he’s not even sure that you’re understanding what he’s saying but he can’t stop himself: “I tried. I tried to stay away, I tried so hard, you don’t understand. I knew it would turn out like this, I knew I would ruin you so I tried to stay away, but I’m selfish. I’m so selfish, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I knew better, I’m going to-you’re going to-”

The panic is returning, the words he wants to say but can’t push out are too damning: I’m going to get you killed. You’re going to die because of me. Dazai is breathing but the air isn’t getting to his lungs, his chest burns, and now even with your arms around him, the numbness is returning. It’s rapid now, spreading from his chest to his arms, down his abdomen to his legs; it’s going to consume him entirely, he can feel it, he can-

Oh.

Your lips press to his. Tilting his head back to angle his face up toward you, you lean down and press your lips against his, swallowing his words, his air, his panic. One of your hands cup his cheek while the other cradles the back of his head, Dazai can hardly kiss you back, his lips feel cold and prickly, but his eyes flutter shut as your lips move slowly and carefully against his.

Not for the first time, he thinks that he doesn’t deserve this. Especially not now. He tastes something wet and salty against his lips—he doesn’t know if you’re the one crying, or if he is, and he doesn’t want to know, so he forces himself to move. His arm feels heavy and clunky, and his fingers feel stiff, but he’s able to bring them up to your face, palms cupping your cheeks as the tips of his fingers tangle into your hair. He kisses you until his lungs are screaming for air, and even as he starts to feel lightheaded, he kisses you still, because your lips are the only thing able to push away the numbness overwhelming him. 

When you break away from him, you keep your foreheads pressed together, nose nudging against his. You share the same thin sliver of air and Dazai feels dizzy, he wants to kiss you again but he doesn’t think he’s capable of moving yet, so he only stays crumbled in your arms, waiting for you to grace him with your lips again. 

“I wish I still had the chance to be a better man,” Dazai says hoarsely, honestly, gaze searching yours desperately. “I would be. For you.”

Please believe me, he thinks to himself helplessly, because it’s the truth. He would try to be. For your sake. He might fail, he might be too far gone, his soul corrupted beyond salvation and his blood black beyond purification, but he would try. He would try so hard for you. But he can’t, not in this lifetime, not without risking everything he’s strove to protect since coming in contact with the Book. He has to stay the criminal, the monster, the demon so that you and Odasaku can live out your lives here. Until Dostoevsky, Christie, and any other person that could turn out to be a threat to either of you are killed, Dazai has to keep playing this role. He has to. 

You don’t respond. Dazai thinks it’s because you don’t believe him and it makes him feel sick again. His lips part to repeat himself but you only press yours against his, as if to silence him. 

You don’t believe him, the kiss confirms it, and his heart sinks but he can’t even bring himself to protest, to insist that it’s true. Instead, he decides if he can’t prove it through his words, he’ll prove it through his actions. Even though his limbs still feel leaden and clumsy, he forces himself into a better position, sitting up a bit more and bringing both of his hands up to cup your cheeks. He tilts your head back, leaning into you and slowly pressing you back against the floor and distantly Dazai recognizes that this is not the place for this but the thought is only fleeting, he’s too lost in the feeling of your lips against his and your body pressed to him.

And you let him ease you back against the floor. You let him tilt your head back and when his tongue darts out to swipe against your bottom lip, you part your lips for him. He doesn’t have to knock your knees apart, because you spread them just enough for him to slot his hips between them to keep your bodies flush. He wonders if you can feel how clunky his movements are—his fingers still feel heavy against your face and he can hardly hold himself up above you. He hopes he’s not crushing you with his weight, he might be, but you don’t seem to care. 

He pulls back to ask if you’re okay with this but you chase his lips and he lets out a soft, muffled noise when you tug gently at his bottom lip and bring your free hand up to cup the back of his head, fingers tangling with his hair, pulling him back down to you. You drag your lips from his to slide them down his neck to the edge of his bandages. He twitches a bit at the feeling, wondering if you’re going to ask to take them off, but instead, you just trail your lips back upward, nipping at his jaw, and he shudders.

And then he finally hesitates, pulling away and not letting you chase after this time. He weighs his options in his head anxiously. He feels like he should do something, that he owes something—a lowering of a mask, a show of vulnerability, you’re entitled to at least that much after everything he’s done. Aren't you?

You give him a curious look and he tries to respond—he does, his lips part for him to speak but nothing leaves them. He swallows thickly, eyes fluttering shut as he braces himself before trying again, bringing one of his hands to yours and wrapping his fingers around it gently, lifting it from his chest to the bandages covering the left side of his face.

“Take them off,” he tells you, voice hoarse and shakier than he would have liked.

Your eyes widen, and he shudders a bit when your fingers smooth against the bandages, uncertain. “Are you sure?” you ask him softly, bringing your other hand to his opposite cheek, cupping his face in your hands again, eyes searching to make sure he means it.

Is he sure? Dazai doesn’t know. He can’t speak again as he stares down at you; a part of him is nervous, and he doesn’t even understand why. You already know who he is, what he is, but a part of him still fears that once you actually see him, something will change. And it’s ridiculous, so many other universes you’ve seen him without his bandages and you’ve never made him feel uncomfortable about it. But you’ve also never used his surname against him during an argument in the other universes, you’ve never regretted loving him, and you’ve certainly never wished you could leave him. 

So, yeah, he thinks the anxiety of you removing his bandages and then seeing him in a different light might be more of a possibility in this universe than any other one. His body is more covered in scars than not, and he knows it’s not attractive; he thinks if he sees your expression shift in a negative way when the bandages come off, it might shatter him entirely.

Just the face bandages then, he bargains with himself, swallowing thickly as he forces himself to nod. You sit up from where you’re still laying back against the tiles, propping yourself on your knees to shift closer to him. 

Dazai thinks his heart might be in his throat when he feels your fingers unclip the clasp holding the bandages together around the left side of his face, eyes fluttering shut as you slowly unwind them from around his head. He isn’t sure why he’s so nervous for this part—there are no scars on his face, but he still feels distinctly vulnerable, like he’s giving you a window into himself that might reveal more than he means to. He can barely breathe as he feels the last of the bandages fall to the floor, he can hear you push them to the side. 

Still, he keeps his eyes shut, counting each second that passes. He’s anxious, can’t even bring himself to look at you until you cup his cheeks again. 

“Look at me,” you say quietly.

Dazai does as you ask, he always does. He doesn’t know what he expects when he opens his eyes to meet your gaze; he prepares himself for the worst, for a twisted expression or thinly veiled pity, but he finds none of it. Rather, your eyes are soft and fond, tracing over his face, looking between each of his. He can feel the pads of your fingers gently brushing over his cheekbones, tracing absent patterns.

“You’re so handsome, Osamu,” you whisper, one of your hands sliding behind his head, intertwining with his hair. “Why do you wear them?” 

Dazai doesn’t know how to answer that. His throat feels swollen at your words, eyes a bit misty and fingers trembling against your thighs. Instead, he breathes out, “Kiss me.”

And you do. 

God, when you kiss him again, it’s so intense that it has his head spinning. He doesn’t know how long he sits there kissing you, back against the cabinets with you half in his lap. It could be a few seconds, or a few minutes, or a few hours—he has no concept of time whenever his lips are against yours. It’s only when you press your hand against his shoulder, murmuring for him to get up, that he finally pulls himself away from you.

Dazai forces himself to push up to his feet—it’s much more difficult than he thought it would be, nearly tripping over his own feet, but you follow him up to your feet, steadying him when he almost tumbles over. You bring your hand up to rest against his cheek, fingers gently toying with the edges of his hair. He leans into your touch, eyes fluttering shut for just a moment before he forces himself to look you in the eye. 

“You’re so frustrating,” you say softly, but all of the fire is gone, replaced by that same soft look you’ve directed toward him—not him—hundreds of times before. “You are so frustrating, Osamu.”

His throat feels tight again, the sound of his name on your lips causing a wave of warmth to spread through him, the numbness slowly subsiding.

“I know,” he whispers, swallowing thickly, and you sigh, gaze averting to the side for a moment before you look back at him. He still can’t fathom what you might be thinking and it scares him.

But then you kiss him again, your other hand coming up to his other cheek and his hands fly to your waist, holding you close. You walk him backward, out of the bathroom and into the hallway. His back hits the wall and you press your body close to his, and this time it’s you whose tongue is darting out to brush his bottom lip, urging him to part his lips for you. He does, and he thinks he might be in heaven when he feels your tongue dip into his mouth, sliding against his tongue. His eyes flutter shut, rolling back just a bit when you trace the back of his teeth with your tongue before sucking gently on his bottom lip.

Your hands slide down from his face to his chest, over his jacket, down to his waist. Your fingers hook in his belt loops and Dazai groans as your lips ghost from his down to his jaw, breath shaky as trail slow, wet kisses to the sensitive spot behind his ear. He can hardly do anything but follow along as you guide him from where he’s been backed against the wall into his bedroom, dazed and entirely consumed by your touch. His head already feels a bit fuzzy, breath hitching as your teeth graze his pulse point, kissing down to the edge of his bandages and then across his throat.

He barely even knows where he is until he feels the back of his knees hit his bed and he topples backward until he’s laying flat on it. His chest is heaving, head dizzy and breath shaky as you straddle his waist. You don’t kiss him again and Dazai wants to drag you down for another but he can’t even bring himself to move. His body refuses to cooperate, nervous that he’s going to make the wrong move.

“Do you want this?” you finally ask after a moment, voice raspy as one of your hands squeeze his gently, as if to get his attention. 

Dazai’s brows furrow a bit, lips parting to respond but for a second, no words leave them. You wait with the patience of a saint as Dazai tries to process what you’re asking and respond to it. After what feels like an eternity, he nods once. Of course, he wants it. You search his eyes as if to make sure he’s not just agreeing to agree, and once you’re satisfied, you continue you with: 

“And do you trust me?” you ask softly, your gaze gentle as it searches his face for the next answer.

Dazai doesn’t hesitate this time, and he speaks as he breathes out, “With everything.”

He can’t tell what you’re thinking, but your expression is still soft and your touch is still gentle as you run your thumb over his knuckles. Dazai doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the gentleness you show him. You lift your hand to cup his cheek and he leans into your touch, throat spasming beneath his bandages as he waits for you to say something. 

“Let me take the lead then,” you say quietly, his eyes widen a bit at your words. “I want to try something.”

He watches you carefully for a moment, guarded and studying you. He thinks this might be another first, and the thought alone makes him feel a bit giddy because he can’t recall any other life where you’ve ever been the one to take the lead like this, especially the first time the two of you sleep together. You look a bit anxious the longer he goes without responding, so he nods and says, “Okay.”

He’s pliant beneath your touch as you lean down to press your lips against his; he lets out a soft, muffled noise when he feels your hips shift, unintentionally grinding down a bit on his straining cock. He’s more hesitant this time in the way his lips move against yours, unsure of what to do with himself. His fingers twitch from where they're resting on the bed, itching to grab your hips but not wanting to make the wrong move.

This has happened every time one of you tries to take the next step, either he gets interrupted or he ends up getting cold feet because he’s scared of doing the wrong thing and making you uncomfortable. And it’s ridiculous because Dazai has so many memories, he should know at least vaguely what you like and what you don’t like but he thinks having the memories are a double-edged sword because he overwhelms himself if what ifs: what if he assumes you like something and you end up not liking it in this universe, what if he does something that you only liked after the two of you have been together for a while and you’re uncomfortable with him doing it because you’re not as comfortable with him. Maybe Dazai is just overthinking it all but how can he not when you’re involved. He wants everything to be perfect for you. 

“Is this okay?” you whisper, separating your lips from his just enough for him to answer your question. Your breath mingles with his and Dazai can hardly think straight; it’s hot, dizzying, there’s something so intimate about it that it makes his body fuzzy.

“Yeah,” he says, eyelashes fluttering as he looks up at you. “It’s okay.”

You kiss him again. His lips move against yours desperately, needy, he’d be embarrassed if you weren’t matching his energy, but you are. He can feel your fingers tugging at his hair, your hips grinding down against his. Every time you start to pull away, he lifts his head from where it’s laying flush against the pillows, chasing your lips. 

He needs you. His hands slide from your thighs to your waist, keeping your body pressed to his. He’s needed you since the day he came in contact with the Book and learned about you, since the day he met you at the club, maybe even since the day he was born even if he hadn’t known it at the time. He thinks his entire life has led to this, to the two of you being together; your souls have been entangled since the moment you were born and he isn’t sure how he ever thought a life without you was possible. 

“I need you,” he gasps against your lips, hips jerking up just a bit to try to alleviate the pressure building in his lower abdomen, desperate to reach down and unbutton his slacks, but wanting you to make the first move.

Whatever nerves that have made him get cold feet all of the other times the two of you have tried to take the next stop are long gone. You don’t give him any time to wonder if he’s doing the wrong thing—the fingers of one of your hands intertwining with his dark locks, just tight enough to make him hiss into your mouth, eyes rolling back at the pleasant sting. Your other hand slides across his chest, even through his dress shirt, your fingertips seem to scorch through to his skin, leaving his body tingling everywhere you touch.

“You have me,” you tell him, breathless, and Dazai can’t bite back the noise that slips from his lips, wanton and obscene, borderline pornographic—if he was any more coherent, he might be embarrassed but he can’t find it in him. Not when he’s finally getting what he’s wanted after all of this time. 

His hands fly down to his slacks, he fumbles with the button and zipper before yanking them down just enough to free his cock and he watches as you sit back on his thighs, eyes wide and lips parted as your gaze focuses in on his cock, watching as the leaking precum dribbles down his length, alongside the vein running along the underside of his cock. 

“Please,” he breathes out, fingers biting into your thighs as he bunches your dress up to your hips, another low moan spilling from his lips just at the thought of what’s about to happen, lashes fluttering.

You don’t even take off your panties, clearly driven by the same desperation that he is as you slide them to the side and position yourself above his cock and Dazai gnaws at his bottom lip when he feels the tip pressing against your entrance. He can feel how wet you are already, so drenched that your slick is dripping down the length of his cock. His hips stutter up instinctively, but instead of pushing inside, his cock slides between your folds and he whimpers, arm flying to cover the lower half of his face. You don’t let him, fingers wrapping around his wrist to pull his arm from his face and pin it to the mattress above him.

“Don’t hide yourself,” you say softly.

Dazai thinks there must be stars in his eyes as he looks up at you. You’re so beautiful, lips parted as you pant softly, an adoring expression on your face as you look down at him. He loves you. He loves you, god, he loves you more than he’s ever loved anything in his life; he thinks that nothing the other Dazais ever felt for any of the other yous could ever compare to how he feels for you.

When his tip starts to push into your tight hole, all he can let out is another loud, lewd noise; his head falls back against the pillows. His ears are ringing, but distantly, he can hear you gasp. His vision is blurry as he forces himself to look up at you but Dazai thinks you look otherworldly with your head tilted back as his cock starts to stretch you out, lips swollen and wet from the kisses you’d shared. He thinks he must look insane, pupils blown wide and eyes wild as he tries to focus on the sight of you. All of the clever wheels that usually turn within his mind are crumbling.

His fingertips leave crescents in your thighs as you sink down on his cock slowly—too slow, it leaves his head dizzy as your warmth slowly envelops his length. He’s imagined this so many times before. Dozens. Hundreds. He has so many memories of the feeling of your body flush to his, thighs over his shoulders as he fucks you deep and slow, swallowing your moans, but he thinks that nothing compares to this, the sight of you above him, watching your body tremble and face shift as his cock stretches you out. He barely refrains from letting out a string of strangled curses, barely able to hold his eyes open to watch you. 

You give yourself a moment to adjust, and when you do, you look down at Dazai. He thinks he must look a mess—chest heaving, breath erratic, eyes heavy and lidded and entirely glazed over—but he doesn’t care, not with the way your hand slides up his abdomen, fingers tracing patterns along the bandages covering his body. You look beautiful—you always look beautiful—but you look extra beautiful right now, and he thinks he could stare at you forever and never tire of it. 

Experimentally, you roll your hips—it’s still slow, agonizingly slow—and Dazai throws his head back, another obscene moan spilling from  his lips.

“Fuck,” he gasps, his fingers falling from your thighs to twist the sheets below him, knuckles white. “Feels so good. So good.”

You let out a hum that’s caught between a moan and agreement as you continue the slow rolls of your hips, hands sliding up and down his abdomen in a way that’s deceptively innocent and soothing compared to how his cock is dragging along your walls. His body shudders at the feeling of it, heat pooling in his abdomen so quickly that it has his whole body tensing as he tries to push it away. 

“You’re so perfect.” Words spill from his lips, more of a babble than anything else as you lean down to ghost your lips over his jaw, nibbling over the bandages covering his Adam’s apple. It bobs beneath your teeth as he lets out another shaky noise. “S’like you’re made for me. I’d do anything for you. Anything. You know that, right? Anything you want, it’s yours.”

He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, clawing at the sheets and occasionally reaching for your thighs, and he doesn’t know what to do with his body, hips jerking up at an erratic pace, like he’s trying to meet your pace but his body simply can’t match the slow rolls of your hips, desperate for more. He doesn’t know how you’re so put together—maybe you’re not, he can see through a blurry vision how your lashes are fluttering with each roll of your hips, breath shaky, but you’re just not as far gone as he already is.

“Anything?” you murmur, and he can feel your lips curve up against his neck.

“Anything.” His breath hitches, fingers reaching for your hips as he rocks his up into you, a desperate attempt to get you to pick up the pace. “‘d give you the whole world, burn it for you, anything you want, I’d give it to you.”

His hands slide up from your thighs to your waist as you lean down to press your lips against his in a deceptively innocent kiss. He tries to chase your lips as you straighten up but you don’t let him, one of your hands curling around his throat—not choking him, but firm enough that it goes right to his cock, lips parting in a silent moan—while the other braces back on his thigh.

He thinks that nothing could have prepared him for the feeling of you picking up the pace. His breath hitches, he chokes over a moan, stars sparkle in his vision as the tip of his cock presses deep inside of you. You sigh out his name and Dazai thinks this might be the closest he ever gets to heaven: you on top of him, cock buried to the hilt in your cunt, the sight of your blissed out face above him as his head spins. 

“Oh, fuck,” Dazai cries out, back arching and hand flying to cover his face again but the hand you have on his thigh flies forward to snatch his wrist before he can, pinning it back above his head. Dazai’s eyes roll back, you’re leaning over him entirely now, leaning most of your weight on the hand that’s pinning his wrist but the new angle adds pressure onto how you’re squeezing his neck, paring his airways just enough to make his lungs burn. “More. Faster, fuck, I-ah-”

His voice falls off into another moan, head falling to the side to press his cheek against the pillow. He thinks drool is starting to pool at the corner of his lips but he doesn’t care, he can’t even think at this point, too lost in the lewd sound of skin-on-skin, the sloppiness of his cock fucking deep in your cunt, your soft moans and gasps, lost in the feeling of your tight walls clamping down on his cock, the warmth, the wetness, your fingers digging into his wrist and the sides of his neck. He wants to tell you that he needs more but the words are garbled, entirely unintelligible. 

He forces his eyes back open, feeling the tears spilling over his cheeks just from the intensity of it all, the intensity of you. You’re gentle with him even when your hand is wrapped around his throat and his cock is splitting you open—he can feel the soothing circles you rub with your thumb, he can see the way you’re searching his face to make sure he’s okay. Dazai is just so overwhelmed that he can’t stop the way his next moan breaks into a sob; acutely realizing just how deprived he’d been of any type of care or love before meeting you, and forcibly coming to terms with the fact that he is never going to be able to go without this again, without you again. He’d known it to some extent before this, the thought of losing you and the light you bring him has made his stomach churn violently but this…

He’s torn from his thoughts when you suddenly stop the rolls of your hips, halting the spreading heat in his lower abdomen desperately. The noise that escapes him is something caught between distress and betrayal, dark eyes wide as he looks up at you questioningly, but the expression on your face makes his breath catch. Your hand slides up from his throat to cup his cheek, your other hand releasing his wrist so that you can hold his face between your hands, thumbs wiping away the tears spilling over his cheeks.

Distantly, Dazai recognizes that he’s still choking over sobs and that’s probably why you’ve stopped and that only rips his chest apart more because of course, you’re still putting him above you—even when you’re mad, even when you’ve just fought, when he’s betrayed you in a way that should be unforgivable, you’re still kissing away his tears and putting aside your own needs to take care of him

He doesn’t deserve you. Not in any universe, but especially not in this one.

He thinks he could stay here for eternity. Fuck the rest of the world. Fuck the Port Mafia. Fuck his plan. He just wants to stay here with you, your lips brushing his, sharing the same sliver of air. He leans into your touch, groaning against your lips when he feels your walls spasm around him.

“You’re beautiful,” he breathes out, unsure if you can even understand him. “You’re so-”

His words fall off into another moan, and he can’t control his hips as they thrust up sharply against yours, another string of incoherent curses escaping his hips as your breath catches and you straighten back up, head falling back as you gasp his name.

Your nails dig crescents into his upper thighs through his bandages as you brace yourself back against them. You move your hips again—faster, this time, harder, and Dazai thinks his head is in the clouds. He’s so deep inside of you that he can feel everything, jaw falling slack as heat spreads through his body too rapidly for him to get control over. He wants to throw a hand over his mouth to muffle the lewd, pitched moans spilling from his lips but he can’t drag his hands from where they’re clawing at your hips, desperately trying to help you meet him with each thrust.

“I-hah-shit, I’m gonna-fuck-”

He slurs out your name and several obscenities, trying to warn you that he’s going to cum when he feels his cock twitching inside of you and his abdomen tensing, but you only lean down to press a lingering kiss to the corner of his lips and Dazai is gone. He wants to watch you, he tries, but he can’t hold his eyes open, they’re half-rolled back as he chokes over moans of your name, hips stilling as he cums deep inside of you. His body twitches, expression twisted as he presses his head so hard into the pillow that he thinks he might permanently indent it. 

His head is spinning, lungs burning, sweat beading at his forehead and hair matted to his face—he thinks he’s never cum so hard in his entire life; all of the nights he spent alone, desperately trying to fuck his hand to the thought of you in attempts to mimic how you’ve made all the other Dazais feel, to give himself some semblance of the pleasure you’ve brought him in other lives to hold him over on particularly lonely nights, they’ve never felt like this.

You don’t stop, even as he squirms and lets out jumbled pleas beneath you, body shuddering at the overstimulation but you’re too lost in chasing your own high now. He spasms beneath you, nails digging into your thigh as you fuck his cum deeper inside of you, bouncing on his cock desperately. He doesn’t care that the sensitivity is pushing his body to the brink, letting you use him however you want if it means he gets to see you like this. 

Dazai’s head feels light, pins and needles pricking his body—he thinks he might pass out but he forces himself to hold on, enraptured by the sight of you on top of him with your eyes half-rolled back, lips parted and throat bared to him. Your tits are half-spilling out over the low-cut of your dress and Dazai thinks you’re fucking divine. The only holy thing in this godless world. He wants to spend the rest of his life worshiping you.

“I’m gonna-” you gasp, head falling backward as one final roll of your hips that has your clit grinding against his pelvic bone sends you spiraling over the edge. 

Dazai wants to sear the image of you behind his eyelids, watching as your nails drag against his thighs, drawing red lines even through the bandages, back arching, head tossed back—your body is trembling violently as you cum on his cock, expression twisted and entirely blissed out, sobbing over his name. He chokes and gasps at the feeling of your cunt tightening around his sensitive cock again, jaw tight and spots dancing in his vision as he’s so abruptly pushed over the edge a second time, the coil in his abdomen tightening and snapping all within the span of a few seconds.

He’s still reeling when he feels you slump forward onto his chest, burying your face in the crook of his neck, shivering in the aftershocks of your orgasm. He’s only half aware as he instinctively brings his hands up to rest on your hips, rubbing soft circles of your hip bones to try to soothe you. 

He shudders when you press a kiss to his neck right at the edge of his bandages, and then tilt your head up to press another on his jaw. One of your hands comes up to caress the back of his head, fingers carding through the dark locks in a way that has his eyes drooping shut. 

“We’re not done with this conversation,” you finally say after a few moments of silence, voice soft, breaking the silence. Dazai stiffens a bit, lips parting to respond but no words leave them. “... but let’s just lay like this for a while first, okay?”

He lets out a shaky breath, still not entirely convinced that he’s not going to lose you, so he lets his eyes flutter shut as he nods. He may as well bask in this for as long as he can, and if you notice the way his fingers dig just a little deeper into your skin after your words process, you don’t mention it. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs, “okay.”

Dazai wakes up the next morning and you’re nowhere to be seen. The bed is frighteningly cold next to him and his heart is instantly in his throat. He doesn’t waste a second before he’s sitting up in bed, looking around, eyes wild and heart racing. He doesn’t settle down, not until his eyes fall upon where you’re sitting curled up on the chair of the desk he never uses, eyes trained on the dark clouds outside the window, the beauty of the sunrise wilted by a morning storm.

“His intention was to make me leave you.” You’re not looking at him, but you must have heard him sit up. “Fyodor Dostoevsky. The things he told me, they were to make me leave you.”

Dazai doesn’t move an inch, throat swelling. He forces himself to ask, “What did he tell you?”

He isn’t sure if he wants to know.

“It doesn’t matter,” you say—Dazai thinks that it definitely does, but he bites back the questions that rise to his tongue because you’re clearly not about to budge on your answer. “Who is he?”

“A monster,” Dazai bites out, bitterness seeping into his tone as he leans back against the headboard, eyes still trained on where you’re curled on his chair, gaze distant. “You have to stay away from him.”

“Well, I didn’t intend on seeking him out,” you say it so dryly that Dazai nearly finds humor in it. Nearly. The smile that rises to his lips is mirthless at best. You turn to look at him, finally, and Dazai finds only cool indifference on your face; the fondness, the softness, the gentleness from last night are all gone. He wonders if you regret it, but he doesn’t let that thought linger, it’ll only make him sick. “... He doesn’t seem like the type to give up.”

“He never is,” Dazai murmurs, ignoring the brief, questioning look you direct toward him, mind drifting off to all of the Russian’s incessant attempts to take you from him in all of the other universes. “Did he tell you what his plan was?”

Dazai doubts it, but maybe there was something he said to you that shed some light to it.

“He didn’t have to,” you say quietly. “He wants Yokohama, for whatever reason—couldn’t figure that out, I think he’s looking for something—and clearly, he has to get through you to get it. He thinks the best way of getting through you is by taking me away from you first. That’s what I’d gathered from how he was talking at least, what he was saying about you, the way he was phrasing it. I’d put together enough on my own during the night to fill in the blanks. He told me things about what you’d done as… what you’d done as boss of the Port Mafia—things you’ve done to enemies… to allies. He told me that I’d see the real you as soon as you realize that the meeting he set up was a farce; that the mask you put up would crumble and I would see you for the demon that you are.”

Dazai doesn’t respond, jaw tight as he averts his gaze to the window—he’d played right into Dostoevsky’s hands. He can hardly bring himself to look at you; he wonders if you do see him differently now that the cloud from the night before has worn off, but he can’t bring himself to ask. Now’s not the time anyway, there are more pressing matters.

“... He’ll come after me again, won’t he?” you ask quietly. “Getting me to leave you willingly didn’t work. If he’s so set on me being the trigger to your downfall, then he’ll come after me again.”

He would. As he always has. Of course, Dostoevsky would try to get to him through you, he’s tried it in every universe, and Dazai hadn’t been careful enough. He hadn’t been smart enough. He’d known this was going to happen and was still arrogant enough to believe he could somehow prevent it. He was a fool, and he was a fool at the cost of your safety. He doesn’t know how to respond to you, he doesn’t want to confirm your suspicions, he doesn’t want to admit that this is all his fault, that he knew this would happen and was selfish enough to pursue you anyway.

“... I’m scared, Osamu,” you finally say quietly, and you suddenly look a lot smaller from where you’re sitting on his desk chair, hunched over with your knees tucked to your chest. “I’m really scared.”

Dazai’s heart claws up to his throat and he pushes himself out of bed, still dressed haphazardly in his suit from the night before. He makes his way over to you and kneels in front of you, hands curling around your ankles as he looks up at you.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he tells you, voice a bit more raspier than he intended for it to come across as. “I don’t care what I have to do to ensure it, how low I have to stoop. I will not let anything happen to you, do you understand?”

Your eyes meet his, and he can’t help but notice that doubt still riddles your gaze as you search his face, as if you want to believe him but can’t bring yourself to. A pit starts to grow in his stomach, wide and gaping as he realizes that this is all really about to happen, and one mistake on his part could lead you to the same fate you’ve met in so many other worlds because of him.

Finally, the doubt slowly clears as you let out a soft breath, nodding, and Dazai inhales sharply, laying his forehead against your shin as he lets his eyes slide shut.

He won’t let it happen. Not again. 

again there was NO plot development in the smut - you guys didn't miss out on anything, pinky swear. i restructured the scene to fit the only notable scene (bandage removal) into the part before the smut, so if that felt a little forced, that was why </3 it wasn't supposed to be there. i was struggling trying to figure out how to move it upward a bit. the only arguable "plot" development was dazai letting go of his control freakiness to let her take the lead

[godmadeaterribleerror]

Chapter 19 - Don't Look Back

Series Masterlist

Author's Note: Sorry for the slight delay! I was hit with a big case of “this chapter is very important so it has to be perfect” and “I have a crush on someone and it’s rendering me incapable of human function." Enjoy!

Chapter Title from Love From The Other Side by Fall Out Boy

Word Count: 26.4k (for context that is longer than the first 4 chapters combined. Someone needs to restrain me)

Chapter Summary/Warnings: You have work to do, and Ben keeps to his word. Usual warnings, with emphasis on assault. No rape, but one non-con kiss. Make the best call for yourself.

Tags: Soldier Boy/Supe!Female Reader, canon divergence, enemies to friends to lovers, canon divergence, slow burn, heavy angst, pining

Read on A03!

Chapter 18 - Chapter 20

You’d been right. Word of mouth spread fast, and Sage knew about your speech. Homelander as well, but he’d reacted about as you’d hoped to anticipate. Proud, smug, certain beyond a doubt that you had been speaking of him. 

Sage knew better. She knew what you’d really meant—who you’d really been speaking of—and the only thing that saved was that she couldn’t do anything about it. 

Because word of mouth spreads fast. 

But the internet spreads faster. 

Everyone has an opinion on what, in a brilliant twist of journalism, was being called Believe-gate. Everyone has seen the photo of your fearful expression when the “CIA terror attack” on good, christian America had begun and Homelander had shot off the stage. Fear for your lover, gone to fight for what’s right. Or, if the photo was of your fear expression when your extraction operation had begun and Homelander had gone to kill your team. 

It all depends on who you ask. 

If you ask Homelander’s supporters, or Homelander himself, you’ll hear the narrative you’ve been forced to memorize and parrot almost every day. Your fear was for Homelander, whom you loved. The attack by the CIA on a group of innocent civilians was a tragedy both in the losses of A-Train and Ezekiel, and as the American people had to learn they couldn’t trust their government. They could only trust their heroes, trust Homelander, to keep them safe. 

If you ask the Starlighters, or read the CIA’s official statement on the matter, the alleged “attack” had been an extraction operation for the Anomaly that had gone sideways. Employees of Vought had interfered with a government sanctioned mercenary team—lead by William Butcher and containing Soldier Boy but not in official association with Starlight—and collateral damage had been unavoidable. People should write their congressman to divert more money into funding Butcher’s team, and boycott Vought products until the Anomaly was freed. 

That’s closer to the truth, but reality is still far more absurd than either side seems to properly capture. Not absurd in the way the media seems to think, because gossip and rumors spread like the wildfire climbing steadily back under your skin. In meetings—as Sage goes over damage control and shoots you cold, measured glares—you see post after post, headline after headline, and video after video of speculation. You’re honestly a little surprised it took this long for the ball to get rolling. You’d thought the aftermath of your interview was going to be the largest fallout—the biggest step and ultimate catalyst—but you’d been wrong. This was it. For some reason, the Believe Expo was what did it. People are trying to figure out what was really going on. Someone posits a theory on Reddit about you’re a robot or shapeshifting supe who stole the face and identity of a dead PhD student. NPR runs a story about the history of government and corporate propaganda, and CNN does a frame by frame breakdown of recording of your speech. A video essay about how you were Homelander’s girlfriend but had been tortured and brainwashed by the CIA to infiltrate Vought. Old footage of the Firecracker rally circulates as people dissect your every facial expression. One person accuses you of being obsessed with Homelander. Another says you’re just Stormfront with a new face. There’s a small online movement that’s pretty sure you’re actually Sage’s girlfriend and Homelander’s just bearding for you, and another that’s convinced you’re Robert Singer’s estranged love-child. One person sends an email accusing you of being Stan Edgar’s daughter. Several people accuse you of working for the Chinese, and several more of being a British Spy. At A-Train’s funeral, one stupidly brave man with a microphone had shouted a question of what’s your response to allegations you had an affair with William Butcher, and you’d almost laughed in his face. 

That might have been your favorite moment, because it made you snort and think of Ben’s sour expression. 

Butcher couldn’t fucking handle you, Sunshine. 

Benjamin, you can barely handle me yourself. 

I’m having a grand fucking hell of a time trying. Butcher would start whining like a bitch. 

You whine like a bitch. 

Brat. 

Cunt. 

That’s the part nobody has guessed. People have landed on pieces of the truth. You are a dead PhD holder—everyone always seems to forget you actually had the PhD—and you are infiltrating Vought, but not because anyone told you. If anything the biggest opposition you faced to your plan has been from your side. Not a day passes where just the phantom of Ben doesn’t tell you to come home. To wear blue and let him just come get you. 

And that’s the part people seem to be missing. It’s obvious to you, but you’re biased and have the full picture. The fear on your face at the Believe Expo was for Ben. For the split second you’d thought you might lose him. People couldn’t trust their heroes, but nobody needed to break you out. People should absolutely not demand Butcher be funded further. You did not want to return to find Butcher, Ben, and Frenchie jerking themselves off over a collection of military-grade weaponry. In all the millions of people stringing you up to search for the truth, the real you—if Vought is right or the CIA is right or if you’re playing them both—they all miss the only two things that really mattered to you.

Kill Homelander. Whatever it takes, however you have to twist and pull yourself apart, you will kill Homelander. 

Go home to Ben. Tell Ben you love him, then go wherever he goes. 

As the week starts to pass, the scandal doesn’t turn into just another story. It only grows. Sage puts you back on tower lockdown, and most of the time it’s just you, The Deep, and Ashley on 99. You have to record videos and do livestreams and keep pretending you don’t want to lean over to Homelander in the dead of night and just kill him. Find a way to make yourself stronger than him and strangle his throat, or use all the fire you have in your control to reduce him to a shriveled husk that’s still in only half the pain you are. You smile all day—in the dim yellow lights of Homelander’s room and into flashing cameras at Sage’s orders—and at night you drag up the fire, miss Ben, and feel the cracks in you start to spread. 

You’re the most famous person in America. 

You want to go home. 

You have to go home. Before the cracks reach something fundamental and you just break. Without Ben to pick you up. 

Overall, you’d know getting the V was going to be a delay, but it’s not as large as you’d expected. The time added by finding V is being lost by how fast everything else is going. How it’s snowballing and rolling down the mountain with you even having to push it. Three weeks are added to your timeline just as two are lost, and you’ll be home soon. 

If everything goes well, you’ll be home soon. 

You’re keeping yourself whole. By threads and stitches and temporary bandaging, you haven’t completely lost yourself and fallen apart. But the cracks are coming faster, larger. Nightmares that you have to learn to hold down, because Homelander can’t see you break. You wake up paralyzed and cold, still haunted by images of Ben asleep, or gone, or having just left. He wouldn’t, you know he wouldn’t, but Homelander had still cornered you after the Believe Expo and told you that he had. 

He’d dropped you in the Seven’s meeting room, and pushed you into the wall by your throat. 

“You didn’t know,” he’d sneered into your face, and you’d had to shake your head weakly. 

“I didn’t, I swear-“

“Were they there to save you? Take you away again?” 

“I don’t know-“ 

“Tell me the truth!” He’d roared, spit flying in your face and coconut making you sick. “I’m so sick of everyone lying to me!” 

“I am,” you’d clawed at his gloved hand, the leather cold on your skin, choking on your words. “That’s the truth, please, I didn’t know-“ 

Homelander had laughed. “Doesn’t matter, they didn’t get you. Your precious little Soldier Boy ran.” 

That wasn’t true. You’d told Ben to go, he hadn’t run. He’d never run, not away from you. 

“They left you. Didn’t even try to keep you.” Homelander had tsked, shaking his head. “I’d stay.” 

You’d just nodded, unable to speak, and Homelander’s jaw had ticked. Hand tightening around your throat. 

“I said I’d stay. They left you, Soldier Boy left you, but I’d fucking stay. You’re a fucking manipulative bitch, who can’t make anyone like you, or anyone stay without tricking them. I’m the only one who sees through you, who doesn’t fall for your silly tricks, and that’s why I love you. You can’t fucking trick me, and I know you love me.” 

Your nods had grown frantic. “I know, please, I can’t-“ 

“I’d stay.” Homelander had hissed. “You love me and I stay.” 

“You’d stay. I love-“ 

The door opened. Your desperate, lying words had failed in your mouth because the door had opened and a group of people had walked in. Interns or cleaners or tech workers, just normal people. 

Homelander had lasered them down, their bodies falling to the floor with sickening crunches and wet sounds. He hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t even blinked. Just killed them and turned back to you with an annoyed expression. 

“People don’t even knock anymore.” He’d sighed. “I mean, it’s manners. None of these people were raised in a fucking barn, right?!” 

“I, I can’t,” you’d coughed slightly. “Breathe, can’t breathe-“ 

Homelander had rolled his eyes, glaring at you as he spoke. “Say you didn’t trick me.” 

“I didn’t trick you, I can’t-“ 

“And you love me.” 

“I love you-“ 

“Say Soldier Boy left you.” 

“He left, I can’t, please-“ 

He’d dropped you to the floor, scowling as you’d pulled yourself back up on shaking legs. “Good.” He looked you up and down one. “I can trust you.”

That had been what you’d been angling to hear for weeks. All of this had been playing the game until Homelander trusted you. It was even more vital now, if you wanted to find the V. But you’d only been able to stare at the bodies on the floor. Blood on your feet and splattered across your face, and it won’t come off. Not really. Never entirely. There’s guts spilled across the room, a brain visible through a hole in a skull, and mouths frozen in permanent screams that you’ll see for the rest of your life. 

That night your dreams had been haunted by red hands and cold skin, and when you called for Ben to find you, no sound had come out. You’d woken up paralyzed, and a pattern had begun. This became the new normal.

You’d had nightmares in the tower. But they’d been bearable, no worse than they’d been before. You’d woken up cold and curled into your own body, your breath and heart still steady enough to be silent to Homelander. 

Now they felt like death. They felt like a burning, white-hot sort of cold under your skin and in your blood, an inescapable hurricane that would devastate what little was left of your control. Nightmares of Ben vanishing in smoke, hearing him fall to the ground and not get back up. Nightmares of blood rivers that pull you away and under and down, until all you can see is red. All you can taste is metal and it freezes your tongue. Holds it still when you wake up with a high, ringing feedback in your ears, and holds you down when you try to rub off the lingering feeling of dread. The sense that this is eternal, and you only have yourself to blame. 

You chose this. In every nightmare you jump in the river, and if you don’t Ben falls in smoke that you can’t pull him out of. Every time you wake up you’re frozen, and every day you can’t breathe without tasting coconut and iron. Over and over until you think you’re going mad, because you look at your hands and they still have blood on them. You can’t see it, but you can feel it. It’s tying that cold you’ve felt from the start into the fire, pulling it up faster and faster as your skin starts to grow molten on your body. As the cold runs through your veins and heart and begins to leak into the world. 

At first, you don’t notice. You’ve felt this before, this feeling of every nerve in your body growing heavy as your blood grows cold and pushes out of you. You’d felt it with Tek Knight. Felt it when Homelander had pulled you into the sky during that fight outside, and when he’d grabbed your face after Noir II. Brief flashes of something like a glacier rushing in and over you, covering anything that dared touch you. But it had been temporary. Brief, polar flashes that were gone in a second. This was long. This was arctic, permanent, and you could barely control it. Nobody touched you, nobody ever touched you here, but it was still spreading like mold around you. People go rigid when they pass you, and start to look cornered and feral when they sit in a room with you for too long. They look trapped. They look how you feel. 

After one meeting, where a Vought “journalist” sat across from you and Homelander—asking you pre-written and approved questions about love and your future and it’s so cold—Sage holds you back. Homelander gives a clap of his hands and crude, white-toothed smile before vanishing with a jump and a sonic sound, but Sage holds you back. 

“Sit down,” she nods to the chair you’re only half risen from, and it’s not a request or suggestion. She’s telling you to sit, and you do. You’re not at an advantage right now, you’ve made too many risky moves that—while paying off—had shown too much. Shown you.

You sit, and wait. You won’t speak first, because you don’t know what game you’re playing and can’t afford to make the starting move. 

Sage frowns at you, tilting her head, but begins to speak. “I’ll admit I’m not sure what you told Soldier Boy that incited such an event, but it did allow me to understand you better.” 

“Understand me?” Your words are spoken through the constant cold. Too controlled, almost bored. “I don’t think there’s much to understand.” 

“There’s more than I usually face.” Sage looks you up and down, and sits across from you. Leaning forward. “It’s taken me longer, as well. There’s been one last piece of the puzzle I couldn’t quite find, and you handed it to me. I thought of you better than that.”

“I don’t think I am a puzzle.” You frown. “And I’d never think of myself better than anything-“ 

“Yes, I got that quite a while ago. Someone who values themself, values their life, doesn’t volunteer to stand in the front lines of an unwinnable war. Doesn’t forgive as easily as you do.” 

You shrug. “I believe that there are very few things that are truly unforgivable. I can only think of one.” 

“Rape?” 

You swallow, frost pushing up your throat, and Sage hums. 

“Unsurprising. That’s another puzzle piece that fits you well, and another reason your little performance will never really be sold.” 

You’re not shocked you haven’t fooled Sage, but it’s not her that you need to have a hold over. So you just watch her silently until she scoffs. 

“This is just us talking. Homelander won’t hear, I’m not looking to lose my first semi-worthy opponent to an easy to spot trap.” 

You still don’t speak, and Sage smiles. 

“Smart. Would proof help? How about,” she looks you up and down. “When we met in January, I was genuinely considering flipping to your side. Homelander is an emotional, pathetic imbecile who refuses to truly acknowledge that I am significantly more intelligent than he, and while I have no care for people,” her face twists slightly as she says the word, like it tastes sour on her tongue. “I did think I could face an equal challenge taking down a well-established international conglomerate as I was facing with the United States Government. But with a new, unexpected player I decided this could still be interesting.” Sage sits back, looking you up and down. “I showed you mine.” 

Sage wouldn’t call Homelander a pathetic imbecile if there was a chance he might hear—she’s still very capable of being lasered in half—but she could pull a tape and show select footage. So you just blink. 

“Fine.” Sage sighs, and pulls out a pen. Pink, with a fluffy top. She passes it into your hands, careful not to touch skin, and nods. “Click it.” 

You glance at the pen, and push the ballpoint out. 

Sage’s voice echoes through the room. Homelander is an emotional, pathetic imbecile who refuses to truly acknowledge that I am significantly more intelligent than he. 

You frown at her. “Collateral?” 

“You’ll hold on to the pen, after this conversation I’ll wipe all the tapes and break all the audio bugs in front of you, and then you’ll return the pen to me. Deal?” 

You nod slowly, taking the pen. “Deal.”

“Good. Show me yours.”

“I don’t know what you want me to show you,” you shrug. “Like I said, I don’t believe myself to be a puzzle. And you’ve already figured me out.”

“I hadn’t,” Sage corrects you. “For months, I hadn’t been able to see the whole picture. Your forgiveness is… inconsistent.”

“Really,” you say dryly, crossing your arms. “I’ve only been raped by one man.”

Sage hums. “Would you forgive me?”

“Would you earn it?”

“Maybe.”

You lean back. “Then maybe I’d forgive you.”

“Even though I’m actively working with your rapist? Am aware of the trauma he inflicted upon you and yet still chose to enable him?” 

The cold is sitting in your throat. “All depends on you. Like I said, you’d have to earn it.” 

“And how did Butcher earn your forgiveness?” 

You frown. “Butcher?” 

“He’s the thing that incited Homelander looking into Becca Butcher. Discovering Ryan Butcher. Wanting more.” Sage gives you a half-smile. “Taking you.” 

“I don’t hold people accountable for the actions of others.” Your voice is still bored, even as the cold starts to numb your tongue. “Butcher had no way of knowing that Homelander would do this. He didn’t even know who I was until last year.” 

“Is that the same grace you’ve offered Soldier Boy?” 

Your heart stutters, falters, and freezes. “I haven’t offered Soldier Boy anything he hasn’t earned.” 

“And that’s the thing.” Sage narrows her eyes at you. “You really believe he’s earned it. Despite all of his crimes, of which are an impressive amount and magnitude, you’re still forgiving him. And couldn’t figure out why. It doesn't fit with anything else, it’s completely irrational. But the answer isn’t something that’s supposed to be rational, and I made the mistake of factoring it out.” 

“I don’t-“

“You’re in love with Soldier Boy.” Sage looks you up and down. Her handiwork she gets to admire. “And I didn’t catch it because, by all logical reasoning, you shouldn’t be. I didn’t even consider it until I’d exhausted all other possibilities, and even then I settled on some odd sort of camaraderie. But you love him.” 

The cold becomes like frost lining your heart, and every beat begins to spread it further. Move it out. Play the game, don’t break. “What would it change, if I did?” 

“You do,” Sage says simply. “You are in love with him. It explains everything that felt out of place. Every action you made that didn’t line up with what I’d anticipated.”

“What you’d anticipated?” 

“Yes. For example, you shooting me. It was a reckless choice that backfired on you completely, but every time I ran over the scenario you would still do it. I’d wondered if I’d undersold the stakes, made you feel backed into a corner when that wasn’t my intention. But you’d still shoot me. You’d always shoot me, and it was because I misestimated your stakes. You love Soldier Boy, so if I tell you he’s in danger you will act.” 

“That doesn’t mean I love him.” You give Sage a passive shrug. “Maybe I shot you because you’re fucking annoying.” 

“No, you wanted to hear my plan. That's why you’re still sitting here.” Sage nods to the door. “You could’ve left. You could’ve gotten up and run out the door. You’re faster than I am, you’d have gotten away, showed Homelander the pen, and won. But you know I’d have a countermove, and that’s why you’re still here. That’s why I’m here.” 

“Why you’re here.” You repeat slowly, and Sage nods. 

“We’re the only players that matter now.” She grins at you. “Homelander and Butcher and Soldier Boy can flash their toys, but in the end you’re stronger and I’m smarter. My plan will work better, and you’ll respond in a way I won’t predict. You’ll have a move that would be successful, because you’re fucking powerful, but you’ll sidetrack yourself in the name of humanity and love. In the end the question will be if you can control yourself. If you can forsake being good enough to be great. My bets are on no, but you’ve surprised me before. And that’s what makes this interesting.” 

Play the game. Even as you start to cave in, play the game. “You know I’m stronger than Homelander. But you haven’t told him, he still thinks he’s the strongest supe alive.” You frown at her, trying to pull everything together in your head. “You don’t want him to know I’m stronger. If I fight him, you don’t want him prepared. You want me to kill him.” 

“I do.” Sage shrugs. “I’d like to martyr him, but I don’t think I will. I think I want to play this out.” 

“Make it interesting?” 

Sage smirks at you. “Make it interesting.” 

“It’s your move,” you say, throat tight. “And, while we’re being honest, I’m fucking winning right now. So, what’s your move?” 

She laughs. “You were winning. But I’ve figured you out, so your lead is gone.” Sage’s smile becomes crude and chilling. “In exactly one week, you’re going to propose to Homelander, live on VNN.” 

The cold rushes, so fast. It had been building up and up and now it’s everywhere. A week isn’t long enough. You still haven’t found the V, you’re not close, and a week isn’t enough time. Every piece of your innards and piece of your mind is freezing, because you can’t. You can’t go home yet, but you can’t go fast enough. And you’ll die before you smile at Homelander. Before you let him touch you. He’ll take it as a sign that he’s done this right and now he’s won you. Your blood is frozen and creaking in your body, but Sage is still smirking across from you. 

Breathe evenly. Hold your blood in your body with calculated breaths and careful words. “And If I don’t?” 

“Then I lure Soldier Boy out, and put him back to sleep.” Sage stands, and you can’t move. You can only watch her walk around the room reaching into bowls and under furniture to show you tiny audio bugs that she crushes in Her hands before taking the pen back. “You have a week. Your move.” She pauses at the door, looking back at you with a frown. “Don’t make me wrong about you. I have no interest in being wrong.” 

Then you’re alone, and the cold becomes big. It’s inescapable, how unending this feels. It’s too massive for you, too wild to control and spreading too fast to contain. You stumble your way back to Homelander’s apartment—people parting around you like you’re made of poison—and lock yourself in the bathroom, dropping to the floor in desperation to not break. You’ll find a way out of this, you always find a way out of this, you’ll get through this and go home and this isn’t permanent. Sage hasn’t won, because everything in you is still you, and soon you’ll go home. Everything is cold and bursting out of you, this feels like it will last forever, but it won’t. It can’t. 

The cracks continue to grow, and when you sleep that night you’re plagued by smoke and ice that makes you weak and swallows Ben. You hear him fall and he doesn’t rise back up, and you reach for him only to find him further than you’d thought. 

When you wake up, you’re still held down. Paralyzed and frozen without relent. You want to go home. You’d overestimated your strength, you didn’t want to beat Sage, or trick her, or win. You didn’t want this to be interesting, you just wanted it to be done. You’re exhausted, and alone, and you miss Ben so much. You’re not going to win, because these cracks are starting to be dangerous and you can’t stop them. You’re too weak to stop them, you don’t know how, and you can’t be smarter or stronger because you’re just so tired and almost every part of you is growing thinner and softer by the second. One step away from shattering. Breaking. Maybe you’ve really just already broken, but in a way you didn’t realize, and now you can’t be sewn back together. Your fire is sputtering out once more, you can’t pull it back up, can’t kill Homelander, can’t save Ben. You’re going to break and it’s going to make Ben go under, and he’ll never hold you again. You’re going to be in this vast, hollow loneliness forever, and Homelander will keep you on a shelf as your last embers flicker harmlessly, and you’re going to never see Ben again- 

Calm the fucking hell down, Ben’s voice in your head is rough as it says your name. You’ll see me again, you fucking promised. 

That strange thing is humming in your chest. It hasn’t left you since it appeared. Since you’d seen Ben. Through the day it sat in you silently. Undisturbing, shifting and rolling with a dull ache near your heart. Just a piece of Ben that you got to keep, that always felt like him. Like he was there, warm around you in the cold and tending to your fire. Then, at night, it roars. Twisting with your guts and kickstarting your lungs and mind when you grow frozen. Speaking to you in the dark until you feel like you again. A part of you that’s ingrained and unmovable, that’s not plagued by this cold because Ben is warm. Never afraid because Ben is safe. It’s angry and bloody and zealous, but it’s Ben, and so it smells like pine and feels good. Feels solid and easy, makes Ben feel more real. You’re on the too smooth, silken sheets of Homelander’s bed and everything is cold, but you can almost feel his breath on your ear and his voice rolling into your body. 

I did promise. You sigh into the dark of the room, and your breath comes out in fog. But I don’t think I can talk my way out of this one, Pretty Boy. 

Why the goddamn hell not. 

I’m not smarter than Sage, or stronger than Homelander. I said whatever it takes, but I can’t, Ben. I can’t. I just want to come home. 

First of all, shut the fuck up. You’re being stupid, Sunshine. 

Fucking rude- 

His voice cuts you off. It’s doing that a lot more lately. I don’t give a shit. Homelander is a pathetic fucking pussy, and Sage is a heartless bitch. You’re perfect the goddamn way you are. It’s goddamn infuriating how you’re so perfect, because it’s inconvenient. And if you want to come home you’ll wear blue and not a single fucking thing in the world will stop me getting you. 

That’s part of the problem, Benjamin. I’m not perfect, I can’t fight them, and I can’t let you come and get me. You know that. 

You are fucking perfect. You’re a goddamn pain in my ass, but you’re still beautiful and sure as shit smarter than you should be. And all I know that I fucking miss you. 

You’re crying. Silent tears you have to muffle and wipe away, because even if Homelander isn’t here you can’t chance that he’ll see you break. If you break, it can’t be in front of Homelander. You won’t allow it. 

But Ben’s voice sounds so real. Deep and pushing calm into you—soothing your blood back into your body—because as long as Ben’s voice is here and talking like this nothing can hurt you. 

I miss you too, Benjamin. Your smile is soft and tired, but you can feel Ben there. Something a little more solid than a phantom around you. 

Come home. Just fucking come home. There’s a beat of silence, and his voice in your ear is hoarse. Please. 

Soon. 

You always say soon. Just come home now. 

Ben- 

I miss you. I fucking miss you and I don’t want you home soon. I want you home now. His voice is building with frustration, and something in you is starting to spark in time with that strange thing. I can’t keep worrying about you. You promised, and I trust you with my goddamn life, but I don't trust you with yours. 

Hey. You frown into the dark. My life, Benjamin. My choice to stay. 

I haven’t fucking gotten you, have I? I’m respecting your stupid fucking choice, but I still hate it. I fucking hate this. 

I know you do. But there’s more work to do. 

You don’t have to be the one to do it. You can just- 

I can’t. You hug yourself, the warmth in you growing stronger. Not pushing the cold down, or your blood back in, but rising the fire to fill the cracks the cold is leaving along your head and heart. I can’t just come home. I have to do this. This has to be me. 

There’s another stretch of silence—that thing climbing up your spine and lighting up every nerve—before Ben’s voice rings around you once more. Fine. 

Thank you. You’re not sure why you’re thanking him. He’s not real, but it’s an instinct. Thank Ben, always thank Ben because everything in you is back in your hands and you love him. 

Don’t. 

You smile into the dark, your tears drying in your eyes. You can’t fucking stop me, Pretty Boy. 

I will soon. You’re going to come home, and every time you thank me I’m going to fuck the words out of your mouth. 

I don’t think that’s going to have the effect you intend it to. 

Yes it fucking will- 

Ben. Your voice in your head is dry. If every time I thank you I get fucked, I’m never going to stop thanking you. I might start just thanking you randomly, specifically so you fuck me. 

The thing in you is bellowing and jerking your heart around. Smartass. 

I mean, you had to have seen that coming- 

I just want to see you coming, beautiful. You can almost see his wink. All over me. 

Horny old man.

You love it. And you’re no fucking better than me. 

Than I. And excuse you, I for one can keep it in my pants- 

His voice snorts. I know you, Sunshine. You want to fuck me more than anyone has ever wanted to fuck me. And a lot of people have wanted to fuck me. 

Braggart. 

That’s not a real word. 

Yes, it is. 

Well then what the hell does it mean. 

You brag a lot. It’s pretty self-explanatory, Benjamin. You could’ve gotten that one yourself. 

Shut the fuck up. 

Make me. 

I will. When you get home I’m going to shut your pretty mouth up for a whole goddamn year. With my cock, and my hands, and- 

Fuck you. 

I promise I will, brat. I’m going to fuck you so much you’re never going to want anyone else to touch you. 

You don’t need to fuck me to do that. You sigh, trying to sit a little longer in the warmth as daylight starts to creep into the room. I already don’t want anyone but you, Ben. 

His voice is silent for a second, and you think it’s going to say what it always does, because you love me, but it doesn’t. The thing rattles with an ache in your body, and Ben’s voice is softer than you’d expected when you hear it again. I don’t want anyone else either. 

Good. Your breathing is easy, and you can really almost feel Ben. Behind you, around you, in you. Can you still fuck me anyways? 

His laugh rolls through you, and that thing feels lighter. You feel lighter. Deal, Sunshine. 

Deal. 

The thing fades into dormant ease once more, but you’re still warm. Your blood is still trying to break out of your body, but you’re holding it in. 

And the fire is building. Faster and faster, blazing up into your skin, the fire is building. 

And you won’t break. 

In the morning, your lockdown is temporarily lifted so Homelander can parade you to the masses. They’d long fixed the damage you and Ben caused to the tower lawn—the grass is green once more, and the sidewalks have been repaved smooth and black—and they’ve set up a stage that’s reminiscent of Firecrackers. Not quite as dramatic, twice as large, and with better rigged lights. You could just walk out the doors of Vought Tower—they’ve barricaded the path for that very purpose—but Homelander trusts you. And you’re so close. You’re holding on by a thread, but you won’t break. Not yet. 

Homelander’s been touching you more. Never casually, and not like that, but his hand isn’t just on your lower back anymore. It’s clasping into yours more often, and not in the intimate, careful way Ben does. A cold, leather glove that snaps around your hand, no fingers intertwined or thumb rubbing on your skin. Yanking you around in a way that makes your elbow snap, slamming you into his back and not bothering to steady you. You let him, he has to trust you, but it makes you colder. Homelander will look at you with cruel blue eyes, devoid of any light or warmth or life, and you feel like a prize. He’s won you, and now he’s growing more and more confident, less and less afraid. 

He still won’t touch you with skin. You can’t figure out why, but Homelander’s so very careful not to even brush his skin against yours. You’d think it’s fear. That you’ll feel him, and see something he doesn’t want you to. It’s not about you burning him, you haven’t used fire in front of him since he’d taken you and he knows it. He thinks you’ve burnt out. Learned your place and burnt out. So it has to be about a fear you don’t understand. 

You try not to question it. It’s saving you from being touched like that, and that would break you. That would irreversibly shatter you, and you wouldn’t be able to pull yourself back together. So you don’t question it, use that small part of Ben that’s comfortable in your chest to feed the fire, and try to keep the cold in you. You’ll have to, for this. You can’t afford the cold taking control and falling out of you. You can’t afford flinches or numb expressions when this winter becomes something that’s beyond you. 

So you push it down, down, down, and smile at Homelander. Too sweet, too many teeth, almost manic. 

But you smile at Homelander, and play the game. You’re almost done, so you play the game. 

“Babe?” 

He turns on you with a shark-like expression. You’ve baited him with blood—drawn right from your heart and making you cold—and he’s taken it. 

Homelander says your name, and it's hard to keep smiling. “I like babe, it’s right. Keep using it.” 

You nod, and don’t speak. Waiting for him to prompt you. 

“If you want something, say it.” 

“I was just wondering if you could carry me to the rally later?” Your words are softer than you’d intend, but your tongue is numb in your mouth and it’s the best you can manage. “I just want to get more used to flying with you-“ 

“Of course you can,” Homelander looks you up and down. “It’s not like you’ll get hurt if I drop you.” 

You make yourself laugh, and it doesn’t sound like you. But you keep smiling. Allow yourself to sound smaller. “You won’t drop me, right?”

He scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous, you’d take a week to scrape off the pavement.” Homelander’s eyes narrow on yours. “Don’t you trust me?” 

“Of course!” Voice lighter. Don’t let a crack show in it. “I’m just scared of heights.” 

“Oh,” Homelander nods, and starts to walk to you. Arms opening to pick you up, and you have to not scream. Have to keep your teeth from chewing at your cheek and your hands from shaking. “Then let’s go fly. Now.” 

“I, I’m not ready-“ 

“Honey,” Homelander’s voice is annoyed, and he’s glaring again. “Humans have silly little fears about heights. Not us. You’re going to get over this, fucking now, because you aren’t human anymore.” 

You’re not afraid of heights. You’ve never been afraid of heights. You’ve only ever really been afraid of three things in your life. 

Being worthless. 

Losing Ben. 

Homelander. 

But you can’t break. Play the role. Nod slowly and walk into Homelander’s arms. Feel cold but keep it in you, because you don’t have time to let it out. You have six days to do everything, and being defiant isn’t a luxury you can afford. 

He’s still grinning at you, and his teeth are too white. They look fake. “I knew you’d come around. Sage said you wouldn’t, said you’d always be a little too weak, but look at you.” He laughs, and you have to keep smiling. “Still fucking weak, but ready to fix it.” 

He doesn’t let you respond before yanking you up the stairs and onto the roof, and your words and protests die in your throat because he has to trust you if you want to go home. And when Homelander shoots up into the sky, you can’t scream or push him away or even go rigid like you’d done before. You had to pretend you trusted Homelander. That he’d won you and now you trusted him. You have to pull him closer on purpose, even though he’s colder than the air around you and your body hates it. It hates touching him, it hates him touching you. He does it as if you’re his possession. With callous, thoughtlessly placed hands and like, if he were to drop you, it wouldn’t matter. You’re his to break. 

You’d flown with Homelander before, but that had been for transportation. He’d been focused and bored, carrying you like cargo. This was purely to force any fear or weakness out of you with speed and brute force. He’d done flips, your body tossed around through the air and his arms so loose on you there’s not a second where you are certain he won’t drop you. Halfway through you start to hope he will. That you’ll fall with a sickening splat below, someone will post it online, and Ben will come get you.

But Homelander doesn’t drop you. He goes so fast your skin feels like it’s peeling off your face, so high the air feels thin, and through clouds that leave you damp and chilled. 

You weren’t afraid of heights before. You think you might be now. Another line on the growing list of things that, even if you manage not to break, will never be good again. You’re not sure how long you’re up in the air, but when you land back at the tower your hands feel bitten with frost and there’s bile in your throat. 

“Go get yourself together,” Homelander orders, nudging you to the door back inside. “I’ll be back in an hour.” 

You nod, and try to smile at him. He grins back, but his expression turns slightly sour the longer he looks at you. 

“Don’t fucking cry. And wear your supe outfit.” 

He’s gone in a blast of wind, and you’re left to stagger back to his apartment. Alone. Blood so cold, but without time to get a hold over it. You just have to keep going, and hope this settles within the hour. 

You find your way back to the apartment, still freezing into your bones. Trying to stoke the flames under your skin with that thing of Ben’s in your chest, with thoughts of good things. 

Music. City Lights. Ben. 

Go through the movements. Don’t vomit—it will take too long to do, time you don’t have—and hum to yourself until the air feels warmer. You can still feel the cold rushing in your blood, but your skin is warmer. You sing a song of summer, and at least your skin feels warmer. You don’t break. 

Do your hair and makeup yourself. Ashley had offered you a team this morning, and you’d turned it down. You’d made sure Homelander heard your words—I know what I should look like, I don’t need people helping me—and Ashley had nodded and dropped it with an anxious expression and tug of her hair. So now you stand at the mirror, putting on lipstick that’s the wrong shade of red for your skin and applying shadow in a way that’s not you. Not a style you’d ever wear, not when you had control over it. But it’s the role. This is the right red for this version of you, because it’s a red Homelander likes. This eyeshadow is exactly how you have to do it, because it’s how the paid Vought artists did it. How the world thinks you do it. 

You keep a small part of you in your makeup. There’s a green, metallic eyeliner in the collection that had appeared in Homelander’s bathroom, and you trace it on your inner eye. It flashes whenever you move, and it’s impossible to miss. Just a little green, where Ben won’t miss it. Just a little light that doesn’t feel blinding, but feels peaceful and alive. You don’t break. 

Now get changed. You have to get changed, because you’ve calmed down enough to not be in danger—or a danger—and done your hair and makeup. The hour is almost up, and so you have to get changed.

The only reason you’re managing not to vomit every time you wear your supe costume is because there’s still a stale smell of Ben on it. You’re surprised Homelander hasn’t noticed, but he also doesn’t know what Ben smells like. The pine could just be from the outdoors, the gunpowder from the attack. And the part that’s just Ben—not shampoo or lingering parts of his day that grow stronger on his skin—is yours to know. It’s a strong smell, powerful and Ben, and you know it’s his. Same as you know that the thing in you is him, something of Ben’s that’s left a tattoo on you. You know all of him, and this smells like he feels. Like he tastes. 

You still remember what I fucking taste like? 

Shut up. I miss you, and I love you. Of course I remember, don’t be a dick about it. 

Would you prefer I give you my dick about it? 

You snort softly into the empty air. That one’s not even good. I expect better from you. 

You fucking shouldn’t. 

And yet, I do. 

Because you love me. 

Because I love you. You frown at your reflection in the mirror. The green hair clip you’ve been wearing—the one you’d been clinging to since you’d seen it in a costume room and stolen it to keep—looks out of place. It feels too much like you, and you don’t look like you. You look like a statue, or doll. 

I look stupid.

You look hot. You always look hot, Sunshine. It’s one of my favorite things about you. 

Wrong. You smile at your reflection, and that’s your real smile. You’re talking to Ben—even if it’s just his phantom—so that’s your smile. You like that I’m smart, and that I’m kind, and my pussy.

And all of that is fucking hot. Because you’re hot. 

Thanks, Pretty Boy. You’re hot as well. 

I fucking know that. That’s why you love me. 

That’s not at all why I love you. I love you because you care, more than you’ll ever admit. I love you because you never give up on anything, and because you’re honest. I can trust you, I can always trust you. I love you because you always do what you say you will, and you’re never trying to be anything but yourself. You’re an asshole, Benjamin, but you’re my asshole. You’re a protective, abrasive, vulgar manwhore, and I love you so much it makes me a little insane. 

Brat. 

Cunt. 

You also love me because I’m a good piece of ass. I’m hotter than the goddamn sun and you want to jump my bones, admit it. 

I’m allowed to love you because of who you are and also think that you’re stupid hot, Benjamin. You make me laugh and feel safe and happy so I’m always going to love you, and you’re so handsome it hurts to look at so I’m always going to want to jump your bones. 

Good thing I want to fuck you until you’re dizzy and can’t even damn speak, beautiful. 

I think I can live with that. You sigh. I miss you, and I have to go. 

I miss you too. Kick their fucking balls into their throats. 

You huff a small laugh into the air. Gross. 

You love me. 

I do. The cold in your blood is tangible, but so is the fire. And both are yours. Completely yours. 

You can do this. You can fucking do this, do it right, and go home. 

It still takes holding your tongue between your teeth to not scream when Homelander grabs you, and control over every muscle in your body to not go rigid when he touches you, but you do it. You keep your body limp and smile at his cruel face. You land on the stage—the crowd only one push or wrong noise from a riot—and keep smiling. You shrink into yourself, step back into Homelander’s shadow in a careful way that’s about being shy. About not wanting the spotlight, and seeking comfort in love. 

It’s really about trying to get away. About giving your feet just an inch they can move away, because they want to run. Everyone is watching you like you’re going to be their salvation. Like they’re going to eat your flesh and it will bring them comfort. Like you’re going to put on a show and it will be glorious, like you’ll bring them something they’ve been missing. Homelander is watching you as well, and you’re trying to get to where he can’t see. His eyes make that cold spread, make it rile up in wind that sweeps through your body like a storm.

So you’re quiet, and meek, and give Homelander no reason to look at you. You wave to the crowd and smile in a small, pliant way. Sage walks up onto the stage and you get the same, small nod that she offers Homelander. You return it with a sweet expression, and fade into the background as Sage and Homelander work. All you have to do is be here, stand silently, and do as you’re told and it will be more than enough. Cameras are angled at your every shift and breath, and you’re still nothing more than a statue. Homelander tells a completely fabricated and implausible story about how he used to fly you to Paris at night so you could picnic on the top of the Eiffel Tower. The Deep shows up and talks about how hard all the lies have been on you and Homelander, his two closest friends, especially after the recent deaths of your teammates. You considered them family, and this is a period of grief, not of—as the Deep puts it—being a total hater on true love. Ashley gives a speech about how when she first met you, she knew you were in love with Homelander because you couldn’t stop laughing with him about nothing. She says you and Homelander have invited her over for dinner, and everyone here should one day hope to have his burgers and your chocolate mousse cake. 

In the hum of the speaker feedback, you hear Ben snort. Suddenly he’s everywhere. Around your body and between your fingers and resting on your head. 

I remember when you tried to make us a cake. I wasn’t sure if it looked or tasted more like actual dogshit. 

Fuck off. You ate the whole thing. 

I’ll eat fucking anything, Sunshine. That cake was a goddamn travesty.

Guess who’s not getting a cake for his stupid birthday. 

I’m a little damn old for a cake. His voice drawls your name on the wind. I’ll just eat you instead. 

Smooth. And you’re never too old for cake, Benjamin. I’ll even put vanilla ice cream on it. 

I thought I wasn’t getting a fucking cake. 

I changed my mind. You’re getting cake, and it’s going to be the fanciest cake you’ve ever fucking seen. And I’m going to put rainbow sprinkles on the ice cream, and there’s not a thing you can do to stop me. 

Can I still eat you? 

Yes. But you’re eating the cake first. And you have to grill burgers. 

For my own fucking birthday? Isn’t the whole point supposed to be that I don’t do shit? 

Would you rather I make the burgers?

You and Ben had tried to make burgers four times. Technically, you had tried. He’d already known how, because he was a goddamn red blooded fucking American man, and attempted to teach you, but you had not been a good student. You’d burnt them every time, but you kept getting distracted. Ben’s muscles would ripple when he flipped a burger and he’d grin at you while he talked about meat and things being tender, and you think you just kept blacking out in an effort to not fuck him right there. After the fourth smoke alarm resulted in you and Ben sitting in the dining hall while Mallory lectured you about fire safety and banned you from the kitchen’s grill, you’d decided this was just a skill you didn’t need to have. Ben could make burgers. He was better at it, and always got focused in a way that made you both want to fuck him—have all that intensity and care turned on you—and just touch him. Run a hand across his forehead, into his hair, and check that he was real. It made you love him more. 

You’re not sure if the phantom is reacting to the burger comment and you calling him adorable, but something rumbles around in your heart and Ben’s voice grumbles. Shut the fuck up. 

It’s a little easier to look mindlessly happy. You can feel this remnant of Ben in you—this thing that is him—climbing up a little higher to sit on the top of your chest, so it’s easy to pretend you’re ditzy and humble and your smile is light and carefree. Ashley concludes her speech, and Sage is up. You and Homelander represent the best of what the world has to offer. Two people who have loved each other from the first time they saw each other, and who, despite the hardships and obstacles, will always prevail. She says Homelander will always find you, and you manage to keep smiling. Ben’s Thing tightens in you, and you can practically see his angry expression, but you keep smiling. You will build a perfect American family, and Ryan Butcher will be returned to where he belongs. 

I haven’t been being a dick to the Kid. 

You blink. What? 

You told me not to be a dick to the Kid. I haven’t been. I’ve been a goddamn angel.

Okay. You fight the confused frown on your face. Why are you telling me that? 

Because you seemed to really damn care about it. I don’t know. Shut the fuck up. 

But- 

You were right. He’s not like Homelander. He’s a little bit of a pussy- 

Benjamin. 

What? 

Don’t call a twelve-year-old a pussy. It’s uncouth. 

But he is a pussy- 

How can he possibly be a pussy. 

He can name all fifty states. 

I can name all fifty states. 

That’s different. 

How. 

You’re a fucking know it all.

Hey- 

You’re a sexy know it all. You look hot when you get riled up, and talking about pretty much anything gets you riled up. If you sat in front of me and named all fifty states I’d get a fucking boner. 

That’s weird, Ben. 

Fuck off. You’d love my boner. 

You lightly bite the inside of your cheek to keep yourself from smiling. I would. 

You’d suck me off, and look fucking hot doing it, and then I’d eat you out and make you cum on my face- 

You’re trying to distract me from you calling Ryan a pussy. 

No. Shut the fuck up. 

You shut the fuck up. I would suck you off, and then maybe I’d let you eat me out- 

Maybe? 

And then I’d make you clean up and get dressed and learn all fifty states. 

That information will never be goddamn useful, Sunshine. Would be a waste of my fucking time. 

Because you’re such a busy man? Is getting a boner from listening to me talk and then eating me out that time consuming? 

So I will get to eat you out. 

Fuck you.

That’s what I’m fucking asking- 

Stay on topic, Ben. You should be able to name all fifty states. 

Why in goddamn Christ- 

You’ve been around since before Hawaii and Alaska, and you’re barely younger than Arizona. It’s a little sad you can’t, Pretty Boy. 

Well, I’m not a damn loser pussy, so I don’t really give a fuck. 

Rude. 

You’re not a loser pussy either. No woman of mine would be a loser pussy. 

Your heart stumbles a little faster, and Ben’s Thing hums in your body. Thanks. 

Don’t. 

You can’t fucking stop me- 

Because I’m not there, beautiful. If I were on that stupid fucking stage and you thanked me, I’d pick you up, carry you home, and stop you with my cock in your pretty fucking mouth. 

You need to get a grip on yourself. Maybe start putting effort into filtering the phantom better. Because, even in your head, your voice sounds breathless. Okay. 

No big words, Sunshine? Just going to let me fuck your face- 

Shut up. Cunt. 

Brat. There’s a beat of silence, but it’s still louder than the noise of the crowd because you can almost hear Ben’s breath in your ear. I miss you. Come home. 

Soon. You feel something heavy, sickening in that piece of Ben inside your chest. You can’t stand it, it makes your heart hurt, and you need Ben—even this strange fragment of him—to feel happy again. And as soon as I do, I’m kicking your ass and making you apologize to your grandson for calling him a pussy. 

It feels lighter, and Ben’s scoff isn’t painful. Don’t call him my grandson. 

He is, by definition, your grandson. Don’t be a pussy about it, Benjamin. 

Smartass. 

Old man. 

You like it, you fucking grave-robber. 

Am I a grave-robber, or are you a cradle-robber? 

You’re a goddamn grown woman- 

And you’re an ancient, grumpy man-child. 

You love it. 

I do. You don’t repeat the second part, because Ben’s voice doesn’t prompt it out of you. It just falls into a comfortable, happy silence everywhere around you, and you feel safe. You might have never been in more danger—Homelander at your side and the eyes of the world on you—but everything that’s been breaking in you feels a little more manageable. You’re still full of that never ending cold, but it’s not falling out of you or trying to escape. You can sit in it easily, because you can almost feel Ben there and your fire is still growing. Sage is still talking, and you let it pass through you. This will get through you, and you’ll go home soon. Sage calls you the sweetest and most genuine person she’e ever met, and you hear Ben’s snort. She talks about how Homelander treats you like an equal, and there’s a spark of annoyance in Ben’s Thing for you. She calls you and Homelander American Heroes, and you can keep yourself modest and happy as Homelander laughs and waves off the compliment. 

But you can’t stop the momentary static of your heart, or the numb of your body, when Homelander kisses your cheek. A new crack forms—long and somewhere critical—and Ben’s Thing in you riots. Grows louder than the crowd, louder than the ringing in your ears. 

You almost don’t see Homelander freeze. He goes still and rigid, his face twitching and looking sick, and you realize that the cold is leaving you. Homelander touched you, and Ben’s Thing is roaring in some sort of pain, and you’ve lost a hold over the polar feeling in your body. 

Fuck this, I’m coming to get you- 

Benjamin. He’s everything in you that’s good. Everything is cold and you’re afraid and you can’t control yourself and you’re going to lose, but Ben’s voice is still around you and you’re still you. You haven’t broken. You’re so close, you won’t break, and this piece of Ben will help hold you together. You can’t. You know that. 

He fucking touched you- 

He only kissed my cheek. I’m okay. You’re not. You know what this means, even if Homelander had recoiled from you with a look that won’t last. But you’re so close. There won’t be time for escalation, you’ll be home soon. You’ll falter and break when you get home. 

Ben’s voice doesn’t seem convinced. You don’t fucking look okay. You look like you just got goddamn shot, you need to come home right now- 

I’m fine. 

When Ben says your name, there’s some sort of strain in it. The same ache and pounding that you can feel from that thing inside of you. There’s not a single goddamn thing you can do to stop me- 

I know. But please don’t. If you trust me, Ben, please don’t. 

You don’t know why you’re arguing with him. This Ben isn’t real, it can’t come get you. But it’s so deep inside of you, keeping you together as Sage’s speech concludes and Homelander herds you up to the front of the stage, you entertain it. It doesn’t feel fake. It feels like him. The sharp, bitter anger in your chest feels like his, the gravely frustration in his voice sounds like it’s coming from right behind you, and it’s so fucking important that you keep it there until you’re in control again.

I do fucking trust you, but I can’t just leave you- 

Not leaving me. You’re never leaving me. You’re waiting. 

Ben’s Thing stabs into you, and you almost flinch from it. I am waiting. I’m waiting for as long as it takes. But Christ, I fucking hate it. I don’t want to wait, I want you home. 

I want to come home. I want to come home more than almost anything. But- 

Almost? His words are a grunt from somewhere at your side. The hell do you want more- 

You. Fire is building in you, fed by the warmth of Ben’s Thing beating in your chest. I want you. 

That thing roars. Claws against your ribs and heart, and you can’t think about anything else. You’re going through the movements—waving and smiling to the crowd—but everything in you is about Ben. About how you’ve never felt a fervor like this anywhere but in him, and you miss him and want him and love him- 

Fine. He’s relenting. He’s only in your head, but he’s still relenting with a low, tired voice. But if I see even a little bit of fucking blue- 

You can break down the doors of Vought Tower and carry me home. You swallow, and keep your face bright as something in you wilts when Homelander’s arm wraps around you. I’ll see you soon, Ben. I promise. 

I know. And I’ll wait. 

Thank you. 

Don’t.

It doesn’t go dormant, but Ben’s Thing stops being loud. It moves back to resting near your heart, existing always with that arctic sensation in your body. It takes all the strength and will you possess to pull the lingering bits of it—the fear it’s made of—back into you and hold them there when Homelander vaults up into the sky. He’s not touching you on skin again, and Ben’s Thing has tugged much of it out of the air around you, but your blood is still singing, trying to reach anything else and make it feel this. Feel the pure, raw terror that the infinite cold is made of, that’s rushing through you. Rushing out of you. 

But it’s not just fear falling out of your body. It’s something furious that’s for Homelander touching you. And you’ve felt things that aren’t fear move out of you before. You’ve felt heat, want and love and adoration, run out of your body when Ben’s touched you. When you’ve gotten to touch him. 

Homelander leaves you on the roof to find your way back to his apartment, saying he has business to attend to. He looks like he might try to kiss you, but fear and hatred leaks out of you when he moves and suddenly he’s gone.

And you have a theory. You have a little more than five days, this Thing of Ben’s still burning peacefully inside of you, and a theory.

You have to test it. The cold in you is growing, but so is the fire. Both are, for now, in your control. The fire and the cold are everywhere in you and on you, but not around you, and you’re holding them there. If you’re right about this, then everything will work. You’ll go home.

But you have to test it first. 

You spend that night, alone in Homelander’s apartment, making a new plan. You can’t test on Homelander, he needs to keep thinking you’ve gone docile. That you’re out of tricks and are back to being what he thinks you are. You can’t test this on Sage, she’ll figure out what’s happening and you can’t afford that right now. This is the only advantage you have over her, because you’re certain she doesn’t know about it. If she knew, she wouldn’t let you go to rallies, or go anywhere near her. This is the one thing she can’t control or predict or understand.

Feelings. She can’t control how you feel. She can’t stop you being afraid or angry, can’t stop you loving Ben, and can’t prevent how when it all becomes too much your emotions aren’t yours anymore. How they’ve been building up and up  and up, growing loud and feral, and now they’re bigger than you are. You’re more afraid than you can hold in you. Afraid for your life, and your self, and for Ben. And every time Homelander’s touched you or Sage had threatened you the fear has grown until it’s sweeping through your body. 

But it’s not just the fear. It’s your anger, your fury that this isn’t fair. This is wrong and fucked up and you have to be the one to fix it, but you just want to go home. You’re full of wrath for yourself, for Ryan and Becca Butcher, for Hughie and Annie and MM and Frenchie and Kimiko and everyone you love being forced into this. It’s stoking the fire, and that’s why everything is white-hot now. The anger and fear are made of the same thing that pushes out of you in moments when they consume you, and now they sit in your blood to be weaponized. 

The only thing bigger than them is your love. It’s grown so large in your heart and head and soul that it’s become its own animal. It starts in you, and it belongs to Ben. All this love in you is for Ben. You’ll always know him anywhere because your empathy has decided that he is you. He’s something so crucial to you, your love for him is so powerful, that you don’t recognize him just because you know him. You can feel him when he’s not touching you, sense him when he’s close. Nothing has ever been as powerful as your love for Ben, and your empathy knows that. It knows that he won’t hurt you, he’d never hurt you, and that it’s only this strong because of him. Because Ben let you touch him and wasn’t afraid of you, and now he’s everything. Just as much a part of you as the fire has become, and you’ll always return to him. 

You’re so close. 

Right now you have to be angry and afraid and learn what it can do, and then you can go home and love Ben. Spend the rest of time loving Ben. 

But first you have to be angry and afraid. 

It takes four of your five remaining days to prove and understand your theory. You go along with Sage’s orders and Ashley’s requests, because right now the act is vital to keep up. You can hear the protest crowds from the 99th floor, and every time you catch a glimpse of social media it’s all about you. You’re America’s sweetheart and savior and symbol, and this is all you have left to do. 

You test on the Deep first. You hold your anger in every muscle of your body, and ask the Deep about something simple. 

“Hey, Deep?” 

The idiot pauses in the hallway, spinning around to grin at you with a puffed out chest. “Anomaly! What’s going on, does Homelander need me-“

“No,” you give a light, silly giggle, like a schoolgirl who just heard her crush liked her back. You don’t throw up on the Deep’s dumb, shiny suit. ���I just wanted to know if you got the funding for your new movie?” 

“Oh, shit, yeah! I mean with A-Train dead, rest in power, brother,” he puts his fist up in a salute and you have to hold down a scoff. “There’s like a fuck ton of money just lying around, and I was like ‘uh, guys. What if I got the money, right?’ and they said-“ 

You’re not listening to what Vought Studios said, because you’re trying to figure out how to touch the Deep without him realizing. You wait until he’s completely engrossed in his story then start to walk, gesturing for him to follow. He falls into a pace at your side, talking about getting good writers that will do his character justice, and you lean to the side. Brush your arm against his, and all the wrath in you flares. 

The Deep’s voice grows louder. Tighter. “And I don’t fucking understand why they didn’t just give me the money, right? I mean it’s not fucking fair I have to pull all this shit together by myself. I just want to chill the hell out, but somehow this falls on me to fix this shit-“ He freezes, because by his last words he was in a full on shout. Almost a scream. “Uh, sorry, I don’t know where that came from. Don’t tell Homelander I was yelling at you, I really didn’t mean to-“ 

“It’s fine,” you smile, and it’s more sweet than smug. But you feel really fucking smug. “You’re just passionate.” 

One down. One step closer. 

Next, you find the writers. Skinny McBrown-Nose and Bald Pussy. You’ve forgotten their names again, and you’d feel a little worse about it if the moment they saw you they didn’t start trying to feed you anecdotes to use about your love for Homelander. 

“What if,” Bald Pussy leans forward with a toothy grin. “You asked him out first. And he said no, because he loved you and wanted to protect you, but it broke your heart.” 

“And you tried to get over him,” Skinny McBrown-Nose jumps in with an up-beat bounce to his words. “But nobody made you feel the way he does. There’s nobody else for you, and you’d just resigned yourself to a life of solitude when he confessed his love for you. He just couldn’t bear to see you with another, and he decided that putting you at risk would be fine, because he’s the strongest man in the world. As long as he’s there, you’ll be safe.”

You blink, because that is shockingly close to being accurate. For them it’s about Homelander and not Ben, but it’s more you than anything else they’ve pitched. 

There is no one else for you but Ben, although you don’t think you’d ever even try to get over him. When this is over you’ll just resign yourself to not being loved by him and dedicate yourself to loving him in secret. 

Ben is the strongest man in the world, but he’d never put you at risk. He hates you putting yourself at risk, and if he knew one of the reasons you’ve been staying at Vought was to protect him he’d probably have an aneurism. 

And as long as he’s there, you are safe. There’s not a safer place in the world than at Ben’s side. 

“I, um,” you have to cover your hesitation, because the writers are looking at you with nervous, expectant expressions. “I think Homelander would prefer he asked me out. It fits in better-“ 

“But this way,” Bald Pussy interjects eagerly. “We hit the demographic of liberal women in the 18-44 range. They’ll love that you took the move first, and that he loved you so much-“

“I don’t know.” You pull all the dormant cold from your blood and focus on it—let it choke you—and lean forward enough for your hands to touch theirs. Lightly. Unnoticeably. Holding their gazes so they don’t look down and see it. “Maybe I should go get him, and you can tell him-“ 

“No!” Bald Pussy’s eyes widen, and he shakes his head frantically. “I mean, no need to involve Homelander, you’re probably right-“ 

You can’t be sure if this is just an average, healthy fear of Homelander, or your fear of Homelander. The fear that haunts you and follows you everywhere. You have to be sure. “I mean, I like it. I think I can just approve it myself-“ 

“Don’t worry about it!” Skinny McBrown-Nose’s voice is a squeak. “I mean, you shouldn’t bother him. It wasn’t that good an idea, and we’ll come up with a better one, so you don’t have to risk it. Right?” 

That’s fear for you. Skinny McBrown-Nose is afraid for you, to talk to Homelander and offer him something he might hate. He has no rational reason to be afraid for you, not with what he’s been told. It worked. 

You agree softly and walk away from them. You have more work to do. 

You fall into random people and bump against passers by. For the first time in years, you’re touching everyone you can on purpose. Doing it randomly is helping you from falling apart, as their emotions aren’t intense or overwhelming. They’re mostly just bland, flavorless neutrality. It’s not a great indictment of the emotional health of Vought’s employees—how soulless and empty everyone is—but right now it’s working in your favor. You can ignore the emotions that each touch gives you and just study the way they react. 

Some stumble slightly, and a lot of them freeze. Several double over before looking around with slack, pained expressions, and one even falls to the ground. Dropping with a strangled sound like you’d shot them. 

And you know you were right. You’ve proven yourself right, and you almost fully understand it. You’re so close. To going home, to being with Ben again, to being done. This is almost over. 

Almost. You just need to find the V. You have just less than two days left, and you won’t fail. Your nightmares are growing worse and you’re still waking up paralyzed, unable to breathe or move or think anything outside of blood. So much blood, all on your hands. Not strong enough to clean them, too weak enough to wipe them on another. And there’s just so much blood. 

But you’ll get through it. You’re almost home. 

The more you do this, the more you feel Ben. His voice is always louder now, and you think you might be going insane. You don’t know if it’s this new power taking you over and driving you mad, or if you just miss him so much you’re losing your mind, but Ben feels closer than he had before. Maybe it’s because you’re almost ready. Maybe it’s anticipation. 

But no matter what it is, he’s still everywhere. His Thing in your chest is almost always alight, and his presence is solid. Just as permanent as your love for him, just as strong and warm as he is. It feels so purely Ben that your body starts to look for him where you know he won’t be. He’s not going to be in Homelander’s bathroom, or in the Seven’s meeting room, or Ashley’s office. But you can sense him all the time, and the phantom is getting away from you. Muttering in your ear at inconvenient moments about random things that were far too detailed.

Why the fuck did you love those stupid sunglasses? He’d grumbled one morning, a little before your talk with The Deep. You’d frowned into the lukewarm air of Homelander’s kitchen. 

What are you talking about? 

Those shit quality, knock-off Soldier Boy sunglasses you always wore. Why did you like them. 

Oh, you’d blinked at nothing, tapping at the bridge of your nose. Why?

I asked first.

But-

Just answer the damn question, Sunshine. There was a pause, and you could almost hear his sigh. Please.

You had to fight the smile on your face, because Homelander could walk in at any second. Well, since you asked so nicely, Pretty Boy, they reminded me of you. 

He was scowling. You don’t know how you know, but you’re certain he was scowling. They were fucking blue. 

Yeah, well- You pause, his words settling in. What do you mean, were. 

Don’t fucking worry about it. How did they remind- 

Why did you use past tense. What happened to my sunglasses. 

I said don’t worry about it, his voice muttered your name, and it was almost sheepish. It’s not- 

Benjamin. 

They broke. 

What. 

When I lost you, they got smashed- 

First off, you didn’t lose me. Stop saying you lost me. Second of all, why are you asking me about my broken sunglasses. 

You loved them. I want to know if you just fucking like sunglasses, or if it’s something else- 

I loved those sunglasses because they made me more certain you were real. You’d cared enough to give them to me when Butcher had dropped them off, and that made me happy. It made me think you cared about me- 

I do care about you. He sounds indignant. Of course I fucking care about you. I- 

I know you care, Ben. That’s why I’m not that mad about them hypothetically being broken, because I don’t need proof- 

Why would you ever fucking need proof. 

Because you’re confusing. You’re the love of my life, Benjamin, and you confuse the fuck- 

His voice sounded like it had somehow dropped an octave when he says your name. What the hell did you just say.

I said you’re a confusing piece of shit- 

No, the other thing. 

I said I love you. You know that. Let me talk. 

Sunshine- 

Homelander had walked in, and you’d had to tune out Ben’s words around you to feign joy in his presence and interest in his words. Ben’s voice had fallen back into a soft sound of static, but his Thing had remained—steady and comfortably—in your chest. A constant, dependable, holding you down until only a few hours later when you’d heard him from nothing again.

You would fucking know what this shit means. 

You’d frowned at the stall of the bathroom, collecting your thoughts and trying to reign your anger back to your body. What shit? 

Manifest Destiny. Doesn’t even make any damn sense- 

It’s the nationalistic belief that Americans had the right to expand westward, and should exert the means to do so. 

Smartass. 

You fucking asked me the question. It’s not my fault I knew the answer.

You’d heard Ben’s snort, and his Thing had rolled over inside you. Brat. 

Cunt. 

Someone had entered the bathroom, and Ben’s voice had gone silent around you—a smell like pine and barbecue fading from the air—as his Thing had remained burning in your chest. You didn’t dwell on it, you didn’t have the time or energy to even think it over once, especially as it just kept happening. Over and over, through the evening and night, Ben’s Thing kept growing brighter and Ben began to intertwine into your senses. You start to spare it thought, especially as the conversations keep starting from silence about nothing. 

I’d never hurt you. 

I know that. You barely managed not to stumble as you walked through the hall, his voice taking you by surprise. Why are you telling me that? 

Because Annie’s fucking wrong. I’d never fucking hurt you. You’d have told me if it hurt, and I’d have fucking tied your hands up if you tried to keep doing it. 

You’re just confused enough to not let that turn you on. What? 

If you kept trying to do your fucking brain magic after saying it was hurting you. I’d have tied you up to stop you from doing it. I’m not- 

Why are we talking about this? 

Because I wouldn’t hurt you. I love you, and I rather fucking ship myself back to Russia- 

You sigh. I told you to stop saying that, Ben. 

He went silent for a second, and his Thing in you rumbles. What. 

Stop saying you love me. 

No. 

Please- 

No. I fucking love you, let me say it- 

Ben, please. 

Stop saying please. I don’t want you begging unless it’s for me to make your pretty fucking eyes roll back in your head- 

I’m not joking- 

Do I sound like I’m damn laughing. I love you-

Benjamin- 

You almost walk into a wall, and have to cut off your own voice in your head to regain your balance. And now you’re certain it’s not worth second guessing, because Ben doesn’t love you. You simply miss him so much your stupid brain is inventing random reasons for him to talk to you. It’s only been two weeks since you saw Ben last, and it’s driving you insane. 

If you weren’t already so preoccupied with trying to get a lead on some V, you might be more worried about that. But right now you need the comfort that’s provided by Ben’s voice rolling through you as he tells you he loves you, and the easy joy that talking to his phantom brings. The way it makes his Thing so powerful and devout to whatever feeds it. 

You still can’t figure out what feeds it, but it’s only growing more and more hungry. It’s still holding your head together, though, so you entertain it. You have a whole morning dedicated to finding V, and Ben’s phantom and Thing can follow you wherever so you don’t break. You have two days left, so you have to play the game and keep your mask on and find the V. If letting Ben haunt you will keep you sane, so be it. There are worse ways to be hungry.

A-Train said Homelander kept some in his room, but you’ve been looking over almost every nook and cranny and shadow and hollow, and there’s nothing. Homelander didn’t throw it away, he wouldn’t, but you don’t even have an educated guess as to where he’d move it to. It doesn’t help that you have to at least try to sneak around Sage’s notice, or that Ben’s voice keeps muttering everywhere about things that don’t matter. It’s keeping you sane—his grumbles and feel all around you, pushing your cracks back together—but it’s a little distracting. You can’t care about breakfast or guns or the movie Palm Springs—you don’t actually remember watching that one with him, you weren’t sure he’d like it—because you have to rummage through cabinets and empty rooms of the dead members of the Seven.

Ben’s voice keeps telling you he loves you. You give up on trying to shut him up, because you don’t have the time. He’s here to keep you steady, and it’s working fairly well. 

I still can’t fucking believe they were keep my shield in goddamn Ohio. 

Uh huh, you nod mindlessly into the air, pressing the wall in Firecracker’s old room like you might find a secret door. Annie probably would’ve mentioned a secret door, she lived here for almost three years after all, but you can’t afford to leave any stone unturned. 

I mean, why even go to trouble of putting it back together if you’re going to put it in taint-fuck Ohio-

Benjamin. Why are we talking about Ohio.

Because if Vought was keeping V in Ohio with my shield, I’ll blow their stupid fucking tower up- 

Your shield was fine, you big baby. And It doesn’t matter where Vought was keeping V, what matters is where Sage is keeping it. Now.

Ben’s grunt sounds from somewhere behind you. You’re right. 

What was that? 

You’re fucking right. You’re always fucking right, so don’t damn gloat- 

I am not always right. 

Yes, you are. You’re going to find the V and come home, because you fucking promised and you’re always right about this shit. 

What shit? 

How people think. Their dumb fucking pussy emotions and thoughts. 

Well, I do try. 

You’ve probably already fucking found the V. Homelander probably didn’t even hide it, because he’s a smug pussy who thinks everyone fucking loves him. 

You almost drop the vase you’d been turning over in your hand, mouth falling slightly open. Holy shit, Ben. You’re a genius. 

Goddamn right I am. His voice pauses in your head, and you can almost see the knit of his brow. But why the fuck do you think that. 

Because Homelander’s a hubristic piece of shit. He won’t think anyone would ever cross or betray him, and if they did he doesn’t think they’d get away with it. 

So? 

You smile, fingers tapping against the vases slightly dusting glass. I know where the V is. 

It takes an effort not to sprint back to Homelander’s apartment. To look nonchalant and bored as you open the door, to call out to see if he’s there, and walk up the stairs carefully just in case. 

You duck under the bed, and there’s a black box. A small, sleek black box without a lock, weighting barely over five pounds when you pull it out. 

There’s only one vial. One small vial of green liquid, with a label on it that reads Project Anomaly, Trial 6. 

It’s your V. Ben’s V. 

It’ll have to do. 

There’s only one last move. One last careful move. One more thing before you can go home, and one more day to do it. 

You make dinner for Homelander. You’re not sure what he likes, but he’s made you eat a lot of corn dogs. You don’t know how to make corn dogs, so you heat up some hotdogs and hope it’ll be enough. 

It needs to be enough. 

When he arrives, your smile is tooth-rotting. You’re small and quiet and weak, and you’re all for him. You’re cold and exhausted and everything in you is taut, but you’re so close.

“Hi, babe!” You’re going to vomit. You can’t, but later you’ll need to cut off your tongue so you can never even risk sounding like that again. “I made you some food.” 

“Food.” Homelander stops in front of you, and you don’t flinch. “What’s the occasion that finally made you stop fucking moping?” 

“It’s an offering,” you give him a simper. It hurts your face. “I want to apologize, and talk about us.” 

Us. You want to scream but you turn it into a sweeter smile, and Homelander’s face twists into a wide, smug smirk.

“Us?” 

He says the word like it’s real. Like it’s applicable to you and him, and you’re not barely alive anymore. So close. 

“Our future.” You pat the seat next to you. “Eat first, you’ve been running around all day.” 

Homelander lowers into the seat, and frowns at the sad, limp hotdog in front of him. “What the fuck is this.” 

“We don’t have a lot of raw ingredients, I did my best with what I had, I’m sorry-“ 

“I am not eating this limp dick excuse for food.” He pokes the hotdog, and turns to fully face you. “Talk.” 

“I, um,” you take Homelander’s hand gingerly, waiting for him to yank it back. He doesn’t. “Sage suggested that I should propose to you, and I just wanted to talk to you about it. Make sure that’s what you want-” 

“Sage suggested.” He scowls at you. “So you don’t want to marry me? What am I doing wrong?!” You stare at him, frozen in place as you try to hold your blood in your body, and Homelander’s voice grows louder. “Fucking answer me!” 

“Nothing!” Your voice is nervous because you love him and want him to be happy. Not because you keep seeing red on your hands and his face and splattered across walls. You’re holding one hand up to his face and it’s to comfort him, and you’re not forcing your fingers to stay steady. He’s so angry, and cold, and everything in him is like a tornado. Moving and changing too fast, making you sick. “I just want to make sure marriage is something you want too! I love you, that’s enough-“

Homelander’s moving, and before you can even realize what’s happening his mouth is on yours. His hold on you is like a chain, uncaring and harsh and wearing you down, wrapping around your throat until all you can do is think no. No no no no no- 

“I knew you’d see it my way.” His words are hissed against your lips, and something finally breaks deep in you. Far, far down in an artery you feel it snap, and if this doesn’t work, you might not survive. 

“Of course,” you have to smile. The world is ending but you have to smile. “Thank you for waiting, babe.” 

Homelander stands up, almost pushing you away, and claps his hands. “This is going to be a fucking wedding. They won’t be saying all those lies about us when they see it, it’ll be befitting of the gods we are.” He grins to himself. “And everyone loves romance. Fucking sheeple will eat this up. I’m going to get you a ring-“ 

“Can you get it from Paris?” You give him a pout. “I’ve always wanted a ring from Paris.” 

“Of course, honey. Only the best for the bride of the century.” Homelander nods, and kisses you again. You’re drowning, falling, dying, breaking- “I’ll go now, Sage won’t bitch about it when she sees how much people love us.” 

You pretend to start and protest, but he’s already gone. And you’re alone. You’re breaking—the cracks are starting to split open and the world is going blurry—but you have to go. You’re on a time limit, and you have to fucking go.

You’re so close. You can’t fail now. 

Homelander’s fast. Paris is far, but Homelander’s fast. You probably have an hour, likely less if he gets word. You’ve already wasted time on the floor, clinging onto the parts of you that are somewhat intact to get your through this. Trying to focus on Ben’s Thing in your chest—bloody and loud—to keep your feet moving. 

And you run. Nobody guards Homelander’s room, people are barely even on 99 lately, so you run. Faster than you’ve ever run in your life, one hand over the original V in your pocket to keep it from falling out. Out the door, down the stairs, not stopping to check if anyone sees you. The fire is scratching under your skin, and you’re going to pass out from the cold you won’t let leave you, but you go. 

Down, down, down. 82. 74. 66. 53. 

The alarms go off. The stairwell lights up red, the blare of a siren echoing off the gray walls, and you keep running.

50. 47. 42. 

A door opens somewhere, the creak and scrape on the concrete barely audible. 

38. 

A man in all black is aiming a gun at you. He has brown eyes, and his hands are shaking. 

His eyes burn out first, and you keep running.

35.  

Three more. One of them has a tattoo of a flower visible on her wrist. It curls and twists with the burns on her hands.

31. 27. 23. 

More bodies. The stairs are littered with bodies, and everything is painted in blood, and the water from the sprinklers is going up into steam. You can’t see your next steps, or the floor numbers, but you keep going. 

Down, down, down. 

A green EXIT sign is glowing through the smoke and mist. You slam into it, and you might hear something crack. 

Go. 

People are screaming, most of them parting around you. A few more bodies drop, a few more flashes of curly hair curling up in smoke and a scar on a cheek growing larger. One man’s shout of stop sounds like your father. 

Fucking go. 

You can see the exit. The doors of Vought Tower are made of glass, and it’s sunny outside. Everything is sparkling, like it just rained. 

GO. 

Someone calls your name. Your real name, your full name that’s carved on a gravestone in Boston. But the voice is wrong. There’s only one voice that’s right, that’s safe, and it’s the deep one that’s roaring for you in your chest. You don’t stop. 

That’s your name again. A woman is calling your name. She’s small, with dark skin and the coldest eyes you’ve ever seen.

She’s not safe. Everything in your brain is gone—replaced with a smooth song that feels familiar and an instinct to go home—but this woman is not safe. 

She’s talking to you, saying words you should understand, but you have to go. She’s telling you that you’re interesting, but she’s still won. That you shouldn’t use that vial in your pocket, because it might kill you. That you’ll never find the right kind, and that someone that makes everything in you scream is coming to take you away. That you’re out of the way, you failed to control yourself and now this shrewd woman has won. 

You can see the sun. It’s warm. It feels safe. The grass is green, and it’s reaching up to the sun. 

And you let go. You stop trying to keep yourself steady and strong, and you let all the exhaustion and loneliness and horror out into the air. Someone screams, and it might be you.

Glass shatters, and something stings your skin. There’s blood on your hands, and you don’t only belong to you anymore. 

But you can feel the sun.

———————

In the week after the Believe Expo, Ben started to lose his mind. 

He’d been in a meeting when it had started. Sat silently a few tables down from where MM, Mallory, and Butcher were interrogating A-Train. Ben had been kicked out of the actual process, because apparently nobody fucking appreciated how all his questions were about Her, and if she was okay. What did her smile look like, if she was even smiling. Was she having nightmares, and was Homelander keeping her locked up. Why was A-Train such a fucking weak pussy who didn’t help her. 

So he’d glared at them from across the room, trying to both listen to A-Train list off stupid fucking passwords and building locations and not break the glass in his hand. It would shatter everywhere, and Ben would probably have to fucking clean it up. 

That’s not glass, Pretty Boy. It’s plastic. 

Feels like fucking glass. 

Well, it’s plastic. You really think the CIA would give us real glass? When most of us can’t seem to stop blowing shit up and Hughie startles at the smallest sound?

Ben had smiled into the air, ducking his head so that nobody would see him looking like a fucking idiot. Plastic can still goddamn break, Sunshine. 

Her voice hummed somewhere in his chest, right next to the Thing. Well, it’s easier to clean. 

He’d snorted, and looked up as the doors from the hall swung open. Hughie and the French Prick had burst into the room, both shouting incoherently and tripping over each other. 

“The bloody hell is wrong with you two, ain’t you able to see we’re busy?!“ 

Kimiko had stepped over Hughie and the French Prick as they untangled themselves, ignoring Butcher as she marched over to Ben. 

He’d frowned up at her. “What.” 

She’d glared at him, signing something she fucking knew he didn’t understand, and dropped her phone in front of him. 

It was Her. A picture of Her, at the Believe Expo, frozen on the stage. Staring off into the distance, stage lights washing out her perfect features, her mouth open and her eyes wide. The headline above the picture read Anomaly’s Speech Interrupted by Terrorist Attack from the CIA. 

“The fuck is this.” 

Kimiko signed at Ben aggressively, and he didn’t fucking understand- 

“She says that it is all over the news.” The French Prick had stumbled up behind Kimiko, translating with a frown. “That it is bigger than the court trial. People are, to quote roughly, ‘losing their fucking minds’.” 

“Frenchie, what the hell are you talking about.” MM had called, still seated across from A-Train. “What’s bigger than the court trial?” 

The French Prick had said Her name, still watching Kimiko. “She is everywhere. The article Kimiko is showing Soldier Boy is from VNN, and there are many more about her and Homelander and the Believe Expo and-“ The French Prick had sighed. “Mon Coeur, I am not saying that to them.” 

Kimiko had turned to him, gesturing again with another point to Ben. 

“Because it will not be helpful.” The French Prick had looked at Ben, then said in a lower voice that Ben had still fucking heard, “this is already not very good-“ 

“If you don’t fucking tell me,” Ben had growled. “I’ll rip off your hands and make you eat them.” 

Kimiko had stepped between the French Prick and Ben, still gesturing at the former with only a brief pause to flip the latter off. 

The French Prick had let out another fucking sigh, and said the words slowly. “There are many… outlandish rumors. About her,” The French Prick had nodded at the phone, still in front of Ben. “And the nature of her life.” 

“Frenchie,” Butcher had drawled from across the room. “If you don’t start talkin without being a cryptic cunt-“ 

“Many are calling her a messiah. Some think she is an insider, a spy for either the CIA or Vought. There are investigations into her past, her paternity, and relationships with Homelander and…” The French Prick had winced as he spoke. “Monsieur Butcher.”

Ben had needed to take a walk. His fist had curled against the table, blood had pounded in his ears, and Her voice in his head had hummed do not kill Butcher. It will be messy and just a huge inconvenience for everyone, so Ben had stood up—the bench screeching as it flew out from under him—and stomped out of the dining hall.

Butcher had, surprisingly, not been a total fucking dickless piece of shit about it. Nobody had even mentioned it as more and more rumors and speculations poured in, each more fucking insane than the last. Ben started to long for Her to haunt him again, because right now he was being suffocated with this version of her that wasn’t fucking Her. It wasn’t even a goddamn person, it was a product, an idea for the fucking masses to project onto. She wasn’t a liar, or a honeypot, or a silly bimbo just caught up in a whirlwind romance that had gotten away from her. She was a brilliant, beautiful, fucking perfect woman. She wasn’t brainwashed—Ben pitied the fucking idiot who would try to, She’d give them a run for their money—or anyone’s fucking bastard child, and she had a PhD. In Anthropology, because she cared so fucking much about people and making the world good. Because She was good. She was the only person in the whole fucking world who was good. She wasn’t Homelander’s or Butcher’s or CIA’s, she was Ben’s. She was the most painfully strong-willed woman he’d ever met, and she wanted Ben.

And he had to just fucking watch, like an undeserving fucking pussy, as people kept talking about Her like they knew her. They didn’t know her. Ben knew her. He knew that this was part of Her stupid plan, and that she’d be home soon—She’d fucking promised—but that no matter what he’d wait until everyone else was dead and the building around him was in ruins for Her to return to him. He knew that, if this wasn’t tearing the country apart and inciting riots in the streets, She’d find it all hilarious. 

That’s the third person this week to accuse me of getting a BBL. She hummed in Ben’s ear as he listened to Hughie ramble on about the newest developments. Like I could afford an ass this good on a waitress’ salary.

He coughed to cover his snort, and Mallory shot him a glare.

“Is there anything you would like to say, Soldier Boy?” 

Ben rolled his eyes. “Shut the fuck up.” 

“I’m your reporting officer-“ 

“You’re still not fucking paying me,” Ben sneered. “I’m not here for you, or your shit fucking ideas. Hughie, keep talking.” 

Hughie nodded nervously, and continued. It was a lot of pointless shit about how they had to keep to their stories, what allegations were worth addressing and what was just nutjobs talking out of their asses. Ben wasn’t really fucking listening, just staring at another photo of Her, in that stupid fucking costume, wearing a smile that wasn’t Hers. 

He missed Her smile. Ben missed every fucking thing about Her, but her smile was a goddamn work of art. When it was real it was wide and toothy and made everything around it brighter. Her eyes would scrunch with it, and it always looked like she was keeping a secret. Something just for Her, about how beautiful the world was and how she got to see it. When She gave Ben that smile, he got to be in on the secret. He got to see every single fucking perfect part of Her—understand a little more about why She loved this shit life so much—and if she let him he’d keep making Her smile until everything was almost as beautiful as She was.

He kept his promise. It had clearly been important to Her—for reasons Ben didn’t understand—that Ben was better to the Kid. She’d cashed in a fucking favor for it, and Ben knew she wouldn’t forget that it was Her last one. She’d wasted them on making him watch TV and read goddamn books and getting her some chocolate from the dining hall in the middle of the night—he’d have fucking done it without the favor, because She’d sprawled herself across his chest and held his face between her hands with a pretty pout on her lips—but She’d never used that last one.

But She wanted Ben to be nicer to the Kid. So he marched into the dining hall for dinner and sat at the almost empty table. 

The Kid stared at him over a book, and Ben grunted. He didn’t have a goddamn clue how to do this. 

“The fuckin hell are you doin here?” Butcher appeared through the kitchen doors, two plates in hand. He set one down in front of the Kid, dropping down across from Ben with a scowl. “You ain’t been to one of these since-“ 

“Shut the fuck up.” Ben muttered. He didn’t need another fucking reminder She was gone. “I live here just as much as you do, you fucking pussy. I can eat wherever I damn well please.” 

Butcher narrowed his eyes at Ben. “Then where’s your food.” 

“I only just fucking sat down-“ 

“You can have mine.” Ben felt his jaw clench as the Kid pushed his plate across the table. “I’m not that hungry.” 

“Ryan, you eat your own fuckin dinner and let me-“ 

“Kimiko gave me some cheese earlier.” The Kid mumbled. “I was showing her my homework and she was eating cheese. I asked for some-“ 

“Ryan-“ 

“I didn’t mean to eat all of it, I was just hungry-“ 

“Ryan-“ 

“And Mom said sharing was good!” Ryan looked at Butcher with wide eyes, and the pussies face fell into a glower. “She said sharing was important!” 

Butcher’s glare turned to Ben, and Ben pulled the plate closer to his body. He wasn’t that fucking hungry either, but Her voice kept ringing in his head. 

Be kind to Ryan. For me. 

“Uh,” Ben looked at the Kid, who was watching him with an openly nervous expression. “Thanks.” 

Was that so hard, Pretty Boy? You were almost civilized. 

Shut the fuck up. 

Her laugh echoed around Ben’s head, and he gave the Kid a small nod. “What are you reading.”

“Of Mice and Men,” The Kid answered, and his voice was so fucking quiet. “Aunt Grace says it’s important for my education-“

“That the one about the huge idiot who gets shot in the head, yeah?” Ben frowned, because he’d read that book. Over 80 years ago, but he’d read it. “It’s-“

“Lennie gets shot?!” The Kid’s face had fallen, and Ben blinked. 

“Uh-“ 

“Bloody hell.” Butcher sighed, pulling the book away from the Kid with a glare at Ben. “Tell him about your homework Ryan. I’m gonna go get you another fuckin book.” 

There was silence for a second after the door closed behind Butcher. 

“You don’t have to listen to me talk about my homework,” the Kid mumbled. “It’s not that interesting.” 

Be kind to Ryan. “I don’t fucking care. Talk.” 

The Kid started slow. He’d been right, it wasn’t that interesting. It was all books and history and science and fucking math. Ben goddamn knew what ecosystems were, and he didn’t give a fuck about calculating percentages, but the Kid seemed to. He got all damn cheerful naming the fifty states, and Ben didn’t have the fucking heart to shut him up. She’d asked him to be kind, and this seemed like the type of shit She’d love. She wouldn’t care that it was all for fucking children, She’d ask the Kid about his opinion on the symbolism in their stupid fucking books and his opinion on the Lousiana purchase.

So he let the Kid talk, all the way until the dining hall finally started to fill with the rest of the team. Annie and Hughie first, followed by Kimiko and the French Prick, all of whom gave Ben odd looks but didn’t interrupt the Kid’s ranting. MM and Butcher arrived—A-Train was still mostly keeping to himself, Ben hadn’t even seen him outside of meetings—and the Kid was cut off mid-sentence as Butcher dropped another book on the table.

Ben stood up. He’d done what he had to, and been nice to the Kid. He could leave.

“Are you not eating with us?” The Kid was frowning at him. “I thought you were going to eat with us.”

Ben wasn’t sure what to do. “I’m not-“ 

“Sit your ass down, Soldier Boy.” MM grunted, not looking up from his plate. “Eat your fucking dinner.” 

The Kid was still fucking watching him with a sad expression that turned into a smile when Ben slowly returned to his seat. 

Ben wasn’t sure how he allowed it to happen, but he was back in the dining hall the next night as well. He kept thinking about how fucking happy She’d be he was talking to the Kid, and how the Kid didn’t seem to care that Ben had tried to murder him at one point. He just seemed happy Ben was there, and his face lit up when Ben sat across the table again. So Ben was there the next night, and the night after that, and suddenly he was fucking eating dinner with everyone. 

The Thing was still fucking trying to tell him something. He still didn’t fucking understand. It kept going on rampages around Ben’s body, trying to force him to get it. To just know what it wanted him to, what the Thing had decided was so fucking important for him to know. And it was still trying to tell Her. She wasn’t here, Ben had to keep reminding the Thing She wasn’t here, but it didn’t give a shit. It was rioting inside of Ben like it did when She was sad and he needed to help. To hold Her until her heartbeat was steady, or talk to Her until her perfect fucking brain was Her’s again. When it was trying to tell Ben to touch Her, that he should touch Her and all the pain and fear written across her pretty features would vanish, because Ben would make Her feel good. He’d touch Her and kiss her and bite her and fuck her until she was happy. He’d do fucking anything to make Her happy. 

And the Thing roared. 

There were points where the Thing would explode inside him, and Her voice would become clear. Like she was right at his side, grinning up at him as she spoke. Telling him about things only She would think of. The real Her, not the echo of her in his head. The Thing would squeeze in Ben’s chest in the middle of the night, and Her voice would start talking all too fast about how she couldn’t come home. She was weak and couldn’t come home. Ben told Her to shut up, because she would. Not coming home wasn’t a goddamn option. 

And She still wasn’t wearing blue. She’d promised, fucking sworn, that she’d wear blue if Ben needed to come get her. But she wasn’t, so Ben just waited. Mallory turned on the Dining Hall TV for some sort of stupid Vought show, and She looked so fucking exhausted and small—shrinking into herself in a way that Ben knew meant she was afraid—next to Homelander. But Ben had to just listen to Sage give a speech about their fucking relationship, and not go help Her. He hated this, but he fucking couldn’t go until She gave the signal. The Thing was raging inside of him, and Her voice was following him—teasing him with a lightness in her voice—but Ben had to just watch. Talk to Her in his head about anything, because that’s all he could have right now.

Then Homelander kissed Her cheek, and the table had cracked under Ben’s grip. Everyone was fucking looking at him, and She looked so fucking afraid. Homelander had touched Her. That weak, pathetic fucking pussy wasn’t supposed to touch Her. Ben should’ve been there to fucking kill him for even looking at Her- 

Ben was moving before he was even aware of it. Stalking down the halls, back to the apartment, because he was going to get Her. The Thing was going fucking feral, and Her voice kept trying to stop him, but nothing could stop him. Nothing was going to stop Ben from fucking killing Homelander, right fucking now. He had his shield and himself, and V or no V, he’d take the shot and he wouldn’t fucking miss. He wasn’t going to keep fucking leaving Her- 

Not leaving. 

She kept talking to him, her voice desperate in Ben’s head. He had go goddamn save her, bring her home- 

Her voice wouldn’t shut the fuck up. She wanted to come home. She wanted him more. She’d see Ben soon, but he had to wait.

He had to keep fucking waiting. He had to put down his shield, put his shirt back on, push his suit back into the dresser and just miss Her. Wait for her and miss her.

After a while, someone knocked on the door. Ben scowled—if it was Hughie or Annie here to talk about fucking feelings, he’d punch their teeth out—and went to answer the door. 

It wasn’t Annie or Hughie to talk about feelings. It wasn’t Mallory or MM or Butcher to lecture him either, or even the French Prick to do whatever the hell the French Prick did. 

It was the Kid, looking up at Ben with an anxious face. 

“You, um, you weren’t in the dining hall for dinner. I wanted to see if you were okay.” 

Ben blinked at him. He didn’t fucking love how he seemed unable to hold a normal conversation with the Kid. It was just a small fucking human. He could act like a grown ass man.

“I’m eating alone. Go back before Butcher starts fucking looking for you.” 

Ben went to slam the door, but the Kid stopped him. Shot out a hand and stopped Ben. “Please, wait-“ 

“How fucking strong are you?” 

The Kid stared at him. “I, um, I don’t know. My dad said I was really strong-“ 

“Anyone ever tested it?” 

“Tested what?” 

Ben sighed. “Your strength. Given you some weights, put you under a car-“ 

“A car?” The Kid shook his head frantically. “I don’t, please don’t put me under a car-“ 

“Calm the fuck down, I’m not going to do it right damn now.” Ben rolled his eyes. “I’ll tell Butcher tomorrow.” 

“Tell Butcher what-“ 

The Kid’s words were still panicked, and Ben sighed, running a hand over his face. “We need to figure out how strong you are. Just so you don’t fucking break something.” 

“I broke a cup,” the Kid mumbled, staring at the floor. “When I got here. And I’ve broken some people-“ 

“That’s not your fault,” Ben snapped, Her sad face flashing with smoke in his brain. “If nobody’s taught you how to control it, you shouldn’t be fucking expected to.” 

The Kid nodded slowly, still staring at Ben. “Will you help me?” 

“I don’t-” Ben’s fists curled at his side, and he cut himself off as he saw at the Kid’s wide, hopeful eyes watching him. Watching Ben like he was better than he was, like he’d somehow earned the Kid’s trust. Ben cursed himself, and sighed. “Fine.” 

“Will you come to dinner?” 

“No.” Ben wasn’t going to relent on that. He didn’t need everyone’s fucking sad, pitying looks, not right now. Not when the Thing was still rolling around inside him, not when he could still see Her face—full of frightened shock—and couldn’t do anything about it.

“Can I eat here?” 

Ben blinked. “What.” 

“May I please eat here? If, um, if it’s okay with you I can go ask Butcher-“ 

“Why.” 

The Kid shrugged, eyes dropping to the floor. “I want to ask you some questions, please.” 

Ben frowned. “About what.” 

The Kid said Her name, and the Thing fucking moaned in pain. “I just, I want to know about her. Nobody will talk about her, and Kimiko said you were-“ 

“You can fucking talk to Kimiko?” 

“I’m trying to learn,” the Kid shrugged, glancing up quickly. “It’s important to understand and respect others, even if they’re different-“ 

“Fine.” 

The Kid looked fully back up. “Fine?”

“You can eat here. Don’t bother getting Butcher, he’ll be a fucking ass about it. If he whines like a dickless pussy, I’ll deal with it.” Ben stood aside in one sharp step, and the Kid walked in the apartment slowly, looking around with wide eyes. 

“Your place is nicer than Butcher’s.” 

“Everyone decorated their own,” Ben grunted, moving to the kitchen. “And Butcher’s fucking boring. No color in that asshole’s place.” 

“Who decorated yours?” 

Ben sighed, said Her name, and ignored the stab through his heart. “Sit the fuck down. We’re eating bagels.” 

The Kid waited silently as Ben pulled out plates and prepped the food. When he stalked back over to the table—The Kid watching him and sitting with good fucking posture—Ben slammed the bagels down and dropped in his seat. The Kid was in Her seat.

He had to be okay with that. She’d kick Ben’s ass if he moved the Kid just because he didn’t think anyone else should ever even try to take her place in any fucking way. 

The Kid took his first bite, and stared down at the bagel as he swallowed. “Is this-“ 

“Strawberry cream cheese,” Ben muttered, shoving half of his own in his mouth. “Better than fucking crack.” 

“Oh.” The Kid nodded, and took another small bite. 

Ben sighed. “She liked it.” 

Don’t lie to the child, Benjamin. You love that shit twice as much as I do. 

“She showed it to me,” Ben amended himself, face dropping into a scowl. “And I love it as well.” 

The Kid nodded, but didn’t say anything else. Taking another bite, waiting for Ben to speak.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” Ben leaned back in his chair, glaring at the Kid. “Three questions. That’s all you fucking get. I don’t have to answer a goddamn one if I don’t want to, and you don’t get them back. So choose fucking wisely.”

The Kid nodded, and looked back down at his plate. Ben shoved the rest of his bagel in his mouth, watching the Kid carefully as he chewed. 

“What’s her favorite color?” 

“All of them,” Ben swallowed, his words becoming clearer. “She liked every fucking color. She said she didn’t want any of them to feel bad about being ugly, so she wouldn’t pick a favorite. All colors had something to contribute.” 

“Even orange?” 

Ben snorted. “Halloween and the damn Grand Canyon.” 

The Kid took another bite, looking up at Ben. “How did you meet her?” 

“She fucking kidnapped me.” Ben grumbled, and the Kid’s mouth fell open. Ben rolled his eyes. “Not like that. She woke me up to kill Homelander, and we lived in a safe house together. We grew,” Ben frowned, searching for the right word that explained how She was his whole life. How he’d decided that, in the end, he would fucking die and kill and bleed for Her. How She made him happy and was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. How She was perfect, and adored Ben, and they’d always fucking burn together. “Close. Once we stopped trying to damn kill each other, we grew close.”

“Okay.” The Kid looked fucking sad, his mouth hanging slightly open.

“Spit it out,” Ben muttered. “Whatever the hell you want to say-“ 

“I’m sorry.“ The Kid’s voice was almost a whine, and he sounded desperate. Talking too fucking fast. “I, um, I know she’s not here because of me, and what my dad did to her, and Butcher says it’s not my fault but-“ 

“Shut up,” Ben’s words were rough, but he was getting worried the Kid was going to make himself pass out. “Butcher’s, for fucking once, right. You’re not your shit-fuck father, buddy.” That felt like something She’d say. “And she wanted to help you. She doesn’t hate you.”

“Why?” The Kid gave Ben a pathetic, sad look. “Why did she help me? After what my dad, what Homelander did-“ 

“Because that’s not the type of person she is.” Ben snapped, and his voice was harsher than he’d meant it to be, but the Thing was bellowing inside him. “She doesn’t hold things against people, even when she fucking should. She wants to help people, and so she fucking does.” Ben sighed. “She thinks the world is good. She’s mean and rude and has a smart fucking mouth, but she still thinks this shit is worth something. And she’s a fucking genius, so she’s probably right. She probably didn’t even damn think to blame you, so don’t fucking do it for her. She doesn’t like people doing shit for her.”

“She doesn’t?” 

“No.” Ben watched the Kid’s soft, eager expression. “She works her fucking ass off for everything, and earns every damn thing she gets. Never even asks for shit in return.” Ben scowled into the air. “She deserves a fuck ton more than people are giving her.” She deserved fucking everything. “Does everyone’s goddamn jobs and all she gets is an apartment and a limited company credit card in fucking Mallory’s name. If the CIA weren’t full of such fucking asshole pussies, they’d just give her goddamn control of everything and we’d all be home in an afternoon.”

“She sounds really cool.” The Kid mumbled, and Ben nodded. 

“She is fucking cool.” He grunted. “She’s fucking perfect.” 

The Kid looked up at Ben with big eyes. “Yeah, it, um, it makes sense why you love her.”

Ben’s whole world stopped. 

He did. 

He loved Her. 

With every single fucking part of him, Ben loved Her. That was what the Thing was. Love. For Her. That’s what it had been trying to tell him. He loved Her. 

She was perfect. She was the whole world and everything around it and between it, and Ben loved Her. She never fucking wavered, and was so fucking smart and beautiful and good, and Ben loved Her. She trusted Ben, she wanted him, and he fucking loved Her.

This was the stupid shit people wrote all those songs that She loved about. Where they talked about it like it was evasive and the most amazing pain you’d ever fucking feel, and how their person was the best person and nobody fucking got it like they did. This pain was fucking amazing, and Ben never wanted to stop feeling it. It made his heart—that’s what the fucking Thing was, and Ben was a goddamn idiot—ache because she wasn’t here, but it also meant he got to want Her. The pain meant She was in sight, and Ben just had to fucking wait. He’d never stop waiting. If the next time he saw Her was in a thousand fucking years, Ben would pick her up into his arms all the same and kiss her until she moaned into his mouth and he could breathe again. Because his person was the best fucking person. Nobody did fucking get it like Ben did. She was better than every other goddamn pussy fucker on the planet, and she was a goddamn force of nature. She made oceans part and lightning strike and the sun followed Her because it wanted to share Her warmth. She was so fucking perfect, so powerful, that she’d managed to make Ben’s heart beat in a way it hadn’t before. He’d been alive for over a goddamn century, and he’d never had everything be about his heart, and how it needed to be in time with Hers. 

This was all the goddamn movies she’d made him watch, where two people would look into each other’s eyes and the music would swell and everything would fade to black as they kissed. This wouldn’t fade to black. This would keep going, and Ben would eat Her pretty face and suck her lips until they were swollen. He’d put wets kisses along her jaw and bite on her neck, and she’d fucking moan and the lights would stay up as Ben fucked her. Really, properly fucked Her like she deserved, made her unravelled and wrecked under him. Everyone would fucking see, because the whole fucking world needed to see Her how Ben saw her. And he’d keep going and going until she looked at him like he was everything, and Ben would keep fucking loving Her until someone figured out a way to kill him. And even then he’d crawl back to Her. They’d have to pull his fucking heart out of his chest and launch it into fucking space where he couldn’t follow it. He’d probably follow it anyways, because space didn’t have fucking shit on Ben, on his love for Her. His love was bigger, more important, and if space tried to take his heart Ben would just have to figure out how to fucking kill it and get Her back.

This was probably like poems and books, as well. She’d say it was. She’d say that love is the most poetic thing in the world, and that love in some form runs through every great story in history, even the tragic and heartbreaking ones. She’d make this shit poetic. She’d hold Ben’s face between her hands and say a bunch of things he didn’t understand, using allegories and metaphors and smiling at him, and it wouldn’t fucking matter what Ben understood. She would be there, telling Ben she loved him and smiling and saying it a million different ways because that’s who she was. Her brain moved too fucking fast, and She’d only be able to tell Ben she loved him in a way that was beautiful. 

Ben didn’t need to be fucking beautiful. This was pretty fucking simple, he loved Her. That was all that needed to be fucking said, there was no other goddamn way to put it. Ben loved Her, like nobody had ever loved anything in goddamn history. Ben loved Her, and whenever he thought the words his heart would feel a little easier in his chest.

Once She was home Ben would get his hands dirty for her and do whatever she told him and make Her feel fucking good. That’s what he was here for now, to make Her feel good, to touch her and praise her and worship her until she understood that she was perfect. She’d fall apart because of Ben, and she’d fucking smile at him after, and that would be all he needed to keep living. She could have all his food, and take all his sleep and oxygen and goddamn peace, but Ben would fucking thrive. Because She’d be there and he could keep loving her.

But now, he had to get through the rest of dinner and show the Kid out while acting like everything was normal. He had to get through the rest of his fucking life acting like everything was fucking normal. Like he wasn’t in love, in stupid fucking love, with Her. 

He’d tell Her. She had to fucking know. Ben would hold it within himself until She was home and happy, then he’d tell her. 

He didn’t have a fucking clue how. He’d never done this shit before, where it really fucking mattered that he did it right. He could get her shit. Something she’d like, that proved that Ben listened. He always fucking listened to Her.

She liked those stupid off-brand Uought sunglasses. She’d wear them all the damn time, and they’d broken when he lost Her. He wouldn’t get Her blue one’s this time. She shouldn’t wear blue, unless it was to tell Ben to come fucking get Her. He didn’t want to get Her Soldier Boy sunglasses, Vought didn’t deserve Ben’s money—technically the CIA’s money, but who gave a fuck—or his likeness. 

Ben got Her green ones. Simple fucking green ones with the same aviator frames, that he could give to Her and say he loved her and she’d smile at him. 

He kept eating with the team. The Kid kept asking Ben questions, a lot about history—like he was supposed have a fucking clue just because he’d been alive for some of it—and a lot about Her.

“I wasn’t alive in the fucking 1800s,” Ben muttered as the Kid showed him a worksheet question. “I don’t have a goddamn idea what that painting means.” 

“The book said it was about Manifest Destiny,” the Kid frowned. “But I can’t find a definition, and Butcher and Aunt Grace don’t want me to have a phone.” 

Ben actually agreed with that. The Kid didn’t need to see all the shit people were saying about him, or about how Homelander and Her were in love but maybe She’d been fucking Butcher. Ben wished he could unsee it. Wipe it from his goddamn brain. He was about to say he didn’t have a fucking clue about the Manifest Destiny shit, but She must have told him at some point. This seemed like shit she’d tell him about, and suddenly her voice was reminding him. 

“It’s the nationalistic belief that Americans had the right to expand westward, and should exert the means to do so.” 

The Kid blinked at him. “Really? Are you-“ 

“I’m fucking certain.” Her voice in Ben’s head had been fucking certain, so he was as well. “That’s what it means.” 

“Okay.” The Kid started to write on the paper, and people began to trickle in for dinner. Butcher sat at the Kid’s side—glancing over the worksheet once and giving an approving nod—as Hughie and Annie sat on Ben’s bench. Neither flinched when Ben glanced at them. MM and A-Train arrived, the fast pussy finally seeming to develop some team spirit, and the French Prick and Kimiko were late. Ben hoped they were finally just fucking. If they kept making silent heart eyes at each other without just fucking, he’d shoot them. The French Prick specifically, because Kimiko would just be a waste of a bullet. If Ben couldn’t fuck his woman, everyone else better start appreciating what they goddamn had.

“You still need my phone for that bloody school shit, Ryan?” 

“No,” the Kid didn’t look up from his paper. “Ben helped me. Manifest Destiny means,” he paused, squinting to read his own handwriting. “The nationalistic belief that America should expand to the west.” 

Butcher scowled at Ben. “That so?” 

The Kid hummed, and Ben shrugged. “I’m fucking right, so don’t lose your stick up your own asshole.” 

“You seem real fuckin sure-“ 

“He is right, Butcher,” MM muttered. “That’s the definition. Not sure how he knows-“ 

“All of you seem to be real goddamn convinced I’m a fucking idiot,” Ben snapped. “I’m not a boring pussy, but I know things. I’m not a goddamn asshole without a fucking brain.” 

“I think we just aren’t sure what you would know,” Hughie mumbled, glancing at Ben nervously. “I mean, you haven’t been in school in a while. And I don’t think they taught westward expansion with any, like, nuance in the early 1900s.” 

“They didn’t,” Ben sighed, and said Her name. He needed to say Her name more, it made his heart squeeze but it always sounded fucking right. “She told me. And she’s a fucking nerd,” he tried not to smile. He fucking missed her. “She’s always fucking right about that shit.”

A-Train was looking at Ben weird again. Ben was about to fucking ask what the hell is problem was, why the pussy wouldn’t just talk to him. Ben hadn’t even ever really tried to kill him—as far as he remembered—and everyone else was talking to him. He’d defiantly tried to kill everyone else at least once, so why the fuck A-Train was being so damn strange- 

“Does she like school?” The Kid was asking Ben with those same fucking wide eyes, and he couldn’t not talk about Her if he fucking tried. 

“She says there are massive flaws in the American education system,” Ben shrugged. “But she likes learning, because she’s fucking insane.” 

“What was her favorite subject?” The Kid’s voice was growing eager, and everyone else was silent. “In school?” 

“English. And the fucking social one. Anything about people.”

“Arts and Humanities,” MM offered, frowning at Ben. “If it’s not STEM, it’s Arts and Humanities.”

Ben didn’t have a fucking clue what STEM was, but Arts and Humanities sounded familiar. “Sure. That shit.” 

“I like English as well,” the Kid was smiling, and Ben couldn’t stop his mouth from twitching. “But I also like science. Biology is my favorite-“ 

“Let the old ass fuckin eat, Ryan.” Butcher muttered, standing up. “You want pizza rolls?” 

“Yes, please.” 

Butcher nodded and stalked off, and the Kid turned back to Ben. 

“Does she like biology?” 

Ben sighed. “She likes everything. I think she gives at least a small shit about biology, because she talked about it when she’d work on my shell shock.” 

The Kid needed to stop asking fucking questions about Her, because Ben was learning he was incapable of just lying or telling him to shut the fuck up. His stupid heart would grab his mouth and use any fucking excuse to talk about Her—about how good she was and how she made everything around her good as well—because it wasn’t allowed to say Ben loved Her yet. 

“What’s shell shock?” 

“PTSD.” 

“What?” Annie leaned over Hughie, frowning at Ben. “What are you talking about?” 

“She was doing her fucking brain magic shit on my head.” Ben snapped. “She asked to, and it was fucking working.”

It had been working. Ben would never tell Her, because she’d get that pleased look in her eyes and bounce around the room, taunting Ben until he grabbed Her and kissed all the smug words out of her mouth—actually, he would tell Her, because that sounded fucking amazing—but it had been working. Ben’s nightmares about Russia and pain had faded, and he didn’t hear drums in the constant background anymore. Now it was only Her, following him and making him lose his fucking mind. 

Annie nodded, and dropped it for the rest of dinner. Ben answered a few more of the Kid’s questions, ignored A-Train’s silent, strange looks, and ate his barbecued ribs. When he was done he cleared his plate, dropping it into the sink, and nearly punched Annie when she came up behind him. 

“Soldier Boy?” 

Ben whipped around, fist’s clenched. “Christ on a fucking cross-“ 

“Why didn’t she tell us about the PTSD treatment?” Annie crossed her arms, standing her ground. “We should know-“ 

“Me and you pussies weren’t exactly buddy-buddy,” Ben drawled. “And you don’t need to know shit about what she and I do.” 

“If it affects the team, we do.” 

“Well it fucking doesn’t-“ 

“It was probably hurting her,” Annie pushed on, and Ben’s jaw clenched. “It wasn’t just vanishing. Whatever she was doing to fix you was going into her.” 

“She’d have fucking told me-“

Annie shook her head. “She wouldn’t.” Annie said Her name with a sad expression, and Ben’s heart hurt. “She, well, you know her. She wouldn’t ever tell anyone she was hurting, not until she had to.” 

“She’d fucking tell me.” Ben insisted. She’d never fucking lie to him, and he’d never doing anything that would hurt her. “If it was hurting her, she’d have told me and I’d have fucking stopped her-“

“Just, listen.” Annie sighed. “I know she cares about you. A lot. And if you care about her, you won’t make her keep doing that when she gets back. It’s not her responsibility to fix you, even if she...” Annie looked him up and down. “Cares about you.” 

“I fucking know that,” Ben hissed. “You think I don’t fucking know that? I care about her more than you’re goddamn capable of imagining-“ 

“Then don’t hurt her.” Annie shrugged. “She won’t say it’s hurting her, but her nightmares were getting worse even before the tower. She’s dealing with a lot, do this one thing for her.” 

Her nightmares had been getting worse. And She’d been staring at corners and shadows when she didn’t think Ben was watching. “How the fuck did you know that.” 

“She’s my friend,” Annie frowned. “She told me stuff.” 

“What other stuff did she tell you?” 

“Enough for me to believe that you don’t want to hurt her.” 

“Stop speaking in fucking riddles-“ 

“Soldier Boy,” Annie shook her head. “I’m not trying to fight with you. Not right now, with everything being so fucked. But just, don’t hurt her.” 

Annie left, and Ben couldn’t fucking move. He’d never hurt Her, he fucking loved Her. Everything in him was dedicated to protecting her and loving her, and he’d rather go back to sleep or ship himself to Russia that let her hurt anymore- 

She knew that. Ben was certain She knew that. She didn’t know he loved Her, and he wished her voice would stop trying to fight with him about that, but she knew Ben would never fucking hurt Her. He’d keep her safe, he’d always care for her and make her happy. Everything good was Her, and Ben’s heart kept beating so she could have it when she came home. 

The blood in Ben’s body had turned into Her. This is what people must have meant when they said love would drive you mad. Her voice, growing clearer and clearer in his head, was still telling about strange fucking things Ben hadn’t been thinking about before. Sometimes it would even say that She loved him, and Ben decided that he was getting a little too fucking into this fantasy. Where he could ask Her voice in his head questions and she’d answer like it was Her. Really Her. When he’d finished buying Her sunglasses—She’d be real fucking proud, he’d used Amazon without calling Hughie to make him do it—Her voice had been tired and sour around him, but still so slightly amused. Sounding like Her. 

Do you think he watches tentacle porn? 

Ben had frowned into the empty apartment. What the fuck are you talking about. 

The Deep. Do you think he watches tentacle porn? 

I don’t fucking know. Why the hell would I know that. 

You don’t have to actually know, Pretty Boy. You can guess, or offer another type of porn. My vote is tentacle, but if you think there’s another- 

What’s that one you told me about that I couldn’t fucking understand. With the dogs. 

Beastialty? 

No, smartass. With the costumes- 

Oh. Furries.

Ben had nodded at nothing. Is there an ocean version of furries? 

Maybe. I don’t actually know. 

You don’t have to actually know, Sunshine. You can fucking guess- 

Shut up. 

No. 

Benjamin- 

No. 

Fuck you. 

I will. When you get home I’m going to blow your fucking mind. There’s not a single goddamn thing I won’t do to you, not if you ask real fucking nice- 

Not a thing? Are you going to tentacle fuck me? 

Brat. 

Cunt. And there probably are ocean furries. Rule 34 and all. 

What the hell is rule 34.

Her snort had rumbled in Ben’s chest. Oh, that’s going to be so much fun to show you. 

You can just fucking tell me- 

No. I want to see your face, it’s going to be adorable. 

I am not goddamn adorable- 

Yes, you are. You’re downright cute, Benjamin. Deal with it. 

Ben had sighed. You’re lucky I love you. 

Ben, please. Stop saying that. 

No. I fucking love you, and there’s not a goddamn thing that will make me stop loving you- 

Ben- 

His phone had buzzed with a message from Butcher about another A-Train meeting, and Her voice had vanished into the hum of Ben’s heart. He’d smiled at her sleepy face, still his lockscreen because there was not a fucking chance in hell he’d change it now, and left to go hear A-Train list out another bunch of stupid fucking passcodes.

He kept hearing Her. Her voice was only growing stronger, and Ben must miss her somehow more than he’d thought fucking possible because she was always there. 

Benjamin. 

He’d tensed, standing in the shower after returning to his apartment from dinner, and repeated Her name back to her in his head. 

Would you hate it if I asked you out? 

What. 

If I told you I loved you, and asked you out. And don’t say you love me. You’re not allowed to say you love me. 

Shut the fuck up, I’ll tell you I love you as much as I fucking want- 

Ben. Please just answer my question. 

No. 

Benjamin- 

My answer is no. Why the fuck would I hate it if you asked me out. And if you told me you loved me- 

I don’t know. Gender roles? Guys are supposed to ask girls out. 

We’re not fucking children. Let me finish my damn sentence. If you told me you loved me, there wouldn’t be a single fucking thing you could ask of me that I wouldn’t give you. And it doesn’t matter, because as soon as you’re home and safe I’m going to tell you I love you and fuck you stupid. 

Stop saying that- 

No. I’m going to make you cum all over me a hundred times in every single fucking position I can think of. Then I’ll make some new ones, and figure out which ones are your favorite, so I can keep fucking you forever. 

Ben had almost been able to hear that small sound She always made when she was trying to hide how wet he’d gotten her. I’d like that. 

Good. Because it’s fucking happening. The moment you say the word, you’re fucking mine, Sunshine. And if you want to suck my cock, I won’t stop you. 

What a gentleman. I’m one lucky gal, having such a generous… Her voice had trailed off, and Ben had seen her pretty lips falling into a frown. Heard the chew of her cheek. Boyfriend sounds stupid. 

Boyfriend is stupid. Ben had scowled, because boyfriend was too weak a word to describe what he needed to be to Her. And girlfriend was a fucking pathetic thing to call the most perfect woman to ever exist. And I’m not ever going to call you my girlfriend, because we’re fucking adults. 

That’s true, hundred year old men shouldn’t have girlfriends. That’s pretty embarrassing for you.

Brat.

Cunt. There was a beat of silence. What would you call me?

Doesn’t matter, Ben had shrugged, even though She wasn’t real and couldn’t see it. As long as we’re fucking together, I don’t give a shit what we call each other. 

He’d want to call Her his wife. Suddenly he was goddamn certain that, one day, he’d fucking marry that insane and perfect fucking woman. If She’d let him. As Her voice hummed and faded away again, Ben decided that whatever she’d give him he’d take. He’d ask, at the right times, what she wanted. If it was everything he wanted. But if she didn’t—she might never want exactly what Ben wanted, not with Homelander as a stain on her head—Ben would genuinely be fucking fine. Not Her type of fine, where she just didn’t want to talk about how much everything was hurting Her, but just fine. As long as She was with him, Ben would be fine. 

His dreams were getting fucking horrible again. He’d wake up from nightmares filled with blood, unable to breathe with Her voice in his head. 

Blood. So much blood. I don’t have time to clean all this blood- 

Breathe, Sunshine. He’d glare into the dark, because even if She wasn’t real it was fucking painful to hear her voice so afraid and weak. Just fucking breathe. 

There’s blood, Ben. It’s everywhere, and it’s not mine, and I miss you. I miss you so much- 

Wear blue, and I’ll come fucking get you, right now. 

No, I’m so close. I can’t. 

Then breathe. 

Ben’s own heart had slowed, and his own breathing became even. 

Thank you. Her voice had whispered, right in his ear. He could almost feel Her soft hand, gently tracing his jaw in the dark. I’m sorry. 

Shut the fuck up. Don’t ever thank me, or apologize. 

Please- 

No. I don’t want it. I want you home, because I fucking miss you. Nothing else. 

Okay. Silence, then. I’ll see you soon. 

He’d sighed into the dark, and stared up at the high ceiling. He’d forgotten to turn off the bathroom lamps, and there was light leaking under the door of their empty bedroom. I’ll see you soon.

They were still looking for V. A-Train had given them a list of warehouses and Vought storage spaces, so right now Ben’s job was to comb over them with Butcher, Hughie, and the French Prick for clues. There were hundreds of warehouses and cargo ports and underground bunkers, and Hughie kept finding fucking more. There was one in Sacramento that A-Train had claimed was full of V, but Hughie couldn’t find it on any records. It had seemingly disappeared off the face of the damn planet. There were fifty more like it, a lot of others in fucking places like New Orleans and Austin that held supe gear, and several in Akron and Portland and Chicago that were label miscellaneous. They’d kept Ben’s shield there. In a fucking miscellaneous warehouse. 

“This is getting us fucking nowhere,” he muttered, crumpling another paper in his hand as Her voice turned back to an easy song in his head. “It doesn’t fucking matter where Vought kept them. Sage would fucking hide anything she didn’t destroy.” 

“You got a better fuckin idea, Gov?” Butcher snapped, not looking up from his own papers. “We ain’t got much to go on, we’re doin the best with the shit we’ve got.”

“Our best is fucking dogshit-“ 

“Maybe it’s offsite?” Hughie paused his tapping of the computer. “Vought has, like, a lot of shell companies, right? Maybe Sage moved it there, off of any records.” 

Butcher nodded slowly. “Frenchie-“

The French Prick sighed. “I will go tell MM.”

“What about Homelander,” Ben grunted, frowning at Hughie. “Are you looking where he’d keep it?” 

“We can’t be sure he has any-“ 

“He does.” Ben’s snap was cold. “He might be the one keeping it offsite, where Sage can’t fucking find it.” 

“Lad, he’s ain’t totally fuckin wrong,” Butcher glanced up and Hughie with narrow eyes. “Homelander ain’t tryin to hide it from just the CIA, he’s tryin to hide it from everyone. And Vought’s his fuckin playground. He might be keepin it wherever he damn pleases.”

Hughie sighed. “Maybe, but I can’t check that without the list of shell companies.” 

“Do your fucking braking shit,” Ben scowled. “Isn’t that your whole fucking thing-“ 

“It’s hacking, not braking. And it’s not my whole thing-“ 

Hughie cut himself off as the Kid pushed into the dining hall. 

“Is it pizza night?” He sat next to Butcher, right across from Ben. “I know it’s early, but I’m really hungry-“

“It’s Friday, ain’t it?” Butcher started to pull his papers into his chest, shoving them down to Hughie. “And we can eat early. We’re the cunts in charge of ourselves.”

Ben returned his papers to Hughie as well, because this wasn’t going to do fucking shit. There wouldn’t be V anywhere, Sage was too smart of a bitch to leave it lying around. Ben could eat dinner, and then hang over Hughie’s shoulder until the man proved himself fucking useful.

He ate Her favorite type of pizza. He’d been eating Her favorite type of pizza, because it reminded him of Her. Of her smile and the soft look on Her perfect face when Ben would get it without her asking. She didn’t need to ask. Ben knew everything about Her that he needed to in order to keep her happy. It was how he was able to answer all of the Kid’s questions, and usually that knowledge would make his heart a little slower. Make Ben feel a little more at ease that She be safe and happy with him. That there was at least one way in which he was deserving of Her. But tonight his heart was going a mile a damn minute and he couldn’t fucking figure out why. He felt like something was choking him, like every nerve in his body was burning and he was cold. The pizza was warm, the dining hall was warm, but Ben felt cold. And it only got worse and worse. He felt fucking sick, something felt wrong. The longer the night went on, everyone having joined them to eat and talk about anything but the mission—a recently imposed rule by MM after Butcher had said the words supe jizz might have fuckin V in it and everyone had lost their appetites—the worse Ben felt. He was dying. Everything fucking hurt and he felt like he was going to fucking collapse- 

The whole room lit up red, and deafening alarms started to sound through the building. Ben and Butcher were up first, MM and Annie close behind them as they stormed to the door. 

“What’s going on-“ 

“Stay right fuckin there, Ryan.” Butcher roared, and the Kid froze in his steps. “Hughie, don’t let him out of your sight. Everyone else-“ 

“We don’t know what’s going on, Butcher.” Annie’s words were loud, but unsure. Ben could even fucking hear her heart racing over the sirens. “It might just be a fire drill-“ 

“We ain’t supposed to be hooked up to the drills,” Butcher snapped, pounding the wall and opening a full fucking arsenal panel. Someone should’ve told Ben about that sooner. “And we ain’t supposed to get alerts unless it’s defcon 1. It might be-“ 

“It’s not Homelander,” MM held up his phone. “I’ve got a Google alert on the fucker, he was just in France-“ 

Ben caught the gun Butcher was tossing to him. “It’s fucking something.” He grunted. “Something’s real fucking wrong. Get a gun and start moving.” 

MM frowned. “How the hell do you know-“ 

The doors burst open, and one of those pussy fucking agents—the man—yelped as five gun’s clicked with barrels aimed at his head. 

“Don’t shoot! Please don’t shoot-“

“What the fuck is going on,” Ben didn’t try to make his voice nice or kind. Something was going on, he’d never felt this type of goddamn suffering in his life, and when he’d paused for just a second he’d realized Her voice was gone. It wasn’t humming softly around in his head and heart anymore. It was just fucking pain. 

“Soldier Boy, sir, I’m sorry to bother you but-“

“Fucking talk!” Ben roared, his ribs starting to cave in. “Stop pussying around and use your goddamn words-“ 

The agent shouted Her name, and the gun broke in Ben’s hand. “She’s in the lobby, but nobody can touch her-“ 

Ben didn’t wait to hear more. She was in the lobby. The sky felt like it was fucking falling and Ben couldn’t really see beyond something red lining his vision, but She was fucking here. He was sprinting down the hall, and into the elevator with Annie, Kimiko, and somehow Butcher the only ones managing to keep up. His fists were clenching and unclenching, nobody was daring to fucking speak, and as the elevator started to drop the pain began to subside. Like it knew he was getting closer. It knew She was home. 

The elevator had barely dinged before Ben was out of it, ripping through the metal with his hands. They hadn’t stopped in the lobby—they’d stopped three or four levels above—and people were trying to get on. Scrambling forwards, then falling back with surprised sounds as Ben pushed past them. All of them looked fucking afraid, like they were running from something. 

There was an overlook into the main lobby. The first seven floors had hallways that wrapped around the entrance, and Ben had a feeling that if he just kept walking towards what everyone else was fleeing from, he’d get there. Butcher and Annie were calling after him, but Ben didn’t fucking care. She was so fucking close, he had to fucking get to Her-

He heard Her screams first. They were raw noised of pure fucking pain, and she was probably trying to fucking say something. Ben could only hear his blood in his ears, and hHr screams, and her heartbeat. Fast and wild and pounding out of her chest.

Ben could hear Her heartbeat. That was Her heartbeat. He’d recognize it underwater and in deep space and buried twenty feet under the ground. It had made him turn around at the Believe Expo, because he’d have just kept walking and telling Her voice to stop torturing him with ideas that she might be there, but he’d heard her heartbeat. And this was Her fucking heartbeat.

She was alone, curled into Herself in the center of the lobby. Ben could finally fucking see Her, four floors below him, collapsed on her knees and screaming. Covered in blood, clothing scorched, and fucking screaming. Everyone was either fleeing, passed out in an odd pattern across the floor, or watching with wide-eyes from a wide circle that had formed around Her. Nobody was helping Her. Why was nobody fucking helping Her- 

She wasn’t looking at him. She wasn’t looking at anyone, her eyes screwed shut as she screamed again. It was the worst fucking sound Ben had even heard. He needed to fucking get to Her, now. He’d survive the jump down, he wouldn’t even fucking feel it. He took a step back, readying to go, go to Her, he’d wasted too much fucking time and he had to get to Her, but a small hand yanked him back. 

“What the fuck-“ 

Kimiko was glaring at him, pointing at the people scattered around Her and signing something Ben couldn’t fucking understand. 

“I need to help her-“ 

She shook her head, gesturing to the weak, knocked out pussies on the floor. 

“They’re not fucking burned, there’s not even any fucking fire. And I’d fucking survive it anyway-“

“It ain’t fire, Gov.” Butcher was out of breath, shoving his way forward with a glower at Ben. “If you hadn’t just bloody run, you’d have heard what’s goin on.” 

“If you pussies don’t let me go and shut the fuck up, I’ll fucking kill you-“ 

“It’s the empathy!” Annie was right behind Butcher, her voice desperate. Below, She screamed again and Ben died a little bit. “People were trying to help her, but they kept screaming and collapsing. There’s not any fire, she just,” Annie’s eyes landed on Her, flinching as She screamed. “They’re feeling Her. Anyone who goes too close to Her feels whatever she’s feeling.” 

“And they’re all fuckin passing out from it, Gov.” Butcher sighed, shaking his head. “We just got to let her tire herself out, if anyone gets just a little too bloody close they’ll-“ 

There was not a chance in goddamn hell Ben was going to wait. She was here, she was home, he was done fucking waiting. If he felt that pain, or passed out, or even fucking died, at least it would’ve been to get to Her. 

He yanked his hand away from Kimiko, sending her stumbling backwards, and jumped down to the lobby. 

The floor cracked under him, and Ben braced himself for the pain. To roar and scream like she was and fucking crawl to Her if he had to. 

Nothing came. There was a dull kind of ache, but no pain. Everything that hurt was the noise of the alarms and the horrible sound of Her screams. He took a careful step, closer, and still nothing. Another, and the alarms and gathered crowd fell into the background. Her heartbeat was louder, and it was all Ben could hear. Everyone could fucking watch with stupid pussy gapes, all that mattered was Her. 

Her eyes were still closed, and when she screamed again he heard the words, running from her blood into his. 

Ben. 

He ran. It took two, bounding and powerful strides to grab Her. Hold Her in his arms. To fall to his knees at Her side, and pull her up into his chest.

Her screams stopped. Ben cradled Her head in his hand, his other squeezing her waist to make sure She was fucking real. He felt a flash of something boundless, something infinite and indestructible, and then she passed out. 

Ben carried Her to medical. He wanted to carry her to bed, to let her just rest, but he had to make sure she was okay. That someone with a pussy fucking degree would look at Her and tell Ben she’d be ok. Everyone was parting around then, and Ben didn’t give a fuck. She was in his arms, and everything was going to be okay. 

They gave Her a bed. Every doctor on the staff popped their head in—Ben thought they might be drawing straws for who’s turn it was to check on Her—and the French Prick came in with a vial of a golden liquid, attaching it to Her IV. 

“The fuck are you doing,” Ben grunted, but didn’t move from Her side. He’d pulled a chair up beside Her, and wasn’t going to fucking leave until her eyes opened. Until She could look at him and say she was okay. She was going to be okay. She had to be fucking okay. And if she wasn’t, Ben had to know that so he could figure out how to help. If he could fix it or heal it or just had to stay there, at Her side until she smiled. Whatever it fucking took.

“It is a suppressant.” The French Prick glanced at Ben’s scowl. “It will not hurt her. It will help.”

“How.”

“We do not know what will happen when she awakens. This will make sure people other than yourself can approach her safely.” 

Ben nodded slowly, looking back at Her face. Perfect, at complete ease in her sleep. “Fine.” 

Then it was just them again. Ben’s hand was in hers—nobody could make him stop touching Her with a fucking nuke of Sage’s gas pointed to his chest—and she was sighing in Her sleep. 

Perfect.

He loved Her more than the whole fucking universe, and he wouldn’t be able to tell her that when she woke up. When Her eyes opened, it was going to have to be about her. Ben would have to fucking swallow the words, and tell her he loved her when she was ready to hear it. When he was convinced beyond a doubt she’d be okay, and that she’d keep smiling at him no matter what she felt for him. She wouldn’t leave him. She adored him. Even in her fucking sleep her fingers had twined themselves into his, and Ben had never been more certain of anything or anyone. He was certain he loved Her. He was certain he didn’t deserve her, but that his whole fucking life from here on out was going to be about earning her. This was all about Her now. 

Everything was Her. 

And Ben couldn’t say it where She could hear him. But he had to say it, now, or he’d explode. 

“I wanted to hate you,” he started in a low voice, watching Her eyes flutter in sleep. Perfect. “I should’ve fucking hated you, and I really goddamn wanted to. You seemed like everything I fucking despised. People who think they’re better than me because they’re too weak to see the gray of the world. People who sit in ivory fucking towers and think they’re worth more because they’re smarter than me. People who think they deserve to tell me what to do, pussies who are too fucking good for anything.” He sighed. “I really fucking tried to hate you. It would’ve been easier. Made this stupid shit so much fucking easier. But you can never make anything easy, can you Sunshine. You have to be the most beautiful fucking pain in my ass all the goddamn time.” 

She shifted slightly, heart still slow and steady, and Ben smiled. “You wouldn’t fucking stop proving me wrong. You don’t think you’re better than me, you are better than me. You’re better than fucking every sorry pussy in the world. You see all the gray, but you still keep doing good things, and that’s so fucking hard to do. I’ve been trying to, for you, and Christ, it’s exhausting. But you just do it, like there’s no other option. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever fucking met, and you’re fucking funny, and you never think you’re better. You explain everything you say if someone asks, and you’re not nice about it, but you do. You love answering questions, you love people, and I don’t fucking get it. I don’t fucking understand how you’re so fucking perfect, and why you couldn’t just let me hate you. Why you couldn’t just be a fucking bitch, why you kept smiling at me and laughing with me.” She hummed in her sleep, and Ben reached a hand out. Brushing his thumb along Her cheek. “You’re so good, Sunshine. I couldn’t hate you, because you’re just good. You’re too good for everything, but you’d never lord it over anyone. You’re the most beautiful woman in history, and you’re a goddamn brat, and I could never really fucking hate you.” He felt a lump form in his throat, and She leaned into his hand. “I love you.” He sighed Her name, listening to the easy sound of Her heartbeat. “I love you. You burn, I burn, and I fucking love you.” 

She was safe. 

She was home. 

Ben loved Her, and they were going to be okay.

End Note:  Can you guys tell I’m a whore for Chekov’s Gun? We did it squad. She's home. Thank you all for sticking through the darkest part (there WILL be more angst, but like. hurt/comfort. Lined with fluff and character growth that doesn't make us want to die), and every form of support you've shown me. You guys are the best, and I'm very sorry for doing that to you. See you soon!

If you like this story, reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3

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[bibbityboppitybillyharvgrove]

All Thanks to You - T.Nott

Summary - At first, Theo found her gifts sweet and kind but the longer they went on the more they annoyed him. He had the false assumption that she was chasing after his money and status but he was very wrong. He didn't realize how wrong he was until he overhears her sticking up for him in library.

Pairings - Theo Nott x Fem!Reader

Warnings - Use of Y/N, female reader, profanity, stress

Author's Note - I'm getting through all of my requests slowly but surely, this will probably be my first and last post of the day. I'll try my best to keep banging these out but unfortunately today was my last day of spring break and my vacation from work. Thank you for being patient!

Based off the request by an anon

Expect delays in my posting! My semester has started and I am taking 4 classes! Please be patient with me!

My requests are open!

my masterlist

Feedback is welcomed and encouraged!

Enjoy!

It was almost disgustingly obvious how much she liked Theo, except to the boy himself. It had taken him ages to figure it all out. He thought it was weird at first, he was always getting baked treats, a seat saved, books that he ended up loving and notes sent to him. Then, it started to annoy him, he thought that she was just trying to get to him because of his status and money. That of course wasn’t her intention but he didn’t figure that one out until he overheard a conversation, one revolving around him and all of his flaws and untrue rumors.

He was about to jump in himself until the sweet voice of the girl sending him all of these good things chimed in. 

“That’s not true at all. Theo is so kind and sweet. He cares so much about his friends and only acts cold to people like you because you believe and spread all of these bullshit lies. He’s not rude, he’s not unnerving, he especially isn’t ugly or gross to girls. He’s sweet and kind and loving and a great person and if you can’t see that, then don’t consider me your friend anymore,” She ranted before packing up her books and walking away, not expecting to bump into the boy himself. “Oh shit, I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going, I’ll get out of your way.”

“Wait,” He pleaded, having every expectation of her walking away but she stopped in her tracks and turned to face him, “Thank you for sticking up for me. I know I said your gifts were annoying but I don’t really think that. I honestly thought you were after me for money or to boost your status or something, I shouldn’t have assumed that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. You’re a good person Theo. I’d love to talk more but I really have to go study for the potions exam,” She told him.

“Study with me, I have an O in the class, I can help you.” The smile on her face brightened the room, making his heart skip a beat, a smile finding its way onto his own lips.

“Okay! I know the best spot in the library,” She chirped, grabbing his hand and leading him to the top floor into a quiet corner. The two of them studied together for nearly an hour before she spoke again, “How in the fuck do you make a draught of the living dead again? I can’t remember anything right now, my brain is fried,” She groaned, resting her forehead on crossed arms.

“You need a break, love. Let’s go to the kitchen and get some food from the house elves,” Theo offered.

“Won’t we get in trouble?”

“No, I’m friends with the prefects on duty, let’s go before they change shifts.”

The whole way down to the kitchen, the two were holding hands, neither of them had even noticed until Draco stopped them in the stairwell leading down to their destination. “What do we have here? The infamous Theodore Nott holding hands with his admirer?”

“Oh shove off, we need you to cover the kitchen while we get food,” Theo told his friend, still holding onto her hand even though they were caught.

“What’s in it for me?” Draco asked.

Before Theo could open his mouth, Y/N answered, “Pumpkin pasties, green apples and cauldron cakes. I see you eating those a lot so I assume you like them?”

“You assume correctly, fine, let’s go lovebirds.”

Holding up her end of the promise, she got Draco his favorite sweets, snacking with the two Slytherin boys. The blond boy had taken a liking to her, finding her genuine, funny and observational. The bond between Theo and Y/N had grown and only got stronger by the day. It was no surprise to any of their friends when they started dating not long after studying together. 

They continued to have study dates until the day of the Potions exam. She was extremely nervous and Theo was nervous for her. They didn’t get to see each other until dinner that day. Taking her usual spot next to Theo at the Slytherin table, casually sliding a paper to him. He furrowed his eyebrows before opening the paper, the red ink stared him right in the face.

“You got an O?! Bellissima, that's amazing! I’m so proud of you!” Theo exclaimed as he hugged her tightly, placing kisses on her head.

“All thanks to you, handsome,” She smiled at him.

Theo kissed her deeply on her lips causing groans and gags around them. Neither of them having a care in the world other than her O.

[formulauno98]

Yacht Girl Summer - Chapter Twelve / Chalet Girl Winter - Saturday - George Russell x Reader, Toto Wolff x Reader

Word Count: 7k

Warnings: 🌶 Some mild spice but 18+ only.

Author’s Notes: Disclaimer, purely fiction. No use of Y/N and minimal descriptions because I want everyone/anyone to be able to enjoy this. Sorry for the huge delay in posting, life has been hectic! Hope you still enjoy my fic.

SATURDAY MORNING

You were blissfully happy waking up in Toto’s warm embrace, exactly where you had drifted off to sleep following your passionate night. Light was creeping in through the curtains that you didn’t even remember closing last night and you smiled as it dawned on you that Toto must have closed them once you were asleep. Thankfully the storm had passed, leaving a stillness save for Toto’s soft breathing as he slept soundly beside you.

Trying your best not to disturb him, you shifted as you moved over to check the alarm clock on the bedside table to see how early it was. Eight thirty, fuck. 

Toto had told everyone to be down for breakfast at nine, ready to hit the ski slopes shortly after. Amid the power cut you’d both forgotten to put your phones on charge so your alarms hadn’t woken you up.

A little nervous about waking the man sleeping next to you, you gently shook his arm. “Morning.”

He still did not stir so you tried again, this time more forcefully. “Hey, wake up…”

“Huh?” came a groan, as he opened his eyes sleepily, his hand drifting to your waist, “What time is it?”

“Eight-thirty,” you said, “I’m sorry to wake you but our alarms didn’t go off.”

“No no don’t be silly.” he said, clutching you closer, his lips ghosting the back of your ear, “Sorry, I should have put our phones on charge when the power came back on.”

”Didn’t it come back on in the middle of the night?” you asked, snuggling back into his arms, content with staying in bed for a while longer.

”Yes, not long after you dropped off.” he said, kissing your shoulder, “I got up to close the curtains.”

“Well, aren’t you slick?” you replied lazily, “Drawing the curtains so we have an excuse to never get out of bed.”

“Hmm,” said Toto, his hands roaming absentmindedly over your body as he spooned you, “I suppose we do need to get dressed. But I don’t want to.”

“Me neither,” you said, pulling his arm back over you.

“You’re a bad influence,” he said, lightly squeezing your thigh before letting go entirely and slipping out of bed.

Pouting, you made a face as he wandered over to the curtains, offering you a prime view of his gym

honed ass.

“Stop looking at my ass,” he said, chuckling as he drew back the curtains, revealing the spectacular morning view of the valley below. The sky was bright and the snow was sparkling, it was the perfect day.

“I actually don’t know which view I prefer,” you said, sitting up in bed, smirking.

“Nice save.” said Toto before coming back over to you, “Now, we don’t have so much time. Do you want to use the bathroom first or do you want to share?”

Showering together was a new level of intimacy that you’d been yet to explore but you figured there was no time like the present to try it, “Let’s share.” you said with a smile.

– – – 

Thanks to Toto lathering you up in the shower thoroughly, you’d taken longer to get ready than you’d anticipated. By the time you made yourselves present in the dining room for breakfast, your guests had almost finished eating. 

“Good morning,” said Toto, brazen in his tardiness.

“Morning boss.” replied James with a wink, “I see your game, tell us to wake up early and give yourself a lie in.”

“I’m sure he was otherwise occupied,” John added with a knowing smirk, one of the few people who would dare try and tease Toto.

Toto chuckled, sitting down beside you, pouring you both a coffee and grabbing some pastries. “Work-life balance, James. Some of us have mastered it.”

James, not missing a beat, grinned. “Yeah, I’m sure you were busy working hard this morning.”

Toto raised his coffee cup with a mock-serious nod, “As always.” 

As the table laughed, you clocked Sam and Darren looking at each other, surprised to see their boss so relaxed. Less amused was George, whose eyes flickered to you more than once and although he tried to mask it, there was no mistaking the way his jaw tightened when his eyes found Toto. To his left, Elisa simply looked a little bored. You still could not figure her out.

“So, we were just talking about today’s plan” John started as the laughter died down, “What were you thinking Toto? Looks like the perfect powder day.”

“Well, I have promised some ski lessons, so we will be taking to the blue runs this morning.” he said, slipping his arm around you, “But I know some of you already ski well and George is keen to try the black runs so I suggest we split and reconvene at lunchtime. What do you all think?”

Murmurs echoed around the table as the group found Toto’s plan agreeable. You were slightly nervous as you were not confident with skiing but Toto had assured you he’d be patient. 

“Sounds good to me boss.” said George, “Who’s up for the blacks?”

“Count me in,” Sam said, a competitive glint in his eye.

Darren nodded eagerly. “Me too. Just try to keep up, George.”

Elisa let out a dramatic sigh. “I guess I’ll have to keep an eye on you boys, so you don’t do anything stupid.”

George shot her a glance, clearly not thrilled with her sarcasm. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Anytime,” she replied curtly.

Clocking their awkward interaction, Cara caught your eye, raising an arched brow. It was certainly a strange dynamic and not one you expected for a new couple. Even when your relationship was fraught you wouldn’t have said something like that to George.

Breaking the tension, John countered, “I’ll come too, Elisa. These boys are troublemakers eh?”

Smiling slightly Elisa nodded, “Great.” She was hard work for sure.

“Anybody else?” asked George, looking around the table, brushing off Elisa’s frostiness.

“No way.” said Marion, “I’ll be on the blues, I’m on holiday, not at boot camp.”

James laughed in agreement, “Same, plus with my dodgy knee, blues are probably for the best. I’m getting old!”

“That’s more than fair.” said George, “How about you Cara?”

“I’ll keep an eye on James.” she said, “Last year he took a tumble and he can’t be trusted.”

‘Oh yes, the infamous tumble.” said John, trying to stifle a laugh, “Sponsored by the air ambulance.”

“Don’t remind me.” said James, “Humiliating.”

“What happened?” you asked Toto quietly.

“You know these guys, always competitive.” he said, gesturing at them, “They decided to go off-piste on an adventure and long story short, James cracked his ankle and had to be airlifted to hospital.” 

“Oh shit, I never heard about this!” you said, “Well hopefully that won’t happen on this trip.”

“You and me both,” said James smiling dryly.

“Indeed. Well, I think we have a plan, shall we get ready and reconvene in ten minutes?” Toto said, glancing at the clock. “We don’t want to miss the best of the morning powder.”

As everyone finished their coffees, you could feel George’s eyes lingering on you again. It made you slightly uneasy but Toto seemed oblivious, content to finish his croissant and hit the slopes as quickly as possible.

– – – 

Having suited and booted with some help from a bemused Greta, you’d made it outside. Out on the slopes, the day was stunning, crisp air, clear skies and the perfect layer of powdered snow. As discussed the group had split with George leading half of the group to the black runs, whilst you stayed on the blue runs, eager to improve your technique with Toto’s help.

You should have been confident, but as you started your descent on your first run, nerves took hold and no amount of encouragement from Toto could keep you from feeling slightly out of your depth. Although it was just a blue, the least challenging colour for Austrian slopes, it felt steeper than you had expected.

“Just take it slow,” Toto called out from beside you, his voice reassuring. “You’re doing great.”

“I feel like Bambi,” you muttered, your legs trembling as you tried to stay upright.

He laughed, skiing effortlessly alongside you. “You look a lot better than Bambi.”

Despite his best efforts, your nerves got the better of you and in the middle of a particularly sharp turn, you lost your balance. Before you could stop yourself, you toppled sideways, falling into the soft snow with a thud. You let out a groan, wiping snow off your face as you lay sprawled on the ground.

Toto immediately skidded to a stop and instead of helping you up, lowered himself down beside you, laughing, “Well, that was elegant.”

You couldn’t help but laugh too, “You’re supposed to help me, not join me!”

“I couldn’t leave you down here alone,” he said, grinning as he lay back on the snow, his head resting on his arms. “Besides, it’s nice down here. We should make snow angels.”

"You’re ridiculous,” you said, shaking your head but smiling despite yourself. You unclipped yourself and lay back beside him.

“Tradition after a fall,” Toto teased, nudging your leg. “Come on, snow angels.”

You let out a playful sigh, moving your arms and legs to join in, both of you laughing like children.

When you finally sat up, catching your breath, Toto was having none of it and pulled you back down to lie on top of him, your helmets and goggles clashing slightly as he leaned up for a kiss.

“Thank you,” you said, resting your hand on his chest.

“What for?” he asked, squeezing you closer.

“For not making me feel like shit for falling over.” You glanced up the slope, where George and the others were likely tackling the black runs. Memories surfaced of your last ski trip with George and how he’d only offered a hand with an impatient shake of his head whenever you fell. There had been no lying in the snow laughing together.

Toto followed your gaze and reached out, brushing snow from your cheek. “Everybody falls.” he said, his eyes concerned, “It’s part of learning, you’re doing great.”

You gave a small nod and a smile, your heart pounding, not from the fall, but from the man sprawled out on the snow beneath you.

“Let’s get back up,” he said, lifting you to your feet before pulling himself up too. “You’ve got this.”

As you both brushed off the snow, you felt a surge of determination. “Okay, okay, I’m going to try again. And this time I’m not going to fall.”

Toto chuckled, adjusting his goggles. “I’ll hold you to that. Just remember, confidence is key.”

With a nod, you pushed off again, heart racing. The snow felt softer beneath your skis this time, but as you approached another turn, the nerves crept back in. You focused on the rhythm, just like Toto had shown you, but just as you began to gain some speed, a small bump caught you off guard.

“Shit!” you shouted, your skis slipping out from under you as you tumbled sideways again, landing in a fluffy pile of snow.

“Not going to fall again huh?” Toto called out, amusement dancing in his eyes as he skied up next to you, extending a gloved hand to help you up, “You’re making this look like an Olympic sport.”

“Very funny,” you replied, “At this rate, I’ve won the Gold.”

He chuckled, squeezing your waist as he handed your pole back to you, “There’s that winning mentality.”

As you regained your footing, you spotted George and the others zipping down a steep black run in the distance. George was flying along with Elisa alongside him and you couldn’t help but feel inadequate. Intrusive thoughts entered your mind but you tried your best to shake them off and turned your attention back to Toto. 

“Ready to give it another go?” he asked, his tone encouraging.

“Yeah, let’s do this,” you replied, buoyed by Toto’s kind smile. He really had the patience of a saint.

With a fresh focus, you tackled the slope again, taking Toto’s advice and making it a decent way down before the familiar wobbles crept in. Only this time, you kept your nerve and nailed the next turn.

“There you go,” Toto cheered, skiing alongside you. “That’s much better.”

“Thanks! I think I might be getting the hang of it,” you grinned, your confidence growing.

As you reached the bottom, you were greeted by the view of Cara, Marion and James waiting for you at the cafe at the bottom, bundled up in their jackets, sipping hot chocolates from steaming mugs. They had decided to take it easy, and they were clearly enjoying the show, clapping enthusiastically as you approached the terrace.

“You did it!” Cara called out, her face glowing with pride.

“Well, I had a very patient teacher,” you said, brushing snow from your goggles and turning towards Toto as he skied up next to you. 

“Looks like you’ve got yourself a fan club,” he said teasingly.

“Of course, we were all rooting for you!” Marion added, raising her mug in salute. “You’re getting there.”

You laughed, feeling a warm flush of accomplishment. “Progress, right?”

“Absolutely,” Cara said, giving you a playful nudge. “I’d say you’re officially a skier now. Just don’t go challenging anyone to a race just yet. I know what this lot are like!”

“Agreed,” Marion said, looking over at James. “Let’s not have another air ambulance situation on our hands.”

James raised his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I learned my lesson. I’m here for moral support, not for reliving that disaster.”

As the group finished up their hot chocolates, readying themselves to return to the slopes, you felt a lightness in the air. The atmosphere was infinitely more comfortable without George’s glowering, Sam and Darren’s jibes and Elisa’s stony-faced judging. You turned back to Toto, who was now watching you with an affectionate smile. “What’s next, coach?” you asked.

“Do you want to tackle that run again? I want to see you take those turns like a pro,” Toto replied.

“Okay, but you’re coming with me again, right?” you asked, feeling a flicker of nervousness again.

“Of course,” he assured you, “I like the view when I ski behind you.”

“Very funny,” you said, “Okay, let’s do this thing.”

“Remember, slow and steady,” Toto reminded you as you started to make your way to the lift.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. No more Olympic tumbles,” you joked, rolling your eyes as Toto led the group back to the queue for the lift.

Once he was out of earshot, James leaned over, smirking. “You know, I think you’ve officially stolen Toto’s heart. Just look at him.”

Cara nudged him, laughing. “Are you jealous my love?”

“Not at all,” he protested, feigning offence. “Just stating what I see. But seriously, it’s good to see him in such high spirits.”

Marion nodded. “For sure, I never dreamt we would see him lying down in the snow making snow angels.”

Your cheeks flushed at their compliments and you glanced towards Toto, who was busy chatting animatedly with the lift operator. He turned, catching your eye and winked. Perhaps the group was right? When you’d been with George and gone to watch him race, Toto had always seemed serious, somewhat dour at times. Now he was out here smiling, laughing and throwing himself down into the snow without a care in the world. Life could take some crazy turns sometimes.

– – – 

On the lift, you found yourself squashed between Toto and Marion, nerves creeping back in as the anticipation of the next run grew. Ever observant, Toto reached for your hand, squeezing it reassuringly as the lift approached the top.

Once you had disembarked, Toto turned to you with a smile. “Ready?”

You inhaled deeply, trying to steady yourself. “Do I have a choice?”

He chuckled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “No, but you’ve got this.”

With that, you both pushed off together, gliding down the slope. You focused on his advice, slow and steady, controlling each turn and this time, something clicked. Instead of feeling anxious, you allowed yourself to enjoy the speed and the rush of cold air against your face as you flew down.

“See? Told you you’d get the hang of it!” Cara shouted from the terrace, where she was already unclipping her skis.

Toto laughed, his eyes sparkling with pride as he made his way over to you. “Next stop, the red runs. But first, hot chocolate?”

“Now you’re talking!” you replied, heart bursting with happiness. You’d never managed a full run without falling and you knew it was unlikely you’d pull it off twice. Carefully unclipping your skis beside Toto and Cara, you were grateful to be back on solid ground as you stepped onto the cafe terrace.

As Toto and James disappeared to get a round of hot chocolates, you settled down at one of the wooden tables beside Cara and Marion, noticing George and the rest of your group coming down the black run, all looking a bit dishevelled but laughing. 

George’s laughter rang out and you caught the eye of Elisa, who seemed less than pleased with the men’s antics. “Looks like they survived after all,” you remarked, nudging Cara playfully.

“Barely!” she laughed. “They’ll probably be banging on about doing the black runs all day.”

“Lord spare me,” Marion groaned, eyeing her husband with mock exasperation.

You watched as the group came closer, coming to join you for your very early après ski. John had a huge grin on his face, animatedly recounting a moment when he had nearly wiped out while trying to keep pace with George. Sam and Darren were both clapping him on the back, clearly enjoying the show.

“What did we miss?” George asked, clipping his helmet on the back of the chair opposite you, his cheeks flushed from the cold and excitement.

“Oh, just the usual, me falling over about four hundred times,” you said, gesturing to the snow around you.

“Hey, we all have our talents,” he replied, a teasing smile playing on his lips. “But seriously, you look like you’re getting better. I saw you on that last run.”

“Thanks,” you replied, surprised at how cordial George was being.

“I also saw you making snow angels,” George said, his expression shifting for a moment as he glanced at Toto who was now returning with a tray of hot chocolate, James by his side. You could sense an underlying tension, but you brushed it aside.

“It had to be done,” you laughed, trying to keep the mood light.

As Toto and James settled at the table, passing out drinks, the group’s laughter rose again, cutting through the cold breeze. You’d been cautious about showing too much affection with Toto around George but now the chill was biting and you couldn’t resist shifting closer to Toto for warmth.

You glanced at George, now deep in conversation with Elisa, though something in his demeanour made you uneasy. Was it jealousy or something else? You shook it off, turning your attention back to the breathtaking view of the mountains surrounding you.

Toto leaned in, his voice low and warm. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you whispered, nestling closer to him. “Just a little cold.”

Pulling you closer, his arm wrapping around you with ease, “Are you sure it’s just the cold?” he asked softly.

You nodded, knowing he could see right through you. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just taking it all in.”

Toto’s gaze followed yours to George and Elisa. His jaw clenched briefly before he turned back to you, his expression softening. “If you need to get away, we can. No rush.”

You shook your head. “No, I’m having a great time,” you reassured him, lifting your hot chocolate with a smile. “And besides, I’m not missing out on this.”

He chuckled, pulling you closer. “Fair enough. Just say the word.”

As the group's chatter continued around you, you felt a fleeting pang watching George and Elisa. But then Toto squeezed your shoulder, anchoring you to the present.

"Ready for another run after this?" he asked.

"Absolutely," you replied, smiling up at him.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

By the time you returned to the chalet, your muscles aching from a full morning of skiing followed by a boozy schnitzel-and-chips lunch, the heated pool had never appealed more. Toto had left you to change alone as he needed to wrap up some business with James and John, so you’d taken your time upstairs slipping into your swimsuit, savouring a few moments of solitude.

As you made your way down to the pool area, you could already hear the others' voices echoing around. Toto was perched on the edge, his legs dipping into the water as he was deep in conversation with James and John. Cara and Marion were leisurely swimming laps, their quiet chatter carrying over the gentle ripple of the water. 

At the far end of the pool, Elisa lounged in a skimpy white bikini, her attention seemingly fixed on George, who hovered nearby, nodding along at whatever story she was spinning. She had been glued to his side all day, though George’s interest seemed half-hearted. Sam and Darren were sprawled on the lounge chairs behind them chatting away.

The instant you stepped into the warm pool, you sighed in relief. The tension in your body seemed to melt away as you found a quiet spot in the pool, closing your eyes to finally relax. Before long, though, Elisa’s voice drifted your way.

“Love your swimsuit,” she called over, her tone friendly enough, though something was off, “So classic.”

You returned her smile, choosing not to overthink it. Before you could respond, Cara, always quick to back you up, floated by. "Yes, a one-piece is always elegant. Sometimes bikinis can be a bit... much," Cara said, casting a sidelong glance at Elisa.

Marion gave a knowing laugh as she swam up beside Cara. "Especially when you’ve got a body like hers. No need to flaunt everything to look good."

Elisa’s mouth tightened for a fraction of a second, but the message was received. You exchanged a grateful glance with Cara and Marion, the two older women certainly had your back. Elisa’s smirk faltered, though the look she gave you made it clear she wasn’t backing down entirely. 

Oblivious to yours and Elisa’s exchange, Toto, wrapping up his conversation with James, finally stood and wandered over to where you floated, a mischievous smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He crouched at the pool's edge, his eyes twinkling.

“How’s the water?” he asked, his gaze locked on you as if the rest of the world had momentarily disappeared.

“Perfect,” you said, letting the warmth relax you. “You should come in.”

He grinned, not needing to be asked twice. A second later, he jumped in, the splash hitting Elisa who squealed in annoyance. You couldn’t help but laugh and for a brief moment, you felt vindicated.

Elisa shot Toto an irritated look, but he seemed unbothered, floating over to you and discreetly wrapping an arm around your waist. “You’re not tired of me yet?” he teased softly, his voice low enough that only you could hear.

“Not even close,” you whispered back with a smile.

As you drifted together, your gaze wandered to the side of the pool where George sat beside Elisa, watching the two. Noticing his lingering looks, his companion leaned closer and whispered something in his ear, her eyes flicking to you before giving a self-satisfied smile.

Toto followed your gaze, catching George’s glare and his hold on you tightened slightly. His easygoing demeanour didn’t falter, but you could feel the subtle shift in his mood. “Come on,” he whispered, guiding you towards the far pool edge. “Let’s get some space, I’ll show you the sauna.”

Without drawing much attention, the two of you made your way out of the pool, changing out of your wet swimwear and wrapping yourselves in towels as you padded toward the sauna. The small wooden room was warm and inviting, the heat hitting you as soon as you stepped inside. Toto shut the door behind you and at long last, it was just the two of you.

You immediately sat down on the wooden bench, leaning back as the heat started to work its magic on your tired muscles. It was even better than the pool. You closed your eyes and sighed contently “This is heaven.”

“Are you not taking off your towel?” said Toto, sitting on the bench beside you with a creak, his hand resting on your thigh, the casual touch sending a shiver up your spine.

“Huh?” you said, opening your eyes to find a very naked Toto sitting beside you. “Is that a thing here? What if someone sees?”

That earned a deep laugh, “You’re concerned about someone seeing you naked… in a sauna?”

“Yes.” you said, “Why is that so funny?”

“It’s expected here. People will stare at you if you keep the towel on.” Toto teased, “But do what you want, it’s just me.”

Grateful that the dim light of the sauna concealed your creeping blush, you felt silly. “I never knew that, I thought that was a Scandinavian thing.”

Toto mused, stroking your thigh, “You make me laugh.”

“Glad I can keep you entertained,” you said dryly before standing up and whipping your towel off dramatically, baring all in front of him, “Happy now, Mr Wolff?”

“Very.” he said, gripping your hips and pulling you close to him, pressing a kiss to your bare stomach, “Come, sit down.”

Taking your seat once more, the heat enveloped you. This was exactly what you needed to cure your aching muscles. Noticing Toto grab his shoulder and wince, you leaned over and gently started massaging, your fingers gliding over his warm skin. 

As your fingers worked their magic, you could feel the tension in Toto's shoulders begin to melt away beneath your touch. “Mmm, that’s good,” Toto said with a teasing grin, his voice low and smooth as he leaned back into your hands. “I might just make you my personal masseuse.”

“Oh, I see how it is. Is that how you plan to keep me around?” you quipped, continuing your gentle kneading. “By making me your travelling spa therapist?”

Toto chuckled softly, the sound echoing in the quiet sauna. “Perhaps. I could get used to this.”

You laughed, your fingers gliding down to his upper back, where the muscles were knotted. “Be careful, I might start charging.”

“Oh really?” he replied, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “How much?”

You giggled, the sound mingling with the warmth of the room. “Some cuddling tonight, maybe a ski lesson, another snorkel rescue mission?”

“Deal,” he said, nodding seriously before breaking into a grin. “Although you may have to wait until Summer for any more snorkel action.”

You snorted, “How did you manage to make that sound dirty? You’re lowkey such a dirty old man.”

“Old?” he feigned, “You didn’t call me old last night.”

“Touché.,” you said, admitting, “Last night was… I don’t know what to say.”

Toto turned and quirked an eyebrow, “That bad?”

“Shut up,” you said, playfully batting him on the shoulder before returning to massaging his muscled upper back, “You’re good and you know it.”

“You did tell me the sex on the yacht was the best you’d ever had.” He grinned, clearly enjoying this.

“Did I really?” you said, cringing slightly. “Well, top ten, I guess.”

“Ten?” he replied, grabbing your hand and dragging it down his chest, getting dangerously lower.

“Okay, top five,” you said, your breath quickening as you sensed where this was heading.

“That’s more like it,” he said, turning his head slightly to catch your eye. “But seriously, you should know that I felt the same way.”

You smiled, feeling a rush of warmth that had little to do with the sauna. “High praise coming from someone so… old,” you replied with a teasing lilt.

His eyes glinted with mischief as he replied, “Old enough to know a good thing when I see it.”

Before you could respond, he pulled you around into his lap, capturing your lips with his in a soft, lingering kiss. When he finally pulled back, you both took a moment to breathe, your foreheads resting against each other. “Wow,” he said, his voice husky. “I could get used to that.”

You giggled softly, pressing your bare chest against his, feeling his heart pounding as much as yours was, “Me too.”

As you dipped for another kiss, laughter echoed from outside the sauna. In the heat of the moment you’d forgotten that the sauna was open to all. 

“Great,” Toto murmured, rolling his eyes. 

“I told you we should’ve brought the drinks!” Sam’s voice rang out, followed by Darren’s cheerful agreement. “Gotta stay hydrated.”

As they approached the door, you could hear them debating whether to just walk in. “Hold up, where did Toto go?” Darren suggested, his voice growing louder.

“Maybe we should put the towels back on?” you whispered to Toto, glancing down at your bare skin, feeling a rush of shyness wash over you.

“Maybe,” he replied with a grin, gripping your ass firmly, “but where’s the fun in that?” He looked at you with a glimmer of mischief, pulling you closer to him, covering your modesty with his hands, “I won’t let them see anything.”

Suddenly, the door swung open and Sam and Darren burst in, eyes wide with surprise. “Whoa!” Sam exclaimed, “Sorry to interrupt!”

“Yeah,” Darren added, his face furiously red before he span around dramatically, “We’ll come back later.”

You quickly reached for your towel, as Toto shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “We were just enjoying the heat. No big deal.”

“Right,” Sam said, desperately looking anywhere but in front of him. “We’ll just grab a drink and give you some space. Would you like anything?”

You could feel your cheeks heat up even more, glancing at Toto, who was doing his best to keep a straight face. “We’re okay for now,” you replied, still smiling but feeling the warmth of embarrassment.

“Suit yourselves,” Sam said, stumbling as he turned to head back outside. “Sorry again boss.”

As the door swung shut, Toto looked at you, a mixture of amusement and exasperation on his face. “Well, that was a great way to kill the mood.”

You couldn’t help but giggle, carefully lifting yourself off Toto’s lap and returning to your seat beside him, “I suppose we’ll have to pick up where we left off later?”

“Definitely,” he said, his eyes twinkling with promise. 

You settled back onto the bench, rewrapped your towel and leaned your head on his shoulder, letting the gentle steam of the sauna envelop you both. So much for a moment alone, but you knew that you’d have time later that evening.

SATURDAY EVENING

Dinner that night was a lively affair, the long wooden table filled with laughter and the rich aroma of fondue. The fire crackled in the background, adding warmth to the room. Marion and John, ever the social butterflies, kept the conversation flowing smoothly, while Greta and Klaus flitted around the table, ensuring the wine glasses were constantly topped up.

Sam and Darren, who were usually more vocal, sat noticeably quieter across from you and Toto. You caught their occasional glances and exchanged a knowing look with Toto, both of you aware of what was on their minds.

Once dinner plates were cleared away, Marion stood up with a gleam in her eye. "Earlier, Toto suggested a games night!" she announced, clapping her hands together with enthusiasm. "And as you all know, I love a good wager. How about we start with charades?"

Excited murmurs spread through the group. Greta handed out pens and paper and soon the room filled with the sound of scribbling as everyone jotted down increasingly ridiculous charade suggestions. You glanced at Toto, wondering if he had something difficult planned for his picks. He caught your eye and winked, of course, he wouldn’t make this easy.

As the group settled in, Marion distributed a bowl for everyone to drop their slips of paper into. Just as you were about to dive into the game, Marion, her voice tinged with mischief, turned to the group, her eyes landing on George. “You know, this reminds me of that night on Toto’s yacht when we played Never Have I Ever,” she said with a grin.

John perked up immediately. “Ah yes, that was quite a night,” he said. You gulped as you recalled George taking things too far that night.

George immediately shifted in his seat, already knowing where this was headed. His cheeks flushed as Marion continued, unable to resist. “George, you were so embarrassed!” she teased, nudging him. “What was it you said during that game that had everyone in stitches?”

James chimed in, his grin widening. “Something about walking in on Toto in the garage in a, let’s say, compromising position.”

George’s face turned bright red as everyone started to chuckle, “I was tipsy, alright? I said more than I should’ve,” he muttered, clearly still embarrassed from that particular memory. “Sorry again Toto.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Toto reassured him, trying to stay stoic.

At that, Darren and Sam exchanged a look and Sam couldn’t resist joining in the teasing. “Speaking of compromising positions,” he said, leaning back in his chair, a smirk spreading across his face. “Darren and I had quite the walk-in moment earlier today.”

“Oh no,” you murmured under your breath, feeling the heat rise to your face as you realized where this was going. It was your turn to be embarrassed.

Sam leaned in, his voice low but loud enough for everyone to hear. “Let’s just say we walked in on Toto… in a very compromising situation.”

Darren snickered. “Yeah, in the sauna of all places.”

All eyes turned toward you and Toto as a ripple of nervous laughter spread across the group. Sam and Darren were younger members of the team and it was rather bold of them to tease their boss in his own home. 

Toto's face tightened and his jaw clenched slightly,  “Sam...” he warned.

Sam, undeterred, kept going. “Oh, don’t worry, Toto wasn’t alone.” He winked at the group, his grin only growing wider.

“Oh?” John said, sparking up, clearly enjoying where this was headed.

Darren laughed, nodding enthusiastically. “Yeah, turns out the sauna wasn’t just for relaxing, if you know what I mean.”

The group erupted into laughter, Marion gasped in mock shock, though a grin tugged at her lips. “Toto! And here I thought you were the gentleman of the group.”

Sam, encouraged by the reactions, waggled his eyebrows and added, “You should’ve seen his face. The man was living his best life.”

George glowered, throwing you an angry look before Elisa tapped him on the arm, whispering something in his ear that seemed to calm him down, as she did earlier.

Toto, his patience visibly thinning, folded his arms, his voice low and sharp. “Alright, that’s enough.”

Sam and Darren exchanged a glance, still amused but sensing they were treading on thin ice. “Okay, okay,” Darren said, holding his hands up, “But you can’t blame us, you did say we could use the sauna any time.”

“Yeah, next time maybe put a do not disturb sign?” Sam quipped, though his voice had softened, knowing they’d pushed Toto to his limit.

“Or a Mercedes-branded tie over the door handle,” said George, joining in with his friends, having stayed quiet until now. You shot him a look and he shrugged, not worried about angering Toto.

Toto shot the three younger men a hard look before leaning back in his chair, clearly done with their teasing. “I’ll remember that for next time,” he said flatly, his voice edged with annoyance.

Marion, sensing the tension, tried to keep the situation light-hearted. “Oh, you three,” she said, shaking her head at Sam, Darren and George. “Let them have their fun in peace.”

“Alright, alright, we’ll drop it,” Sam said, suitably chastised.

“Well then,” John jumped up, clapping his hands, “I think we’ve embarrassed enough people for one night. Shall we get on with charades?”

Everyone eagerly shifted their focus back to the impending game of charades, following John’s lead as he moved to the living room.

 “We’ll split into two teams,” Marion announced, “Who’s ready to make a fool of themselves?”

The group quickly divided into teams and took their places on opposite sofas. It was men vs women, with you, Cara, Marion and Elisa teaming up against Toto, George, John, James, Sam and Darren.

“Hang on, I think the boys have an advantage!” said Marion, reaching out to grab her husband by the crook of his arm, “John joins us.”

John shrugged his shoulders before plopping himself down on the sofa beside his wife, “Sorry guys, I have no choice.”

“That’s okay, we’ll still win.” said James, “Cara is an automatic handicap.”

“You are awful, you’re sleeping on the balcony tonight” quipped Cara, throwing her husband a dirty look.

– – – 

During a lull in the game, you found yourself alone in the kitchen, grabbing another bottle of wine for the group, Greta and Klaus having gone to bed for the night. The soft sound of footsteps behind you made you turn and there was George, standing in the doorway, his expression unreadable.

“Hey,” he said quietly, leaning against the counter.

“Hey,” you replied, suddenly feeling like you were back in the past, caught in a moment that didn’t quite fit the present. George had been giving you funny looks all evening but Elisa had been glued to him so you hadn’t spoken much.

There was an awkward pause before George finally spoke again. “So, I guess this is really happening, huh?”

You frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”

He glanced towards the doorway leading back to the others, then back at you. His voice lowered, more serious now. “You and Toto. It’s serious, isn’t it?”

The question landed heavily between you, far weightier than it should’ve been. The conversation felt loaded, fraught with things left unsaid. You thought you’d been clear when you last spoke in your flat, and you both had supposedly made peace with the past. Now, it seemed like old wounds were still festering beneath the surface.

You hesitated, choosing your words carefully. “George… we’ve been through this.”

“I know,” he said quickly, cutting you off with a sigh. He shoved his hands into his pockets as if bracing himself. “But seeing you two. I don’t know. Guess I thought I’d be more okay with it by now.”

His words hung in the air, the weight of them pulling you both into an uncomfortable silence. This wasn’t fair, to you or to him. You’d thought that chapter was closed and he’d moved on with Elisa, even if their dynamic was a little strange at times.

Before you could respond, Toto appeared in the doorway, his expression sharp as he took in the scene. “Everything okay in here?”

The air between the three of you crackled with tension.

George straightened, his jaw tightening. “Yeah, we’re fine.”

Toto’s eyes didn’t leave George’s face. “Good,” he said coolly. “Look, I know this has not been easy for anyone but we are all adults and you have Elisa now, don’t forget. I invited you here because I want things to be easier going forward, for all of us. And for what it’s worth, I value your friendship, George. I know I’ve let you down.”

George didn’t back down, but after a tense beat, he gave a curt nod, not saying a word and walked past Toto, brushing his shoulder as he went. You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.

Toto turned to you, his expression softening. “Are you alright?”

You nodded, though the knot in your chest hadn’t fully loosened. “Yeah, I’m fine. Thank you.”

He studied your face for a moment longer, as if searching for something unsaid before he leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to your forehead. His lips lingered for a beat longer than usual.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his breath warm against your skin.

You didn’t ask what he was apologising for, whether it was for inviting George, for the difficult position you were both in or for the emotions this trip had stirred up. Maybe it was all of it.

– – – 

The night wound down with everyone in good spirits, but you couldn’t shake the weirdness of the conversation in the kitchen with George. After the games and the laughter, you found yourself in the bedroom with Toto, tucked up in bed while he got ready.

“Do you think that George still has feelings for me?” you asked as Toto made his way out of the bathroom.

He didn’t react at first, remaining silent as he pulled back the covers and slipped in beside you, his expression unreadable as he rested against the headboard. “I know he does,” he said quietly.

You looked at him, waiting for more, but he didn’t elaborate.

“Toto…” you began, the words coming out before you could stop them. “Does it bother you?”

He sighed, finally turning to face you, “It doesn’t bother me that he has feelings for you,” he said after a moment. “But it bothers me that you seem worried about it.”

You swallowed, unsure of what to say.

“I trust you,” Toto added, his tone calm but firm. “But if George’s feelings are going to be an issue, we need to deal with it..”

You nodded, appreciating his straightforwardness. “You’re right. I just… I didn’t expect it to be this complicated.”

“Life’s always complicated,” he said, “But we’ll figure it out.”

You turned away from Toto, your back to him, lost in thought. It wasn’t long before you felt him wrap an arm around you, pulling you close, but the warmth that usually comforted you felt different tonight. There was an unspoken tension and as sleep slowly crept in, you wondered if this was just the beginning of something much more complicated.

Taglist: @prettiest-at-the-party @noooway555 @annewithaneofthegreengable  @xoscar03 @totowolfffcheco @justzluv @kravitzwhore @bborra @a-beaverhausen@amandadesantasworld @formulaal

[petriquors]

POV: you wake up in someone else's bed

a/n: gn!reader, post-timeskip, mention of drinking alcohol

Your pounding head wakes you first. It wakes you like a blaring fire alarm might, or perhaps a high school marching band practicing in your living room—either way, you groan and bury your face further into your pillow, hoping for the sweet release of sleep to welcome you back.

You realize that you’re not currently lying on a pillow.

No, that’s most definitely skin.

You jolt backward, but you’re stopped by the way your head starts to spin, punishing you for sudden movement. A muscular arm winds around your waist and gently pulls you back to the (admittedly pillowy) chest below. Heart racing, you glance around the room, trying desperately to figure out where you are.

A tidy-ish, generic bedroom. Dark wood floors, white sheets, and a volleyball in the corner. That doesn’t help you much, given that half the men you know are volleyball players. If you could crane your neck a little farther, you’d be able to see the number on the white jersey sticking out of the hamper—

“You’re in my apartment.” You avoided looking at who you’re in bed with, afraid of the mess you’ve gotten into. But when he speaks with a familiar voice, you peek up through your eyelashes.

Suna Rintaro lays on his back, arm pressed against his eyes. He looks as exhausted as he sounds: messy hair sticks up in all directions, and his cheeks flush with uneven splotches of peach and mauve.

“How’d you know I—”

“I can feel you freaking out,” he says. 

“How’d I—”

“You were too drunk to tell me your address last night, so I brought you here.” He drops his arm from his face, and now you have an up-close look at his tired, golden eyes. “And then,” he smirks, “you started crying when I told you I’d sleep on the couch.”

Mortification twists your stomach. This is, without a doubt, your worst nightmare come true: somehow, you let yourself get drunk enough that last night’s party is now a blur. You have to learn secondhand what you said and did in front of Suna—the man you’ve been in love with since high school.

You glance down, stealing a look at his bare chest while avoiding his eyes. “Why’re you shirtless?”

He chuckles. “Because a human furnace decided to sleep on top of me.”

When you wish the floor would open up and swallow you, another terrifying thought hits you. You tear the blankets off and look down, finding yourself in a faded Raijin shirt and gray sweatpants.

Suna’s eyes follow yours. Then, his hand gives your waist a squeeze. “Those are mine. Your outfit looked uncomfortable.”

You open your mouth, but before you can ask a question with an answer you’re dreading, he shakes his head. “I didn’t see you naked.”

Satisfied but still embarrassed, you lay your red-hot cheek back on his chest. His skin is invitingly cool against yours, and you’re too tired to silence the excited beat of your heart. You’ve never been this close to him. You’ve never felt him this way. You never expected him to care for you, let alone this gently. In this state, you’re too weak to fight off the idea that maybe, just maybe, this morning means there’s something more than friendship between you.

Maybe, after some coffee and a delayed breakfast, you’ll notice how his heart beats faster around you too.

[boytearscore]

his obsession, her control. — matthew sturniolo.

summary: because ever since he met his brothers' best friend, he hated her to the core by the way she dressed, talked and presented herself. he thought she was just an attention seeker while claiming to be the only immune guy to her dirty games. that is until the morning chris and nick decided to go out and get groceries by themselves, since matt himself refused to drive them to target, he was left all alone with her, unfortunately for the blue eyed boy, his strong belief of being an exception when it comes to fall for her dangerous charm was completely erroneous.

warnings: swearing, teasing/arguing (matt being a jerk mostly), enemies to lovers but sort of he hates her while she finds his tantrums amusing, smut, bratty!matt, blowjob, facefucking, foreplay, agressiveness and a lot of dirtytalk.

author’s note: before y’all start to hate me, i came home from work yesterday and had NO wifi nor data to post the chapter. still, i apologize for the delay. also, comment and tell me what you think about this new plot, the main character is gonna teach you that just because a girl is dominating, doesn’t mean she can’t play the submissive role to get her ways faster. ;)

chapter one.

the girl sighs slowly spreading her legs over the couch, it’s been only ten minutes since chris and nick left and she already felt like melting with boredom, not finding anything or anyone interesting to see or text on her phone.

her eyes shift slowly around the house, stopping right at the door slightly open of matthew’s room, her best friends’ annoying brother. it’s been years and she still didn’t believe they were triplets, how can matt be so awfully different from them? usually she doesn’t interact much with him except when he gives her disappointing and judging glares while they’re both in the same room. instead of angering her, she always finds it amusing and always provoke him until he’s red with anger.

that’s when the brilliant idea pops up in her pretty little head, what if she breaks into matt’s room to make him absolutely lose his shit? that’s enough to entertain her while her best friends are out for a couple hours, right?

while tiptoeing and holding a mischievous laugh, she peeks through the gap to study her target. matt is resting, laying on his bed with hair falling over his eyes and still wearing his pyjamas even though it was afternoon, his arm behind his neck making his muscles visibly flexed by the position, at the same time the other one is placed over his stomach, scrolling on his phone peacefully. 

she stares at his tattoos and the veins of his arm, it wasn’t a secret matt was attractive, in fact, she didn’t feel the need to say otherwise because one; hating him wasn’t a possibility, she couldn’t care less about his childish behavior, it was actually pretty funny and that gave her lots of opportunities to tease him. and two: nothing was more satisfying than seeing his jaw clenched and his bratty attitude rising when she provoked him.

“get out.” he says without looking at the door, being able to feel her presence due to her sweet and addicting scent.

she chuckles, entering and closing the door behind her calmly. “you know… i wasn’t gonna stay but now that you told me to get out...” her exposed legs by the black miniskirt make its way to his bed, sitting on the edge, her smooth skin complimenting the white sheets while her skirt molded perfectly her thighs.

matt rolls his eyes again “i don't care what you do, just don't bother me while i’m trying to relax.” he continues on his phone, not even glancing at the girl’s relaxed figure. “what do you want, anyway? nick and chris had enough of you and now you came here to annoy me? you’re really good at that, you know.“ he smirks sarcastically.

“oh, i’m very aware.” she crawls to the other edge of the bed close to the wall, leaning against it, her legs brushing against his feet slightly without her noticing.

matt, however, did notice it. in fact, his whole shivered body noticed it.

“and don’t pretend like you hate it when i’m here.”

the blue eyed boy scoffs and moves his feet away from her. “oh, i don’t have to pretend, i can barely stand being in the same room as you most of the time.” he sets his phone down and finally looks at her, giving her the a once-over with his typical critical eye, he stares at her tank top and then at her uncovered stomach and thighs. “what’s with the short skirt, huh? trying to impress someone? it’s not like anyone here would be interested in a girl like you, anyway.” matt smirks arrogantly. “especially not me. so you can stop trying so hard, it’s pathetic.”

“it’s fucking 95° degrees.” she replied with her usual nonchalant tone while grabbing her phone to check her lip gloss. “and i wouldn’t be so sure about that, your friends are more than interested. everytime they come here to hangout with you, they spend more time thirsting over me than talking to your boring ass.” she added, drawing her lips with a finger and laughing a little at her own comment at the same time. matt finds himself glazing at her lips, the way she draws her reddish glossy flesh with her finger without a worry, like her moves were calculated. to him, it seemed like she doesn’t feel anything, no matter what he says.

he snaps from the trance, shaking his head and frowning at her words.

his friends indeed spend more time eating her alive with their eyes than paying attention to him when she is around with nick and chris, which made matt crazy with rage. all of the groans and death glares he gives her every single time just proving her point without needing to add much.

matt finally narrows his eyes, anger building inside him little by little. “don’t even fucking start with them. they’re too good for your stupid annoying personality.” he leans back against his headboard, crossing his arms over his chest as he stares at the girl pointedly. “it doesnt matter, you’re just asking for attention dressed like that, regardless. typical slutty behavior from a girl like you.” the boy sneers derisively. “probably hoping one of us will bend you over and teach you a lesson, huh? too bad. i have standards, unlike my idiotic friends, apparently... they’ll fuck anything that moves. not me though. i need a real woman, not some immature whore.” he smirks cruelly. “unluckily for you, i’m not interested in sloppy seconds. or thirds.”

oh, the good and old fragile masculinity. the girl smirks, her eyes shifting to dark manner.

“is that so?” she leans over his legs, placing both hands on his tights covered by his grey sweatpants, her long black nails digging slightly into his skin while her penetrating gaze stares at his soul, the boy’s body tensed up and she scoffs. “what’s wrong? are you too insecure to handle a confident woman?” matt freezes for a second almost vocally responding to the sensation of her nails digging into his flesh, he swallows avoiding her eyes with a mix of rage and anticipation.

the girl studies his expression, feeling his tights tensing up more and more underneath her fingers. she bends back to her previous spot laughing quietly, her unbothered expression and nonchalant tone still not changing. “if you think that a piece of fabric defines a woman’s worth then you’re nothing but a virgin little boy who probably gets hard watching cartoons.” she gets up, walking towards the door, turning her head to face him before leaving. “you know… there’s a big difference between being an asshole and just a straight up sexist. i was wrong about you and sadly not in a good way.” she opens the door and closes it behind her, calmly walking to the living room and sitting on the huge white couch once again. the girl unlocks her phone, scrolling without paying attention to the screen. mentally, she was counting the seconds to see matthew’s figure bursting out of his room and scream at the top of his lungs. the corner of her mouth quirked up with excitement.

meanwhile, matthew stares blankly at her ghost in front of him, processing her words. he grits his teeth, face turning red with anger. 

the tall boy jumps up from the bed and storms out of the room after her, heading straight to the living room, her calm and collected mannerism making his neck vein pop up with annoyance. “fuck you! you don't know shit about me!” matt stands in front of the girl, hands on his hips as he glares down at where she sits on the couch. “i’m not insecure nor a virgin, you stupid cunt! and i’m not a little boy either! i’m a grown-ass man who knows what he wants! unlike you, who clearly has no self-respect dressing like a fucking hooker.” his voice is rising with each word, his temper flaring out of control. he takes a step closer, looming over her menacingly. 

she laughs amusedly, getting up from the couch without a hush, her eyes not backing down from his one second.

their faces are inches apart, his nostrils flare as she invades his personal space, his breath hitching slightly at how close she is. he can smell her scent again with the mix of her mint warm breath hitting his face and watch the flecks of pure darkness in her eyes. it makes him even angrier that she affects him this way.

“then why are you yelling and being so defensive?” she tilts her head, pursing her lips to mock him. “did i hit a nerve, little boy?”

matt laughs sarcastically, rubbing his face in frustration.

“i’m not defensive, you fucking psycho! i’m pissed off because you're a delusional bitch who thinks she can talk to people however she wants without consequences!” his voice drops to a low growl as he stares intensely into her eyes, his own blazing with fury and something else he refuses to acknowledge. “think you're so sly, so above everyone else, huh? sorry to break your little ‘i don’t care’ attitude but you're nothing special. just another dumb slut looking for a man to put you in your place.” matt reaches out and grips her chin roughly, forcing her to maintain eye contact with him. she gasps with his aggressiveness while smirking, still not being affected by his words. 

“oh, i don’t think i’m above anyone else.” she leads her hand to his chest, creeping up to the neck and he tightens the grip on her chin, his pulse racing beneath her fingers. “i just think i’m better than guys who judges people based on clothes. you know? the ones who probrably will stay alone and horny forever?” her challenge only fuels his anger further and he leans in even closer until their noses are nearly touching, making her smirk wider. ”guys like… you.” he groans, sliding his other hand up to wrap around her throat loosely, applying just enough pressure in an attempt to make her submit once and for all, but it was too late. she was getting inside his head without even trying too much and he had no idea. “see, you’re calling me a slut for the way i dress but i bet you can’t name one guy i’ve dated.’’

“you’re right, i don't know who you've fucked. but i know your type, always throwing yourself at guys, desperate for validation. you probably spread your legs for the first dick that shows interest, don't you?” he replies right away, his words heavy with irritation. “face it, sweetheart - you're a pathetic little tease who gets off on driving guys crazy. well, congratulations, mission accomplished. you’re driving ME crazy alright... but not in the way you wanted.”

the girl lets out a small giggle, ignoring all the offensive comments, her mind floating with the thought of all the words she’s gonna make him swallow later. this by itself was awfully turning her on, but she manages to hide it well by her unconcerned expression.

“it’s so funny the way you’re affected by my words while trying so hard not to show it.” the girl takes her hand away from his neck, crossing her arms. “and i didn’t even try anything. i just replied to your brainless incel comments and you got mad because you have nothing else to say besides calling me an attention seeker.” she shrugs, her gaze still on him while she feels his fingers flexing around her slender throat.

matt snorts derisively at her words, her neck veins pulsing underneath his digits. he knows she's affected by him too, no matter how much she tries to hide it.

‘’oh please, spare me the bullshit. you live for this kind of thing… pissing people off, pushing buttons until they snap. well, i’m not falling for your sick games.’’ he releases her abruptly and steps back, running a hand through his hair in frustration. his heart pounds wildly in his chest but he refuses to let it show on his face.“get the hell out of my sight before i do something we both regret. trust me, you don't want to test me right now. i’m not one of your little boy toys to play with whenever you feel bored.’’

the corner of her lips went up with a smirk, she quietly sneaks behind matt who is currently facing his door, trying to control the anger and arouse inside him.

the girl lifts her feet up a little to reach his ear. “and what exactly are we going to regret, matt?” she whispers, brushing her lips against his lobe.

matt freezes as he feels her warm breath ghosting over his ear, her lips barely grazing his skin. every muscle in his body tenses, his fists clenching at his sides as he fights the urge to grab her and throw her onto the nearest surface.

‘’fuck you, get off me!’’ he snaps, shrugging her off roughly and spinning around to face her. his eyes blaze with barely contained lust and fury as he backs her up against the wall, caging her in with his arms. ‘’fine. let's play this fucking game, but don’t fool yourself. this is MY game, not yours. see if you can handle the consequences.’’ matt leans in, capturing her mouth in a brutal kiss before biting at her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, she moans with the mixture of pain and pleasure, the taste of blood only making her more aroused by second. 

her arms wrap around his neck, one hand reaches his hair, grabbing and pulling back in a sharp grip to make him face her. “is that all you can do?” she asks, gasping with her mouth slightly open, a little blood stain painting her swallowed lips red. “guess i was right about you just being a virgin little boy.” the girl smirks, tightening the grip on his hair more aggressively, a low growl rumbles in matt's chest, the sharp sting only serving to inflame his desire further. 

he presses himself fully on her, grinding his already hard cock against her hip as he grabs both wrists and pins them above her head roughly. ‘’you fucking tease, you have no idea what i’m capable of.’’ he rasps, trailing biting kisses along her jawline and down her neck, sucking hard enough to leave marks. “i could ruin you in ways you never imagined. make you beg while screaming my name to the whole fucking neighborhood to listen.’’ matt nips sharply at her collarbone before soothing the sting with his tongue, laving the abused flesh with long strokes. his free hand slides down to grope her breast roughly through the thin fabric of her top, tweaking her nipple between his fingers.

she gasps, lifting her leg up between his legs, her hands still pinned above her head. “you’re just talk.” she scoffs, brushing her knee against his hard cock and he tilts his head back, lips parted with a whimper before he turns back to her, closing the gap between their bodies even more while sliding up the grip on her wrists, making her moan with the pain of her muscles being stretched aggressively. “i dare you to destroy me, matthew. even though i know you won’t get even close.” she looks up at him with a burning gaze, a unreadable expression in her face.

his eyes darken with sadistic glee at her challenge, a wicked smirk twisting his lips. matt releases her wrists abruptly and grips the hem of her black tight top, tearing it open with one swift motion to expose her bra-clad breasts, she moans and whimpers against his mouth, finally feeling her arms free. the flimsy lace provides little barrier as he palms the soft mounds roughly, rolling her sensitive nipples between his fingers. ‘’want to be destroyed, you fucking slut? i’ll give you what you asking for.’’ he captures her mouth again in a searing kiss, all teeth and tongue as he plunders her depths ruthlessly. the blue eyed boy hands roam her body greedily, squeezing and caressing every curve as he grinds his aching erection against her hip bone.

she breaks the kiss with heavy breathing, her lips still brushing against his. “yet you seem more affected than me.” she leads a hand to his hard cock, caressing it, matt immediately lets out a strangled groan as she gropes his straining dick through the cotton fabric of the sweatpants, his hips jerking involuntarily into her touch. “so hard…” her hand squeezes the covered length ruthlessly, leaning to his neck and sucking his pale skin, she smiles noticing the instant harsh red hickeys. “it seems like you’re the slut.” she brings a hand to his face, slapping it slightly before grabbing his face and pulling closer to hers. “and you didn’t even need to dress like me to be one, did you?” she giggles, sucking his bottom lips before biting it without mercy to bruise him just like he did to her.

“shut your fucking mouth.” her teasing words send a fresh wave of fury crashing through him and he grabs a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back roughly to bare the column of her throat to his hungry mouth. “you have no idea what you're talking about.” he snarls against her skin before sinking his teeth into the tender flesh, marking her with his hatred and desire. the other hand slides under her skirt to cup her ass possessively, kneading the firm globe. “i’m gonna fuck that smart mouth of yours until you choke on my cock. show you what a real man can do.“

she chuckles, her eyes glaring at him with challenge. “a real man, huh?” she slowly drop to her knees, calmly tracing her fingers over his sweatpants and pulling down just enough, his hard cock jumps over her face and matt breath catches in his throat watching the scene before his eyes, her hot mouth hovering mere inches from his very erected member. “no underwear at home? how slutty of you.” she chuckles, leaning against his pink tip covered with precum and licking it while her lustful eyes gazed at his face. “let’s see if you’re just all talk or not.”

his lips turns from a gasp to a smirk with her words, he tangles his fingers in her hair, gripping tightly as he guides her face closer to his straining erection. “open wide, you whore. show me how good you can suck dick.” he demands gruffly, rubbing the leaking tip across her full lips. “if you do a decent job, maybe i’ll consider letting you ride my cock later. would you like that, princess? to have me splitting your cunt open with my cock?”

matt pushes past her lips without waiting for a response, sliding deep into the welcoming heat of her mouth with a guttural moan.

she begins to take him all inside her mouth, reaching the throat right away while sucking vigorously, her tongue twisting around his tip when reaching the top before sliding back down deep in her cavity. her eyes already flooding with tears thanks to the aggressive contact of his large dick hitting the back of her throat multiple times, she’s looking at him with siren eyes while her nails were scratching and digging on his thighs.

matt throws his head back with a loud groan as the girl takes him with all effort, her throat constricting deliciously around his sensitive cock. the tears finally stream down her flushed cheeks as she struggles to accommodate his size, but she doesn't pull away, instead doubling her efforts to please him. “just like that. take it all, you filthy little cockslut.” he praises roughly, holding her head steady as he begins to thrust shallowly into her mouth, fucking her face with increasing intensity. “your mouth was made for sucking my dick, wasn't it? bet you love having your throat used like this, being choked on my thick cock.”

he picks up speed, slamming into her mouth brutally as he chases his release.

meanwhile she sucks him more, putting more pressure and taking him even deeper, her tears continuously falling down her pink cheeks and her makeup all smudge over under eyes still glued to his.

that sight of her was way too much for him, matt smirks to himself. feeling proud of dominating the girl who never backs down to anyone. her tear-streaked face, the makeup running down her cheeks as she takes his cock like a submissive whore sends matt hurtling towards the edge. with a roar, he buries himself balls-deep in her throat and holds her there as he erupts, flooding her mouth with spurt after spurt of hot cum.

“swallow it all, don't you dare spill a single drop.” he growls, keeping her trapped on his twitching shaft as he rides out the waves of his intense orgasm. “fuck, such a good cumdump. you’ve earned yourself a reward. now get up and bend over the kitchen counter. it’s time for me to fuck your little wet pussy.”

the girl swallows everything slowly holding back a smirk while savoring the taste of winning against a fucking asshole, she already won and her game didn’t even start yet.

slowly, she gets up in front of him, wipping the saliva off her chin and the melted makeup under her eyes. her hair beautifully messy and her shining eyes by the tears giving matthew the brief satisfaction, but quickly he shifts his mocking smile to a frown when she smirks and get closer to him.

“you’re not gonna fuck me, matt.” she announces, placing a finger on his chin. “because all i needed to do was pretend to be submissive for a split second for you to think that i was playing your little game, but in reality, you were playing mine this whole time.” she chuckles, releasing his chin with a harsh push with her finger, his head turn to the side while his jaw clenched. “you said you’re not like the other guys but you fell for my tricks just like they do.” she fixes her clothes, walking to the couch and sitting there with her legs crossed, the wetness of her pussy making her a little uncomfortable, but she brushes it off continuing her line of thoughts. “i wouldn’t be mad though, i just gave you the best orgasm of your life, didn’t i?” she asks, tilting her head while smiling.

he stares at her with his mouth open as she saunters away, ignoring his demand to present herself for him to ravage. she was right, no girl ever made him feel that amount of pleasure in his life but of course he was not gonna tell her that.

matt sighs, anger and arousal war within him as he watches her swinging her feet on the couch as if nothing happened.

“the fuck do you think you're doing? come here and bend over your fucking ass so i can destroy your soaking wet cunt.” he warns darkly, stalking towards her with murderous intent in his eyes. “you don't get to tease me like that and then just walk away. this is not how this works, i will have you begging for my cock before we're done today, mark my words.“

reaching the couch, matt grabs the girl roughly by the arm and hauls her to her feet.

“you’re the one begging to fuck me, matt.” she says smirking, his tight grip on her arm making her feel the need to provoke him more. “i mean, if you’re right about me opening my legs to every guy, i guess you’re the only one not getting it. and yet you’re here, wanting so bad to feel my pussy around your dick.” she places a hand over his cheek, caressing it with a fake sense of care. “you’re pathetic…” her thumb slowly slides to his lips, drawing it slightly while the boy shivered, not knowing which emotion to focus, horniness or ego bruised. “but that’s okay, i love pathetic men, they stand exactly where i want.” she slowly inserts a finger inside his mouth and matt opens it without even noticing. “that’s it…” she whispers, pressing his tongue with enough pressure to make him groan.

he is paralyzed again, all this new sensations eating his masculinity and dominance alive, her mocking words stoking the flames of his fury higher but at the same time he wants to give him to the pleasure but quickly recovering to protect his pride.

he grabs her wrist in an iron grip, still feeling the taste of her thumb in his mouth while the other hand acts quickly, seizing her waist against his torso, trapping her between the hard surface nearest wall and his muscular body.

“listen here, you little brat.” he slides his hand under her skirt, using his finger to pull her panties to the side. matt grins, feeling her soaking wet pussy. “look at you, you’re dripping.” he chuckles sarcastically. “i’m going to fuck you and you’re gonna take my cock as the good slut you are. the only question is whether you're going to be able to sit comfortably tomorrow or not.” he threatens menacingly, grinding his already hardening cock against her lower stomach. “i suggest you start begging nicely for it like a good little bitch. maybe if you ask really sweetly, i’ll go easy on you... for the first round, anyway.”

suddenly the voices of chris and nick echoed through the front door. seems like they were back with the groceries. she smirks at matt. 

“nope, i’d rather leave you hard and dry in front of your brothers.” she winks at him smirking, taking his surprise as an advantage to break free from his body, heading to the the her previous spot calmly.

matt curses under his breath as he hears chris and nick approaching the stairs with loud laughter and chatting, knowing he won't have time to properly punish that menace for her insolence. not yet anyway. he shoots her a look filled with dark promise before quickly tucking himself back into his pants and adjusting his shirt.

“this isn't over.” he whispers harshly, jabbing a finger at her as he steps back and she smiles at him amused by his anger. with that ominous vow ringing in the air, matt turns to greet his brothers with a forced smile, praying they don't notice the prominent bulge tenting his sweatpants or the glazed look of frustrated lust in his eyes.

[aeskairo]

I mean... I am a person without a lot of attachments. I don't have a lot of trust in people, and I generally view people as simply everybody on their own path.

So then when I read other people's interpretations of gk, I'm often confused because I don't really understand where they're coming from.

For example, the idea of loyalty seem to be really important to a lot of other fans. Ogata is interpreted by almost everyone as a untrustworthy, with no loyalties.

But I don't understand why anyone in this story needs to have loyalties or why loyalty is even a good thing.

Everybody has completely different motivations and wants.

Tsurumi wants to split off a piece of the military, and use it to regain territory in Russia Where his wife and child are buried.

Hijikata says that he is looking to revive the Republic of Ezo, but actually he doesn't have the resources, or the time to do that so really he's looking for one last great battle and to die under that banner rather than to set up and new independent political entity.

Shiraishi has no real goals and just likes his friends and would love to get some money out of it. He later takes on Boutarou's goal.

Ogata has no real concrete achievable goal and is looking for an abstract sense of worth.

Sugimoto also has no real concrete goal and is using the gold hunt to avoid confronting the fact that he really has no place to return to. He says he has to get the money before he returns to ume, but this is just a prerequisite he set for himself, to delay returning. Ume isn't waiting for him, has no idea that he's out trying to get the money for her, and doesn't even know if he's alive. Despite all of the importance that he places on returning to her, he is a non-entity in her life, in the same way that Ogata is a non-entity in his father's life. The similarities and differences between Ogata and sugimoto is best left for another post.

Asirpa...... is a 12-year-old girl and is still trying to make sense of the world.

Many of the soldiers don't have any goals of their their own other than following orders or impressing their commander. People like Inenaga, ushiyama don't really have any aspirations for the gold. They just seem to be along for the ride since they have map tattoos.

My point is....

These are all clearly people with individual and completely different goals, to which the gold is just a means to an end. So I don't understand why loyalty is considered important, in fact I don't understand why it's a thing at all.

So given that ..... I don't understand why Ogata is considered a disloyal betrayer....

When I read comments by other readers, it really feels like there's an expectation that these groups be a found family of sorts. A place of trust and loyalty where people support and mentor each other and it makes no sense to me.

Like that's something you expect from the military. Members of the military are supposed to be brothers in against a common enemy led by a father figure and it is explicitly pointed out that this is not the case.

People bully each other, sometimes severely. The father figure is self-interested and the only sees his men as pawns. There are shifting loyalties and factions with their own goals in the same unit. The military is not a family substitute. Gold hunt groups are not a family substitute. Even family do not present the kind of loyal loving support that people seem to expect.

So I just..... I straight up have no understanding of why Ogata is considered to be a betrayer, because I don't understand how loyalty is a thing here. I mean to me, the very concept of loyalty in this story seems to be a lie used to manipulate people seeking identity and belonging, and have them be willing to die for the group.

When I look around on forums and discussions it seems like most people do not share this interpretation. People interpret media and events is through the lens of their own experiences. And I actually keep wondering if I'm missing something huge. Like if other people interpret loyalty in a totally different more meaningful way, what are their experiences that support this belief?

Just Curious

TLDR: this is not a story about found family as much as you want it to be. Instead it's about each person finding a place for themselves....not everyone is looking for a family.

Edit: I guess this is sort of meta. The reason I have this interpretation because I have a long history of working for corporations, and despite the found family culture that they try to create and all the team building exercises, people are constantly gunning for each other, trying to get people fired, taking credit for other people's work, making people look bad in front of management to elevate their own status, trying to jump ship and go to other companies in the same industry with proprietary knowledge... so my take on this whole story is that..."this is simply how people operate."

Like I've been on team building exercises with the company where everybody an outdooring trip and bonds over canoeing, and then immediately the next day people get back to trying to get each other fired.

That's just how people are. People form connections over all sorts of things, but that doesn't mean that they aren't out for themselves or that the connection will always exist, or that the connection is deep or that the person is loyal to you.

[stormcrow13]

Rolling with Difficulties and a breakdown of project creep

Rolling with Difficulty is a live play 5e D&D Planescape podcast. Sophia, who plays Dani (does the Moviestruck podcast and is Overly Sarcastic Productions editor/producer) made several jokes about precious moments figurines in Season 3 so I wanted to make precious moments figurines of the characters. I started that in January of 2023 when Season 3 was playing and I posted it on April 1 of last year.

Since I made those I thought I might as well make minis and since I wanted to reduce the number of packages I held off on sending the precious moments to the RWD PO Box. And since I wanted everything, other than the precious moments figures(because I showed them off while making them), to be a surprise I didn't post any of them. Austin the DM thought that Intellect devourers are too goofy with dog legs so he gave his spider legs which I though was cool so I made it and printed a few. @comicaurora, who plays Kyana, posted some concept art of an ancient drone that appeared for a chapter of Aurora and I was inspired by the one she labeled as dumb so I modeled it. I thought it would be weird to only send one concept and not the one that appears in the comic so I did those too. They got posted earlier and separately since they are not RWD.

By the end of Season 3 I had modeled the original crew and Dani's robot cat Plug and printed a mini of each(plus and extra Dani for season 1 red Dani) for their player and Austin. I though I should send a Plug in scale with the Precious Moments figures and that the rest of the crew would want them. So I printed one for every cast member.

And then between seasons 3 and 4 they did a Weird Little dude one shot giving official art for every crew member's companion. One of Finbar's pixies Old Bay, one of VR-LA's mechanical bugs Drone, and Kyana's pseudo dragon Sunny. So I modeled all of them and printed one for their player and one for Austin. I was trying to paint and send out all them before Season 4 started so I wouldn't have to model Vhas. Well Season 4 ended in September 2023 and I'm posting this now. Season 5 was announced to be the last about the crew of the Per Aspera and I was still procrastinating on painting them so I made peace with them not being painted and just sent them. Austin told me he opened the packages right before recording the last episode of Season 5.

And I ended up needing to send them in two boxes despite not wanting to send more than one being the reason I delayed sending them.

The Models can be Downloaded for free from

Printables: Crew, Weird Little Dudes, Intellect Devourer

Thingiverse: Crew, Weird Little Dudes, Intellect Devourer

If you want to help me keep making free models or to tell me what I should make next please check out my Patreon

[raayllum]

Anyway borrowing from the Rayllum relevant sections of my "arc 2 is about the pursuit of knowledge / knowledge as a burden" meta for s4 and s5 (minimized/condensed text is from previous meta) let's talk about S6

Season four in a lot of ways was the journey of

Mutual Love as Self Actualization: Part 1 — Uncertainty to Certainty (S4)

As previously noted, Callum starts out S4 at both a loss with the mirror, and still coping with the uncertainty and stagnation of his loss of Rayla. When Ezran reaffirms that Callum still loves her, all Callum can helplessly rely that he doesn’t “even know if she’s alive.” Things don’t really improve once Rayla shows up, either, even if we see the persistent thread of not knowing vs knowing being knit throughout their arc with one another.

When Ezran is trying to get Callum and Rayla to work together, he doesn’t tell them to set everything aside, or even harkens back to their good old days. He asserts their identities and says, “Don’t you remember who you are?” because to him — and evidently to Callum and Rayla, because it works — working together and helping each other has become a fundamental, core part of who they are as individuals. They are that interwoven with each other, and Rayla reflects that in 4x07 with, “Callum, you’re the 'destiny is a book you write yourself’ guy. No one can control you or make your choices for you” as well as what Callum offers up to her in 4x09 where we see the turning point in their prior uncertainty. Although they’ve both changed, they are fundamentally still the same people they were when they fell in love, and there is both comfort, sadness, and acceptance in that realization, where Callum says:

Mutual Love as Self Actualization: Part 2 — Certainty and Discovery (S5)

Upon reconciling once Callum has said what we knew all along — “I’m so glad you come back” — Callum and Rayla return to the castle, and their searches for knowledge become arguably more explicitly stated by the text. Their first scene together in 5x01 establishes that Callum wants to know the Ocean arcanum (“I thought it would be about controlling the tides or fighting the currents” thereby exerting control, which he desperately wants over himself post-S4) as well as Aaravos, whereas Rayla is seeking answers about her family: “If I can figure out how he put you into the cursed coins, maybe I can find a way to get you out.”

This is, of course, something we know she doesn’t trust Callum with yet, not wanting to burden him with her problems especially before she’s reached her own conclusion of what to do about it (to delay it for the good of the world) and we see that the certainty and forgiveness Callum found in 4x09 has more than carried over.

Opeli: Don’t you want to know what she was up to? Why she did all this?

And although very uncertain about opening up, Rayla still expresses certainty that she knows Callum could and can be there for her, if he wants to be — if he’s ready to be.

This is, after all, with both Amaya’s encouragement and Callum’s reassurance that 1) “You can tell me when you’re ready” and that 2) he does want to know from 5x01. Then, we see both their arcs in this way largely — or at least they would, in a perfect world — be resolved in many ways by their interaction later in 5x04:

Previously, we’ve mostly talked about knowledge, especially within the text of the show, as a positive thing. It is the foundational rock of a strong relationship, it can lead to positive self actualization, and it helps the heroes keep Aaravos from being unleashed. When you do not have enough knowledge or perceived understanding of someone (Claudia assumes Soren could never understand her, and Viren and Harrow’s relationship breakdown), your relationship accordingly deteriorates. When you share knowledge, and share experiences (Rayla to Callum about the coins, Soren to Elmer about abusive cycles), you can become stronger together.

But knowledge is not exclusively a good thing. It can also be harmful, or unwanted, or unwanted precisely because it’s harmful. It can bind you to deals or bonds you don’t really want, and once you know something, you cannot un-know it, whether about yourself or about others. And we see this most plainly in the story Archmage Akiyu shares about the prison ("I knew too much").

So if S4 is about beginning to navigate both in spite of and within uncertainty, S5 is about having the safety of that uncertainty stripped away, both in creating more of it, and in removing some of it. Namely, the Ocean arcanum.

He chased the Ocean arcanum because he thought, if Sky granted him potential and freedom, then Ocean would grant him control, but the truth was more complicated than that. While it did grant him control (the ability to break free from Finnegrin’s spell), it also granted him a rather hard truth he’d rather not know.

The first time he cites his poem about true tides and untold depths, he is talking about his faith and trust in Rayla — the way he views her: “If she didn’t tell me, she has a good reason. […] I trust her. Unconditionally.”

The second time he recites the poem, it is about himself. The untold depths are within himself, are parts he is still trying to understand in full because they are uncomfortable truths. In many ways, Callum unlocking the Ocean arcanum is his version of Ezran’s 4x03 speech (see how we looped all the way back? 'Totally’ intentional I swear), that multiple things can be, and sort of have to be, true in order to gain new ground, even if there’s a part of you that wishes it could be simple.

Season six develops this theme, too, but it takes it and calls it Truth, and we see this reflected most notably in 6x06.

Mutual Love as Self Actualization: Part 3 — Certainty and Salvation (S6)

In season six, we see Callum build upon this certainty with Rayla by the way he remains emotionally open with her about his hopes and fears. After his 6x01 nightmare freaks him out, he runs right to her to receive support; when the guilt and fear gnaws at him in 6x03, he tells her the truth of what he did on Finnegrin's ship.

While the obvious facet of knowledge (truth) and salvation here is in 6x06, I also like to think it starts an episode earlier in 6x05. Callum wants to go along with the mission because he knows the quasar diamonds will be what they get in exchange whereas Rayla goes along with it because he's pushing for it (and well, helping people is always nice).

However, where Callum believes that the icy beast they seemingly have to slay is a monster, Rayla believes differently and hedges her bets on what she knows.

This is a great mini turning point in season six for a few reasons. For one, it merges the idea of truth and knowledge into one ("I know it's true") as well as emphasizing the concept of knowing something in your heart, which 6x06 will build on of "dark magic tears a hole in your spirit/heart that light can fill". It also clearly ties back to something that Callum knows he knows, which is that he trusts Rayla unconditionally (5x01). So he goes with it.

When Rayla does reach out to the behemoth, it's with more facets of knowledge: "I know you're in pain. I don't want to hurt you...", knowing the creature's name and the stories ("I know who you are"), and even in her lullaby:

(We'll come back to the lullaby for 6x06's relevancy as well). Once Rayla's kindness and compassion gets through, of her knowledge and seeing the truth of Esmeray's pain much like Ezran saw Zubeia's ("and the truth of you seeing that made it feel like less, like healing"), we return to how well Callum knows her and his knowledge about the trial ("You knew this was the reward"):

If I'd told you, you would've refused to go, because you never do anything for yourself.

To love someone is to know them, and to know them is (in these cases) to develop love for them. The same way that Rayla brings Runaan out of his grief and guilt induced darkness in 6x09 ("I'm your daughter and I love you") and recognizes the grief and guilt plaguing Esmeray, likewise, she represents and is Love to Callum.

He's gone from being uncertain about her survival, about expressing his love, all the way to looking to her for support and direction about the trials set before him:

Kosmo: Dark magic left a hole in you, but the Star-truth ritual can fill the darkness with light. [...] You must search your mind and heart for your one deep truth, the star within you. Then you must let that truth shine and fill the darkness. Callum: One deep truth, huh? Kosmo: Your deepest truth. [...] You must find the star within you, the one deep truth so bright it can fill the darkness.

As know, Callum's trial is still a struggle for him at first. But luckily Rayla's lullaby also foreshadowed the principle of looking inward rather than outward, too, and precisely what kind of answer and truth Callum is going to find.

Callum: I found my one truth.

His truth, his knowledge, his constant, his light... is love, his love, for Rayla and from Rayla. At the end of 6x06 in many ways, Callum is at his most self-actualized, freed from the taint of dark magic and paranoia about Aaravos' control... saved and allowed to become the best version of himself, a bright shining light. A star in his own right. Which is likewise why he expresses his truth before the episode is done. He did dark magic for her, but she's so much more than just darkness or desperation or sadness for him; she's light and hope and Love, too. She's his Constant, Deepest Truth. She's everything.

It's taken two and a half seasons, but he's ready to do more than just know it. He's ready to say it.

So he does.

[mssorceressupreme]

Hiii

I heard your requests were open 👀👀👀

Your writing is sooo amazing, it's addictive, like I can't get enough 😩🤚

Could I request a Minho X reader, reader is from Maze B, superrr close with Aris, and she's confident, sassy, sarcastic, loud and laughs a lot, total morale booster, she also cracks a lot of that's what she said jokes.

Since she's close W Aris, the boys might get the wrong idea and think they're a thing, but they clarify they're not lmao

You can ignore this request if you want, I just think you write so good, and so many people would love to read smth like this, I feel like some authors forget they're just teenagers ykwim?

It's so nice to see active Maze Runner blogs, especially when they write so bomb like you 😘

I hope you have a good day, never stop writing ♥️♥️♥️

Of course love, I’d be more than happy to write this for you 🥹❤️❤️❤️ Thank for the kind words, it really keeps me motivated, you’re such an angel 😭😭🫶🏼🫶🏼 Hope you have a great day too lovely!! 😘🥰 (also so sorry for the delayed post, I’ve been so busy with assignments lately 😭 I hope this satisfied your prompt 💓)

Who is She?

Pairing: Minho x Reader

Summary: Sparked with curiosity, Minho follows you one day. And your relationship takes a turn.

Warnings: none really, it’s a sweet imagine I like to think

——

The dining hall was a strange blend of sterile and vibrant. It was filled with chatter and the clinking of cutlery, the usual dinner routine. To you it was the most ‘normal’ atmosphere in this whole facility, the only time you felt sane. At least people weren’t shoving needles in your face, or interrogating you.

At one of the tables, the boys from maze A—Thomas, Minho, Newt, Frypan and Winston—sat together, their eyes scanning the room occasionally while engaging in conversation.

They were still trying to figure this new place out, especially the people in it. One of those people was you, confident in spirit and as sassy as can be, currently sitting with Aris. But they didn’t know his name, he was just a quiet kid to them, or your “boyfriend”, or so they thought.

“Whatever, I could take on 50 of those guards at once, they look like they’ve got no balls.” You sneered, while chewing on your food.

“Keep it low Y/N, we don’t want anyone overhearing us.” Aris warned.

“If I could set this whole place on fire, I would, but Stella won’t let me do shit. Don’t you think it’s time we try to escape?!” You huffed. Stella, one of the girls from maze B, was the bossiest girl you’ve ever came across. (aka the Gally of Maze B, before his redemption lol)

Mind you, she’s only alive to this day because you saved her from a griever…unfortunately. Sometimes you wished you left her in the maze.

Aris sighed, he too, disliked Stella. “Anyway, you should eat up. You’ve barely eaten since we got here.”

You slide your plate over to him, “Today’s your lucky day, I’m not hungry.”

He shrugged and began indulging in this second helping. Aris wasn’t much of a eater but boy, this is the first time you guys have had real food and he wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity.

“Look! An opening, I’m going to check it out.” You whispered, standing up as the guards walked away from their previous post.

“Y/N! Get back here!” Aris whisper-yelled, but you were determined to get through the other side of that door.

——

“Where is she going?” Minho observed as you made your way towards the door.

“Who?” Winston swiftly turned around, accidentally knocking over a cup of water in the process.

Newt chuckled, while Minho pressed his lips together. “Sorry, Minho!” Winston exclaimed, grabbing napkins.

“You’re alright man. I’ll be back.” Minho gave Winston a reassuring back tap, before leaving to find the bathroom. Or, maybe he just wanted to follow you.

——

You managed to get past the doors. This was a way easier attempt than anticipated, you thought to yourself but shrugged it off.

However, you couldn’t help but feel like you were being followed. Regardless, you didn’t care, the only thing that mattered was finding out what these people were really behind.

You halted your tracks, observing your surroundings. It seemed to be a never ending grey hallway with millions of doors, great, that makes it sooo much easier for you doesn’t it!

As Minho turned a corner, he bumped into you, nearly knocking you over.

“Woah, watch it!” You exclaimed, steadying yourself.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you there!” Minho was quick to defend himself.

You furrowed your brows, the newcomer from maze A. “Were you…following me?”

Minho scoffed, “Pft of all the people here, why’d you think I’d follow you.”

You shot him a look, “Oh come on, I’ve seen you newbies. You guys watch Aris and I like a hawke.”

One of the doors dinged, about to open, so Minho quickly reacted by pulling you by the waist into one of the tiny cracks in the hallway walls, adequate enough to fit two people.

“Stop touching me!” I grunted, pushing his hand away.”

“I’m barely even on you!” He retorted.

“Why were you following me anyway?!” I whispered, “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I had to use the bathroom! I’m wet if you can’t tell!” He responded, but it came out a bit too wrong. Minho immediately regretted how that sounded.

You held back your laugh, “That’s what she said.”

With a tiny bit of banter, Minho managed to break down your walls, all too quickly, something you weren’t really used to.

“So what are you up to anyway? Sneaking around like you own the compound.” Minho smirked, while keeping an eye out for any guards.

“I’ve seen them move bodies in and out of here like clockwork. Aris and I don’t trust these people.”

Minho’s eyes narrowed. “Oh yeah? You should get back to your boyfriend then. I don’t think he’d be pleased to know you were in a confined space with another man.”

You rolled your eyes, “Oh, no. Aris isn’t my boyfriend. He’s more like a brother to me.”

There was a moment of silence as you stared at each other, the air thick with tension. Before either of you could say more, you heard footsteps. A guard was coming your way.

Minho quickly grabbed your hand and pulled you into what seemed like a nearby closet, closing the door behind you. You stood close together in the dark, barely daring to breathe.

The guards footsteps echoed past you and faded away, earning an exhale from the both of you.

“That was close,” You whispered, “and wow here we are in another ideal place to be in right now.” Boy, you are one sarcastic girl, Minho thought.

“I know I love it here.” Minho’s breath warm against your neck.

In the confined space, your proximity made every small movement noticeable. He could feel the heat radiating off you, and your scent was intoxicating. You looked up at him, your eyes reflecting the dim light filtering through the cracks in the door.

“Why did you really follow me?” You asked, voice soft but filled with curiosity.

Minho hesitated, then decided honestly was the best approach. “I don’t know. I guess I was curious. You seem like someone we could trust, Thomas doesn’t trust the people here either.”

“Thomas?”

“Grey shirt, brown hair?” Minho described him, hoping I would recognise him.

“Ah yes, I saw his little incident yesterday. Attempting to fight a guard in the dining hall is daring, he’s got some balls.”

“Sure does.”

“You seem to know the place really well, we could learn a thing or two from you.” Minho added.

You smiled, a genuine one that made Minho’s heart skip a beat, “Well, maybe we both have a lot to learn about each other.”

Minho could see the flicker of something more in your eyes, a spark that mirrored his own feelings. He leaned in slightly, feeling the magnetic pull between them.

Before anything could happen, the reality of your situation came crashing back. You couldn’t afford to get distracted, not with so much at stake.

“We should get back,” you whispered, though your eyes said you didn’t want to move.

Minho nodded reluctantly, “Yeah, we should before anyone finds us here.”

You carefully slipped out of the closet, the hall now silent and empty. As you made your way back together, Minho couldn’t help but feel a new sense of determination.

You were in this together now, and he would do whatever it took to protect you and figure out a way out of her.

“Yo, Aris!” You called out as you re-entered the dining hall. Aris gave you a questioning glance, as you appeared with Minho, you simply nodded, signalling that you were fine.

Minho returned to his friends, who eyed him curiously.

“What happened?” Thomas asked.

“Just…getting to know our new friend.” Minho said, glancing back at you. You were already back at your table with Aris, but you shot him a quick, knowing smile.

Minho then gestured for you and Aris to come join them which you did.

“Don’t be shy, you can sit next to me if you’d like.” Minho smirked, gesturing to the empty seat beside him.

You scoffed, “As if.” But you bit your lip, hiding back a smile.

“Careful, her boyfriend might not like that.” Newt warned, glancing at Aris to see his reaction.

“Oh no no, we’re not a thing.” Aris was quick to respond, “She’s like a sister to me.”

You chuckled, “Besides, I’m more into leaders, I like a guy who can lead.”

“Someone like me?” Minho teased.

You rolled your eyes, “Yeah you wish. Who was the one leading you around just now?”

“Uh actually, if I can recall, it was me who had the reigns.” He hummed, smiling when he saw you get all worked up.

“Stand down maze boy, this is my terrain. You guys want a way out, Aris and I can help you.”

“Alright, so what’s the plan?” Thomas agreed, leaning in closely.

Minho shot you a smile, and you returned it, thought a bit cocky, he did manage to grow on you or whatever.

And for the first time, you actually felt a spark of hope. With extra manpower, you might be able to break out of this place.

You might be in a dangerous situation, but at least you weren’t alone. And Minho knew deep down, that together, you could face whatever came next, for once, everyone at that table felt hopeful.

The safe haven felt closer, and so did your friendship with Minho. But could this friendship blossom into something more, you often pondered.

Perhaps so.

You smiled, watching as Minho lead the next discussion. You could get use to this, it felt nice to be relaxed and not take the lead for once.

[turntechradiohead]

I wrote down everything we know about our special new character and their mysterious pals on page 707, mostly so I can try and figure out wtf is going on, so I figured I'd post my notes

We’ve seen that Vrissy had unread messages from GC on page 456, so I am assuming this was that conversation since it happened 801 minutes (13.35 hours) ago 

Also worth noting is that she thinks they're "not anyone worth talking to" lol rip

Maybe it’s just because of the inane rambling while their friend isn’t answering but I am getting serious Dave vibes lol The command prompt of page 707 isn’t in parenthesis, so that means were back in the Meat timeline. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was Rose’s species! I really can’t wait for the reveal hehe, look at those claws!

Here's what we know:

gavageCunctation [GC]: gavage /ɡəˈväZH/ noun the administration of food or drugs by force, especially to an animal, typically through a tube leading down the throat to the stomach. cunctation /kəNGkˈtāSHən/ noun (rare) the action or an instance of delaying; tardy action.

Typing quirk is a bomb that diffuses through the conversation o-------* Types in all lowercase, usually ends sentences with ellipses Hex code #8e5594

Friends with:

adamantGriftress [AG]  It’s literally just Vrissy Maryam-Lalonde

TC  they/them Discovered this version of SBURB very excited to play the game

AA that’s oomf she/her Hobbies include bugging and fussing and meddling Seer? Sure does seem like one to me "um anyway she's like an oracle... except she's not an oracle. she's some other shit..."

[system-to-the-madness]

Cherry Blossom Confessions 🌸 Okkotsu Yūta x Reader

Pairing: Okkotsu Yūta x Reader (can be read as any gender, no pronouns used) Genre: fluff Word Count: 1 423 Summary: Yūta spills a well-kept secret Prompt: accidental confession A/N: Firs time writing for Yūta! Also, I wanted to post these stories in time with the local cherry blossom, but it keeps delaying because the weather was too cold (on Wednesday it snowed even). I’m just gonna start posting and hope the cherry blossom will eventually catch up with me.

Sakura Festival Masterlist - Masterlist

Pink petals drifted through the air, looking like snowflakes in the warm afternoon light. It was only late March, but the sun had already gained back a lot of its power after the colder winter months, making you smile contently to yourself as you closed your eyes and held your face into the sun, trying not to let yourself be distracted by the person at your side.

Yūta was, for once, out of his school uniform, and instead dressed in an oversized shirt and some wide jeans which made his slim figure seem to drown in fabric. But it looked good, unfairly good even. You could tell he was fiddling around with his necklace, even without looking at him, and you couldn’t shake the feeling that he seemed nervous.

“What’s wrong,” you asked eventually, unable to take his fidgeting any longer.

You had known him for a good while, and his behaviour now was more like he had been when you had first met him. Back then he had been jumpy and shy, always expecting the worst of people. But as he had settled more into the life at Jujutsu High, the shy and easily scared boy had turned into the open-hearted, funny, and fiercely loyal friend you had gotten so attached to.

“Nothing,” Yūta’s answer came almost too quickly, making you raise your brows before you blinked open your eyes and turned to look at him.

He had cut his hair a little since winter, the formerly long strands having been trimmed into a new haircut, which made him look gentler than the rather harsh look he had been sporting before. His grey eyes met yours defiantly, as if he was challenging you to question his reply, but you didn’t do him the favour. Instead, you continued watching his face.

Recently he had started getting cute freckles over his nose that now started to turn a darker shade as he blushed under your inquisitive gaze. You wondered if he could tell your own cheeks were heating up, too.

“Anyway,” you shrugged, tearing your gaze away from him and focusing back on the pink petals of the cherry trees you were sitting under.

Silence engulfed you for a while, but you couldn’t quite tell if it was the good or the bad kind. You also didn’t know what you were supposed to say. Which was weird, considering you never had any problems of engaging in conversation with Yūta. You always found things to talk about, to joke about, even if it was only Gojo-sensei’s latest shenanigans.  But somehow it suddenly felt as if this silence was important, as if it were the preparation for whatever was to come next. What a strange sentiment…

“You’re beautiful.”

Confused you turned to Yūta, who was still watching you, his eyes widening as you met his surprised. He had never said anything like that before, usually his compliments were limited to your fighting in training or during missions.

Quickly you looked away, unable to hold his gaze any longer.

“Uhm, thanks…” you trailed off. Certainly he had to pick up on your embarrassment now, right? Your warm cheeks, the way you subconsciously had started playing with a blade of grass underneath your hand… you quickly pulled your hand away and intertwined it with the fingers of your other hand to stop the motion.

“Did I say that out loud,” Yūta wondered, a hint of amusement, but also embarrassment in his voice.

“Yeah, …”

He chuckled, and you glanced at him from the corner of your eyes. He had averted his eyes, and instead was staring up at the branches over you as he was chewing on his lip, clearly thinking hard about something. Suddenly he snapped his head back at you, almost startling you with the sudden motion, but it was obvious he had come to the conclusion of whatever he had thought over.

“I don’t tell you enough. Actually, I think I’ve never told you, but I always think you’re beautiful,” he confessed, his voice lacking any of the embarrassment from before and instead sounding determined now.

“Careful,” you chuckled nervously, “what will Rika think?”

Rika. Probably the biggest reason why you had never dared thinking of Yūta as anything other than a friend. You didn’t exactly feel like getting into a fight with a special grade curse over your classmate.

“Oh, she knows I think you’re beautiful,” Yūta shrugged, his voice returning to the more relaxed tone you usually knew from him.

“Does she?

“Yes, of course she does. I talk to her about you all the time.”

You furrowed your brows and turned back to look at Yūta. He had leant back, hands propped behind him against the grass, eyes closed. Black lashes rested against his pale, lightly freckled skin, and shadows of the cherry blossom danced softly over his features. He looked like an angel, you thought, or like the protagonist in some rom-com.

“You talk to her about me?” You hated how small your voice suddenly sounded.

“It’s not so strange, is it,” Yūta asked, his eyes still closed as he let the shadows slip over his face. “I have to talk to someone who won’t judge me. And Inumaki just keeps insisting I should finally confess to you. I can’t hear it anymore.”

You blinked, once, twice, wondering if Yūta was aware of what he had just said. And then you wondered if what he had just said meant what you think it meant.

“Confess what?”

The way Yūta tensed up revealed that he had not been aware of what he had just said. His eyes snapped open and quickly he sat up.

“I-”

The way he looked at you now, with widened eyes, and clearly insecure reminded you painfully much of the way he had looked at you in the first weeks of knowing you, always scared he had or was about to say something wrong, always worried you’d laugh at him, attack him, make fun of him or were out to hurt him.

“I- I didn’t…” His eyes kept skipping over your face as if the words he was supposed to reply with were writing in your features. After a few moments of stuttering around, he squeezed his eyes shut. “Confess that I like you,” he blurted out. “And have liked you for a long time. I didn’t want to tell you because I don’t want to put you in the weird position of rejecting someone who-”

“Yūta, Yūta!”

You interrupted the ramble he was picking up, instinctively bringing your hand up to his cheek. He still had his eyes closed, but instantly relaxed into your palm.

“Relax, it’s okay,” you assured him. “I like you, too.”

It took him a moment, but then the rest of the tension in his body fell away, and he blinked his eyes open.

“You do?”

The hope in his voice tucked at your heart and you nodded with a gentle smile.

“Yes, I do, you idiot. How couldn’t I?”

Yūta blinked at you, clearly surprised by your answer and uncertain what to do next. It took a few moments before the confused expression in his eyes melted away and was replaced by the joyous glimmer you loved seeing in his eyes so much.

“Then go out with me,” he demanded, a smile beginning to tuck at his lips, which turned into a proper grin as you nodded in agreement.

You were about to pull your hand away from his face, but he caught it in his, and keeping your eyes fixed on yours, he lifted your hand to his lips to place a delicate but lingering kiss on your knuckles, never breaking eye contact. The action drove heat into your cheeks, which only seemed to raise his confidence as he carefully lowered your hand and scooted closer to you.

“How about,” he leant in, his face right in front of yours now, “how about I take you out for dinner after this.”

You smiled at his suggestion and nodded. “I’d love that.”

“Perfect,” Yūta nodded to himself.

Then he wrapped an arm around your shoulder and gently pulled you backwards until you were laying in the grass, squeezed against him, looking up at the blue sky above you through the pink petals of the cherry tree. Suddenly he groaned, making you raise your eyebrows at him again even though you knew he couldn’t see it.

“What’s wrong?”

“Inumaki will be so pissed that he didn’t get to come up the ultimate confession-plan.”

@delzinrowe

[beyondthesefourwalls]

Remember You Even When I Don't (1)

Summary: A training accident, the doctor had told him. A nasty one that led him here, laying in a hospital bed with a splitting headache and an inability to remember the woman sitting beside him. What he did know, though, was that you were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and you felt important to him. That, as it turns out, would become an understatement.

Words: 2.7K

Pairing: Bradley Bradshaw/Reader (no use of y/n, so can be read as unnamed oc)

Warnings: angst, hospitals, memory loss, language.

Notes: I'm so excited and so nervous to be posting this. It was originally going to be a one shot, but it got a little out of control and so I've decided to try and split it up into multiple parts.

This was inspired by a one shot by the lovely @roosterforme and would not exist without her assistance. If you haven't read any of her stuff, please check out her masterlist - you won't be disappointed!

------

He woke up feeling like his mouth had been stuffed with cotton balls and an ice pick had been taken to his head over and over and over again. The pain was blinding. The grimace on his face must show, because suddenly there was a squeeze to his hand and a soft voice by his ear. 

“Bradley?”

That’s him, he recognized, maybe taking a little bit longer than he should have to realize that fact.  

“Oh, Bradley. Can you open your eyes for me, honey?” 

His movements felt slow to him, delayed and lethargic and like he’s fighting against more g-forces than he ever has. It takes him a moment to pry his eyes open, but when he does, he immediately flinches and squeezes them shut again. 

“Shit, oh my god I’m sorry,” that voice speaks again. The pressure on his hand is released and he hears what must be the squeak of a chair being pushed back. A soft click sounds through the room, but it felt like another clink of the ice pick on his skull. It’s a little less bright beyond his eyelids now, though. In another moment, his hand is warm as it’s encased in another again. “Lights are off now.”  

It felt like a tremendous effort to open his eyes again, and the process is slow. As he came into consciousness a little more fully, he registered the pain in more than just his head. And oh, there was a lot of it. He tried to shift just the slightest bit and immediately regretted it. It felt like every centimeter of him hurt. God, even blinking hurts.

The room comes in and out of focus, and even when it mostly clears, there was a slight blur around the edges of his vision. He recognized enough to know he was in a hospital. The white walls, the iv running through the crook of his elbow, the continuous beep beep beep of the monitor on one side of the bed are a giveaway to that. 

“Baby, baby, hey, don’t try and move, okay?”

The voice on the other side of the bed must belong to whoever is holding his hand. Despite the request, he couldn’t help but slowly, slowly turn his head in that direction. The voice was captivating, melodic, almost, and he wanted to see who it belonged to. It takes a moment for his eyes to focus on you, but when they do, he’s blown away. 

“Wow,” he breathed out in awe, his voice scratchy and sore, “you’re beautiful.” 

The breathtaking woman holding his hand laughs, and the sound is beautiful, but then tears well in your eyes. He doesn’t like that, he decided. He’s confused as to why he cares as much as he does about that fact. “Please don’t cry.” 

“I’m sorry,” you responded as you wiped under your eyes, “it’s just so good to hear your voice and see those eyes, baby.” 

There’s something he’s missing. The nagging feeling in the back of his head tells him that it’s something important, vital, imperative to his very survival. He racked his brain to try and find what it was, but the pain was so severe and his vision was starting to go in and out again the more he tried to figure it out. God, what happened to him? 

“Let me call your doctor,” you insist, and you’re standing to press the button on his bed when he tries to speak through the pain again. 

“Are you…not my doctor?” 

His voice was low, but he knew you heard him by how your entire body froze and your watery eyes snapped to him. Tears were welling again, he noticed in his blurred vision, but the look you have in your eyes was different this time. 

He felt like he did something wrong. 

You pressed the call button over and over again, more times than is probably necessary, before sinking back into the chair that he was starting to think you’ve been in for a long time. It felt like your hand was holding onto his a little bit harder now. 

“Bradley…do you know who I am? Do you know my name?” 

The pain in his body was ricocheting through him so viciously that he felt he may throw up, but he tried to push through it and think anyway. It felt important. You felt important, but he couldn’t figure out why. And he couldn’t think of your name, either. It’s that feeling of being right there on the tip of his tongue, but it just wouldn’t come out. 

“I can’t remember. I’m sorry. Should I?” 

You gasped lightly and he doesn’t like that sound, either. Before he could try and apologize, for something he wasn’t completely clear on, the door to his room opened and suddenly there were way more than the two of you in the room. He’s surrounded by white coats and navy blue scrubs and your hand wasn’t in his anymore and he missed the feel of it. He flailed slightly, trying to find it once more, but you were being ushered to the back of the small hospital room and that doesn’t feel right, either. 

“No,” he muttered, not listening to any of the medical personnel asking him questions and poking and prodding at him. He just knew that he wanted you back beside him, looking like you did when he first woke up, not sad like you did now. 

Everything hurt. 

Someone was shining a light in his eyes and he was so overcome with it that he at first didn’t notice how everyone in the room stopped moving when he had been asked what year it is and he had said 2018. He answered again when they asked who the current President was and his date of birth. 

By the collective intake of breath throughout the room, it seemed the last one was the only one he got right. 

“Lieutenant Commander -”

“It’s just Lieutenant.” 

The doctor clicked his flashlight off and took a small step back, clearing his throat and contemplating his words before he spoke. “According to your official Navy file, you were promoted to Lieutenant Commander two years ago. And unfortunately, Lieutenant Commander, it’s no longer 2018. It’s 2022, sir.”

The beeping of his heart monitor was starting to quicken, and his own breathing was loud in his ears. 

The doctor started speaking again, but Bradley couldn’t hear him. There was a consistent buzzing in his head. He was starting to get unbelievably dizzy. He felt like he was going to be sick. Throughout it, his eyes were still on you. The tears were streaming freely now, no longer being pushed away in defiance, with your hands covering your mouth as you stared back at him like you were having a hard time seeing him. 

A shimmering caught his attention and for the first time, he noticed the ring on your left finger. The edges on his vision started to go dark, and as the possibility of what that meant hit him, he no longer felt or saw anything at all. 

_________

He had been unconscious for three days. 

A training accident, the doctor had told him, and a nasty ejection that involved not only slamming into the canopy, but into the plane itself. He was unconscious before he ever hit the ground, but his parachute had done its job on at least getting him there. More broken ribs than intact ones, a collapsed lung, more cuts and bruises to add to the regular collection, and a skull fracture and swelling on his brain that explained his massive headache and his apparent lack of memory. 

Four years of his life. 

Four. Years. 

Somehow, though, that wasn’t the most shocking thing he had heard since regaining consciousness. 

The woman in the room was his wife. You were his wife and he didn’t remember you. But he knew you. He knew that he knew you. He could feel it in his aching bones when he looked at you. 

It took a long time for the two of you to be alone again. A nurse had been in the room when he next woke up and the doctors quickly followed to explain all that had happened to him. He had almost immediately been rolled away for a variety of testing, poking and prodding. He wasn’t sure how long it took, but by the time he made it back to his room, there was no natural light filtering in through the windows anymore, and the ward itself was a little bit quieter. It must have been late.

You gave him the smallest of smiles from the chair next to his bed as the nurse who brought him back made sure all of his monitors were hooked up properly. She explained a few things to the both of you, seemingly unfazed to be sharing his medical information with someone he didn’t know. He supposed it didn’t matter, though. Because you’re his wife, and it’s your legal right to have this information. 

When Nurse Anne finally left, the two of you simply stared at one another. The air felt awkward, taught with unfamiliar tension. It settled over the room for a moment before you cleared your throat. He tried not to focus on how you were playing with the ring on your finger, twisting it around with your thumb.

“How are you -“

“I don’t know your name.” 

He didn’t mean to blurt out the words, especially when it cut off whatever you were about to ask him. But the thought has been going through his mind since you had asked him when he first woke up what must be hours ago now.

He had hoped for a revelation when you told him. Your name bounced around in his head, searching for something. But the only thing he found was disappointment when nothing hit him. 

He was tired and wanted to go to sleep. Even with the pain medication continuously dripping through the IV, his whole body hurt, but he couldn’t, now. He was desperate to speak to you. He wanted to make some sort of sense of this mess, but part of him, some part he was no longer familiar with, also just wanted to hear your voice again. 

“How…how long have we been married?”

“Three years,” you sighed, rubbing your eyes. It seemed that all he’d made you do since he woke up was cry. Bradley could tell that you were holding yourself together with all the strength you could muster. He admired you for that. You must have realized quickly that he was distracted or that the math was hurting his still aching head, so you followed up by explaining you had only been dating for four months before he proposed, and had been married by month six. 

Despite all the confusion and both the physical and mental hurt, he couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips. “You were crazy enough to say yes after four months?” 

You laughed, and oh, he thought, that’s a beautiful sound. 

“You definitely aren’t the first person to accuse me of that,” you revealed, though it didn’t come as much of a surprise because it made sense. Meeting and marrying in half a year was intimidating, and a bit insane in his eyes. He had always been slow to trust and even slower to love. He wondered about those first four months and what they must have been like to inspire him to propose, but instead of asking, he took the quiet that came over the room as an opportunity to just…look at you. There was an ache in his chest that he couldn’t quite explain as he does. 

Your hair was pulled back loosely at the base of your neck, more than a few pieces falling out of the hold the band had on it. You were in plain black leggings and an oversized Eagles sweatshirt that threatened to swallow you. In the back of his muddled mind, he questions if it was his, or if you maybe shared his enjoyment for the sport and team. Your skin was blotchy and your eyes were puffy from all the tears. 

You looked as exhausted as he felt, but you were still so, so beautiful. He doesn’t know if he’d ever seen anyone so beautiful, in fact. It was the first thing he had thought when he woke up the first time, and his opinion hadn’t changed. 

“This must be really overwhelming for you,” you said after a few minutes of silence. He could sense your nervousness rising and noticed how you were rubbing your rings again - he wondered if it was a tell of yours all the time. “I don’t - I don’t want to make that worse, so I - I can go, if you’d like me to.” 

“Go?” he questioned. Something that felt like panic flickered inside of him. He doesn’t think he likes that idea. 

“Yes. If you wanted to be alone. Or I could - I guess I could have someone else come stay with you?” You looked like you dreaded the idea of it, but he knew you would do it if it was what he wanted, and wasn’t that something? He had never had someone who would willingly put themselves through hurt if it made him feel better. Your last question raised one of his own, though, and he couldn’t help but ask. 

“Have you…been here the whole time?” 

“Of course,” you whispered with a nod. You leant forward in your chair like you were going to grab his hand but stopped yourself at the last second. You were still rubbing the rings on your left hand as you considered the words you were going to say. 

“I had to have my gallbladder removed last year,” you spoke again after a moment. His eyebrows furrowed, searching for a memory and coming up short. He didn’t know where you were going with this. “I was at home when I started getting these really bad pains. I would have thought it was my appendix, but I had that removed when I was a kid. After the pain didn’t go away I decided I should probably go to the hospital. I knew you were in the air that day so I left you a voicemail and sent you a text about what was happening. They had just put me in a room after running a few tests to figure out what was wrong when you came crashing in, demanding to talk to a doctor about what was wrong with me and then demanding to know why I wasn’t already in surgery if my gallbladder was so inflamed and infected that it was causing me as much pain as it was. I was in the hospital for less than 24 hours but you were there the whole time, holding my hand. Then you took time off work so that you could stay at home with me. For the first few days, if I did anything more than lift the tv remote or turn the page in my book, you were stopping me so that you could do it yourself. You were so worried about me.” 

He could feel it then. It was a strange sensation, really. He didn’t know you. His mind couldn’t produce any memories of you, but the thought of something happening to you, of something having happened to you, made him worry. He felt protective of you and you weren’t more than a stranger to him right now. 

“I say all this to say, Bradley, that if the roles were reversed, if I were the one in that hospital bed, I know exactly where you’d be, too. Because you have been. It doesn’t matter how big or small. I know you don’t remember but…that’s…that’s who we are, okay? There’s nowhere else I’d have been but right here by your side.” 

Your words hit him harder than he expected them to. He didn’t really know how to respond. He couldn’t make sense of all of this.  

“I think I want you to stay,” he whispered, almost afraid of the words. 

This time, you didn’t stop yourself from reaching out to him. You settled your hand over his and squeezed gently. And though you didn’t let your touch remain for more than a moment, the brief interaction spread warmth through the area. 

“Get some rest, sweetheart. We’ll talk more tomorrow.” 

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

Part Two :: Series Masterlist :: Main Masterlist

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