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#oh and my medical plan for the having part of my finger sliced off was ‘stack bandaids on it until. whenever’ because I can’t drive
vargamornight · 1 year
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Literally every month it’s something new. Beginning of august my front door got stuck and it took an entire literal 30 day month to get it fixed. Then, beginning of September, I fucking cut part of my finger off and had to maneuver around that until it healed. Now, it is October, and the pipes in my apartment keep vomiting sewage into my tub without warning and it has been two days and the plumbers cannot figure out what the problem is and I can’t fucKING SHOWER BECAUSE THE TUB COULD SPEW OTHER PEOPLE’S LITERAL SHIT ONTO MY FEET
AND I STILL DON’T HAVE ENOUGH FUCKING MONEY TO LIVE
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soranihimawari · 13 hours
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...for those awake at 4am...
word count: tbd
rating: OYA (okkotsu yuuta angst)
pairings: former!childhoodfriend reader x okkotsu yuuta
note: current spoilers via manga (hinted at or otherwise toward the end)
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there is a stillness too calm to understand. it comes in the forms of waves: balanced, erratic, and in a way, repetitive. the fact you are standing in front of a grave of an old paramour seems to be eating at you. the name etched and burned into memory since the day you met in daycare.
funny how you'd always play together groups of two or three, but as time went on, you began to fade out the picture-perfect life of a once best friend. you said forever, but forever was just until final recess bell--forever had meant late night calls to gossip--forever was without you by his side when she inevitably crossed the street and was stricken down by a runaway truck. beheaded and defenseless the person who robbed you of your first childhood friend finds her name being said in memorials all over the neighborhood.
years go by and grief does things to morph and warp the mind. you tried to remain calm best you can whereas your once in a never-while friend throws himself into a depressive, reclusive state. sure high school examinations and even classes were a breeze, so why now does he show up at your doorstep at 4 in the morning breathless and bloodied like he just returned home from a war.
"do i know you?"
four words cut into the young man's psyche and as he silently nods, he answers.
"you did once. in the sand box. it was me, rika, and...you," he says.
a moment of brief silence goes by and in the furthest memory of your childhood bank, your face twists in both surprise and recognition.
"hello okkotsu-san," you faintly smile. "what brings you here this late...oh my god! how did you get this hurt?"
you pull him inside after noticing the blood dripping from the back of his shirt. you have him lean on your side as you escort him to the couch.
"you're so lucky i have a degree in medical science application," you say. "and that ms shoko taught me how to harness cursed energies to create a thread like aachnae."
you hand him a bottle of whiskey as you stand up from the couch to grab the first aid kit. you explain as you go along what you're planning to do.
"you know with my skill, i cannot fight like you and the other sorcerers do. my part in the fight is the aftermath: patching reckless sorcerers. here," you uncap the whiskey. the vodka travel bottle is on your right.
"this is for me," you take a swig. "okkotsu, this is going to hurt, so I'm gonna need you to take a swig."
you bring the bottle to his lips and he makes a sour face as the bitter liquid touches his tongue. he coughs and as he does so, you spin your finger in the air--a thread, silvery and sky blue, starts to roll into a large spool of cursed thread.
"excuse me," you whisper as you peel his shirt up. you scowl. "the wound is deep. the hell did you fight? a curse with a broadsword for hands?"
he stops squirming once you start to cleaning the wound and he grumbles. the moment you start stitching him up that's when he yells in unbearable pain. the curse he was sliced with had another sort of enchantment on the blade.
"i need you to stay still, okkotsu," you plead. "the more you move, the more the stitches won't exorcise the cursed essence..."
you touch his forehead and whisper, "you're a lot stronger than this."
okkotsu's large puppy-like eyes restrict and contract as he recognizes your stern words. he grunts and grumbles curses under his breath as he notices the burning feeling of the cauterizing thread.
"there, all done," you said as you stand to go wash your hands after peeling your gloves off. okkotsu's breathing is labored, but he breathes normally almost an hour later.
this healing factor took place months ago by now. you're still in front of the grave of both master and student. you lay your flowers down and pray for the repose of the okkotsu & gojo family souls at this mausoleum.
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luci-in-trenchcoats · 3 years
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If I Fell For You (Part 10) - Take Care
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Summary: The reader gets to meet Danneel’s parents in a somewhat unorthodox way but receives a warm welcome to her surprise. Meanwhile, a minor medical scare makes Jensen anxious that he takes too much and doesn’t give enough to the reader...
Masterlist
Pairing: Jensen x nanny!reader
Square: Playing With Their Hair
Word Count: 4,800ish
Warnings: language, minor frightening situation, minor medical situation, anxiety
A/N: Please enjoy! Also written for @supernatural-jackles​​ Tell Me A Story Bingo...
________
One Week Later
“Y/N, can we get orange?” asked Arrow from where she sat in the shopping cart. She pointed at the tubes of frosting and you took one off, handing it to her as you went back to searching for a box of red velvet mix. 
“Come on,” you sighed, squatting down. You saw one shoved in the back and you bent down, reaching back to get it. You huffed when you pulled it back, the expiration date still plenty good. “Score. Okay Arrow what other color…”
She wasn’t in the cart anymore as you stood, her bright pink shirt and shorts nowhere in sight. 
“Arrow!” you shouted, people from the farther end of the aisle turning to look at you. You breathed hard and spun around, exiting the aisle and looking at the checkouts. “Arrow!”
“Mam,” said a man in a white dress shirt and slacks, walking over with a headset on.
“I had a little girl with me and she’s missing and she was in the cart and I would have heard her climb out,” you said, walking quickly, the man following with you as you checked down aisles. “Arrow!”
You heard the guy talk into his headset when you caught pink and a guy near the front of the store. She spun around and you ran over, the manager not too far behind you. You didn’t say a word when you kicked the back of the guys knee and grabbed Arrow, picking her up.
“What’d I do?” he said, Arrow turning away. He looked more angry than you were expecting and you swallowed, the manager urging you back. “She’s the one that took my granddaughter!”
“She’s not your fucking granddaughter, pervert. I’m her nanny and soon to be step-mom so you can back the fuck off.”
“Step fucking what?” he said, his face going blank. 
“Grandpa I told you Y/N’s my friend,” said Arrow. You blinked and stared at the man.
“Prove it,” you said. The man angrily pulled out his wallet and ripped out a picture, turning it around. It was a large group photo but you could clearly see Jensen and the kids in it along with… “You’re her father. Danneel.”
“Who the fuck are you,” he said. You took out your phone and went to your pictures, showing him one of your backyard bonfire from the weekend before. 
“Is there a problem?” asked the manager. You shook your head and he rolled his eyes and left.
“Sir, I’m so sorry,” you said. He nodded and glanced down. 
“Well, I can’t blame you. I understand the feeling,” he said. 
“Can we...talk?” you asked.
“I think that’d be best before somebody else gets their ass kicked.”
Fifteen minutes later you had your bag of baking supplies in your trunk, Arrow was playing on the jungle gym and you were sat at a picnic table with Danneel’s parents.
“You guys came down early for JJ’s birthday, huh,” you said.
“We had to come down this weekend instead. Something came up last minute next week,” said her mom. You nodded and took a deep breath. 
“I am so sorry. That is absolutely not how Jensen and I wanted to tell you both.”
“I’m old but I’m tough. I’ll survive,” said her father. You looked over to where Arrow was playing, gnawing on your bottom lip. “You said you were the nanny and soon to be step mom. Mind unraveling that for us?”
“I uh, I started working for Jensen in January as a nanny to help with the kids. The relationship part came a few weeks later. We’ve been engaged very briefly. Don’t even have a ring or anything yet,” you said, shaking your head. “Please don’t be mad at him. It’s taken him so long to stop feeling guilty for having feelings for me. Please don’t be upset with him. I don’t...I’m not trying to replace anyone or anything. I didn’t want to like him. But I did and I love him and he deserves to be happy again.”
They looked at one another and back at you.
“Good,” they both said. 
“Excuse me?”
“We think he deserves to be happy too. He was in such a bad place after the accident,” she said. “He’s sounded like himself again recently.”
“Plus if you’re willing to kick my ass for thinking I took Arrow, that gets you some brownie points,” he said with a smile. You nodded and looked down at the table, swallowing. “Not what you were expecting?”
“Your daughter’s husband is engaged to a younger woman. I wouldn’t blame you at all for whatever you might think,” you said.
“He’s got a lot of time left,” he said. “He doesn’t have to be miserable for it. We don’t want that for him. It’s not what she’d want. He’s doing exactly what she’d want from him and that’s all we can ask of him. Well and maybe stick around the country for a bit so we can see the kids some more.”
“Yeah, no plans to be anywhere but home right now,” you said. You looked over at Arrow and watched her jump off a high platform. She fell down to her knees but got up and brushed them off before she was running again.
“She’d like you,” you heard, your attention going back to the two of them. She was staring at you and you smiled.
“You don’t know a thing about me mam.”
“I think we know the important parts,” she said. You nodded and glanced down. “What do Jensen’s parents think of all this?”
“They know he’s dating but that’s it. I’m supposed to meet them next week,” you said.
“We’ll keep our lips sealed for the time being then,” she said. “What about your folks? What do they think of Jensen and the kids?”
“The kids probably haven’t met either parent yet, right?” he said. 
“It’s kinda complicated...I was adopted. My mom died a long time ago. I don’t have a dad or family really,” you said. You pursed your lips and picked at the corner of the table with your fingernail, the air heavy. 
“Well we approve of him,” he said. “He’s a good kid.”
“I know. He’s very special,” you said. “I just wish something so horrible didn’t have to happen to him and your daughter in order to meet him.”
“We can’t change that fact,” she said. “She’d want you to take care of him, keep an eye on him. Oh and remind him to take a break and slow down every once in a while. He always gets so caught up in work and being on the go. She had to calm him down sometimes.”
“I have noticed that trend,” you said. “I hope you don’t feel like he’s going to forget-”
“No we don’t worry about that. If we learned anything from this it’s just that you have to live while you have the chance,” he said as Arrow ran over.
“Y/N, I’m hungry,” she said. 
“Alright, munchkin. Why don’t we head home and maybe your grandma and grandpa will have lunch with us?” you asked.
“We’d love to,” they said. “We’ll meet you two there.”
“That went shockingly well,” said Jensen late that night when you were having an extra slice of JJ’s early birthday cake. “Those guys loved you.”
“I think we both got a little too worried over the parents situation. Dee’s parents were great, especially considering I nearly broke his knee. I’m really excited to meet yours next weekend.”
“It’s not too long of a drive up there. I haven’t been home in a long time. I’m looking forward to it too,” he said, a big smile on his face. “I’m really glad they liked you.”
“What’s not to love?” you said, Jensen smirking around his piece of cake. “You’re so hard on yourself. I’m really happy they like me too but even if they didn’t, there’s no problem there. You’re allowed to live your life. Dee wants you to keep living it.”
“I still wonder if she was just like ‘this boy is driving me nuts again, he needs a girl,’ and somehow shoved you into my life,” he said.
“Maybe. I mean, it was good timing that I was looking for a new job the same time you were looking for a nanny.”
“Did you ever report that last guy as an inappropriate employer?” he asked.
“I tell the agency but nothing criminal no. I mostly feel sorry for the families. Nannies are stability in the kids lives and leaving them isn’t easy. Unless they’re little shitheads but even then I don’t blame them, it’s the parents that turned them into it,” you said. 
“What’d you think of those three, when you met ‘em I mean,” he said.
“They’re all a little shy like you but they open up if they like you. They’re pretty damn funny. They got wit and sarcasm, even if they don’t know it yet. They’re kind and intelligent and they look to you in how to act like most kids. I knew they were good kids from the start.”
“You’re gonna be a great mom,” he said. You smiled and watched him eat a piece of cake, Jensen tilting his head. “You know they have called you mom before. All three of them. Accidentally but still.”
“Being a nanny has some of the roles of a parent but there’s still a difference,” you said.
“Yeah but you’ve never just been the nanny,” he said, scraping up some frosting with his fork. “Speaking of your sudden thrust into motherhood, the whole kids thing...how many of your own were you thinking of?”
“I don’t know. I don’t need to make a baby to love it. I was adopted and my mom loved me so much. I mean there’s already three of ‘em to chase after.”
“I’d like to have a baby with you. Someday,” he said. You dabbed your finger across some frosting on the plate and sucked on it, staring at him. “I know you do. Y/N there’s no more secrets. There’s never gonna be a secret between us ever again. Sometimes you get nervous but we have to talk about these things and everything. The big choices and the little ones we make together.”
“Honestly? I don’t want you to think I’ll love them less than a kid I make. I won’t. I will treat them all the same but I don’t know how to prove that to you.”
“You told me the day I hired you that I needed to hire someone I could trust, that trust was going to be so important. Y/N, I’ve never doubted your feelings for them. Shit, I’m pretty damn sure you were in love with them before me. And I get it because they aren’t scary. They can’t hurt you like the adults can. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if I had a shred of doubt.”
“I gotta think about kids more I guess. How many, when. I don’t know that right now.”
“We’ll figure out all that when we’re ready. Just let me know and we’ll come back to this conversation,” he said, wrapping an arm around your waist. “You know...hearing about what you did at the store...that’s kinda super attractive you know.”
“Uh what?” you said, Jensen pulling you into his lap.
“You, going protective badass...that’s very, very hot you see,” he said. 
“You’re such a guy,” you said while he picked up the last piece of cake on his fork. 
“Well we-” he said as you leaned forward and wrapped your lips around the dessert, pulling back with a smile. “Oh you shouldn’t have done that.”
“What are you gonna do about it?” you smirked. He narrowed his eyes and set his fork down before he was standing and flipped you over his shoulder. “Jensen! Put me down!”
“Do the crime, do the time!” he said, walking over to the stairs. “Hm...what to do with you...ah I know…”
“You know…” you said before he flipped you down onto the couch and plopped down on top of you, catching most of his weight on his hands on either side of you. “Troublemaker.”
“You love it,” he said. He leaned down and kissed you, your hands wandering to his hair, holding him close. You grinned and wrapped your legs around his waist, Jensen kissing you sloppy and cheeky and like a teenage boy making out for the first time. 
“Dad,” said JJ, rushing down the stairs. He dropped this forehead to yours and sighed.
“What is it?” he asked. He sat up and you both looked at her, spotting the pale tint of her skin. “Feel okay?”
“Jensen call an ambulance, now,” you said, pushing him off and going over to her. He sat up and you kneeled down next to her, her lips slightly blue. You put a hand on her chest and felt the labored breathing. “Did you eat something new tonight? Or did a bug bite you?”
“I stepped on a prickly in the bathroom a minute ago,” she said.
“Jesus,” said Jensen as he rushed into the kitchen. “She got stung by a scorpion.”
He grabbed a bottle from the cabinet and started unscrewing it.
“Jensen go see what the scorpion is and get rid of it before the twins find it,” you said. He left the bottle with you and shoved the phone against your ear. “Hi, sorry how much of the anti-venom do I give her?”
“There should be a child dosage on the bottle, half the cap,” the person on the other end said. You unscrewed the lid and poured some out, having her swallow it down. She whined and you didn’t blame her based on the smell. “An ambulance will be there shortly.”
“Thank you,” you said, spotting Jensen at the top of the stairs. He was holding his wrist and had a slightly smushed object in one of the clear plastic cups from the kids bathroom. “We have the scorpion.”
“EMT’s should be able to identify it,” she said, Jensen walking down slowly. He took a seat on the bottom step and shook his head. 
“Jensen?” you said, his hand reaching for the bottle. You moved his hand from his wrist and saw two dots there. “Shit. My fiance was stung too.”
“There’s a nest in the bathroom vanity,” he said, pouring himself a dose and knocking it back. “I blocked off the door but get the twins out of there, please.”
“JJ,” you said as you saw her color get better while Jensen was getting paler. You took your phone out of your pocket and dialed, handing it to her. “Tell Uncle Jared to come over right now.”
Five minutes later Jared was there, JJ and Jensen sat in the back of an ambulance, Jensen getting a shot of something in the leg.
“We’re taking them to West County,” said a paramedic.
“I’ll see you guys soon,” you said, JJ staring worriedly at Jensen who has holding his wrist again. Jared looked around as they took off and you sighed. “Hey.”
“JJ said she and Jay got stung by a scorpion?” he asked.
“She got one as far as they can tell. Jensen got three. There’s a nest in the bathroom cupboard,” you said.
“Idiot,” mumbled Jared. You raised and eyebrow and he shook his head. “He forgot to get the pest spray done this year I bet. Dee always handled that kind of stuff. They’ve had a scorpion problem before when they first moved in.”
“Oh.”
“I’m gonna take the twins and stay the night. I’ll call and get the spray guys in first thing in the morning. You go take care of those two,” he said. You nodded and he grabbed your arm when you headed for your car. “Wait five minutes to calm down.”
“Jared I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. You just don’t know it. Go inside, get your purse, Jensen’s wallet, take a beat, okay?”
“Okay,” you said. “Make sure-”
“I got it. Go on,” he said. “Make sure he’s not freaking out. Last time he was at a hospital it wasn’t good.”
“Right. Okay. Call me if you need something. And stay away from the kids bathroom.”
“Y/N. I know. It’ll be alright, I promise.”
One Hour Later
“Is dad okay?” asked JJ from where she sat in your lap. Jensen peeled an eye open and smiled. 
“I’m okay. Sleepy is all. We’ll be home in a few hours,” he said. His wrist was bandaged and he had an IV in his arm but he’d taken the anti-venom soon enough that they had enough time to get the proper medication in both him and JJ. She was already discharged but you didn’t want to leave Jensen by himself.
“Mr. Ackles,” said a doctor when she walked in the room. “Your bloodwork came back and everything looks good.”
“Awesome,” he said, sitting up in bed. “Can I get out of here?”
“You got about fifteen minutes left on that IV drip but I’ll let the nurse know to start the paperwork. I want you to take it easy tomorrow. Nothing strenuous.”
“I got it,” he said with a nod. “Nothing strenuous.”
“Jensen,” you said around noon the next day, catching him unloading some wood from the back of his truck. “What are you doing?”
“I was gonna work on those shelves for the kid’s playroom,” he said. You crossed your arms and he threw his head back. “I feel fine. The nest got cleared out and the house got sprayed. I wanna work on this.”
“You have all the time in the world to do it. Work on it tomorrow,” you said, picking up the wood plank. He tried to take it out of your hands and you growled. 
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Please do what the doctor said and rest today,” you said. He bit his lip and you moved the pieces of wood into the garage, Jensen leaning back against the side of the truck when you shut the trunk. “You’re scared, aren’t you.”
He nodded and glanced at his wrapped up wrist, then down to the ground.
“Hospitals freak me out now,” he said. “I don’t like bugs. My body hurt and knowing I forgot to do something so simple put them in danger sucks. Knowing if she hadn’t come downstairs it might have been real bad sucks. If you hadn’t noticed I don’t know if I would have and it scares me not knowing.”
“Close your eyes for me,” you said. He shut them and took a deep breath, letting you take his hand and walk around to the back of the house. You spun him around a few times stopping him so he was facing the pool about twenty feet away. “Know where you are?”
“Somewhere in the middle of the backyard,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“You said not knowing scared you. Lots of times you don’t know. It’s kinda just how life works,” you said, dropping his hand and moving a few feet away. “Take a big step forward.”
“Y/N, I don’t like this,” he said, fidgeting his hand along the bottom of his shirt. 
“I know you don’t. But would I hurt you?”
“No,” he said. 
“So listen to me. Big step forward.” He took a step and you looked around. “Jump backwards.”
“What?”
“Jump backwards.” He frowned and took a small bunny hop back. “Again.”
“I feel ridiculous.”
“Says the guy who plays pretend for a professional career. Now hop back and then step to the right,” you said. He groaned and did as asked. “Jog forward until I say stop.”
“Are you trying to kill me out here cause I feel like I’m about to break my neck slipping in the pool.”
“I’m trying to get your anxiety out in a non-life threatening way, okay?”
“By having me jump around the backyard like an idiot.”
“By having you get comfortable with the fact that most of life is spent not knowing and you can’t change that fact. You can’t see it all coming.”
He threw his head back but kept his eyes shut. He stared to run towards you and you wrapped your arms around him when he got there, Jensen peeling them open slowly.
“See? I wasn’t gonna let anything bad happen,” you said. He nodded and rested his forehead on your shoulder, pulling you into a squeezing hug. “You okay?”
“I’m sorry for being short and not doing what the doctor asked,” he said.
“Hey, it’s alright. I got scared too last night. Everything is fixed now so no need to worry over it. Why don’t you take a nap and maybe we have a real quiet lazy day while Dee’s parents got the kids for the day,” you said. “Sound fun?”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll take quiet today.”
Three hours later Jensen was curled up with a blanket, his head resting in your lap as you watched a movie together. You played with his hair, Jensen turning into the touch every so often. 
“I know you’re worried about me,” he said. He turned and faced up at you, your fingers swirling in his strands. “I know I’m kinda clingy today which I’m normally not.”
“You can cling all you want, honey,” you said, stroking his cheek with your thumb. “I wish life would give you a break for a second. No work, no badness. Just some peace and quiet for you.”
“My parents lived here after the accident. For a few months. They were here, Jared and Gen were over every day, my siblings would stop down every week. The first few months I understood. I had an injury I had to recover from. But I felt like a child those few months once I recovered. Everyone taking care of the kids, of me. I was barely a father to them. Playtime. A story at bed. Someone else made most of their meals, did everything for them.”
“You’re a father but you’re still someone’s child,” you said. He blinked and you shrugged. “You were hurt, possibly the worst out of anyone. I know taking care of everyone else is your default but people get to take care of you too. I get to take care of you.”
“I feel like all I do is get taken care of by you,” he said. “I never give it back.”
“You’ve given me a family again. You take care of me every single day.”
“I never see you getting upset. It’s always me. I’m always the fuck up,” he said. You slumped down and took a deep breath. 
“I get upset Jensen. I got upset that very first time we fought, that night with the ice cream. I got upset when you got jealous of that nanny in Canada and we saw my father the first time. I got upset telling you the truth of it all because you of all people don’t need problems like that dumped at your feet. I got upset when we saw him again because I was scared and I was scared he might hurt you too. I got upset when we fought when you got home and I got upset when you proposed because you were so scared and I get upset Jensen. I get upset when you’re hurt. I get upset when I hurt. But I don’t have all those safety nets under me that you do, remember? I just got a couple right now and you’re my last resort. I’ve been my own support system for so long that I can’t undo that all overnight. I know it’s been months but the fact I even let you see me cry, the fact I can even talk about this stuff with you and know all you’re thinking about is how to make me feel better...I still need to heal too. You’ve done so much already. I’m gonna have my moments where this is switched, believe me. But today’s not my turn for that, it’s yours.”
“I love you,” he said, staring up with the softest green eyes you’d ever seen on him yet. “Even more than five minutes ago if that’s possible.”
“I love you,” you said, bending down and kissing him. “You’re the expert on the falling in love stuff though so I’ll leave that up to you.”
“It’s very...it’s what you think it is and it’s not at all what you think. There’s falling and nerves and then calm and then falling and calm and you spend the rest of your life doing that. It’s not magic and it takes work to keep it alive sometimes but all you gotta do is talk. Just talk and it always seems to work out for me,” he said.
“Can I tell you a secret?” you asked. He nodded and smiled as you went back to playing with his hair.
“You know I really like when you do that,” he said.
“I know you do. It relaxes you,” you said.
“Makes me feel safe too,” he said. “But what’s your secret cause eventually I’m gonna want to know them all.”
“I was very attracted to you when we met. But that kinda freaked me out a bit. I found myself liking you a lot that first day I was here. You got me a birthday cake. I realized how kind you are that night. It wasn’t for anyone’s benefit other than my own. I had a crush on you, even though I knew it wouldn’t go anywhere.”
“I had a crush on you from when you made me a cup of coffee. You’re so good and kind yourself,” he said. He reached up and cupped your cheek. “I’m really happy you had your mom eventually. I would have liked to have met her.”
“Maybe she and Dee are hanging out wherever they are.”
“I hope so. She won’t mind sharing me with you,” he said.
“You honestly think so?” 
“You gonna mind sharing me with her?” he asked.
“I’ve always shared you. Just hope that wouldn’t bother her.”
“I used to think maybe it would but no, she wants me to be happy and that’s you so you got all eternity to get to know each other eventually if you think about it.”
“Well when you put it that way we got nothing to worry about,” you said.
“Oh don’t worry about that. I think your mom was right. I get to have two people is all, kinda like she did,” he said. 
“She would have liked you. Would have said you’re a little old for me but she would have liked you.”
“Wasn’t she older than Ray?” he asked.
“Yeah. She was. She was only fifty,” you said.
“You grew up too fast,” he said quietly.
“Maybe. But it got me here and I don’t think I would have done anything different. I wouldn’t want to screw that up. Well I’d do one thing different.”
“What?”
“Drop by this house, have a conversation with a certain someone.”
“Say hypothetically you had that ability, you’d really do that knowing what you’re giving up?”
“I’d give her back to you right this second if I could.”
“I appreciate that, really,” he said. He let his hand fall down and reach around your back, curling around your waist. “But she’s not more important than you are. I miss her. Everyday. But I lose one of you either way in that scenario. And I can’t choose. I’ll never be able to. If she were here and you weren’t, I’d still be just like this. It’d still hurt.”
“Make me a promise. I keel over early, you try again. Try for both of us.”
“I will if you will,” he said. He held up his pinky finger and you grabbed it with yours. “But he can’t be hotter than me.”
“Equally as hot?”
“Slightly less hot but that’s my final offer,” he said. 
“Eh, fine,” you said. “You’ve worn me down.”
“Always words I want to hear,” he chuckled. You slid further down the couch until you were practically laying back, your arms wrapping around him. He got up and lay down with you on the wrap around side of the couch, pulling you into his chest. “Can I take you to dinner tonight? Just us.”
“Yeah. I’d like that.”
“Okay, honey,” he said, kissing your forehead. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Just thanks. For what you said. What you did earlier, just being with me,” he said.
“Lucky for you I like being with you a whole lot,” you said.
“Very lucky for me,” he said. “Very lucky indeed.”
______
A/N: Read Part 11 here!
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djarinsbeskar · 4 years
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PREQUEL ARC: PART 1 - THE DAGGER
A/N: I come bearing a brainchild. One I love deeply but am unsure of how it will be received! Straight off the bat I had planned for this to be something that satisfied those Din cravings we’ve all been having through a healthy dose of smut on the regular. BUT I wanted some background? Some context?? In my head we’ll have a few interactions i.e. chapters before the events of The Mandalorian and then kick off all guns blazing. Therefore, this pilot chapter is short, slow, and not a lot happens. (I should be in sales obv) but let’s get the ball rolling and see where it takes us!
Pairing: Din Djarin/Fem!Reader
Rating: 18+ (NO Minors)
Warnings: Language, slight detail on wounds and their treatment.
Summary:  You encounter Mando suffering one misfortune after another.
AO3 | Stitches Masterlist | Main Masterlist
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6ABY, Derelkann, Klatooine.
The first time you met him, he’d been caught with a dagger laced with raquor’daan venom.
You had been locking up the side entrance to the voluntary medical center you spent your time at while on Klatooine when there was a resounding clatter. One of the many piles of discarded junk was toppled by an armored leg; equally armored arms braced by the side of the center while the imposing cut of the figure steadied himself. You could just about hear the labored pants, distorted by the modulator of his helmet; a sound familiar enough to you to know it wasn’t from exertion, but pain. Once you’d determined he wasn’t an immediate threat, weighing the possibilities as quickly as you could, you walked deeper down the alley towards the male. It was dark, the only light coming from the streetlight at the front of the clinic and that which was reflected from the man’s helmet but still you went. 
“Are you hurt?” The helmet snapped around to stare at you and you immediately held up your hands, instinct screaming at you that to startle this man would be like cornering a cantankerous reek during mating season: a bad idea. 
An even worse idea when you realized that your cornered reek was Mandalorian.
Even though you couldn’t see his eyes through the tinted t-visor, you could feel them on you; watching, calculating, assessing what danger you might pose all in a split second before he pushed himself from the wall with a grunt.
“This is a clinic?” He rasped, your eyes instantly following his left hand as it moved to grip above the dull grey tasset that protected his right hip. Trying to smother the pain with pressure, or stem blood loss. You couldn’t tell with his glove and the dark duraweave in the way.
“Well?” He bit out impatiently, jarring you back from trying to assess him from a safe distance.
“Oh, oh yes, yes this is one of the New Republic’s medical outreach centers in the Outer Rim. Please,” you indicated to the door for him to follow you but instead his visor tipped to the left and right marginally. You frowned; he was trying to avoid being seen. Was he wanted? After six months on Klatooine, you had learned to stop asking questions of your patients, so you said nothing. Neither did he as he walked towards the door you had been in the process of locking.
You kicked back into gear. Even though you had mentally unwound for the evening after a twelve-hour shift, you were quickly able to refocus your mind and sped up to keep pace with the Mandalorian. A task, he would probably hate to know, that wasn’t as difficult as it might have been if he was unharmed. His movements were stiff, and it was obvious that he was trying to force his body to walk fluidly despite the obvious pain it was putting him in.
The side door opened onto the main corridor that encircled a number of examination rooms, operating theatres and wards, all pointing inward so that the same power generator could be used for the entire clinic from where it sat in the center. A common feature of New Republic operations; efficient and cost effective if not always the best option. It explained why it was so dim, despite being an all-hours clinic. If they put the majority of the technological functions of the center to rest at night when it wasn’t busy, there were less fear of it being temperamental during the day. Or Maker forbid, a full power outage.
Opening the door to the closest examination room, you quickly pulled off your jacket and tossed it onto the nearest unused flat surface, pointing to the exam table in the corner, “Sit down before you fall down. A diagnostics droid will be here in---”
“No droids.” He hissed; his helmet once more twisting to glare at you even as he lowered himself heavily to sit on the table.
“No droids? Look, the quickest way---”
“You do it. I don’t want any of those things near me, got it?” His words were slurring slightly, and any argument died on your tongue when you realized trying to argue your case was just going to waste time. He was losing consciousness.
You knew you could treat him without the assistance of droids, it was more for convenience and time. But even still, you had spent four years as a combat medic for the Rebel Alliance on the frontline, you knew a thing or two about getting things done quickly.
“Belt. Tasset. Off. Now.” Was all you said as you got down to business and pulled one of the drawers to the side open. You pulled a pair of gloves on before you flicked the examination light on, the sudden glare hurting your eyes momentarily as you approached the large warrior on your table.
“Don’t make me tell you again.” You warned as you adjusted the settings on the light to focus itself to the optimum location for you to get a better look. The duraweave above his armor was dark, blood no doubt but it looked dry. You could feel your skin humming with the anxiety of not knowing what sort of injury was waiting for you underneath that gloved hand but knew better than to try to remove the armor yourself. You might not be a Siniteen, but you weren’t stupid either, to try remove a Mandalorian’s armor without permission.
You could hear the heavy exhales from him through his nose as he pointedly stared away from you, as if his sheer willpower alone would be enough to deter you from your demands.
“Fine.” You bit out and immediately slapped the hand covering his side, the added pressure making the man grunt and his hand instantly retract from the contact on instinct before growling at you in an unknown tongue.
You tuned him out as you lifted a side of the single tear in the duraweave to reveal an angry and inflamed cauterized laceration, the swelling alone telling you how botched the job was. But it was the faint black veins that were slowly growing from the point of contact that worried you. You’d seen this kind of wound before, on Sriluur. It was commonly used in gang warfare that had engulfed the planet since the fall of the Empire.
“Fucking hell, what idiot cauterizes a poisoned wound?” You muttered to yourself, feeling around the edges of the gash lightly and earning a shaky exhale from your patient.
“Are you calling me an idiot?” The Mandalorian bit out as he turned his helmet to look down at you again, his hands fisted at the side of the table. The jolt of pain had revived him slightly.
“If you’re the one who cauterized it, then yeah. I’m surprised you haven’t already killed yourself accidentally with this level of carelessness.”
You stood before the warrior could respond but you heard his snarl through the modulator as you quickly began grabbing the supplies you’d need.
“I’m not going to tell you this won’t hurt because honestly, it’s going to massively suck. It would have been bad enough if you’d shown up with an open wound infected with raquor’daan poison, but we’re going to have to reopen yours if we want to be able to extract the poison.” You threw a sterilized scalpel into the metal pan that hovered beside you, along with gauze, several saline syringes and bactaspray before you walked back over to him.
The armored warrior said nothing and stared at you, a flash of awareness running through you suddenly; that he could so easily kill you, wounded or not.
The silence stretched for several long seconds before the Mandalorian reached down to unbuckle the utility belt around his waist unhurriedly and dropped it beside him so that it wasn’t in either of your way. It was a blatant challenge when he leaned back on his hands, his visor staying trained on you as you narrowed your gaze; the belt could come off, but the tasset stayed on.
In another situation, the act might have been almost erotic, with his fingers unbuckling the belt deliberately slow as if daring you to speak to the contrary. Silent, yet commanding your undivided attention as he made himself comfortable on the table. But alas, the man in front of you was poisoned and that tended to skew the situation away from sexy.
You arched a single brow, picking up the scalpel as you accepted the proverbial gauntlet thrown to you.
“Buckle up, pal.”
***
You were a demon. Hell spawn sent to torment him in his dying moments, doomed to have no peace before the end.
At least, that’s what Din told himself as you set the wicked sharp blade of the scalpel against his skin. The skill with which you sliced open the recently closed wound before he could even blink was both inspiring and chilling. He didn’t know what he expected a medic on Klatooine to look like, but it certainly wasn’t you. You looked much too soft, too young but the unwavering focus in your gaze as you gently pulled the seams of the wound apart told him of an inner steel.
His inner lamentations over demonic medics and soft eyes distracted him fabulously from the pain of the wound he’d received on Sriluur while picking up a quarry up until the hellion squeezed one side of the wound, making him shout at the blend of white hot agony and surprise at which the pain came.
“Fucking hell!” he growled, shifting under your ruthless touch.
“Stop moving, Mando. The poison needs to be pulled out and since you don’t want droids we’re doing it the old fashioned way.” You didn’t raise your eyes to him, even as he glared daggers at the top of your head, a hiss of pain leaving him again as you pressed along the exposed flesh towards the edge of the wound again, his head spinning at the expelled blood, the crimson laced with inky black.
A moment of relief followed as the medic cleaned the wound with the saline solution before she wiped it down and repeated the process of squeezing the poison out followed by a clean.
“Almost there… hang in there. You’re doing great.” Din rolled his eyes behind his helmet; the generic medical praise made his stomach churn. It was obvious you had slipped into autopilot, rehashing the same comments that made most patients relax while you shifted to try get the opposite edge. This one being significantly more difficult to clean as the piece of armour that he had flatly refused to take off, was making it awkward to move around.
“Son of a druk throwing skrog!” If he wasn’t in pain, he’d have chuckled at the absolute filth coming from your mouth, putting a pirate to shame while you blew a few stray hairs that had fallen from your tie and into your face during your attempts to shift yourself to better clean the wound. As it was, he just leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling, reciting the Creed in his head to distract himself.
He couldn’t decide if you belonged fighting in a shady cantina or leading a triage camp on a battlefield. All he could determine, was that you had a mind that didn’t falter at the lack of technology or use of droids (a rarity these days), you had a mouth that’d make even Paz Vizsla blush and the spine to tell a Mandalorian to remove his armor without the least bit of hesitation. In a word; you were dangerous, and Din never saw the need to experience more danger than he already did, thank you very much.
He tilted his head when he heard you release a breath and sit back on your haunches, running the back of your hand across your forehead, eyes bright as they looked at your work. In what Din could only explain as being delusions brought on by overexposure to raquor’daan venom, a moment of attraction flashed in his mind, kindled when you looked back up at him before he wrangled the feeling away.
Dangerous. Definitely dangerous, he warned himself heatedly.
***
You let out a sigh of relief when the blood from the Mandalorians wound ran clean. It wasn’t a definitive answer to whether you had gotten all the raquor’daan venom out, but it was the majority. At least now you could sleep easy knowing some bactaspray would be able to handle the rest.
You rinsed the wound once more with saline and dried it gently with a clean pad before spraying it generously with the bacta.
“Now then, at least I can say a Mandalorian didn’t die on my watch.” You commented cheerfully, your more easy-going side surfacing now that the immediate danger had been dealt with.
The warrior was silent above you as he watched you peel open a bactapad to cover the wound for extra protection.
“Don’t cauterize it again until you’ve given the bacta at least eight hours with direct contact. That should kill off any of the poison I may have missed and will keep it sterile.” Pushed yourself to your feet, pulling off the stained gloves and throwing them into the pan to be disposed along with all the soiled gauze and pads you had used.
“You’re looking for light pink at the edges.” You told him as you continued to clear up your supplies, “If it’s still angry and swollen at the edges after twenty-four hours you’ll need to return to a medical facility. But I’ll throw in some antibiotics, so you hopefully don’t have to, raquor’daan venom is potent after all. I wouldn’t take any chances if you’re going to say you think it’s overkill.”
You smiled as he lowered his hand, having lifted it to interrupt you, no doubt. You could hear him grumble a bit while he pulled his belt back around his waist, grunting softly as the weight settled on his hip.
“How does it feel?” You probed from the sink, turning your head to look at him as you washed your hands.
“Better.” Was all you got from him but from what you could tell, he was a man of few words anyway.
You nodded and turned back to turn off the tap and started measuring out three days of antibiotics, keeping him in your peripheral as you saw him get to his feet, rolling his shoulders back and turning to look at you.
“Thank you. I appreciate the help.” He rasped awkwardly, obviously not accustomed to actually being helped in these kinds of situations. He fished out a pouch of credits when you approached him to hand him the antibiotics, causing you to frown.
“These medical centers were set up to offer free medical care to those that need it.” You mentioned as you moved out of his way to lean against the table he had been sitting on not five minutes prior.
“I… can only offer you my gratitude then.” He said, nodding to you once more before heading towards the door.
“One more thing Mando.” You called as he opened the door, the beskar helmet turning slightly to indicate he was listening,
“Try not to get yourself killed by accidentally sealing venom into your body again, yeah?”
You laughed at the indignant snort that left the man as he left without a word, his voice trailing back as he walked away,
“If I do, I know where to go.”
And with that, he disappeared back the way he came, no indication that one of the fiercest warriors in the galaxy had even been in your examination room.
He was like a tornado, arriving and disappearing in a flash, the wreckage left behind not immediately obvious but when you would look back in the years to come, you’d laugh at how naïve you had been to think you could assist a Mandalorian and still remain an insignificant player on the grand stage of the galaxy.
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the-iceni-bitch · 3 years
Text
Haven
Paralian: 2/9(or maybe more?)
Pairing: Winter Soldier x fem!reader
Words: ~2.5k
Summary: You and the Winter Soldier find comfort in each other at your seaside home. But the Soviet threat still looms.
Warnings: explicit language, explicit sexual content (unprotected vaginal sex), minor medical procedure, fluff, angst with the threat of even more angst to come (I’m so sorry), SMUT!!!! 18+ ONLY!!!!
A/N: Well, here is fucking is, part two of Paralian. This series is going to break my damn heart, so I hope y’all are happy. I’ve got a whole, depressing arc planned so strap in.
Check out my masterlist and join my taglist if you want!
Divider by @firefly-graphics
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It had been surprisingly easy for the two of you to fall into a comfortable rhythm.
You couldn’t exactly keep things a secret from him, not when one of the first things you had to do was search him for a tracking device. His gaze on you was exceptionally soft as you ran your hands over his body, starting at his flesh forearm as you searched for any abnormalities.
“They typically embed them pretty shallow, I’m hoping I won’t have to dig into the fascia at all if I find anything.” You explained, pressing your fingers into his bicep with a look of concentration. “Nothings coming back to you?”
“No, I’m sorry.” He swallowed thickly while he watched you, mesmerized by the movements of your hands over his skin. “I still can’t remember.”
“Honey, you don’t need to apologize.” Your hands moved to his shoulder. “I’m gonna need to call you something, though. You got any names floating around in there?”
He just smiled sadly and shook his head at you, taking a deep breath when you leaned closer to him. There was nothing weird in his shoulder so you moved to his neck, freezing suddenly when you felt a small divot in his scalenes.
“Fuck.” You hissed, pinching the abnormality between your fingers and considering your options. “Good news is it’s not in the muscle, but there’s some pretty important blood vessels here I really don’t want to nick.”
“I can hold still.” He said, gazing at you through his lashes while you chewed on your lip.
“I’d be slicing into your neck, I don’t think you can hold that still.” You stood up and leaned back on your heel, your breath catching when he grabbed your hand to keep you close.
“I trust you.” He said in a low voice, winding his fingers through yours before bringing your palm to his face and pressing it to his lips.
You took a deep breath and nodded at him, moving to grab some supplies and ordering him to remove his shirt. He did as you asked, releasing you reluctantly and never taking his eyes off you. It didn’t make any sense that he felt so safe with you in such a short time, but every time you were near him he could feel himself relax.
“Bite down on this.” You handed him a belt and draped a towel over his shoulder before running a flame over the knife you had brought with you. “Hopefully I won’t have to stitch you up. Ready?”
He gave you a brief nod when you soaked the area with betadine, finding the small divot again and gripping it tightly. You pressed the tip of your knife to his skin and made a quick cut, ignoring his pained breath and grabbing the forceps. Fortunately, you didn’t have to search long, finding the small metal chip almost immediately and pulling it out of him with a satisfied grunt.
“Keep biting.” You told him, dropping the chip on the table and pressing the towel to the cut. “I’m gonna stitch it for my own peace of mind.”
You picked out the sutures from your kit and held them out for him to open for you before you grabbed the needle drivers and set to work. Since the cut was so short you only needed to place three stitches, giving a small smile when you were finished.
“All done.” You told him, plucking the belt out of his mouth. “You are a great patient, sweetie.”
He gave you another one of those heartbreaking smiles, wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling you towards him. You pressed your lips to his hair gently, letting him nuzzle into your stomach as you eyed the chip. 
“What’re you gonna do with it?” He asked, breathing in your scent until he felt the tension seep from his body.
“Wedge it in some debris and push it into the ocean.” You murmured, running your fingers through his hair in a soothing manner. “Come give me a hand?”
He stood up to follow you, pulling his shirt back over his head. The two of you moved out of your small house to the beach, picking your way through the debris as you moved closer to the water. You frowned as you looked at the wreckage, wondering how you were supposed to get the tracker to stay attached to one of these pieces of metal. He must have read your mind, grabbing the chip from you and folding a corner of debris around it with his metal fist.
“Huh, that thing is handy.” You huffed, reaching out to stop him when he started to heft the piece of debris. “No, don’t throw it! Just push it into the water so the tide can take it.”
“Why?” He asked, dragging the giant piece of debris after him as he edged towards the water. 
“So it looks like your body got washed back out to sea after the wreck.” You said, wrapping your arms around yourself when a sudden biting breeze blew in from the gulf.
“I’m dead in this scenario, then?” He shoved the metal into the water and started to walk back towards you.
“Yeah, that’s safest.” You said, kicking a loose pebble with your toe as you looked over the beach. “We should clean the rest of this shit up. I feel like it’ll go a lot faster with you here.”
It definitely did, that titanium arm of his making cleanup take just a few hours, rather than the several days it would have taken if you were by yourself. He wouldn’t let you touch any of the bigger pieces, not even breaking a sweat as he developed a very impressive pile of wreckage.
You moved back to the cabin when you were finished, heading to your radio to reach out to your contact in Helsinki to arrange for them to pick up the wreckage and bring you some more supplies. Your new housemate was going to need something aside from your leggings to wear with how cold some of the nights could get.
“You’re sure it’s safe?” He asked, following after you like a lost puppy while you moved to the kitchen. 
“They’re smugglers, as long as you stay out of sight it should be fine.” You set the kettle on the stove and sighed when he wrapped himself around you from behind. “Shit.”
“Please.” He buried his face in your hair and whined, the scent of you filling his lungs until he was panting with need. “God, I need you.”
You dropped your head against his shoulder as his hands moved to your breasts under your sweater, his mouth tracing over the curve of your neck as he murmured soft pleas in your ear. This could not keep happening, you were a professional, not a horny teenager. Yeah you were touch starved but that didn’t mean you were going to just let this man fuck you indiscriminately. 
But then you turned around and saw those damn puppy eyes and all your reservations flew right out of your head. What had they done to him to make him look so broken and lost?
He cupped your jaw with his titanium hand and tilted your head back to press his lips to yours and that was it. You could feel him relax when your breath mingled, his low groan vibrating against your chest as his flesh hand curled over your hip and drove you into him.
“Fuck, honey.” You purred, sighing when he started trailing his lips down your throat and pressed himself even further into you. “Take what you need. It’s going to be ok.”
His breath left him in a deep sigh as he took a beat to gaze at you, his eyes soft when he moved his face back to yours and breathed deeply. Your own hands skimmed up his sides until you could frame his face, skimming your fingertips through his hair and smiling softly as you curled your legs around him. 
Air cooled the wetness between your thighs when he tore your leggings open, his flesh hand dipping between your legs and cupping your throbbing core as he covered your lips with his own. The tip of his cock teased against your clit and he swallowed your sharp gasp, smiling softly and letting out a low whine when he slowly shoved his hips forward until he was fully sheathed in your warmth.
You could tell he was holding back when he started grinding against you at an agonizing pace, relishing the feel of your soft walls clenching around him as he nipped gently at your lips. He screwed his eyes closed when you gripped his hair by the roots and started moving your hips against his, trying to keep himself from going completely feral.
“Baby, hey, look at me.” You cooed, peppering soft kisses all over his face until he dragged his eyelids open and met your gaze. “It’s ok. I want this. You can move.”
“Promise me.” He pleaded, and you could’ve sworn you could see tears brimming in his eyes. 
“Oh, honey.” You probably shouldn’t make any guarantees, but the way he was looking at you made you ache. “I promise.”
He covered your lips with his and let out a low growl, dragging out of you almost fully before slamming forward and making you cry into his mouth when his swollen tip kissed your cervix. The pace he was setting was making it hard for you to stay focused, his pelvis grinding against your clit with each violent shove until your eyes were rolling back in your skull. 
Pleasure started gathering in the pit of your stomach when you collapsed back against your counter, mugs and dishes sliding to the floor and breaking as he fucked into you like it was the last thing he was ever going to do. A low moan left your lips when he ripped your sweater open and curled his body over yours, his mouth immediately finding your nipple and latching on while your back arched you further into him.
He completely lost himself in you. The way your body was responding to him was everything he didn’t know he needed. Every soft whimper and desperate mewl that fell from your lips flooded his veins with warmth until you were the only thing that existed, the soft curves of your body welcoming him like home.
The coil in your stomach finally snapped and you wailed, your body trying to curl back on itself as your vision completely whited out with pleasure. You felt him groan against your chest as you fluttered wildly around him, your body trying to draw him even deeper while you came violently. Then you were flooded with warmth when he filled you with his seed, spilling it deep within your soft walls and collapsing on top of you with a contented sigh as your hands ran through his hair.
He tilted his head up and rested his chin between your breasts, gazing at you lovingly through his lashes as the two of you came down. That look was going to be the death of you, you just knew it. 
“You’re beautiful, you know that?” He sighed, straightening up and pulling your face up to meet his in a soft kiss.
“And you’re dangerous.” You took the edge off your words with a warm smile, opening yourself up to him and letting him stroke your tongue with his until you were whining for him. 
God, you were a stupid woman, but how could you care when he was looking at you like that?
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It had been three months of pure bliss. The two of you lost yourselves in each other completely, barely leaving your tiny cabin except for when you would let him hold you as you watched the sun set over the sea. 
You had managed to settle on the name Jamie for him after trying to delve into the recesses of his mind and coming up with nothing. But he liked when you mentioned the name James, and for some reason hearing you call him Jamie always made him smile.
The radio had been extremely quiet ever since the storm. You still had to do your regular check-ins with the SHIELD base in Helsinki, but it was surprisingly easy to keep them off your backs. You’d been doing it for the past three years after all.
And there was nothing from the Soviets. Maybe you should have been a little more concerned, you were playing house with their most valuable asset. But how could you think about that when Jamie was spending most of his time buried between your thighs and taking you apart like it was his job?
Right now he was laying with his head in your lap after you two had spent the whole stormy afternoon tangled together, smiling up at you and letting his eyes drift closed as you read The Hobbit to him. It was his favorite, and you were pretty sure this was that tenth time the two of you had read through it.
You were narrating Bilbo and the dwarves’ adventures in the Mirkwood when you heard your radio crackle to life. You ignored it, that happened sometimes and it was usually just a shipping freighter that had bled into one of your channels.
“Тоска.”
That was a little weird, but you still ignored it, running your fingers through his hair as you continued reading.
“Ржавый.”
Jamie went still for a beat and you barely registered it, continuing your narration as you tucked your legs under you.
“Семнадцать.”
Pain radiated through your arm when he grabbed your wrist suddenly, the bones grinding together and making you hiss when you looked down to see blind panic taking over his face.
“Turn it off.” He gasped, his eyes pleading with you desperately.
“What?”
“Рассвет.”
“The radio, turn it off!” His body jolted off the couch like he had been shot, and you dove towards the radio with a muttered curse as he cried out like he was in pain.
“Печь.”
You scrambled across the cabin, tripping over your feet but managing to reach it and shut it off before any more words could come through. He was panting on the floor when you turned back to him, and you rushed back to curl your body around his. It was everything you could do to keep from crying when he buried his face in your neck and started sobbing, his arms pulling you to him desperately as he tried to calm down.
“Jamie, honey, talk to me.” You ran your hands over his spine in an attempt to soothe him. “What was that?”
“I don’t know.” He was panicking, the only anchor he had right now was you and he was holding onto you like he would never let you go. “I felt like I was losing myself.”
“Shit.” That sounded like a fucking trigger phrase. 
“They know I’m alive.” He tilted his face up to yours and gazed desperately into your eyes. “They’ll come for me.”
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A/N: It’s gonna get so bad you guys, but you all asked for this so don’t come for me!
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lovelybarnes · 3 years
Text
god- l. laufeyson
pairings: loki laufeyson x reader, mentions of other avengers x reader
warnings: mentions of blood and injuries, veryyy little angst
about: requested! loki gets captured by avengers and healer!reader watches him
a/n: thank you so so much for requesting! i am so sorry it took me this long to finish it, and it came out so much longer than i planned, but i didn’t want loki to be ooc, i hope this was good!!
part two
the words you’ve been reading over and over again are beginning to blur. you can’t find it in yourself to care too much, instead choosing to shut the book and stare at the door. your fingers are tapping on the hard plastic protecting the thin cot underneath you, and you try to concentrate on the noise rather than the worry you can’t seem to shake.
they were supposed to be back by now, you think, teeth finding your bottom lip. you weren’t allowed on this mission. while they said the reason you were staying was because they didn’t need everyone, the blatant absence of every single avenger and extended hero said the opposite. you knew the reality was that the threat you weren’t even informed about was greater than usual, and while you had powers, they weren’t as helpful as others when it came to fighting.
so you were stuck waiting for the teammates you hadn’t heard from for nearly ten hours, only able to stand by until they inevitably came back with cuts and bruises for you to fix. halting the thought of if before you could think more of it, you stood, beginning to set up all the medical equipment you usually use for when they arrive. you’re distracting yourself with pointlessly organizing popsicle sticks that you won’t need when you hear the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the hallway. you immediately look out your open door, expecting to see the avengers, bringing the smell of blood and exhaustion, not… loki.
you can’t seem to stop how your lips part and your eyes follow him as he nears, suddenly catching his eyes through the movement of the agents surrounding him. your face heats when his lips quirk up in a small smile, sending you a flirty wink before he’s passed and you are left staring at the trace of him. you’re in a trance, and as much as you’d like to blame it on the god’s magic, you know it’s simply how attracted you are to him, even when you know you shouldn’t be.
you’ve never had a conversation with the god, barely been in the same vicinity as him, and your mind seems to be flooded with him. the avengers rarely talk about him, and on the occasion they do, it’s never remotely kind. you understand why- you saw the damage he’d caused in new york, but the more you read on him, the more you can somewhat understand why he did it, as inappropriate as it is. you’d asked thor to bring you books from asgard that loki has read and asked him to tell you about loki.
you can’t help it- the god is intriguing; it’s so magnificent how powerful he is that it nears terrifying, and he’s so stunning you’re concerned you’d make a fool of yourself in front of him, or cut your fingers on his cheekbones (although how the hell would your fingers get there? you prefer to not think too much into your impossible fantasies).
you’re not even completely certain that what just happened actually happened- because there is no way loki laufeyson looked at a puny mortal like you and didn’t gag.
a hand dropping on your shoulder is what snaps you out of it, turning around to see sam and bucky, “you good?” sam asks, and you nod, scanning the men for the injuries they came to you for. sam has a large gash along his thigh that you can see through a slash on his uniform, and forming bruises along the rest of his body, tiny cuts scattered on his face. bucky is considerably better, his speed healing is helping. there is dried blood that you’ll clean later on his face, small and slightly more serious cuts all over him but already healing, and a clearly dislocated shoulder that he set.
“alright, sam, you know the drill. bucky, please don’t grab any medical supplies and stitch anything like last time and just let me do my thing,” you request, lowering the stretcher so sam doesn’t stress any of his injuries when he sits. “lay down so i can get to work on that cut on your leg, sam.”
you help him on the bed and let him settle down by himself while you soak gauze in antiseptic for bucky. sam’s shirt is off when you turn back, holding back a wince at the darkening bruise splayed on his abdomen. you cut away his pants, wiping away all the blood surrounding the wound and cleaning it with water. “clean,” you mutter, lightly dragging your fingers along the wound, a warm pink sparkling where your touch had been, disappearing with the slice in his skin.
sam sighs when it’s all healed, looking down at his leg, “i am never getting used to that,” you hum a laugh when you move to some of the smaller cuts on his face, all of them healing with a simple move of your fingers. the yellowing that was beginning to form along his abdomen fades back into his normal skin color when your hands drift past them, and he smiles in satisfaction.
“well no broken bones this time,” you point out, patting his leg proudly. he grins, sitting up, “you proud of me?”
“very,” you respond, pressing a kiss to his cheek that relaxes all of his sore muscles, “you’re a gift to this world,” he thanks. you smile in response, sitting bucky down where sam was. sam picks up the clothing you always leave out, moving into your small bathroom to change while you work on bucky.
“how did it go?” you ask him, cleaning away the blood on his face. “not yours,” you comment on it, “i guess that’s good.”
“it went… as well as fighting a god can go,” he answers, you nod, “you fought a god?” you ask nonchalantly, as if you didn’t just have a strange encounter with said god. bucky nods, “loki. you saw him, y/n.”
your hands move in front of his face, warmth settling into the open wounds and closing them. “i was just making sure you’d tell me the truth. no one told me anything about this mission.” you pat at his arms, random injuries healing with a gentle pink. “no serious ones, right?” you ask, squinting at him as he shakes his head. “all of them healed down into small ones that you just healed.”
“okay, then,” you kiss his forehead, making his tense muscles loosen like sam’s. “do you know how much we appreciate it when you do that?” he asks, and you laugh. “making sure none of you are sore is a small thing, and i like doing it.” besides, thanks to that, you got natasha to warm up to your affection- she is now comfortable receiving hugs, and you consider that a win.
“so where’s loki going now?” you question, not noticing the three avengers behind you until tony answers, steve and natasha behind him. “one of the high security cells, you’re going to take turns babysitting him so he doesn’t try to kill everyone again.”
“i am?” you ask, motioning for the three to sit while sam and bucky leave. “not you, i don’t want anything to happen to you, but everyone else,” tony says, sitting in front of you. you roll your eyes in reply, “i’m not defenseless, tony. i’m an avenger for a reason. and it isn’t only because i can heal people.”
“why would you want to watch over him? rock of ages isn’t very interesting,” tony asks, you hold back the fact you think the opposite, continuing to pat at his cheek with a wet cotton swab. “it’s just sitting around and watching a man with an overgrown ego rant about evil plans,” natasha adds, making you shrug, “more than i usually do. most of the time, i have to sit around doing nothing until you guys come back, since steve won’t put me on missions,” you try to ignore how you’re defending someone who most of the people in this room consider a villain.
“we need to have you safe and intact in case anything happens,” steve defends. you sigh, having heard the same excuse multiple times before. “i know. doesn’t make feeling useless for most of the day any better.”
the topic is switched for the rest of the time they’re with you.
three days later, you haven’t even heard the god’s name. you can tell your conversation with tony ticked him off, and you’re worried he might have an idea of what runs through your mind when you think of loki, which explains the absence of anything loki-related. you’re disappointed, to say the least. the god you’ve been thinking about is in the same building as you, only a few floors below, locked inside a cell you know the code and have complete access to, and you can’t even think about him without the concern that tony might somehow find out. he’s been truthful about the babysitting; so far, each of the avengers have sat in with him, steve twice- you’re sure the second time was supposed to be you, but tony is infuriating and true to his word.
every avenger but you and natasha are gone today, though, and from the looks of the folder nick fury’s holding, walking down to loki’s cell where natasha is, it’ll be down to just you.
a few minutes later, you’re reading “the night manager,” when fury knocks on your door, making you look up. “you busy, l/n?” he asks, you shake your head, “have a mission for me?”
“yes. supervising loki laufeyson for the rest of the day, and preferably the night, too,” he instructs, an eyebrow raising when you haven’t moved from your seat, so you stand immediately, shutting your book with your finger bookmarking your page. “oh- yes, of course, sir. uh, i’ll get down there now, then,” you stammer, awkwardly squeezing past him in the doorway and heading to the elevator, “have a nice day, sir,” you wave, nearly bumping into a plant.
you always embarrass yourself in front of the man, which probably explains your limited interactions.
you try not to think about it during the elevator ride, foot tapping on the floor as the numbers lower until it dings. natasha is standing on the other side when the doors part, eyes meeting yours the moment they do. you smile at her, squeezing her arm when she passes to replace the kiss you’d usually place on her forehead to soothe the tense muscles you’re certain she has. she tells you to be careful in a whisper, unwilling to show anything to the god who is curiously examining you. the elevator hums as it closes, and you sit in the chair before the glass prison. “hello,” you greet with a small smile, slightly bowing your head before opening your book and flipping to the page you left off on.
it’s utterly useless, though. the words on the page are impossible to understand when you can feel his eyes on you, examining you in such a way, you’re sure he already knows more about you than you do about yourself. “it’s the night manager,” you say softly after a few excruciating seconds, setting the book down on your lap as you meet his eyes. “it’s a good book so far.”
your tone is light, and you think it’s part of the reason loki answers, “i have read it before. it’s… not completely terrible.”
“no way, i just got the god seal of approval on one of my books,” you say playfully, smiling at him before going back to reading.
“i have not seen you here before,” loki points out after a silent minute, and you nod in response, “that’s right, i haven’t gone down here since you came.”
there’s a dangerous smirk playing at loki’s lips, walking closer to you, “is it because you’re scared of me?” he asks, and you scoff softly. “you don’t scare me. you are… interesting. dangerous, of course, and i don’t agree with your actions, but i don’t think you lash out for no good reason.”
there’s a heavy quiet that follows your words, your gentle stare combatting loki’s suspicious one. you nearly pick up your book to resume until he speaks again. “you haven’t expressed your hate for me yet,” he observes, and you frown, “is that what they do? that’s not very nice.”
“neither am i, darling.” loki replies smoothly, making you shake your head, cheeks warming against your will at the pet name. “well, i don’t hate you. so i don’t see a reason to do that,” you point out.
loki actually looks… surprised for a split second, before his gaze sets on you, “and why is that?” he questions. you pause; you don’t actually know why. surely, you should- he attempted to take over your planet and hurt your friends, but you can’t bring yourself to hold any ill feeling towards him, not after hearing his brother talk so fondly of him even after all he’s put him through.
“i don’t know. i probably should, but i just don’t,” you respond in finality, trying to leave no room for the argument loki will surely bring. he quirks an eyebrow, watching as you stifle a yawn.
he surprisingly doesn’t elaborate, but you’re sure it was already on his tongue. your mind goes back to one of the previous things he’d said, and your frown returns, examining the god. you only realize it completely looks like you’re checking him out when he smirks, cocking his head, “would you like me to do a turn?” he asks, making you flush. “no, i- i was just-”
you let out a small puff of air, attempting to convert your thoughts into one coherent sentence, “are they feeding you correctly? i know shield is supposed to be humane or whatever, but some of the agents pick and choose, and-”
“do you always ramble like this?” loki cuts you off, and you shake your head, bashful, “not usually. but i’m not usually in the presence of a god.” loki smirks at that, “they haven’t. but as you pointed out, i am a god. thus i need very little food.”
the voice in your head that sounds strangely like tony is yelling at you to not care, because the person in front of you is evil- supposedly- and it would be highly inappropriate of you to care, but, like you usually do with tony, you ignore it, reaching into your pocket to get your phone. you type out that you’re hungry to maria, doubling your usual order of food with no questions from her but full of suspicion, you’re sure.
“what are you doing?” loki asks. “getting food. i’m not exactly sure what gods are supposed to eat, and it’s not like i can order a whole ham or whatever, but i don’t find myself loving the idea of starving prisoners.”
“why?” he asks, eyes slanted and head tilted like he tends to do. contemplating his question, you shrug, “because i can’t see why i shouldn’t.”
loki decides you’re bearable.
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gyromitra-esculenta · 3 years
Text
Rookie Mistake
Crack Treated Seriously, and a Lot of Headcanons, metaltango
*
It’s past nine in the evening and someone is leaning on his doorbell for the better part of the last five minutes. The shrill sound makes his eyes water, and, for fuck’s sake, whoever that is, they can go and fuck themselves with a rusty rake. He’s off duty, nursing a hangover, and treating it with the hair of the dog that bit him. If anyone needs him, they can call him. On the phone, like civilized people.
At the five-minute mark, Leon rolls off the couch, steadies himself vertically, and slams the glass on the table. Thank god he has no intercom. The doorbell is – still – threatening to split his skull apart. He stumbles to the door, hoping to scare the supposed amorous couple off, and if that doesn’t work, he swears he will suck the dude off himself, so they hopefully move on and let him be miserable in peace.
Only, as soon as he opens the door, he kicks it back closed and bolts it, for a good measure. The ringing stops. He peeks through the peephole, and, just as he expects, the corridor is empty, with no one in his field of vision.
Leon goes through mental checks and groans when he draws a blank on the simple question of when was the last time he ate: hallucinations are par for the course, in this case, and so is his persistent hangover. The fridge… The fridge is better to be left alone after a cursory check: peaches have liquefied, cucumbers lost half of their volume, and the unidentified leftovers look like they are close to developing some form of rudimentary sentience, if not outright their own culture. That leaves him with two options, and out of the two, the third is the most alluring: doing nothing till the morning because he can’t be arsed to either go out or order the delivery at the moment.
Acting on pure instinct, Leon grabs at the knife strapped to his thigh and turns, throwing it at the open window – immediately regretting it since he will have to search for the knife when it, predictably, flies outside and lands in some decrepit bushes, because it holds sentimental value. But it doesn't. Jack, with one leg over the windowsill and inside the apartment, looks down at the embedded in his shoulder blade and, imagine this, has the audacity to look offended. Never mind it’s the fifth floor.
“It is not a throwing knife.”
Leon takes a deep breath because what the actual fuck and marches to the window. He pulls the knife from the wound, then promptly stabs Jack again in the same arm.
“It’s not a stabbing knife,” Jack chides him with a disappointed expression. "You should know."
“I’ll stab you as many times as I want because you aren’t here, and you’re not breaking into my flat, and you’re…” Leon pauses, still gripping the handle of the knife, eyeing the bag Jack holds in his other hand. “…dead. You brought…”
"Food." Like it explains anything. Leon takes a step back, bringing the knife with him as he wipes it in the bend of his elbow - he definitely doesn’t entertain the motion of planting his foot dead center on Jack’s chest and just kicking him out of the window, oh no, not at all – but the food smells good.
Glaring, Leon wrestles the bag from Jack (who remains somewhat between the inside and the outside of the flat) and dumps it on the table before looking around for a clean fork, all while adamantly refusing to ruminate on the situation at hand because fuck it. He’s not at the mental capacity required to deal with it, what with his ex returning from the dead for the second time now – though the circumstances are better, besides dropping by unannounced – and is he even Leon’s ex if they technically never were a thing or never even broke up?
Does trying to kill each other (and succeeding at it) count as a breakup?
Jack struts with this unnerving fluid gracefulness of his around like he owns the place, the bastard, and Leon decides to ignore him, instead opening the box without taking it out of the plastic bag. The shrimp in the fried rice are finely sliced to the point they’re unrecognizable - and it’s so fucking considerate. He would chuck the whole dish into the trashcan if he saw a goddamn shrimp looking like a goddamn shrimp.
“Nice place you have here.”
“Shut up.”
Jack, of course, never takes a hint, and sits at the other side of the table, watching Leon stuff his mouth – which means he’s way too close because the furniture was made with people of normal dimensions in mind. His elbows literally rest in the middle.
“So,” Jack begins and Leon, without pausing, drives the knife into the wood millimeters away from his palm.
“No. I killed you.”
“You didn’t. Rookie mistake.” Jack nods to himself. “The bitch in red came close.”
And this is another thing Leon’s not dealing with tonight.
"It's Ada."
“Yes. The bitch.” Jack reaches over the table and grabs his chin. Leon really – without any doubt – should stab him with the fork, more so when his face is turned from side to side, but, fuck, isn’t that nostalgic. “You’re not eating.”
“I’m eating now, I’m not the same stupid…” Jack leans back and his gaze deliberately lingers at the almost empty bottle on the floor by the couch, then on the fridge behind him, and then back on him. Touché. It’s the first time Leon regrets the open floor plan. “Fuck off.”
“Feisty. I think I like that.”
“I’ll stab you again if I have to,” Leon snaps at him.
“Once more, it’s not...”
“It’s my knife now and I’ll do what I want with it!”
Jack smirks at him, leaning in this time, his voice somewhere between a growl and a purr.
“It’s a cutting knife, Kennedy.”
Fuck.
Leon feels the fork slipping from his fingers, just wonderful, just be calm, and, oh fuck, the kneading pressure on his neck – and he will never admit to the undignified sound that makes it past his lips, nor the next one that comes.
"Oh, fuck, yes..."
In the morning, Jack is gone, the sheets are ruined, he needs some – moderate – medical attention, and a big hard drink. Leon groans and tries halfheartedly to smother himself with a pillow because are they a thing now, or not, or what the fuck did even happen, and no, damn it, no, he doesn’t do giddy.
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Silva Lining (Saul Silva x Reader) Chapter 16
Warnings: Swearing
Word count: 2.1k
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The barrier was abandoned as you head back to the school. What was Aisha thinking? Telling the teachers their plan?
You huffed as you walked into your mothers office. Saul had stayed behind at the barrier with the Specialists while you and Aisha were escorted back by your mother and Mr Harvey. Stella, Terra and Musa were the only ones there, Bloom no where to be seen.
“Before you say anything, I didn’t say a thing, it was all this ones doing.” You hitched a thumb in Aisha’s direction. “The only thing I found out was Rosalind has been after me this whole time and has been using Bloom to get to me. She somehow knew the truth about who my mother was and knew she couldn’t use me to free her. So please please please tell me nothings happened yet and Bloom is just taking her time in the creepy hidden room?”
You sucked in a breath, forgetting to breath during your mini rant. The girls just looked shocked, less shocked than normal, they probably expect this kind of stuff now, nothing was easy when it came to your life.
You watched as Farah came back through the door way, having gone in search for Bloom. “They’re gone.”
So here you were, sitting around your dorm, having been shouted at by Mr Harvey; who you don’t think you’ve ever seen angry before. Terra stood up to him and then he locked you all in using magic…. could anything else go wrong. Oh wait, you spoke too soon.
You kicked back in your chair, leather boot clad feet up on the table as you listened to Stella go in on Aisha for being a snitch.
“Bloom is being selfish, the last thing Miss Dowling needs is to be worried about Rosalind.” That made you stir in your seat. Your feet came off the table with a thud.
“Stell, she does have a point there. You know how much shit we’ve cause Dowling, I know with the new found relationship status I could come across as bias but after all, all this shit is happening because of me once again. Can we just stop arguing for one second and figure out how were going to help?”
Your speech was interrupted by the flickering of lights. “Okay did anyone else see that or am I having some weird magic stroke?” The rest of the room murmured. Okay, not a stroke.
“This shouldn’t be happening, Alfea is an outpost it runs on magic.” Terra paced and Musa and Sam joined the rest of them in the room.
Sam, being able to walk through walls, decided to go and check it out. See what was happening.
“Wait I can come with you..” You volunteered but he had already vanished. “Okay thennn.” What felt like seconds later Sam was back through the wall screaming in agony, his stomach sliced open, blood soaked through his clothing.
“There’s a burned one in the school!”
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The courtyard was the busiest you’d ever seen it. Your mother was using magic to slam windows shut, fire fairies were welding them shut completely. Saul was on one side dishing out armour and weapons to anyone who’d take it. Mr Harvey had set up a medical bay for the suspected casualties. Your mind was spinning. The voices had started when Sam came through the wall. Whispers in your mind almost like it was your subconscious. It was fucking annoying.
Looking around you saw a hell of a lot of scared faces. Your heart beat rapidly in your chest, you hadn’t had a panic attack in months but it sure felt as if you were having one now. This was happening because of you. Innocent people were going to be hurt because the burned ones wanted one thing. You. Your eyes scanned the courtyard as your mothers speech rang out. Saul caught your eye, and gave you a look. Scared, worried, love. He conveyed it all with just one look. He was going to get hurt. Because of you. In that moment you knew what you had to do.
Trying to sneak away had failed. Since meeting Stella you knew you’d had a bond more stronger than friendship. You were blood and something about that gave her an edge. She knew you were about to do something stupid, she could literally feel the dread running through her veins.
“Please tell me you’re not going out there alone, how many times is it going to take for you to realise were better off as a team.”
Stella made you jump as she spoke up behind you, with her was Aisha and Bloom. Your ran your hands through your hair, pulling the long strands up onto a bun, the bobble on your wrist secured it in place.
“Actually, I could use some help.”
So the plan was set. Bloom would stay and distract Saul and your mother. They’d been keeping such a close eye on her lately that they were certain she was going to be the one to do something stupid and reckless. Oh how the roles had reversed. Aisha and Stella were coming with you, you needed Stella there to help you ground your powers. Like you’d always said, she was the light to your dark and vice versa. Aisha, well, she was a fucking powerful and smart fairy, couldn’t hurt to have her on your side.
Sneaking behind a wall just off the courtyard, you held your hands out allowing smoky black tendrils of magic flow freely from your shaking fingers. The portal opened and with one last look back at all the fear and chaos inside, you stepped through.
-Saul’s POV-
We got back to the school just in the nick of time. The courtyard was full of scared, fear fulled fairies and Specialists and all Saul could think of was his girl and why the fuck she wasn’t in the courtyard with the rest of the students.
His heart beat rapidly as he gave orders and handed out weapons and armour to every student he could. He was alerted to Y/N’s presence when he heard screaming and panicked cries from across the room. She was helping her friends carry Harveys kid, his torso clawed away at by the hands of a burned one.
He was too distracted, he couldn’t go to her straight away people would notice, even amongst all this chaos, they still had to be clever and careful. He was busy talking to Sky, still trying to keep his girl in his sights but he failed. Now seemed the only chance that he might get to tell Sky the truth about Asterdal and that’s what he did. How he killed Skys father to save himself after Andreas turned on him. Sky didn’t want to believe and he was pissed, but it needed to wait until after. After the burned ones weren’t knocking on their front door. He looked around again for you, wondering where the hell you were.
“Are you seriously looking for Y/N after you told me you killed my father?” Sky seethed, rightfully pissed off. “I don’t know where she is but she asked me to tell you she loves you, and she’s sorry, she said she would have said it herself but it would have been too obvious.” With that Sky walked away to the front line before Saul could ask him what she meant by sorry.
The burned ones were banging on the doors, windows, you name it. They had arrived. Farah parted the crowd of scared students like the red sea, Marco behind her telling people to keep their nerve. Saul joined them at the front armed and ready. Screams erupted as glass fell from the towering ceiling above. A fairy shot fire from his hands directly at the burned one who had fell through the roof. It charged it’s way towards the specialists, swords drawn, they charged forward, only to stop when the burned one changed coarse, leaving the students behind.
“What the hell was that.” Terra panicked and looked around for more signs of burned ones.
“They’re all moving together… like they’re looking for something.” Saul looked at Farah, realisation dawning on his face.
“Where’s Y/N?”
-Your POV-
The air was colder than usual. Maybe it’s because deep down you were scared shitless and the nerves were getting the better of you.
“Y/N you do know my mums gonna be here soon, with an actual army!” She ran after you, trying to keep up with your long strides.
“Stell, the burned ones have always been after me, from the start. I can’t stand back and not do anything. I know how to stop them, I’ve had the power all along, I’ve just been too afraid to use it. I need to draw on more power than I ever have before. That’s why I need you both here, so you can try and stop me if it gets out of control.”
You could hear the burned ones getting closer, their menacing growls echoing through the spindly trees. Shadows bounced around the outskirts of the space you were standing in. You didn’t realise you were crying until Stella brushed your tears away. Both fairies grabbed your hands.
“If anything happens, tell Saul I love him. I’ll never stop loving him even in death.”
You gave Stella one last hug and did the same with Aisha, taking a deep calming breath you stepped forward, your heavy boots squelching in the waterlogged field that overlooked the school you’d come to call home.
When you knew your friends were far enough away you opened up you senses, giving in to the power you possessed. Your eyes turned black and your body began to slowly lift from the ground, arms outstretched. You could feel the power swirling inside you. It’s presence made you gasp. Around you, a smoky black fog, your body was consumed in it, a visual representation of the power you held. You looked down to your fingers, to your body and smiled.
Fairies used to have wings but they had lost the ability to perform transformation magic so adapted and didn’t need them anymore. So it came as a surprise when you felt giant wings burst from your back, glowing black and white. This is what it meant to be the answer to all the realms problems. You smiled again, tears threatening to spill due to the feeling of being whole. This is who you were meant to be all along and now you had finally found yourself.
The burned ones sprung from the depths of the forrest. Your boot clad feet hit the ground with a thud and your smoky, bright wings fanned out behind you. You were ready. They charged towards you, their growls filling the air. Your hands shot out and your black tendrils of magic shot into their chests, ripping out the spark inside them. You watched as one by one they crashed to the ground around you. Their monster like growls no longer.
Your wings retracted and you breath deeply. The burned ones that had once surrounded you no longer deformed and burned. But there, laying on the ground, humans.
“What the fuck?”
You heard running footsteps and looked up dizzily to see your mum and Saul running towards you in worry.
They stopped, looking around at what had unfolded. “Well done Y/N.” You mother was tearing up, shocked, happy and proud. You stumbled towards Saul. He ran to you, swooping you up in his arms.
“Farah what’s wrong with her?!” Saul was panicked, brushing the hair back from your sweaty forehead. Your mothers hand came to rest on Sauls shoulder.
“It’s okay Saul, she’s just weak, let’s get her back to the school.”
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That night, the lights came back on in Alfea. Your friends surrounded you as you lay in bed, all talking about the events that had unfolded and how you had earned your wings. How Stella and Aisha had helped you in your time of need. How Terra and Musa had helped save Sam, and how Bloom had helped distract everyone to make the whole plan a possibility.
As the girls chatted and laughed, you zoned out, looking around at each of them. You couldn’t believe how lucky you were. A girl from no where in England, finding out she was a fairy, finding an amazing group of friends who she knew she’d have for life. Finding Saul, finding her mother, finding herself. She couldn’t help the happy tears that fell.
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Oh my goshhhhhh! I hope you liked this chapter! I really enjoyed writing it! So much dramaaaa <3
As always please let me know what you thought! Comment, like, re-blog and if you wanna be in the tag list let me know!
CHAPTER 17.1 -------- CLICK HERE
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blitzturtles · 3 years
Text
Title: It Goes Like This (It Starts Like This Universe)
Rating: Teen and Up
Fandom: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo
Pairing(s): BruAbba
Summary: Abbacchio isn’t a morning person. Never has been. He prefers the comfort that comes with a blanket of darkness to the bright hours of the early morning. There’s less eyes. Less people. Less performance. Unfortunately, he’s gone and fallen in love with a man that believes that the day begins before the sun has even broken the horizon.
Notes: This is for the first place to my 300 Follower Giveaway! @bucciaratisfishmarket requested BruAbba set in my It Starts Like This verse with some disabled slice of life/morning routine. Ngl, I was super excited to get to do something in this verse, so thank you!
Thank you to everyone that followed and participated, and a special thanks to @bucciaratisfishmarket! I hope you like your fic!
Additional Notes: Also, the pill organizer described in the fic can be found on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1022344896/boneyard-real-bones-weekly-7-day-pill It's cool and beautiful, and I probably don't do it justice. Definitely go check it out!
-
Abbacchio isn’t a morning person. Never has been. He prefers the comfort that comes with a blanket of darkness to the bright hours of the early morning. There’s less eyes. Less people. Less performance. Unfortunately, he’s gone and fallen in love with a man that believes that the day begins before the sun has even broken the horizon. It’s leftover from Bruno’s days helping his father with the boat, and, later, his days running Polpo’s errands. Chasing people down for money and answers. What comfort Abbacchio can find in the night, Bruno can find just fine in the light hours of the morning.
Fortunately for both of them, Abbacchio is more than capable of running on a schedule, of waking up at the same time everyday and forcing his mind and body into cooperation. He did it for years for school and then the academy. It’s nothing he isn’t used to, and he’s happiest when Bruno is happy, no matter what that entails, which is how he finds himself waking up to Bruno’s second alarm before the man can snooze it again.
The thing about Bruno’s new medication—a pill large in size and equally ridiculous in the length of its name—is that it makes it damn near impossible for him to get going in the morning the way he used to. Before, Bruno practically operated on his own internal clock. Waking up before his alarm had even gone off and fetching them both their first cup of caffeine; it used to be the thing that made greeting the day a bit more tolerable.
Now, Bruno snoozes. Alarm after alarm, until they run out. He’s tried music, absurd volumes, and even relocating the damned clock halfway across the room. None of it helps, so Leone compensates. He wakes up around the second or third alarm, turns the rest off, and kisses Bruno’s cheek before he rolls out of bed.
Sometimes there’s a quiet plea, “five more minutes”, that endears Abbacchio so completely that his mood settles, not nearly as bitchy as he could be upon reaching the kitchen and finding someone else already there.
“Why are you awake?” Okay, so. Still bitchy. But he doesn’t sneer his words quite as bad.
Narancia, for his part, looks completely startled by the prospect of someone else existing at such an ungodly hour, but he manages to avoid outright screaming. That’s a plus. Abbacchio isn’t sure his head could take it this early. “What are you doing?”
“I asked first.”
Narancia narrows his eyes, but he caves within seconds. “I got a test in like two hours, and Fugo’s gonna kill me if I don’t pass.”
Abbacchio snorts at the idea, “Yeah, he will.”
“Not helping!”
“Never said I planned to,” Abbacchio points out as he starts rummaging through the cabinets for two mugs. He sets them on the counter and gets to work brewing their coffee. Decaf these days, for Bruno’s sake. Abbacchio could keep drinking his usual, but he takes solace in the bitter taste of his coffee instead. It seems kinder that way, especially when he knows how much Bruno’s been struggling without caffeine.
“Why are you awake?”
“I’m always awake this early,” next is breakfast, which is easier said than done. It’s rare that Abbacchio wakes up with a stomach for anything. Too many years of skipping breakfast in favor of a bottle did a number on him, but it’s not optional anymore. Neither one of them will be able to keep their meds down without something to eat, so he picks through the refrigerator until he comes up with fruit and yogurt as his best solution.
“Really?” Narancia asks, wrinkling his nose, “Why?”
“Ask Bruno,” Abbacchio says, dismissive. He’s really not in the mood to talk to people that aren’t currently snoozing in his bed.
“You’re not much fun in the morning.”
“Am I ever?”
“Touché.”
Abbacchio snorts. He should be offended, but he knows the kid is being a smartass. It’s his own fault for setting himself up. “Why don’t you go bother Fugo? I’m sure he’ll be happy to help you study.”
“Have you ever tried waking Fugo up?”
“No, can’t say that I have.” That’s always been Bruno’s job, assuming that Fugo hadn’t already woken up on his own.
“It’s too early to get stabbed.”
“Touché.”
They go back and forth for a while longer. At least until Abbacchio’s patience runs out, and he’s finished putting breakfast together. He dismisses himself with little warning and doesn’t feel the least bit guilty when the kid looks a little startled by the abruptness of his departure. He has things to get done for the day, and those things don’t necessarily include being part of Narancia’s obvious effort to procrastinate.
“Bruno,” Abbacchio calls when he steps back into their room after Moody opens the door for him. “Your five minutes are up.”
“Five more?” Bruno asks, voice muffled. His head is barely visible with only a tuft of hair sticking out from a pile of blankets. It’s cute, and Abbacchio is a complete sucker for giving in.
“Last one, tesoro,” Abbacchio warns as he sets Bruno’s cup and food down on the bedside table.
There’s a muffled reply that might be a quiet thanks, though it’s almost impossible to tell with the way Bruno pulls the blankets even tighter around himself.
Abbacchio rummages through the drawer of his nightstand until he finds what he’s looking for before taking up a spot at the end of the bed with his food and drink in hand. He sips at the decaf slowly, wrinkling his nose at the first taste. God, he misses caffeine. As expected, he doesn’t feel much better about his first bite of homemade parfait (and he can almost hear Polnareff’s protest at his calling it that). The rest goes down about the same, but the motion is mechanical at that point. One bite after the other with the occasional sip from his mug to wash it all down until everything is gone.
Abbacchio sets the dishes on the floor and reaches for the pill organizer sitting on the bed beside him. He absently runs his fingers over the lid, where small bones have been set in resin. He can still remember the first time he saw it. The black shine had caught his eye first, but, on closer examination, the thing that had convinced him to buy the organizer had been the mouse bones, delicately placed and striking against the background.
What he hadn’t realized then is that the little organizer would a significant adjustment to his daily routine. Having a week’s worth of medication in one place, already sectioned in dosed amounts, had significantly increased his medication compliance. Oddly enough, it’s had a rather hefty impact on his overall mental health. Now, when anti-inflammatories and bronchodilators and steroids are part of his daily regiment as much as his SSRI’s, it’s even more vital for him to consistently get his meds in. Otherwise, the consequences tend to be pneumonia and an unwanted hospital trip with a round of antibiotics and even stronger steroids. And that’s to say nothing of what happens when he’s running low on serotonin.
He’s caught up in his own thoughts when Bruno hooks his chin over his shoulder and peers down at the little organizer.
“I never did ask you if those are real,” Bruno muses quietly.
“I thought you were taking five more.”
“‘m awake,” Bruno answers, clearly half-asleep.
Abbacchio huffs a soft, amused laugh. He turns his head to press a kiss to the side of Bruno’s nose. “Sure you are, amore.”
“I am.”
“M’hm,” Abbacchio smiles, reflecting the expression on Bruno’s face, though his is notably less sleep-depressed. Bruno looks a lot like a light gust of wind might knock him out, and it’s so damn endearing that Abbacchio can barely handle it. Instead, he looks back down at the pill organizer and answers Bruno’s earlier question, “They are. Real, I mean.”
“They’re lovely,” Bruno says, and he means it. Odd as some might find Abbacchio’s taste, Bruno has always found beauty in it. “Perhaps I should get one.”
“Might be a good idea.” It would be easier to see if Bruno ever missed a dose, and it would certainly be easier to avoid that disaster all together. “There are other options. You could go with something—oceanic, maybe?”
Bruno hums at the thought. “I think I’d like that.”
“I’ll keep an eye out,” by which Abbacchio means that he’ll actively go looking for one. Anything to make Bruno’s life a touch easier.
“Oh, you brought breakfast,” Bruno says, moving away from Abbacchio to peer curiously at the morning’s offerings. “You’re entirely too kind.”
Abbacchio huffs a laugh at that, “For all that you’ve done for us? Hardly.” He pops open the side hatch of his organizer and dumps the day’s pills into his hand. Abbacchio pulls a face at the number of them and looks down at his mug. Right, he had meant to save a sip.
“Here,” Bruno offers his own with a smile. “We’ll get more in a bit.”
“If you’re sure...” Abbacchio could always go get his own, but he has a feeling that doing so will result in more small talk, and he’s not quite up for that yet.
“I am,” Bruno reassures him before taking up the bowl of yogurt and fruit in absence of his coffee. “Just leave enough for me to take mine.”
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sabraeal · 3 years
Text
All That Remains, Chapter 8: The Flower Garden of the Woman Who Could Conjure [Part 5]
[Read on AO3]
Obiyukiweek 2021, Day 3: Strength Upright: Compassion, Courage, Self-Control Reversed: Weakness, Doubt, Discord
Once upon a time, a troll makes a mirror.
Is that not how we started this story, so long ago? How so many start: a vile creature forges an object. Who and what change in the telling; a troll makes a mirror, a god conjures a box, knowledge grows in a garden. In the end, it is all the same: what is once contained is opened, unwitting. Or lost, foolishly, in a heart so cold and cruel that it becomes bent to another purpose entirely.
But that is merely an allegory, a fiction composed to cover the raw edges we leave when we rub against each other. For that is the truth, is it not? There is no fell creature, no capricious and omnipotent beings to blame for our misery. There is only us, carving our place in our story by smoothing pieces off another. A snow queen is not made from frost and cold but by the blades of others, slicing slivers from her flesh until only ice remains.
That is the truth we cannot bear: the only monsters we face are the ones we have made. The only poisons we drink are those human hands have brewed.
And it starts like this, always: a girl in a garden, remembering the image of a rose, and wondering, how could I have I forgotten?
“You were quiet at dinner tonight.” Shirayuki hasn’t been at court long-- or rather, in court, privy to all its secret signals and capricious undercurrents-- but she knows that this is as close to an “are you all right?” as Haki can come. If confrontation is only allowed the glint of a knife, affection is stifled to a hint of warmth, a fire made in a room one is forbidden to venture. “I hope that the meal agreed with you.”
A flash of pharmacy white flutters at the corner of her vision, frustratingly out of reach. It’s been so long since she’s been there, since she’s thought of anything but silverware and schottische; when she tries it’s like a hundred voices shouting at once, each demanding to be heard. Just like being at Lilias, heads bent over a knotty problem--
“Shirayuki.” The consort does not crouch; it’s best, Lady Mihoko often remind her, to pretend one has no anatomy beneath the waist. But Haki does perch on a cushioned stool, her brows drawn tight over the elegant line of her nose. “You are not...indisposed, I hope?”
A solid shake dispels the fog mired around her. “What? Oh, no! I only...” It would be a mistake to speak of loam between her fingers, of the satisfaction of hearing a pod snap from its stalk. “I didn’t have much to say with my, erm, conversational partners.”
Royal brows raise to stunned arches. “Is that so? I would have thought you’d find much in common with Lord Kazunori and Lord Seiichii.”
They had both been older men, southern lords drawn to court for Seiran’s summit. Kind enough, but they spoke to her as they would their own daughters, which is to say: warmly, but brief. Not of any topics that one might sink their teeth into, lest it leaving lines around her mouth.
“I think they were more interested in talking to each other than to me,” she admits. In part because of her sex, and in part because-- well, her body may have been in that chair, obscuring the twining gods and goddess painted across it, but her mind had been a wing away, wondering if it was yet time to harvest the roku berries, or whether this year’s crop of apprentices knew akegi from yura shigure. “It seems there’s much to discuss before they all meet for, ah...discussion.”
Haki hands her a rueful smile. “There always is.” With a sigh, she sweeps to standing, as statuesque as any marble in Wistal’s halls. “Well, I suppose there’s nothing for it. I’ll have to ask the majordomo to find you some more scintillating seatmates tomorrow.”
“Ah..!” Tomorrow. Never had a day seemed so far away, so much more than a handful of hours between dawn and dusk. At Lilias, the nights had wavered between seasons, some so short she hardly slept between sun set and rise; and others so long that she woke in darkness, only to leave the lab in the same. But still, none seemed so long as this, and for no reason at all.
“Is something wrong?” Haki turns to her again, concern rumpling the curved lines of her mouth. “Do you have plans...?”
“No!” Shirayuki rushes to assure her. “It’s only...you mentioned dinner, and suddenly I felt so...”
“Weary?” Haki offers, when she won’t. Her eyes soften with mouth to match, smile turning her from heavenly to beatific. “I’m not surprised. You have been hard at work these last few months.”
And hardly anything to show for it, in Lady Mihoko’s learned opinion. Shirayuki bites back a groan. She would be sixty before that woman found her approaching passable, and even then, she still wouldn’t be good enough for a prince’s wife. Not when his children might have some chance, no matter how slim, of seating their sullied bloodline on the throne of Clarines.
“Perhaps you have earned a break.” Shirayuki blinks, staring up into the consort’s glowing face. “A private dinner seems in order. A night of no pressure of expectation.”
It sounds too good to be true. “Oh, no! I couldn’t--”
“Give me but a moment.” Haki hesitates at the door to her boudoir, lips lifted in an impish grin. “Perhaps my good brother might find himself available as well?”
Her mouth snaps shut. It’s been ages since she saw Zen, just the two of them. He came to dinner rarely-- understandable, with the summit only weeks away, and entirely under his purview, despite Seiran’s tacit position as host-- and where he went, Mitsuhide and Kiki went too. Haki had been her closest companion these past few weeks, the only friendly face, but Shirayuki longed for someone who didn’t look at her and see a princess, but--
Nervous energy courses through her, jolting her to her feet. Her hands itch, wanting for something to do, and with no plants to hand, they land upon the package on the receiving table. It’s wrapped in humble brown paper, folds clean and crisp, twine tightly tied. Haki’s medication, she realizes, dropping it from her numb hands. Made in the pharmacy. There’s a note on top-- instructions. She’d recognize them anywhere; after all, she’d written more than a few of them herself.
It’s curiosity that makes her pluck it from where it sits. It’s been ages since she’s been in the lab, but her knowledge hasn’t faded; there’s no harm in seeing whether there are any mistakes. An apprentice could have made this, after all. The dose does, as Garack was so fond of saying, make the poison.
She flips open the card, already flushed with the thought of being useful, but--
It’s not some apprentice’s writing at all. Oh no, she knows this spidery scrawl all too well. It was on every jar at her bench, every treatise she read late into the night.
It’s Ryuu’s.
Ignorance is bliss, they say. Always with a laugh, but stewing beneath it is envy and longing in equal measure. A pining for times past, for a childhood never quite as innocent as we remember.
For that is what we miss: innocence. Not the not-knowing, but state of not needing to know. The trust we felt towards those who always knew in our stead, who kept us safe from the dangers that pressed in around us. The ones who protected us with little lies; the small pauses to omit what might scare us, the careful editing to make our worlds the giddy fantasy we dreamed.
But there comes a day where all children must grow up. There is a day we must know these things for ourselves, so that we may see the world with clear eyes. For even innocence can be a cage, should some other hand try to lock you within it.
Ignorance is bliss, they say, but oh, only if they can keep you from knowing what it is you do not know.
May I ask you a question? the little girl asks, her gaze no longer on the garden, but the horizon beyond. It is bent in her vision, the glass made in such a way that each diamond blows out the edges, warping the world around it. She had never noticed when she looked only at the garden so near to it, but now...
Now the imperfection is all she can see.
Anything, the sorceress replies, her fingers wrapping around the caps of her shoulders. They’re cold, as cold as the glass beneath her palms.
The girl looks at their reflection, at the way the wave of the glass make those fingers bleed into talons. Where have the roses gone?
Shirayuki’s hands tremble, her eyes tracing every last loop, every hurried curve. “I didn’t...”
Haki peers around the jamb, letter folded in her hand. “Did you say something, my dear?”
This is the closest she’s been to Ryuu in months; even from where she holds it, the scene of lavender and akegi shigure waft from its paper. Not scented, not on purpose, but just from being left in a desk’s cubbyhole with his hastily tidied samples. His parchment smelt the same in Lilias, fragrant as the hothouses themselves.
Her chest can hardly contain her breath. “I didn’t realize that Ryuu was overseeing your treatment.”
A shadow flickers over the sorceress’s face, her grip painful for but a moment before she is her usual smiling self. A moment that could have been imagined, if only the girl was so sure it was not.
Roses? the sorceress asks airily. I’ve never grown any roses.
“Excuse me?”
“It only makes sense,” Shirayuki hurries to add, placing the card back atop the package. “He’s taken over for Chief Garack, and she always oversaw the royal--”
“Shirayuki.” Her name is firm from Haki’s lips, just shy of a scold. “I’m quite sorry but...who are you talking about?”
So many tales speak of trust as a blade, one that may be used to cut, that breaks when forged from brittle iron. A weapon, wielded and forgotten on the battlefield once the story is done.
But you and I know better: trust is a spell, woven to protect. It is a shield, unseen but always felt; sense by faith and not by fingers. And when it wavers, it does not break, does not shatter like a blade upon a stone; no, nothing so dramatic as that. Instead, it frays, unwoven one thread at a time, unnoticed until--
Until the hole can no longer be ignored.
She doesn’t leave the consort’s chambers meaning to break her curfew; oh no, when the door closes behind her, Shirayuki has every intention to head straight to her own. Her feet drag beneath her, weary from contorting herself into a mold that barely fits. There’s nothing she’d like more than to divest herself of all these courtly trappings and pass effortlessly into oblivion.
But she turns a corner, her mental map of the palace resolving, and she realizes: in one direction is her room, and in the other, the pharmacy. It’s late, but Ryuu would still be there, committing his last-minute thoughts to page while the offices emptied around him. She misses him, a longing so intense it aches.
It would only be a short visit. If Izana brought her before him in the morning, trying to act as both judge and jury-- well, Ryuu would be her physician, once she and Zen finally managed to make it down the aisle hand-in-hand. It only made sense to keep a cordial relationship with the man who would bear the next branch of the Wisteria tree into the world.
And if she missed him, the boy who straddled the line of friend and brother and son both-- there was no need to explain that to the king. It wasn’t as if Izana made a habit of confessing his ulterior motives to her. Though strangely, she thought he might understand that better than anyone.
Or all but one. And he...
Well, if there was a single person who might know where he went besides her, her feet were carrying her to him now/.
Were you to ask the girl, she would say she had not chosen night on purpose. The sorceress had housed her, fed her, loved her in her way; even with the image of the rose burned behind her eyes, she trusted her still, in the desperate way one does when one knows they should not, but cannot bear to contemplate why.
Opportunity chooses for her; the late afternoon sun burns hot, and when they finish their dinner, the sorceress excuses herself to lay down in the dark, to merely rest her eyes-- and does not wake, not even when the door creaks as the girl slips around it. The moon guides her steps when she walks into the garden, bright as the day itself, but she does not need it: her feet carrying her better than memory could.
There is one there, just as there was this morning: a petal, pink and sweet, fragrance so familiar she knew it even without sight.
Come out, she murmurs, digging her hands into the earth. Come out my lovely, my dear. I have been searching just for you.
A tendril spirals up from the ground, tentative. It flips and flaps, and oh, she is too shocked, too awed to help it. Even still, it finds her, wrapping around her finger, and with a single drop of blood the bush emerges, whole and dirt-smeared, from the soil.
What, it murmurs, impatience tinging its words, took you so long?
In the day, the pharmacy is all rush and chaos: apprentices burning tinctures and ushering patients to their rooms; masters emptying drawers as soon as they are filled, only for other herbalists to hurry to replace them. Guards arrive with injuries and nobles with ailments, no moment ever dull while the doors are open.
But at this hour, when the lords and ladies are all tucked in their beds-- or are at least pretending to be-- and the work is done, the pharmacy sleeps. There is no herbalist at the front desk, only the push bell Ryuu despised when she was his apprentice, since it always meant she would be pulled away from him or he away from his project.
A necessary nuisance, he called it once, and Obi had laughed. Just like me, eh, Miss?
She no longer remembers what she said-- it was early enough when he was one still, though she’d like to think she was too kind to say it-- but now she wishes, even if just for a moment, that she could tell him how much of a gift he was to her. How much he had made tedium bearable, even when she hadn’t known it for what it was.
Instead she bites her lips, rubbing at the ache in her breast. It’s hardly the first time she’s forgotten to say what matters, but-- but this won’t be her last chance. Obi might be away now, but he will be found, and she will tell him...
Everything. Every last thought she had since the moment they last spoke; her apologies and her worries, her failures and her triumphs. Because Obi hearing them-- that’s what makes them real.
Her hand wraps around the third door’s knob by habit; even now she expects to open it and see her projects spilled across her desk, to see a curtain closed beneath the other, and a window open between them. To see it waiting for her the way her heart waits for them, empty and waiting to be filled.
But there’s nothing of them there anymore. Nothing besides memories that no longer fit over the space it has become.
Her feet carry her onward, down to the last room, a sliver of light slipping across the hall where it’s been left ajar. She still expects to see a curled mass of blonde hair bent over the desk, long tables sprawled with books and half-finished studies, a bottle of roka medicinally sitting in the corner. But instead--
Instead it is a dark one, a riotous shrubbery of walnut and teak in desperate need of pruning. That had been her job in Lilias, along with Yuzuri’s helpful hands, but is seems no one here has yet talked the Chief Herbalist to task.
Give it a few years, Garack would tell her, and he’ll have herbalists as eager to get into his hair as you three were with me.
She leans against the jamb, a sigh slipping past where her heart clogs her throat. Ryuu had once fit beneath a desk half this size, and now he towers over it even seated, looking more and more like Shidan with each passing day, a man overgrown by time and deadlines.
“Ryuu.” It’s a palpable hit when their eyes meet. Everything else about him might change, but that gaze, so wide and thoughtful-- that never does.
Until now. One moment they spark, a fire lit behind blue glass, and the next...
It gutters, his gaze slipping away.
“Shirayuki.” His voice is so much deeper than in her memory, so much older. And colder too. “Excuse me, Lady Shirayuki. Is there something you need?”
“No.” She clings to the doorway, too aware of how fine her dress is, of how little it belongs in this place, his sanctum sanctorum. How little she belong here, now. “I saw a card you wrote to the consort, and I...wanted to see you.”
“A card?” His eyebrows twitch; she can no longer tell if it’s in surprise or confusion, not on this stranger’s face. “Ah. The powder for her migraines. Did you want some as well?”
“No, I’m-- I’m well.” It feels like a lie, even as she says it. It wouldn’t have, only hours ago. “I just...I’m here for you.”
His knuckles blanch where he grips his pencil. “Well, you’ve seen me. I trust you know your way out.”
You’re too late, too late, the roses say, their sing-song jangling in her ears. I’ve been hidden away for so long, and even now I cannot find him. The betrayal in their voice is thick when they ask, How could you forget us, your flower and your boy, when we have always grown together?
“Ryuu.” It leaves her lips cracked, broken; her mouth no longer knows how to form the shape that calls to him. “I know it’s been...a while, but please don’t think that I didn’t want to-- that I wasn’t thinking about you. I just...”
His pencil pauses on the page, but he does not speak. He just looks at her, the way he would at a stranger, and this room is suddenly a desert and ocean both, too far and deep to go by foot alone.
Still, there is nothing she will not brave, not for him. “It was hard to come,” she admits. “I’m not allowed in the gardens, and I’m not allowed to take patients. Coming here, watching everyone working the way I always have...”
It would have been like watching someone eat a feast while she was starving. 
His eyes soften, even if they don’t precisely thaw. “I know that you’re marrying the prince, and that you don’t have time for m--” his lips press tight-- “this. I’m not upset because you’ve set your career aside.”
“But you are...” Her words limp as she says them, wounded fawns searching of an elusive mother. “You are upset.”
His hands flex as he places them on the wood, utterly silent. “I knew...” he breathes, so harsh it scrapes her own throat too. “I knew you’d have to give things up--important things. But...”
Ryuu had always spoken slowly, thoughtfully. But still, these moments when he meant what he said, when he composed rather than conversed-- it had never taken him to long to tell her what he meant. He trusted her, knew that even if his words came out garbled or his message was lost in a sea of ellipses, she would salvage it, gluing it back together with his intention.
So when he sits silent, it wounds her almost as much as his words.
At last his gaze lifts again from his work, but the glare he fixes on her-- “But I never thought you’d let one of them be Obi.”
Her mouth works, but the well from which she draws her reason is empty, leaving only pain in its wake.
“I didn’t...I didn’t let him leave,” she murmurs, more wind than whisper. “He never told me he was going. He just left without even...”
Saying goodbye. As if all these years had meant nothing at all.
“There’s a guardsman,” she says instead, her voice trembling toward something approaching even. “He said he saw Obi leave with--” a woman-- “someone.”
Ryuu grunts.
“He ran off with Torou, once.” She wants the words to come easy, but each one emerges from her trembling, the way her fingers are against her skirts. “On the way back from Tanbarun. That’s...that’s probably what this is. An old friend that needs help, and then he’ll come right back--.”
“He won’t.”
Each breath is a stab, deep in her chest. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.” He stands; a production with how much of him there is now. Cautiously, his hand extends, a fist hovering over the knotted wood of his desk.
It takes all her courage to take the first step, and all of it again to take the next. On and on until she’s crossed the room, hand outstretched, quivering beneath his own.
His palm opens, and into hers falls...a seed. Tiny. Blue. As clear as glass.
“An orbia seed?” Shirayuki lifts it up to the light, the plumule a hazy bead nestled in its luminous cotyledon. It’s impossible to tell by sight, but still, she’s sure-- it would germinate, if she planted it. “I was collecting these before we left.”
“I know.”
“It’s funny,” she murmurs, a smile lifting her mouth. “I never did find a blue one.”
“I know.” His explanation comes in fits and starts, a path never worn in the telling. “I had one. I gave it to Obi.”
“You...?” The thought catches in the light, just like the seed between her fingers. “Oh. Oh. But...” Her mouth curls, a silent question: why?
“I don’t know. I thought he might...” Ryuu’s shoulders twitch, as narrow as Obi’s when he first blew in with the wind. Before he settled into the man he became. “When he was ready...”
Of course. Her hand closes tight around the seed. Obi had what she needed all along. And she’d never known, not until...
Not until he was gone. “Where--?”
“I found it on my desk.” Ryuu’s fingers flex, falling by his side. “The morning after he left.”
Where did he go? the little girl asks, desperation choking her as surely as her tears. Where can I find him?
How should I know? the roses reply, thorns in their words as well as their stems. You are the one who left me buried under the ground. How could I watch him when you let us be trapped together?
“Did you...” Her mouth works, cutting itself against her question. “Did you tell Zen’s men, when they came? Do they know that he...?”
Said goodbye, she cannot say, to someone at least.
“No.” Ryuu blinks, his eyes as round and innocent and blue as ever. “They never did. Come by I mean.”
This is not the first time we have spoken of betrayal, is it? Of the wound that never heals, the jagged cut that scabs over only to be ripped open anew. The injury that teaches one to be wary, lest one be inflicted again.
But that is only after the wound is made. When it is first done...
Well, it is strange how long a heart can bear a blade through it without ever feeling the killing stroke. 
“You are thinking,” Haruka remarks, with no small amount of disapproval. “I can tell.”
Shirayuki blinks down at her place setting, expecting to see broth dripped across the tablecloth, or perhaps the edge of her sleeve dipped in yolk, maybe even her tea dribbling over the edge of her cup--
But there is nothing. The white linen is pristine beneath her gold-rimmed plate, her sleeves and elbows tucked up and off the table, and if anything, her beverages of choice are picturesque in their vessels, juice beading with moisture and tea gently steaming. “What am I doing wrong?”
It, historically, has been the wrong question to ask the marquis, sure to send him into a silent huff that will stretch from first course to fifth, disapproval deepening with each sorbet. In his vaunted opinion, the fact her inexperience might cause her to trespass the unspoken rules of good manners is bad enough, but to not know precisely when and how it was done-- now that was truly unforgivable.
However, today he merely settles back in his seat, rubbing his fingers against the cloth tucked over his lap, and fixes her with his unerring gaze. She doesn’t shrink beneath it; oh no, instead something in her chest shifts, almost as if-- as if it grows.
His lips twitch, just the slightest upward tremor. “Nothing.”
Her mouth opens, then closes, stymied. “Then how did you know?”
A single, noble arch lifts. “Because you have never once stopped.”
It is to the tiger-lily the little girl turns, after the roses. They are a pompous flower, no doubt, as proud and self-important as any big cat, but despite their bluster, they are honest. The noblest flower in this garden, hearty and constant, and though they sniff when she kneels down upon their bed, dirtying her hem, they listen.
Have you seen him? she asks, heart lodged tight in her throat. Have you seen my precious boy?
“So what is it,” Haruka murmurs into his glass, “that has you so engrossed, young lady?”
Her lips press together, teeth plucking at the scar. “You told me once that I should know who is my ally, and who is my-- Zen’s.”
The rim has hardly touched his lips, but Haruka sets down the crystal, hands folding behind his plate. “I did.”
“But those are not the one two options, are they.” It’s not a question, not anymore. “Sometimes they may seem to be one or the other, or both at the same time, but really-- it’s their own, isn’t it? Everyone is just trying to do what they think best.”
“That is...” The marquis takes in a steady breath. “A very mature way to see a frustrating problem.”
“The consort has said that she is my friend,” she says slowly, each word shaken loose from her heart. “But she is also lying to me.”
“Is she?”
Haruka, she had said once, these long skirts tangled around her legs, binding fast as any chain, he’s hard to read.
Is he? Zen’s hand was cold against hers, like touching marble. Izana’s had been the same so many years ago; she wonders if it might be a problem with their circulation, perhaps passed down from a parent, but this doesn’t seem the time to ask about his mother’s medical history. He’s always seemed clear as crystal to me.
Though, he continues, mouth set in a rueful grin. After a childhood of lectures, maybe it’s easier. I can tell how stupid he thinks I am just from the degree of his eyebrows.
His brow is furrowed now, a tight knot over the bridge of his nose. There’s no angle, no lift, and Shirayuki isn’t quite sure what that might say about his perception of her intelligence. If it were anyone else, she might even call it concern.
“Is she lying to you,” he asks, posing it like Lata when he wants to ask something particularly perverse as a rhetorical. “Or are you not asking the right questions?”
Her fingers clench tight on her lap, linen rucking up between her fingers. She likes this far less than Lata’s. “Your Grace...”
Now his brows raise, shock stark on his face, “Yes, Miss Shirayuki?”
“Do you...?” The words stick in her mouth; to ask them is to admit defeat. No-- distrust. That the best interests everyone has been working towards are not her own. “Do you know where Obi is?”
I have seen no precious boy, the tiger lily trumpets, as proud as ever. Only a little girl loved by all who see her. How lucky she is to garner such attention!
I care not for me, the little girls mutters, impatient. Where do you think he has gone?
Away, away. The flower bobs beneath its own self-importance. He has been taken away. Down and gone and buried with the roses. Perhaps you are the better for it.
“No.” It’s the truth; he wouldn’t bother to lie to her. “As of now, his location is unknown, even to the king himself.”
She licks her lips, nails biting into her thigh. The orbia seed burns a hole in her hip. “Are they looking for him?”
A shadow ripples over his face, gone before she can follow it to its source. “Someone might be.”
“I mean Zen,” she clarifies. “Or Izana.”
“I know,” he replies, voice impossibly gentle from such a forbidding mouth. “I think we’re ready for the next course, don’t you?”
Innocence and ignorance, truth and illusion, trust and betrayal-- we have meditated upon each, as if they are but separate concepts that can be held to the light and have each facet revealed in turn. But surely you seen that they have all brought us here, to this part, to this singular place: a knife buried in a breast, a garden made into a cage. A girl in each, who has finally seen the truth beneath the illusion.
We should rejoice, should we not? For these girls who might free themselves, might heal themselves? But yet you do not, do you? For you know the trick of it:
A wound does not truly begin to bleed until the blade is removed. And a girl like this--
Ah, her hand is already at the hilt.
For once, Shirayuki is relieved that it is her round-faced guard that awaits her and not a more experienced one. Or worse yet, Kiki, who would anticipate her before she could get a word in edgewise.
But luck is on her side; this dear boy springs from his place on the wall, every muscle tense with anticipation, quivering to do his duty, and she-- she is ready to take advantage of it.
“Ready, my lady?” he asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet, a hound eager to be given his leash. “It’s off to the ballroom next, isn’t it? With Master--?”
“Not today,” Shirayuki informs him swiftly. “I need you to take me to the king.”
The color leaches from his face. “The...the k-king?”
She nods, tight, officious. The sort Lady Mihoko gave her maids; the sort that belonged alongside a command obeyed.
“But, my lady...” He shuffles on his feet, loath to disappoint her. “Don’t you need an appointment to see His Majesty? I don’t think you can just go right in and--”
She’s already walked past him, chin held high. “He’ll see me.”
It may seem humble before the dawn, its petals as rumpled as bedsheets, drawn over its head like a child-- but when the sun casts its fiery crown over the garden, it is the convolvulus that is ascendant. It needs no dazzling pattern, no fanciful pinwheel of petal and sepal to make itself stand above its floral brethren, but only purity of color. For there is no other here that is so purely white, that has a color so simply blue. The tiger lily might roar among the plots, but it is to the convolvulus it bends, when it rises from its nightly slumber.
The little girl watches as the sleep falls from its petals, witness to its splendor. What, it asks, ruffling its delicate mane, could have made you seek me out, girl?
There is a not-insignificant portion of her life that has been spent waiting; not in the way of most of her colleagues-- for water to boil, or a titration to drip, or even for a letter of acceptance to arrive-- but for men with nothing else to recommend them but birth to decide they’re bored enough to receive the royal pharmacist. Shidan had called it fundraising and Kazaha glad-handing, but Shirayuki can admit now, as she flies past Izana’s steward, leaving him and her guard in her wake, what it really is:
Insulting.
The view always arrests her when she enters the royal solar, and this morning is no different; the sun setting, finishing its bright arc through the sky, but the angle of it, with the windows as they are-- it sets the king’s hair alight, a halo burning.
A target, she names grimly; and she the arrow. With his steward calling her name behind her, she takes a determined step toward him.
“Have you not heard then?” Izana asks, hardly bothering to look up from his papers. “I already approved your request to be excused from dinner.”
Shirayuki hauls up short, skirts swishing around her ankles. “Dinner?”
“Yes.” His brows raise, as does his gaze, already bored. “My brother already spoke about at length this morning. So if you seek to move me as well, please note that I have already stepped aside.”
“I...” She blinks. “I wasn’t here for that.”
Interest sparks in his eyes, quick as a struck match. “Then by all means, scold away. At least--” his mouth quirks, too amused-- “I assume that is your intention, marching into my office unannounced as you are.”
“Forgive me.” The steward presses a hand to his heaving breast. “Mistress Shirayuki--”
“It a force of nature,” his master replies, mouth curling like parchment corners. “So I have often had occasion to find out. You may leave us.”
“Your Majesty--” Izana merely lifts his brows, and the man stutters to a stop. “Of course. As you wish.”
“Now,” he hums as the doors close. “Just which wind sent this storm spinning into my office?”
Bound here you might be, but I know the trick of this place, the girl says, kneeing at the bed’s edge. What roots grow here touch the roots of all the morning’s glory. And you who wake with the sun-- you keep the closest watch on the horizon.
If there are any in the garden who know of my precious boy, she continues, the breeze rippling the convolvulus’s ruff. It would be you. So tell me, please...have you see him?
“It’s Obi,” she admits, heat stinging her cheeks. “I want to know the, er, status of the search.”
Izana blinks.
Oh, how kind it would be if this confusion was feigned, if it were all just a show to drag out her loyalties; to force her to admit that even if Zen was her heart, she could not turn her back on her home. That this was simply another moment where she would show him that friendship was strength, and the walls he erected himself were merely a folly.
But there is no smug satisfaction buoying his words when he asks, “The search? Didn’t Sir Obi leave my brother’s employ months ago? The beginning of the summer, I believe--”
“He didn’t quit,” Shirayuki insists, even as the seed weighs heavy between her skirts. “He disappeared, and Zen said he had put men out to search for him.”
A flower has no face, but the girl need no smile, no hooded eyes to discern the sorrowful bent of its stem.
I am but the morning’s glory, the convolvulus sighs, and when the night comes, I fold myself tight. Your boy does not pass me in my waking hours, so perhaps it is that he travels in the night.
But what does that mean? asks the girl. Why would he only travel at night? He is but a boy, a boy, and he walks in day.
The convolvulus is quiet, swaying in the garden’s eternal summer. I do not know, he admits. I do not know at all.
“Ah.” His eyes soften, no longer the unrelenting velvet of the night, but the waves of deep water, and Shirayuki finally has cause to find out: to experience Izana’s pity is a thousand times worse than his disdain. “I am not privy to the movement of my brother’s men, so long as I do not need them in attendance. He must not have put in his last report...”
“Please.” Her hand flies up between them, earning her an incredulous lift of a brow. “It only makes it worse that you are being decent about it.”
His laugh surprises her. “So you’d like me to gloat?”
“No.” Her breath saws out of her, great heaves that shake her shoulders. “I want you to grant me leave to find him.”
“You?” His brows raise, even his eyes widen, but to his credit, he does not ask, but what could you do? Instead his mask settles back over his face without a ripple, the king staring out from behind it. “It would be a waste. I have heard from your tutors that you are making good progress. Lady Mihoko even ventured to say you might make a passable princess, if you pushed out an heir fast enough.”
Her mouth twitches. Only yesterday, she would have nearly fainted with relief, but today-- “What praise.”
There’s a stern tilt to his mouth, a forbidding set to his eyebrows; if she didn’t know any better, Shirayuki would call it concern. “As I recall, our agreement did address this.”
“Then you mean...?”
“Yes.” He nods, splaying his palms across his desk, almost as if he were bracing himself. “If you leave the palace grounds, you forfeit your chance to be the one at my brother’s side. A princess leaves such things in the hands of her guardsmen--” his mouth twitches-- “and her husband.”
You want her to go, do you not? Even now you quiver at the edge of your seat, begging this little girl to open her eyes, to keep them open, to see through the illusion and run as fast as she can. You want her to leave the garden, to break through the last of this enchantment and leave safety behind.
But tell me, what would you do, with the knife quivering it in your chest? To forget it is to live with the pain. To remove it is to be free.
An easy choice, you might say. Who could live with a blade in their breast? Ah, but do not forget:
There is no way to know if the wound is fatal until the knife is removed.
“There is something I wonder, Mistress Shirayuki.”
His musings shatter the brittle silence between them; that fragile bulwark that has kept her in his skin. Now that it’s gone, she trembles, every muscle in her body fighting the urge to cross the king’s study and shake him until decency falls it.
A hopeless quest if there ever was one. “Is there something else you could possibly say to me?”
She says it sweetly; most would hear only that-- the tone rather than the content. But Izana has not sat so long on his father’s throne by being that sort of man; no, his mouth curls, amused.
“No. It’s only...” he hums, gaze lifting from his paper. “I wonder when you started to think Obi left.”
Then what do you know? the girl says, anger and bile rising in her tone. What good are you?
A flower cannot smile, but she feels teeth when it replies, I know that it will cost you, and cost you dear.
Izana might as well have struck her. Shirayuki rocks back on her heels, only just catching herself before she trips over her own hem. “I-I...what do you...?”
“When you came in here, you first talked as you had before.” Long fingers knit beneath his chin, though he does not deign to rest on them, not alert as he is. A cat before a kill, still toying with with the prey between his paws. “You insisted on his disappearance-- the implication being, of course, that you deny his own agency in his departure. Kidnapping or coercion, one might say.”
She cannot see its teeth, but Shirayuki isn’t so foolish to believe there is no trap. “Y-yes..”
“But now you come to me and ask after my men.” His mouth quirks. “You ask for my permission.”
“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?” she asks, fingers clenching in her skirts. “A princess wouldn’t depart without the approval of her liege.”
“Of course.” He waves a hand, as if all those rules she spent late nights learning mean nothing at all, as if they were worth less than the paper on which they had been printed. “A princess would. But you, Miss Shirayuki, you--” his eyes spark, the way she only saw that night in Lilias as he closed the gates-- “you jump from windows. You follow a flower into a cave. If you truly believed your companion in danger, I doubt there is a single promise that would keep you by my side.”
She cannot breathe, let alone hazard an answer. Not when even a flutter of an eyelash could give her away.
“Which begs the question, doesn’t it?” His gaze fixes her to where she stand, pins through a moth’s wings. “Just what reason would make him leave?”
Me? the girl cries, already thinking of her lovely red shoes, of the boat they bought her down the river. Why me?
Because my dear, the convolulus hums. It is your fault that he has left.
The doors swing open, and the steward steps inside, sparing her an infuriatingly smug glance. “Sir Lowen, Your Majesty.”
“A moment,” the king tells him, “Mistress Shirayuki and I are nearly done her.”
The man nods. “I will tell him to await your will.”
Shirayuki blinks. “What--?” It’s trial to catch her breath, to make her heart stop pounding in her breast. “What is Mitsuhide doing here?”
“You need an escort to your dinner, do you not? I thought he would be the most palatable option for you.” Izana fixes her with a meaningful look. “I do hope you find your answers, Mistress Shirayuki.”
You don’t know me. Obi’s gaze is raw in her memory, too gold. You don’t know anything about me.
You know how he is. Zen’s smile curls at the edges, brittle, like parchment pasted to vellum. Obi has always come back on his own before.
Zen will take care of it. Mitsuhide won’t meet her gaze. I’m sure Obi will be back any day now.
“Don’t worry.” It’s a miracle that the words don’t catch between her teeth, the way she’s clenching them. “I will.”
A hand wraps around a hilt. A breath shudders. And with one, swift tug--
The blade moves but an inch.
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pocketfulofrogers · 4 years
Text
Linger
Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader
Summary/Notes: That ridiculously picture perfect Instagram story, I know you know the one, would not leave my mind. So enjoy this short ‘we’re having a lovely domestic time in bed’ with a side of ‘oh wait I have some trauma I’ve been trying to repress’. I promise it’s more warm than the whiff of angst I somehow can never avoid.
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A cold winter morning, the breeze from the fan above tickles your skin and you turn deeper into the warm body beside you. As a reflex, Steve’s arm tightens around you, his breathing barely interrupted- his face free of worries. It seemed as if sleep was the only time you were able to see him like this lately.
Two months ago, a part of the team was sent on what was supposed to be a simple mission to take out an almost abandoned Hydra compound. Satellite had seen no movement, so you and Steve went alone.
The intel had been bad.
Steve found you bleeding out on a basement floor and barely managed to hold his own until help arrived. It wasn’t until Bruce told him that the only reason you were alive was because of your advanced healing that something changed in him.
After you were cleared, he made up some excuse to keep you on the Quinjet during your first mission back. This habit carried into the following weeks. Him keeping you away from danger and you arguing with him about it.
To say things had been tense was fair.
Yesterday you decided to ignore his orders and go on your own, unfortunately managing to get yourself into an outnumbered situation.
One grazed bullet to the thigh later and Steve abandons his plan to come bursting through the door. You thought he was being ridiculous, but he wouldn’t listen when you tried to explain to him that you were never in any kind of actual trouble to begin with, that you could’ve handled it. Instead, he scolded you the entire time he carried you back to the Quinjet as if you were some recruit he was trying to teach a lesson to.
While one may call you unreasonable for getting angry at him for ‘saving your life’, it wasn’t about that. It was about the fact that he didn’t seem to trust you anymore. It hadn’t helped that absolutely no one thought it was unreasonable that he was furious at you.
Regrettably, a few passive aggressive comments turned into a full blow out in the middle of the medical wing and Tony banished you both to your room to sort it out.
It only took an hour to do what you always did: sit in seething silence until you both managed to push it aside. What? It usually works.
Of course, no one bought it, which is what led to the current unplanned time off. It was obvious that the tensions from before were still lingering in the air, but it was something both of you were willfully avoiding.
You breathe out the tension from your shoulders and watch the snow outside, finding the steady fall soothing- the first slice of peace you’ve felt compelled to ruminate in. A list of chores builds in your mind but you push them aside, opting to rhythmically trace lines across his body instead.
You nuzzle your nose into his bare chest and place a soft kiss, watching quietly for his eyes to flutter open. He’s met with a soft smile and sleepy eyes, one of his favorite ways to wake up.
“Good morning, my love.” You caress the side of his face and he leans into it.
“It’s weird.” He mumbles and you throw your leg over his thigh. “Not having anything to do.” You simply hum as Steve runs his finger along the puffy line on your thigh. “What would you like to do today?”
You watch the snow for a moment longer, lingering in the smile it brings you. Looking up at him, eyes bright, you kiss the corner of his jaw. “This. Just this.”
He grants your whish with no hesitation and it’s the most you’ve laughed in months. As if you had allowed yourself to forget that things were usually like this. Time filled with messy kisses and tangled sheets, jokes and conversations that make you fall a little more in love.
It’s everything.
Two movies, three bags of popcorn, and one very poor impersonation of Bucky and Sam’s latest quarrel later, you’ve managed to fall back into the silence.
The same thought you’d been chewing on for almost two months wouldn’t leave. You’re sat up fidgeting with the hem of the blanket when Steve lightly taps a finger under your jaw.
“What is it, sweetheart?”  
You meet his frown with a sad smile. “Will you follow me somewhere?”
“Anywhere.”
**
Steve had watched you without question as you gathered up warm clothes. He said nothing when you handed him his sweats, or when you wordlessly asked for his hand. He didn’t protest as you led him outside, or when you started to head off the path.
But now, standing here in the cold, at the edge of an open field and his lashes catching snowflakes, he has to admit he’s a little confused.
Still, he says nothing as he watches you, staring up at the sky with a hint of wonder he finds so endearing. There’s something on your mind, this he knows. He assumes you just don’t know how exactly to approach it.
He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been holding something in either.
“Did you know I used to hate the snow?” He breaks the silence and you shake your head. “For the longest time I couldn’t see it without remembering losing Bucky. Wasn’t really a fan of the cold after the ice either.”
You weren’t sure where he was going with this, knowing he merely tolerated the snow now.
“Then you came along.” He says it with enough adoration you turn to face him, forehead creased with your increasing confusion. “All I had to do was see how much you loved it, how happy it made you. It wasn’t long before I stopped seeing the worst moments in my life every time I saw it.” He shoves his hands in his pocket and there’s a sadness in his eyes that contradicts the moment. “You brought a lot of light into my life. You know that?”
“What are you trying to say?” Your voice is quiet and he looks away.
“I’m not afraid of a lot of things. But that day? Seeing you like that?” His voice breaks and you reach out to grab his arm. “Y/N, I’ve never been that scared.”
You pull his hands from his pockets and grip them in yours tightly, intently looking him in the eyes. “I am here, and I am okay.” You assure him. “But that? It’s an unfortunate circumstance of the lives we lead. Sometimes things happen, that’s why we have each other’s backs. But you have got to trust that I know what I’m doing.”
He can’t meet your eyes. “I know, I do. I just…”
“It was too soon.” You finish for him. “For you and for me.” He looks guilty and you assure him that it’s okay. “How about this. You and me, one whole week off. I’m sure Tony is tired enough of us he’d be more than willing to send us anywhere we want.” You wiggle your eyebrows, desperate for just the hint of a smile.
His laugh gifts your ears instead.
“Somewhere warm, please.”
Returning his laughter, you rise up on your tiptoes. “I think that’s reasonable.” You whisper against his lips.
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skellebonez · 3 years
Note
Hello, hi, I would like to please request something about Wukong/Macaque/Spider Queen (I've fallen into that rabbit hole since reading your prompts about them and I can't get out). It can be literally anything you want, but I would really like to see the monkeys sweeping SQ off her feet (be it literal or metaphorical, your choice). Love your work, looking forward to seeing more, have a wonderful day/night!
Thank you so much! I hope you like this, I have had these three on my brain for so long it was hard for me to pick out just one scenario for them, but I’m really happy with what I have managed here!
The Spider Monkie AU, and this ship, come courtesy of @strange-lace who I owe so much to for making me love this ship so dang much.
“Are you alright?”
Spider Queen froze, not expecting anyone to find her hidden away deep in the forests of Mount Huaguo. Then again, if anyone was to find her this deep and hidden behind the foliage it would have to be the king of the mountain in the first place. He knew this place far too well not to know all the little nooks and crannies she could hide away in now that she was... well. As she was before she learned of the technological advancements of the centuries.
“Wukong,” she tried to say evenly, barely able to hold back the hiss of pain as she turned to him. “I thought you were otherwise occupied.”
“I was,” he started, moving closer and sitting beside her. Just crooked in his posture enough that she barely had to turn her back to look at him. “But one of my monkeys told me they saw something that worried them and being King I had to come investigate.”
Worried them?
“Your... monkeys are worried about me?” Spider Queen asked softly, eyes widening in surprise.
She hadn’t been on Mount Huaguo for very long, not really, not long enough for her to really become a part of the Monkey King’s court properly. She and her spider demons, a whole three of them, were still very much on the outskirts of the majority of the court itself. Only Wukong and Macaque would truly give them much attention on a regular basis outside of a handful of the younger monkeys that seemed to latch on to Goliath in particular, though they had cooled off from their initial luke warm reception. Especially after...
She craned her neck a bit, really looking up at the large spider monkie beside her. At the beautiful green eyes that she could find herself lost in for hours. Days, even, they had the time being long lived/immortal as they were. When Wukong had changed his monkeys took to it much better than she had hoped for, granted it probably helped that he seemed relatively excited about his added height and 4 extra arms, and after that the court warmed up to them just a bit more.
That didn’t lessen her surprise in the slightest, however.
“They like you a lot more now than you think they do,” he rebutted with a smile, brighter than even the sun itself in her eyes.
Damn it all, but she knew she was done for. She was already starting to like him once the truth about MK came out, maybe not in a romantic sense but she was. And after they rescued her from the Trigram furnace and he started to stay with her, begin moving her and her small court to the mountain, help her through the aftermath of being trapped in there for so long, she knew she was starting to fall for him. Then that damned venom had to shatter all over him and turn him into... into...
A spider monkie beefcake.
Oh she had it bad. And she knew that Wukong knew she had it bad.
“Who likes Queenie more than she thinks?” A second voice sounded, and the flush tat had begun to pepper her face deepened as Macaque emerged through the trees with a small monkey slumbering in his arms. “Are you ok? Are your legs bothering you again?”
Spider Queen froze for a moment as he knelt down, looking over her with a discerning glance.
She and Macaque had already talked through... a lot of what happened. What with the experiments she had approved and what happened to him after. How she made salved and balms and different medications to help ease his aches and pains. How he had almost immediately returned her attempts at helping him when her burn scars and weak legs hurt her as well.
And it didn’t help that he sported a beautiful shade of purple in his own fur that she couldn’t help but stare at as it glistened in the sun because neither of these men could wear shirts anymore.
“O-oh, I’m fine!” She laughed out awkwardly, waving her hands in front of herself. She told herself in her head to act normal. “Who’s Queenie?”
That didn’t go as planned.
“And you’re going up!” Wukong exclaimed, scooping the woman into his arms with effortless ease and a care that still honestly shocked her, as if she was made of the finest glass he had ever laid eyes on. With six arms it was easy for him to hold her steady, one arm carefully laid out for her legs to dangle from at the knee and another gently cupping her neck as he held her to his chest. “Comfy?”
“YeS ThANk You,” was the awkwardly squeaked reply that escaped her lips. She couldn’t even scowl in frustration or embarrassment when Wukong laughed in reply, his booming voice almost overtaking the soft purr she could feel in his chest against her.
From the side she could see Macaque smirking a bit, muttering “show off” under his breathe as they made their way out of the forest and back. She listened to Wukong’s soft purr against her and Macaque explaining to them both what he left behind when he followed Wukong, and why he had one very tired and sleepy monkey still holding tight to one of his arms (and if him gently petting the little one wasn’t one of the sweetest things Spider Queen had ever seen then she was still soup).
“So,” Macaque said with a concerned frown as they finally reached their now shared home and he watched as Wukong helped he lay back and take off her shoes before leaving to get something for them to eat. “Heels again?”
“You’ll thank me for trying to wear them one day, I promise you,” She said softly, knowing their concern was warranted when her legs pained her to walk in any capacity on a regular basis. “And they’re not that bad this time!”
“You’re right,” he admitted with a smaller frown, moving to sit beside her. “I just... worry about you, you know? The way you worry about my back when I push myself too hard to move stuff or fight.”
“I know, and it’s very sweet,” she admitted, smiling as the little monkey in his arms awoke and looked around in confusion before seeing her and freezing with wide eyes. “Oh... Hello.”
It took no more time than that for the little one to sit up, leaping from Macaque’s arm to her shoulder. Spider Queen froze, watching as the monkey looked at her with an odd expression and seemed to nod to themself as they settled on her opposite shoulder and began running their fingers through her shortened hair and picking out bit of leaves and dust that had been trapped there when she had tried to find a place to rest.
“Uuuuuh,” she said, looking at her partner next to her in surprise.
“We told you they’d warm up to you,” he said softly, leaning over to give her a quick peck on the cheek. “This one liked you already, they were just too shy to approach such an amazing Queen.”
Spider Queen didn’t know if Macaque was telling the truth or embellishing it with his own feelings toward her... but as Wukong returned and cooed over the sight of one of his many charges grooming through her hair and they ate the peach slices he brought, she found she didn’t care either way.
It meant the same to her regardless.
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what-the--curtains · 4 years
Text
In a Week
Part 2/4 - The Importance of Being Idle
(Frankie Morales x f!reader)
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Summary: Things get easier between you and Frankie as the storm outside rages on.
Authors notes: Hello! Sorry this took so long (I forgot I had a lab report due this week so I was busy panic writing 6000 words the patient few days!) anyways this is soft makes my heart happy 🥺 thank u for all the support in the story💕💕
Tw: Swearing, dead sibling mentioned (I think that’s all)
Work count: 4.9k
Tagged: @agingerindenial @icanbeyourjedi
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Day 2
You don’t know when,or how it happened, but sometime during the night you had found your way over to the heat being emitted from human furnace Frankie Morales. Your limbs were wrapped lazily around him, with your leg over his and your arm resting idly on his chest. You blink into the light emitting a dissatisfied grumble realizing you had woken up. You hear a sigh from above and with one eye still closed, you tilt your head up to see Frankie currently hyper focused on winning whatever game he was playing on his phone.
"You could have woken me up you know.” You say, detaching from him and rolling over onto your back rubbing your eyes. “How long have you been awake?" you ask, yawning.
"Few hours, you’re quite the sleeper, slept through all 4 alarms that went off." He responds, still fixated on his phone.
"Shit, sorry about that. My mother used to say I could sleep for England" you state, earning a soft chuckle from the man beside you. Even after years of working on hospital hours, waking up was always a struggle for you, no matter the time of day. After a few moments of contemplating whether you really had to move, you rip off the covers and scoot out of bed. Tearing open the curtains you let out a dissatisfied groan when you see a snowscape where the parking lot once was. You turn around arms crossed, eyes glazed over inadvertently boring into him. You hear him say something but it doesn't register.
“What?” you ask, shaking yourself from the trance and moving towards your over packed bag to retrieve clean clothes.
“Nothing.” he says, eyes back on his phone. You raise your eyebrows and head into the bathroom to get changed, emerging in sweats and a vintage band shirt that you’d tied at the waist.
"The clash? Nice." Frankie says, as he passes by you into the bathroom, closing the door.
"Ya London Calling" you respond sitting down on the bed and pulling on some socks, not fully listening to what he had said. "I’m going to ask the front desk if we can renew the room, doesn't look like we're going anywhere anytime soon. I can see if there's another one available if you don’t wanna share" You say, when you hear the doors lock click open, knowing he may still be mad at you for not pulling over sooner.
"I mean I don't mind sharing, unless you’d be more comfortable..." he starts, mouth hanging open downturned slightly, as he rinses his hands.
“I’m fine sharing, nice to have some company plus it's cheaper this way.” you say, grabbing the room key off the nightstand.
"Let me know how much it is, I'll pay half" he says, stretching out his back, cursing the mattress for being too soft.
"I feel like you should be paying more since you get the good half of the bed.” you offer, pointing your finger at him.
“I think they call that extortion,” he says, grinning “Oh, see if they have any food while you're down there I’m starving” he calls as you exit into the hallway and make your way downstairs.
“Hey, I was looking to re-book the room from last night” you say to the receptionist who you recognized from last night. Suppose she got stuck here as well, you wonder if she’d gotten any sleep.
“For how many more nights?” she asks.
“How long do you think this storm is going to last?” You ask.
“At least a few more days, but then the roads will have to be cleared, so maybe a week? We can book you in for two more nights then go from there though, no one else will be coming in”
“That’d be great,” you say, taking out your credit card. “What about food, is there any way we can get some stuff to make sandwiches or something?” you ask
“Well the culinary staff was trapped here by the storm, another reason why so many rooms were booked, so they’ll be able to have food sent up.” You nod, the hotel was upscale and you hated to think how expensive the food was going to be, but what choice did you have?
“It's past breakfast, but we may have some spare sandwiches leftover, let me just go check.” she offers, returning a few minutes later with a couple of boxes.
“Thank you so much!” you say taking the boxed up food from her.
“Anything else I can help you with?”
“Oh yes” you say, “booze, can I buy that here?”
“That, we have plenty of!” she smiles.
~~~~~
You re-enter the room with the boxed up breakfasts, a case of beer and two bottles of wine
“Here food” you say, sliding the boxes off the beer and onto the counter next to the fridge.“We missed breakfast, so it’s probably cold, and I booked the room for another two nights, but we can go from there” you say, reiterating the receptionist's words as you place the drinks in the fridge.
“Planning on sharing that or?” he laughs watching you strategically maneuver the booze into the fridge
“Hey, I get a week off work, I'm going to be drinking. Do I wish it was on a beach in sunny south Carolina? Yes, but this will have to do, and I hate drinking alone so congratulations you’ve just been conscripted” You say, as he empties out one of the breakfasts onto a plate placing it in the microwave for a few minutes.
“Here. Do you want this? You say peeling the sliced ham off your sandwich” waving it infront of his face.
“Not a fan of ham?” he asks, taking it and adding it into his own.
“Not a fan of meat in general, I’m a vegetarian”
“Course you are.” he laughs.
“Bold words coming from a guy wearing a baseball hat inside, in the middle of winter” you say, throwing a balled up napkin at his head.
“So what exactly do you do? Santi never said.” he asks, leaving you to question what Santiago had said about you.
“I’m a doctor, well almost a doctor one more year of residency, hopefully” you say, crossing your fingers.
“Shit, aren’t you kinda young to be a doctor?” he asks, looking you up and down with raised eyebrows.
“Older than I look, but thank you. How about you?”
“I was a pilot, me and Pope served together for a while, but I’m mainly just teaching now. How’d you two meet by the way? I’ve never seen you round base before, I’m sure I’d remember you hanging around” he says.
“He basically lived at my house growing up, well until he went into the military when I was in middle school. ”
“I thought you said you weren’t young” he laughs “So you didn't serve?”
“No, my brother did though, he was a few years older than Santi but they were inseparable.” you state, preparing yourself for the imminent conversation.
“Who?” Frankie asks, slightly offended that Pope had a secret best friend he never introduced to him.
“His name was Parker '' you say, hoping the past tense clues Frankie in.
“Ya I’ve met Parker! Good guy what branch is he in these days?” he says, not picking up on your word selection or how your mouth hangs slightly ajar or how your eyes have gone vacant.
“Was in” is all you say, you avert your gaze staring down at the floor “he passed five years ago in active duty”
“Shit, I’m sorry I…” he stumbles over his words trying to form a coherent sentence.
“Not your fault how were you supposed to know, besides I'm sure you’ve lost your fair share of people.” you say offering him a not very convincing, but reassuring smile. You let the awkwardness hang in the air, not wanting to speak first.
“What... kind of doctor are you?” he says, hoping to cut the tension he’d caused.
“Medical, diagnostics.” you say, exhaling as the easiness you felt around Franki came back.
“So like House?” He asks.
“Ya cane and all.” you laugh, his lopsided grin having returned to his face, as he leans in to grab your plate.
“Hey, I uh.. I need to make a phone call.” He says, washing the dishes in the sink.
“I'll make myself scarce, give you some privacy. Is it fine if I'm in the shower or did you want me to fully vacate the premise? I can go down to the gym for a bit.” you offer.
“Showers perfect.” He says, mentally questioning his word choice there. He waits to hear the water run before pulling out his phone and dialing his mother who was currently watching his daughter for what was only supposed to be a few days.
You let the water wash over you turning on some music to drown out the conversation Frankie was having, not wanting to pry on his personal life. You did find yourself wondering who he was calling just simple curiosity, nothing else. You had decided you liked Frankie despite the rocky start, the more time you spent with him the more you felt like you'd known him for years. You could see why he and Santiago got along so well they were two sides of the same coin, his calm nicely balancing out Santiago's rashness. Or should you call him Pope? What kind of nickname was that, and Santiago was anything but a saint. You made a mental note to ask Frankie for the origin stories later he may be more forthcoming about it than Santiago. Lathering your hair you close your eyes, allowing Frankie’s image to come to the forefront of your mind. He had an old beauty, a kind of beauty that was suited to a ruler of a long forgotten empire. You begin to feel the water run cold, had you really been in the shower that long? You turn off the tap and dry yourself off redonning your sweats and tying the Clash shirt into a crop. As you exit the bedroom you’re met at the door by Frankie who hands you a cup of coffee.
“Thanks” you say smiling up at him.
“Take it as an apology for being an ass yesterday, I was tired and shouldn’t have thrown a tantrum about it, you don’t control the weather”
“Well I guess I should apologize as well for not listening to you, especially considering you’re the one with training in navigating radars.”
The rest of the day is spent in relative silence breaking into conversation every once in a while about nothing in particular. You sit on the couch reading while he sits in the chair across from you book in hand as the news plays faintly in the background. The storm had been dubbed “snowmageddon” by the anchors, not particularly innovative but it got the point across, 20cm had fallen and another 30 was being predicted you groaned internally thinking about how long it was gonna take you to clear off your car. At least you'd have military help. Dinner comes and goes and he doesn't ask you many questions, unsurprising considering how the last conversion had turned out. Instead you tell him about the weirdest cases you’d ever seen come through the hospital and he tells you about the incidents that got him and Santi sent to the hospital.
“Alright I'm going to turn in” he says, as you look up from the rabbit hole you'd currently found yourself stuck in.
“Shit ya good call” you say closing your phone and rubbing your eyes. Once again he beats you to the bed, giving him a prime position to watch in amusement as you dig through your bag.
“Lost something? Seriously, how deep is that bag? What are you looking for?” he inquires.
“Normal pyjamas” you mutter, all concentration currently being used to find something appropriate to sleep in.
“What pray tell are normal pyjamas?” he asks, a confused look plastered across his face.
“Let's just say a certain king of sleepwear was packed for someone who was suppose to be at the wedding”
“Who?” he asks.
“Ah ha!” you cry victoriously, pulling out your day-to-day sleepwear. You exit the bathroom in the silk sleep set you’d gotten a few years back. Frankie’s eyes widen slightly when he sees you emerge, the pyjamas leaving little to the imagination. If those were your normal pyjamas he didn't want to think about what the other ones were. The last thing he wanted to do was make you uncomfortable by coming off as a creep. Which he was already feeling like by ogling you as you bent over the sink spitting out your toothpaste. His eyes dart down to look at his hands as you walk around the bed to bed, only looking up once the covers are pulled up over you. He turns off the lamp and settles into the mattress, placing his hands on his chest and closing his eyes.
“Please for the love of god, stop moving” he mumbles after 15 minutes of patiently waiting for you to stop wriggling. Your eyes open as you shift again, completely aware of how annoying you must be to him.
“I know I'm sorry, I‘m just..” you move one more time, balling your fists up and slamming them into the mattress in frustration.
“Not comfy” he finishes for you, eyes opening staring up at the ceiling.
“Ya especially since someone took my side of the bed” you bemoan.
“Look, you’ve already slept wrapped around me once, so you can... do it again. If it’s the easiest way for you to sleep.” he says hoping the offer comes off as sincere, and not weird. You chew your lower lip for a second before accepting the fact that it was the only way you’d be able to sleep. He lifts his arms above his head allowing you to position yourself comfortably on top of him, before lowering them down. One hand on his stomach and the other wrapped around your shoulder.
“Don’t even think about trying...” you start, eyes batting sleepily up at him.
“I know you don’t know me well, but i'm not like that. It's not good or fun unless everyones fully and consensually on board.” With that you ease into him, trusting his words. Breathing deeply you drift off to sleep to the smell of clean laundry that you’d come to associate with Frankie.
Day 3
“Hey I'm going to the gym if you need to make a call or whatever” you say, pulling on your sneakers, feeling refreshed from the good sleeps you’d had the past two nights.
“Thanks,” he says, watching you leave before calling to check in on his daughter.
“Hey mom how is she? Good good ya, put her on would ya? Hey darling how are you! Yes I'm going to be home soon. Were just stuck in a big snow storm, did you see it? I wish you were here then we could build a snowman together! Yes just like Elsa and Anna. Yes we can watch them when I get home and absolutely I will try and save you a snowball. Alright, okay, I love you.” He says, a few minutes was more than he’d expected from the kid, toddlers aren’t known for their keen telecommunication skills after all.
“Hey mom, thanks again for watching her. This storm came outta nowhere. We're going to miss the wedding, I know they’re gonna be pissed. That’s not a swear Mom! No, I'm not alone. One of Santis friends she's a doctor. Yes, I mean I don’t know! Why does it matter? Look, I'm hanging up now. I am. No I won't be doing that I love you, I'll call later.” he hangs up shaking his head. Despite what everyone around him thought, the last thing on his mind was dating, his kid was his number one, scratch that, his only priority especially since her mother disappeared in the night. Leaving nothing but a note about having other reasons to live. Whatever the hell that meant. He hears the key unlock the door and watches as you re-enter, not stopping to make conversation, bee-lining straight for the shower. Knowing he’d have a good half hour to kill he dials his phone again.
“Hey Pope” he says, taking the opportunity to call his friend and deliver the bad news.
“Hey ‘Fish where the hell are you guys?” he shouts from the other end, evidently in a crowded room.
“Trapped by the storm, we're not gonna make it.”
“Shit Gen’s gonna lose it, and Stella if it wasn’t for her four sisters Y/N would be in the wedding party they were roommates for years.” He stresses.
“Damn, ya man i'm really sorry, she's in the shower, but I can pass the phone to her when she's out?” Frankie offers.
“No man, don't bother her. I'll text her in a bit. Hey you guys sharing a room?” he questions, the agenda behind it obvious.
“Wasn’t much of a choice, rooms were all booked up.”
“You're sleeping on the floor I hope” A protective tone taking over.
“You know my back’s bad Pope.” he explains calmly, hoping to de-escalate the situation.
“Catfish you better keep those hands to yourself, she's not one of your nightly conquests”
“Man I haven’t been like that since my kid came along” He chuckles, knowing full well that those days were long behind him.
“I'm a serious ‘Fish, she's too good for you, and she's in no place to be fucked over by another guy alright?”
“Look I know she'd never go for me Pope and I'm flattered you think she would. Glad i'm still handsome in your eyes.I’ll call you later” he laughs, ending the conversation on a lighter note.
“Hey” you say, pulling your Boston University sweater over your head, drying out your hair with a towel.
“Pope says hi” Frankie says, hanging up the phone
“What's the nickname mean?” you question, ready to get to the bottom of it.
“That's top secret information” he taunts, shaking the phone at you.
“Oh I'm sure I could figure out a way to get it out of you.” you smirk, raising your eyebrows
“Hey! I have military training!” he exclaims, offended at the insinuation.
“Militarys got nothing on me.” you retort, slapping him on the shoulder as you pass by.
“Well, if the plan is to ply me with alcohol, it may just work” he confesses.
“Perfect” you say, heading to the fridge opening up the wine bottle “let the games begin” you say tossing him a beer bottle watching as he uses a lighter to open it before bringing it to his lips.
“So tell me what does Pope mean?” you ask after a few hours of meaningless conversations and playing a drinking game that went along with the forensic files repeats you were watching. “Is it a dick thing” you whisper yell, causing Frankie to burst out laughing.
“Why? You wanna know what it looks like?” He asks forehead creased the trace of laughter still etched on his face.
“Ew No! but I am asking if it looks like a Pope?” you say trying to hide your amusement with a stern look.
“Which Pope?” Frankie asks in an equally serious tone, curious as to where you were going with this.
“Francis?” you ask.
“Nope” He answers after pausing for a moment.
“Fred?” You ask, now entrapped in a bizarre game of guess who, but in reference to what holy figure most resembled your friends penis.
“Was there a Pope named Fred?” He asks unsuccessfully, stifling a laugh.
“Probably? There were like three Popes at once at one point in time.”
“No his dick doesn't look like the Pope, now can we please stop talking about my best friend's penis!” he exclaims.
“Fine, but this isn’t over.” you say chewing your lip trying to think of other possible explanations when a phone ringing interrupts you thought.
“Shit, Sorry I have to take this,'' he says, pulling out his phone and walking to the next room, forgetting to close the door, leaving you to inadvertently eavesdrop on his conversation.
“Good night sweety I love you to the moon and back I'll be home soon.”
Your eyes go wide as you feel your stomach sink, of course he was married, he was too nice, too easy, something had to have been off. A ick comes over you at the thought of being unknowingly draped over a married man, and you suddenly begin questioning Frankies motives.
“Sorry about that. It's my daughter she uh, I didn’t say goodnight to her last night and she missed it” he says with a slight chuckle, pride evident on his face.
“How old is she?” you ask smiling at how he lit up at being asked about his kid.
“Three” he says, grabbing another beer and grunting slightly as he sits back on the floor next to you.
“Good age” You offer, shaking off the feeling of betrayal and disappointment that had come over you for a brief moment.
“Ya she's perfect” he beams.
“I bet, I mean I don’t know what your wife looks like, but if she's got your eyes watch out world.” You offer turning to face him only to see that his smile had faded, replaced instead by a somber hurt.
“Her mothers not in the picture” He says, clearing his throat and taking a long drink.
“Shit Frankie I'm sorry” you say quickly, feeling like a prize idiot for making assumptions about his character.
“Hey I brought up your dead brother, only seems fair you bring up my ex who abandoned us.” He says with a shrug. “Don’t, don’t look at me like that” He says, shaking his head and knitting his brows together tired of being looked at like he was broken. It was horrible when it happened. It was fucking shitty that she had left her daughter without a care, but now? Hell, he wouldn’t trade it for anything. Watching his daughter grow up was worth it.
“Fuck” you say, scrunching up your face “I hate when people do that to me.”
“You need another drink?” he offers, hoping to ease the sudden awkwardness into the room, one he was accustomed to after telling his dates about his kid, not that this was a date.
“Ya I need it to wash the taste of foot out of my mouth” you laugh, feeling worse than when your brother was inadvertently brought up.
“Seriously don't worry about it. Speaking of a palette cleanser you wanna watch a movie or something?” he says pouring the rest of the wine into your glass, before grabbing another drink out the fridge for himself.
“Ya but it's gotta be horror, the only thing i'm in the mood for.”
“Didn’t think bringing up my ex was that scary.” he laughs, handing you the glass.
“No, but talking about Santiago's penis was.” You deadpan, causing Frankie to snort out his drink. “What? Do all the girls say that about it? A real nightmare?” you continue, giggling as he coughs through a laugh. “Was it the inspiration for the creature from the black lagoon?” for some reason the stupid bit your doing causes Frankie to double over subsequently encouraging your own laughing fit. After the ache in your side subsides Frankie sits down on the couch next to you. Using his sleeve to wipe any spillage from his beard.
“Any preference?” you ask, leaning your head back against the couch. He shakes his head. “Alright, the Conjuring it is! I gotta pee first though, need anything before we start?” you ask, walking towards the washroom.
“Just you.” he calls out, as the door closes behind you. Fuck, why the hell did he say that. He shakes his head at how desperate it sounded. Jesus christ, he was embarrassing.
You were just tipsy enough that the bathroom's bright lights made you feel wobbly. You cross your arms as you pee, thinking about the words you’d just heard, about how he needed you. Well maybe that was a reach, but it was okay to pretend just for a night? In all honesty, even though this wasn't a date, it was definitely the best time you'd had with a guy… ever, something about him was just so easy. You flush the toilet and open the door washing your hands, hotels were so weird, why wasn't the sink in with the toilet? You felt like you needed to wipe the handle down after every use.
You flop back onto the couch next to him, closer than you’d been when you left, but leaving enough space between you. After a few jump scares that catch even the pilot off guard the two of you found yourself snuggled into each other. You knew the movie was getting to him, because the arm wrapped around your shoulder pulled you closer into his side whenever the ominous music began to play. He wouldn't say the movie was getting to him per say, it was just in his nature to protect others. Even if it was just a stpid movie he wanted to make sure you felt safe. After the movie ends you quickly separate from each other and clear up the glasses, leaving them to ‘soak’ overnight. Frankie gets to the bathroom first, again. Thirsty, you wander back out to the kitchen grabbing a glass and filling it with water jumping when you think you see a shadow move out the corner of your eye. It was strange, how you loved horror so much while watching it but the second it turned off, any sounds, or hat rack or shadow scared the living daylights out of you. At least this time there would be another person with you. After getting ready for bed you switch off the lights and make your way to the bed.
“What are you doing?” Frankie asks, watching you lift up the bedskirt peering under the bed. “Are you seriously checking under the bed right now?” He laughs, unable to get over how you, a medical professional was afraid of ghosts.
“Better safe than sorry!” you exclaim eyes wide as your head pops up.
“You can't believe in this shit can you?”
“Hey man you get sleep paralysis then tell me that shit isn’t plausible” you respond pointing a finger at him, before pushing yourself off your knees and up onto the bed.
You crawl under the covers and sit up parting your hair to braid it before going to bed.
“Can I ask you a weird favour” he asks, you panic slightly, fuck he was too good to be true, no way a guy was that sweet without an alterior motive.
“Yes, but proceed with extreme caution” you say.
“Can you teach me how to braid hair? I want to be able to do my daughter's hair but I’m pretty terrible at it. Her teacher once asked if she'd gotten caught in a bush on the way in.” Your heart jumps slightly, at the sincere revelation. How, how could one guy be this sweet, and thoughtful and not creepy?
“Of course I can show you.” you say and you proceed to give him a step by step tutorial, followed by a demonstration prior to actually letting him have at your hair so he can try and replicate the motions. Once he got the motion down you’d mistakenly tried to show him how to french-braid it down from the top.
“Be honest doc, how bad is it.” He says.
“Well, maybe we shouldn't have tried a french braid quite yet.” you say laughing feeling the matted mess currently on your head. You turn upon hearing him groan, watching as he leans back into the pillow bringing his hands up to hide his face.
“For someone who's a pilot i'm shocked you can't do this.” you say, hand reaching up to salvage your hair.
“Are you judging me?” he says, sitting back up when he sees you struggling to untangle the mess he’d made.
“Maybe a little.” Your breath hitches when you feel his hand grazed against yours. You drop it to the side upon contact allowing his fingers to work gently at removing the knots.
“Are pilots supposed to be good at braiding?” he asks.
“I just assumed if you could weave in and out of the sky you'd be good with your hands.” you laugh as he frees the last of your hair from the prison he'd made. He watches as you effortlessly put your hair back up into tidy braids.
“You make it look so easy,” he says.
“Well practice makes perfect, but look on the brightside, now you have a sure fire pick up line that'll work on all the MILFs youll be dating!” you exclaim turning back to smile at him.
“Malo '' he mutters, pushing your shoulder slightly as you giggle, dramatically falling back onto the bed and pulling the covers up over you. It doesn't take a moment before you're back around him, breathing silently, and fast asleep. He wasn’t far behind you, he never used to sleep well in hotels, or at all really, not after the mission, but something about this place made it easy. He's sure it's nothing to do with the idle hand on his chest or the rhythmic beating of the heart belonging to the person draped over him.
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kingcons · 3 years
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Time tics by, a helluva boss FanFiction (part one of a collection of connected oneshots)
Words: 1,459
Genre: slice of life comedy with mild hurt/comfort.
Ok, this is it, your first day as an assassin.
You can do this.
You can do this.
“Millie, let’s do this.” The imp said excitedly as he swigged the last of his coffee. Millie giggled at her husband’s enthusiasm. “Alright honey, it’ll be good to be a little early I ‘spose. But uh, do we really need to be a whole thirty minutes early?” He glanced at the clock. Shit, she was right. Maybe it was a bit too early?
“You say that, but what if this is a test! What if we arrive on time and he fires us!” Moxxie began pacing back and forth on the kitchen floor tiles. “Even more so, what if we get there and we get into traffic and he’s gone home by then! What then Millie!” He grabbed his wife’s face dramatically. She laughed a little and cupped his face with her own hands. “Sweetheart, if that fucker does any of those things? We can find a new employer. It ain’t that big a deal.” He removed her face from his palms, wringing his hands in worry. “I know that on a logical and realistic level that’s most likely true, but the tiny percentage that you’re wrong really makes me think I’m gonna fuck this up.” He admitted with a sheepish grin. Millie noticed his eye twitching and his fists start to clench. She sighed. “Ok, if it’ll make ya feel better we can be early.” Moxxie calmed down noticeably at that. “Shit, my eye is acting up again.” He complained. “I told you, darlin’, we can afford the doctors?” Millie suggested. He shook his head. “I’ve asked them before actually. They said it’s stress related. I didn’t mention my other involuntary issues, but I kind of just assumed they are too.” Millie nodded. “Well I’m at least glad it ain’t nothin’ serious. Now come on, we got an all new job to go to!”
“Blitz! Get the fucking door already!” A woman’s voice boomed from inside. The two imps shared a concerned look. A crash could be heard on the other side of the door. “Okay, who the FUCK put greenie down on the floor!?” A male voice this time. “Stop complaining about your shitty plastic horses and answer the fucking door!” The woman again. And a gasp. “How dare you loona! I’ll have you know my plastic horses are an essential reason this company runs as well as it does!”
The door swung open, with a tall, long horned imp now facing the couple. “Mah-mah- Moxxie and Millie, Sir? For the mah- job interview?” Moxxie introduced him and his wife. “Oh… and I’m guessing you heard all that back there?” Millie nodded very enthusiastically. “May we come in, Blitzo, was it?” He shook his finger at her. “Nah sweet cheeks, the o is silent.” Furrowing his brow, Moxxie pointed at Blitzo. “Excuse me sir, what did you just call my wife?” Blitzo grinned deviously. “Oh, you two are a thing are you? Nice, how long is his wiener, is it short?”
Millie laughed a little, while the other glared at the taller. “That is totally inappropriate! And for your information, no it’s fucking not!” Moxxie huffed. He hadn’t even realised it yet but he had stormed inside. Millie catching up to him. Beginning to stamp his hoof and flap his hand, millie gave the still one a gently squeeze. Blitzo watched the two of them and smiled. “Hey, you haven’t met my daughter Loonie! Loona get in here!” Millie’s eyes seemed to sparkle. “Oooo! A little girl in the office! That’s fuckin’ adorable!” Blitzo rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, close mills, can I call you mills? But no cigar.” After a groan, there was loud stomping as a teenage hellhound busy with her phone flicked through presumably some form of social media showed up. “‘Sup, I’m loona. The receptionist I guess.”
“A pleasure to mah- meet you miss loona. I’m Moxxie, a new assassin here.” Blitzo turned around. “Hey wait a fuckin’ minuet, bitch boy, how do you know I’m hiring you two little ball busters?” Millie grinned. “Because, Blitz, we are your best choice. No one can beat Mox’s sharp shootin’ skills and me when I’m wieldin’ an axe!” She chirruped. The boss stroked his chin. “That so, huh? Welp, can’t argue with that. You’re hired!” Moxxie blinked. “Wait, what?” Blitzo sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I said you’re hired, short stack, what you deaf too? You got two disabilities?” Millie was smiling but gave him a warning look, Blitzo holding up his hands in surrender as a response. “No, I heard you. But really? Just like that? You don’t need to see how we are in the field or anything first?” Blitzo shook his head. “Do you know how hard it is for an imp to start a fucking business? Well, I’ll tell ya. It’s harder than my dick when I imagine it in your ass Moxxie. I mean, we’re all low in terms of hierarchy in hell. And naming it I.M.P was a fucking power move. So what do ya say, you in?” The couple looked at each other. Millie with pleading eyes before Moxxie sighed. “Fine. Mah- we’ll work with you. If you stop imagining your Satan dammed dick in my ass.” He pleaded. The taller chuckled. “No promises Mox!”
After getting a tour of the office, Millie and Loona began chatting while Moxxie and Blitzo discussed hours.
“This all looks good to me, Sir. Friday off too? Suits us both just fine -Mah-“ Moxxie said with a dramatic flinch. The flinching clenched and twisted his face painfully. “Sorry.” Moxxie apologized. “Tends to happen sometimes.” He shrugged. Blitzo simply stared. Then, seemingly out of the blue asked
“Do you have a disability?” Moxxie blinked, and opened his mouth ready to yell out how inappropriate and offensive that comment was. But his new boss held up his left hand indicating him to be quiet. “No, I’m being serious for a sec here. Are you disabled? Cause those,” he pointed at Moxxie’s twitching eye. “Those look an awful lot like tics.” Moxxie raised an eyebrow. “You what?”
Blitz chuckled. “You know, tics, involuntary movements that both are a pain in your ass and cause pain in your ass?” Moxxie sat there, jaw hanging low. “There’s… there’s a name for them?!” He exclaimed. Blitz nodded. “Yep! I got ‘em too! They’ve been calm today but I’ve also been suppressing them which’ll really fuck me over later but eh, it’s whatever.” Moxxie’s eyes began to water. The taller paled. “Oh- um, fuck I’m not good with crying. Did I overstep a line or is this just like- a medical problem you have?” He stammered. Moxxie smiled and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “The second one, sir. I’ve been struggling with them my whole life. I can’t believe that other people experience them too. It probably seems like nothing to you-“
“No, it’s not that at all,” Blitzo cut him off. “I completely understand, Moxxie. I understand how hard tics are to deal with. They’re hard…” Moxxie nodded.
“Just like my dick in your ass.”
“Refrain, sir! Wait! You said you could suppress them, how do you do that?” Blitzo gritted his teeth. “It’s not that easy, Mox. I can’t teach you it’s just an ability people with tics or tic disorders have. Plus they’re major, major downsides to suppression including dangerous consequences if done, like, too much. Best way I can describe it is like, not scratching a persistent itch for hours. The itch sometimes lessens, sometimes you can’t feel it at all, but it’s always just kind of there. Until after hours and hours you’ve gotta just- scratch? Does that make sense?” Moxxie snickered. “Hey, I never said I was a linguistics expert here!” Moxxie shook his head. “No, no it makes perfect sense. Thank you, sir.” Blitzo nodded.
“Alright, that’s too wholesome and nice for my liking let’s get to planning some kills!” He suddenly exclaimed to Moxxie, grinning. But Moxxie was smiling right with him.
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washymylifeaway · 4 years
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SakuAtsu Fanfic recs pt2 leggo
I promised a pt 2 and here it is! Link to pt 1 here :) I was lazy so given summaries (I cped this time, but in the future I might paraphrase), and ofc these aren’t all of the ones I loved, just some :D So in no particular order, have some SakuAtsu <3
As always, pls check WARNINGS, TAGS, and SUMMARIES for fics before reading (esp cause I didn’t put individual warnings PLEASE make sure you’re okay with the content!!!!!!) and make sure you’re taking care of yourselves (since mental health is key!) Stay healthy loves <3
Teach Me, Tune Me, Tempt Me by Anonymous (E) 38.8k // Sakusa Kiyoomi needs to conquer many lifelong fears in order to enter his first romantic relationship. Miya Atsumu is there to guide him every step of the way, even if the one Sakusa desires is someone else.
Flowers Bloom In Our Masks by UnicornFlowers (G) 24.5k // "Mysophobia, also known as verminophobia, germophobia, germaphobia, bacillophobia and bacteriophobia, is a pathological fear of contamination and germs." "You read that off of Wikipedia." "That's the point, Omi-kun. I read up on it fer you."
the art of folding a handkerchief by Emlee_J (T) 5.6k // “Atsumu-san’s just realised he likes Sakusa-san,” Shouyou says simply, as though announcing the weather. “Ahh,” Bokuto nods sagely, standing up straight and nodding his head, as though this was a perfectly normal thing to hear and not monumental in any way. “'Ahh?'” Atsumu protests, indignantly, “what do ya mean ‘ahh?’” “We were wondering when you were going to notice,” Bokuto shrugs, and Atsumu gawps at him. “'Scuse me?” He splutters, and whips his gaze around to Shouyou, who bobs his head at him in confirmation. “How did you two notice before I did?” Atsumu blurts out. "Most people do," Shouyou says softly. -In which Atsumu develops something annoying, like feelings for a teammate, but at least he has a couple of wingmen and Tobio's seemingly infinite resources to help him out.
for whom the heart beats by cielelyse (T) 1.6k // Atsumu's heart keeps skipping a beat whenever Sakusa's around - so often that it's baffling and honestly downright concerning. "I think I might have a medical condition," he says into the phone. "Good," says Osamu, and hangs up.
as you are by papertulips (G) 5.8k // Kiyoomi learns that falling for Atsumu is the easiest thing in the world.
Hide and seek by badreputation (E) 10.5k // It’s just a fleeting infatuation. As long as he pushes through it he’ll manage. So what if nowadays there isn’t a night where he doesn’t dream of Sakusa pinning him down on his own bed, in the shower or make Atsumu go down on his knees in the hallway? Those are just pesky details.
People Will Say We're in Love by tirralirra (T) 9.5k // “Saku...Atsu? What does that even mean?” Atsumu says, squinting at the device. People seem to think that Sakusa and Atsumu are in love, so they come up with a list of things to do to deter that. Maybe it would work...if they weren’t in love.
do not separate! by aalphard (T) 5k // He knows he likes peanut butter and the tuna onigiri Uncle Shamu makes for him. He knows he likes volleyball and the way his daddy looks so, so cool when he’s on court. He knows he likes drawing and playing with toy swords. He knows he likes reading and it’s even better when Atsumu is the one reading for him. He knows he likes to have pancakes in the morning but he also really, really likes tamagoyaki and he knows his daddy can’t make those at all. He tries, but fails every single time. He knows his daddy’s teammates like him and he knows they’ll help him if he wants to play with them one day. But the thing is he likes Uncle Omi-kun more than he likes the rest of them and that is a secret he won’t tell anyone that’s not his daddy. He doesn’t like to make people sad.“Omi?” “Yeah?” “Nao said he likes you more than he likes the rest of the team. Don’t tell’em.” or atsumu is a single dad and kiyoomi can't help but fall for him.
you make my heart burn by myhopeisjhope (G) 9.2k // “What’s up with that awful expression?” Atsumu asked. He leaned against the counter with his hip, looking directly at Kiyoomi, his regular fox-line grin plastered on his face. Kiyoomi made eye-contact with him then, his eyebrows knotting in annoyance, but Atsumu was too interested in the cute pair of beauty marks above Kiyoomi’s eye to care about the glare that was sent his way. “What’s up with that awful hair?” Kiyoomi shot back. And that was exactly when Atsumu decided he liked the guy. 
somewhere in the middle (i think we lied a little) by akanemnida (E) 4.3k // “Body worship,” Miya said instantly, after Kiyoomi asked him what he wanted as reward as the winner of their service ace competition. “I can do that,” Kiyoomi said with a frown. “God, you really are the vainest person on this planet—”Miya shook his head, smirking. “Nuh-uh, Omi-kun. I meant I wanted ‘ta worship ‘ya.”(Or: Sakusa and Atsumu and all the blurred lines in between.)
san'yō expressway, 6:17 pm by yamabato (T) 8.1k // Atsumu tilts his head to watch a slice of orange light bend over the impassive planes of Sakusa’s face. He is absolutely, ruthlessly beautiful. It makes Atsumu want to punch something—put his foot through the windshield—scream, maybe. Kiss him again, maybe. They have 344 kilometers to figure this one out.
affection by papertulips (G) 2.1k // "I gave you the key to my house for emergencies only." “This is an emergency.” “What?” Atsumu pouts, looking up at him with wide eyes that definitely work on Kiyoomi but he will never admit it. “I missed you.”
love could be labeled poison and we'd drink it anyways by myhopeisjhope (NR) 21.3k // "Huh?" is Atsumu's response, and it's seemingly the only thing the man could think of after the minute-long silence that stretched between them. "We should break up," Kiyoomi repeats, more clearly now. He doesn't let any emotion seep into his voice, keeping it neutral and detached, as if breaking up with Atsumu was the easiest thing ever, while in fact it's the complete opposite.
And I'll Ask for the Sea by meeks00 (T) 6.9k // When a couple of his teammates reveal that Atsumu has feelings for him, Sakusa doesn’t react well. It doesn’t help that Atsumu is his typical petty and salty self. --“Come on,” Atsumu is saying in a wheedling tone behind a bright grin. “Just stop,” Sakusa snaps suddenly. “Will you just leave me alone for once? I don’t even like you!”Normally, Sakusa’s words don’t phase Atsumu at all. He’ll talk over Sakusa or brush off any harsh words easily enough and might turn to someone else for the attention he apparently craves. But this time, Sakusa’s words seem to stop him cold, the smile freezing for just a moment on his face.
the Definition of Miya Atsumu, by Sakusa Kiyoomi by orphan_account (G) 4k // Miya Atsumu is a self-centred prick who thinks he's top shit. Underneath the word 'asshole' in the dictionary is a picture of his stupidly pretty face. Sakusa Kiyoomi's definition is, according to him, 100% correct, until he takes a closer look.
i’ll do anything you say (if you say it with your hands) by liliapocalypse (T) 7.6k // Seeing Sakusa stressed out, Atsumu writes random letters on Sakusa’s skin to soothe him during the team’s assisted stretches. Somewhere along the way, the touches shift from barely tolerable to something Sakusa actively craved for. One day, though, Atsumu accidentally writes a confession instead.
it ain't no matter of 'if' honey, it's just a matter of 'when' by irleggsy (M) 2.1k // With a beer in one hand and an accusatory pointer finger on the other, Sakusa slurred, shouted even, “Atsumu. If you wear those godforsaken cutoff camo jorts one more fucking time I’m breaking up with you.”Atsumu made a noise in his throat caught somewhere between a wheeze and a squawk that came out more of an avant-garde honk noise than anything else. He stared up at Sakusa with wide eyes, a bewildered smile just barely glued onto his face. Or: The MSBY Black Jackals go to a bar. Sakusa likes to run his mouth when he's drunk.
dog eat dog eat dog world by perennials (T) 8.4k // You are your first and only line of defense against the universe.
Who Could Have Seen This Coming? by crone_zone (M) 16.7k // Peering out the side of his eyes at the man walking beside him, Sakusa wondered why he’d impulsively changed his mind about his plans this evening when he’d noticed Miya’s reluctance. Surely he wasn’t worried about this asshole, was he?--In which Sakusa impulsively invites Atsumu over to his apartment when he sees he's upset and something entirely unexpected happens: he realizes he likes this asshole. Cue [off-camera]sex, mutual confessions, insecurity, and adorable losers who are opposite in all the right ways.
Miya Atsumu's unwavering love for Sakusa Kiyoomi and an unholy amount of terrible food analogies that should not have the right to Exist by aiviloti (G) 5.6k // Five times Miya Atsumu talks to (harasses) his friends and sibling because he has feelings for Sakusa and doesn't know what to do or how to deal with them and the one time he talks to Sakusa about it. “How do you make friends apart from showering them in praise?” Atsumu wails one night, and Osamu thinks, oh god, here we go again.
Sakusa's Secret Admirer by TwilaFrost (T) 20.2k // Every day after practice, Kiyoomi finds another letter inside his shoe locker. It's only every signed: -❤ He's determined to find this person. Is it crazy to fall in love with someone you've never met?
take what's yours and make it mine by claudusdiei (T) 5.9k // (this has a second fic hehe) atsumu falls in love four times in his life (or: in which atsumu gets his heart broken twice, has the self-awareness of a sober mule and really likes yellow tulips)
School Bus Yellow by yuuki (G) 4.9k // Atsumu has a crush on Sakusa, and it’s kind of ridiculous how much he likes a guy who wears ugly colored jackets and is afraid of germs.Though, Atsumu’s probably not all that great himself. He’s still figuring that part out.
show me how by emeraldpalace (G) 2.9k // Sakusa isn’t sure when or how it happened, but the fact remains: Miya Atsumu has become a comfortable constant in his life.
touch me (i want you to) by melstar (G) 3.9k // He should have seen it coming, really. Spend six months tip-toeing around the line of domesticity with the team’s resident germaphobe, and there was no way he’d be able to think of the guy the same way anymore. Or, Atsumu touches Sakusa's arm once and thus begins a downward spiral into the inescapable jaws of attraction.
Dreaming of You, Talking About You by kitkatwrites (T) 1.1k // Osamu learns that Atsumu talks in his sleep, especially about a certain wing spiker from Tokyo.
If your world falls apart, I'd start a riot by Serendipity (jenjaemrens) (NR) 3.1k // "It was Atsumu who was the older brother, but it was Osamu who was more protective of him. He would always protect Atsumu from things around them that could hurt him. "Or, the story of Sakusa Kiyoomi and Miya Atsumu through the eyes of Miya Osamu.
but soft what light by min_mintobe (T) 2.1k // "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day, Bokkun—" Atsumu drawls, "—hot. "In which Miya Atsumu woos Sakusa Kiyoomi by (gratuitously, seductively) quoting Shakespeare. One-shot.
sakusa kiyoomi's fixation on (miya atsumu's) lips by catsoncocaine (E) 3.7k // Everything about Atsumu is fucking beautiful, but there is one specific part of his that is like kryptonite for Kiyoomi. It is both his curse and his remedy, rendering him useless and yet egging him on to move at the same time. Kiyoomi hates it as much as he loves it.
The Jacket In Your Closet by dai_naning (T) 8.6k // According to the gossiping players around him, Miya Atsumu is an asshole. He's an incredible player in court and an obnoxious person off the court. He taunts people, points out their weakness, and doesn't give a shit if he's disliked or not. Some even say his teammates ostracize him. Sakusa looks at Miya Atsumu and can only see a player who keeps his eyes firmly forward, demanding the same to the players who want to stay on the court. Sakusa can't fault him for that. (That doesn't erase the fact that he's an asshole though. And that he's still the one who gave a jacket to a stranger.)
sakusa kiyoomi is....an uncle? by miyaudrey (T) 5.9k // “Oh, by the way, my nieces and nephews are going to be there.” “Your what now?” Or, Atsumu finds out three hours prior to a Sakusa family gathering that Kiyoomi is an uncle.
Confessions of a V-League Setter by Anubis_2701 (T) 3.3k // "Never?" Sakusa's lips thinned. "No, never. Now stop talking to me." Or, Atsumu discovers that Sakusa Kiyoomi, germaphobe and reluctant heartthrob of the Black Jackals, has never been confessed to before. He decides to change that.
Touch Me by cajynn (E) 3k // Sakusa actually likes being touched but he's very picky when it comes to who and how. When the who turns out to be Miya Atsumu he has a crisis.
Please Stop Crying by dauwtrappen (G) 2.9k // Friday starts off well until it doesn’t and Kiyoomi can hear something crash, feel something snap inside him when Miya, about to set him up for a quick attack, suddenly starts crying in the middle of their three-on-three. Kiyoomi doesn’t even react when the ball bounces off his head, doesn’t cringe when his face is smushed against the net briefly because he forgets to land in front of the it. He’s too shocked, too appalled with the tears pouring out from Miya’s eyes to care.
I can't take much more of your hesitating by playexodus (T) 2.7k // The curved sides of Atsumu’s pecs peek through that absurd tank top at just the right angle. Sakusa swallows. “Your entire chest is hanging out of that shirt. We’re in public. You could at least pretend to be a decent, morally upright person. Not to mention that this Los Angeles beach boy aesthetic is terrible on you.”Glancing back down at Atsumu’s chest to glare at his sharp, glistening collarbones is a bad idea. Sakusa wills his eyes to stay fixated on Atsumu’s face. As it turns out, this too, is a bad idea. “Oh?” Atsumu turns his half-lidded gaze onto Sakusa, the corners of his mouth curling. “Just to be clear: you’re definitely not enjoying the view then, Omi-Omi?”
curse breaking by allicanseeispink (T) 9.2k // Nearing the fourth hour of the silent treatment, Kiyoomi’s already frayed nerves began to whittle down to their last fibers. Today, it was raining. A proper Tokyo monsoon tantrum just shy of a full-blown typhoon that left puddles on sidewalks and fell from an angle so wicked it eluded umbrellas. It was raining and they haven’t spoken in almost four hours. (In which Sakusa wanders into the minefield that is Atsumu's feelings and tries not to blow things up.)
Summer Special: Omigiri by mika60 (T) 6.9k // Miya Osamu always comes up with the perfect marketing plan for his shop, even if it involves the two biggest idiots he knows.
a list of things sakusa kiyoomi hates by BrenH (T) 7.3k // “Just fuckin’ write shit down so ya remember it then. ”It was probably supposed to be a joke, just Osamu being as annoying and unhelpful as always, just reminding him that he shouldn’t have bothered trying to count on his brother for help. He’s forgotten about the whole thing until a few days later when he’s shopping and comes across a small, black notebook shaped like a cat, and his brother’s stupid suggestion flashes through his mind. Before he knows it, the cute little notebook is dropped in his basket, purchased, and in his possession. Or, the one where Osamu suggests Atsumu keep a notebook to track all the things Sakusa hates that he does, and he takes it further than he means to.
A Challenge, A Cat, and A Confession by Kitaa (G) 6.2k // Atsumu enjoys bothering Sakusa. One day he bothers him enough to be invited over to his apartment, only to discover that Sakusa has a plant, a cat, and a cute laugh.
Multiples Of Two by yuuki (G) 3.3k // He does everything in multiples of two. The day Sakusa Kiyoomi died, Atsumu checked his pulse twenty-eight times. Okay, so Sakusa Kiyoomi has never died. And Atsumu has never been close enough to Sakusa to be able to check his pulse. So what if Atsumu is just being dramatic again? He’s allowed to be dramatic when he’s in love with a man who has less emotion than a rock.
gold rush by sketchedsmiles (T) 18k // When the MSBY Black Jackals sign their newest team member, Sakusa Kiyoomi, Atsumu makes it his personal responsibility to befriend the indifferent player.
got sand in my eyes (and my shorts too, damn you miya) by luxnoctre (T) 4.7k // On one of their rare rest days, Hinata takes the part of the MSBY team to the beach. Chaos ensures. (or alternatively, do not piss off Sakusa when he is in the middle of relaxing)
mortality is found in the flesh of your sins by citronnes (M) 10.6k // dickhead one, sakusa kiyoomi. dickhead two, miya atsumu. neither understand how to communicate. Pray tell, why are you drawn to him?Are you drawn to him in the way he looks beautiful even when crying? When his eyes are red, shiny tears streaking down, lips quivering, is he beautiful?
This was v long ahahaha.... Anyway, is this finished? No LOL, but I’ll just make small additions via reblogs (?) over time. Maybe :) Sorry if you wanted me to ramble on about SakuAtsu,,,, slide into my messages/asks for that LOL. Maybe over time I’ll add the commentary from other posts I make in the future :’)
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joshuas · 4 years
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perfect
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♫ pairing: Hwang Hyunjin x Reader
♫ genre: College/university student!au, slice-of-life, fluff
♫ word count: 3.5k
♫ warnings: Nil of note!
♫ summary: After wagering a date on the success of the New Year’s Formal he was tasked to plan, Hyunjin stops at nothing to ensure the perfect dance. 
♫ a/n: The fifth addition to my seasonal oneshots! This is a continuation from my Changbin oneshot. Enjoy! 
♫ skz seasonal oneshots: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
“Okay! That wraps up our meeting for today. Remember, Ryujin, you’re in charge of invites, Jisung, you’re in charge of catering and Hyunjin, well, you’re the leader of this entire task force— you’re going to be the one to pull this entire thing together.” You stepped away from the whiteboard with your mind map of plans for the New Year’s Eve formal, giving the rest of the committee an encouraging smile as they all exited the classroom.
Hyunjin hung back, leaning casually against the desk next to you as you packed away your stuff. You rolled your eyes,
“Look, I know you asked me out two weeks ago but I already told you, Hyunjin. This dance is already taking up the majority of my headspace right now and I’m not ready to go on a date.”
“Oh, I know, Y/N. Seriously, don’t stress, I’ve got this all under control. We’ll be able to go out soon!” Hyunjin reassured you, giving you a quick peck on your cheek before skipping out of the classroom.
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“I do not have it under control.” Hyunjin paced, Changbin observing the poor guy from the couch,
“I don’t have DJ ready, neither do I have decorations or photos, and the dance is in a week—“ Hyunjin stressed, putting his head in his hands.
“Hey, you know how this was supposed to be movie night? As your friend, I know I should be helping you but also man, why haven’t you gotten your life together?” Changbin got up, gesturing Hyunjin to sit in the seat opposite him.
“Well— I may or may not have been focused on trying to confess my feelings for Y/N?” Hyunjin said tentatively.
“Wait— you what? How come you never told me this?? How did it go?”
“Well...”
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[2 weeks ago]
You sighed, holding your head in your hands as you tried to design the floor plan for the dance.
Someone cleared their throat, placing a steaming cup of coffee on the table before sitting opposite you in the cafe.
“Oh. Thank you, Hyunjin.” You blinked, surprised by his sudden kind gesture.
“It’s no problem! You’ve been working so hard on this dance, I personally think that you deserve a lot more than just coffee.” Hyunjin beamed, eyes crinkling.
You blushed, taking a quick sip at your coffee,
“So, are you just going to sit here and hang out or...?
“I really like you, Y/N.” Hyunjin blurted out before quickly covering his mouth.
Your head jolted up, a shocked silence falling over the two of you.
“You... what? Why are you telling me this now?”
“Ugh, I had this all planned out but my nerves took over. I was planning on telling you after the dance, but then my friend’s been asking me for love advice so I told him one thing and I felt like a hypocrite for not doing that myself so this confession just came out. I’m sorry.” Hyunjin spoke fast, hanging his head in defeat.
“Oh.” You blinked, surprised, “I’m going, to be honest with you, Hyunjin. I like you too and if this were any other time I would’ve suggested we go out sometime, but I’m just so wrapped up with the dance preparation that I barely have time to focus on anything else.” You looked at him apologetically.
“Oh!” He smiled, obviously surprised by your confession, “Well, if it’s taking up that much of your time, why don’t you leave some of that preparation to me?” Hyunjin suggested.
You looked at him sceptically,
“Hmm... I don’t know. It’s a lot of work, not to mention the pressure...”
“Seriously, Y/N! Look I’ll even wager this to show that you that I’ll do my absolute best— since I want to go on a date with you... desperately... I’ll only ask you out if the dance is up to your standards.” He said solemnly.
“A-are you sure?” You asked, shocked at his boldness.
“Positive. Anything to see you smile... and reduce your blood pressure.” He beamed before collecting your floorplan and heading out of the cafe.
I sure hope he knows what he’s doing...
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“...so now there are high stakes on making this formal perfect.” Hyunjin sighed defeatedly.
“I thought Y/N liked you... why would you even think of doing that for them? You just made life harder for yourself!” Changbin sighed, exasperated.
“Because they’re a perfectionist, and focused, and smart, and beautiful— actually make that gorgeous.”
Changbin cleared his throat, raising an eyebrow.
Hyunjin flushed, looking away,
“I mean. It’s the only way I could’ve recovered from my shocking confession. It was hardly romantic at all.”
“So you basically volunteered yourself a lifetime’s worth of stress by taking over, planning wise?” Changbin asked, slightly incredulous.
“Well. They looked like they were doing a lot worse than me...” Hyunjin rubbed his neck sheepishly.
“You, sir, did not think this through properly. Ah, the things people do for love.” Changbin pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance.
“Wait, why are you annoyed?” Hyunjin looked at him confusedly.
“Yah! Since you told me all this, I’m practically obligated to help you. So... I guess I’ll give up my movie night to help you plan this thing.” Changbin sighed, exhausted.
“Oh my gosh, hyung, you’re a lifesaver.” Hyunjin gushed.
“Alright, alright. I’m practically a saint for being a decent human being, thank you. Now, should we start on the table centrepieces? What do you think? Hyacinths or peonies?” Changbin held up two gardening magazines.
“Oh, definitely peonies.”
“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”
“No...”
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“I’m really glad that we could catch up. Although, I thought you were busy with the formal planning?” Your friend, Jeongin, held the café door open for you as you entered beside him.
“Oh, about that— Hyunjin may have offered to help out more.” You unwrapped your scarf, smiling at Chan as you approached the counter.
“Hwang Hyunjin offered to help you out? The same Hyunjin you’ve had a crush on for literally forever? Why?” Jeongin questioned, agape.
“It was kind of romantic, actually. He offered to help out after he said that he liked me and said that he would only ask me out if the dance is up to my standards.” You sighed dreamily. You had probably run over that day probably more than one hundred times over the last couple of days.
“Ew.” Jeongin scrunched his nose in disgust, paying for the coffees you had ordered.
You smiled knowingly, “It’s okay. You won’t understand until you fall for someone.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen for a while. You know, a slight change of topic from this sickening conversation... I’ve been thinking of taking up trot singing...” Jeongin droned on, oblivious to your shift in interest to the people entering the cafe.
“Y/N? Are you even listening to—“ You broke him off, placing a finger to your lips, gesturing towards the people talking to Chan, focusing on their conversation.
“Hey, guys! How can I help you?” Chan beamed at Hyunjin and Changbin.
You approached the three, Jeongin scurrying after you curiously,
“Hey... how’s the planning going? Do you need help?” You asked, raising your eyebrow.
“Oh, heyyy Y/N. Yeah, it’s going fantastically!” Hyunjin reassured, trying to casually lean against the counter, but slipping against it instead.
“Oh! Okay. Have you been able to find a DJ?” You asked.
“We were actually just—“ Hyunjin broke off as Changbin cut in,
“Oh, we already have one.”
Hyunjin glared pointedly at Changbin. You looked between the two of them, confused,
“Really? What’s his stage name?”
“He prefers to remain anonymous. You’ll find out on the day!” Changbin reassured.
“We will? I mean. We will.” Hyunjin nodded resolutely.
“Okay... well I guess we’ll leave the two of you to it. Chan, we’ll see you at the dance, right?” You asked.
“Yep! I’ll be bringing my partner along as well - as my date.” Chan beamed, waving as you exited the cafe with Jeongin.
“Bye...” Hyunjin sighed, exhaustedly.
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“Ugh, my knees hurt. Who knew how much you would have to beg Minho hyung to help out?” Hyunjin rolled his shoulders, stretching all his ligaments.
“At least you weren’t the one to babysit his cats whilst he went on a date.” Changbin sighed, brushing hair off his jumper.
“It’s hopeless... you know, we were able to recruit most people but it was our friends that demanded the most of us. What was it that Felix wanted again? To add a pick-up line mic-drop competition to the formal?” Hyunjin rubbed his temples.
“Hey, Seungmin! Fancy seeing you here!” Changbin waved at the man at a distance in front of them. After the cafe interaction they had with Y/N, Changbin and Hyunjin had decided to go on a “stroll” around the park nearby, “unintentionally” running into medical student, but also part-time photographer, Kim Seungmin.
“Hyunjin, Changbin hyung. How are you guys?”
Hyunjin and Changbin scanned the area quickly before dragging Seungmin and his photography equipment behind a large tree.
Grabbing Seungmin by the shoulders, Hyunjin looked him dead in the eyes,
“Look, Seungmin. I know you quit the formal committee, but we may need your help...”
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You stepped out of your car, gazing at the entrance, “I don’t know about you, Jeongin, but I’m really excited to see how this formal’s turned out!” You entered the hall, gaping at the sight in front of you.
It was...
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“A disaster! A complete and utter disaster! Why would we enlist Minho hyung’s help? Did we seriously forget his track record?” Hyunjin slapped his forehead, looking in horror at the mismatched and oddly draped streamers, the tables arranged in no orderly fashion within the hall.
“Hey, you’re the one that begged him to help.” Changbin crossed his arms over his chest, looking disapprovingly at Hyunjin.
“Yeah, if Y/N sees this, you’re definitely going to be kicked off the committee and you can basically say goodbye to your date,” Seungmin noted.
“Whatever— we can fix this, right? We only have...” Hyunjin checked his watch, “six hours till the formal.”
“Logically speaking, it’s slightly possible... just how are we supposed to organise it?” Changbin asked, looking pointedly at Hyunjin.
“Go with a classy theme. Y/N’s a sucker for an old-fashioned ballroom feel.” Seungmin responded almost immediately.
“How do you know that?” Hyunjin asked, narrowing his eyes slightly.
Seungmin blushed, clearing his throat,
“When you’ve been part of the same clubs since high school, you get to know what a person likes. Especially theme-wise.”
“So how should we start?” Hyunjin asked.
“First, get rid of these god-awful streamers. Rule number one, avoid tackiness at all costs — that means not shopping at the party section of your local Target.” Seungmin gestured towards the... disaster hall.
“And second, grab me a calligraphy pen and lots of cardboard — we’re going rustic for table placements. While you’re reorganising the room, adding drapes and what-not, I’ll call Ryujin and ask for the invitees. Y/N will never know what happened.” Seungmin decided resolutely, gesturing to the two of them to start.
“One question... why are you so keen on helping out?” Hyunjin crossed his arms over his chest, sceptical.
“You basically kidnapped me into helping,” Seungmin said monotonously.
“Don’t say it like that... it was more like voluntary cooperation?”
“Kidnapping.”
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“It looks so beautiful! I feel like royalty at a fancy ball.” You said, awestruck.
“Hyunjin hyung didn’t do half bad... I guess that’s some points to add to his character in my books.” Jeongin notes appraisingly.
“Oh my goodness! Look at the food! Are those brownies?” You gasped in awe.
“Next to the chocolate fountain? Yes please.” Jeongin steered you over to the food assortment.
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“Jisung, what do you mean you forgot to contact the catering company?!” Hyunjin said, his irritation showing as he stood glaring down at the shorter boy.
“I’m sorry! I’ve just had to deal with a lawsuit and—“ Hyunjin interrupted an apologetic Jisung,
“Hang on... a lawsuit? Actually, you know what, never mind. Ugh! Why is this formal falling to literal pieces?” Hyunjin pulled at his hair, irritated.
“Hyung... might I suggest an alternative? They’re just as good a chef as any catering company.” Jisung suggested tentatively. 
“I swear to God, Jisung. If they’re one of your friends, I’m going to—“
“They’re also your friends so you can’t do anything— might I suggest, Kim Seungmin and Felix Lee? They’re practically campus royalty for their cooking vlogs.” Jisung suggested, slightly smug.
“Aren’t they notorious for their cooking fails?” Hyunjin asked, both confused and sceptical.
“You say failure, but the result is beautiful. Just trust me on this, hyung. It’ll be fine.”
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“Yah! You’re adding too much butter!” Hyunjin noted frantically, as Seungmin brushed down a brownie tin.
“Obviously you haven’t seen our pancake vlogs. They turn out just fine. And besides, they’re brownies. No one would notice if they were a little bit overcooked.” Felix said confidently.
“Um. By a little overcooked, you mean burnt. And yes! People with functioning taste buds would!” Hyunjin sighed in annoyance.
“He’s a little bit stressed, as you can see. He put his relationship with Y/N on the line for this formal to run perfectly.” Seungmin explained to Felix.
“Ahh... okay. Not to worry, Hyunjin hyung! Everything will turn out well.” Felix patted Hyunjin’s shoulder.
“What were you thinking about savoury appetisers? Is bruschetta too fancy?” Felix suggested.
“I sure hope you two know what you’re doing...”
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“The brownies are delicious! We need to get the same caterers for the next fundraising event.” You praised, making a note to ask Hyunjin and Jisung.
“Smile for the camera, please!” You turned around, face to face with Seungmin and his camera.
“Oh! Hey, Seungmin. I thought you weren’t going to do any more council stuff. You were hired to do the photography for the dance?” You asked, confused.
He laughed hollowly,
“More like kidnapped, but we won’t get into that.”
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“Okay! I think we’ve gotten everything sorted — Changbin has the DJ organised, catering is done and is actually half-decent, and the decor is sorted.” Hyunjin dusted his hands, looking at the hall in awe.
“...Not so fast. You haven’t gotten everything sorted.” Seungmin said.
“What do you mean? We’ve got everyth— oh. Photography.” Changbin slapped his forehead.
“Hmm... I wonder where we could find a photographer readily available...” Hyunjin and Changbin looked pointedly at Seungmin.
“What? No. I have other things that I need to do.” Seungmin inched backwards towards the exit as Hyunjin nodded at Changbin.
Wrapping him up in a big hug, Changbin stopped Seungmin as Hyunjin quickly grabbed the photography equipment off him.
“Please, Seungmin? I’ll owe you big time.” Hyunjin pleaded as Seungmin threw his hands up in defeat,
Seungmin sighed tiredly,
“...You do owe me... big time. I wish I could say no but seeing how much this means to you, I guess I can’t. Alright, can you stop manhandling me?”
“Don’t lie, my hugs are legendary.”
“Hyung, you’re flattering yourself.”
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“Oh? Well, you’re an excellent photographer so I don’t doubt that the photos will turn out well.” You smiled, waving before heading towards the sound stage.
“Hey, Chan. Oh? Were you planning on dancing with your partner?” You looked at his formalwear.
He gave you a small smile, lifting his equipment to the sound booth,
“That... was the plan, originally! But um. I guess life never really works out as planned.”
“Oh? I thought that the DJ wanted to remain anonymous. I didn’t know it was you...” You said confusedly.
“Hey man, what are you doing in my sound booth?” A shabby looking guy approached, duffel bag in hand.
“Hey! What are you doing here?” A stressed Hyunjin ran up, eyes wide as he stared down the shabby-looking guy.
“Hyunjin, right? Changbin contacted me and told me that I’d be the DJ at this gig.” The guy stepped towards Chan — it would’ve been threatening but his outfit really did not help his cause.
“Look, it’s just that you were the... backup DJ. Yeah! When Chan’s out there, dancing with his partner, you’ll be taking—“ Hyunjin broke off, looking to the stage.
“Helloooo everyone! I’m not in charge of this formal or anything but I heard there was going to be a pick-up line competition, so I’m here to participate. Let me start you guys off—“ Hyunjin sprinted onto the stage, snatching the microphone from a confused Felix, skidding as the momentum carried him forward, off the stage, causing him to land... on his shin.
You winced, running over, Seungmin meeting you there,
“Hyunjin, are you okay?”
Moaning in painful response, he winced as Seungmin lifted his arm around his shoulder, semi-carrying (more dragging) him towards the exit,
“Obviously he’s not. I’m going to take him to the ER. Meet us there.” Seungmin said calmly.
You addressed the crowd, laughing awkwardly,
“Nothing to see here, folks. Just... get back to the dance.” You turned towards Chan,
“Entertain the crowd whilst we’re gone.” You said hurriedly before rushing out to drive to the hospital.
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“Hi, I’m here to see Hwang Hyunjin. Is he okay? Can I see him?” You asked the receptionist hurriedly, looking frantically around the waiting room.
“Y/N! We’re here.” You whipped around, seeing a passed out Hyunjin in a wheelchair being attended by Seungmin.
“Oh! Seungmin, thank god you’re here! We need your help. The hospital’s so short staffed right now that even the students are required to help out.” A person rushed over to Seungmin, handing him a doctor’s coat.
“Okay. I’ll admit Hyunjin. Y/N, you can go back to the formal if you want. You’re not going to be able to visit him for a couple of hours.” Seungmin threw on his coat, calling a nurse over to push Hyunjin, waving as he entered the ER.
You sighed, sitting on a nearby plastic chair.
This is going to be a long night... I hope he’s okay.
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“Excuse me? You were asking for Mr Hwang before? He’s allowed visitors now.” A nurse tapped your shoulder, leading you towards his room.
You gasped at his casted leg, your gaze drifting to his tired smile, eye-bags his most notable feature,
“You... don’t look great.”
“Yeah, didn’t really get much sleep over the last couple of days. Well... except for the anaesthetic driven ‘sleep’ during surgery. I don’t think that counts, though...” He chuckled shortly.
Silently, you sat beside him on the bed.
“I probably ruined everything. The formal was a complete flop.” He sighed, hanging his head.
“Look, I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t the most... organised event I’ve been to, but I heard a lot of positive feedback from the guests in attendance, and from what I saw, the dance was practically perfect— from the food to the decorations.” You gave him a soft smile.
“To be fair, it was mostly Seungmin that helped out. I didn’t really do much.” He said, sheepishly.
“Hey, you used the resources available to you. Seungmin knows what he’s doing, and I’m not saying that you don’t, but I’m glad that you got help from him. The dance was perfect due to both of you.” You said resolutely.
“Wait— is the dance over? How long was I out for?” He asked, incredulous.
“I don’t think it is. You were out for almost seven hours. There’s... five minutes till New Years.” You checked your watch.
“I’m sorry that you’re spending New Years with me...” He gave you a forced, small smile.
“Whaaat? Nooo it was my dream to spend New Years at the hospital with the guy that I’m going to go out with because he broke his leg by falling off a stage. What was Felix doing, by the way?” You asked curiously.
“It’s a long story— I think he wanted to have a pick-up line competition with his significant other... hang on. Did you just say that you wanted to go out with me?” He asked, incredulous.
“Well, there isn’t anyone else here, and I did say that the dance was perfect.” You pointed out.
Cheers arose outside the room, choruses of ‘Happy New Year’ echoing throughout the hospital corridors.
“I guess it’s New Years... did you know that it’s unlucky not to kiss someone on New Years?” You smirked slightly.
“Well, who am I to start your year off unlucky?” He leaned in, pressing his lips against yours briefly before pulling away, slightly wincing.
“Oh— are you okay? Do you need anything?” You fussed.
“Just... more kisses?” Hyunjin pointed at his cheek.
You chuckled,
“Sure... can I ask for something, though?”
“What is it?” He asked, eyes wide.
“Let’s go on a date today. I know you’ll only be able to eat hospital food, but I heard that the pudding cups are delicious.” You suggested.
“That sounds... perfect.”
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➳ part six?  |  masterlist!
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