#okay let's close the chapter of this going back to the real world book

[ryllen]

obscure event that confirms yuu is well x x

[callsigns-haze]

Hello! If you are comfortable can you please write more dad-husband tyler owens? And also i love your content!

-🪼

Again

Pairing: Tyler Owens x Reader

Summary: Tyler reflects on the overwhelming love and responsibility of becoming a father again, making silent promises to his unborn child as he and Y/N cherish the anticipation of their growing family.

Warnings: This chapter contains themes of pregnancy, emotional moments involving family, and heartfelt reflections on parenthood, which may evoke strong feelings.

The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky, casting a warm, golden hue over the Owens' home. Tyler was on the living room floor with Hazel, their three-year-old daughter, who was deeply engrossed in building a tower with her colourful blocks. Her curls bounced as she placed each block with careful precision, her little tongue poking out in concentration. Tyler watched her with a fond smile, cherishing the simplicity of this moment. It was these quiet afternoons, filled with Hazel's laughter and the joy of just being together, that Tyler loved the most.

“Daddy, look! It’s almost as tall as me!” Hazel exclaimed, her eyes bright with pride as she stepped back to admire her creation.

“That’s amazing, sweetheart,” Tyler replied, his voice filled with genuine admiration. ��You’ve got a real talent for building things.”

Hazel’s face lit up with joy, and she threw her arms around Tyler’s neck in a spontaneous hug. Tyler held her close, feeling the warmth of her small body against his chest, and for a moment, everything in the world felt just right.

But something had been different today. From the moment Y/N had left for work that morning, Tyler had sensed it. She’d hugged him a little longer, her gaze lingering on him with an intensity he couldn’t quite place. There was something she wasn’t saying, something just beneath the surface, and it had been on his mind all day.

The sound of the front door opening pulled Tyler from his thoughts. Hazel’s head snapped up, her eyes lighting up with excitement. “Mommy’s home!” she squealed, jumping to her feet and racing toward the door.

Tyler followed more slowly, his heart picking up speed as he saw Y/N step inside. She was still in her work clothes, a tired but content smile on her face as she bent down to scoop Hazel into her arms. But even from across the room, Tyler could tell something was different. There was a certain glow about her, a quiet energy that made his breath catch.

“Hey, you two,” Y/N greeted, pressing a kiss to Hazel’s cheek before setting her down. “How was your day?”

“Great!” Hazel chirped, grabbing her mother’s hand and tugging her toward the living room. “I built the tallest tower ever! Come see!”

Y/N laughed, letting herself be led by their daughter, but her eyes flicked to Tyler, and he saw it again—that unreadable emotion that made his heart race. She was holding something back, and he knew she wouldn’t be able to for much longer.

“Why don’t you go get your favourite book, Hazel?” Y/N suggested gently after admiring the tower. “Mommy and Daddy need to talk for a minute.”

Hazel, always eager for story time, nodded eagerly and dashed off to her room, leaving Tyler and Y/N alone in the living room. As soon as she was out of sight, Y/N turned to him, her hands twisting nervously in front of her. Tyler’s heart clenched at the sight. He stepped closer, reaching out to take her hands in his.

“Y/N, what’s going on?” he asked softly, his voice filled with concern and anticipation. “Is everything okay?”

Y/N took a deep breath, her eyes meeting his with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. “I... I think I might be pregnant,” she confessed, her voice trembling slightly.

Tyler’s eyes widened, his heart skipping a beat. “You think?” he repeated, his mind racing to catch up with what she was saying.

“I wasn’t sure,” Y/N explained quickly, her words tumbling out as if she needed to get them all out before she lost her nerve. “I’ve been feeling a little off lately, so I picked up a test on the way home, but I don’t know how far along I might be. I just... I needed to know before I told you.”

Tyler stared at her, his breath caught in his throat as the weight of her words settled over him. She thought she might be pregnant. They might be having another baby. He felt a rush of emotions—joy, disbelief, and something that felt like awe.

“Did you take the test?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Y/N nodded, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the small, white stick, holding it out to him with trembling hands. Tyler took it from her, his eyes locking onto the tiny screen. Two pink lines. Positive.

For a moment, the world seemed to stop. Tyler stared at the test in his hand, his heart pounding in his chest as he tried to process what he was seeing. He looked back up at Y/N, his eyes wide with disbelief and wonder.

“You’re... you’re pregnant?” he asked, his voice thick with emotion.

Y/N nodded again, tears spilling over her cheeks as she watched his reaction. “I think so,” she whispered. “But I don’t know how far along I am. I wanted to wait to see the doctor before we told Hazel, just to be sure.”

Tyler’s heart swelled with love and gratitude for this woman, for the life they had built together, and for the new life that might be growing inside her. A laugh of pure joy escaped him, and he pulled her into his arms, lifting her off the ground as he spun her around.

Y/N laughed through her tears, her arms wrapping around his neck as she buried her face in his shoulder. “Tyler,” she whispered, her voice filled with emotion. “We’re going to have another baby.”

Tyler set her down gently, his hands cupping her face as he looked into her eyes. His own eyes were wet with tears now, but he didn’t care. This moment was too beautiful, too perfect to hold anything back.

“I can’t believe it,” he murmured, his voice shaky with joy. “We’re having another baby.”

Y/N smiled up at him, her eyes shining with happiness. “I know it’s a lot to take in. I wasn’t expecting it either, but... I’m happy, Tyler. I’m really happy.”

Tyler felt his heart swell even more, if that was possible. He pulled her close, pressing his forehead against hers as he closed his eyes, letting the reality of their new situation wash over him. They were going to do this all over again—nights of soothing a crying baby, days of watching another child grow and learn and become their own person. And he couldn’t wait.

“We’ll take it one step at a time,” he whispered, his voice filled with quiet determination. “We’ll see the doctor, find out how far along you are, and then... then we’ll tell Hazel. She’s going to be so excited.”

Y/N nodded, her eyes still locked on his. “I know she will be. She’s going to be an amazing big sister.”

Tyler laughed softly, his thumb brushing away the tear that had slipped down her cheek. “And you’re going to be an amazing mom to two kids. Just like you are to Hazel.”

Y/N smiled, leaning into his touch as she let out a shaky breath. “I couldn’t do it without you, Tyler.”

“You won’t have to,” he promised, his voice filled with love. “We’re in this together, every step of the way.”

They stood there for a long moment, wrapped up in each other, their hearts full of love and anticipation for the journey ahead. Tyler knew that there would be challenges, just like there had been with Hazel, but he also knew that they would face them together, as a family.

After a while, they both glanced toward Hazel’s room, where their daughter was no doubt waiting eagerly for them to join her. Tyler smiled, squeezing Y/N’s hand.

“Should we go read that story?” he asked softly.

Y/N nodded, a soft smile on her lips. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

---

A few days after Y/N had taken the pregnancy test, Tyler and Y/N found themselves sitting in the waiting room of their OB-GYN’s office, anticipation and nerves swirling in the air around them. Y/N’s hand was clasped tightly in Tyler’s, their fingers intertwined as they waited for their names to be called. The past few days had been a whirlwind of emotions—excitement, disbelief, and a deep sense of joy that they were both still coming to terms with.

Tyler glanced over at Y/N, who was nervously tapping her foot on the floor. He squeezed her hand, offering her a reassuring smile. “You okay?” he asked softly.

Y/N nodded, though the tension in her shoulders was still visible. “I’m just anxious,” she admitted. “I want to know how far along we are. I want to see the baby.”

Tyler felt a surge of protectiveness for her, his thumb brushing gently over the back of her hand. “We’ll know soon,” he assured her. “And whatever happens, we’re in this together.”

Y/N smiled at him, her eyes softening with love. “I know,” she whispered, leaning into his shoulder as they continued to wait.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the nurse called them back. Tyler and Y/N stood, their hands still linked as they followed the nurse down the hallway to the ultrasound room. The room was dimly lit, with a comfortable chair next to the examination table where Y/N would soon be lying. Tyler helped her onto the table, his heart racing with a mix of excitement and nervousness.

The ultrasound technician, a kind woman with a gentle demeanour, greeted them with a warm smile. “Congratulations,” she said, her voice full of genuine warmth. “We’re going to get our first look at your baby today.”

Y/N returned the smile, though Tyler could see the anxiety still lingering in her eyes. He took her hand again, standing close by as the technician prepared the equipment. The sound of the machine powering on filled the room, and Tyler felt his heart rate pick up in anticipation.

“Alright, Y/N,” the technician said, her voice calm and reassuring. “This might feel a little cold, but it’ll warm up quickly.”

Y/N nodded, taking a deep breath as the technician applied the gel to her abdomen. Tyler watched closely, his eyes fixed on the screen next to them. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but he knew this moment was going to be one he’d remember for the rest of his life.

The technician moved the ultrasound wand over Y/N’s stomach, her eyes focused on the screen as she began to search for the tiny life growing inside her. Tyler held his breath, his heart pounding in his chest as he watched the screen with wide eyes, looking for any sign of their baby.

And then, there it was—a small, flickering shape on the screen, barely recognizable, but unmistakably there. Tyler’s breath caught in his throat, his eyes welling up with tears as he realized what he was seeing.

“There’s your baby,” the technician said softly, her voice full of awe as she pointed to the tiny figure on the screen. “Right here.”

Tyler’s hand tightened around Y/N’s as he stared at the screen, unable to tear his eyes away from the small, flickering heartbeat. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The room seemed to fall away, leaving just him, Y/N, and the incredible sight of their child’s first image.

“Is that...?” Y/N’s voice trembled, her eyes filling with tears as she looked at the screen.

The technician nodded, smiling warmly at both of them. “That’s your baby,” she confirmed. “It looks like you’re about eight weeks along. Everything is measuring perfectly.”

Eight weeks. Tyler felt a rush of emotion—relief, joy, and an overwhelming sense of awe. Their baby was already so real, already so alive. He could see the tiny head, the beginnings of arms and legs, all so small and yet so perfect. And that heartbeat—steady, strong, a beautiful rhythm that filled him with a sense of wonder he couldn’t quite put into words.

Y/N squeezed his hand, her eyes shining with tears as she looked up at him. “Tyler, that’s our baby,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion.

Tyler couldn’t speak for a moment, his throat tight with the effort of holding back his own tears. He nodded, swallowing hard as he looked down at Y/N. “I know,” he whispered back, his voice breaking. “It’s really happening.”

The technician continued to take measurements, pointing out different parts of the baby as she did. Tyler listened, barely registering the words as he focused on the tiny, flickering heartbeat that held his entire world in its rhythm. Every detail was perfect, every movement a miracle.

“There’s the head,” the technician said softly, her voice full of the quiet reverence that came with witnessing the beginning of a new life. “And here, you can see the arms starting to form.”

Tyler watched in awe as the technician moved the wand, showing them different angles of their baby. Each new image brought a fresh wave of emotion, and he found himself blinking back tears more than once. He looked down at Y/N, seeing the same mixture of joy and wonder reflected in her eyes.

“We’re really going to do this again,” Y/N whispered, her voice filled with both excitement and a touch of disbelief.

Tyler nodded, his heart full to bursting. “We are,” he agreed, his voice thick with emotion. “And I can’t wait.”

The technician finished the scan, printing out a few images for them to take home. Tyler took the small, glossy pictures with trembling hands, his eyes scanning each one as if trying to commit every detail to memory. This was their baby—small, delicate, and already so deeply loved.

“Everything looks great,” the technician said, smiling at them both as she handed the pictures to Tyler. “You’re right on track. Congratulations again.”

“Thank you,” Y/N said, her voice filled with gratitude.

Tyler helped Y/N sit up, the two of them still in a daze as they thanked the technician and left the room. As they walked out into the hallway, Tyler couldn’t stop looking at the ultrasound pictures in his hand. He knew they’d be showing these to Hazel soon enough, sharing the news that she was going to be a big sister. But for now, this moment was theirs, a private joy that filled his heart with more love than he thought possible.

Once they were back in the car, Tyler turned to Y/N, his hand resting gently on her stomach. “I’m so happy,” he whispered, his eyes meeting hers. “I didn’t think I could love anyone as much as I love Hazel, but... this baby, our baby... it’s like my heart just keeps growing.”

Y/N smiled, her own hand covering his as she leaned in to kiss him softly. “I feel the same way,” she murmured against his lips. “We’re going to be a family of four, Tyler. Can you believe it?”

Tyler shook his head, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “No,” he admitted, his voice full of wonder. “But I can’t wait.”

---

The sun was setting, casting a warm golden light through the windows of the Owens’ living room. Tyler and Y/N sat on the couch, their hearts full of anticipation as they prepared to share the news with Hazel. They had just returned from the doctor’s appointment, where they’d seen their tiny baby on the ultrasound for the first time. The black-and-white pictures of the baby’s first images were still fresh in their minds, tucked away safely in Y/N’s purse.

Hazel was playing on the floor nearby, her toy animals scattered around her as she created an elaborate scene with them. She was in her own little world, humming softly to herself as she made her animals talk to each other. Tyler watched her with a soft smile, feeling his heart swell with love for his little girl. Soon, she would no longer be their only child. She would be a big sister.

“Hazel,” Y/N called gently, breaking the peaceful silence.

Hazel looked up from her toys, her wide brown eyes curious. “Yes, Mommy?” she asked, pushing her curls out of her face as she stood up.

“Come here, sweetheart,” Tyler said, patting the spot between him and Y/N on the couch. “We have something really special to tell you.”

Hazel’s eyes lit up with excitement. She loved surprises and special news, and she quickly climbed onto the couch between her parents, looking up at them expectantly. “What is it?” she asked eagerly, her little hands gripping Tyler’s arm as she bounced slightly in her seat.

Tyler exchanged a glance with Y/N, who nodded slightly, her own excitement mirrored in her eyes. Tyler took a deep breath, his heart pounding with anticipation as he prepared to share the news that would change Hazel’s world.

“Well, Hazel,” Tyler began, his voice soft and full of love, “you know how much we love you, right?”

Hazel nodded vigorously, her curls bouncing. “I know! I love you and Mommy too!” she declared, her face glowing with happiness.

Tyler smiled, his heart melting at her words. “And you know how we’ve always told you that you’re our special little girl?” he continued.

Hazel nodded again, her eyes wide with curiosity. “Uh-huh.”

Y/N leaned in, her hand gently stroking Hazel’s back as she spoke. “Well, Hazel, you’re going to be even more special soon,” she said softly, her voice filled with emotion. “Because you’re going to be a big sister.”

Hazel blinked, her little brow furrowing in confusion as she tried to process the information. “A big sister?” she repeated, her voice full of wonder. “What does that mean?”

Tyler’s heart swelled with love as he saw the mix of emotions on Hazel’s face—curiosity, excitement, and a little bit of uncertainty. He reached out and gently took her small hand in his, his voice gentle as he explained.

“It means that Mommy has a baby growing in her tummy,” Tyler said, watching Hazel closely for her reaction. “And in a few months, that baby is going to come out, and you’ll have a little brother or sister to play with and take care of.”

Hazel’s eyes widened in surprise, her gaze shifting from Tyler to Y/N and then back to Tyler again. “A baby?” she whispered, her voice full of awe. “In Mommy’s tummy?”

Y/N smiled, nodding as she placed Hazel’s hand on her stomach. “That’s right, sweetie,” she said softly. “There’s a baby in here right now, growing and getting ready to meet us.”

Hazel’s little hand rested gently on Y/N’s stomach, her eyes wide with wonder as she tried to comprehend what she was being told. She was silent for a moment, her expression serious as she thought about the idea of being a big sister.

Finally, Hazel looked up at her parents, her eyes shining with a mixture of excitement and curiosity. “Can I see the baby?” she asked eagerly, her voice tinged with the innocent wonder that only a child could have.

Tyler and Y/N exchanged a tender look, both of them smiling at their daughter’s eagerness. “We have pictures of the baby,” Y/N said, reaching for her purse. “Do you want to see them?”

Hazel nodded eagerly, her eyes glued to Y/N as she pulled out the ultrasound pictures. Y/N carefully unfolded the glossy images and handed them to Hazel, who took them with reverence, her little fingers holding the edges as she stared at the black-and-white shapes.

Tyler watched her closely, his heart pounding with emotion as he saw the way Hazel’s face lit up when she saw the tiny baby on the screen. “That’s your little brother or sister,” he said softly, his voice thick with emotion. “Right there in Mommy’s tummy.”

Hazel’s eyes widened even more as she stared at the ultrasound picture, her mouth opening slightly in awe. “That’s the baby?” she whispered, her voice filled with wonder. “That’s really the baby?”

Y/N nodded, her eyes filling with tears as she watched Hazel’s reaction. “Yes, sweetheart,” she said softly. “That’s really the baby.”

Hazel was silent for a long moment, her eyes locked on the ultrasound picture as she absorbed the reality of what she was seeing. Then, slowly, a smile spread across her face—a smile so bright and pure that it made Tyler’s heart ache with love.

“I’m going to be a big sister,” Hazel said softly, almost to herself, as if she was still trying to wrap her mind around the idea. “I’m going to have a baby to take care of.”

Tyler felt his throat tighten with emotion, and he reached out to gently cup Hazel’s cheek, his voice full of love as he spoke. “Yes, you are, Hazel. And you’re going to be the best big sister ever.”

Hazel looked up at him, her eyes shining with a mix of pride and excitement. “I’ll help you and Mommy take care of the baby,” she promised, her voice filled with determination. “I’ll be the best big sister in the whole world!”

Y/N let out a soft laugh, tears spilling over her cheeks as she leaned in to kiss Hazel’s forehead. “I know you will, sweetie,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. “You’re going to be amazing.”

Hazel beamed up at her parents, her face glowing with happiness as she hugged the ultrasound pictures to her chest. “I can’t wait to meet the baby,” she said, her voice full of innocent joy. “I’m going to teach them everything I know!”

Tyler felt his heart swell with pride and love for his little girl, and he pulled her into his arms, holding her close as he kissed the top of her head. “I’m so proud of you, Hazel,” he whispered, his voice breaking with emotion. “You’re going to be the best big sister in the world.”

Hazel snuggled into Tyler’s embrace, her little arms wrapped tightly around his neck as she held onto him with all her might. “I love you, Daddy,” she whispered, her voice filled with all the love she had in her tiny heart. “And I love the baby too.”

Tyler closed his eyes, letting the overwhelming emotion of the moment wash over him as he held his daughter close. “I love you too, Hazel,” he whispered back, his voice thick with tears. “And we all love the baby. So much.”

-

Later that night, after the excitement of the day had finally wound down and Hazel was tucked into bed, Tyler found himself sitting alone in the living room, the house bathed in the soft, dim light of the lamps. Y/N had gone upstairs to check on Hazel one last time, leaving Tyler a few quiet moments to himself.

He leaned back into the couch, his mind swirling with everything that had happened. It had been such a monumental day, filled with so many emotions that he was still trying to process it all. The realization that Hazel was going to be a big sister, the ultrasound, the way their little girl had reacted with such innocent joy—it all felt like a beautiful dream.

Tyler’s eyes fell on the ultrasound pictures sitting on the coffee table in front of him. He reached out, picking them up with gentle fingers, and studied them in the soft light. The tiny, blurry form of their new baby seemed to pulse with life, and as he stared at it, a wave of emotion washed over him.

He felt the weight of it all—the responsibility, the love, the sheer miracle of it. His throat tightened as he thought about how much his life had changed since becoming a father. The overwhelming love he felt for Hazel, and now, the love that was already growing for this new little life. He wasn’t sure how his heart could contain it all, but somehow, it did.

A tear slipped down his cheek, and Tyler didn’t bother to wipe it away. It was a tear of pure, unfiltered emotion—a mixture of joy, awe, and a touch of fear. The same kind of fear he had felt when Y/N had first told him she was pregnant with Hazel. The fear of the unknown, of not being enough, of the challenges that lay ahead. But he knew now, as he had learned over the past three years, that love would always be enough.

He thought about Hazel, her little face lighting up when she realized she was going to be a big sister. The way she had clutched those ultrasound pictures to her chest, already loving the baby she hadn’t even met yet. Tyler’s heart swelled with pride and love for his daughter, who had shown him a kind of love he hadn’t known was possible until she came into his life.

And then there was Y/N. His wife, his partner, his everything. She had been through so much already, and now they were about to embark on this journey again. He knew there would be challenges, moments of exhaustion, moments of doubt—but he also knew that there would be so much joy. So much love.

Tyler let out a shaky breath, closing his eyes as he held the ultrasound picture close to his chest. He whispered into the quiet of the living room, speaking to the baby that was still growing inside Y/N.

“I promise you,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion, “I’ll do everything I can to be the best dad I can be for you. Just like I am for Hazel. I promise I’ll protect you, and love you, and always be there for you. Just like I am for your sister.”

He opened his eyes, staring down at the tiny image of the baby, feeling a tear slip down his cheek. “You’re going to have the best big sister in the world,” he continued softly. “And you have the best mom too. We’re going to be a family, and I’ll do everything I can to make sure you’re safe and happy.”

The sound of soft footsteps caught his attention, and Tyler looked up to see Y/N standing in the doorway, her eyes filled with the same emotion he was feeling. She walked over to him, sitting down next to him on the couch and resting her head on his shoulder.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked softly, her hand resting gently on his arm.

Tyler took a deep breath, his eyes still on the ultrasound picture in his hand. “Just... how lucky we are,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. “How much I love you, and Hazel, and this little one already. It’s overwhelming sometimes.”

Y/N smiled softly, her hand moving to rest on his chest, right over his heart. “We are lucky,” she agreed, her voice full of warmth. “And you’re going to be an amazing dad to both of them, Tyler. I have no doubt about that.”

Tyler turned to look at her, his eyes filled with love and gratitude. He leaned in, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. “I couldn’t do this without you,” he murmured against her skin. “You’re my rock, Y/N. You always have been.”

Y/N’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears as she looked up at him, her smile soft and full of love. “And you’re mine,” she whispered back. “We’re in this together, Tyler. Just like always.”

They sat there in the quiet of the living room, holding each other close as they let the reality of their growing family settle around them. Tyler knew there were challenges ahead—long nights, tired days, moments of doubt—but he also knew that with Y/N by his side, they could face anything.

As he held the ultrasound picture close, Tyler made one more silent promise—to love his family with everything he had, to be the best father he could be, and to cherish every moment of this incredible journey they were on together.

And with Y/N by his side, he knew that promise would be easy to keep.

Requests for Tyler are open be free to send in as much as you wish!

tagging some:

@senawashere

@saviorcomplexrry

@cevansbaby-dove

@saynotononsense

@missdottie

@willowisp7

@taorislover94

@eloquenceinpurple

@86laura11

@rosiahills22

@jessicab1991

@kmc1989

@shanimallina87

@eternalsams

@teen-antisocial

@katiemcrae

[daytaker]

Could you do headcanons with the MC that's constantly napping and sleeping but somehow can keep up with whatever is going on? Just imagine them sleep talking coherent replies in a conversation during a meeting or doing the dishes with their eyes closed and lightly snoring

The Brothers React to Functional Sleeping MC

If it wasn't for Belphie, this would have confused them all a lot more.

Considering Belphegor's constant napping and occasional conversation contributions through sleep-talk, they are much less surprised by this tendency of MC's than the vast majority of people would be. It's just a natural part of life that some people are capable of sleeping and carrying out day to day activities at the same time.

Right?

(Individual brothers below the cut.)

Lucifer finds it annoying, sure, but at least you're slow-moving. What he really fears is the MC whose intense energy shatters any semblance of peace in this house. At the end of the day, though, he's not doing anything for you that he wasn't already doing for Belphie, so it's an inconvenience he can live with.

Mammon can't tell when you're actually asleep. He's convinced that you fake it a lot, since that's something Belphie is known to do when he'd rather not participate in a conversation. So he's always suspicious when you're able to complete tasks and move around while ostensibly asleep. He tries to catch you off guard and prove that you're not really sleeping, but he's never able to do it. Still, he hates that he can never let his own guard down as far as what he says when you're sleeping nearby, since there's a 50/50 chance you'll somehow absorb what he's saying and remember it in your waking life.

Levi thinks it's cute; at least, at first he does. It's a common trope in slice-of-life anime, having super cute sleepy characters. At the same time, it's a little frustrating, because you tend to just nod off whenever he tries to talk to you for any extended length of time, and he isn't going to play the game where he keeps talking just because you might actually be absorbing what he's saying! If you aren't interested enough to stay awake, he'll just stop bothering you! Hmph.

Satan finds it kind of funny, mostly because of how his brothers react to it. Mammon acting suspicious and nervous, Levi getting his feelings hurt, Asmo fawning over you, and Beel carrying you to and from RAD like luggage. He doesn't have a tremendous amount of interest in you, exactly, but you provide some real entertainment, so he appreciates that. Plus, and big shocker here: did you know cats nap a lot? You gain points in his book for this resemblance you bear to nature's most magnificent creatures.

Asmo thinks it's just precious to watch the human sleep at the table, or at their desk, or on the floor in the library, or on the toilet, or at breakfast, or at dinner, or... Mmm, are you okay, sweetie? You need to work on your sleep schedule. If you're having trouble sleeping at night, you should just come visit him! He has all sorts of ideas for how you could wear yourself out at night so you'll be refreshed during the day! :)

Beel is a little thrown off at first, because in some ways it's like Belphie never left. You'll recall that when MC first arrives in the Devildom, the other brothers besides Lucifer think Belphie is in the human world as an exchange student. So Beel wonders if maybe there was some sort of equivalent exchange shenanigans going on. They sent up a sleepy demon, so maybe that meant a sleepy human had to come down? It's very comforting, at any rate. He makes himself your unofficial guardian, carrying you out of situations where it's not safe to just lie down and sleep, or guiding you back inside after you sleepwalk out of the House of Lamentation.

Belphie is convinced he's met his soulmate, and honestly, maybe he's right. I can only imagine that you're mellow as fuck, probably got over any hard feelings from Chapter 16, and you're fast friends with Belphie now. You nap together all the time. Belphie even shares his secret hiding places with you.

Sometimes you and Belphie have full conversations in your sleep, to the amazement and amusement of the other brothers.

MC: Hungry... Go out 'n eat... Belphie: Snnn.... Jus' stay here... Kitchen... MC: Burgers... Belphie: Too cold to walk... MC: Lazy... Belphie: No, you... MC: Wear a hat... Belphie: Fine... MC: ...Hell's Kitchen in twenty... Belphie: Hmm... *Both stand up and sleepwalk to the door.* Mammon: They're not actually asleep, right? MC: *walks directly into a wall, grumbles about traffic, then continues* Mammon: ....Right?

This is the rare MC that I'd pair with Belphie. Normally I'm a little wary about how that would pan out, but if their relationship is built on mutual sleepiness and shared hiding spots to nap, well. Love is love.

[raekensluver]

rekindled bonds (1)

introduction, part one, part two.

description: your first case with the bau team turns out to be more intense than you had anticipated.

pairing: spencer reid x bau agent!fem!reader

contains: talks of typical criminal minds violence (abductions, serial murders, etc.), a little fluff at the end.

song rec: trouble by cage the elephant- "you know what they say, yeah, the wicked get no rest"

w.c: 3.8k

an: let me know if you want to be apart of the taglist for this series! not much reader x spencer (i got carried away, whoops), this is more of a filler chapter i suppose.

the hum of the plane's engines was a soothing white noise that filled the cabin, providing a stark contrast to the caffeine-fueled chatter that had filled the bau office mere hours ago. you looked out the small window, watching the clouds pass by like cotton balls painted onto the vast blue canvas of the sky.

derek morgan, your new colleague, took the seat beside you, his muscular frame fitting surprisingly well into the cramped space. "so, you two go way back, huh?" he asked, nodding towards spencer reid, who was deeply engrossed in a book sitting at a matching table across the aisle from the two of you.

you felt a mix of excitement and nostalgia bubbling up as you turned to face him. "yeah, we were inseparable when we were kids. can you believe it's been over a decade since we last saw each other?"

derek leaned back in his chair, a knowing smile playing on his lips. "small world, huh?" he said. "i can't even keep track of half my college buddies. but you two pick up right where you left off, like no time has passed at all."

you nodded, watching as spencer looked up from his book, catching your eye. a silent understanding passed between you, the kind that comes from years of shared secrets and stolen laughter. "it's like we have a mental shorthand," you said, turning back to derek. "spencer always knew what i was thinking, even before i did."

"sounds like you guys had quite the bond," said, his eyes flicking over to the young genius. "how'd you end up here, with all the brainiacs?"

you chuckled, feeling a sense of pride swell in your chest. "i studied psychology and criminology. got recruited right out of grad school."

derek raised an eyebrow. "impressive. so, what's your specialty?"

"profiling and interrogation techniques, mostly," you replied, trying to keep the nerves out of your voice. it was one thing to know you were capable; it was another to explain it to someone with years of experience under their belt. "i've always had a knack for understanding people, even when they don't want to be understood."

derek's smile grew wider. "you're gonna fit right in here, then." he clapped you on the shoulder before standing up, his tall, muscular frame casting a brief shadow over you. "welcome to the team. we're gonna need all the fresh perspectives we can get on this one."

his words of encouragement sent a jolt of excitement through your veins. "thanks, morgan," you said, as he made his way down the aisle to check in with the rest of the team. you watched him go, feeling a mix of pride and trepidation.

with a deep breath, you opened the case file that had been placed on the table in front of you. the cold, stark reality of the situation settled in your stomach like a rock. the smiling faces of the victims stared back at you from glossy photos, each one a silent plea for justice.

spencer looked up from his book, noticing the shift in your demeanor. "are you okay?" he asked, his voice a gentle inquiry in the buzz of the aircraft.

you nodded, but your eyes remained glued to the case file. "it's just… these people," you murmured, flipping through the pages. "i've studied cases like this before, but now it's real. we're going to be the ones trying to save them."

spencer closed his book and slid it aside, his gaze earnest and understanding. "i know it's tough, but you're not alone. we're all in this together."

you managed a small smile, grateful for his reassurance. "yeah, i know." you paused, taking a moment to gather your thoughts. "but it's just so… heavy."

spencer leaned across the aisle, his brown eyes searching yours. "it's okay to feel that way," he said softly. "this job, it's not easy. it's not supposed to be. but we do it because we can make a difference."

his words hung in the air, resonating with the solemn truth of your new reality. you nodded, swallowing the lump in your throat. "you're right," you murmured, closing the file. "i just need to remember that."

two hours later, the plane touched down in chicago, the bustling city sprawling out beneath you like a patchwork quilt of steel and glass. as the team gathered their belongings and deplaned, you felt the weight of the case settle heavier on your shoulders. the adrenaline of reuniting with spencer had given way to the gravity of the task ahead.

once you arrived at the local precinct, you were ushered into a briefing room that smelled faintly of stale coffee and stress. rows of uniformed officers and detectives filled the space, their eyes scanning the unfamiliar faces of the bau team. spencer took a seat beside you, his hand briefly brushing against yours in a gesture of comfort.

the lead detective, a stern-looking woman with a no-nonsense attitude, began laying out extra details of the case. the victims were all young women, each found in a different part of the city, their bodies slashed in a way that suggested a twisted form of ritual. the mood grew heavier with each detail she shared, the air thick with the weight of unspoken fear and anger.

spencer's fingers tapped a rhythm on the armrest, his eyes distant as he listened intently. you knew that look; he was already piecing together the puzzle, his mind racing with hypotheses and theories. you felt a twinge of envy - his intellect was something you had always admired, but also something that had made you feel a bit like you were playing catch-up.

the briefing ended and the team dispersed to their designated tasks. as you and spencer headed to the local morgue, the stark reality of the case hit you like a cold slap in the face. the smell of antiseptic and the cold, sterile environment were a stark reminder of what was at stake.

the coroner, a middle-aged man with a gentle demeanor, led you to the first body. "this is the earliest victim," he said, pulling back the sheet. "same m.o. as the others." the sight was gruesome, but you steeled yourself, focusing on the details that could provide a clue to the killer's identity.

spencer leaned in, his eyes narrowing as he studied the pattern of the injuries. "the precision of the cuts suggests a certain level of experience or a professional background," he murmured. "possibly medical or military training."

the coroner nodded in agreement, his expression grim. "i noticed that as well. it's almost… surgical in nature."

you tried to keep your stomach from turning as you took in the gruesome sight. the precision of the cuts was unsettling, each one deliberate and calculated. "anything else that stands out to you, reid?"

spencer's eyes flitted over the body, his mind racing. "the lack of defensive wounds suggests that the victims were either taken by surprise or incapacitated before the attack. we should look into any reports of missing persons or unsolved abductions that fit the profile."

his phone buzzed in his pocket, the sound cutting through the heavy silence like a knife. he pulled it out, his heart skipping a beat as he saw the unfamiliar number. "excuse me," he murmured, stepping out of the room to answer.

his voice was tight with tension as he spoke. "reid."

spencer stepped back into the room, his expression a mask of professional calm, though his eyes had a haunted look to them. "we've got another one," he said, his voice low. "another abduction, same m.o."

you felt your stomach drop. "how recent?"

spencer checked his phone again. "less than two hours ago. the unsub is escalating."

you nodded, gritting your teeth. "we need to move fast."

spencer agreed, his eyes flashing with determination. "i'll have garcia run the latest intel through the system, see if we can find any connections or patterns."

you followed him out of the morgue, feeling the urgency of the situation pressing down on you like a physical force. as you made your way back to the precinct, the chilly wind cut through your jacket, a stark reminder of the race against time you were in.

once back at the precinct, spencer wasted no time in telling garcia what he neede from her. he dove into his laptop, his fingers flying over the keyboard as he sifted through the latest data she sent. you could see the gears in his mind turning, piecing together the puzzle of the unsub's behavior. the room was abuzz with activity, phones ringing and officers moving back and forth with new information, but the two of you remained in a bubble of focused concentration.

prentiss, called everyone to attention. "we need to identify the common link between these victims and find a way to predict where the unsub will strike next." her gaze landed on you. "you're our newest addition, what's your take?"

you took a deep breath, feeling the weight of everyone's eyes on you. "the unsub seems to be targeting young women with a certain look, possibly similar to someone he has an obsession with or feels wronged by." you paused, glancing at spencer, who nodded in silent encouragement. "we should look into any recent events that might have triggered this spree - a breakup, job loss, or a significant anniversary."

prentiss nodded thoughtfully. "good point. let's get to work on that."

as the team dispersed to follow up on various leads, you and spencer remained at the board, surrounded by the stark images of the victims and the cold, hard facts of their cases. you felt a sudden pang of doubt, wondering if your theories would hold water in the face of such a cunning and elusive killer.

spencer, sensing your uncertainty, placed a hand on your shoulder. "we're going to catch him," he said, his voice steady and calm. "you just have to trust your instincts."

his confidence bolstered yours, and you nodded, rolling up your sleeves. together, you began to sift through the files, looking for any shred of information that could lead to the unsub's identity. as the hours ticked by, the tension in the room grew palpable. phones rang incessantly, and the murmur of hushed conversations filled the air.

finally, a break came in the form of a frantic call from the local pd. a suspect had been identified, a man named james conrad, with a history of stalking and assault. your heart raced as you and spencer grabbed your gear and followed the rest of the team to the suspect's house, the adrenaline making your senses sharp.

the neighborhood was eerily quiet, the only sounds the occasional rustle of leaves and the distant wail of a siren. the house was a small, nondescript bungalow, the kind that could easily blend into the suburban landscape if not for the squad cars that lined the street in front of it. as you approached, you could see the curtains twitching in the windows, a sign of life inside.

spencer's hand tightened on the grip of his gun as he scanned the area, his eyes missing nothing. "remember, we don't know what we're walking into," he murmured, his voice low and serious. "stay sharp."

you nodded, adrenaline coursing through your veins as you approached the house with the rest of the team. the silence was unnerving, broken only by the crunch of gravel underfoot and the occasional squawk of a distant bird. the house looked like any other on the block, but the knowledge of the horrors that could be occurring inside sent a shiver down your spine.

as the team fanned out, you and spencer took the lead, moving up the cracked concrete path to the front door. prentiss was on the phone with the local swat team, giving the final go-ahead for them to move in. the air was electric with tension, the kind that made your skin prickle and your pulse race.

spencer turned to you, his eyes intense. "we're going in low and fast. we need to find that girl." the gravity of the situation settled on your shoulders like a heavy cloak.

you nodded, feeling the cool metal of your gun pressing against your side. "got it."

with a swift nod from prentiss, the team moved into action. the door was kicked in, and you rushed inside, your senses on high alert. the house was cluttered, the air thick with the smell of stale cigarettes and something else, something that made your stomach turn. you moved quickly, following spencer's lead as he cleared each room with a practiced efficiency that spoke of years on the job.

the living room was a mess, newspapers and fast food containers scattered across the floor. the walls were covered in photos of the victims, their faces cut out and arranged in a disturbing mosaic of obsession. your eyes darted over the scene, searching for any sign of the latest abductee. your heart pounded in your chest, each beat a silent plea for her to be found alive.

spencer paused in the doorway to the kitchen, his gaze flicking to the basement door. "this way," he murmured, his voice tight with focus.

you followed him down the narrow staircase, the creaks echoing through the otherwise silent house. the basement was dimly lit, the air thick with the scent of mold and despair. the walls were lined with shelves filled with books and knick-knacks, a stark contrast to the horrors you knew you might find.

spencer took point, his gun held steady in front of him. the beam of his flashlight bobbed as he moved, casting eerie shadows on the floor. your heart was racing, each step downward feeling like you were descending into the bowels of hell itself.

at the bottom of the stairs, you spotted a faint light coming from a room at the end of the hall. spencer gestured for you to stay put, his eyes never leaving the source of the light. with cat-like grace, he approached the door, listening intently. you could see his chest rising and falling with each shallow breath, his focus absolute.

the seconds stretched out like hours as he reached for the doorknob. then, with a swift turn and a kick, the door flew open. a scream pierced the air, and you rushed in, your heart hammering in your chest.

the room was a twisted reflection of a doctor's office, with a makeshift operating table in the center. the latest victim, a young woman with matted hair and bruised eyes, was strapped down, her clothes torn and bloodied. she saw you and her cries grew louder, filled with hope and terror.

you sprinted to her side, tucking your gun into the waistband of your pants, your training kicking in as you quickly assessed her injuries. "you're safe now," you murmured, trying to soothe her as you worked to free her from the restraints. she flinched at your touch, but her eyes remained locked on yours, searching for the truth in your words.

spencer's voice was firm and steady. "we need to find james," he called over his shoulder. "he could still be in the house."

you nodded, taking a moment to reassure the victim. "help is on the way," you promised, your voice gentle as you worked to free her trembling form. "we're going to get you out of here."

spencer's voice grew more urgent as he called out to the rest of the team. "clear the upper floors and then head down here!" he ordered. "our unsub might still be in the house!"

you stayed with the victim, whispering comforting words as you worked to untie the complex knots that held her down. Her cries grew softer, and she nodded weakly as you assured her that help was on the way.

spencer's footsteps echoed up the stairs, his voice sharp with urgency as he called out to the rest of the team. "clear the upper floors, now! we need to find james before he escapes!" the thunder of boots on the floorboards above sent a shiver through the house, a stark reminder of the danger that still lurked.

you stayed with the victim, her eyes locked on yours as she clung to the promise of safety. you could feel the warmth of her tears on your hand as you continued to work at the knots. "it's okay," you murmured, your voice soothing despite the racing thoughts in your head. "you're going to be okay."

spencer's voice grew distant as he called the others down to join the search. "garcia, run a background check on james conrad. i need to know everything about him, now!" the urgency in his tone was palpable.

you managed to free the victim's last restraint, and she collapsed into your arms, sobbing with relief. "thank you," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "thank you so much."

you held her tightly, feeling the tremors of fear and pain that wracked her body. "just stay with me," you murmured, stroking her hair. "help is coming."

spencer's voice grew more distant as he and the others moved through the house, their footsteps thundering above you. you heard the occasional crash, the sound of breaking glass, and muffled shouts as they searched room by room. the basement remained a cocoon of relative calm, the only sounds the victim's sobs and your own racing heart.

you managed to get her onto her feet, supporting her trembling legs. "we need to get out of here," you whispered. "can you walk?"

she nodded, clutching onto you for dear life as you guided her towards the stairs. every step was a victory over fear, each one bringing her closer to freedom. as you reached the middle of the staircase, you heard a thud from upstairs, followed by a muffled shout. your heart leaped into your throat.

derek's voice, loud and clear, pierced the silence. "got him! he's down!"

relief washed over you as you helped the victim up the stairs, her legs wobbly but determined. the living room was in chaos, with the rest of the team surrounding a figure on the ground. derek had james conrad pinned to the floor, his toned arms holding his wrists tight as he snapped on the handcuffs. james' eyes were wild, a crazed grin stretched across his face as he laughed maniacally.

moments later, the wail of sirens grew louder, and you heard the thunder of footsteps as paramedics and county police officers flooded the house. their arrival brought a sense of order to the chaos, their calm professionalism a stark contrast to the frenetic energy of the past few hours.

you handed the victim over to the medics with a silent prayer, watching as they worked to stabilize her. spencer took you aside, his eyes filled with concern. "are you okay?" he asked, his voice a gentle counterpoint to the cacophony around you.

you nodded, still feeling the tremors of adrenaline coursing through your veins. "yeah," you murmured, your voice shaky. "just… processing."

spencer's eyes searched yours, understanding written in the lines of his face. "you did good," he said, his voice firm and steady. "really good."

you managed a nod, the reality of what had just happened starting to set in. "thanks."

as the house was secured and the suspect was taken away, the team gathered their things, the adrenaline from the operation dissipating into a tired buzz. the sun was setting outside, casting long shadows across the floor. you followed spencer out to the waiting plane, feeling the weight of the day's events settle heavily on your shoulders.

once aboard, the atmosphere was subdued. the usual banter and camaraderie had been replaced by quiet contemplation. the team had faced the grim reality of their job and come out the other side, victorious but haunted.

spencer sat beside you, his eyes still scanning the case file, his mind clearly racing. his hand brushed against yours, a silent comfort that spoke volumes. you studied his profile, the sharp lines of his nose and jaw, the furrow of his brow as he focused on the information before him.

prentiss looked up from her own paperwork, her expression a mix of exhaustion and satisfaction. "good work today, everyone," she said, her voice sharp but sincere. "especially you, agent. you handled yourself well under pressure, especially considering this was your first case." she said acknowledging you.

you felt a flush of pride at her words, but it was quickly followed by a wave of fatigue. the adrenaline was wearing off, leaving you feeling drained and a little overwhelmed. "thank you," you replied, your voice a little shakier than you would have liked.

spencer looked up from his paperwork, his eyes meeting yours with a gentle concern. "how are you holding up?" he asked, his voice low.

you took a deep breath, trying to keep your emotions in check. "i'm okay," you said, the tremor in your voice belying your words. "just… it's a lot to take in."

spencer nodded, his gaze understanding. "it always is," he said softly. "but you did great. you saved her life."

you leaned your head against the cool plane window, watching the lights of chicago fade into the distance as the aircraft climbed into the night sky. the case was over, but the memories of the day lingered like a bad taste in your mouth. the faces of the victims, the smell of the basement, the terror in the young woman's eyes - it all played on a loop in your mind.

spencer noticed your withdrawal and reached over, grabbing your hand firmly in his. his thumb rubbed soothing circles on the back of your hand, the warmth of his touch a stark contrast to the chill that had seeped into your bones. "it's okay to feel this way," he said gently, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the drone of the engines. "it's part of the job."

you looked down at your hand in his, feeling the strength and comfort that flowed through the connection. "i know," you replied, your voice barely above a whisper. "but it's just…"

spencer squeezed your hand gently, his eyes never leaving yours. "it's okay to feel overwhelmed," he said, his voice soothing. "this job… it's not for everyone. but you're here, and you're making a difference."

you took a deep breath, letting his words sink in. the warmth of his hand was grounding, a lifeline in the sea of doubt that threatened to pull you under. "thank you," you whispered, feeling a lump form in your throat.

spencer gave your hand a final squeeze before releasing it, turning back to his paperwork. "just remember, we're in this together," he said, his eyes never leaving the file in front of him. "no matter what happens, we've got each other's backs."

edited 8.26.24

taglist: @yokaimoon

[sashaisready]

This Must Be The Place: Chapter 9 - Say goodnight

Biker!Bucky x Femme Reader

Back at your beloved late grandmother's home to pack up her house, you have a run-in with the town's biker gang 'The Howling Commandos' and find yourself entangled with the metal armed President.

Series Masterlist

Warnings: Some smut…insecurities in reader

I’m back! I’ve been a bit caught up with work and parenting so things have been a little crazy. Hoping I should have more time coming up to dedicate to this! Apologies in advance…this is a little smut/fluff to warm us up before we get into the angst next chapter (I’m sorry) As always, your reblogs and comments mean the world – it’s lovely to see people engaging with his story!

You slugged him hard on the shoulder, something you seemed to be doing a lot lately.

“Really? That’s all you have to say?” you scolded, still slightly breathless.

Annoyed, you tensed up and began pushing against his chest to prise yourself off him. You saw the slight look of fear on his face as he wrapped his arms around you in what was essentially a bear hug – keeping himself inside of you.

“Hey, whoa! It was a joke. I’m sorry…I guess that was all kinda intense and I didn’t really know what to say,” he admitted, looking a little sheepish. “I meant to lighten the mood, not piss you off, believe it or not. That’s the last thing I want, okay?”

You softened a little as he kissed you again. It was true, despite his charm he was often clumsy with his words and misread the room. He didn’t seem to do it on purpose…so you let it go. This time, anyway.

“Alright…fine,” you relented as your muscles relaxed again. “But you don’t always have to…fill the silence, y’know? Sometimes…you can just be”.

He nodded. “I know, I’m trying,” he said gently as he moved a strand of hair from your face. “But look…that was…amazing. Just…wow”.

He laughed and you laughed too. “Wow is much better,” you giggled. “I can work with wow…”

*

The two of you continued to ‘wow’ one another over the upcoming weeks. Your place. His place. Once or twice in the back office at the bar (dangerously close to being caught when Peter knocked that second time…and Bucky angrily told him he was too busy doing the books when actually you were on your knees in front of him…)

His touch was addictive. You didn’t think you’d ever get enough. Even little things like him subtly brushing a finger over your lower back as he passed, or leaning over and pressing himself into you as he went to grab a drink from the bar, seemed to get you going. He knew exactly what he was doing too, shooting you a little wink or smirk each time. He liked to keep you on edge.

Neither of you had raised if you were going to go ‘public’ with your little arrangement. You didn’t want to bring it up, not wanting to appear needy or to want a ‘what are we?’ type conversation. You did tell Wanda and Vis, there were your only real friends here outside of the MC and you didn’t like the idea of lying to them about how you were spending your evenings. They had been surprised, and Wanda had warned you to be careful – she told you Bucky’s reputation was based on two things – whatever sketchy shit he had going on behind the front of his businesses, and the copious amounts of women he landed. Neither of which was a shock to you, but you were grateful for her cautioning.

If you were honest, the secret nature of your relationship with Bucky was welcomed by you. Part of you felt a little self-conscious – like the MC would all think ‘oh, there goes another one…’ or view you differently because of it. Another silly girl getting entangled with Bucky…What else is new? Keeping things quiet meant you wouldn’t embarrass yourself when it unavoidably started to go wrong…

Plus, you didn’t really want to have to deal with any other women who had him on their radar, particularly Amber…

…Who wasn’t really around as much. Her friends still came by the bar, and she did too sometimes. But less and less so. Bucky hadn’t mentioned her, you weren’t sure if he had spoken to her or if she’d just moved on elsewhere. You didn’t think he would’ve brought you up with her, but maybe she sensed he was either pulling away or spending time with another girl.

You’d hoped she had just met a nice guy and had moved on from the MC…but there was a moment one evening where you were pouring a beer at the bar and Bucky had leaned over under the guise of picking up a box at your feet, only to whisper something salacious in your ear as he passed. You’d giggled and grinned, elbowing him away playfully, and as you looked back up you had locked eyes with Amber from across the room. You’d given her a small smile, but she just stared right back. You felt oddly under fire, as if caught out, despite the fact anyone watching the same interaction most likely wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. It was as if Amber was in tune with Bucky in a way the others weren’t, especially when a rival was concerned, and she saw through your bullshit immediately.

You’d barely seen her since that night, but maybe that was for the best. You weren’t interested in beefing with another woman over a man, especially not that woman. And that man…

Aside from Amber, the only other person you wondered who might not be fooled was Steve. He and Bucky were best friends, after all. More like brothers, as Bucky had explained to you. They had grown up together. Steve had been with Bucky through it all, been dutifully by his side when he recovered from losing his arm, ran the MC with him and stuck with him no matter what.

Even if Bucky hadn’t told Steve about you, he seemed to be more aware than some of the others. His stoic silence often was down to him surveying the scene, taking everything in. A mouse couldn’t fart in the bar without Steve knowing about it. He was the eyes and ears of the MC. He had never said anything directly to you, but there had been a few looks he gave you and Bucky that seemed pointed. His sky blue eyes said much more than he did. But maybe you were just projecting…

Thankfully, everyone else was as oblivious as you needed them to be.

Once, as you sat with a few club members to wind down after closing, Bucky had brazenly dragged his hand over your bare thigh under the table. It had been a warm and stuffy night, so you’d done your shift in a pair of denim shorts and a t-shirt. You’d discreetly raised an eyebrow at him, which quickly evolved into an expression of controlled panic as he trailed his finger across your skin before casually unzipping your fly and making his way in, moving past your underwear. You’d bitten your lip to stay quiet as he found your clit and began working you over, all the while chatting away to Bruce like nothing was happening. You tried to bat him away, but he kept coming back, and you soon caught on that people would notice if you tried any harder and made a scene as a result. You quickly understood he was counting on using your embarrassment to silence you.

And, well, damn him - it did feel good…

He didn’t look over at you once as he continued, but his fingers didn’t let up as you began to feel the familiar heat build within. You hated to admit to yourself how much it excited you. You knew how wet you were, how close you were. He knew it too, based on how he began to adjust his pace and pressure. Your entire body tensed as you realised to your horror, that in spite your discomfort, your body was about to betray you and give you a very public orgasm. As the feeling bloomed and the heat swelled, you took a large sip of your water and glanced downwards in an attempt to cover up any potential facial expressions that might give you away. You choked on the mouthful, spitting a little out down your chin as your climax hit, your shoulders shuddering.

“You okay?” Sam asked from across the table as he looked at you with concern.

You nodded bashfully, “Uh, yeah, sorry,” you croaked – still dazed and a little out of it, “Choked on my water”.

“You gotta go easy, doll,” Bucky chimed in smugly as he withdrew his hand and subtly zipped up your shorts.

You glared at him with an expressionless face, but your eyes told him all he needed to know as he defiantly smirked back at you. He then retained eye contact as he appeared to ‘absent-mindedly’ suck on the tip of his finger and pretended to listen to Nat’s conversation with Sam. You managed to suppress a squeak as you felt the warmth rush to your cheeks.

Later, to pay him back for his little stunt, you angrily rode him back at his place and edged him until he was a whiny mess begging for release. Which you gladly gave him (eventually). Then you were even. It wasn’t often you took charge with him, but you knew he enjoyed it when you did. Just as much as he enjoyed when you were the babbling wreck.

That seemed to be a large part of your dynamic, always trying to one-up each other and ‘win’. It was thrilling, exciting. It probably wasn’t healthy…but you didn’t care. This wasn’t serious anyway. It was just fun. Someone to spend the time with in-between sorting through Granny’s boxes and painting her walls. Someone to make you laugh and give you orgasms and kill time with at your bar job. Someone whose initial rule that you didn’t sleepover had lapsed when you both passed out after a particularly vigorous session. Someone whose arms you awoke in the following morning, who didn’t rag on you for sleeping over but instead kissed your crown and didn’t speak. Someone who laid with you and held you so tenderly that it silenced you, famously a smart mouth, you, too. Someone who you began to sleep with most nights, even when you weren’t working. Whose absence you felt when he wasn’t there, someone who you realised you slept better with alongside. Dreamless, deep sleep that actually felt restorative and restful and allowed you to wake feeling refreshed and ready for the day. Someone who in the early light of day would smile sleepily at you and kiss you, morning breath be damned, and pull you into him like you hadn’t just been sleeping in his arms for all those hours before.

Someone not serious.

Another time, late one night, he took you out on his bike. The feeling of the wind in your hair, the exhilaration of the speed, the warmth of his leather as you wrapped your arms around his waist…it helped you to understand why Bucky loved all of this so much. There was something very freeing about rocketing down the roads at top speeds, not shrouded in a box as you were in a car, just out in the air – free and uninhibited.

He drove you both to a hillside on the edge of town where you could see everything below. You’d sat on the grassy verge together and silently watched the lights of the buildings beneath you, thinking about all those people in their homes…going about their lives. Were they happy? Is this what they imagined their life would be?

Is this how you’d imagined yours?

Maybe.

He moved his hand over your own and kept it there, not speaking. You didn’t really need to speak when it came to Bucky. You did talk, sometimes late into the night – about your past, your passions, your disappointments and fears. He was easy to talk to, he didn’t always say the right thing but he listened intently. He remembered details and brought them up later. Being with him was just…easy. In silence or in noise.

You both sat there, hand in hand, time lost as you watched the lights below and the stars above. One by one the houses would go dark, the residents retiring to their beds as their home slept along with them. Unknowingly watched over by the two of you as you continued your silent observation. You could see Granny’s home in the distance, the porch lights on for your ease when you got home later. You wondered if Granny had ever been up here, if she’d seen her home the way you saw it now.

Bucky turned to you and smiled, leaning in and kissing you softly. Taking his time as his nose brushed against yours and the strands of his hair slipped out from behind his ears. If you’d dropped dead at that second, you knew you would be at peace.

Your stomach curled as you realised what this all meant. The inevitable fact you’d been hiding from yourself for some time.

You were in love with Bucky Barnes.

[iseedeadpeople47]

Something In Common -

Pt. 2

Pairing- Klaus Hargreeves x Fem!Reader

Summary- In which a girl breaks into an abandoned house, only to find it very much not abandoned.

Warnings- none yet

Author- Who sent you back in time? It must’ve been five, right? I hope you enjoy part 2, I’m hoping to write a new chapter every day.

“Okay look,” I walked over to my bag, picking it up and shoving the newspaper back inside “It’s been a long night. I’m exhausted and whatever ploy you're using to recruit me into your cult isn’t going to work. If he’s not here then I don’t need anything else from you.” Every emotion I felt from the moment I was handed the flier threatened to spill over. It was foolish to let myself hope. Before they could see the tears starting to form, I started making my way to the door. I didn’t even make it two steps before the boy in the jacket jumped in front of me. “No wait please, he’s not lying for once. I’m dead, I can prove it” We stood facing each other, it was clear he didn’t plan on how he would ‘prove it’. Then, he took a step forward. Then another. Finally, when he was just inches from me he took a final large step, right through me. My already cold body was hit with an unnatural chill. When I turned around, I could still see him but something was different. I could see through him, and his body had a very soft glow. I turned to Klaus to see his reaction, but rather than my own shock, he just looked tired. “How can you see him?” Klaus started to make his way over to us, stretching his arms above his head. “Oh well, I was always Ben’s favorite brother, so when he died he decided to just follow me around.” At this Ben scoffed, “Actually, this” he turned to Klaus “ASS decided to summon me and now I’m stuck watching him destroy his life.” As they argued, I thought back to the academy. “Number six” I muttered. Ben turned his attention back to me “I was, and Klaus was number 4. Not that it matters anymore, the academy doesn’t exist.” Klaus walked over to the fire “Yeah well, I’d say it hasn’t existed in a long time.” I wasn’t expecting that, the academy seemed untouchable. All of them were real-life superheroes, loved by the world. I walked over towards the fire, but before I could ask what he meant Klaus turned to me. With furrowed brows he pointed at me “You said Five sent you here” Ben sat on the couch, staring at me. Klaus glanced at Ben, then continued “But, he can’t just toss someone back in time.” Confused by the change in topic, I replied “He did it to you.” This time it was Ben who spoke up “No, we had to be connected to him to jump.” I turned around “Oh yeah, then why isn’t he here?” Klaus joined Ben on the couch with a loud sigh, “Oh well, isn’t that that big mystery? That old man messed up the jump and now I’m probably the only one left.” Ben glared. “Sorry, we’re probably the only ones left. Point being, time travel is messy and he would’ve needed to be with you to take the leap.” I turned back to the fire, staring at the dancing flames. None of this makes sense, if he didn’t do it then how did I get here? Klaus stood, “Look, we’re not going to solve all of life’s mysteries in the middle of the night.” He motioned for me to follow, so cautiously I did with Ben close behind. As we made our way through the house, I took note of where everything was. A kitchen, another large empty room with covered paintings with a strange hanging chair, a giant bathroom with beautiful tile, and finally we stopped in front of a door. He shoved the door, only opening after he used his whole weight to ram it. Inside was a spacious bedroom with a large king-size bed. The walls were covered in dusty books and two large windows facing the backyard. Connected to the bedroom was, I assumed, a bathroom. “I’m going back to bed,” Klaus motioned to the room “You can sleep here. Feel free to use whatever you want. The owner isn’t currently using it because, well, she’s dead.” He turned to walk out of the room and shut the door with a final “goooood night”. Leaving just Ben and I looking at each other. He finally spoke awkwardly “If you need anything, just yell. Or if you just need someone to talk to, uh, also yell I guess” With that, he turned and walked straight through the closed door. I was left alone, the only sound being the soft rain. With a shiver, I decided to settle in.

It’s strange staying in someone else’s home, but I guess it’s better having permission rather than what I was originally going to do. Opening the other door I found I was correct assuming it was a bathroom. The walls were a bright pink, and the tile an assortment of blue and white. Looking at myself in the large mirror, I cringed. My hair had been soaked and now dried into messy knots. My clothes were also still wet, even under my raincoat. Searching through the woman’s wardrobe, I pulled out a pajama set. With a silent thanks to her, I managed to dry myself and get into the new clothes. My soaked clothes hung to hopefully dry through the night. As I layed in the large bed, I found myself unable to fall asleep. Exhausted as I was, I couldn’t stop thinking about the day I was sent back in time. As I drifted off my mind kept replaying the moment I met Five.

Klaus made his way back to his room, Ben eventually catching up to him. “She can see me Klaus” He jumped on his bed immediately curling into his blanket. “Oh yeah, I didn’t notice” As Klaus started to close his eyes Ben excitedly moved closer, “KLAUS she can SEE me, do you know what that means?” With this Klaus opened one eye “What? That you can spend your time bothering someone else for once?” If Ben was still speaking, Klaus didn’t hear it. His mind was already drifting back to sleep, his last thought being the girl across the hall.

What was supposed to be a simple “thank you for letting me sleep in your creepy house” breakfast turned into a much larger task. I had awoken early, still tired from whatever nightmare had made my sleep restless. My clothes were still damp, but looking out the window at the clear sunrise I knew they would dry quickly. After tidying my hair, I made my way down the hall to the kitchen. I began searching for breakfast ingredients only to find boxes of leftover diner food. Determined, I drove to the local market to find what I needed and made my way back. Setting the grocery bag on the counter, I began to heat a pan. Turning to retrieve the eggs, I jumped realizing Ben was staring at me from the doorway. “Oh no, I’m sorry” he made his way over. Ben was definitely the sweeter of the two, and clearly not used to interacting with others. “It’s okay it’s not you, I think I’m just a little on edge this morning” I smiled and continued cooking. “I heard you leave, I didn’t think you’d come back.” At this I paused, hearing the hurt in his voice. “I’m not disappearing yet, your brother still has some questions he needs to answer. Honestly, after seeing the kitchen, I’m afraid if I leave now he won’t survive long.” Ben laughed, finally settling into a chair.

When he looked to the door, I followed his gaze, finding Klaus looking at me. He startled, like he didn’t realize he was staring and quickly turned his attention to Ben. “A party in my own home and I wasn’t invited?” Klaus said, pretending to sound wounded. Ben looked agitated, “This isn’t your home Klaus”. I walked over to where Klaus now sits, setting a plate in front of him. “Yeah, the owner is that guy in the painting with an awful beard.” I said walking back to make my own plate. I could barely hear Klaus over Ben’s laughter, “It was very era appropriate,” dramatically swiping his hair away from his face “all of my followers loved it.” Taking a bite I replied “Followers? You mean your cult?” Whining now Klaus turned “its not a cult it’s a gathering of spiritual people” He seemed so serious it was hard not to laugh. Every sentence out of his mouth is like a performance. “I saw the flier, call it what you want but when historians look back they’ll call it a cult.” Klaus waved his hands, dismissing me entirely. “Is that how you found him?” Ben questioned “Oh, yeah, when I went to the market there was a man outside preaching. I usually try to get past them quickly but he managed to stop me. Took the flier so he’d leave me alone but the name caught my attention. I looked you up in an address book and left the same night.” Klaus got up to wash his plate “people say before the internet everyone was so anonymous” Ben got up too, grabbing my now empty plate and giving it to Klaus. “Yeah normal people are, but you decided to make yourself into a saint.” Klaus took the dirty plate annoyed and began washing. Ben continued, now walking back to me “How long have you been stuck here?” This caught me off guard. The unwelcomed memory of my first day here flooded my mind. A young child desperately trying to understand where she was, where her friends had gone. “14 years.” At this Klaus dropped the plate in the sink, cursing as it broke. “14 years?” Ben repeated like it was the most unbelievable thing he had ever heard. “I showed you the newspaper from when I jumped, it had the date on it”. Klaus was trying to gather the broken shards of ceramic ��yeah well I guess I didn’t do the math”. I could feel my frustration bubbling up again. “Your brother sent me here 14 years ago. He sent a child to the past alone, probably because his daddy ordered him to.” Klaus sighed, abandoning the broken plate back into the sink “We told you he couldn’t do it, and why would Reggie even want to send some random girl to the 50s?” I didn’t reply, because I didn’t know. It was the same question that haunted me every day. Why? Ben pulled out a chair at the table, motioning for me to sit. I did and Klaus followed. “Start from the beginning, before you met Five” Ben said.

I couldn’t look at either of them, embarrassed that I couldn’t pull myself together. After a moment, I gathered my thoughts. Still not looking at them, I began “I admired the Umbrella Academy when I was little. I mean who didn’t? A group of superhuman children, getting to be real life superheroes? I got so lost in the fantasy of it all, collecting every article or story written about them, well, you. We weren’t allowed personal items at Saint Mary’s so I had to hide everything I collected. I found an interview Reginald had given in the Times, in it he told the story of how he found all of you.” Klaus interrupted “Ah yes, the 7 women all magically giving birth to children on the same day. But plot twist,” he gasped “they didn’t start the day pregnant” Klaus covered his mouth in a fake surprise “Shut up Klaus” Ben glared. “Yeah that story,” I continued, fighting a smile, “all born on October 1, 1998. When I saw that I got so fixated in thinking Reginald had made a mistake. I thought, you know, I was born that same day but both of my parents died. What if that’s why he didn’t know about me?” Both Klaus and Ben glanced at each other, like they were having a silent conversation. Still, I went on, “I thought, if I could get his attention he’d let me join the academy. I didn’t have any powers but I was convinced he would help me. It was dumb, I know.” “You were 12” Ben quietly interrupted. “Yeah well it turns out I was wrong, instead of letting me join the team he called me worthless and kicked me to the curb.” Ben’s face lit up with recognition, “Wait I remember that, that was you? All of us were shocked. We knew he was cruel, but the things he said to you… and shoving a little girl into the street.” Klaus looked deep in thought then spoke “yeah I can’t say I remember that” he sighed “I was always extra high on our birthday” Ben shut his eyes for a moment, turning to glare at Klaus. “Anyways,” Ben continued “Five was upset, the rest of us were too scared to help but he never cared. Jumped past dad to help you up.” I never thought the others had noticed. In the moment it felt like everyone was pointing and laughing at me, like some twisted nightmare. The moment of me taking Fives had played in my memory, something had been off about it. Gathering my thoughts, I finished, “That was it, all of you went back into the academy and the crowds left. I started to walk back to Saint Mary’s but only made it a block before I jumped. It felt like a weird storm, bright lights and then I was here.” I looked up, gauging their reactions. Ben looked concerned but Klaus looked like he was zoning out. I honestly thought he hadn’t heard most of my story, until he suddenly turned to me. “What if it was you?” Then silence. “What?” Ben and I both said in unison. “Well, call me insane,” he held up both palms in defense “but what if you jumped yourself.” You know what, I’m starting to think he is crazy. “Klaus, I don’t have powers” I said, slowly losing patience. “Yes, yes you said that. But you can see this guy” he pointed towards Ben “and you said it yourself, you were born the same day as us.” Ben thought for a moment, “that doesn’t mean anything Klaus, thousands of people give birth every day.” “Exactly, and it’s not like I’ve seen other dead people.” Klaus turned to me, a look in his eyes I can’t decipher. The sudden attention caught me off guard, I could feel my face warming. “You met Five, then you jumped back in time. You met me, and suddenly you can see the dead.” The energy of the room shifted, Klaus and Ben were talking but I couldn’t hear them. My mind filled with a buzzing, my vision losing focus. The only thought that broke through was, I need to get out of here.

[strawberryfairi]

Synopsis🌹: After discovering a strange yet alluring red book in a boutique bookstore, you find yourself sucked into a strange world, where all of your inner most desires exist…

Pairings: Wakasa Imaushi X Musician! Black Fem 🤎 Reader (ANYONE CAN READ🧚🏾‍♀️) Content: Author AU, scifi, Musician! reader, reader is a talented nerd, smutty (slow burn) romance, tiny doses of angst, adventure, futuristic city, magic?, !!sexual tension!!, etc (just find out the rest, lol)

w.c: 3.4k💠 Released: October 5

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A/N🧚🏾‍♀️: I think this might actually be my favorite chapter I've written so far. I had so much fun writing this part!!

C.W:  None

Tags: @nixalozt

↳ (Let me know via inbox or the comment section if you would also like to be tagged here for this story🩵)

𝟐 || 𝐀𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲

(Alternate Reality/First Meeting Theme: Rise From the Ruins - Lost Traveler)

Your eyes snap open, and your heart pounds as a wave of disorientation washes over you. Bright neon lights assault your vision, and you instinctively squint, shielding your face with an arm. You're on your feet, standing in the middle of a sidewalk, but this is no area you recognize. The sounds, the smells, the very air around you—it's all wrong.

Around you, towering skyscrapers reach high into the sky, their surfaces beaming with neon lights and shifting holographic ads. The streets are crowded with people—some with brightly colored hair, others with cybernetic enhancements replacing limbs, eyes, even parts of their faces. Hovering cars zip by overhead, leaving behind jet trails of blue fire where their tires should be, and a low hum of machinery fills the air, blending with the pulse of strange music emanating from hidden sources all around.

Your mouth goes desert dry as you quickly realize you have no idea how you got here. It's like a dream, in the way that they just simply begin directly in the middle of a particular scene. No context, no frame of reference, just there.

"Where am I?" You whisper to yourself, taking a cautious step forward.

People move past you without so much as a side glance, their faces illuminated by the neon lights that flicker from every direction. Your heart races as you try to process the chaos around you, but everything is too much. Every sound, every flash of light, it makes your head spin.

Okay okay, think.You force yourself to take a deep breath, closing your eyes for a moment to try and center yourself. You're dreaming. That has to be it. This can't be real. It's just one of those dreams where your mind knows you're in one. A lucid dream, that's it. You've never had a lucid dream before, so it's probably natural your'e freaking out like this.

But when you open your eyes, the world is still there. As real as the ground beneath your feet. And that's when you hear it.

"Unidentified citizen detected."  A cold, mechanical voice announces from behind you.

You turn around abruptly, pulse quickening, and your eyes lock onto a mind boggling scene. A...midsized robot. It's floating off of the ground eye level with you, painted white and navy blue, with a neon red holographic badge that shines above its "chest". The whir of its internal engines barely audible above the noise of the street.

"Please present identification," It states, its robotic voice creepily polite.

Your breath catches in your throat. "Identification? I-I don't—..." You stumble back, mind racing. Identification? What kind of identification? What am I supposed to do?! Your hands instinctively go to the mini purse hanging from your shoulder, but of course, you had nothing. Nothing but a lipstick and lip liner in there. No wallet, no ID, nothing that made sense in this strange, futuristic place.

"Uhhh, I don't have anything," You stammer, panic rising in your chest. "I don't know how I got here, but I need—"

"Failure to present identification will result in detainment." The robot interrupts, its glowing red eyes making you anxious as it hovers closer.

Your heart pounds in your chest. You can feel the eyes of passerby's on you now, the slight glances, and low murmurs. They all seem to know exactly what's happening, but no one's bothering step in and actually help. You're on your own here...

So, you do the only thing you can think to do in this situation: run.

Without another thought, you take off bolting, weaving through people as fast as you can. Your breaths start to become uneven pants, your heels making your feet sting with every hard step.

From behind, you can hear the sound of the robot tailing you, "Halt! Unidentified citizen!"

Yeah, I think the hell not, you think to yourself, dodging a flying car that nearly grazes you as it zooms by. Your lungs begin to burn as you push yourself harder, but you still have no idea where you're actually going. Every street looks the same—slathered in neon lights, holographics, and cluttered with unfamiliar, strange faces. Your mind races, desperate for a solution, but nothing makes sense.

Suddenly, a figure emerges on what looks like a motorcycle from one of the alleys to your left, just a bit ahead of you. They pause at the opening of the sidewalk, where the alleyway leads to the main road. Directly in your way.

You let out a small yelp as you clumsily skid to a stop, but end up just crashing right into the person. Reflexively their arm grabs you, catching you by your waist before you can really hurt yourself. You hang there, thrown over his arm.

"Need a hand, sweetheart?" His voice is low, teasing as if the entire situation is amusing to him.

You stare up at him wide eyed and panting. But then, as your eyes meet his, you feel your breath hitch.

The man holding onto you is...impossibly beautiful. His shoulder-length hair is pulled back in a loose half-up, half-down style, the top half dyed a striking shade of purple, while the lower strands gleam blonde in the city's neon glow. His striking lavender-colored eyes are framed by long, dark lashes that gaze down at you with a half-lidded, cool—almost sultry intensity.

Your eyes drift over to the earring dangling from his left ear, catching the light as it sways gently. And damn, he's got tattoos too. They're roses, with pretty intricate designs crawling up both arms and disappearing beneath his shirt, then peeking out around his low collar, hinting at even more ink across his chest.

For a brief moment, you actually forget where you are and your current situation, your mind completely consumed by the strong magnetic pull of this man. You stutter an incoherent sentence, thoughts a jumbled mess while your eyes continue to roam over him, caught in the intensity of the moment. But the distant mechanical whir of the cyber police snaps you back to reality.

"I—I'm being chased! There's a robot—"

"I can see that." He says casually, glancing back where you had been running. The robot is closing in fast, its red eyes glowing brighter as it hones in on you. "Looks like you got yourself in a little trouble."

"A little?!" Your voice cracks with desperation. Ok, he's gorgeous but you don't have time for his chill, cool boy attitude. You need more urgency. "I gotta get up outta here!"

He grins. "I can help you with that." Without another word, he sets you down over his lap, an embarrassing position. His grip is firm but not painful, and his leg raises from the ground to the bike as he starts to rev the engine.

"Wait wait, hold on! I can't—I don't do bikes!" You cry out, shaking your head frantically. Quickly your hands struggle to reach down to the hem of your short, silver dress, trying to pull it down enough to where you don't flash both him and anyone else coming by.

"You don't have a choice." He says before the bike shoots forward past the robot officer. The roar of the engine drowns out the high pitched scream you let out.

The chase begins.

The city is a blur around you, neon signs, holographs, and towering buildings fly by as the motorcycle rockets through the busy streets. You grip tightly on the man's shirt, heart pounding in your chest as a mix of fear, and admittedly, excitement courses through your veins. You can hear the mechanical sounding police sirens of the cyber cops from behind, but this man doesn't seem even a little bit concerned.

He weaves effortlessly through traffic, cutting sharp corners down narrow alleyways. It's like he's used to this, like he's done this plenty of times before. You have never felt such a rush before—the danger, the thrill, the stranger you're currently clinging to with no idea where he's headed.

The robotic voice of the cyber police bots echoes behind you again. "Unidentified citizen, halt immediately. You are in violation of city law 375-B. Submit for processing."

You look behind you, letting out a deep gasp as you spot not just the one, but six other cyber-police bots dashing after you two, their red lights flashing ominously in the night. "We're gonna get caught!" You holler anxiously.

The man scoffs out a laugh, his voice steady and unbothered. "We're fine."

He revs the engine again, picking up speed as he tears down the street, dodging past hover-cars and otherworldly pedestrians who barely have enough time to jump out of the way. You feel your heart pounding wildly in your ears as he jets down a long, open road that starts to lead out of the heart of the city.

The cyber cops, however, are relentless. They summon for reinforcements, and more drones whir loudly from above, scanning the streets below for the both of you with beaming night suns. (Night sun: High intensity search light).

Just then, the commanding voices of the cyber police bots change its targeted focus, speaking in creepily perfect unison, "Citizen 0843-77, you are wanted for multiple offenses. Including illegal racing, tampering with city surveillance systems, and evading arrest. Pull over immediately!"

"What?!" Your eyes widen, jaw nearly hitting the floor. First of all, not only did they just put his business on straight blast with his citizen number, but they even went and aired out a whole entire list of criminal offenses! That's why he's so unbothered! And that's why he's zooming through these streets like he's used to running from cops!

The man chuckles, the kind of reckless laughter that makes your heart skip a beat. "What, you think you're the only one who's good at gettin' into trouble?"

Despite the seriousness of the situation, your body can't help the surging rush of adrenaline—and honestly attraction—that came with his carefree attitude. It's like he thrives on chaos. And now, crazily enough, it's starting to rub off on you.

You let out a loud "Oh shit!" as he turns around a tight corner, the bike tipping dangerously close to the ground before he righted it again, speeding down a dimly lit alley. Your stomach flips as the narrow walls flew by your face in a colorful blur.

You look out again. The cyber cops are still chasing behind, but their movements have slowed. Then, they hesitate at the edge of the city, their glowing red eyes flickering as if unsure how to proceed. The night suns, after a couple of seconds, turn off as well, and it feels strangely symbolic of a battle victory.

"They stopped following us." You breathe out in disbelief.

The man nods, finally easing off the throttle as the city lights fade into the distance behind you. "They can't follow us out here. 'S outside their jurisdiction."

After what feels like an eternity, the bike slows, and he comes to a stop at the edge of a long-abandoned overpass. The once-bustling infrastructure now crumbling and overtaken by unfamiliar nature. The neon glow of the city still lit the sky behind you, casting an eerie light over the desolate area. All kinds of plants crawl up the sides of ruined buildings, and what's left of the streets are eerily silent. Dead.

Your heart is still racing as he turns the vehicle off, and you stumble off the bike, legs visibly shaking.

You turn towards the man, who's already chilled out leaning against his bike, watching you with that same unserious grin. "You okay?" He asks as he holds back a chuckle, amusement dancing in his eyes.

You narrow your eyes at him, chest heaving. "It's not funny; hell no I'm not ok! I have no idea where the hell I'm at, or how I got here, and we were just chased by a bunch of freakin' robots like it's the damn apocalypse! And who even are you?! Are you, like, deadass a criminal?!"

Finally, he chuckles, running a hand through his wind tousled hair. "A thanks would'a been nice. I'm Wakasa. By the city's standards I'm definitely a criminal, and as for where you are...well, that's a little more complicated."

You cross your arms, narrowing your eyes at him. "What do you mean complicated?"

Wakasa shrugs with a grin. "You're in Neon City, sweetheart. It's a small planet in galaxy KE-411. Not exactly your usual vacation spot, I'm guessing."

You stared at him, jaw dropped and mind reeling. "A pla-...it's a what?! This city is a whole planet?!"

"Yep." He popped the 'p' with a smirk. "All this is Neon City." He says, gesturing around lazily with a hand.

You let out a disbelieving laugh, hands shaking as you rub them along your temples. "Hell no. No no no, that—this can't be real. I gotta be dreaming! I'm dreaming for sure, you're-...you're not real—"

"Trust me Doll, I'm very real." He muses. "But hey, look on the bright side. You're here now. Might as well enjoy it." He adds with an infuriatingly nonchalant shrug.

"Enjoy it?!" You gape at him. "I'm a fugitive on a whole 'nother freaking planet! The only thing I'm trynna enjoy is me getting the hell up outta here!"

"Hey, suit yourself." He raises his hands in surrender, pushing off of his bike and swinging one leg over it, "Good luck gettin' home."

"Wait!" You call out instantly. "W-Where're you going?! You just gon' leave me out here?!" You scrunch your face up in appall.

"Thought you said you don't do bikes?" He raises a brow teasingly. Your cheeks heat up in embarrassment.

"Well...I'm willing to do bikes if it means I'm not alone." You reply sheepishly.

"Come on." He nods his head towards the bike. Your face lights up with relief, quickly scurrying over and hopping on the black motorcycle behind him.

"You know, you still haven't told me your name yet."  He says, just as he starts the engine of his bike. 

"Oh yeah, you're right. My mind's all over the place, sorry. I'm Y/N." You ramble, shaking your head at yourself.

He repeats your name, nodding a little before he says, "That was kind'a a cool way to meet, huh?" 

You think it over for a second, replaying the extremely hectic, action-packed way in which the two of you happened to meet each other just a bit ago. "Yeah, I-..I guess that was kinda cool." You shrug, chuckling lightly. 

The motorcycle slows to a stop once again, and you look around at the deserted area in mild confusion.

"We're here," He announces, cutting the engine.

You blink, still a little disoriented. "Here...?"

It's like a field of nothingness out here. There's small patches of grass scattered all around, but other than that it's just debris from old buildings, roads, and such.

Wakasa smirks as he gets off the bike, holding out a hand to help you down. "This is the underground. No one'll find you out here—not the drones, or the city officials. We're completely off the grid."

You hesitate for a moment before taking his hand, your fingers still trembling from the adrenaline of the night, stepping off of the bike and looking around once more at the ghostly surroundings.

Wakasa guides you over to what looks like a run-down bunker, hidden from view by the tall, overgrown greenery. A single, faintly glowing neon red sign hangs above the heavy, rusted door: "The Underground".

You swallow hard, mind racing. You had been running on sheer panic this whole time, but now...now there's a strange allure to all the danger, the unpredictability of this place. The neon city had felt overwhelming and suffocating, but here in the shadows—or the underground rather—everything feels raw. Real.

Wakasa leads you to the door and knocks in a rhythmic pattern—three short knocks, a pause, then two more. A small, mechanical green eye slides open above the door, scanning them both before letting out a low whir. The door creaks open, and the two of you step inside.

The interior of The Underground is nothing like you could have ever imagined. The nightclub is dark, save for the faint glow of scattered, mismatched neon lights, casting all kinds of shadows across the cavernous space. A low, synthetic beat murmurs from deep within the walls, vibrating through the floor beneath your feet. Smoke hangs in the air, swirling lazily like fog as the dim lights catch it in neon pinks and purples, and greens. The room has an ethereal quality, like something out of a dream.

The bodies packed tightly on the dance floor move together as if they share some kind of secret knowledge you'll never know. Lost in the foreign music and flashing lights. Everyone looks so confident, so sure of themselves, and here you are—spending the whole night... just shook, for lack of better words. You find yourself oddly fascinated.

Everything about this place—from the gritty, broken-down aesthetic outside to the futuristic, slight boho-meets-retro feel of the inside, to the people who seem to fully embody the space, calls to you. It's the complete opposite of everything you've ever known. But instead of feeling lost, left out, or even intimidated, you rather feel...invited.

Wakasa smirks down at you, noticing your awestruck reaction. "A little different from your usual night out, huh?"

You scoff out a laugh, "Very different."

"Come on." He says, leading you further into the club with a hand on your lower back. "Let's grab a drink. The more relaxed you are, the better."

You approach the bar—a long, marble-like counter, behind which stood a half human male bartender with mechanical arms and glowing lime green eyes. Wakasa calmly orders you both drinks as you blatantly stare from the bartender to the other "people" in the vicinity. For some of them, it's hard to tell wether they're actually human, half human, or just a straight up robot.

For other's, like the bartender, it's obvious. The people here didn't really match the look of Neon City's citizens. They're edgy, harder, rebel-like people who maybe don't actually belong to the city above ground. And yet, they have this je ne sais quoi about them, a quiet confidence that draws you in like a moth to a flame.

Wakasa smirks as the bartender comes back and sets two glowing drinks before you two, giving him a short "Thanks". The liquid inside shimmers a bright, electric blue, casting a faint glow that dances across the metal bar.

"This one's for you," He says, pushing the glass toward you. "'S called Bliss."

You raise an eyebrow, eyeing the drink with both curiosity and hesitation. "Bliss?"

"Yeah," Wakasa nods, amusement flickering in his eyes. "It's...well, let's just say it makes things more simple."

When your drinks arrived, you can't help furrowing your brows at the glass, your gaze scrutinizing as you swish it around. "Ok, but like...what is it? Why is it glowing?" You ask skeptically.

"Just try it. It's good; goes down real easy. Promise." He assures cooly.

You immediately note the way he deliberately did not answer the actual question, being what the drink is. You watch him take a long sip of his own, waiting for any crazy reactions. Yet it never comes.

If this were any other situation, you wouldn't dare take a drink from a man you didn't know, but this entire situation is different, technically. The memories of this wild evening flicker through your mind as you continue to slowly swirl the blue liquid around in the glass.

Wether you remember exactly how you got here or not, you're here now, and maybe this really is exactly what you need. A nice break from the constant, monotonous grind of working on music and slaving away at your officially finished record label internship.

From the endless rejection emails, the constant cycle of disappointment after someone you put your trust in fails you, from the pressure you constantly put on yourself. This nightclub, this scene—it's so far removed from your world. Removed from your cramped bedroom that you've made into your home studio, electric keyboards taking up way too much space, notes app filled with unfinished lyrics, and neighbors arguments picking up through your studio quality mic you saved two and a half months just to afford.

So, fuck it. You allow the glow of the blue liquid to lure you into temptation.

Hesitating for only a moment, you take a tiny little sip, bracing yourself for some kind of strong burn or sour taste. But that proves to be for nothing. The drink is cool and sweet—floral almost, and it sends a sensual shiver down your spine. Warmth blooms in your chest, spreading outwards like liquid sunshine. Instantly you feel your nerves begin to relax, your racing thoughts slowing down as the pulse of the club's music seeps into your bones.

You feel good. Really, really good.

[posallys]

okay so i'm in the process of rereading pjo and i just got to botl and i want to talk about my girl annabeth. i feel like a good majority of the fandom mischaracterization of annabeth comes from botl, specifically because she was rude to rachel throughout the book, and then everyone just assumed that because she wasn't nice to rachel she must be a bitch inherently, on top of being this fucking emotionless shell of a person, which is wild to me because i don't know how her being rude to one (1) girl automatically discredits everything she's done in the past three books. i feel like it stems from a complete misunderstanding of why she was rude to rachel. let's make this clear: she wasn't rude to rachel because rachel was a potential love interest; she was rude to rachel because she was scared.

everyone she's ever loved has been taken from her in some way: her mom being absent because she's a goddess and not really wanting anything to do with annabeth; her feeling like her dad and stepmom didn't want her around (losing her real family); thalia, her found sister, sacrificing her life to save annabeth, and then leaving her again to join the hunters; luke betraying the camp, but more importantly betraying annabeth on a much deeper level because he was her only family. he promised her that he would be there for her, no matter what, and then he leaves her, just like everyone else. even grover left her, in a way, because he went out to search for pan and wasn't around. the only close person who hasn't left her at the point of botl? percy.

but she knows about the prophecy at that point, so she's spent the better part of three years resigning herself to the fact that her best friend is going to die when he turns sixteen and there's absolutely nothing she can do to stop that. she's spent the better part of three years trying not to fall in love with him because it would only hurt worse when the time comes. if i had to bet on it, the reason she was thinking about joining the hunters in ttc is because if she isn't around him (and also can't because she's a hunter), she won't become more attached to him than she already is. if she separated herself from him, it would hurt less. except here's the thing: by that point, she couldn't make herself do that. she couldn't make herself willingly give up percy yet, because it might not have been him. if i had to guess, when thalia came back, annabeth stopped worrying about percy dying---just for a little while---because she thought that thalia was going to be the child of the prophecy after all. so when thalia became a hunter, she was mentally prepared to lose thalia again. but that means that every fear she had about percy being the prophecy kid before thalia came back to life resurfaced full force, and now suddenly annabeth has a year and a half left with him when she thought that she might have longer. so despite the thought of her joining the hunters to prevent herself from getting too attached, she hadn't metnally come to the point where she was ready to give up the small hope that he would live.

which bring us now to botl. like i said, i'm just now rereading the book (and i'm only on chapter 1 but i started thinking about annabeth and here i am). annabeth is mean to rachel because she's terrified of losing percy too soon. sure, at this point she knows the prophecy is his, she knows come next summer she probably won't have him anymore---but that's just it: next summer. she's preparing herself to lose him in a year, not immediately. so when someone comes along that presents a way for her to lose percy, of course she gets scared, and she gets defensive about it. it's not even the fact that rachel was a potential love interest, it's more so the fact that rachel was a mortal, and not part of their world. if percy was with rachel, there's a good chance he'd try to leave the magical world behind, and, more importantly, leave annabeth behind, which she wasn't ready for yet.

hell, that's exactly what ended up happening in the beginning of tlo! annabeth wasn't upset because he was spending time with rachel, she was upset because he was spending time in the mortal world rather than her world and, in her mind because of all of her past experiences being abandoned, that translates to "percy is leaving her," and it was way earlier than she thought, and she wasn't ready. so what does she do? she tries to protect herself. she puts walls up and tries to act cold and distant because she's coming to terms with the fact that she's already lost him. she's already lost him.

and like, was she jealous of the fact that rachel was a love interest? probably, yeah. but i think it's also just important to know that there's something way deeper to it. annabeth isn't being a bitch for the sake of being a bitch, and she's not just jealous of rachel because she was a girl that liked percy. she was upset because he was getting further and further away right in front of her. he was leaving way quicker than she was prepared for, so a lot of the stuff she said to rachel came from a place of fear of losing percy, and anger at rachel for trying to pull him into the mortal world, effectively leaving her behind and adding another person to the list of people she loves that have left her.

[fairyboygenius]

everywhere, everything

simon “ghost” riley x original female character

a/n: hi guys! i’m so excited to start this fic. allie is so??? one of my favorite ocs i’ve ever made, to be honest. she’s just perfect to me i fear. her and simon are gonna be so hhhhh anyways enjoy the fic!

no warnings for this chapter except for simon acknowledging he’s a little weirdo and implications to the fact that graves fucking sucks

fic under the cut love u mwah

Time isn’t real anymore, Allie’s decided. How could it be? After a transatlantic flight, plus a train ride through the English countryside, the world seemed fuzzier, cool breeze almost soothing her to sleep.

“Look alive, Bishop,” Kate Laswell gently chided, bumping Allie’s elbow with her own. “We’re almost there.”

Allie bit her lip, the words “are we there yet?” on the tip of her tongue. It’s nowhere near professional to whine to your soon-to-be boss about the journey she took for you. No matter if you’ve known that boss for seven years and been through absolute hell together. After a certain point, professionalism dissipates.

“You said that after the plane. And after we got lost in the Underground. And after King’s Cross. ‘Almost’ implies a degree of soonness.” Allie knew she was being unnecessarily literal. Jet lag wore away any pretense and spoons to mask.

Kate shook her head, a smile creeping at her features. “Eat your dinner.”

“Yes, mom.” Allie sipped her water, putting her headphones back on to try to enjoy the train food. Kate huffed, a fond-yet-annoyed expression on her face.

“Lola doesn’t seem to mind the long ride.” Kate laughed as the black lab nudged her hand, tail thumping restlessly against Allie’s leg. “You’re being a good girl, aren’t you?”

Allie ran an absentminded hand over Lola’s head, giving her a quick scratch between the ears. “You sure they’ll be okay having her on base?”

“She’s your service dog. Not like they can say no.”

“They can, actually. I looked it up. Even though I’m in a non-combat role, she can be removed-“

“-If there’s reasonable threat to your or her life,” Kate finished, giving her a comforting smile. “No one’s gonna take her away from you when you’re doing your medic duties. You need Lo to do your job and do your job well. Everyone’s getting briefed about it right now. If anyone gives you hell about it, you come to me.”

Allie nodded. “You know I’m not good with confrontation.”

“But I am.” Kate smiled. “Those boys shouldn’t give you hell- half of ‘em would probably meet the criteria for a diagnosis themselves. If you need space, unless you are actively doing surgery or in a literal war zone, you have permission to go to your room and take a breather. Anyone fights you on this, you can come to me. Got it?”

Allie nodded again, leaning her head against the train window. Lola rested her head on her human’s thigh, and Allie stroked her head absentmindedly. Letting the feeling of Lola’s fur between her fingers ground her.

Kate sighed, taking her other hand. “I know things didn’t go well for you with the Shadow Company, and everything with Philip…”

“Can we not bring him up?” Allie winced, sipping more water. “He’s dead. It’s in the past for me now. And I don’t really want to talk anymore, if that’s alright.”

Kate nodded, content as Allie put her headphones on and closed her eyes. The twinge of maternal concern on her face disappeared soon after, and she turned back to her book as they inched closer and closer to base.

“Captain, a fifth member o’ the team? We’re not enough of a headache for ye?”

Price shook his head, rolling his eyes fondly. The three of them sat in front of him, on the overstuffed common room couch. Johnny was twirling a pen between his fingers, Kyle couldn’t really keep his eyes off his phone, and Simon… well, Simon was just staring into space.

It had been an okay day for him, so far. A good workout, above average meals. Paperwork seemed less burdensome, or maybe his brain was finally embracing the distraction it provided. The scars from his recent mission in Russia were healing well.

Then Price had called them in.

“Lads… calm down.” Price was massaging his temples. Clearly, Johnny had forgotten to take his meds that morning. “She’s gonna be our resident medic- and yes, it’s a bird, the fraternization rules still apply.” He took a drag from his cigar. “Laswell sent over a whole presentation on ‘er. They’ve known each other for a while, apparently.”

“We’ve got a whole medbay, can’t we pluck one of them to be a 141 specialist?” Kyle leaned back on his elbows. “No offense to her.”

“Laswell would like to introduce a new person. The hope is for you to bond with her because she’ll be living on the 141 floor, participating in workouts and team bonding and she’ll be going on missions with us. We’ve noticed that you lot tend to put off medic visits or not go to the medbay when you need to, so having an on-team medic will hopefully reduce the amount of bigger health problems that spiral from you lot ignoring smaller ones.”

“You’re just as bad as the rest of us about that,” Simon scoffed.

Price grumbled. “Guess this is for me too, then.”

“So tell us about ‘er.” Soap leaned forward slightly, looking up at the screen. “What’s her name?”

Price clicked to the next slide. A picture popped up- a redhead, body luxurious and full, a black labrador puppy on her lap. Her smile was a bit shy, brown eyes shining as the puppy licks the side of her face. Simon’s eyes traced over her features, across her broad shoulders and collarbone, down over her breasts- the black tank top she’s wearing in the picture has a low neckline- and to where the photo ends, her bare thighs crossed as she sits. He swallowed. Shit.

“This is Lieutenant Allison Bishop- she goes by Allie,” Price said. “Laswell’s known her since she was 19, when she graduated basic. She is autistic and struggles with loud noises, so she likely will have some form of hearing protection on when we’re in the field. The puppy is Lola, who’s now Allie’s service dog- she’ll travel with us, and has her own hearing protection. Allie’s getting her own room, obviously, and bathroom, but she’ll share schedules and meal times. When we’re in mission-specific training, she’ll be working in the medbay and helping out where they need it. We can’t hog her forever.”

Like hell we can’t, Simon thought.

“Can we pet the dog?” Gaz looked so excited, Simon could almost sense the mood shift. Price sighed.

“Afraid that’s a negative,” their captain said. “Lola is working when she’s with Allie, and unless Allie gives you explicit permission to, you can’t pet her.”

“Pet Allie or Lola?” Simon can’t resist asking.

Price groaned. “Neither without the explicit permission of Allie.”

“So when’s she gettin’ here?”

“She’s on the train from London to Hereford with Laswell as we speak. She’ll be probably be all moved in and ready to work by tomorrow morning.” Price sighed. “From what Laswell said, she’s not exactly the most outgoing person around new people, so she may get overwhelmed and be kind of closed off at first. It may take her a bit to really warm up to us besides just simple kind professionalism.”

“Oi, Cap’n, dinnae worry about tha’.” Soap grinned. “We can be whatever she needs.” He winked, and Gaz faked a gag. Simon just groaned, reaching up to rub his own temples.

“Oh, real mature,” he grumbled. “We dismissed?”

Price nods. “Behave, lads. I’ll see you muppets at breakfast.”

They walked out of the common room together, headed towards the hallway that stored all their rooms. It would be an early night- a luxury, Simon was well aware, not often afforded on the field. He was fully ready to settle in with a book and a glass of bourbon when he saw the sign on the door next to his.

Welcome, Lieutenant Bishop!

Fuck. He was gonna stay away from her, give her some space to accommodate to the new environment first before making his move. It’d be the nice thing to do, after all- let ‘er settle in, get into a routine, hopefully not scare her off with his whole… thing. (He’s nothing if not self aware.)

But if she was right there… they’d be running into each other in the hallways. He could probably walk her back and forth from their rooms, seeing as she wouldn’t know her way around the base. Maybe even invite her in for a cuppa, or a drink if they clicked… not that Simon was any more competent at social interactions. Especially not with beautiful women.

Beautiful women who he couldn’t be with, no matter how much he wanted to be.

He flopped back onto his bed, letting out a long huff. Fine, he’d be civil. Not necessarily nice, but civil. He’d just have to hope that she’d be charmed by his unsettling gazes and grunts… somehow.

Fuck.

[sugar-champagne]

To the nurses office

Jeffery x Reader

Summary: after getting beat up by Kylar again someone actually takes the time of day to see him he’s ok

Jeffery’s POV:

The day started out like normal. I was reading the latest chapter of Fairy Tale when I was so rudely interrupted by Kylar asking me why I was reading a “picture book.”

And I guess that’s where the argument started. I tried to explain that it was manga, but I guess his small jock brain was too stupid to understand the complexities of these books.

But it was no use. When the arguments ended, like they always do, I was on the floor, and my glasses broke from a punch to the face again. My dad is going to be so mad that my mom will have to buy a new pair.

But something was different about this day, something I never thought would happen, and that’s when I heard the voice of an angel.

It was Y/N. We have never spoken much before, but they always treated me like a real person, they came up to me, held my face, and asked me if I was okay. Not even the sharp sting of the punch could distract me from how soft their fingers felt against my skin.

I tried to answer them and tell them I was okay, but I could do nothing but stumble over my words. I couldn’t help it; they were so close, our faces nearly touching as they inspected my face for serious damage.

After trying to talk once more and stumbling over my words again, they lifted me to my feet like I weighed nothing (I look like I weigh 90 pounds soaking wet).

I stood there, their hand still holding mine. I stumbled a little, but they caught me and wrapped their arm around my waist to hold me up.

I couldn’t articulate how amazing it felt to be in their arms and being pressed so firmly against their side. I could smell the sweetness of their vanilla body spray that they use every day.

We finally made it to the nurse's office, but the nurse wasn't there. She was probably out on her smoke break. This is probably for the better since the nurses are getting sick of me coming in every day, but it’s not my fault I'm surrounded by a bunch of barbarians.

Y/N pulls me forward to the empty chair as they search the nurse's office. They found a pack of Band-Aids and ice packs. Then they sat right next to me. That was the closest i’ve ever been to an such an attractive person before .”. They started to speak again, and my adrenaline finally died down. I started to hear their soft, beautiful voice.

“Wow, he really left a mark on you, didn’t he? You should know better than to even talk to Kylar. You know he can't handle complicated words.” Then Y/N placed an ice pack on my sore cheek, which was a relief to the searing pain in my face.

“They broke my glasses. I just got these fixed the other day. My dad's gonna be so mad,” I said. And just then, Y/N took them out of my hands. “They don't look too bad. This happens to my dad all the time. You could just pop the glass back in the frame… And there we go, all done. Looks like I saved you from another argument, hehe.”

Oh, that laugh. I could listen to it on repeat forever. I don't know why they're so nice to me, but I can't deny I love this attention. “I wonder when you'll stop finally getting into so much trouble. I can't believe anybody would want to even fight you. I mean, look at you,” they said.

They started to gently pinch and rub my cheek, and in that moment, I felt like we were the only people in the world. I can only hope Y/N lets me stay a part of their world.

Hope you all enjoy 😉 more will be made

And to the people who really wanted it

@sakurashana

@iforgottoavoidthenoid

@zaythemain

@jeffery09luvr

[otomehonyaku]

DIABOLIK LOVERS アニメ公式ノベライズ Official Novelization ☽ Chapter 3 Translation

[Previous chapter] ☽ [Next chapter]

It’s time for chapter 3! I will try adding more translation notes for particular words/phrases in footnotes from now on, which might be fun for people who are learning Japanese (although I don’t recommend calling anyone a 穀潰し in real life lol). I know I said last time that this book seemed a little light on the bite play but I actually take it back, this chapter was pretty steamy with both Ayato and Shuu… (〃ω〃) Have fun reading!

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Originally written by Yukuzuki Hiroha 結来月ひろは Translated from the Japanese by @otomehonyaku

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

STORY Following her father’s job transfer, Komori Yui is sent to live with the Sakamaki brothers. However, these six brothers turn out to be sadistic, ill-tempered vampires. The men are after Yui’s sweet and incredibly rare blood, and go to great lengths toying with her body and soul to get it. Before long, Yui finds herself trapped in an alluringly dangerous love game(1)...

1. 吸血愛戯 (ラブゲーム): Stylised as ‘love game’ but written with the characters for bloodsucking (吸血), love (愛), and play (戯). The latter character also has a connotation of playfulness/mischief.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial translation intended for those interested in reading the story of the Diabolik Lovers game/season in a slightly more literary format in English. I have no affiliation with Rejet or Frontier Works whatsoever. All rights belong to them, but PLEASE DO NOT POST THIS TRANSLATION ELSEWHERE OR TRANSLATE TO OTHER LANGUAGES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Episode 3

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

That night, the moon stood high in the sky, but the Sakamaki mansion was wrapped in fog.

In the dining room, Yui joined the brothers for dinner. It was a habit for the six of them to assemble in the dining room once a month for a banquet. As Yui sat at the large table, she wondered why she had to be included, but there had been little room for her to protest when they half-dragged her in here.

A variety of luxurious dishes reminiscent of a high-end restaurant were placed on the table in front of her, but even as she eyed the food, she couldn’t bring herself to eat.

Vampires don’t even need this kind of food, anyway, Yui thought cynically. Her eyes shifted to Ayato, who was sitting next to her. He ate his dinner using a knife and fork with surprising dexterity, behaving in a more refined manner than she had ever seen him. The same was true for Reiji and Subaru, who were sitting across from her.

The saying goes ‘dining together is happy together’ (1), but this family was worlds away from that. A heavy silence had fallen in the room. Shuu, who was sitting right opposite Yui, did not seem hungry either, and simply slumped in his chair with his eyes closed.

I don’t feel like eating. To the brothers, I’m no different from the food that’s on the table right now, anyway… Yui thought, and lost her appetite completely.

“You’re not eating much, Bitchlet,” Laito suddenly said from behind Yui, startling her. “You’ll get anaemia if you don’t eat well, you know? Would you like me to feed you?”

“Laito,” Reiji interjected sternly. “It is rude to get up during dinner.”

“Fiiine. Let’s continue this later, okay?” Laito murmured to Yui, and hummed quietly as he returned to his seat.

The dining room was only quiet for a moment before a loud sound made Yui jolt. It was Shuu, who had pushed back his chair and stood up.

“Shuu…?”

“I can’t be bothered,” the eldest muttered as he walked out of the room.

“That good-for-nothing (2)…” Reiji remarked, his voice tinged with resentment, when Shuu closed the door behind him.

Good-for-nothing? He’s saying that about his own brother?

“Oh, well. That’s what happens to people who’ve been spoiled since birth.”

The Sakamakis don’t seem to care about one another to begin with, but these two really seem to hate each other…

“Teddy, what would you like to eat next?”

Yui looked towards Kanato when she heard his voice. He sat with Teddy on his lap and was trying to feed him.

“Shall we try this banana snowball (3) first?” The purple-haired triplet said as he stabbed the snowball with his fork to pick it up, but it split in half.

Kanato frowned in frustration and began bringing down his fork onto the remnants of the snowball over and over, laughing maniacally. He didn’t stop even when the plate broke with a loud crack.

Reiji appeared fed up with his younger brother’s behaviour, and spoke up. “You all cannot keep yourselves together even at our one banquet of the month… Let us call it here for today.”

Everyone aside from Reiji stood up and left for their rooms immediately.

I should go back to my room, too. Albeit hesitantly, Yui put her hands on the table to push herself up when she was fairly certain she could leave.

“Wait.”

Reiji’s voice brought her to a halt.

“Have you no manners? To place your hands on the table like that… If I ever see you do that again, I will punish you thoroughly. Understood?”

“…Yes.”

His punishment must be pretty severe, judging from what Yui had seen of Reiji’s personality so far. Dejectedly, she returned to her room.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Ah…”

Yui sighed heavily when she sat down on the edge of her bed. She was glad to have a day off, but it seemed impossible to relax. Come to think of it, I usually helped out Dad on my days off…

Wanting to help her priest father with his work in whatever way she could, Yui usually kept the church clean on the days that she didn’t have school.

It hasn’t even been that long (4)…

Even though she had seen her father only days earlier, her life with him already felt like a thing from the past. Suddenly reminiscing about the days spent with her father, she opened the drawer in the nightstand by her bed and took out her father’s diary. However, the memories that her father had penned down were still nowhere to be found.

“So they really are gone…”

It felt like her own memories with her father had been erased with them. Yui felt herself getting teary-eyed. But why? When I first saw it, it was written right there.

Yui brings me so much joy. The fact that she is not my own child bears no meaning at all. She is truly a blessing, and I am nothing but grateful for every day I get to spend with her.

Her father’s familiar handwriting had spelled it out clearly for Yui to remember. But why had the writing disappeared from the page completely?

The only clue I have is this picture…

Yui quietly stared at the picture of her father and her infant self. The picture alone would not get her anywhere. Besides, I don’t even know what kind of cruel fate awaits me if I try to leave.

Yui sighed again.

Completely at a loss, she slid the picture back between the pages of her father’s diary and returned it to the drawer.

“Whatcha doing?”

Yui shrieked when she looked in the direction of the voice. Ayato was straddling her desk chair in reverse, his elbows propped up on the back of the chair and his chin resting on his hands as he watched her.

“W-why are you…”

“I can do as I please,” Ayato stated, tilting his head to the side ever so slightly. “Hurry up and give me your blood.”

Oh no… I have to hold him off.

“I-I was just about to take a bath.” Yui tried to slip past him, but to no avail. “Huh? Ah!”

Ayato stood up in a flash and threw his arms around her, embracing her from the front. Yui struggled against him when he ran his tongue over the nape of her neck, but his arms soon settled on her waist. It was impossible to run from him.

“Ayato… Please, I’ve been feeling anaemic lately…”

The stress from being in a new environment might have also played a part in it, but since Ayato had taken her blood yesterday, her physical condition had been worsening.

Ayato paid her worries no mind. “Shut up.”

He was clearly toying with her. His tongue found her skin again, licking her as he occasionally made low noises of pleasure. The wet sound of it echoed through the room.

Yui tried to endure it by squeezing her eyes shut, but it inadvertently only made her focus on Ayato more. A small sound escaped her lips at the anticipation of not knowing when his fangs would pierce her skin.

“Feels that good, huh?”

Yui tried to get back, but Ayato wouldn’t budge. “That’s not…”

Just when Yui thought his grip on her waist loosened a little, Ayato bent down to her chest and pressed his lips against her skin. He let out a low moan as he sucked hard. The pain made Yui’s voice slip again, and he finally looked up.

He didn’t… bite me?

Looking down at her chest, Yui did not see blood, but a red mark in the shape of a rose petal on her skin.

“That’s my mark of ownership.”

“N-no…” Yui pushed against his chest to get away, but he only gripped her tighter.

“Don’t move. I’ll give you more.”

Enjoying the feel of her skin, Ayato leisurely moved his tongue to the other side of her chest. He pulled down her sweater to expose her skin further, almost to her most sensitive parts, and began covering it in love bites.

“I want to hurt you more. More, and more…”

“Ah…”

Yui could barely move. She could only try and stand the pain.

When Ayato finally let her go, his red love bites fluttered across her chest like flower petals and clearly marked her as his.

“We’ll continue when you get out of the bath. You’ll only get more anaemic if I feed on you now and that’d just be a bother,” Ayato whispered in Yui’s ear as he embraced her tighter. “Just hurry up. You know what’ll happen if you make me wait too long.”

This time, Ayato let her go. He left the room.

For what felt like the umpteenth time today, Yui sighed heavily. What’s happening to me? Still, no matter how she thought about it, she couldn’ come to an answer.

“In any case, I should take a bath first.”

She knew it was part escapism, but Yui felt that she would lose her sanity completely if she could not do these kinds of normal, human things. Yui grabbed a fresh towel and a clean set of clothes, and headed to the bathroom.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Come to think of it, this is the first time I’m using the bath here.

On the first night, when Yui had only just arrived at the mansion, she had lost consciousness and simply slept for a while, and the next day, she had used the shower room near the pool.

I know it’s foolish to think about, but I can’t help but wonder what kind of bath they have… Daydreaming about her impending bath time, Yui stepped into the bathroom.

It was lavish. Marble covered the floor of the large room in front of her, and a large, white clawfoot tub stood near the back wall. I’ve never been in such a luxurious bathroom before, Yui thought. Even the sink is made of marble. She put her fresh clothes on top of the sink, and her eyes drifted to her reflection in the mirror in front of her.

The marks on her chest were undeniably there. But why would Ayato do this?

Yui had no hopes of running away from the mansion to begin with—the brothers had told her so—and it seemed unnecessary to brand her as his for the world to see.

But still, the throbbing pain of the love bites made her thoughts drift to Ayato even when he wasn’t with her. When she thought of it like that, she realised that the marks must have served Ayato’s intended purpose.

Yui was startled by a sudden splashing sound and she spun around to look at the bathtub. What was that? Is someone there?

Gingerly, she made her way over to the bathtub and saw Shuu, eyes closed and lying fully-clothed in the water. Yui did not know why he was in there with his clothes still on, but he looked like he was trying to drown himself.

“Shuu?!”

Before Yui could reach out to him, Shuu’s languid voice sounded from under her.

“Damn it, don’t yell like that.”

“B-but if you stay in there with your clothes on…”

“Strip them off me, then.”

“What?” Not used to Shuu speaking that way to her, Yui was briefly at a loss for words.

“Didn’t you come in here to see me naked?” Shuu asked, trying to gauge her reaction.

“N-no!” Yui stammered. “Please don’t say such inappropriate things… I came in here to take a bath.”

Shuu’s clear blue eyes watched her face become red, and let out a low laugh as if he enjoyed seeing her flustered. “Would you like to join me?”

“T-there’s no way...”

“Your red cheeks suggest otherwise.”

Realising Shuu was making fun of her, Yui inadvertently shot him a glare, but he simply repositioned his head on the edge of the bathtub with a dissatisfied expression on his face.

“Boring.”

Clearly not intent on getting out of the tub, Shuu closed his eyes again.

Yui’s fear that he might drown dissipated, but even though she felt somewhat relieved, Shuu’s overly sluggish behaviour left her with a complicated feeling. All they’ve done since I came here is manipulate me…

Yui thought of the six brothers’ faces.

So Shuu is the eldest and Reiji is the second son, then the triplets Ayato, Kanato and Laito, and then Subaru is the youngest. But…

“You’re brothers, but why are you all so different?” Yui wondered aloud.

“We’ve got different mothers.”

“What?”

“…Reiji and I have the same mother, and the triplets have a different mother,” Shuu said in a detached voice, his eyes still closed.

“I… see.”

So that’s why they don’t look alike, Yui concluded, but suddenly realised that he had missed one brother.

“What about Subaru?”

“Also got a different mother,” Shuu said, before completely submerging himself in the tub.

“Wha—Shuu!”

In a state of panic, Yui reached out and grabbed both of Shuu’s arms. At the feeling of her hands on his body, his eyes flew open.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The blurry vision of a boy, slightly taller than him, plagued Shu’s mind. When Shuu was younger, the boy always reached out a hand towards him, took him to all sorts of places, and showed him things he had never seen before.

However, the next moment, Shuu’s sight was taken away by a cloud of burning ash. His memories with the boy faded into nothing. That day, Shuu could only stare, dumbfounded, at his friend’s village as it burned to the ground, black smoke rising from its buildings.

“Edgar…”

I couldn’t do anything… My only friend, and I couldn’t do anything to save him.

Everything you love can be taken away from you in the blink of an eye, and never even leave a trace. Just like that boy.

All Shuu was left with was a feeling of powerlessness. All was meaningless.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Shuu, it hurts…”

Shuu snapped back to attention at Yui’s voice. What did I just…

When he looked at Yui, her face was twisted in pain. Why is she making that face? And… she’s so warm, he thought, slightly confused. As he looked at his hands, he involuntarily reached out and grabbed Yui’s hands tightly. So this is… the body temperature of a human.

Shuu tugged hard at Yui’s arms and pulled her into the bathtub with him, causing her to shriek. Water splashed around them.

The human girl was now soaked to the skin. Her wet clothes made her look thinner (5) than she already did.

Shuu did not know why he did it. He found it difficult to think about anything but the feel of her warm body—the human warmth that he’d gone so long without.

“Let me drink your blood.”

Yui gasped. Fear washed over her face when she looked up at him.

“Hm? Are you scared?” Shuu traced a hand along her neck and pulled it towards him. Perhaps out of fear, Yui squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

Shuu gazed at the porcelain-coloured skin of her exposed neck. “You’re so pale. I wonder how your skin will look when I sink my teeth into you and stain it bright-red with your blood…”

As he spoke, his eyes trailed slowly downwards to her chest. When his gaze fell upon the red marks there, he couldn’t hold back a laugh.

“Ayato. What a control freak.”

“Shuu, I thought you were the only one…” Yui met his gaze even though she was shivering. “I thought you were the only one who’d be different… So why…”

The fatal flaw of humans—they tended to be much too trusting. Shuu felt himself becoming increasingly annoyed at her foolishness. “Let me be clear. I’m a vampire.”

This is too bothersome.

“I’ll show you a whole new world.”

The hand that had been trailing across Yui’s neck, Shuu now used to pull her roughly against him so he could sink his teeth into her shoulder. Yui bit down a shriek.

“Your blood is so warm… I feel like it might burn me.”

Desperately, Yui tried to block out his voice.

“Ah, you’re getting turned on… What a lewd woman you are, running so hot when I bite you.”

“I-It’s not…”

Eagerly gulping down Yui’s blood, Shuu came to a realisation. He raised his face to hers. “…I know now why you’re here. It’s your blood. It’s really something special.”

Blood from the wounds Shuu had inflicted on Yui dripped into the bath, almost as if her body was crying for her.

“Don’t offer your help to me again.”

Yui’s tears of blood quietly disappeared into the water.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

A little while after Shuu had left, Yui came out of the bathroom and dragged herself to her room. Memories of what had just happened flashed through her mind.

Shuu actually wasn’t interested in her. That’s why she thought he wouldn’t hurt her, but Yui realised that had been a very naive assumption for her to make.

At the same time, she thought it strange that her blood was ‘something special,’ as Shuu had called it. I don’t think that means I have a rare blood type, Yui thought as she opened the door to her room. She sighed and closed the door behind her.

“You’re late, Pancake.”

Ayato was sitting on her bed.

“I’m thirsty. Hurry up and give me your blood.”

“Ayato, I’m…”

She’d already told him she was feeling anaemic earlier, but Shuu had only just fed from her as well. Yui was certain she would keel over if Ayato took her blood now, and yet the redhead jumped off the bed and stalked towards her.

“You have no right to refuse me.”

Ayato grabbed her from behind and snaked his arms around her waist.

“You’d be better off surrendering to my fangs,” he said as he bent down to her neck to bite her, but he suddenly froze. “Huh?”

On her neck, he found fresh bite marks.

“What’s this?”

“It hurts…” Yui hunched up her shoulders in pain when Ayato ran his fingers over the wounds.

“Reiji? No, Shuu. That motherfucker…”

Ayato grabbed Yui’s hand and forcefully dragged her out of the room.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The two ended up in the gaming room. It had a billiards table, and a rack with cue sticks and a dart board were placed against the wall. When Ayato spotted Shuu lying on the sofa, he strode over and started yelling at him.

“Shuu, you fucker! Are you picking a fight?”

Shuu didn’t respond and his eyes remained closed, which only angered his brother even more.

“Hey, listen to me!”

“Shut up.” Shuu muttered. He clearly did not feel like arguing with Ayato.

Ayato clicked his tongue in response to his brother’s sluggish behaviour. When he looked around the room in anger and his eyes spotted the dart board, he thought of something.

“Let’s play a round of darts!”

“…I can’t be bothered.”

“Like hell you are!”

What should I do? At this rate, they really are going to fight… Just as Yui hesitated whether she should step in to stop them, she suddenly heard someone clapping.

When Yui looked behind her, Laito was leaning against the billiards table, looking at the three of them in amusement.

“How lovely. Our little bitch will be the grand prize!” Laito’s smile deepened when he looked at Yui. “Hehe. This is the best!”

“Grand prize…?” How did it come to this? Yui had a hard time comprehending what was happening.

“You are being way too rowdy.” Having overheard his brothers’ bickering, Reiji now stood near the wall with an irritated look on his face. “Would you care to tell me what is going on?”

“Ayato and Shuu are going to play darts against each other. And what better way to spice things up than a grand prize on the line, right? So, we thought Bitchlet would be the perfect prize.” Laito motioned to Ayato and Shuu to signal that it was their competition.

”Again with the nonsense… If you must, then do it quietly.”

“Okay…”

Yui had hoped Reiji would step in and end the argument, but he hadn’t. Shuu opened his eyes to look at Yui.

“I don’t care about her… so just let me sleep in peace,” Shuu mumbled and closed his eyes again.

Reiji scoffed in response. “I already expected you to say that.”

Reiji? Yui watched as Reiji was staring daggers at his older brother even more than usual.

“You do not even have the guts to accept a challenge. The word ‘coward’ (6) must have truly been invented for this man right here.” Reiji paused for a second, but then continued his tirade. “What a good-for-nothing, useless man.”

Shuu slowly got up at this remark. His sluggish demeanour disappeared completely—his face briefly suggested that he was out for blood—before returning to his usual state. “I’ll do it, Ayato.”

“Well, I wasn’t gonna accept any other answer.”

And so Ayato and Shuu’s battle for Yui began.

The two brothers barely missed their targets when throwing the darts, but somehow, Shuu seemed to come out on top. When Shuu examined the darts he was using, Laito called out.

”Shuu’s next shot could decide the game! If he hits the right mark, our little bitch will become his… How exciting!” Laito sent a sidelong glance to Yui, who stood speechless next to him, as he laughed in amusement.

She quickly looked away. Would it be Shuu or Ayato? Whoever won, Yui had no choice in the matter.

“This is insane,” she muttered. I’m not an object! Yui tried to leave the gaming room, but Laito grabbed her by the shoulder before she could get near the door.

“Oh, my. Our grand prize suddenly started moving on its own!” Laito’s tone of voice was light-hearted, but his unrelenting grip on her shoulder suggested otherwise.

“Let go… It hurts…”

“Hehe.”

Yui glared at Laito even as her face twisted in pain, but he only returned her glare with a shameless grin.

“You’d better look. Shuu’s about to throw, you know.” Laito pointed to his brother, who had just assumed a throwing position and was holding the dart expertly in his hands.

Shuu…

Reiji and Ayato looked on, mildly displeased, as Shuu threw the dart towards the board. It soared through the air in a straight line, perfectly hitting the mark that Shuu had aimed for.

Ayato clicked his tongue in annoyance. Reiji just stared at the board, the winning dart sticking out of it. Shuu, however, sighed in relief that the game was finally over, and turned on his heels and immediately headed for the door.

Shuu? Yui stared after Shuu in confusion.

Laito noticed this, a glint of mischief appearing in his eyes. “And your prize is… Bitchlet!”

He gave Yui a strong push, sending her stumbling towards Shuu with a yelp. The force of it caused her to slam into Shuu’s back.

“I-I’m sorry.” Yui stammered an apology, but Shuu stayed silent, his back still to her. “Um… Shuu?”

He slowly turned around to face Yui, and leaned in to whisper.

“Humans are nothing but prey to me.”

Shuu’s low voice and dangerously glistening eyes as he looked down on her made Yui freeze in place. He grabbed her chin with a hand and tilted her face upward with a rough movement to expose her neck.

Yui flinched.

“You know that, right?” he said as he bent down to her neck. Yui was immobilised by fear. “Don’t bother me anymore.”

With these words, Shuu unceremoniously sank his teeth into her skin. The pain running through her neck sent her spiralling into darkness, and she soon lost consciousness.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

1. 食卓 (しょくたく) は団欒 (だんらん): A figure of speech in which 食卓 refers to a dining table, and 団欒 means a ‘happy place,’ or ‘sitting together in a happy circle/harmony,’ thus suggesting that dining together is supposed to be an enjoyable activity to bond with one another.

2. 穀潰 (ごくつぶ) し: Good-for-nothing; deadbeat; parasite; useless person. This is the nickname Reiji often uses for Shuu.

3. スノーボール: A snowball is a kind of chocolate, snowball-shaped and often filled with fresh cream.

4. 懐 (なつ) かしい: Adverb denoting a feeling of nostalgia; looking back fondly on something that happened long ago.

5. 貧相 (ひんそう): Thin (body); poor/seedy-looking. In Diabolik Lovers, the boys usually use this word to refer to Yui’s body as “not much to look at,” especially referring to her lacking in the chest area.

6. 腑抜 (ふぬ) け: Coward; spineless person. Literally someone whose ‘guts have slipped out.’

[softquietsteadylove]

Hey love! So, I know you already have the proposal au, but I was wondering if you could do an arranged marriage au. And basically, Gilgamesh is in the mafia and Thena's horrible abusive father (Arishem) steals money or drugs from him that Thena doesn't know anything about. And Gilgamesh and his men just show up to her home while Thena's not there and when she comes back she finds out that she's being forced to marry Gilgamesh (which she's not that mad about bc Gil is fine asf🤭). But Thena is basically just shocked and she has to get used to being treated how she should and with princess treatment (like opening her door, giving her gifts just because, etc) Maybe a little age gap like Thena's in her early 20s, Gil is in his Early 30s👀. Also maybe like Gil gives her princess treatment but disrespectful in bed vibes😜.

But anyways I love you and your whole existence and when I found your Tumblr acc it quite literally the happiest day of my life and I literally would kill for you. You're my whole world I live for all your posts and sit waiting everyday for you to post. You are the best thing that happened to me and I'm so grateful you're alive. I love you so much!😘❤️

"Thena?"

She startled, but a warm yet gentle hand touched her shoulder, "hey, it's okay. It's me--I'm sorry to startle you."

She looked around her. She wasn't at home--well, she was. She was no longer in her father's home, where falling asleep out in the open could lead to her getting her hair pulled if he was feeling particularly inebriated and particularly mean spirited.

She was home, in her home with Gilgamesh. It was a massive, modern and sprawling house. She had her own room, despite sharing the house with her husband. It had its own walk-in closet and full bathroom suite. He had installed a library having found out that she liked to read (that was all the incentive he needed, apparently). The only thing her room didn't have was a kitchen, and Gilgamesh did all the cooking anyway.

The first two weeks, when she wouldn't emerge from her room at all, he would leave trays out for her to take inside where she felt safe.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, speaking softly and moving so she could see him, showing her his hands. "I shouldn't have snuck up on you like that. I wanted to see if you were hungry, or if you wanted to move into your room."

A gangster for a husband, and he made sure her room was always open for her, that only she was allowed in it, unless there was any house keeping she wanted done. He had even hired a female cleaner, specifically in hopes of making her feel more comfortable.

"Thank you," she smiled at him, hoping to assuage his fears of scaring her. She let the book on her lap fall closed and curled her legs up under the blanket thrown over her. "Sorry, dozed off between chapters."

"You don't have to apologise," he assured her, moving slowly as he took a seat on the sofa. He wasn't at the far end of it, but it was more than enough space for her to feel separate from him. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Are you okay? You seemed to be having a bad dream."

She was. Even removed as she was from that place, sometimes she would think was waking in her room, her desperate attempts to start a real career crammed into the corner of her room where her father wouldn't know to go digging for money.

The crinkle of her clothes in plastic bags so that he couldn't get them all wreaking of alcohol before a job interview. The way she would walk on the balls of her feet so as not to wake him when he was passed out on the couch in the middle of the day. The fear that every knock on the door would be another debt collector.

"Hey," Gilgamesh said as softly as he could again, "what do you need?"

If she hadn't woken from such a terrible dream she might swoon. It was almost a shame their relationship was one of contract. Gilgamesh was very good at seeming romantic.

She inhaled, putting on a braver face. "Some food sounds good."

"Okay," he nodded. His hand hovered, as if he would pat her knee under her blanket. But he stood instead, pulling himself away from her. "I can do that."

Thena stood, nearly slipping on the stairs of the elevated seating area to follow him into the kitchen. "Do you need any help?"

He did let his surprise show on his face, and instances like these she was reminded of the menacing - as well as cocky - gangster who had first appeared in her home and informed her of their marriage. "Setting a fire?--no, sweetheart, thank you."

She huffed, and she even managed to get a chuckle out of him. Laughing suited him more. "You must have had a hard day."

He immediately looked at her, trying to tell how any clue of how his work had gone could have slipped through the cracks. He worked very hard to keep all aspects of his business out of their home life.

She leaned against the spotless granite island/sink. "You seem more tense than usual."

He didn't rise to her bait, focusing on putting together a meal for her--for them.

But she was in the mood to poke the bear, as it were--the big grizzly teddybear in the pinstripe suit. "I figured I would get a 'no need, princess', at least."

He shook his head at her, pulling out a clay pot and retrieving the ingredients necessary. For a man living outside the law, he really was a great cook. "No need for a house fire--that's true."

"I am not that bad," she insisted, rising to her own bait if need be.

Gil - not Gilgamesh but Gil - finally looked at her with a little more mirth. He even chuckled, "Need I remind you of the eggs?"

She rolled her eyes at him. He had this big, beautiful kitchen, and she was home alone all the time. And sometimes she didn't want to wait for delivery to make it all the way to the house (and past security) while Gil was at work. She had figured making herself some eggs couldn't possibly go wrong.

"The hob at our-" she paused and moved on like it was nothing- "at my old place would take ages to heat up. I could never have known that this monstrosity can boil water in under a minute."

Gil glanced towards his very fancy oven on the other counter and then back to her. "Who turns the heat up all the way to make eggs in a pan?"

She shrugged, "they cook faster."

Gil let out a real laugh now, finally relaxing some as he finally started preparing the veggies. She could tell he was enjoying it when he slid them onto an angle to slice them. If it were strictly business he would cut them into little cubes instead. He shook his head. "I told you not to lift a finger while you're here."

That was true. After the fire had been put out, her housekeeping companion had insisted she simply ask if she wanted a meal. It was part of her requirements for the job and everything! Which was a little insulting, no matter how aware of her own cooking habits Thena was.

"I thought men wanted a wife who would cook for them as soon as they got home."

But Gil didn't latch onto her joke. He put down his knife, slowly and gently. He dried his hands on the hand towel below. Then he moved towards her, holding his hands out and asking for hers.

She watched as he did, curious enough to give her hands over to him. He held them so gently, even as he brought them up to his lips to kiss the back of each. She shivered.

He opened his eyes, peering down at her as he stroked her hand with his thumb. "Those aren't men. And you are not just 'a wife', Thena."

Did he want her to fall in love with him or not? The times when he was at work, and then completely secretive about it at home really seemed that he didn't. It seemed that he was upholding his end of the agreement with her father, and his vow to respect her and not to allow any harm to come to her.

But then other times he would say things like this, and she wouldn't know what to think.

She blushed as he left one last kiss on the tip of her finger. Then he was back to chopping, as if he hadn't nearly swept her off her feet (metaphorically speaking).

"Why don't you go sit down, sweetie? I'll come up and join you once this is on the heat." Back to that respectful distance.

She pursed her lips, moving away from the kitchen island as he started rinsing the rice and mixing sauces. That was just like Gilgamesh, to say something so breathtaking and sweet one moment and be a husband in name only the next.

She glanced at her book, although she couldn't even remember what she was reading in it before she had dozed off. Throwing herself back on the couch did seem to catch his attention somewhat; she could tell by the tilt of his head only vaguely in her direction. She also pulled the blanket over her again, with a little more force than the light cashmere needed.

If he only wanted to be half a husband then fine, but he didn't have to be a full time flirt to do it.

She peeked up from her phone as Gilgamesh walked up the three small steps to join her. He had a bad knee but wouldn't admit to it, maybe that was adding to the pressure of his day today.

"Okay," he groaned as he too threw himself onto the couch. He looked over at her, at her safe and respectful distance. "So?"

"So?" she asked in return, bristling at the grin on his face. It suited him a little too much.

He nodded, as if he had been thinking something to himself and had the affirmation he needed. She didn't know what he thought he knew, but she almost didn't want to. He leaned back on the couch, relaxing his posture. This was how a gangster would sit, she imagined. "Well."

"Well?" she prompted him again. But all he did was lazily wave his hand at her. She raised her shoulders, "you want me to...?"

He shrugged, even turning his head away from her. "If you want, I mean. You seem like you want the company."

He was calling her out on her wanting his attention, he meant. And he was right, but she didn't appreciate it. She turned her nose up at it.

"If you wanna sit in my lap, you can say so."

She shivered again, turning and half expecting him to be nose to nose with her. But whens he did look, he was back to pretending like he was halfheartedly watching something on the obscenely large tv mounted on the wall.

To his credit, he didn't say anything as she quietly shifted her position. She didn't tuck herself into his embrace or anything. They weren't actually married.

Gil lowered his arm from the back of the couch to her shoulder, letting her lean partially on him but not so close that she would feel trapped. "Put on that show you like."

"The one that puts you to sleep?" she smirked, even as she picked up the remote.

"It does not put me to sleep."

"It does," she corrected him, and it was moments like these when the marriage did feel less like a business agreement and more like...well, like something. "What about the food?"

"It has a timer, just take it off the heat when it's done."

It was he who was on the verge of nodding off, now. He really had endured a truly terrible day to be so exhausted. And she wouldn't be the one waking him.

She did put on her show, a historical drama she liked. And he really did nod off, the clay pot dinner simmering in the background silently. And only because he was dead asleep did she take the liberty of tucking herself against his chest. Just this once.

[cecilysass]

Pause (4/11)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter 4: The Clothes I Died In

Scully sleeps exceptionally well in Mulder’s mysterious new bed.

So well that by the time she wakes up and sits up, bright white fingers of light are reaching across the room. Each finger is shot through with the glitter of swirling dust motes. This room needs to be cleaned, and badly.

Lifting her head and looking over the laundry and books scattered across the room, she finds herself again looking for the woman’s green sweater, the one lying on his bed yesterday. She wonders what Mulder did with it. It had vanished last night after he changed the sheets, and she imagines he must have stuffed it hastily into some drawer. Why did he hide it? Who does the sweater belong to?

She closes her eyes again. Mulder’s bed is comfortable. His sheets are soft and high quality, probably very expensive. It seems a significant step up from sleeping on the couch, and she can’t help but wonder what would have caused such a change. Cracking her eyes open, Scully trails her fingers over the smooth gray pillowcase.

Last night, before sleeping, she had burrowed her nose into the pillow experimentally after all. His distinctive scent wasn’t there; the sheets he’d put on the bed were too clean. She had simply turned over, feeling needy and ashamed.

His clock says 9:36, rather late for her usual sleep habits, at least in her apparently out-of-date memory. She leans her head back and forth side to side to stretch her neck and listens for a moment for any sounds in the rest of the apartment, but it seems quiet.

She contemplates getting up and taking a shower, but she’s discouraged by not having any clean clothes to change into. Right now she is wearing an old faded Quantico tee of Mulder’s, but she isn’t sure how many more items of clean clothing she can find in his apartment, much less those that can be sensibly worn by her.

She flops back down onto the pillow, closing her eyes again for a moment. As long as she stays here, she doesn’t have to go out there and face the reality of the situation. She doesn’t even know how to talk to a Mulder who doesn’t think she’s Scully. Or to encounter a world that has accumulated three additional years she can’t remember.

From his living room she hears the distant sound of a knock at the door. Scully sits up like a shot.

She hears the metallic clicks of Mulder unlocking and unlatching.

Who could it be? Who would he be letting in? She feels the sense of nauseating vertigo again, a little knife’s edge of fear that he might have betrayed her and called someone to take her away, to apprehend her as an impostor. She doesn’t hear anything clearly right away, and then she hears voices, speaking quietly.

“…very confused, very upset. The memory gap I told you about. But no, I don’t think she’s lying.” Mulder’s voice, hushed.

“Well, I want to see her. Right now. I’ll know if it’s her.”

It’s a whisper, but Scully recognizes it. Her mother’s voice. She clenches the comforter tightly, trying to hold back her full reaction. She wants to hear what they say.

“Maggie— I just don’t want you to… you have to remember this is very possibly not real. A convincing illusion. I don’t want it to be… painful.”

“I’m not a delicate flower, Fox.”

“I know, I know. It’s just it’s… so goddamn…” His voice drops down into a mumble and Scully can’t hear.

“Oh Fox,” her mother’s voice says, intense. “You aren’t a delicate flower either. You’re going to be okay, no matter what, you understand?”

More mumbling. “… And it will be just like it starts all over… I just don’t know if I can…” His voice is so broken.

“No. Nonsense.” Maggie says something else quietly that Scully can’t hear.

“She doesn’t know…” His voice drops away again. “…nothing about that last year, nothing about—”

“I understand, Fox.”

“…not really her.”

“You need to let me see her.”

Scully is already scrambling out of bed, sick with anxiety. She looks around for her jeans from yesterday to pull on under Mulder’s tee-shirt, and is just pulling them on when she hears him knock on the bedroom door.

“Hey,” he says through the door. “Are you awake? Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” she says, rapidly finger combing her hair, although she’s never before worried about looking especially polished with theses two people closest to her in the world.

He steps in the door, closing it behind him, and she notices that although he has on his pajamas pants and a tee-shirt, it doesn’t look like he’s slept much at all since last night. His face looks more haggard, not less, and the eggplant-colored half moons under his eyes more pronounced.

His eyes fall on her clothes. His jaw sets.

“What?” she says, looking down. “Oh, I borrowed your shirt. I had nothing to sleep in.”

“I noticed,” he says shortly.

“I’m sorry,” she says, taken aback by his reaction. “I don’t have any clothes.”

“I know,” he says. “It’s fine.” He rubs the back of his neck with a low sigh. “Your mom is already here. I called her this morning—I thought it better be me that broke the news. It’s kind of a shock. She’s eager to see you. Are you ready to talk to her?”

Scully nods, her forehead creased. She crosses her arms over her chest defensively.

He regards her. “You’re nervous.”

“Of course,” Scully replies pointedly, her voice lowered. “I want her to believe it’s me. It will hurt if she doesn’t.”

Her eyes land on his face in time to see the shadow move over his features, and she regrets saying it. She doesn’t understand the full story yet, why he is so convinced she is dead. But she can hear the raw suffering in his voice as he talks to her mom. Whatever he has been through, maybe she should tread more carefully.

“Yeah,” he says with no expression. “Well, let’s go see what she says.”

Every muscle in Scully’s body tenses as she comes out of Mulder’s bedroom. Her mother sits straight and expectantly on the edge of his couch, and hops up right away when Scully walks out.

“Mom,” Scully says, her voice very small.

Her mother’s hair has more streaks of gray. She wears silver earrings Scully has never seen before, but the silver locket around her neck is recognizable: it’s one Scully bought her a few years back for Christmas.

Maggie Scully’s hand is clasped tight over her mouth, her knuckles white. Her eyes are saucer wide, fixed on Scully’s face.

“Hi, Mom,” Scully tries again, stepping forward.

Her mother makes a stifled sound. She’d told Mulder she wasn’t a delicate flower, but she looks fragile, like she is made of fine bone china.

“I know you’re shocked,” Scully says. She wants to come across as calm, as certain, but her smarting eyes are already betraying her. “I just can’t explain any of this rationally, except to say I’m somehow here. Alive.” She wipes the beginning of tears away impatiently.

Maggie, her hand still pressed over her mouth, takes a step towards her, her eyes now rapidly moving up and down Scully’s body as though she is taking in every detail.

In the background Mulder paces back and forth like an animal in a cage.

“It’s just hard to prove I’m myself,” Scully continues, her voice unnaturally high. “Do you want to ask me any questions? I can answer questions about when I was little if you want. About San Diego. About Charlie. About Melissa.”

Maggie removes her hand from her mouth now and blinks, her eyes wet.

“Please ask me anything,” Scully says. “I want to show you that I’m—”

She stops when Maggie reaches out and touches her shoulder, her fingers making contact through the fabric of Mulder’s tee shirt.

“It’s all right,” her mother says. Her voice is gentle. “It’s all right.”

Fear chills Scully. “What do you mean, Mom?”

“I see you, Dana,” her mother says. “I know it’s you.”

Her arms stretch outwards, and she folds Scully into a compressed embrace, so tight Scully can barely breathe. At first Scully is too shocked to let herself relax, still too taut with anxiety. But then she feels her muscles relaxing, her body sinking into her mother’ familiar arms.

This shouldn’t feel so good, Scully thinks. It’s so simple, the most basic of human interactions. Being known.

“Oh Mom,” Scully whispers. “Oh thank God.”

“That’s my line,” Maggie says, laughing a little, her voice muffled in Scully’s hair. “It’s a miracle. That’s the only possible explanation.” She pulls back to look at Scully again, pushing strands of hair away from her daughter’s face, her eyes wet.

“I hate not understanding what’s happened,” Scully tells her in frustration.

Her mother smiles rapturously at her, cupping her face in her hands, holding her cheeks so firmly she will probably leave handprints.

“I’m sure you do,” Maggie says, her voice thick. “But — we've thought for all this time that we’d lost you. This is just so wonderful. It’s … unbelievable.”

Scully remembers, then, about Mulder, who is now standing in the doorway to the room watching, gripping the door frame above with his hands, his expression tense and tight.

He sees her looking at him, and he smiles a small, closed-lip smile.

“Unbelievable,” he repeats. His tone of voice gives very little away.

***

Scully doesn’t observe it out loud, but she notices that Maggie stands at Mulder’s stove making scrambled eggs as though she has done it many times. She has brought the ingredients for breakfast with her, correctly assuming he will have nothing, but she sets to work in his kitchen like it is second nature.

In Scully’s memory, her mother has been to Mulder’s apartment maybe 2-3 times for visits of very limited duration — to pick Scully up when she was sick, to drop off something Scully needed before a trip out of town. Maggie has never, in her recollection, been in his kitchen.

Mulder and her mother have seemingly become much closer since her supposed death. That idea unnerves Scully, and she isn’t sure why.

“You cleaned up, Fox,” Maggie had exclaimed as she started setting out ingredients. “All the dishes are washed.”

Mulder, sitting at the dining room table with his head in his hands, had looked up and given Scully, standing in the kitchen doorway, a quick, significant look.

“I washed them last night,” she’d admitted to her mother, strangely guilty. “I was anxious and needed something to occupy myself.”

“Must have been quite a job,” Maggie had said in wonder. “But it looks so much tidier.”

“Yeah,” Mulder had said. “It does.” He rose to join Scully and Maggie in the kitchen, barely looking at her as he walked past. He’d eyed the counters of the kitchen warily, like it was a room that had been ransacked.

Now, as Maggie euphorically updates Scully on family news while moving around making toast and frying bacon, Mulder and Scully watch her, standing awkwardly side by side with cups of coffee in their hands.

“Tara has been talking about bringing Matty and the baby out here for a visit,” Maggie says, lifting slices of bacon from the pan to a plate covered with a paper towel. “I wonder if now they would consider coming sooner rather than later. I know they’ll be over the moon when they hear you’re back.”

Scully hears something that sounds like a tiny sigh coming from Mulder. It stokes a hot flare of anger in her. It’s one thing for him not to accept that it’s her; it’s another for him to begrudge her mother’s acceptance, her family’s joy.

Maggie doesn’t seem to hear him at all. “Do you mind cheese in your eggs, Fox? I know Dana likes it.”

“Cheese sounds good,” Mulder says dully.

“Bill might be able to get some leave and come, too,” Maggie continues, pushing the spatula around the pan. “It would be so good for him if he could. You have to understand—it was just so hard on him. The funeral, I mean.”

“Hard on Bill?” Scully says, more disbelief than she intends.

“Yes,” Maggie says. “Oh, he didn’t behave very well. Very poorly, in fact.” She turns and her eyes briefly fall on Mulder, who is looking intently away, his face stone. “But it was hard on your brother.”

Scully nods slowly, absorbing that information. There are so many questions she wants to ask here that she hardly knows where to start. There is so much that is strange about this. But it seems logical to start in the most obvious place.

“How did I die? What were the circumstances?”

She senses an uncomfortable shift in Mulder’s body adjacent to her. Her mother is facing away, dividing scrambled eggs between three plates, each crowned with buttered toast and several slices of bacon. No one responds for a moment.

Maggie turns around with heaping plates, handing one to Scully and one to Mulder.

“Let’s sit and discuss it,” Maggie says.

Sitting at Mulder’s dining room table requires pushing aside some of his piles of mail and papers, but they manage to clear a place for their plates. Mulder sits across from Scully and Maggie sits next to her with her own plate and cup of coffee.

Maggie’s eyes flash up expectantly to Mulder’s, holding a few seconds. He just stares back, his face a closed door.

Maggie turns to Scully, squeezes her arm.

“It was a Friday,” Maggie says, after a moment. “You had taken off work that morning. We had breakfast together, the two of us. Bagels at my house. We went to get our toenails done. A pedicure. We—we hadn’t seen each other in a while, and we were catching up…on everything. It was nice.”

Her mother’s voice is calm, but Scully notices that her hand, as she lifts her coffee cup to take a sip, is shaking slightly. She doesn’t even want to look at Mulder across the table. In her peripheral vision she sees his head angled downward.

“You were leaving my house to drive over here. You and Fox… had somewhere to be in the afternoon.” Maggie’s voice wavers a little now, too. “You were worried about being back in time.”

Abruptly, Mulder stands up, his chair scooting back with a screech.

“Fox,” Maggie says soothingly. “Fox, it’s okay. She’s right here. Eat breakfast.”

“Your car was hit,” Mulder says gruffly. “By a driver who had started the weekend early and ran a red light.”

“And you’re sure it was—” Scully begins.

“It was your car.” Mulder’s voice is short. He sounds almost angry. “There was a body to ID. It wasn’t especially recognizable, but … you had on the clothes you’d been wearing. Your cross necklace.”

Scully hasn’t thought of her necklace. She reaches up to feel for it around her neck, but she feels only bare skin. “I’m not wearing my necklace now,” she whispers. She’s troubled by this realization, that she hasn’t noticed her necklace’s absence.

“Yep. I noticed that,” Mulder says flatly. He sits back down, picking up the piece of toast and taking a determined bite.

“So possibly someone was faking her death, Fox?” Maggie asks. “Wanting you to think she was dead? Trying to convince you with the necklace?”

If that is true, thinks Scully, then where have I been since? Who kidnapped me? Who has been keeping me? Why have they returned me now? What has become of my memory?

Mulder shrugs a shoulder, taking another bite of toast. “I guess that’s a possibility,” he says. “But something more messed up than that is happening here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her clothes.” He swallows his mouthful. “She showed up yesterday in the same clothes.”

“The same clothes as what?” Scully says sharply.

“The pink tee-shirt, the jeans. The sandals,” Mulder says. He slows down his bites, looking down at his plate. “It’s what you were wearing that morning. When you went out with your mom. When I went to ID you.”

Scully puts down her fork. “Oh.” She looks at her lap, at the jeans she is wearing. She imagines Mulder going to identify her body, the body that wasn’t especially recognizable. That idea makes her want to throw up. “The clothes I died in.”

“You didn’t die,” Maggie says firmly. “You’re here.”

“Wearing the same clothes,” she says. “After a year has passed. That’s disturbing—like someone is intentionally sending a message.”

She isn’t sure why she keeps looking up at Mulder when she knows it will be painful. His coldness is like a small, sharp knife continually rooting into her side.

“Exactly,” he says.

“You think I could be a clone? Like the Samanthas?” Scully says, somehow keeping her voice steady and professional. “That’s your theory?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I don't really have a theory. But something is wrong here—with this situation, with you.”

Another little rotation of the knife. Scully wills her face not to react.

“Fox,” her mother says, her voice very soft and pleading. “Fox.”

“Why does your memory stop in 1998?“ He seems to be lost in thought. “That seems significant. If someone were trying to … recreate Scully for whatever purpose. Why wouldn’t they recreate her memory until closer to the day she died?”

Maggie’s lips purse, and she sips her coffee with a tiny scowl. Scully can tell she doesn’t like this doubt being cast on the reality of her daughter’s miracle resurrection. Mulder doesn’t notice, staring at his food pensively.

“What happened immediately after I was stung by the bee?” Scully asks.

Mulder looks startled. “You were infected by a virus. Kidnapped. Taken to Antarctica. I found you there in an alien craft, gave you the vaccine, we escaped before it flew off.”

Scully frowns, overwhelmed by the epic, unbelievable scale of this story. By the casual way he describes the drastic steps he took to save her. She glances at her mother, who seems unperturbed. Perhaps she’s heard this whole elaborate tale before.

“Wait.” He tilts his head. “But that could be it. That’s when they last had easy access to you. They could have had an opportunity to tap into your memories then. They could have extracted them somehow— made some kind of back up, which they could… reinstall into another model.”

The twist of the little dagger again and again, deeper and deeper. The volume of her heart increases, until she hears it thumping in her ears like she is in active danger, like the dagger could hit her heart.

“Fox,” protests Maggie again, more firmly this time.

“That could be why you only remember up until that moment,” he continues. “It’s all of Scully’s memories they had access to.”

Her hurt makes her feel venomous. Mean-spirited. “Or maybe,” she says in a careful tone, “it was a decoy Dana Scully you rescued from Antarctica. Maybe it has been a clone of me with you these past few years, and I’m actually the original.”

Those words find their target. Direct hit. His face twitches, then shuts down all reaction again, but she can see a crease in between his eyes. She knows he is seriously considering the possibility of what she’s said, and that he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like it at all.

“In any case, I’ll go home with my mom after breakfast, Mulder,” Scully says frostily. “I think it would be best. It obviously bothers you to have me here.”

He looks up, and she sees something like surprise and sadness in those familiar green eyes. As though he hasn’t really realized how horribly he is behaving. That quickly hardens into resignation.

“I don’t think you can do that.” He rubs his temples with his thumbs. “We don’t understand enough here. You could be… there could be something dangerous at play here. I think you should stay here for the time being. And limit going out.”

Scully again feels tears spring to her eyes. “Am I under guard?”

“No,” he says. “Nothing like that. This is about being careful until we understand more.”

“And how exactly will we understand more?“

“We’ll run a DNA test. It won’t tell us much if you’re a clone, but maybe there are other genetic indications we can look for. We can have the rental car checked out.”

Scully nods bitterly. She doesn’t like the idea of being a prisoner in Mulder’s apartment, having to come face to face with his painful aloofness. But at very least she needs him as a partner, as an ally in looking for answers.

“Was there anything else on you yesterday that might give us more information? In your pockets? On your body? Anything that could be construed as a message?” Mulder asks.

She shakes her head. “I had my keys with me. Were those found on my body?”

Mulder and Maggie exchange looks. “As a matter of fact, no,” Mulder says. “We were told they were lost with the car.”

“I had no holster, no ID,” she says.

“You weren’t armed when you left that day,” Mulder says. “You had the day off. You had a purse, but it was returned to us.”

“I do have a cut on my left hand. I suppose it could be some kind of defensive wound, although it’s in an awkward location.” She extends her hand to show him the thin red line.

Mulder, sitting across from her, squints at the cut. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s on the inside of your hand, closest to you. Hard to view it as a defensive wound.”

Suddenly Maggie’s hand clamps over her wrist. With wide eyes she lifts Scully’s hand closer to her face to examine it. “It’s a cut from a bread knife,” she says softly.

“How could you know that, Mom?”

“Because I saw you do it.” Maggie shakes her head disbelievingly, still staring at the hand. “I swear I did.”

“What do you mean?”

“That morning, the morning you died, you were cutting your bagel at my house, holding it with your left hand and slicing with your right. We were talking, and you cut yourself. It bled… you told me bagel cutting injuries were surprisingly common in emergency rooms.”

Scully pulls her hand back to look at it with her pathologist’s eyes. It is in the right place for a bagel slicing injury, and it is the right size to have been produced by a bread knife.

“But it can’t be the same cut,” Scully says. “After a year? Anything that minor would have healed long ago. That’s not possible.”

Mulder doesn’t move, staring at her hand.

“Let me see your toenails,” Maggie says sharply. “Show me.”

Scully withdraws her feet from under Mulder’s table to the floor in front of her mother, sitting next to her.

“I noticed before that they’re painted some kind of pink,” Scully says. “It’s not something I feel like I would pick out.”

“The color is Ballet Slipper,” her mother whispers. She leans down and touches Scully’s foot lightly with her fingertip. “You did pick it out. You picked the color out for both of us when we got our toenails done that morning at the spa. It matches your shirt. And our toenails matched… but mine are long gone, of course.”

“You’re sure it’s the same color?” Scully says.

“I’m sure,” Maggie says. “I had ample time to contemplate it after you died.”

Scully feels her stomach become unsettled again—thinking of her mother looking at her pale pink toenails, remembering her dead daughter and their matching pedicures. And yet her daughter isn’t dead, and my pedicure is apparently still perfectly preserved a year later.

Her own hands begin to creep over her jeans, her face, her hair, as though she could somehow feel by touch what was true and authentic about her own body. “I don’t understand,” she says. “How could these things be unchanged after so long?”

When she looks to Mulder, he has locked eyes with her mother with an intense expression on his face she doesn’t understand.

“Fox,” her mother says urgently. “You have to—"

“No.” His voice is low and absolute. “No.”

Scully watches her mother’s mouth set into a line. She knows the look well. Whatever they’re talking about, Maggie has made her decision.

“You get some time,” her mother says. “But then …” She raises her eyebrows. “I’ll give you some time, Fox. But this is not all up to you.”

Scully’s eyes bounce back and forth between them. “Time for what?”

They don’t answer, still holding one another’s stare.

“What’s not up to him?” Scully says, her voice rising.

Maggie looks at her, new lines visible around her eyes. Her face transforms quickly into a smile. “Time to accept you being who you obviously are,” she says. “It’s not up to him to decide.”

“I’m trying,” Mulder says creakily, his eyes still on Maggie.

Scully takes a slow breath. Something is off here. And she hates it. She hates the feeling that there is important information she doesn’t know—that there are secrets her mother and Mulder, of all people, would conspire to keep from her. Her mood, already bleak, sours further.

“Oh Dana,” her mother says. She rises from her chair and puts her arms around Scully again, holding Scully’s head tight to her. “Please don’t worry about any of this too much. The important thing is that you’re here with us again. Try to focus on that.”

“I know, Mom,” Scully says, her cheek pressed against her mother’s abdomen. She doesn’t say what she is thinking, which is that she herself wasn’t aware of being gone at all, so being back isn’t the same giant relief for her that it is for her mother.

Her mom releases her to gaze at her face again. “We’ll convince Fox. You’ll see.”

Mulder says nothing, moodily pushing his eggs around with his fork.

“He’s been through a lot,” whispers Maggie, like he’s not right there, like he can’t hear her. “It’s natural he is going to be hesitant.”

Again Scully has mutinous, angry thoughts: You’ve been through a lot, too, Mom, and you had no trouble accepting me. And Mulder is someone who routinely accepts killer cockroaches and reincarnation and murder motivated by astrological phenomena.

“I’m sure,” Scully says coolly, looking down at her own plate. She decides to change the subject to something more practical. “Mom, do you know if I have any clothes left anywhere? I have nothing to change into.”

“I’m afraid we gave away most of your things,” Maggie says, distraught. “I may have a few boxes left. But I could also pick you up a few things from the store today. Would that be helpful?”

“I’d appreciate it,” Scully says. “Just basics. Something to sleep in, a few changes of clothes, underwear. I could use basic toiletries, too.”

“I’ll go right after we do breakfast dishes. Size 4, right?” her mother says. “32B?”

Scully’s eyes flash to Mulder again, instinctively self-conscious about announcing her bra size in front of him. But he doesn’t react to hearing it at all or even seem to process what she’s said. He stares at his plate, still idly moving his fork back and forth.

“Well,” Scully says. She lowers her voice to speak to her mother. “I think I’ve been gaining a bit in my more recent life, because these jeans are slightly small. Maybe size up everything a little, or look for something loose-fitting.”

She’s unprepared for the awkward silence that follows that seemingly benign statement. Maggie just blinks at her, then clears her throat. “Oh,” she says. “Of course, Dana. I think I can handle that.”

Across the table Mulder is now looking up, his eyes like burning coals. He tosses back and forth in his seat.

“I’m going out for a bit,” he announces suddenly.

Scully watches in astonishment as he stands abruptly, his chair scraping backwards. He clomps across the apartment, picks up his keys, and walks out the door without another word.

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Great Hunt! Chapter 26: Discord

Gather around everyone and I'll tell you a tale. It's a tale of my reactions to someone else telling me a different story in book form. Many book form, to be technical. And I already know the story, so my reactions will be very spoilery for all the books. Every book. If that's gonna be a problem, plug your ears or something I guess.

This chapter has a harp icon because it's Thom time! I'm as happy as Rand is to see him.

Rand, I may have been too hasty in leaving Stedding Shangtai the way I did. When I do go home, I may be in a great deal of trouble.

Not sure why you couldn't just lie about being a young Ogier from Saldaea or something, Loial. You all can't keep that close a set of tabs on each other. Or is the unbearded look a dead giveaway?

When they came pounding through the common room, Rand winked at the innkeeper, then laughed at his startled look. Let him think I’m off to play his bloody Great Game. Let him think what he wants. Thom’s alive.

What is it about needing to keep a low profile in inns that makes Rand so reckless? First Baerlon and his channeling sickness, now this when he doesn't even have that excuse.

The innkeeper was a woman with hair as white as Thom’s, and sharp eyes that studied Loial as well as Rand.

Innkeeper size, and therefore loyalty, uncertain.

The slender woman sitting cross-legged on the bed with her skirts tucked under her was keeping six colored balls spinning in a wheel between her hands.

Dena meanwhile has to be small so that Jordan can fit her into the fridge more easily.

“I have never heard of a woman gleeman,” Loial said.

And this frankly makes Dena's fridging all the more exhausting. Why are there no gleegals anyway? Surely there'd be a good source: women who go to the Tower to become Aes Sedai and then get put out again when it's clear they're not worthy but who don't want to go back home now that they've tasted the world. Especially since this world seems to be pretty low on sex work, you'd think that gals who don't have much else in the realm of prospects would pick up the job.

But also, it's infuriating that Dena is intro'd in this way and then killed off and then we never have any other woman who tries to take up the mantle later. One can hardly blame Thom for being in a hurry to pick up a lady apprentice given what happens to Dena and the events of the next few months, but by the time he ended up in Ebou Dar it should have been going again. It's a wasted opportunity.

They hang a scrap of painted canvas behind them, supposed to make the audience believe these fools are in Matuchin Hall, or the high passes of the Mountains of Dhoom. I make the listener see every banner, smell every battle, feel every emotion. I make them believe they are Gaidal Cain. Seaghan will have his hall torn down around his ears if he puts this lot on to follow me.

And here's another apparent revolution in the world's culture that doesn't seem to go anywhere. Theater exists; there's a play held in Andor much later, but apparently Gleemen will stay the preferred style for now. I suppose after the circus it's probably for the best we didn't pick up a subplot of players.

“She listens to a tale once—once only, mind!—and she has it right, not just the words, but every nuance, every rhythm. She has a fine hand on the harp, and she played the flute better the first time she picked it up than you ever did.”

Yes yes, we all know she's too pure for this sinful Earth.

She’ll be court-bard to a king or a queen before she’s done.

Okay but for real Thom, there's only so many monarchs in the world and I doubt many more nobles besides their immediate subordinates could afford court-bards so what are all the women in the world who aren't mind-bogglingly talented supposed to do in the performance arts? They can't all just give up their dreams and move on. Why are they absent?

“Your clumsy sheepherder’s fingers were never meant for the harp.”

There is something very sad in Rand not being meant for the sophisticated forms of art (and science) that he'd really rather be a part of than conquering.

There is even a lord in the city has what he claims is the Horn locked up inside his manor. He says it’s a treasure handed down in his House since the Breaking.

You know, I'm willing to believe that this lord really does have a 3,500 year old horn in his basement. Obviously not a magic one, but still. Stranger things have happened.

“Moiraine says it’s the Horn,” Rand said. Thom’s mirth was cut short.

Thom takes Moiraine as gospel even now.

“I don’t suppose you are talking about simply riding to Shienar and handing the Horn to—who?—the King? Why Shienar? The legends all tie the Horn to Illian.”

I suppose this must be one of those myths that grew in the telling. That or there was some confusion with a Foretelling and the sea that the Horn gets tossed into is off of Illian's coast.

“Thom,” he said at last, “are there any books that have The Karaethon Cycle in them?” Easier to call it that than the Prophecies of the Dragon. “In the great libraries,” Thom said slowly. “Any number of translations, and even in the Old Tongue, here and there.”

Thom of course has to answer slowly because Rand's question has given him a heart attack and he needs to take deep breaths. This might well be one of the more terrifying moments of Thom's life, having a young boy taken from his home on suspicion of channeling asking about the Prophecies while waving the sign of their imminent fulfillment around. Or at least this would be the case if Thom was taking it at all seriously (he's not, not yet).

For a moment, Rand could only gape at him, and when he could speak, his voice was unsteady. “The sword makes five. Hilt, scabbard, and blade.” He turned his hand down on the table, hiding the brand on his palm. For the first time since Selene’s salve had done its work, he could feel it. Not hurting, but he knew it was there.

Moiraine of course thought she was fulfilling prophecy but as Rand points out the coat counts for nothing, though funnily enough the sword and the coat are echoes of the later, true markings: the sword setting Rand on his path away from home and the coat being Moiraine naming him among the candidates as the real deal.

Thom's got to be happy Rand's denying it though.

I suspect Aes Sedai would want to make events fit the Prophecies as closely as they can. Dying somewhere in the Blasted Lands would be a high price to pay for going along with them.

Thom's a very kind mentor for actually telling Rand straight out what the price of being the Dragon is and suggesting that if he's just doing it for the Aes Sedai that it's time to do something.

“Then why ask about the Prophecies? Why send the Ogier out of the room?”

One of the problems of being an expert player of the Great Game is that when a novice shows up and starts blundering around, you're going to mistake his idiotic moves for strategic ones. Thom correctly identifies Rand's got an ulterior motive for his behavior and skips right past the obvious, simple, and true answer in favor of a conspiracy theory.

“I’ve learned a few things since we parted, Thom. They will come for whoever blows the Horn, even a Darkfriend.”

I'm not sure you've learned that at all Rand, and I suppose we should have taken Thom not knowing that detail as warning enough that it wasn't true.

“Owyn held it off almost three years. He never hurt anyone. He didn’t use the Power unless he had to, and then only to help his village. He. . . .” Thom threw up his hands.

The taint on saidin was an absolutely masterful counterstroke if you think about it. The perfect way for the divisive paranoia of the Shadow to worm its way into the minds of Light aligned individuals. Thom knows that Owyn was a danger to society but he still tries to make excuses out of love.

If Moiraine’s let you go, then you are well out of it.

While Rand outplays Thom through naivety, Moiraine outflanks him legitimately.

“A clean break is best, boy. If you’re always coming around, even if you never mention it, I won’t be able to get the Horn out of my head. And I won’t be tangled in it. I won’t.”

A cruel move by Thom, but one can hardly blame an old man for trying to refuse the call. One can blame the Wheel for how refusing the call plays out for him though.

Ruefully, he realized he was considering whether to tell Zera the truth or let her continue thinking as she did. All it takes is to think about the Great Game, and I start playing it.

Politics as a whole are a rather infectious way of corrupting the Light too, and the fools do it to themselves. It's no wonder part of Rand's coming is resetting the whole damn board on the players.

Coat or no coat, Rand was still only a shepherd. If he had been more, if he had been what Thom once suspected—a man who could channel—neither Moiraine nor any other Aes Sedai would ever have let him walk away ungentled.

Frankly, I think Thom's very much hiding in denial here like Rand does. He has to know that the facts don't add up in any way that's good but he pretends he can send Rand away and not have to worry about it.

Ah well. We have to part ways here too. See you next chapter!

[yourmomni]

Crush-1

Word count: 2k

Summary: y/n is just trying to get through life and university without making any humanly contact with other people minus her bestfriends and her protective sister but what happened when the soccer captain falls head over heels for her and develops a crush on her

Jake soccer x femreader

A/n: chapter 2 🥰

The library was extra quiet today making it easier to study and grab any books I wanted. Some may call me an overachiever but I just like to get things done and correct the first time so if that means studying until the late am's and not having a social life then so be it.

"Y/N I've been looking for you everywhere, come on the place closes at 8." I pushed my glasses up " Okay okay one more page." My sister snatched the book from me then closed it. " no more pages now let's go." She grabbed my arm dragging me out of my seat. My sister Amilla was the spitting image of our mother with her soft brown skin, a mole under her eye and her almond shaped eyes. The only difference was the under strands of her hair being dyed a now faded pink.

It was your sophomore year in college and your sister's senior year in university. She dragged you out of the library with your protest falling on deaf ears. She finally let you go as you both continued walking with your tote bag hanging over your shoulder. "You could've at least let me put my books away." I grumbled she shrugged me off and we cut across the grass. "Sorry it's just I want a good seat and I wanna try their new drink in the menu."

You smiled to yourself knowing her real reason for wanting to go to the Cafe. " yeah sure it's totally not because of the new barista that works there." She faltered a little but went back to her same pace. " I have no idea who you're talking about." I caught up to her. " yes you do what his name again Jay." She pushed me away but not before smiling. "Stopppp." I giggled. In my eyes Amilla was the most beautifulest person in the world to me. She could blink once and all the men in the world would fall to their knees and worship her.But she never gave them the day until Jay

On our breaks before class started we usually would get pick me up from the Cafe across campus that was a hot spot for all the other students as well. Me and Amilla were walking to our usual table when we notice it needed to be clean off

" oh let me go find someone to clean that off for you ladies." The older lady who owned the Cafe said we thanked her. " hey I'm gonna go order our drinks." I said leaving her alone. She nodded and went on her phone. " Sorry for the mess." " oh it's fine." She looked up from her phone and was met with a handsome boy whipping down her table. Not the normal guy who usually did. He had black hair and it was parted through the middle and two hoop earrings in his ear. Handsome was a understatement. He finished cleaning and turned towards her his breath hitched but he caught himself before she noticed.

"Hi, you must be new." He nodded "yeah new." She smiled at him. " I mean yes I'm new today is my first day." Amilla reached her hand out " well nice to meet you I'm Amilla ." He went for her hand but immediately retracted it back, wiping it on his apron. " I'm sorry, before this I was baking in the back with my hands all dirty. I wouldn't wanna get you all messy." He rambled on. " I'm Jay by the way." I nodded. God he was cute. I mentally slapped myself

Amilla remembered what mom said " men are the devil in disguise waiting to ruin your life and take everything you've worked for." maybe she was being a little dramatic after your parents divorce but she always raised us to be independent and never depend on anyone else

"Jay I need you back here." " Coming." He yelled back. " I um gotta go ill see you around." He walked away disappearing in the back." Yeah totally later." The smile wouldn't disappear from her face. " who was that." I asked, raising my eyebrows. She took her drink. " Just the new guy, his name is jay."

Amilla shoved my shoulder when I reminded her of the time she and Jay met. " Okay I admit he is kinda cute-" I squealed" but that doesn't mean anything. It's normal to find people attractive." I scoffed. "Yeah but not for you." As I was talking to her I had a weird feeling someone was staring at me. But I shrugged it off. I was never the type of girl to get compliments from guys or have them drool over me. I always kept to myself socializing only when needed. Despite all that I still had friends but they always were the complete opposite of me. Outgoing party people while I just enjoyed reading and staying In all day. No one was interested in me or so I thought

" Wow." Jake said stopping in his tracks watching the prettiest girl walk past he admired her side profile and gasped when she turned her head to face him without looking at him. " Hey bro, who is that?" He tapped Heeseung's chest. Heesueng looked up from his phone. " Who Amilla?" Jake shook his head. " no the girl beside her." " That's Y/n her little sister." Jake smirked. " Y/n." He started walking towards her " hey woah woah." Heeseung grabbed his arm. " Where are you going? We have class."

"I'm going to go talk to her." He said removing his hand. "Jake be careful not many people talk to her and I heard her sister is really protective ." Jake looked towards the gìrl again. if he was in a cartoon hearts would have been flying above his head " what is she going to do kill me." Heeseung sighed and jake jogged off before heesung could interject again

Your sister was telling you how much she needed coffee when a boy stood in front of you blocking your way. " Hi." He said look at us. " um hi can we help you." The tone in my sister's voice turned dark causing me to get a little nervous.``yes you can actually." He looked at me and I jumped a little. " Hi My name is Jake." He extended his hand out to me and I just stared at it

My sister was watching me in confusion. I took his hand and shook it." Nice to meet you I'm Y/n." He smiled " yeah I know." My eyes widened " you know who I am." Now I was the one confused and my sister was watching us in amusement. " Yes I've been watching you for some time you read in the bleachers while I have practice." I heard my sister scoff and she got in front of me.

"Yeah she's not interested." I looked at her in shock. " I'm not?" He raised his eyebrows `` I don't understand." "Well I do." She started walking towards him now I was completely behind her " You don't know my sister nor have you seen her around. She spends most of her time in the library or in her dorm, she doesn't have any friends-" I interrupted " I have Jeno." " He doesn't count. Anyways" she is closer to him " I know boys like you. Boys who think it's funny to mess with the quiet girl , you mess with their heads making them targets for your little '' fan girls'' to push around and abuse making them feel bad about themselves. It's pathetic and under my watch you will not do it to my sister come on y/n." She grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the boy I looked back at him to see him waving with a sad smile and I waves back

" Aw he was cute." I pouted and she dragged me all the way to the Cafe in silence ordering our drinks and sitting down " why wouldn't you let me talk to jake." I stirred my tea " because he's a fuckboy who wants nothing but to ruin you." I frowned. "He seemed nice. And I do read on the bleachers during soccer. Maybe he has really seen me." My sister groaned " Y/n open your eyes Jake's-" " What about sim jake." Jeno slide in beside me pushing me to the side." Hello Jeno, how nice of you to show up." I said, rolling my eyes at him. Jeno smiled widely, making me push his face away. `` he was trying to talk to y/n."" he what, when." He asked frantically, shaking my arm. Just then Amillas' order came and Jay sat it down in front of her. " Here Milla, I hope you enjoy it. I made it just the way you like it, extra sweet." He winked and walked away. I squealed, " I made it extra sweet just like you." Jeno copied his voice and I giggled

" did he call you Milla." She was smiling hard trying to look away from me " You do like him." She shushed me tossing a napkin at me " Okay fine maybe just a little though." Jeno shrugged. " He's on the soccer team with me, he's pretty cool, he hangs out with the captain mostly . Speaking of the captain, why were you talking about jake." Amilla rolled her eyes " He tried picking up your bestfriend that's what happened and I shut him down immediately." Jeno gasped ." Why the hell would you do that he's nice." I looked at her." Because she thinks I can't take care of myself." You can't." She bluntly replied I looked at her and gasped " what yes I can right Jeno." He looked away from me like he was reading the back of my cup. I slapped his shoulder." Y/n you can barely cook, I have to remind you to go to sleep most night because you stay up studying till the late nights and you get lost everywhere you go." I crossed my arms. " I get confused sometimes." She sighed " I'm just looking out for you, you've never had a boyfriend before-" " yes I have" "Jeno doesn't count." I pouted " it was like for 4 days and you both couldn't stand each other." I silently agreed with her but jeno stayed silent.

"Just give him a chance please." Amilla didn't even look at her sister's pleading face; she immediately declined it ." Not gonna happen."

After lunch at the Cafe I said bye to my sister and walked to my last class of the day while she went home to finish her paper. I took my glasses off and put them in the case dropping them in my tote.

"HEY WATCH OUT." I turned around one second and the next I was on the ground with something heavy on top of me." Ow." I groaned. " shit shit shit y/n I'm so sorry." Jake was looking down at me frantic. He quickly got up and grabbed my hand. " Are you ok?" I dusted my skirt off and noticed my knee was bleeding." Yeah I'm fine just a scratch." He started putting everything back into my bag while rambling on about how sorry he was.

With him on the ground I finally got a better look at him and his features. He was handsome, really handsome. " Your Australian right." I mentally slapped myself, talking to people is not my strong suit. He smiled up at me. " Yeah I'm an international student here but I'm korean so that's why they put me in the korean dorms." I nodded silently proud of my self for starting a conversation. " soooo um I heard that your on the soccer team well you kind of told me and other people told me also." I rambled on he nodded. " So you've been talking about to other people about me, it's good to know I left a good impression on you. I thought I messed up." He stood up handing me my bag. I thanked him. " Yeah sorry about my sister she's really-" "protective." He finished. I nodded. "Yeah but I thought you were sweet." He smiled " oh really." I looked away at him so he wouldn't see me smile.

" Yeah not many people talk to me especially to flirt." I looked back at him and he was looking at me with so much endearment. "I-i-." I couldn’t figure out the words to say with him staring at me like that. No one has ever looked at me the way he was.." your the most beautiful girl I've ever seen." He blurted out I didn't know how to react but jake seemed shocked at his words." I mean…..wait what am I saying… I didn't mean that well I did mean that you are beautiful." My brain was overflowing with signals to run and get away from this hazard as fast as I could. I've never experienced a feeling like this. My stomach started bubbling and I felt light. Was this what having a crush feels like.

Jake continued to ramble on and didn't stop until I told him too "I get it it's okay." He shoved his hands in his hoodie pocket and started fiddling with his fingers. If his friends could see him now. THE Jake Sim stuttering in front of a girl. That was rare. He was known for his handsome features and charming personality which meant that every girl at the university had a crush on him. "I think you're pretty handsome yourself." He smiled. The noon clock ringed bringing me back to reality "oh nooo I'm late for lecture." I pulled my phone out to check if the clock was maybe going too fast. " you have psych right I'll walk you I'm going the same way I have bio in the building over I'm late for class aswell." I nodded and we walked together. We started talking about the soccer team and their next game. "I didn't know you liked soccer have you gone to any games." I nodded, smiling." Yeah my best friend jeno is on the team.

He bit the inside of his cheek. " Wait your friends with jeno." He looked concerned." Yeah since we were kids." We made it to my class and I bowed. " thank you for walking me to class." He bowed to me." Thank you for letting me and I'm sorry about your leg." I looked down at the dry blood on my knee. " it's okay I have a first aide in my tote." I rambled in my tote and noticed my glasses broke. "Dang it." I pulled them out watching the arm fall off and looking at the shattered lens. " I'll buy you new ones." He winced expecting them with me." No it's fine I can just call my dad to tell him-" he took them out of my hand and shoved them in his pocket. "no it's okay plus gives me an excuse to see you again." He bit his lip smiling at me. " oh you want to see me again? Well okay then." I felt like my legs were going to give out

"Okay well bye." He waved and I waved back " bye." I turned around and entered my class later than I've ever had. Jake watched her walk into the classroom smiling to himself. He was skipping in his head like a little boy and walked back to the boys who were still kicking around the soccer ball on the grass. " hyung where did you go?" Sunoo asked adding jake back into the game by sending him the ball. " Sunoo didn't you see he was talking to a girl." Sunghoon said wiggling his eyebrows at jake. " well he sorta ran into her he was just being polite." Jake went behind sunghoon and kicked the ball between his legs causing him to falter a little. " Or he was getting himself a date for the party coming up." Jay kicked the ball causing it to intercept. Jake walked to heeseung putting his arm around him. " I already told you guys I'm not going to that party and plus y/n not like those other girls I talked to in the past she's sweet and caring." The boys ohhhed " oh so her names is y/n huh." Jay poked . " I have class with her she sits in the front, she's really smart." Sunoo picked up the ball running to where the boys were circled

" Yeah she is… I was thinking about asking her on a date." They gasped. " Jake Sim going on a date Woah." Jake felt his ears turn read as he continued to tell his plan to his brothers. " Go for it dude." Heeseung said, patting him on the shoulder. " All non classes end at 3 so you can wait for her then drop the question." Jake beamed today would be jake sim history. The first time jake will ask a girl out and actually care if she says no.

[skzhocomments]

Mafia Book #2 - PART II - The Withered Rose - Chapter 4 - Ghost from the past

Story masterlist - please consult it for the summary of the story, trigger warnings etc.

General masterlist

PART I - The Black Iris

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Wattpad | AO3

Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

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PART II - The Withered Rose

Chapter 4 - Ghost from the past

chapter word count: ~3k words

~third person POV~

The flight lasts a few hours, but it barely feels like enough time for Emilia. In a timespan of a day, she had to pack her whole life away and hop on a plane, back to the one place she hoped to never see again.

It takes 15 hours to get from her house in Italy to the Stray Kids’ mansion. Barely enough to put her thoughts in order, to stop the trembling in her hands that comes and goes whenever she realises she’s going to meet Chris.

Chris.

She glances out the small round window and focuses on the clouds under her. They are puffy, with a slight shade of pastel pink from the sunrays, and they remind her of cotton candy. The thought makes her smile, only she doesn’t do it on the outside.

Her mind and body feel disconnected, aside from the slight trembling, and she is unable to hear the spoken words between Minho, Iris and Wooyoung. She hears distant laughs sometimes and wonders how Wooyoung managed to get this comfortable with the two in just shy of a day. 

The only thing that brings her to the real world is Ivy’s cries every now and then. She inevitably gets bored, tired and stiff, and starts screaming her lungs out just as she did when she was still a baby.

To everyone else, her cries might be annoying, but to Emilia, they do the exact opposite. They calm her. It gives her something to do; a reason to not think about the mansion, Stray Kids or Chris.

Ivy doesn’t understand much. Sure, she knows they’re going to live somewhere far away, and she notices her mother’s reluctance about this trip, but she’s excited, nonetheless. Uncle and aunt are doing a great job in hyping her up.

~

Stray Kids’ mansion is the same as she remembers. Nothing’s changed at all. The gardens are evergreen, the door looks the same, and the inside of it, too. She doesn’t want to take that first step to actually enter the house, but she doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter.

The mansion is filled with child’s laughter as Wooyoung picks Ivy up and kisses her cheeks, and Emilia hugs herself. It feels cold.

“Chris is probably in his office, so… let’s go upstairs.” Minho says, carefully watching Emilia. The woman’s expression stays neutral as she nods and follows him, with Wooyoung, Ivy and Iris closely behind her.

It feels like their formation is strategic. Stuck in-between Lee Know and Iris, there is no chance for the three of them to escape. Not like Emilia believed she could escape. She’s already lost the battle as soon as Iris stepped into her flower shop back in Italy.

“I’ll go in first… talk to him a bit, and then I’ll ask you to come in, okay?” Minho asks with his hand on a handle, and as soon as Emilia nods, he knocks two times.

“Come in.” Chris answers quickly, and hearing his voice, Emilia’s blood runs cold. This is really happening. She must really face him after years of running away.

She wonders how much he’s changed in the past years; being here feels familiar and oddly comforting, because, fuck, even his voice is just as she’s remembered.

She couldn’t ever forget it, even if she’s tried desperately many times, because as soon as she stops thinking about him for a while, he’d pop up in one of her dreams and stir her awake, and she’d wake up breathless, breaking out in cold sweat.

The dreams are often happy ones, where they are both happily living in Italy, raising Ivy together, making love and kissing under the sun’s rays; and seldom nightmares, memories where his gun is pointed at her forehead, where his expression is as cold as ice, or simply inventions of her mind, where he mercilessly murders her, stabs her in cold blood or shoots her repeatedly; where he finds her in Italy and gets revenge on her, killing Ivy and Wooyoung in front of her eyes. Those are the worst.

Still, she waits patiently in front of the door, her breathing becoming ragged, while Iris and Wooyoung are carrying out a pointless conversation. Ivy gets impatient and asks what they are doing, but a few moments later, Minho opens the door and asks her to step in.

~

“Hi. Oh, you’re here too.” Minho speaks in a quiet voice, eyeing the two men in the room.

“Welcome back.” Jeongin says briefly, and Minho answers with a nod of his head.

“Back already? Honeymoon’s over a bit earlier, I see.” Chris greets Lee Know as soon as he comes inside, barely raising his eyes from the laptop on his desk.

“There were some unforeseen circumstances.”

“Yeah?” Chris shuts the laptop’s screen down and carefully watches Minho. “What’s up? Something wrong with the trade that we don’t already know about?”

“No… it’s completely unrelated.”

“Mhm.” Chris nods while tapping an index finger against the desk’s dark brown surface. “Then?”

“It’s… something else. Uhm…” He glances again at I.N and is met with an uninterested demeanour. “Iris and I were in this small town in Italy, and… God, I don’t even know how to say this. You know what? I’ll stop beating around the bush.” With that, Lee Know turns around and opens the door.

“Come… all of you.”

Chris stands confused at his desk, not understanding Minho’s eerie behaviour. He exchanges a look with Jeongin, who simply shrugs, and waits. It is unlike Minho to be so careful with his words, so whatever is behind that door – or rather, whoever – must be incredibly important.

Emilia takes a deep breath in and steps through the door, her gaze stuck on Chris, and his wide eyes stuck right back on hers. It is as if time stood still, and the world stopped spinning as the two of them fought a silent battle with their eyes. As if no time at all has passed since they used to make love on the very desk Chris stands up from, hastily running towards Emilia and kneeling down at her feet grabbing her hands in his and kissing them over and over again.

“Emilia… is this really you?” He cries out.

He cries.

For the first time since that night almost 4 years ago, Chris starts crying in front of Minho and Jeongin. Only this time, it is not due to him being utterly powerless, but due to the extreme heavy weight that disappeared from inside his chest at the sight of the love of his life.

“You… but… how?” He stands up again and lets go of her hands, grabbing her face instead and scanning every centimetre of it. Sure enough, every part of her face looks exactly like he remembers. It is her, no doubt.

She averts her gaze and clenches her fists, and her eyes meet Jeongin’s briefly. A sense of shame overwhelms her, and she decides against making sense of the darkness in his eyes. They still hold compassion for her, at least, even if she is uncertain if there is any love left for her in them.

What Minho said was true, they all changed.

“You lied to me.” Chris states accusatory, but surprisingly calmly, in Jeongin’s direction. The fox eyed man doesn’t say anything in response.

Chris is quick to turn his attention back to Emilia, who still stands silent. It feels as if her mouth is glued shut, but she quickly comes to her senses when Chris releases her and looks bewildered at his carbon copy.

Ivy lets out a small giggle in Wooyoung’s arms and Chris instinctively raises a hand to touch her brown curls, when all the rage in Emilia’s heart bursts out.

“Don’t you dare touch her.” She says, almost in a whisper, and smacks his hand away, moving in front of her protectively.

“Mommy, hug!” Ivy says, trying to wiggle out of Wooyoung’s grasp.

“Oh my fucking God…” Chris whispers in return and looks at Emilia again. “What is this? We have a-”

“No. We don’t have shit. She is my daughter, so don’t you dare lay a single dirty hand on her.”

“Emilia… can we talk? Please.” He replies calmly, but it’s hard for him to keep his composure.

Iris notices his body language immediately: Chris looks tense, and he’s been fidgeting since they stepped in the room, and he’s been breathing faster and faster. Still, he seems to be using some of her calming techniques, as he hasn’t lost his cool, nor has he erupted in any fits of anger or distress.

So far, so good.

Emilia ignores Chris’ pleadings and starts walking towards I.N instead, who opens his arms and embraces her tightly.

She still smells the same, a comforting thought to Jeongin.

“I am so sorry. I had to…” She starts as soon as she’s in his arms, but he just squeezes her tighter.

“I’m so happy to see you again.” He replies. “We have a lot of catching up to do. I tried looking for you, but you didn’t want to be found, did you?”

“No… was it you, in that mountain town three years ago?”

“Mhm. One of my men almost found you, but as always, you were one step ahead.”

“Thought my note would’ve made it clear that I don’t want to be found.”

“Did you think I’d just let you be after a mere ‘I’m sorry’, knowing what state you were in when you left?”

“I hoped you would.” She says and moves away from his grasp. Jeongin chuckles briefly. He knew Emilia did this intentionally to avoid Chris’ request, to test the waters and check how much she could get away with.

And now she knows, for Chris doesn’t say anything; he just waits for them to finish their greetings, and then looks at her expectedly.

Emilia walks back to the door and grabs Ivy from Wooyoung, getting out of the room. In the doorframe, she turns to Chris once more and looks him dead in the eyes.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

~

She walks down the corridor directly into her old room, which looks exactly like it did when she left. Not that she spent that much time in it for her to feel any nostalgia. Her days were spent away on the training field, and her nights always ended up with her tangled up in Chan’s sheets.

“Hey, can you bring me her suitcase?” She asks Wooyoung as she places Ivy down the bed. She figures her daughter is tired, so she soothes her a bit until Wooyoung returns with her clothes, and then they change her together.

“How does it feel to be back?” Wooyoung asks quietly as Ivy drifts off to dreamland.

“Weird. Unbelievable. Abnormal.”

“Damn. Not an ounce of happy feelings.”

“Did you enjoy making new friends at least?” Emilia asks mockingly.

“Come on, what was I supposed to do? Follow your example and sulk the whole way here? If I have to live with them from now on, I should at least give them a chance.”

“Well, you don’t have to do anything. You can walk right through that door and no one would give a flying fuck!” Emilia raises her voice a bit, before realising Ivy might wake up, so she breathes in deeply and tries to control her emotions.

“Like hell I’m leaving my daughter behind.”

“Your daughter?”

“Yeah. In case you didn’t know, she’s my daughter as much as she’s yours. I’m daddy.”

“Ew, I don’t want to hear those words come out of your mouth.” Emilia shudders and they both chuckle slightly.

“Anyway, my point is-”

“I know. I’m sorry, you’re right. Ivy loves you, and you’re the only dad she’s ever known. I’m really happy you decided to stick by us.”

Wooyoung looks away and nods briefly.

“I wanna go get some fresh air.”

“No worries, I got her.” Wooyoung replies, looking fondly at Ivy.

~

The gardens are, like everything else, just as she remembers. It’s like time stopped moving in this mansion; the only missing thing being the loud bickering that used to always be present wherever the members decided to hang out.

Emilia didn’t see anyone else in the house, and the gardens seem to be empty as well. She keeps walking around the once familiar paths, breathing in the scent of roses, and heads to the one place in the garden she used to spend so much time in.

On the way, she spots a familiar figure walking around leisurely and whistling. She contemplates saying something, but instead simply watches the man. Jisung looks good, and hasn't aged a day since she’s last seen him.

He turns his head in her direction and all the colour drains from his cheeks. He lets out the loudest shriek, to the point where Emilia has to cover her ears, and runs away as quickly as his feet can handle it.

Tsk, so much so for being in a mafia. Emilia scoffs with a small chuckle and keeps on walking.

The greenhouse is still beautiful from the outside: well-kept, carefully painted in subtle golden hues, with plants all around the glass walls to still give the impression that there is nothing else but greenery inside of it.

After rummaging through her front left pocket for a bit, Emilia finally finds the small key she’s taken care of so carefully. She was never one to be so attached to her belongings, but there are two things she’s desperately clung to these past years: San’s polaroid picture – reminder of a past long gone and out of reach, of a time when she was carelessly smiling alongside her best friend; and this golden key.

It’s always been painful to look at it after she’s left, because not only did it bring her bad memories and pain, but it also brought her happiness to remember all the time spent here with the love of her life and her other best friends.

Now, she twists the golden key into the lock, making a mental note to return it to Hyunjin later, and steps inside the greenhouse.

Some paintings are unveiled, and she takes her time observing them, thinking of what these may be, and of who painted them. She stops in front of a tree and tries to make sense of it, when she gets distracted by the sound of the door opening.

“Nice painting, huh?” Iris asks with a slight smile.

“What, did Chris send you to spy on me? Psychoanalyse me? See if I somehow have it in me to forgive him?” Emilia mocks.

“No, Chris doesn’t know I’m here.” She shrugs.

“So, is this yours, or are there more new members I’m unaware of?” She points to the tree.

“Yeah, that’s mine.”

“It’s the therapy tree.” Emilia chuckles amused. “What a load of crap. Do you really want me to believe you didn’t conveniently draw every single detail to manipulate everyone into trusting you?”

“Sharp.” Iris grins.

“Tsk.”

“So, how does it feel to be back home? Any nostalgia creeping in? Any long-lost feelings after seeing Chris after so much time?”

“Don’t make me laugh. I loved Chris, and our relationship was fun while it lasted, but I placed highly unrealistic expectations on him, and I didn’t know anything about him after all. It was fun while it lasted, but now, there’s nothing left.”

“Are you sure?”

“Aww, man. Wish I had one of those pretty things on my thighs.” Emilia ignores Iris’ question and points to her holster. “Would make everything more interesting if I had a gun pointed at you, don’t you think?”

“Well, that’s gonna have to wait, I’m afraid. I don’t think anyone here trusts you with any weapons.”

“That’s too bad.” Emilia shrugs. “Where is everyone?”

“Oh, most of them are away on missions, except for Han, whom I assume you’ve seen.”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with him?” Emilia laughs, briefly remembering the small interaction with Jisung and the way he shrieked.

“He was soooo convinced he’s seen a ghost, poor dude. Ran up to me almost crying and screaming that we have to leave the mansion now!”

“No way!”

“Yeah, and that’s not all! He was convinced there’s either a spirit haunting these grounds, or that he’s going crazy, and he wanted us to schedule a therapy appointment immediately!”

They both burst out laughing.

“Honestly, that’s such a Han thing to do. He hasn’t changed one bit.” Emilia wipes away the small tears formed in the corners of her eyes from laughter.

“Hey, I’m sorry we had to bring you back with us-”

“Yeah, that was really uncool of you.” Emilia scolds.

“-however, you and Ivy are safe here. I hope you’re aware of that.”

“Safe? Safe?! Don’t make me laugh. There’s nowhere safe for us, mafia people. We must always be steps ahead in front of our enemies unless we want to be 6 feet under. We are never safe, Iris. Don’t get confused, and don’t let your guard down.”

“What the fuck-” A perplexed Hyunjin exclaims from the doorframe.

He feels like a breath of fresh air for Emilia, and he’s different. He has red hair now, and it suits him well.

“You came back from the dead, I see.” Hyunjin breaks out into a large smile and starts walking towards Emilia. “Come here.”

He embraces her tight and he’s happy. He’s genuinely happy to see her, and his heart is still beating fast from the initial shock and surprise.

“Hyunjinnie, I needed to come back and return something to you.” Emilia rummages through her pockets again and takes out the key.

As she does so, the small polaroid picture falls out, and Iris is quick to bend down to pick it up and hand it back to her.

“Thanks.” She smiles and places the picture back in her pocket, then hands out her hand and opens her palm to reveal the small golden key to Hyunjin. “I believe I don’t need it anymore.”

Hyunjin shakes his head and covers her hand with his, but instead of grabbing the key, he closes back her palm into a fist.

“That’s yours. Come here whenever you feel like it, Emi. That key will always be yours. Welcome back.”

They both smile at each other while Iris analyses the interaction. Sure, she’s heard many times about how they all came to get along, but seeing it happen right in front of her eyes feels unreal. Emilia truly is loved by everyone in this mansion, one way or another, and even though she claimed she hated everyone, it’s crystal clear that she also loves them with all her heart right back.

~

Chapter 3 | Chapter 4