#okay. collapses. i'm so good at this fic writing thing | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nariism · 4 months ago

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wherever you are, wherever you may be — i. rin

soulmates (name au) + "i'm done waiting."

synopsis. itoshi rin meets you under a sky full of fireworks. he spends the next 6 years of his life trying to convince himself that he doesn't love you. you spend the next 6 years giving him every reason why he should.

wc. 12.4k (i need to close my eyes and sleep for a while)

notes. huge thank you to ellie (@hyomagiri) and mari (@saetoshi) for helping me with this 🥹 this fic actually put me through it and i'm so grateful to both of them for their support 💗

— for my beloved @ode2rin 💐 | event masterlist ✉️

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

2024

Every year on the seventh day of the seventh month, Itoshi Rin finds himself standing at the daunting entrance to his local shrine.

The tradition is completely beneath him—something childish that he grumbles about under his breath despite letting you drag him all the way out here with soft eyes watching your smile.

Tanabata is the festival of stars. Of love.

It is a story his mother used to whisper to him as they watched the night sky in awe, pretending that the galaxy was collapsing in on itself to allow for a romantic midnight rendezvous between two lovers.

It’s something far too sappy for his liking.

But the food is okay, he supposes, and it’s a good opportunity to get out of the house and spend time with you which he seldom has time to do now that he’s back in his training season.

There were too many things about it that he loathed: the screaming children that would bump into his legs; the way his ears would stay ringing for days after the festival ended; how you could always convince him to come as if you were some sort of hypnotic devil in disguise, and how thoroughly wounded his pride would be at that fact.

However, his least favourite part of the festival by far is writing down his wish for the year on a scrap piece of paper and hanging it around a bamboo tree. One, because he can never for the life of him think of anything meaningful to wish for. And two, because he isn’t sure he even believes in that sort of thing.

Rin is struggling again this year, pencil lightly scratching his temple as he thinks.

He’s painfully aware that he’s never put so much thought into this before, but you seemed so excited to come all the way here before heading to the festivities that he couldn’t possibly let you down.

His wish dawns on him then, something he wants to do before the next time he makes the climb all the way back up here 365 days from now.

“Hey,” your voice calls out quietly. “What did you wish for?”

“What did you wish for?” Rin quickly refutes.

You cast your narrowed eyes from the side, tilting your little slip of yellow paper away from him.

“Only if I get to see yours first.”

Normally, he would give in to you right away. His resolve when it comes to you is embarrassingly weak. But there’s no way for him to explain himself. No way he could show you the words he’s written lest he hurt his ego.

He stubbornly folds up the piece of paper and shoves your face away. All you do is laugh and he feels terribly warm.

“No peeking,” he tells you when you kiss across his fingertips.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

2018

A name appeared for Itoshi Rin when he turned thirteen years old.

He remembers the day well—it was hard to forget, anyway. As much as he wanted to focus on the burning of the name etching its way down his skin, he couldn’t. Not when he was blinking snow out of his lashes and watching his brother’s retreating back.

Rin likes to think that the universe fucks with him in any way that it can.

Maybe he had done something terrible in his past life and this was its karmic retribution, or maybe he was just unlucky.

What he does know is this: the name on his pinky only reminds him of all the things he ever lost.

Every syllable struck needles into his heart—a painful memory of crawling after the tracks of the wheels Sae left behind with his luggage until gravel and ice were stuck under his nails. Or worse, the clawing of his throat as they sat across from each other at dinner—the way he didn't even smile when Rin announced to his parents that his soulmate mark had appeared while his mother cried out in joy.

In fact, Sae didn’t talk to him for the rest of his visit. He remembers that hurt the most.

The name had haunted him for all the remaining years of his life—a forced memory that he wished he could forget. There came with it a feeling of loneliness that crushed him despite the proof on his pinky that there was another soul wandering the earth that would fix him.

He refused to believe it.

Only revenge would fix him. Only proving himself better would heal the cracks in his heart. Only beating Sae. Sae, Sae, Sae. His brother’s name had been repeated so many times that it was easy to ignore the other burning his skin.

In all those years he found it easy to cast aside his soulmate. To ignore it even if it hurt.

So he wonders why it’s so bad tonight.

He’s done everything he could think of: slathering cooling ointment down his finger to stop the searing, wrapping it in a cast to prevent himself from admiring it for too long, even tying a wish to a piece of bamboo hoping it would disappear.

A finger snaps in front of his face, drawing his attention to his teammates in front of him. Both look equally amused.

“You’re dreaming,” Isagi muses. “You’ve been spacing out all night. Is everything okay?”

“I’m fine,” Rin mutters, swatting his teammate’s hand away from him. He had been staring again, longingly eyeing the way the letters danced down his skin. “Just thinking.”

“About?”

“None of your business.”

“Yeesh, it’s not good to keep things bottled up, you know?”

“You’re annoying,” Rin glowers before it melts back into indifference. “I’m fine,” he reiterates.

Isagi seems unconvinced, as he usually is when Rin is being mysteriously vague about what’s on his mind. He and Bachira share a tentative glance before sighing and shaking their heads.

“Well… okay,” he finally yields. “We’re going to get some snacks before the fireworks start. If you’re going to sulk then at least stay put and do it here so we can find you again.”

“Yeah,” Rin grumbles, already making an escape plan. “Whatever. Will do.”

As soon as the boys are out of sight, he turns heel and hurries away. The crowd is driving him crazy and he needs somewhere quiet so he can stare at his hands until his eyes are dry.

He comes to a pond situated just outside of the festival grounds, deep water glimmering under the moon and the passing lanterns.

Plopping down on the bench, he hunches over onto his knees with his elbows and takes a deep breath. It instead comes shallow, as if someone has just punched him in the gut.

It’s then that he realizes he’s not alone.

Your yukata is muddy, fabric soaked and dripping at the sleeves though you don’t seem to care or even notice. You look frustrated for some reason, lip curled into a concentrated frown while you plunge your hands into the mud around the edge of the water.

Away from the crowds of people, he can hear the summer song of cicadas chirping all around. Your hands dip in and out of the water, quiet splashes filling the rest of the silence on top of the distant buzz of children laughing.

It’s just you and him. Something primal inside of him rages, pounding against his chest until it feels like he’s suffocating.

Run. Run. Run.

His legs jerk, urging him to stand up and leave, but he feels glued down to the bench—tethered where he sits and forced to watch you repeatedly sink your hands into the muddy waters.

No more than five minutes must pass as you both ignore each other, yet it feels like an eternity stretches by.

Finally, you pipe up.

“You’re scaring them,” you tell him plainly.

His head whips in your direction at your voice, soft and careful. His teal eyes narrow at you. “Huh?”

Your frown deepens, turning to look at him with your hands still submerged. “The frogs.”

“Come again?”

“Your vibes. It’s scaring the frogs away.”

His eye twitches.

“Ever consider that you’re just dogshit at catching them?”

“Excuse me?”

“And look at you, making a total mess of yourself. Don’t you care that you have to go home looking like that?” He presses, leering at you like an insect he’s about to crush under his heel. You simply stare at him, expression blank.

Huffing, you tear away from him and sink your hands beneath the mud. “No. I don’t.”

He watches in silence as you sift around for a moment before pulling your hands up, a smile slowly morphing into your face.

“I got one…” You breathe, looking more elated than he thinks you should. “I really caught one.”

“First time?” He quips sarcastically. A part of him wonders why he hasn’t gotten up and left you altogether yet.

“Cut me some slack,” you complain, eyeing him from the side again. You gently run a finger along the back of the frog, trying not to scare it away. “I haven’t done this in forever.”

“Clearly.”

You snort. “Yeah. Clearly.”

Rin looks at you quizzically, puzzled at your sudden change in demeanor. You seem… softer. Less agitated, at the very least. You’re gazing at the frog adoringly, as if it had somehow solved all of your problems and was dragging you into another world.

Any retort he had ready to shoot at you dies in his mouth. The anger rising in his chest extinguishes in the blink of an eye, and a deep hush settles over you as he watches in curiosity.

For a moment, the universe goes quiet. He’s gotten so used to having everything on his mind all at once that the silence is almost unnerving.

He once believed that his world would end with an injury that never healed quite right, or when he was too old for any team to want him.

He once believed that his world would end when he could no longer imagine the feel of a ball between his palms.

He once believed that his world would end the day he couldn’t play football anymore—that the only thing that would ever kill him was if the chance of standing alongside his brother died with him.

But he was wrong.

Itoshi Rin’s world ends with the bellow of a firework.

In a few years, he would think of this stretch of a few seconds fondly. He would squeeze you a little tighter with his chin resting on your shoulder, staring up at a colourful sky. He would think it was poetic, in a way, that you were the one who painted his world in the same hues of shimmering gold.

Rin remembers, though, that only one thought had crossed his mind.

I’m so screwed.

He can see every fine detail of your face, illuminated in all the colours of the rainbow. And he can’t help but think you are the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. He can trace each intricate curve of your nose to your chin to the surprised parting of your lips; the way your lashes flutter as you blink rapidly, tensed from the sudden explosion.

The light fades faster than it appeared, yet it feels like a millennium has passed. The reverbing echo of the firework crackles across the sky, thundering in his ears so loud that he can feel it pounding in his chest.

(Or is that his heart? He can’t tell. He feels dizzy.)

Darkness envelops your bodies again, save for the dim glow of distant lanterns. Every part of you is seared into his memory, a floating image when he blinks.

The frog leaps from your hands back into the water, leaving nothing but ripples behind.

You stay there with your hands outstretched, looking lonely under the dark sky. Another one goes off above your heads, signalling the start of the display.

“There you are, Rin!” Bachira and Isagi come rushing over from the path, excited smiles and mirth bubbling in their laughs as they approach. “We thought you went home without us already!”

Rin slowly blinks out of his reverie. For a second, he glances in your direction again just to catch your eyes.

“I almost did,” he grumbles, forcing himself not to stare.

“Fireworks are starting!” Isagi yanks Rin to his feet and begins dragging him away before he can even protest.

Without turning around, he can feel the weight of your eyes in the back of his head. There’s an unfamiliar ache in his chest, and the name etched down his pinky burns infinitely hot.

Later at home, he stares at the spot where Sae used to sit back when he still came to Japan for anything other than to take a new passport photo.

“My soulmate’s name showed up,” he had mumbled that night to break the tense silence. It was strange that he still felt like he owed his brother that much—to make his visit as normal as possible despite having his heart carved open.

Sae only looked at him blankly, spoon halting just above his bowl. He was eerily still, quietly deciding how to react. Then,

“Good for you,” he said. And nothing more.

Rin squeezes his eyes shut and he feels warmth rolling down his cheeks. He quickly wipes the tears away, pretending as if they never existed.

He spends the rest of the night trying to forget your face.

(And the next year trying to recreate it in his dreams.)

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

2019

Rin makes it another 275 days before he finally remembers every piece of the puzzle that is your existence.

He saw you in his sleep. The back of your head, anyway.

You were sitting in his favourite café, at the table he claimed for himself right by the window. You ordered a coffee but let it sit for so long that the ice melted. Then, you wiped up the condensation rolling down the frosty glass with your finger.

Rin watched you from afar, observing you the way he wished he did last summer.

Maybe then he could have dived deep into the recesses of his brain to remember why exactly you struck him so. But there he was, stuck watching the back of your head as you gazed out the window.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Your fingers drummed mindlessly against the wooden table, reciting a rhythm just slightly louder than the pounding of his own heart.

“Can you leave me alone?” He finally called out, hoping it would stop your incessant beating.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“You’re annoying me,” he hissed. Annoying for disturbing his peace and quiet. Annoying for plaguing his dreams even after all these days.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“Seriously,” he grunted, standing up from his seat so fast that the chair scraped horribly against the wooden floor. Still, you didn’t pay him any mind, instead more interested in the faceless people walking by. “Knock it off!”

Tap.

He bit the inside of his cheek in hesitation, the itch in the back of his mind ever present. “What’s your name?”

Silence.

You finally turned his way. Slowly. Agonizingly slow. And Rin was right—you were still so beautiful, 275 days later.

Grinning at him big and bright, you almost seemed to collapse in on yourself with joy. Like a star about to implode, or maybe more akin to a firework.

Either way, his breath was stolen from him.

You silently mouthed your name, making sure he saw every vowel and accentuated syllable. Warmth flooded him in every way—probably brought on by the racing of his heart.

It was impossible that his soulmate was someone like this. Someone whose smile looked like it could heal even the deepest wounds.

You grabbed his attention again with a big wave of the arms, and he watched in anticipation.

“You’re—”

Rin followed your mouth as you sounded out the words without a voice.

“—smiling!”

He reached up to run his fingers along his bottom lip. And you were right, he realized, as he traced it midway up his cheek.

(When did he start smiling?)

(Why?)

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Rin thinks about you just as much in the waking world as he does in his dreams.

It’s spring, though snow is still settled over the eaves of homes that he passes on the way to the grocery store. Apparently the winter cold is supposed to be especially long and bitter this year, permeating until mid-May.

He stares at his feet as they mark the virgin snow, decorating his sneakers white and making his feet cold.

Did you walk through the same snow this morning?

Then, when he’s going through the motion of smelling the bottom of pineapples at the store:

Do you like pineapple? What if you’re allergic?

(He shakes his head and puts them away. He suddenly isn’t craving it.)

His obsession with you has only intensified as the year has gone on. If you ever peered into his mind, he would receive a well-deserved slap across the face.

The soulmate mark engraved down his pinky has never bothered him so badly.

It’s like you’re constantly with him—a ghost haunting him, or perhaps more like a curse. Thinking about you takes up unnecessary space in his head. Space that should be dedicated to football, and football only.

He's about to go home so he can make a list outlining the ways he can forget about you.

(Ironic, he knows, but in all honesty he already exhausted all of his options from his first list.)

But then he comes to a stop outside of his favourite café. It looks the same, even has the same advertisements plastered in the window as the last time he was here.

He hesitates at the door, but when he walks in it smells the same. It's decorated the same. Not a single table is out of place.

He walks up to his regular spot, runs his fingers along the wood where he remembers you tapping in his dream.

There's no sign of your existence here.

Rin shakes his head in annoyance, cursing himself out in his head because he was stupid enough to think he would run into you here.

Then disappointment floods his body, like a dam had been released in his chest and it's flowing unstoppably to every piece of him.

(Wait, why is he disappointed? He really needs to take a nap.)

He runs his hand through his hair as a nervous reflex, simultaneously relieved and irritated that you're nowhere to be seen.

It takes him a minute to recollect himself, to realize that he probably looks like a crazy person just standing beside an empty table like a lost child who doesn't know where to go, and decides to just go home.

He pulls into the line to get a drink for his walk home when—

"Thanks!"

His heart drops.

You waltz out of the back, tying your apron around your waist as you exchange spots in the break room with one of your coworkers.

Rin is about to die, seriously. You must be new here, since he's been to this café more times than he can count and he's never seen you before. Or was it that he was specifically looking out for you this time?

Whatever the reason, he's dumbfounded.

“Hey,” your acknowledgment makes him freeze in his spot. “Frog guy?”

He looks at you stupidly, rubbing his eyes like a cartoon character as if he’s imagining you standing right in front of him.

His gaze drifts down to your name tag, fresh and newly printed with white marker. Signed at the end is a little flower, petals swirled into tiny hearts.

Your existence before him is undeniable.

"Um. Yeah," he sputters in disbelief.

"I..." You clear your throat, looking as bewildered as he feels. "I didn't think I'd see you again."

'You're my soulmate. Of course we'd run into each other,' he thinks to himself. Out loud, though:

"Yeah. Me neither."

The person behind him in line coughs quietly, impatiently tapping their foot. Rin takes the hint and quietly tells you what he wants. You lean in across the counter to hear him better, and his face grows warm.

Once you fill in the boxes on the cup, you place it down and move it to the side for someone to fill. It catches his eye immediately.

Itoshi Rin is scribbled neatly down the side of his cup.

“How did you...?”

You awkwardly shift in your spot, evidently embarrassed as you fiddle with the strings of your apron. Then, with your own hands.

“W-Well…”

His eyes dare to drop down to where your thumb is nervously slathering up and down the name on your pinky.

“Oh.”

"Sorry, I just figured—"

"It's fine," he interrupts. Your mouth snaps shut.

Tense silence stretches thin in the air, ready to shatter at any moment. But for some reason, he feels as though he's choking on nothing.

You fumble over the emptiness, quickly snatching up the cup to make his drink yourself after deciding it's too awkward to just stand there.

He watches you in a daze, half shaken and half in awe. Never in a million years would he have thought a dream would lead him back to you.

When you turn back around with a full cup, you look equally stunned.

“Itoshi—”

“Rin. It’s just Rin.”

You look at him in surprise, lashes fluttering rapidly as you let it sink in.

It's not your fault. You don't know that it's a sore spot that he just so happens to share the same last name with the person he despises most in the world.

It's not your fault that he has a quick temper and his voice raises slightly, enough to make you flinch back just a tiny bit.

And it's definitely not your fault that it stings so much—that he had expected you to speak to him as if you'd already known him for a lifetime and not as if you were just two strangers looking at each other from across a bar counter.

“O-Okay," you take a deep breath, cheeks puffed out and expression unreadable.

You slide the cup across the counter and he catches it in his hand.

He debates whether or not he should say more, like apologize for snapping at you. But then someone calls you by your name, and the way it rolls so beautifully off their tongue catches him off guard.

"Sorry. See you, Rin," you smile sweetly. Maybe a little awkwardly, a small step toward the one he dreamed about. And his heart is set in motion.

Rin decides that today won't be the day.

Another day, he'll be brave enough to crack a joke so dry that you try and scrub his name off your skin. And another day, he will ask for your number because, yeah, you might be the most alluring person he's ever met.

As he turns to take his leave after just staring at the spot you were standing in for a solid few seconds, he can hear some of the other baristas clamouring for you.

He doesn't want to look. Really, honestly, he doesn't.

But he does anyway.

It's just a quick glance over his shoulder—nothing more than a fleeting moment as he takes the chance to look at you one more time.

Those two seconds is all it takes for him to realize just how much trouble he's in.

You're laughing big and toothy, waving your hand in front of your face dismissively as your coworkers poke fun at how flustered you are. Then your hands are clasped over your stomach and you've doubled down a little in your awkward fit.

His heart has never beat so loud in his own ears.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Itoshi Rin used to smile just for the sake of smiling, once upon a time.

He had aunties who would pinch him by the cheek and fawn over him, cooing about how he looked just like his mother. How his face would cherub and the apples of his cheeks were bright red. Even when he grew out of his baby face, people would tell him how wonderful his smile was.

Sae rarely ever smiled, so it was something exclusive. He never felt like he was standing in his shadow. It was special—the kind of praise only one Itoshi would know.

Rin has forgotten how to smile like that.

He smiles to be polite to his family, if ever. Even then, it's not like he owes them that much. At some point, it became too much effort. And he had no reason to do it.

It was always a tiny thought bothering him in the back of his mind:

I'll never meet my soulmate if I'm always scowling like this.

He thought that was what he wanted, anyway. He wouldn't need to worry about running into his soulmate if no one ever looked his way. If everyone feared him enough not to spare him a second glance.

He doubts everything he ever thought as he sits on the edge of his bed staring at his desk.

It's lit up by a single lamp, shining down on his empty coffee cup like a spotlight opened up by the heavens themselves.

Your phone number is written just below his name.

Rin had almost tossed it into the trash without a second thought earlier in the day. He would have, if it weren't for the loose dog that blitzed by him and made him drop it.

Fate just loves to mess with him.

He picked it up and his thumb had stopped over the number. It was written so small, as if you had wanted him to miss it. Or perhaps you wanted to test destiny yourself—to see if the planets would align and he would discover your seven digits there for him to find.

And now he's home. He's been home, just looking. Contemplating. Stressing.

He migrates from the edge of the bed and settles into his desk chair. Then he gets up, moves back to the bed, and flops down. An endless cycle, back and forth, pushing and pulling.

Rin plops down onto his desk seat and sighs in frustration, ruffling his hair around before his forehead slams into the table.

Every part of his mind screams at him to stop. To toss the cup away and forget today ever happened. His head raises from his arms and he stares at the set of numbers illuminated on the paper, taunting him.

Finally, he exhales through his nose, sitting up straight and reaching for the cup to toss. His fingers delicately brush along your phone number.

“So dumb…” He huffs, eventually finding his phone instead and opening his contacts.

It’s nearly midnight. He tries to imagine your face as you wait by your phone for a message from him, that stupidly hopeful glimmer in your eyes, and he feels sick to his stomach as he sends it.

Rin: hey. it’s rin.

He throws his phone down on the desk again, screen down so he can’t cringe at himself. A few minutes pass in complete silence as he sulks.

He considers that you may have gone to bed already, or you were offended by the fact that he ignored your offer to connect all day and instantly blocked him. Maybe you thought he never saw your number at all.

Then his phone buzzes. His body moves on autopilot, snatching it up faster than he can realize what he’s doing. He’s halfway through the embarrassing thought that he just immediately read your message after you sent it as your text sinks in.

Unknown: hi! it’s great to hear from you ヾ(〃^∇^)ﾉ

Unknown: i was starting to think you were never gonna text lol

Rin: i wasn’t

He chews his lip for a moment before quickly following up:

Rin: but i changed my mind. just cause.

Unknown: hahaha got it got it. ‘just cause’ (˘◡˘)

Unknown: rin

Unknown: wait nvm

Unknown: whatever

Unknown: rin

Rin: what

Unknown: let’s get coffee ^ ^

He stares at the screen in disbelief, watching the typing bubble pop up and disappear again and again. He can imagine again what kind of smile you must have on your face right now, or maybe you look flustered, or maybe this all means nothing to you at all and this is your way of being polite.

Regardless of the reason, he eventually types out his response.

Rin: ok

Christ, he’s so tepid.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

2020

He comes to memorize every part of you, like how the sun kisses the horizon and the moon knows the tides.

Intimately, almost—if he didn’t overthink the way your touch lingered on him he could easily ignore the way it made his heart pound in his ears.

Rin learns the feeling of your fingers against his skin as you compress an ice pack to his knee. He knows your laugh—can pick apart sarcasm from genuine cheer unlike most other people he encounters. He’s never been good at reading people yet for some reason you’ve become an open book for him.

It’s not fair that you’ve ensnared him this way, that he can’t seem to run from you (because his favourite coffee is from your café and he can’t be bothered to find a new place). That he finds himself instinctively reaching over to his phone when he can’t sleep (he has to make sure his alarms are on, might as well text you goodnight while he’s at it). And you’ve become annoyingly comfortable (he doesn’t have an excuse for this one—your lap is just conveniently a very nice place to rest his head).

He must be an open book, too.

At some point he probably stopped trying to hide his growing feelings for you, though you either didn’t notice his sudden shift or you didn’t care.

Vulnerability has never been a part of Rin, even before Itoshi Sae ruined his life.

He despises how you so easily pry him apart, skinning him alive with your hand lathering down his chest as you laugh.

Still, he’s grown accustomed to your fingers stringing through his hair, to the way your head tilts when he explains football plays to you, to the obvious way you fluster when he attempts (poorly) at flirting with you.

He’s gotten especially fond of the way you meet him at the end of his practices with such sweet, wandering hands—pushing the hair stuck to his forehead from sweat away from his eyes; using a towel to wipe up his neck; the squeeze you give his palms as you examine them to see if there are any new cuts and bruises.

Usually, he’s the epitome of confidence in his plays. Today, however, his cheeks burn as you approach him with the same honeyed smile.

“My shots were shoddy,” he admits before you can even get a word out. You only raise a brow, hands faltering in front of you. “That was lame.”

“I think you’re good.”

“Good,” he frowns. “But not great?”

“The greatest,” you quickly correct yourself, smiling at his cravings for praise. You’re armed with a fresh towel like you always are, reaching up to clean his face as if it’s the only thing you were born to do.

He relishes in your gentle touch, peering at you through his lashes while you prattle on about how amazing he was even though he missed half of his shots.

You were so blindly supportive, it sickens him.

Not because he felt you were being disingenuous, but because he’s not deserving of your praise.

For the first time in a long time, it feels as though his soul is disconnected from his body. He used to walk the earth this way—uninterested in his surroundings and obsessed with only one thing.

Itoshi Sae. Itoshi Sae. Itoshi Sae.

Suddenly, he’s thirteen again and gasping for air; screaming into his pillow and trashing their shared awards until his mother comes rushing in to stop him. He’s alone in a field, abandoned and crushed.

It’s not like he’d never lost before, even in front of you. Loss was just a part of football as much as he hated it.

But your praise only makes his stomach turn, because he knows you mean it.

You truly do believe he’s the best, when really he’s been futile in his attempts to catch up with the big brother he admired so much as a kid.

“Stop,” he gently interrupts.

Rin tries to use his hair to hide the wetness of his eyes, with little success. You can see right through him, unfortunately. It’s a talent he wishes you didn’t have.

“Rin?” You say softly, reaching up to brush the hair out of the way. He doesn’t try and back up or swat your hand away, instead letting you see his miserable expression. You sigh quietly, looking more exasperated than surprised.

“Sorry,” he mutters halfheartedly.

You shake your head. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

Shame boils in his stomach at your reassurance. There is something to apologize for. Here you are, supporting him with all your heart, and all he can think about is his stupid brother. How he’ll never catch up. How he’ll never be good enough.

Doesn’t your kindness warrant his attention at the very least?

“Come on,” you tug at his hand. “Let’s get you a pick-me-up.”

Rin abides silently, body following yours off the field and onto the streets though his mind has floated off elsewhere.

He tries to count how many steps you take in between the field and the destination, but loses count somewhere around three hundred. Then he moves on to counting the hairs on the back of your head. He loses count at one hundred. Eventually, he gives up and opts for staring at your conjoined hands while he lags behind.

When you come to a halt, he nearly bumps into your back.

The ringing in his ears stops as he blinks at his surroundings. Waves crash against the shore of the sandbank, singing the song of the ocean. It had been so long since Rin walked down this stretch of the shore, he almost forgot what the sea looked like.

“Wait here,” you urge as you hold him by the shoulders then disappear around the corner.

He collapses at the wall separating land from sea, swinging his legs under the railings to sit comfortably as he remembers doing when he was a kid. His gym bag is abandoned behind him, cleats and all.

When you return, you shove a popsicle into his hand.

He’s confused at first, just looking absently at the packaging. It must be for a concerning amount of time, because you eventually pipe up.

“Do you need me to open it for you?”

Rin glares at you and your teasing smile. Carefully, he unpackages the treat and pops it in his mouth.

Sweetness melts over his tongue and he exhales sharply through his nose. You watch him in amusement with your own treat stuck in your mouth.

Silence engulfs you, eating Rin from the inside out until he feels ill. He holds his half-eaten popsicle in front of him, watching it melt down his hand.

You stare at him for a second before nudging him lightly with your elbow.

“I was being serious. You were really good. I can’t even imagine playing like you do.”

Rin’s stomach turns. The last thing he wants is your pity.

“You don’t have to be so nice,” he mumbles, resting his chin on the railing. “42 percent.”

“42 percent?” You echo, peering over the railing to get a better look at his face.

“The percent of shots I made today.”

“Come on,” you urge gently. “Aren’t you being too hard on yourself?”

“If I’m not hard on myself, I’ll never—” he stops, choking lightly on his spit. When you don’t interrupt, he shoves the popsicle back in his mouth. “Whatever. You wouldn't get it.”

It’s quiet again, save for the crashing of waves upon rock. Rin thinks for a moment that maybe he had gone too far, or that his little meltdown had freaked you out.

But when he finally dares to look at you again, you’re smiling.

“Maybe not,” you admit with a whisper. “But I do know this…” You reach over and cup his cheek with your free hand, thumb sweeping the expanse of his cheek soothingly. “There is no one—and I mean no one—who works harder than you do.”

He swallows thickly, subconsciously nudging his face a little further into your palm.

“You deserve to be a little kinder to yourself.”

The way his heart catches in his throat is strange. He can’t describe it. The warmth in his belly is foreign, but it’s pleasant.

For the first time in the year he’s gotten to know you, the thought crosses his mind:

I think I’m in love with you.

Rin’s mouth opens with the idea, but he forces it shut just as fast.

Fear grips his lungs and squeezes, stealing his air and forcing him to pull away from your touch.

“Okay,” he breathes in resignation.

You seem stunned by his sudden retreat, smile faltering ever so slightly. But you recover quickly, hugging yourself as you slouch over the railing.

Conversation moves on just like that. He appreciated that about you, too. He never had to dwell.

It feels nice, everything about this; to have his legs dangling over the edge of the cement, feet barely ghosting over the surface of the water; to have a popsicle melting between his teeth while he listens to you talk.

For some reason, it feels as though he’s reclaiming lost time, reliving a moment he thought he would never have again.

When he checks his popsicle stick, it tells him he’s a winner for the first time since he was thirteen.

(He finally allows himself to believe it when your knee gently knocks into his.)

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

2021

“Frog cotton candy?”

“Frog shaped cotton candy,” Rin corrects, peering around the giant fluff of candy to look at you quizzically.

“Yeah,” you giggle. “But why?”

He grumbles quietly, cheeks a soft shade of pink as he shoves the treat into your hands.

“I thought you’d like it. Nevermind,” he deadpans, turning around to toss it into the garbage.

Your laugh crescendos and he feels his heart squeeze with affection. When your hand stops him by the forearm, he thinks he might explode.

“It’s cute.”

You pick apart the floss ruthlessly with your fingers, and he watches almost in a trance—hypnotized by just your existence.

(When you finally pop the sugar into your mouth, he imagines it melting on his own tongue. The thought makes him unbearably warm and he forces it away.)

His fascination with you doesn't end there.

There's a certain charm to you that he can't understand—something that draws him in, tantalizing but terrifying at the same time.

He can't help the way he watches in a daze, the way you've ensnared all his attention and taken up the space in his mind.

Rin has never been good at being kind, but here he is.

Here he is, bringing you cotton candy because he thought it was stupid but cute.

Here he is, rolling up the sleeves of your yukata with a gentle scolding when you rush over to catch goldfish.

And here he is, letting you cling to his arm as if he's the only thing keeping you tethered to the earth.

He really, really hates it—how mushy you make his brain feel.

He's halfway through re-rolling your sleeves with a half-hearted scowl on his face when you stop him, hand pressed to his forearm.

“Listen, Rin.”

“Hm?” He leans down so that he can peer at your face hidden behind your almost nonexistent candy floss.

“I have to show you something.”

Rin stops dead in his tracks, raising a brow as he fully turns toward you. “What is it?”

“Can you close your eyes for me?”

His heart does a somersault in his chest. “You’re not doing anything weird, are you?”

“Who do you think I am?” You sputter.

He lets out a long sigh before complying, squeezing his eyes shut. After a long silence, he considers peeking a little bit.

That is, until he feels your breath gently fanning over his parted lips.

Nearly leaping back, he wills himself to stay grounded and slowly slides his hands up your arms until he gets to your shoulders. As he imagined, your body is impossibly close to his.

It takes every bit of concentration he has not to waver. If he really tries, he can focus on how your breath smells sweet of candy. How your hair blows softly with the summer breeze, tickling his cheeks. How you smell. How you breathe.

(Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. His heart is about to beat out of his chest. Is that okay?)

You tense up in his hold and suddenly you’re retreating from him, swiftly pulling out of his arms. Just as he’s about to ask you what happened, there’s a piece of candy shoved into his mouth.

“You wanted to try it, didn’t you?” You ask rather breathlessly. He opens his eyes, looking at you curiously.

Rin has never seen this expression on you before, lips pulled tight in embarrassment and pupils blown. You look more like a wild animal caught in a cage than someone who just made a move on him.

He gingerly takes the empty paper cone from your hands and folds it up, no longer able to meet your gaze lest he explode on the spot.

“Yeah,” he says softly, shuffling over to dump it into a bin. “Thanks.”

When he turns around to look at you again, his breath gets caught in his throat.

Why are you laughing?

You giggle into your palm, hiding your gleeful smile from him as you double over slightly.

“Your face is all red!” You holler.

He grunts in embarrassment, using the back of his hand to hide his own face. “Shut the hell up,” he spits.

“It’s almost like you wanted me to kiss you!”

“Oh my god, please drop it.”

“No way! I’ve never seen you look like that before!”

(‘Speak for yourself,’ he thinks.)

“So what if I did?”

Your laughter halts as if it was swallowed into the pits of your stomach. Slowly unraveling to stand up straight, he sees another expression he’s never been able to imagine on you, but he can’t quite place it.

“Did what?” You murmur.

“Want you to kiss me.”

Your face is warm under the glow of lanterns, eyes shimmering with the overhead lights. Rin watches your mouth open and close repeatedly as you try and formulate some sort of response.

A firework explodes atop of you, and he wonders if it just saved you.

You seem jarred for only a moment more until you jolt, grabbing him roughly by the arm and giving him a pull.

“I just remembered,” you gasp. “I actually did have something to show you!”

Rin doesn’t get a word in before you’re dragging him along by the arm. With each boom of an explosion, your footsteps pick up, building into a full blown sprint out of the festival grounds and through the thicket.

You tug him along, guiding him by the hand through the winding path of trees and logs. His stamina is better than yours but you’re pushing up the hill despite your huffing and puffing—it makes him laugh with you.

When you break free of the forest, Rin’s eyes focus on a field of plush grass and buttercups.

You let go of his hand, flinging yourself forward and spinning on your heel to exaggerate how wide the opening is with your arms.

“Isn’t it great?” You shout over the fireworks. “Away from the crowd!”

He rushes up to you so that you can stop yelling, invading your personal space until you can hear him just at his normal volume.

“It’s perfect,” he tells you earnestly.

You grin up at him widely before pulling him along to the edge of the clearing. You plop down together, eyes glued to the sky as the fireworks rage on.

Rin only lasts a few seconds before his eyes drift to the side, trying to drink in your expression. It’s become a habit of his to try and imprint your very existence into his brain.

Against his better judgment, his hand creeps toward yours until your fingers are overlapped.

Thankfully, you don’t use the opportunity to tease him about it, instead shifting a little closer until you’re practically burrowed into his side. If it were anyone else, he would have shoved them away.

(When did he stop trying to push you away?)

When your pinkies slowly close together, he feels as if he can’t breathe properly.

Mark-to-mark, it’s as though he is full of all the love he’s ever felt for you from every life—past or future. Like there’s a love that exists within him that transcends lifetimes, if it were even possible.

If he were to peer into another dimension, would you still be together like this? Would you be plucking buttercups and mindlessly twirling them between your fingers? Would he be itching to envelop you in his arms just to devour you?

His thoughts cease when you take a deep breath.

“I used to come here alone,” you admit.

“No one took you?” He asks. Your gaze is piercing the night sky, never leaving the show. He can see the bloom of colours in them.

“Not since I was little, but I always loved it here.”

The question burns hot in Rin’s mind: even if it was a little lonely sometimes?

He remembers back to the night that he first saw you, with your hands dipping into the murky waters of a frog pond and an air of desolation surrounding you. Then he remembers how he couldn’t sleep that night. Not with the image of you crouching there alone burned into his memory.

“Did you know this festival is a celebration of love?” He suddenly asks.

Oh what the fuck? Oh, god. Why did he say that?

That was so lukewarm of him. So stupid. So pointless and lame.

He just wanted something to say to you, something that would make him stop thinking about how you might have been alone for all that time before you knew him.

The silence burns between you, tense and awkward until he starts stuttering out something else to fill the void. But then you look at him, slow and intrigued and so damn amused that he can feel heat rising to the tips of his ears.

“I had no idea.”

There’s a longing in your expression that tells a different story. A twitch of your pinky against his that gives away your blatant lie.

And, damnit. Here he is again, four years later under the same stars. Under the same fireworks. Only this time, he’s able to see your face even closer as it lights up a million different colours—teal like his eyes; rose like his cheeks; golden like the heart he’s tried so hard to protect.

Four years later and he still thinks you’re the most beautiful person he’s ever seen: pinkies interlocked, sheepish smile on your face, an undeniable shake in your voice that means you have more that you’re too nervous to say.

For a moment he considers finally letting go of all the things keeping him bolted and chained where he stands, swallowing the key to the cage surrounding his fragile, thumping heart. And for that fleeting second, he feels as though he’s the bravest man alive—that nothing could stop him even if you were to turn away and snub him out with the heel of your foot.

But how could he open his mouth and tell you anything when all he feels is the sick twisting of his stomach, the daunting glare of the older brother he adored so much, and the coldness of snow soaking his clothes as he sits in a field and cries?

There’s a burning, raging fire within him. Something primal and afraid and unchanging despite how much he wants to fall into your arms the way your shared etchings say he should.

It screams at him: run away. Run. Run. Run. This will only end in hurt.

He’s too fucked up. Too messed in the head and too quick to anger because he’s actually soft at heart, easy to betray—

“Rin.”

Your hand swiftly captures his face and he’s dragged unceremoniously out of his reverie.

Of course you would be able to pick out his turmoil by expression alone. By the droop of his lips into a frown—not the annoyed one he would flash his teammates, or the grimace he would scare children away with. The kind that’s sad and slow and timid, like an animal caught in a net.

“I’m really happy that we’re friends.”

“Friends?” He breathes, half confused and half incredulous.

Deep down he knows that it’s an attempt to comfort him without being too sappy. Maybe you can sense it somewhere in your soul that he would probably break down and sob if you were to make him feel any more vulnerable than he already is with you. It’s an effort to take away whatever guilt he feels and give him a chance to relax.

However, he can see a different tale in your eyes.

Loneliness as empty as the sky on a cloudy night. A yearning for more, for someone, for him, to fill the gap. I’m tired of waiting. That’s all he can read beneath the sea of colour exploding in your irises.

It only makes him feel worse, but he allows himself to be lied to anyway if only to feel the warmth of your skin against his just a bit longer.

“Yeah.”

Your pinky twitches again. He can feel the brush of your name against his, the grate of your matching soul marks. Your eyes tear away from his and are glued to the infinite sky above once more. To the stars you know are there but are covered by smoke and fire.

Rin only stares at you. He can’t focus on the explosions of fireworks anymore, not when you’re right in front of him looking so perfect. His summer treasure.

“Yeah?”

He knows he sounds dumb, repeating everything like an oaf who can’t fathom what’s being said. You giggle and it floors him.

“Just being able to stand here with you—” you glance at him again, only for a second. He can see the exhaustion in that moment, but he’s too selfish to pry. “—I think I’m the luckiest person alive.”

“Even if…” He swallows harshly. It feels like shrapnel cutting down his throat. “Even if I can’t be more?”

“Even so.”

There’s a pause and you open your mouth to say more, maybe to give him an ultimatum or to elaborate on your feelings, but then you’re interrupted by the end of the display.

Counteless fireworks explode above you in the finale. Rin can hear the awestruck gasps of families down the hill, the distant cries of children and the faint shutter of cameras filling the air.

He realizes then: he’s been smiling. His cheeks hurt from how big it’s gotten. And you’re smiling at him, too.

(The fireworks rage on, but in the end, all he can look at is you.)

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

2022

Falling in love with Itoshi Rin was one of the most foolish, most wonderful things that could have happened to you.

He was an enigma in and of itself, a mystery of a soulmate who was able to love you wholeheartedly and push you away at the same time.

There were nights where you would stay up wondering why he was your soulmate when it seemed like all he wanted to be was alone. Other times, you fell asleep smiling to yourself knowing that somewhere deep down you both belonged to each other.

The universe chose you. The universe chose him. It was indisputable, yet you still had doubts.

Tonight is one of those “foolish” nights. It seems as though you have been stood up.

For three hours you’ve waited in the same spot at the gates of the festival, watching families and couples pass by but never the one person you’d wait until the end of the world for. The sun has long since gone to sleep over the horizon and the streets are fully lit up with lanterns for the festivities.

6 pm. That was the time Rin promised he would meet you. In the past, he was always late but at least had the decency to tell you beforehand that you could go ahead without him. Only when you arrived and sat down to wait for him had he finally messaged you.

Rin: gonna be late. see you at 7.

7 pm. That was the rescheduled time. It was when you expected to see him walking up to you in his yukata that you begged him to wear this year, matching adoringly with yours. And at 7 pm you would tell him. You would tell him everything.

For months prior you had practiced almost pathetically so, recited and perfected your speech while staring at your reflection in a mirror. You’d written him a letter, too.

7 pm. You were finally going to thank Rin for everything. For accompanying you to such a silly festival even though you know he loathes it. For meeting you under the stars and the moon and the fireworks time and time again. For bringing life back into a childhood memory that you had long since hated.

7 pm. You were going to tell him thank you. You were going to tell him you loved him, just as it had been written in the stars many years before you were born.

It’s 9 pm, nearing 10 and the start of the fireworks show. He missed the entire night without explanation.

At 9:58 pm, just as you’re about to give up all hope, you finally come face to face with teal eyes and a stupidly handsome face sheen with sweat. It shouldn’t hurt so much, the way he looks at you so dismissively as if he hadn’t blown you off all night.

“Sorry,” he mutters disingenuously, attempting to brush past you without a second thought. “Let’s go, I’m thirsty.”

He has his gym bag slung over his shoulder and a windbreaker over his uniform. No sign of the yukata you had picked out for him to wear.

You don’t follow him, staring at his back in disbelief. When he realizes you aren’t trailing behind, he turns on his heel and raises a brow in question. “Are you coming?”

“I was waiting for you all night,” you tell him coldly. I was waiting for you all this time and you never showed up.

He swallows thickly, suddenly overcome by guilt because of your downcast expression. “I know. I lost track of time.”

“Lost track of time?” You scoff incredulously. Your mouth opens as if you have more to say, but you’re interrupted by a bang.

Rin’s eyes flutter closed. He can’t listen to this. He can’t watch.

He knows this all too well. He knew it all along.

The universe was wrong. Itoshi Rin was never cut out to be someone’s soulmate.

“We’re missing it…”

Your back is turned to him but all he can imagine is the terrible expression you must be making right now, twisted in sadness and anger. The worse image is a completely blank face—unfeeling and cold. He doesn’t even want to think about it.

Booms echo in the distance yet all he can focus on is the faint hum in his ears, the horrible churning in his stomach and the fog of guilt clouding his head.

“I’m sorry,” he says so quietly that he’s sure you can’t even hear him under the deep, bellowing explosions over the horizon.

He doesn’t remember the last time he apologized for anything like this. Being cold and aloof was just in his nature. Never before had he felt like it was necessary to be remorseful for the way he is—for how he was made to be.

The slight tremble of your shoulders and the way you use the back of your sleeves to wipe tears from your eyes force the words out of him before he can stop it. He tells you again,

“I’m sorry.”

He weakly attempts to grab you by the arms, holding you from behind so he can make you look at him. You jerk away fast as lightning, knocking him away as you swivel around to glare.

“Why didn’t you come?” You demand. There’s anger shaking in your voice. Rin doesn’t know how to respond to it, not when you’ve always been so understanding and kind. Perhaps he was too cruel for you if he was going to break you this way.

“I got caught up with—”

“With football, right?” You laugh bitterly, taking a generous step back. Hurt pours from every inch of your expression and all it does is make his heart ache.

“Stop,” he suddenly snaps. You flinch at his tone and shrink back, only adding to his guilt. He always had the worst temper. “Don’t be like this. You know it was important,” he explains, gentler this time. Softer, trying to coax you back over.

There’s a beat of complete silence, save for the hollowed explosions in the distance. Rin blinks at you a couple times before his frayed nerves finally calm again. And then he realizes something terrible.

The look in your eyes, the deflation of your shoulders—this is what utter defeat looks like. For a moment deja vu rushes through his blood, bringing him back to a time when he too felt as miserable as you.

Every year he’s had the opportunity to read your expression: I’m tired of waiting. But he always foolishly assumed you would still wait around for him forever. That your patience would be as infinite as the stars in the sky. That just because he had the privilege of having his name scrawled down your pinky, he would be guaranteed to have you.

It was disgustingly selfish.

Just as he opens his mouth to apologize again, you storm up to him and shove the piece of paper roughly into his chest. With the closed gap, he can clearly see the tears streaming down your face illuminated by warm lanterns.

“Just forget it.”

“Wait—” He catches your wrist as you push past him, stopping you in your tracks again despite your struggle to get away. “Come on, I said I’m sorry!”

“Rin,” you sniffle, voice breaking with just the syllable of his name. It makes him falter. “I’m tired.”

“But—”

“You can’t even spare me one night? Just this one night in the entire year?” You breathe, no longer trying to dance around the subject. “What is it with you? What are you so afraid of?”

Being put in the spotlight never bothered Rin before. It was easy enough to ignore when all his life he was watched carefully. But it’s different with you; you’re the only one looking at him in this moment yet it feels like the weight of a million pairs of eyes at once.

An answer comes quickly to his mind, almost natural. He knows exactly what’s wrong with him.

He’s afraid of being left behind again. Of being hurt. Rin is terrified of love and being loved because he’s too pathetically fragile.

The pieces of his heart are clumsily glued together and he’s scared that even the smallest turbulence would send it shattering into a billion shards again. He doesn’t know how to put himself back together properly anymore.

Itoshi Sae permanently fucked him up.

Though they were on slightly better terms now, the scars would always haunt him. The simple solution is to shut everyone else out, to protect the weak heart he harbours.

If he told you that, would you understand? Or would you try and claw his name off your skin?

You take his silence as an answer and pry away from him again, holding yourself protectively—guarding yourself from the catastrophe that follows Rin wherever he goes.

“Goodbye, Rin.”

He doesn’t watch you go.

The nearest bench becomes his temporary home. He could do hundreds of plays in a football game and never tire, but for some reason your disdain has sucked every ounce of energy from his body.

It doesn’t register that he’s still holding the paper you forced into his hands until it crinkles in his hold. He slowly unfolds it revealing ink sloppily smeared across the page.

And then he reads it. Again. And again. And again, until it’s shaking in his hold. Until the dull ache in his heart feels like the pierce of a knife.

Rin doesn’t know what to do anymore. He’s always had one clear goal for his entire life, but now everything is all muddled. Messy, like everything else he touches.

He turns everything into a disaster.

Does he chase after you and risk having his fragile heart broken all over again? Does he risk being left behind or does he close off the gate for that option entirely? He could sit in his cowardice and never change, preserving his heart forever in this moment of time; a polaroid in the slideshow of his mortality.

There’s a familiarity to this all. Perhaps he had lived through this decision a million lives before this. Maybe he would live through it again an infinite amount of times, so long as it was your name etched into his skin.

Was he as messed up in this life as he was in every other?

If he had ruined everything in this life, if he made the wrong choice and drove you away in hatred until you drew your last breath, then maybe he could make it all up to you in the next one.

Or, if that were the case, maybe he was born into this world only to love you—to make up for the millenia where he ran away.

Rin’s legs have never moved so fast. Not in football. Not even from his brother. If you were the light at the end of the tunnel then he would keep chasing you forever, he thinks. Until his wounded heart gave out.

Of all the stupid decisions he’s made in his life, have any of them amounted to anything? He’s going to give it one last try. One more chance to prove to himself that not everything he touches burns to ashes.

“Wait!”

You visibly startle, eyes wide as you turn to see Rin dashing toward you. He doesn’t give you even a moment to ask questions, to wonder why he’s coming back to break your heart again.

You’re engulfed in a hug faster than you can blink, stumbling back from the force of his body colliding with yours until your sandals get kicked off your feet.

“Rin?” You murmur his name in disbelief, breathless even though you weren’t the one sprinting down the road.

“Just give me one more chance,” he stammers out. You can feel the rapid rise and fall of his shoulders as he holds you and fights for air simultaneously. Your hands twitch at your sides but you remain lifeless in his arms.

He tries again: “Let me prove it to you. Let me prove that it wasn’t some freak accident that led me to you. That my name on your skin is meant to be there.”

“Don’t do this,” you tell him quietly, lips brushing against his ear as you speak. “I don’t want to be loved and feared at the same time.”

“But…” Rin squeezes your body against his, almost desperately. Clinging to what he has ruined. “For once in my life, I want something more.”

I don’t want to be alone anymore.

You hesitantly shift, hands slowly trailing up his back until your body is curling against his. He can trace the outline of your body against his, like a puzzle piece that he was missing slotted perfectly in his grasp.

“I thought my soulmate would only slow me down and break me. I was wrong. I know that now.”

He slowly rocks your bodies back and forth. You pull away until your eyes meet his, red with tears. It’s the messiest he has ever seen you, but his heart refuses to be still. It aches.

Beautiful. It’s the only word he can describe you with. It didn’t matter if you were lit up under the wondrous sky, or handing him coffee in a crowded café, or sobbing in his arms.

You would only ever be his infinitely beautiful soulmate.

It’s the only constant he would have in this life and every other, even if you were to break his heart. It would be the single greatest achievement in his time, above football, above any of his petty competitions—that your name is etched down his pinky.

It scares him. It thrills him.

With the distant roar of fireworks, he kisses you. And you allow him, hiccuping against his lips as you cry.

You stay like that for a long time, listening to the hollow shockwaves of fireworks exploding miles away. He’s the first to draw back, raking in shallow breaths. You chase him, finding solace against his lips once more but not fully indulging him with another kiss.

“Do you fear me?” You whisper into his mouth.

“More than anything,” he tells you.

“Do you love me?”

After a moment of contemplation, he answers,

“More than anything.”

You nod slowly, awkwardly pulling away from him and taking a step back. It’s your first kiss and you don’t know where you’re supposed to look anymore. Rin stops your nervous shifting with his hand swooping under your chin.

“One year. I promise.” You look at him in confusion, so he continues. “Next year, when the season and my contract are over, I’ll meet you there. At the pond.”

You seem skeptical still, with your brows knitted together and a lost haze in your eyes. He raises his pinky, the one with your name forever grafted into the skin, and offers it to you.

“I pinky promise.”

It’s so ridiculous, wearing his heart on his sleeve with something he learned about on playgrounds when he was a child. A pinky promise shouldn’t mean any more than the words he has already spoken. But for some reason, your eyes light up.

He feels nothing but relief when your pinkies lock together.

“Okay,” you breathe.

“You’ll wait for me?”

“Rin.” His name leaves you in a breathless laugh that makes his world spin. It sounds so tired yet so sweet. “I’ve been waiting all my life.”

“I’m sorry,” he says once more for good measure. You nod. A wordless acceptance.

Itoshi Rin is your soulmate. It’s not like that fact will ever change no matter the time, no matter the distance.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

2023

Fate is a funny thing. Soulmates are a funny thing.

The universe threw Rin curveball after curveball, beating him down until he was nothing but a husk heavenly built for one purpose only: beat Sae. Beat Itoshi Sae.

There were times when he would lay awake at night wondering why he was given this life, why he was thrust into hardship and hurt and betrayal. How could something so perfect, something so all-knowing, be so cruel?

For as long as the name had been grafted into his skin, he resented the idea of a soulmate.

He hated the idea that only one person in the world would be his eternal weakness. That one day, one person would hold every piece of his soul in their hands. Even then, his soulmate was the other half of him—his salvation. His downfall.

They would know every inch of his skin. Every bleeding wound of his heart. Every bruise and scar along his legs from cleats and nails and gravel. Having a soulmate meant having every part of him exposed, to be judged and worshiped at the same time.

At your hands, though, he’s certain this is what he was born for—to spend the rest of his days by your side even if you were doing something as mundane as catching frogs together.

“You’re scaring them,” you hiss quietly.

Your fingers sink into the pond and Rin watches your reflections ripple as water fills your palms. Your faces contort and meld into one being. In some ways, it’s a familiar feeling—to have been intertwined with you since his very conception.

“You’re terrible at this.”

“It’s your fault!”

“Right,” he deadpans. “You haven’t caught a single one all night.”

“You were late,” you remind him with a huff, cheeks inflated. “Before you got here I was catching frogs all night. Coincidence?”

Rin makes another noise, something akin to a snort. But he doesn’t acknowledge your statement, instead reaching over to gingerly roll the sleeves of your yukata up to your elbows.

“Are you always so sloppy? Your sleeves are getting all wet.”

You glare at him from the side, delivering a deadly warning. “Are you always such a pain in the ass?”

“I get it, I get it. I said I was sorry for being late. Nii-chan really wanted to try that new ice cream place downtown.”

Your gaze drifts to him in the shimmering reflection, watching his smile soften at the mention of his big brother. It was wonderful that they were trying to patch things up.

Sae had decided to come home after all, promising Rin that they would play together again once they both took a well deserved break.

You could tell that Rin was trying his best not to make a big deal out of it, but the way he cried into your shoulder later that night said it all.

“I feel bad having you come all the way out here just to see me. Your brother is back in Japan isn’t he?”

“Yeah. And he wants to meet you.”

You nearly fall over. “What?”

“Please don’t look so starstruck about that. I feel sick.”

Laughing, you recentre yourself, sitting back on your heels with your hands on your knees. “Sorry, sorry! It’s not that…”

Rin raises a brow. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“It’s just—” you fumble, cheeks burning hot at the idea of being introduced to Rin’s family after all these years. Formally, as his partner. His soulmate. The name they had all known since he was thirteen. “What would I even say to him?”

He looks at you in bewilderment. Then, he snickers, only laughing harder when you smack his arm.

“Don’t worry about that,” he assures, reaching out to pat the top of your head. “Just be yourself. My family will love you.”

“Thank you,” you whisper, studying your reflections in the water with a soft smile. You’re staring right back at yourself, but Rin is only looking at you.

“I haven’t done anything special.”

“You lit up my world,” you laugh, turning back up to look at him properly. You make a mini explosion with your hands. “Boom! Like that. A firework.”

“You’re too corny,” he murmurs in embarrassment, turning his head away to hide his flushed face. “Can’t you explain it like a normal person?”

“No can do,” you tell him, voice gentler this time. After a pause, you shuffle your sandals around in the mud and take a deep breath. “If you want me to be totally serious…”

You lunge over and tackle him into your arms. He nearly loses his balance holding the both of you upright, stumbling back on his heels before he catches your waist. You don’t seem to share the sentiment of staying pristine, knees digging into the dirt as you squeeze him tighter.

Rin feels his heart catch in his throat the same way you’ve made it for the last six years.

“Thank you. For letting me love you. For being my soulmate.”

His hand is automatically in your hair, scratching your scalp as he smiles into your shoulder.

“I’m sure I gave you nothing but a hard time,” he grumbles.

“But I still love you.”

“Even though you had to wait?”

“Even so.”

“And that I’m a pain in the ass?”

“Even then, I do.”

Rin burrows himself into your neck, hiding his face again. It does a poor job at masking the kind of expression he’s making, though, considering how warm his skin is.

“What if I’m not good enough?”

He feels terrible—guilty that he needs to keep having this conversation with you. But you always comfort him the same way. He hopes you always will.

Drawing his head up with your muddy hands, you dirty his cheeks just to get a glimpse of him. You murmur a half-hearted sorry for making a mess.

Then you’re kissing him.

“I’ll be here to remind you how much I cherish you.”

You nip his bottom lip and he opens wider. You whisper into his mouth,

“And how happy I am that Itoshi Rin was born into this world.”

Itoshi Rin, broken. He who thought that he could never be put back together.

Itoshi Rin, vengeful. He who believed the only happiness that existed for him in this world was to surpass his brother.

Itoshi Rin, who did not believe in his soulmate while staring right at them. And Itoshi Rin, who finally allowed himself to love you wholly, completely, as it was written in the stars.

“I love you,” he says, as if just those three words could encapsulate everything he feels for you.

“Always?” You giggle. He rolls his eyes.

“Wherever you are, and wherever you may be, I will.”

You kiss him one more time for good measure.

“That was corny.”

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

2024

“No peeking.”

Rin folds up his piece of paper and hangs it from the bamboo tree. You’re tugging him along before he can even properly check to see if it’s been secured.

“Come on, I don’t want to miss the fireworks!”

He wouldn’t miss them for the world. You’ve always looked the most beautiful under the brightened summer sky.

The wish he scribbled down blows softly in the breeze as both of you rush by, back to the festival where it all began.

7 July 2024. I wish I had the words to tell you how much I love you.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

extra notes. hi! if you made it this far, i'd like to give you the warmest most grateful thank you ever ( ´ ω `)

so, here it is. i've been working on this since last september-ish... for some people that amount of time is not much, but genuinely, i've never devoted so much attention and time to one single fic and i hope i did this one justice. rin has always been a guilty pleasure of mine to write for. i hope this man stays far far away from me until i can stomach even looking at his name again LOL ‾́ ◡ ‾́

also i finally admitted defeat and took out all my pictures and dividers because tumblr was fighting my posts that had any. so... sorry the formatting looks like this

additional tags: @jenoutof10 @hanrinz @itoshiexx lol hi guys it made it out of the drafts i hope you like it

#— whispers in the wind: 1k event ✉️#blue lock x reader #blue lock #blue lock fic #bllk #bllk x reader #bllk fic #itoshi rin #itoshi rin x reader #rin itoshi #rin itoshi x reader #rin x reader #itoshi rin x y/n #itoshi rin x you #itoshi rin fluff #rin itoshi fluff

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that1emowitch · 8 months ago

Note

Bruce, high on painkillers, is being babysat by Jason. Jason has to do an emergency Red Hood thing, and lacking an alternative, slaps a stock domino on Bruce and drags him along.

Bruce proceeds to say/do the most unhinged shit. The goons are suddenly viscerally aware of where Hood got it from.

WOW okay you guys are unhinged, you know that?

(And I love it <3)

A/N: I fully intended to write a crack fic, but the feels crawled in through the plot holes I missed and made their homes in the heart of the story. Also I don't know what you mean by 'stock domino' so I'm assuming it's one of those dollar store ripoffs.

(TW: Accidental overdosing on painkillers, mentions of blood, Jason's usual level of swearing, some goons almost dying but like in a funny way.)

Word Count: 2328

Jason wants to scream.

Like, let it rip out on an abandoned cliff in the howling rain kinda scream.

But no, he's stuck babysitting Brucie Wayne who accidentally OD'd on fucking painkillers after trying to treat himself in Alfred's unfortunate absence (how does that even happen?!).

Dick and Damian are out doing some brotherly-bonding thing, Tim's with the Titans, Duke and Cass are at the movies, and Steph has declared herself "not one of Bruce's kids." Leaving Jason as the only one free to look after their "Dad".

Jason pushes Bruce down on the Batcave's gurney for the billionth time after he attempts (keyword: attempts) to walk again, scowling. None of them are getting any waffles from me again. Or pancakes. Or scones. Or anything I make for them out of my sweet, kind heart. Those little shits.

Jason puts two fingers on Bruce’s wrist, checking his pulse. His skin is cold and clammy, breathing slow, but at least he’s not vomiting anymore. He sighs, collapsing on a chair beside Bruce. He's tired. So fucking tired.

Just as Jason's eyes flutter shut for a moment, the Batcomputer's alarm suddenly blares.

Bruce shoots up, shouting, "ALARM!"

Grumbling, Jason drags himself to the computer, pushing Bruce down along the way. He opens the glaring red notification, brows creased.

Black Mask's goons have intercepted some military shipment...

"Ugh..." Jason groans, and moves to put on his helmet (he never changed out of his costume), checking his guns, when a sudden crash from behind him snaps his attention to the man-child he's supposed to be babysitting.

Bruce has stepped off the gurney and collapsed face-down on the med bay's floor.

He can't just leave him there, can he?

Jason considers his options: He could either strap Bruce to the gurney and leave (in which case Dick will have his head), or he could take Bruce out on the streets with him (in which case Dick will absolutely want to murder him.)

Jason smirks. It’s obvious which one’s the right choice.

Ten minutes later, Jason’s riding through the city at over a hundred miles per hour, with Bruce strapped to the backseat of his motorcycle. Bruce is wearing a dollar store ripoff of the Robin domino and a Robin-themed cape made of Tim’s bedsheets, looking absolutely ecstatic at the high speed.

They arrive at the warehouse where Black Mask’s goons have transported their stolen goods, parking in a shadowed spot a building away. Jason gets off, helping Bruce onto his feet, and says, “Now, I’m going to go shoot some people, you stay hidden and quiet, got that?”

“Guns are bad,” Bruce replies, holding a finger to Jason’s helmet. “Just like clowns. And ducks.”

Raising an eyebrow, Jason shakes his head. He doesn’t have time for this right now.

Jason quickly scales the nearest building, grappling to the roof of the warehouse. He peeks in through a hatch in the roof to survey the area. There are about a dozen armed goons, none of them looking very bright. There are 4 crates they’re guarding, likely filled with ammo.

Cocking his guns, Jason jumps down through the hatch, landing right in the middle of the warehouse with a ‘thud’ sound. “Surprise,” He grins, raising his guns.

“Aye, that’s Red Hood, ain’t it?” Comes a goon’s terrified voice. The others around him immediately aim their guns at Jason— they’re clearly untrained.

Suddenly there’s another thud behind him. “That’s a bucket, you morons!” Comes a too-familiar, slurred voice. Jason turns around to come face-to-face with Bruce, eyes wide.

In a fight with any real criminals, this distraction would have cost Jason his life. But luckily these adorably clueless goons are just as shocked as him.

Unfortunately the distraction only lasts for a few seconds. Jason immediately jumps into the fight, shooting three goons in the kneecaps and dodging a few bullets. From the corner of his eye, he sees two more goons running out the door, crying. He punches another guy in the face, instantly knocking him out, and is about to turn back to check on Bruce when suddenly something hard collides with his skull.

Jason staggers slightly, trying to regain his balance, when he sees a goon holding a giant stone, wearing a proud grin.

Fuck, his helmet’s probably busted…

Then suddenly Bruce is running towards the goon, hands fisted and veins popping, screaming, “NO ONE HURTS MY SON!”

Then Bruce’s fist collides with the goon’s with a sickening crunch, splattering blood across the floor as the man crumples to the ground. Bruce doesn’t stop there, and continues to beat him up, yelling profanities.

It warms Jason’s cold, (un)dead heart to watch that— to see his Dad fighting for him. It’s like they say, you’re most truthful when you’re drunk— or high. This is how much Bruce loves him.

Then another thought strikes him— Bruce is going to regret being this violent when he sobers up. It’s going to claw at him, tear him up, and he’s going to compartmentalize and end up punishing himself by overworking.

Jason rushes forward, pulling Bruce off of the man. “B— Robin, stop!” He shouted, looking into the man’s domino-covered eyes.

Bruce’s brows furrow. “Robin?”

Jason points to Bruce’s Robin-themed cape and stock domino.

“Ah.” Bruce nods, pulling away. “You okay? Did you see any duck?”

“Duck?” Jason pauses in confusion. But before he can question it farther, he spies the three remaining goons using a ladder to climb up through the roof of the warehouse, trying to escape.

“Stay here. And do not move.” Jason orders Bruce, and runs after them.

He makes his way up the ladder as fast as he can , exiting under the polluted night sky. The goons, the ridiculously stupid goons, are standing around the edge of the roof, trying to figure out how they’re going to get down.

He doesn’t get paid enough to deal with this ridiculous shit.

Actually, scratch that, he doesn’t get paid at all.

“Wow, you guys are pathetic,” Comes Red Hood’s robotic voice, startling the goons, and one of them accidentally topples over the edge, screaming. Jason ensures that the guy’s hanging on tight— he can wait.

He cocks his guns, aiming both at the two standing goons. Both men are trembling with fear, hands up in surrender. “Hood— Mr. Hood, please—” One of them squeaks, but one look from Jason shuts him up.

“Please. Mr. Hood was my father,” Jason quips, his robotic chuckle sounding sinister.

That’s when he hears another voice behind him (again)— “But I’m your father.”

Jason jumps, whipping around. “How did you— I didn’t even hear you come!”

Bruce just shrugs innocently, waving his bloodstained hands at the terrified goons.

Then Jason hears the distinct sound of a gun being cocked. From the corner of his eye he sees the bolder of the goons, the one that had spoken before, taking aim.

“DUCK!” He yells, falling out of the way.

Instead of dodging, Bruce falls into a defensive stance, looking around frantically. “Where?!”

The bullet barely misses Bruce’s ear as he turns his head.

Jason has had it with sky-high Bruce now. Annoyance rising, he quickly shoots the two goons in the kneecaps, forgetting about the one hanging off the edge, and stalks up to Bruce, glaring.

“What is up with you and ducks?!” He demands, his voice raised.

“Ducks are evil,” Bruce spits, nose wrinkled. “Just like clowns. And bats.”

Jason’s brows raise. “Bats are evil?”

“Yeah, duh, that’s why everyone’s scared of Batman.” Bruce rolls his eyes, his drawl sounding too much like Steph. “Bats are scary.”

“You really took ‘become what you fear’ too literally, huh?” Jason snorts, putting his guns back in their holsters. Then he takes off his helmet, checking the damage— just a slight crack at the back. Not too bad.

“You know, I fell into a hole and into a cave when I was a boy and a dozen bats attacked me. I nearly died.” Bruce continues, gesturing towards the air with his hands.

“Yeah, right.” Jason shakes his head, chuckling. “Now come on, we gotta get you back.”

That’s when another voice rings out, high-pitched and scared. “Um, Mr. Hood? Please HELP! Please, please, please—”

Jason’s attention snaps to the corner of the roof— ah, right, the goon’s still hanging off the edge, isn’t he?

He grumbles, making his way over, and squats above the man, shaking his head. The man below him looks like he’s pissed himself, face ashen, tears running down his cheeks, muttering, “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die…” On repeat.

“I’ll pull you up on one condition,” Jason looks down at him, voice low. “Never become a gun for hire again. If I see you fighting on the streets…” He pulls out his gun.

“No, no, I won’t, I swear…” The man whimpers, eyes squeezed shut. Jason sighs, and grabs the man by the collar and hauls him up. He crumples onto the roof, curling into a ball.

“Take out your phone and dial 911, tell them you’ve been naughty,” Jason orders, his gun pointed at the man’s head. (What? A guy needs to have some fun.)

The man whines, and immediately obliges.

“Pathetic,” Jason ties the man up quickly, and makes his way over to Bruce, who was sitting on the floor of the roof, taking apart some random crushed handphone he’s found.

“Get up, old man. GCPD will be here soon. We’re going home.” He pulls Bruce up, ignoring how he longingly stares at the dismantled phone.

The two of them grapple down from the roof, landing safely on the pavement. As they walk towards his bike, Bruce says, “Did you know I ate a phone once?”

Jason stumbles slightly. “What?”

“Tasted nice. Like electricity. Crackle-y.” Bruce hummed, his face straight (as straight as someone dating Superman could be). He isn't kidding.

That, or he's delusional.

“Don't try it. You might turn into a computer or something.” Bruce nodded very seriously.

“Oh god,” Jason snorts. “I'm so glad my helmet’s recording all this. Perfect blackmail material.”

“Black's a very, very pretty color.”

Jason rolls his eyes, revving the motor, making sure Bruce is safely strapped onto the backseat behind him. “You're just emo.”

“What's emo?” Bruce raises an eyebrow, words slightly slurred.

“Y'know, when people wear all that black makeup, skinny jeans, with hair covering their eyes.” Jason explains, putting a spare helmet on Bruce's head. “And listen to, like, My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco. The Emo Trinity.”

“Oh, oh!” Bruce's eyes sparkle. “Dickie used to do that! He went to a My Chemmy concert once, but he didn't want me coming along.” He pouts.

Jason thinks of all the times Gerard Way has shoved a mic down his throat and grabbed his junk. “Yeah, I wonder why.”

Then he turns around to look Bruce in the eye. “But, Golden Boy was emo? Seriously?”

Bruce just smiles and nods, saying, “Now go.”

“Going,” Jason smirks and speeds down the streets of Gotham city, not slowing down until their surroundings change from shitty apartment buildings and broken street lights to the eerie quiet of Bristol. He can see the Manor in the distance when he takes a hidden turn, straight down the road that leads to the Batcave.

He pulls into the underground ‘garage’ section of the Cave, parking his bike before helping Bruce off. As he removes Bruce’s ripoff domino and “cape”, he says sternly, “Now, you tell no one of what we did today, got that? Not a soul.”

Bruce just flashes a thumbs-up and smiles in the most un-Bruce-like way possible. It’s a little creepy, honestly.

“And even if you remember this once you sober up you won’t talk, because you swore on your soul not to tell.”

“Mhm. Kay.”

“Good.” Jason smiles slightly, helping Bruce back to the gurney, making him lie down. He checks him over for any symptoms that the painkiller overdose is making his health worse. His skin’s still cold and clammy, but his breathing’s more steady. His pupils aren’t as small anymore, and he’s way more responsive than he was an hour ago.

Huh. Maybe all he really needed was some exercise.

Jason sits down beside his father, taking a deep breath. “Hey, uh… Did you really mean that, back there? That… That I’m your son?”

Bruce’s brows furrow. “Yes, who else’s son would you be? Superman’s?”

A short laugh escapes Jason. He moves closer to Bruce, lying down so his head is resting beside the older man’s. “I just…” He sighs, unable to form the right words. “I know it doesn’t always seem like it, but… I love you, Dad.”

“Aww, Jaybird…” Bruce’s hand moves sluggishly to cradle Jason. “I love you so much more than you could ever imagine.”

A small smile plays on Jason’s lips as he closes his eyes, leaning into his Dad’s touch. Maybe… maybe babysitting a high Bruce isn’t so bad.

[BONUS!!!]

Dick walks into the infirmary nearly an hour later with Damian trailing behind him, intending to check up on Bruce. He’s been ringing Jason’s phone for a while now, but he hasn’t been picking up. And… Honestly, Dick’s getting worried.

“Tt. I knew we shouldn’t have left Father’s safety in the hands of an incompetent fool such as Todd,” Damian frowns, scowling.

“No, no, it’s probably just a misunderstanding,” Dick tries to reassure his baby brother, but he picks up his pace. “I mean, we both know what Jason’s like. One moment he’s nice, one moment he’s—”

His voice trails off as he sees Jason sitting on a chair beside Bruce, who’s on the gurney— both asleep, with Jason’s head resting on Bruce’s shoulder, and Bruce cradling him.

“Aww, Little Wing…” Dick smiles, pausing. Even Damian freezes behind him. Dick steers him away, back into the main house, so as to not disturb the sleeping pair. “Yeah, they’re okay. Nothing bad happened.”

#Jason being a little shit who just wants to piss Dick off at first but really gets into the feels by the end #Also Jason didn't consider that to use the helmet's footage of tonight as blackmail he'll have to admit to the fam #that he bought a sky-high Bruce #(who he was supposed to be babysitting)#out into a gunfight #jason todd #bruce wayne #batman #batfamily #red hood #batfam #dick grayson #damian wayne

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chaos-in-deepspace · 6 months ago

Text

L&DS: "Watch This!" | Crack

So I dunno about you, but I'm one of those idiots who seldom drink water and sometimes forgets to eat for like two days. So when I stand up too fast it's like a moment of "Oh look the lights went out." So anyway that's the entire idea for this. Everyone experiences this, right? This is a normal human thing to experience when you stand up? Just standing up and almost (or actually) peacing out? Anyway, I never said my writing ideas were good but I they're there.

Disclaimer: This is an original fan work for “Love and Deepspace”. Do not repost on other platforms or plagiarize. All characters shown in this fic is 18+. Warnings: Fainting, Crack Fic, Reader can't take care of themselves, Zayne is stressed as your doctor, Rafayel might have a heart attack, Xavier just assumes you died, Rafayel does as well but he's dramatic on a good day

Blog Information | Masterlist

Xavier

"Xavier, I promise you I am totally fine. I just got a little dizzy because of the heat." You tried assuring the blonde man as he looked around his apartment. He had already gotten a cold compress and thrown a glass of water in your hands for you to sip on. This was all because you guys had gone on a small jog together to prepare for the latest event in town and you had gotten a bit woozy. He had insisted on carrying you back to the apartments and here you where.

"Your face went as white as a sheet." He pointed out and you scoffed. Impossible. You don't even think it's possible to turn that color with how hot you had felt. If he said you looked like a cherry tomato or something from how red your face had gotten from the exertion it would've been more believable.

"Xavier, would an unwell person be able to do this?" You asked as you went to stand. As you jolted into a standing position you then remembered a key detail. The water he had given you was the first thing you had to drink today...and you don't think you had breakfast either.

The thought flashed through your mind as you felt the blood pounding in your ears and your vision darkening. Your only thought was 'Oh sugar, we're going down, down.' before you collapsed in on yourself.

Next thing you knew you were lying on the ground, a soft lap underneath you as Xavier fanned you off. You groaned as you came to, staring at Xavier's face. The man looked like he had just witnessed your death as he stared at you with wide eyes.

"Oh good morning." You managed to murmur out. Xavier's eyes narrowed as he glared down at you.

"You said you were fine then immediately fainted. I was about to call an ambulance." He scolded you, his tone harsh as he shifted your head on his lap. You noticed his free hand was holding a cell phone.

"Oh don't do that please. I'm okay."

"That's what you said last time."

"How about this...you get me something yummy to eat and I drink some water and if I'm still fainting after that then we can consider maybe going to see a doctor."

"Do you swear?"

"No..."

"We're going to the hospital." You then felt your world shift again as you were tossed unceremoniously over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. You beat his back, begging him to let you down. Alas, once Xavier had his mind made, there was nothing you could do to stop him.

Zayne

"Have you already eaten today?" It was a simple enough question as you sat at the end of your check up with your favorite doctor. Your legs swinging over the edge as you put in some thought to that question. Zayne sat there, waiting patiently as he looked up and quirked an eyebrow in question.

"That is a brilliant question that I don't have an answer to." You might've eaten something today...or perhaps that was yesterday? The days sometimes blurred together in the most confusing ways.

"Have you drank any water?" Oh that was an easy question. No. The answer was no.

"You know the first ingredient in an energy drink is water."

"No..." Zayne said, pinching his eyebrows together in frustration. How you managed to still be alive is a miracle. Not even science could explain how you didn't just kneel over on any given day with how little care you put into your health.

"Zayne, I can promise you, I am totally healthy. Watch this." You stated before jumping up off the examination table. Immediately you felt the world shifting under you like the floor decided to become sentient and move like a damn treadmill.

Next thing you knew, you were waking up in the arms of the best cardiac surgeon at Akso hospital. You grumbled a bit as the light was bright. You looked up to see Zayne's not amused expression, in fact you might even call it a frustrated look.

"How long was I out?"

"30 seconds too long."

"Am I in trouble?"

"You're going to the cafeteria with me right now to get food and water. If you faint again I'm admitting you for the night and hooking you up to an IV."

"So you're saying fainting gets me a dinner date with the Doctor Zayne, and a possible sleepover?"

"Why are you like this?"

Rafayel

You made the realization that you could only entertain yourself by playing on your phone for so long. Rafayel had promised that as soon as he finished some light detail work on his latest painting, you could go out to town and grab some dinner.

That was well over six hours ago as you laid on his couch. You had already finished a book you had downloaded on your phone, scrolled through all your social media, checked out new memes, and caught up on videos of people you followed. As you looked over you saw Rafayel was still sitting on his stool, painting away.

You groaned, rolling yourself off the couch you had been glued to for those entire six hours. You plopped onto the floor, noting that he really did need to clean this studio up a bit. Normally Rafayel would at least be talking to you, but he had been so quiet and boring today.

"Raf...I'm dying of boredom here." You finally called out to him. The man in question looked over at you then looked outside. The sun had set a long time ago and he paused in what he was doing.

"I promise, I'm almost done." He said with a sigh and you groaned again. Then you remembered a little party trick you had up your sleeve. You'd admit you were actually hungry on account of being too busy to eat and then being promised food earlier, you opted not to have snacks. Not to mention water was gross for drinking so it all accumulated into the perfect way to get his attention.

"Rafayel, I'm fading away. I'm starving. I might die. I'm so weak." You called out from the floor and Rafayel finally turned in his stool to eye you up and down.

"I'm sure you are." His tone was sarcastic as he looked at you. He seemed to be entertained by your antics, "I can always order you some food. I also have snacks in the kitchen." He pointed out.

"That won't work, Raf. I'm too far gone. I mean...just watch this." You said, jumping up from your position on the ground. As soon as you were in a standing position, your body fought against you. Your ears were ringing uncomfortably and your vision went in and out. You could barely hear Rafayel calling your name in concern, followed by a him cursing as things clattered.

You collapsed, fainting just like you knew your dumbass would. You knew your body and knew the perfect conditions for going lights out, after all.

When you came to, you saw Rafayel almost in tears as he tried getting you to wake up. You murmured something that not even you could decipher as Rafayel's shoulders sagged in relief.

"I thought you actually died." He looked shaken up as you raised a hand to touch his cheek.

"Can we get food now like you promised?"

Rafayel was silent for a moment as he calmed his heart down and looked at you, "Did you faint just so I'd stop painting and take you to dinner?"

"Well did it work?"

"...Yes, but never do that again."

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once-upon-an-imagine · 1 year ago

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Lover - Sirius Black

A/N: ahh! well here it is, a very long one-shot. I'm not sure how, this started off kind of sweet, then it got angsty and then it got funny but I still hope you like it!

Request - Anonymous asked: Hey love! Hope you're doing okay! I wanna start off by saying I love all of your Sirius Black fics so much! They're so fun to read and always make me happy! Secondly I love the whole Potter!reader thing cause I absolutely love James and have always wanted a brother like him. Idk if you're taking requests but if you are I was wondering if you'd do a Sirius x reader where the reader is a Hufflepuff and is the opposite of Sirius and he's like absolutely whipped but the reader is James' little sister ( a year younger maybe cause I love age gaps lol) so yeah sirius is like shitting scared cause he thinks James would hate him forever and all angsty but then James is like dude I knew since like the day I introduced you guys and all happy ending lol. Sorry if it's too detailed. I completely understand if you don't wanna write it tho. Have a nice day!

Warnings: mentions of Sirius' family situation, like I said it got a bit too angsty for a moment there but I think that's it let me know if I missed anything though!

Disclaimer: I don’t own Harry Potter :D gif isn’t mine :)

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Lover

My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue All's well that ends well to end up with you Swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover

You kept walking back and forth in your room. You couldn't sleep. You hadn't been able to sleep earlier tonight, but now it was even worse. When you walked into the kitchen to make yourself a cup of tea you did not expect to find Sirius Black, barely being able to stand as he held on to the kitchen counter. You felt your entire body shaking when you noticed the bruises and blood all over him. But, when he looked at you, your heart broke into a million pieces, that's when you felt like you were going to be sick. He was crying and he looked haunted. You had never seen Sirius like this. He tried to say your name before he collapsed so you quickly walked over to him to hold him up and you yelled for your brother. It wasn't even five minutes before James came running downstairs with your parents following him. And now, here you were, waiting for James to come tell you what happened. Sirius wasn't talking, so if there was a remote possibility that he would, it would be with James. And your parents were helping him so, at some point, you were asked to leave. But James knew you wouldn't go to sleep until you knew Sirius was okay.

"Hey, bug" you turned around when James opened your door.

"Hi" you said, finally sitting on the bench by your window and James joined you. "H-how is he?" you asked nervously. You could tell James had been crying as well.

"He's gonna be okay" he assured you. "I knew you wouldn't go to sleep until I told you that" he smiled. "He's gonna be staying with us now" he explained.

"Good" you nodded. "I'm glad he doesn't have to go back there" you said. You knew about Sirius' home situation. He had talked to you about it a few times, but you had never imagined it was this bad.

"Me too" James smiled at you.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, bug" he frowned.

"You know it's okay if you're not, right?" you insisted.

"It's just... hard seeing him like this" he admitted, shedding a few tears. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders and kissed his cheek.

"You're a good brother, Jamie" you said as you felt him hug you back. "That's why he came here" you told him.

"Thanks, bug" he said, kissing the side of your head. You were about to pull away but you felt James arms tightening a little and you knew he needed more time.

"You should try to get some sleep" you told him.

"You too" he said, getting up. When he was at the door, he looked back at you with a weary smile. "I love you, bug."

"I love you too, Jamie" you smiled before he left, closing the door behind you.

You sighed, thinking that it was best if you also got some sleep since it was almost three in the morning, but you heard something in the room next to you. You knew Sirius would most likely not be able to sleep. So, you went downstairs again to make some tea. But not for you. You knew that Sirius might not want to talk right now, especially with you. So, you just wanted to do something nice and feel a little helpful. You walked quietly to his room and saw that the light was still on, so you were not waking him up. You knocked lightly but got no response, so you opened the room slowly. It was empty, and the bathroom door was closed. You didn't want to cross any lines so you placed the tea on his nightstand and left.

And that's how it started. You did the same thing the following night. This time, when you knocked on his door, Sirius opened it and smiled sweetly at you. He had a feeling it was you the previous night. He was still very quiet, which was unusual for him, but you still offered him the tea.

"I just... thought it might help you sleep" you smiled nervously.

"Thanks, Bambi" he said, grabbing it from you, making you chuckle a little. He had always called you that and, it annoyed you at first, but now you kind of liked it.

"Good night, Siri" you said, walking over to the next door.

"Night, love" he whispered to himself going inside his room.

This kept happening for the following weeks. You slowly saw Sirius coming back to his old self. Your mum had asked you to help redecorate his room so he would feel more at home and you noticed his eyes watering a little when your mum showed it to him. James told him that Remus and Peter would be arriving in a few weeks and that also seemed to lift his spirits up. But if Sirius was being honest with himself, his favorite part of living at the Potters was whenever you brought him tea. It was a small act of kindness on your part but it meant the world to him. He knew you sometimes had trouble sleeping and you were worried that he was experiencing that too, and that warmed his heart. Which is why, one night he opened the door before you could even knock. He stood there on the other side and smiled sweetly at you.

"Oh- s-sorry, I was um-"

"It's okay, love" he chuckled. "How come you never bring one for yourself?" he asked, confused as he grabbed the tea from you.

"Oh" you said, a little taken aback. "I usually drink mine downstairs" you explained.

"Well, would you maybe like to have your tea with me tomorrow?" he smiled sweetly at you.

"Really?" you asked, feeling a little nervous. "I m-mean, yeah, sure, I'd love that" you nodded.

"Cool, see you tomorrow, Bambi" he said, kissing your cheek before you both said good night.

And you did. Every night for the rest of the summer, after James went to sleep, and the rest of the Marauders, once they arrived, you brought tea for Sirius and the two of you spent hours talking. Little by little, you saw him going back to his old self. He smiled more. He laughed more. He didn't seem jumpy or gloomy anymore. One night, you fell asleep and he didn't have it in him to bring you to your room. He liked your company and he felt a lot better when you were around, so he didn't. But a few hours later, you were woken up by his screaming. It broke your heart to see him so terrified by his nightmares, but it got Sirius to open up to you. He felt more comfortable around you with each passing week, until one night, he finally kissed you.

You would have been lying if you said you didn't have a slight crush on Sirius Black. Because he was Sirius Black. Everyone had a crush on him and you were no exception. And in the weeks since he had moved in, you got to know him even more and you felt your crush growing. So, when he kissed you, you were over the moon. That's how it started. This whole thing between the two of you. You both decided to keep it secret for a while. And you couldn't deny that it was even exciting at first. The stolen glances between you, the way Sirius would always sit next to you at meals and hold your hand under the table. Brief moments where he would excuse himself from the other Marauders just to go to your room to steal a quick kiss from you.

But now, that you were back at Hogwarts, being in different years and houses, it made it increasingly difficult to keep your relationship a secret. You knew Sirius was anxious about James' reaction to your relationship, but you didn't think it would be such a big deal, as to practically have your relationship back to before you two got together. Making moments like this extremely rare.

"Merlin, I've missed you" Sirius smiled as the two of you laid on his bed, kissing, with music in the background.

"I've missed you too" you smiled before he pulled you in for another kiss. "It's been such a long week" you complained.

"It's only Tuesday" he laughed.

"I know" you pouted and he kissed you once more. "But we barely got to see each other this past weekend and classes have been crazy and I just-"

Sirius interrupted you with another kiss. "I know, love" he said, placing his hand on your cheek. "But it's a Hogsmeade weekend" he smiled. "Maybe we can go?"

"R-really?" you asked, feeling excited. Because of all the sneaking around, you two didn't even have a first date.

"Yeah, I think we're all gonna go, so you can come with us" he suggested, making your smile drop.

"Oh- um, y-yeah, sure" you smiled again, but, of course, Sirius noticed it was different.

"What?" he frowned, sitting up.

"N-nothing" you tried to assure him.

"Love, you're a terrible liar" he insisted. "I know when something's bothering you" he said pulling you with him.

"Nothing, I just..." you sighed. The two of you never really established what this was and you didn't want to make it a bigger deal than it was. "I'm not sure if I have a Potions exam on Monday" you covered up.

"Oh" he replied before smiling again. "Well, in that case" he said, leaning in for another kiss. "Maybe I can stay back and help you study" he smirked, kissing you again.

"You don't have to do that" you chuckled.

"Oh, I wouldn't mind, sweetheart" he said as his kisses started making his way down your neck. "I wouldn't mind at all" he said between kisses and making your smile appear again.

It was short-lived, however, because the two of you heard the door opening and Sirius quickly pushed you off him, making you fall off his bed.

"Bloody hell!"

"Sirius!" you complained when you hit your head with his nightstand.

"Moony! What the fuck!" Sirius said, looking at his friend standing at the entrance of his dorm.

"What? Just be glad it was me and not Prongs" he rolled his eyes, closing the door and tossing his bag on his bed.

"I'm so sorry, love" he said, getting up to help you. "Are you okay-?"

"No, of course I'm not okay" you glared at him. "You pushed me and I hit my head!"

"I'm sorry, love. I thought it was Prongs-"

"What difference does that make, Sirius" you asked, grabbing your shirt and putting it back on. "We're both half-naked, in your bed, do you honestly think James would have thought nothing was going on? I know he's daft but give him some credit!"

"I panicked, okay! Moony said he would be out until dinner" he said, glaring at Remus.

"It is almost dinner" he defended himself. "And this wouldn't have happened if you just told Prongs already. What is he gonna do? Kill you?"

"Moony, could you please get out?" Sirius glared at his friend again making Remus sigh in frustration.

"Fine, I'll leave-"

"No, don't worry, Remus. I'll leave" you said as you finished fixing yourself up.

"What? Why are you leaving?" Sirius said, pulling you to him.

"I don't know, Sirius, maybe because I don't want to stay here until my brother comes in and you push me again so I hit my head!"

"That was an accident! I just-"

"I know. You don't want James to know about us" you rolled your eyes. "What's the big deal? Remus knows!" you said, pointing at him.

"Remus is not your brother. Trust me, love. I will tell him, I promise I just... need more time" he begged, making you sigh in defeat.

"Fine" you said, grabbing your bag. "I'm still gonna go" you said, quietly.

"Love-"

"No, it's fine" you said with a weary smile. "If it's almost dinner time, that means Jamie's practice is over" you said. "I'll see you both later" you said, leaving and closing the door behind you before Sirius could stop you again.

"I fucked up, didn't I?" Sirius asked out loud.

"Oh, good. You didn't neet me to tell you" Remus smirked a little.

"Moony, I'm not joking-!"

"Neither am I, Pads" Remus said as Sirius put his shirt back on. "You're gonna fuck things up if you keep doing this. And the longer you wait-"

"I know, the worst it will be with Prongs" Sirius sighed frustrated.

"Prongs? You're more worried about what James will say than being disrespectful to your girlfriend?"

"Whoa, that's a big word, Moony" he chuckled nervously. "Bambi's not my-" he stopped as Remus glared at him. "I mean we haven't really-" he sighed. "Ugh, I'm fucking this up, aren't I?" he said, throwing himself on his bed.

"You know, sometimes you're more perceptive than I give you credit for" Remus replied.

"Moony!" Sirius complained, sitting up. "It's not funny! I don't know what to do!"

"Why are you so afraid of telling James about the two of you?"

"Are you joking? You know I don't have the best reputation about dating and if he finds out that I'm dating his little sister he's going to kill me!"

"I honestly don't think he would" Remus tried to reason to him. "I mean, we've all seen how much you've changed this past year" he continued. "And James hasn't seen it but I've seen the way the two of you are together. It's different" he explained. "But you're going to fuck it all up if you keep making her feel this way" he said.

"What way?"

"As if you don't want to be seen with her. As if your relationship isn't serious. And as if you care more about what James says than hurting her feelings" he indicated.

Sirius opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out so he threw himself back on his bed. Maybe Remus was right. Maybe he needed to get this over with and just tell James before it was too late.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

The next day, you were coming out of your Charms class and you were still in a foul mood. You loved Sirius, you knew that much. And whenever you were with him, you felt like he might love you too. But all of this hiding and sneaking around made your insecurities get the best of you and wonder if he was as Sirius about this as you were. You understood that he was nervous about telling James, but you kept insisting nothing would happen so, maybe it wasn't just that.

Your thoughts were shut down when you noticed a small crumpled parchment in your bag while you were putting your book away. You opened it and saw one of Sirius' doodles and it made you smile. He did this from time to time. He left little notes hidden in your books and your bag. This one was a small doodle of him holding up a flower and apologizing for being an idiot, asking you to meet him after lunch so the two of you could talk.

"Hey, bug!" you heard your brother walking your way and you put your small doodle back in your bag.

"Hi, Jamie" you smiled at your big brother.

"You going to lunch?"

"Yeah" you replied before you heard your name being called.

"Hey" you turned around to see your housemate and classmate speeding your way. "Oh, hi, James" she smiled. "It's the Potters" she greeted.

"Hi Emmeline" you smiled back at your friend.

"Hey" she smiled. "I won't keep you long, I just wanted to ask you something" she told you. "Oh, and now that your brother's here I guess I can ask him too" she told you.

"Sure, Em, what do you need?" you asked your friend.

"You're really close with Sirius Black, aren't you?" she asked, making your heart drop for a moment. You could tell where this was going.

"She's not as close to him as I am" James smirked. "Why the interest, love?"

"Well, I was just... wondering if... he's single?" she asked smiling as you felt your entire heart shatter. What were you supposed to say now?

"Yes, of course, he is" James answered before you could say something.

"Really? I wasn't sure because you seem really close to him and I didn't want to cross any lines if you two were dating or anything-" she said looking at you. But, again, your brother intervened.

"With her?" he laughed a little too loud to your liking. "Sirius dating my sister? You're joking right, they're just friends" he insisted.

"Oh, that's a relief" she sighed while you remained with your mouth open but nothing was coming out. "So, could you maybe... find out for me if he might be interested?"

"I- uh-" you tried to make sense of this whole thing. "Y-you want me to f-find out if Sirius likes you?"

"Yeah" she chuckled. "We've sort of been flirting back and forth, and since it's a Hogsmeade weekend, I though-"

"Y-you've been flirting back and forth" you said, letting out a bitter chuckle and feeling as if someone was stabbing your heart repeatedly. "With Sirius-?"

"Well, that's a grand idea, Emmeline" James kept interrupting. "Maybe we can have a double date" he suggested.

"What's on your mind, Potter?"

"Well, I happen to know you do some of your prefect rounds with Lily" he smirked. "Put in a good word for me and I put in a good word for you?"

"Really?" Emmeline asked, excitedly.

"Really" James nodded.

"Alright, Potter. You've got yourself a deal" she smiled. "But only if you agree to find out if I have a chance first" she said, turning back to you.

"I um-" you stuttered. "S-so, you want me to find out if Sirius likes you-?"

"Yes, please, will you? Is not too much trouble, is it?" she asked.

"Uh-"

"Of course, not, love!" James waved you off. "We'll definitely have the information in a few hours. I mean, we're just on our way to have lunch with Sirius, right bug?" he said, playfully hitting your stomach with his arm.

"R-right" you said trying your best not to start crying. Were you really just about to set your boyfriend up on a date just to avoid telling your brother?

"Brilliant! Thank you so much! I have my Prefect rounds tonight with Lily so, that works" she told James.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Em" James said as she nodded her head to him.

"Thanks, love" she told you. "I'll see you both later!" she said, walking away from you.

"Oh, Merlin! Bug, did you hear that?"

"What just happened?" you muttered to yourself.

"I'll tell you what just happened. I just got a date with Lily!" he said, excitedly, pulling you with him to the Great Hall.

"I didn't hear that" you said, frowning at him.

"Come on, let's go!" he said, running towards his usual spot. He found Remus and Peter already sitting there but Sirius was nowhere to be seen. "Great! You're both here! Where's Padfoot?"

"He said he'll be right here" Peter said as James pulled you to sit and he took the seat next to you.

"Brilliant!" he said as he started putting food on his plate and yours.

"Are you okay?" Remus asked you.

"She's fine. She's just hungry" James said, placing a massive mountain of potatoes on your plate.

"No, I think I have to go-"

"Nonsense!"

"Hey" Sirius said, appearing at the table and greeting all of you. "Bambi, I didn't know you would join us today" he said, sitting next to Remus, in front of you. "What are you all talking about?"

"Not much" James said, acting casually. "Just talking about next weekend" he said smiling. "Hogsmeade weekend" he continued. "Do you have any plans?"

"Uh, no, n-not really" Sirius answered, looking at you without meaning to.

"Wonderful" James said with a smirk. "I have a proposition for you" he told him.

"What?"

"Well, I was thinking-"

"Shocker" Remus heard you mutter under your breath and your brother quickly glared at you.

"What do you think about going on a double date?"

"Are you asking me out, Prongs? Because I've got to be honest with you, you're not really my type" Sirius asked him making the other two Marauders laugh.

James rolled his eyes and glared at his friends. "No, I just happened to run into Emmeline, you know her right?" he said.

"Um... sure?" Sirius said a bit confused. He looked at you to see if you could maybe provide some sort of explanation, but your eyes were glued to the potatoes on your plate. You didn't dare to look up at him.

"Well, you see, my sweet Padfoot, it looks like our dear Emmeline has a bit of a crush on you" he said happily.

You lifted her look just to see Sirius' reaction who looked back at you, feeling extremely guilty.

"N-no, she doesn't" he said awkwardly.

"Yes, she does! Isn't this grand?"

"G-grand? W-why would that be grand?" Sirius chuckled, nervously.

"Well because she just told us that she wants to go to Hogsmeade with you this weekend and that she would ask Lily so we could go on a double date" James said with a smirk.

"Us? What do you mean 'us'?"

"She just told us before coming over here" he explained, making Sirius' heart stop. "She wanted us to find out if you liked her back" he shrugged.

Sirius instantly looked at you. He knew you were upset. And you probably had every right to. This was it. He should just come out and say it. But he fucked up again. He was a coward.

"She told you that?"

You slowly turned to look up from your food when you felt the four boys looking at you. James still had his stupid smirk on his face, Peter was just curiously waiting for an answer, Sirius was looking at you as if he was going to cry, and Remus was looking at you almost... sorry?

"Um" you said nervously. "She might-have um, m-mentioned something" you said before looking back down.

"Mentioned something? She said you two have been flirting back and forth for weeks" James said excitedly. "So, what do you say? Why don't you ask her out and then the four of us could go on a double date?"

You felt your heart beating faster each second and feared it might explode. Not only would Sirius not take you out on a date this Saturday, but he might even go on a date with someone else. All to avoid telling your brother about the two of you.

"Uh, I don't think so, Prongs-"

"Come on, Pads, is just one date" James kept on pushing.

Remus turned to look at you, who didn't dare look up from your plate. He noticed the tears in your eyes and he turned to glare at Sirius, kicking him under the table.

"I don't really think Padfoot's interested, Prongs" he said, widening his eyes at Sirius. He couldn't believe he was so afraid of James as to even hurt your feelings in the process.

"Of course he is, he's interested in any girl" James laughed. "Well, almost, right bug?" he said, elbowing you playfully on your stomach.

"R-right" you muttered sadly.

You suddenly felt sick to your stomach and you decided you couldn't be here anymore, so you stood up.

"Hey, where are you going, bug?" your brother asked confused.

"Away from you" you answered, grabbing your stuff.

"But you haven't even touched your food" James said, worriedly, looking at the still full plate next to him.

"Well, maybe I'm not hungry anymore" you said grumpily, before walking away from them.

"What's going on with her?" James asked concerned, looking at his three friends.

"I don't know" Sirius quickly replied. "W-why would we know?"

"Yeah, why would we know?" Remus asked, glaring at Sirius.

"It's probably her time of the month" James said shrugging his shoulders. "Honestly is easier to deal with your time of the month, Moony, no offense" he said looking at Remus. "So, what do you say?"

"About what?" Sirius asked, confused.

"The double date!" James said frustrated.

"Uh, I um-" Sirius said awkwardly. "I don't think so, mate. I'm not really interested in Emmeline like that" he said getting up as well. "Um, I'm gonna go see if Bambi's okay" he said, walking out of the Great Hall before any of them could stop him.

"What do you think is going on with him?" James asked confused. "And why is he checking on my sister?"

"Beats me" Remus said casually. He wouldn't be the one to tell his best friend that their other best friend was in a secret relationship with his sister.

Sirius ran after you as quickly as he could. He quickly made his way to the Library, knowing you went there when you didn't want your brother to bother you and he walked over to the last aisle. He saw you sitting there with your knees pulled to your chest as tears fell down your face. It felt as if someone grabbed a hammer and broke his heart into millions of pieces.

"Love" he said, kneeling next to you. You quickly tried to wipe away the tears falling down your cheeks but new ones just came.

"W-what are you doing here?"

"Sweetheart" he said, pulling you towards him. "You know I don't want to go out with Emmeline, right?" he said, as you tried to breathe normally.

"I g-guess" you sighed.

"Look at me" he said, gently lifting your chin with his finger and he then wiped your tears softly with his thumb. "I don't want to go out with anyone who's not you" he said genuinely.

"Sirius..." you said, pushing yourself away from him.

"And I swear we have not been flirting back and forth! I wouldn't do that-!"

"Sirius" you said again, making him pay attention to you. "It's fine" you said, with your voice breaking a little.

"W-what?" Sirius frowned, confused.

"Look, it is clear that your relationship with me is not as important as your relationship with James" you cried a little more. "S-so, if you want to just- e-end whatever this is, I completely understand and-"

"What?!" he said, raising his voice a little. The two of you heard someone shushing you all the way on the other side and he looked back at you. "Sweetheart, I don't want to end things" he pleaded. "I-is that what you want? I swear I haven't flirted with anyone since I came back here and-"

"It's not what I want, Sirius" you insisted. "B-but... I just... I don't know what to do! I don't know what you want-"

"I want to be with you, love!" he insisted.

"Do you? I barely get to see you anymore. We're in different houses, we're in different years the rest of the time you're with my brother and you don't want him or anyone else to know about us! I don't know how long I can keep doing this, Sirius. It just doesn't feel as if you actually want to be with me!"

"I do!"

"Then why can't we just tell James so he can stop setting you up with a different girl every week!" you blurted out. "You think he doesn't tell me things? That he hasn't told me how he noticed you've changed and you don't talk to girls anymore so he keeps trying to set you up with them!"

"Well, of course, I've changed! I'm with you now and I don't want to be with anyone else!"

"But he doesn't know that, Sirius! So he's most likely going to keep doing this until you get fed up and tell him! So, why not just tell him already? Do you not want people to know about us-?"

"No! That's not it!"

"Is it me? Are you embarrassed to be seen with me or something?"

"What? No! Love, how can you think that!?"

"I don't know what else to think Sirius! I don't even know what we are!"

"Please don't ever think that" he said with a stern look on his face. "Look, I know I fucked up yesterday, and today, and probably lots of other times. I've never done this before and I-" he sighed, running a hand through his hair frustrated. "I love you" he said, making your heart flutter instantly.

"Y-you what?"

"I love you, sweetheart, okay? I know that. I've known it for a while. I have never felt like this about anyone and... I don't want to lose you" he said with his voice breaking a little. "I know I've fucked up, I just..." he sighed again. "I don't want you to think that my relationship with James is more important than you. Nothing to me is more important than you, okay? But... love..." he said, looking away. "I got disowned" he said, quietly. "I was kicked out of my family and James..." he continued. "Without him, I wouldn't have anywhere to go. I wouldn't even have you" he explained. "And he's my best friend and he knows me more than anyone. You also know that I don't have the best dating reputation here and... I'm just... scared that he's going to hate me and... then I'll have no one" he said. "I know this isn't fair to you, this is all just... a lot and new to me, and I'm so sorry-"

"Sirius" you said, cupping his cheek with your hand and smiling at him. You pulled him gently and kissed his cheek. "First of all, I love you too" you said, making him smile back at you.

"Y-you do?"

"Of course, I do. Why do you think I was so upset about you going out with another girl this weekend-?"

"That was never going to happen-" he interrupted.

"Secondly, I understand where you're coming from about James" you told him. "And we don't have to tell him until you're ready" you said. "But James loves you too. You know in a different way" you said, making him laugh a little. "I think he loves you more than he loves me-"

"That's not true" he insisted, making you chuckle.

"Either way, he would never turn his back on you" you insisted. "And neither will I" you assured him. He pulled you closer, kissing your temple before he wiped away your remaining tears.

"I'm so sorry, love" he whispered. "I don't want you to feel this way" he said. "I feel like I keep screwing up and hurting you-"

"It's okay, love" you assured him. "I mean, it's not the most ideal situation" you admitted. "But, we don't have to tell him until you're ready" you said. "I just... I don't particularly love that girls keep chasing after you" you mumbled, feeling your cheeks burn.

Sirius gently lifted your face slowly so you would look at him. "I promise I don't want to go out with anyone who's not you, love" he said. "Y-you trust me, right?"

You smiled sweetly at him, brushing his cheek with your thumb. "Of course, I do, love" you said, giving him a peck on the lips. "I love you" you said, feeling your heart flutter at the sweet smile on his face.

"I love you too" he said, giving you another kiss.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

"Hey, mate, where did you disappear off to?" James asked when Sirius walked into the boys' dorm. "We didn't see you after lunch, or at Potions, Charms, or at dinner" he told him.

"I uh- was... around" he said, innocently.

"Mhm" James said, looking at Peter. "By yourself?" he asked, making Remus roll his eyes as he kept reading his book.

"I um... well... yeah" he shrugged

"Interesting" James said, sitting up.

"All afternoon?" Peter asked.

"Yes" he said, sitting on his bed and throwing his bag on the floor. "I went out and had a cigarette. What's the big deal?"

"You missed class-" Remus spoke for the first time.

"Nobody cares about that, Moony" James interrupted as he sat on his bed. "See, we happened to hear otherwise, Padfoot" he said, smirking at Sirius.

"What are you talking about, Prongs?" he frowned, looking between him and Remus.

"Well, since you obviously missed dinner, you missed what everyone was talking about" he continued.

"I doubt it was anything interesting-" Sirius started.

"Oh, but it was" James continued. "See it was about you and your new... girlfriend" he said, making Sirius' heart drop.

"M-my what now?"

"Your girlfriend" Remus said, suddenly very interested in the conversation, closing his book.

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, Padfoot, apparently someone saw you today walking out of the library with a mysterious girlfriend" James explained.

"That's insane" he said, chuckling nervously.

"No, mate, it's from a reliable source" Peter nodded.

"Really? Enlighten me, Wormy, who is your reliable source?"

"Marlene and Dorcas" James added. "They all said they saw you leaving with someone who had a Gryffindor scarf" he said, getting up and walking over to Sirius' bed. "So, either you have a Gryffindor girlfriend, or maybe you gave her your scarf" he said, sitting down next to him. "A bunch of girls were claiming it was them but according to Marls, it wasn't-"

"Do you really have nothing better to do than wondering if I am with someone-?"

"See, it all adds up" James continued. "Why you wouldn't go out with Emmeline, or any other girl for that matter" he said. "We just want to know why you didn't tell us!"

"Because it's none of your business!" Sirius said, getting up, frustrated.

"So it's true!" Peter smirked.

"I knew it!" James yelled at the same time. "Who is she?"

"You kind of built yourself up for that one, Pads" Remus told him.

"I didn't say it was true!" Sirius said, feeling nervous.

"You didn't deny it" James smirked. "C'mon Pads, tell us who she is!" Is it just a fling?"

"Yeah, who is this mystery girl and why did you hide it from us? Usually, you brag about your flings" Peter laughed.

"There's no mystery girl and it is not a fling-!"

"Again, you just keep setting yourself up, mate-" Remus intervened.

"Hey dorks, I need some food. I missed dinner" you said, suddenly entering your brother's dorm and the four boys turned to look at you.

"Oh, suddenly you're in a good mood again?" James asked, glaring at you a little.

"I am if you feed me" you said, walking over to your brother's night table because you knew he would have dinner's leftovers. Which coincidentally happened whenever you or Sirius would miss dinner.

"Hey, bug, did you hear about Sirius' secret girlfriend?" James asked suddenly, making you choke on the banana muffin munching on.

"W-what? Sirius has a secret girlfriend?" you pretended to be confused as Remus rolled his eyes when you sat next to him and dropped your bag on the floor.

"Yeah, we're trying to figure out who she is and why he didn't tell us" Peter added.

"Hold on" James said, sitting up and looking at your tossed bag on the floor. "What's that?"

"What's what?" you asked, with your mouth half-fulled at the same time Sirius did.

James noticed something peeking out of your bag. Something scarlet and gold. He quickly got up and grabbed it, taking it out.

"Why do you have a Gryffindor scarf?"

"I um-" you swallowed, nervously. "That's yours-"

"No" he insisted. "Mine is over there" he said, pointing at his opened trunk with his scarf on top, falling out of it.

"Uh- P-Prongs" Sirius started, but your brother looked deep in thought.

"How long do you reckon it's going to take him?" Remus muttered, sitting up.

"Oh for Merlin's sake! I can't take it anymore!" Sirius yelled, frustrated. "That's my scarf!"

"Now we'll never know" you mumbled, giving him a piece of your muffin.

"So, you're the mystery fling?" Peter asked with his jaw dropped.

"She's not a fling!" Sirius argued.

"Wait, how long has this been going on!?" James asked looking between you and Sirius.

"Well, we've actually been seeing each other since this summer" Sirius explained.

"SINCE SUMMER?!" James blurted out.

"Jamie, is not a big deal-" you tried.

"It is a big deal!" he argued. "How come I didn't know about this?" he asked, looking at Sirius.

"Well, I didn't know how you were going to react, Prongs and-"

"So you lied to me?"

"Technically we didn't lie" you told him. "We just didn't say anything-"

"Oh, don't use that with me, I invented that, bug" he glared at you. "Plus, today when we talked to Emmeline, you said you weren't dating!"

"No, I didn't" you argued.

"Yes, you did!"

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes, you did!" James complained as Remus, Sirius, and Peter kept looking between the two of you.

"No, actually, technically, I didn't" you insisted.

"Yes, you di- oohhh" he gasped, remembering your previous conversation. "You didn't! You clever bug, I'm impressed" he smirked, proudly as he gave you a high-fived and you accepted it, rolling your eyes a little. "So you two have been seeing each other for months now?"

"Pretty much" you said, still a bit nervous.

"And this is why you kept turning me down when I tried to set you up?" he asked Sirius.

"Yeah" he admitted.

"Are you happy with her?"

"I am. Very happy" Sirius quickly said.

"Are you happy with him?" he asked you.

"I really am" you replied.

"Okay" he said, sitting back on his bed.

"W-wait, you're... you're okay with this?" Sirius asked, extremely confused.

"Well, I don't love that you hid it from me but... yes, why wouldn't I be?" James shrugged.

"W-well, b-because I thought- are you kidding me? I thought you were going to kick my ass!"

"For dating my sister? You do know her, right? She's more than capable of kicking your ass" he laughed. "Plus, I'm assuming that since it's been going on for a long time it's... a serious relationship?"

"Well, we haven't had our first date yet, but... yes" Sirius said, sitting on your other side and holding your hand.

"Wait, you haven't had your first date, what the hell have you- no! You know what, I don't want to know" James said, glaring at you as you laughed.

"See, mate? I told you James wouldn't mind" Remus said, patting Sirius on the back and erasing James' smile off his face.

"E-excuse me?" James said, getting upset. "Remus knew?"

"Prongs" Sirius said getting up at the same time.

"You mean to tell me that the two of you have been together for months and YOU TOLD REMUS BEFORE ME?!!" he snapped.

"It was an accident, mate-"

"Oh, I'm sure it was!" James said, glaring at Sirius. "I can't believe you did this to me! Why would you betray me like this?!"

"I'm sorry, Prongs! I can make it up to you, okay? Honeydukes, this Saturday, I'll buy you all the candy you want!"

James stood there with his arms crossed. "... I'm listening" he caved.

"But I thought we were having our first date-"

"Oh, don't you even think so, bug! Remus knew!"

"This is going to be my whole life, isn't it?" you asked Remus and Peter.

"Yes."

The End

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

A/N: I know this was a roller coaster of emotions but I hope you loves liked it! :D

#marauders #marauders imagine #sirius black #sirius black imagine #sirius black x reader #sirius black oneshot

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sharkboywrites · 8 months ago

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Hello! Could I request either an Astarion or Gale X male reader reverse comfort fic? It can be any scenario honestly either they get hurt in a fight or have a nightmare write whats fun for you!

Reverse Comfort with Gale and Astarion

A/N: Hiii I don't really know if I'm that good at writing hurt/comfort, but I'm gonna do my best

Male reader, suicide mention

Astarion

Nightmares

They're a usual thing for him, something that he had grown used to

With everything he'd gone through it was to be expected

But now that he was travelling with other people, it became hard to try and keep it hidden

As the two of you had grown closer, he still denied the two of you sharing a tent just yet

Once the two of you had opened up and knew what you wanted for the relationship, especially when it comes to intimacy, you started taking small steps

You stated boundaries, had small, gentle holds, and spoke to each other about how you were feeling

One night, Astarion had a particularly bad nightmare

It was hard to keep himself quiet

Quiet enough for the others not to hear, but enough for you to, your tent being right next to his

You entered cautiously with a quiet call of his name

He looked up at you, panicked

He almost looked like a wounded animal

You crouched down next to him and held your hand out to him, silently asking if it was okay to touch him

He collapsed into your arms, and you held him as he cried, whispering soft assurances to him

You spent most of the night like that until he calmed down

Neither of you talked about it, just tucked yourselves back into his bedroll, no words were really needed

That was the first night you spent in Astarion's tent, and it probably wouldn't be the last, holding him close

Gale

Gale had never viewed himself the same after dating Mystra

He didn't show it, he maintained a confident demeanor, but growing close to him it was clear to see

He was insecure and in your relationship was always worried that he wasn't doing enough

You never said anything about it, not wanting to touch a sensitive topic so early on

You did assure him whenever he started that he was doing great, though

You're relationship had been great otherwise, the two of you really were meant for each other

But you could always tell had that little insecurity in the back of his head

Once you found out what Mystra had wanted him to do, you nearly lost it

You managed to keep calm, but you were still seething on the inside

You had a very serious talk with Gale and were surprised to find that he was really considering it

You had to stop yourself from almost yelling at him

How could he think such a thing?

You hugged him tight, begging him not to do it, not to listen to her, and to his surprise, he found himself tearing up at your please

You squeezed him tighter and told him how much you loved him, that you couldn't lose him, that he's perfect for you and didn't need to change

Holding one another close by the campfire, he promised you that he wouldn't do it

You managed to calm down, and he both of you slept in his tent, still holding each other close for reassurance, and there he was sure that he was loved

#sharkboywrites #bg3 x reader #bg3 fic #bg3 fanfiction #bg3 #gale x reader #gale x male reader #gale dekarios x reader #astarion x male reader #astarion x reader #bg3 x male reader

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thesirencove · 2 months ago

Text

ᨒ ོ ☼ YOU'VE BECOME MY CEILING -- SAM WINCHESTER X FEM!READER

another angst fic !! i love writing angst so this is nothing new from me ofc :) once again , this is a fic i posted on a previous blog , which i since removed from said blog as i decided to focus on another topic . so i'm here to once again share my works :) i've also since edited this fic a bit , as i wrote it a bit ago !! let me know your thoughts on this one and enjoy <3

my requests are open and let me know if anyone would like a part two to this !

tissues are once again needed and there is no use of y/n in this fic

sam winchester x fem!reader (romantic)

summary: when sam pulls away, and reader just can't keep going. loosely based on the song "the gold" , specifically phoebe bridgers version

warnings: break ups (sorta ?) , minor descriptions + mentions of suffocation (if you blink you'll probably miss it) , abandonment , loss of love (to some degree) , unrequited love but not really (???) , sad sam (again </3)

word count: 1.8k

love was difficult. it was consuming. beautiful. costly. the best feeling in the world, and the worst one. it was all of these things at the same time.

sometimes it was the most freeing thing in the world. other times it was suffocating. it could be a good suffocating, at times. the love so overwhelming that she burst with joy at the feeling. a love she held so closely that she couldn’t find ways to express it any further even as she drowned in the feeling.

other times it made her want to cry everything out. it made her want to collapse on the floor, heart and lungs heavy. it made her dread the silence during fights, or the sleepless nights waiting for a phone call back. it made her dread the days spent waiting for him to come home. the tears welling up in her eyes when she could only imagine the worst as minutes became hours, which would become days and eventually weeks. it was dreadful.

but the good parts made up for it. the nights spent curled up in each others’ arms. hearing each others’ shallow breaths as they slept. the warmth of being near one another. the way the light shone in a different way, because things were good. things were calm. he was home and so was she. the smiles rarely ever left either of their faces. being in close proximity was all they needed. they’d talk, but the silence was just as peaceful. it wasn’t deafening or painful. it didn’t make her heart wrench. both of them were safe and in love and happy.

that’s not the way it was now. right now the silence was heavy. so was her heart. her lungs felt like they were constricting. like there wasn’t enough air left for her to breathe. it felt like their love was dying out. like the flame they’d so carefully spent time fostering was dying out, providing barely any light. she didn’t want it to. she was grabbing at it, pulling it back towards her, like a child trying to save their most prized possesion that’s about to be thrown out. she tried to save it. so, so hard. she would spend nights awake, thinking how to fix things. how to make it better, for both of them. how to make sure they were both safe and in love and happy again.

but he wasn’t making that effort. he had shut down. she didn’t know what it was. he came home one day after weeks of no contact on a long hunt, and since then it’s been like this. she had to tiptoe around him on eggshells. the feeling of acid burning her throat never left. she tried to get him to talk. to say something. to open up to her, so she could help him. but he had snapped. she wouldn’t give up, though. she tried, again and again. it always ended the same, with sam angry and her silent tears soaking the pillow. after months of trying she decided it wasn’t worth pushing any further.

he would open up in time, right? he just needed to find the initiative to come to her himself, to not be forced into opening up, right? things would get fixed in time and it would be all okay again. but it didn’t happen. the time didn’t come. and yet again, hours would become days, which would be come weeks and slowly those weeks would become months. except this time he wasn’t away. he was home. he was with her. and yet the distance between them was further than ever before.

i love you, she thought.

i love you with all my heart and soul. i love you unconditionally. i love you even through the heaviness in my heart and the tears that stain my cheeks every day.

but it’s just not enough, she realized. her one-sided love wasn’t enough. she couldn’t be the only person with love in this relationship. it was slowly breaking her, tearing her apart. she was a shell of herself now, just as sam has been these past few months.

so she packed a bag. just one. only what she needed. not everything. she left the rest. she would be coming back. she knew she would. a love like this doesn’t just end. there’s bumps in the road. there always are. but this bump needed a little extra time and care. and that had to come in the form of being away. she needed to be able to breathe. perhaps he, too, needed space.

distance makes the heart grow fonder, no?

and with that one bag in hand, she left the room she shared with him. with her sam. the love of her life. the man who now sat at the kitchen table, absolutely unrecognizable. she watched him from afar. sitting there, motionless. a bottle of beer stood in front of him.

she placed her bag down where she was, positioning it so he wouldn’t see. and she entered the kitchen.

one last time, she thought to herself. she wouldn’t be saying goodbye. that’s not what this was. she was going to be back. but she couldn’t leave without seeing him one more time. giving him one last kiss before she was gone.

“sam,” she croaked out. her voice was barely louder than a whisper. he didn’t respond.

“sam,” she said once again, louder this time. it caught his attention. he looked up at her.

“i love you,” she said to him. her eyes were glossy. she was breathing as evenly as she could, her lungs constricting as her heart beat so fast that she practically felt it in her throat. she didn’t want him to see her cry, even though he had so many times in the past.

“mhm,” was his only response. he looked away from her soon after, his motions so slow they were almost robotic. it was as though he were on autopilot, picking up his beer and taking a swig of it. she took that as her sign. her final push. to do this. to take some time away from him, let him figure things out. he wasn’t going to do that with her around. these past few months have proven that. even through every time she tried to help him, to figure out why he’d shut down, he would just push her further away. she bent down and placed a kiss to his forehead.

i’m sorry, she thought to herself.

and so she took one last look at him. she turned towards the door. and she walked out. moving her legs was a chore. it was difficult and every bone in her body screamed at her to turn back around. to get down on the floor, to her knees, and beg him to talk to her, to tell her what was wrong. but it wouldn’t work. she knew that, because she already tried it.

so against every instinct in her body, against every thought in her head but one, she grabbed the bag she had hidden behind the wall outside the kitchen, and left.

sam heard the door close. he didn’t think much of it. a day later, when the house was quieter than he was used to, he glazed over the thought that she wasn’t back yet. but that one day had yet again become days, which had eventually become a week. something changed in him. he called her. he rung her phone non-stop. he left message after message. he had sat in that same spot in the kitchen, phone in hand, waiting for her to pick the phone back up. but she hadn’t.

he had finally woken up from his daze. he finally realized that he had lost her. it took her leaving for him to realize that things weren’t okay. that he wasn’t okay. none of it was.

he wished he had told her, that he opened up to her about what happened on that hunt. about how he tried to save a child, and couldn’t. how he saw himself in this young boy, so frightened and yet trying to show strength. a child that he then saw buried by his family a week later. the monsters in town were gone thanks to him, but a child had died. and he couldn’t forgive himself for that, he couldn’t bring himself to function properly. this child, so closely mirroring his younger self was gone because of him. and so he shut down.

she tried to help him, to get him to open up, but goddamnit he just wouldn’t listen. and now he’d lost her, too. she was gone, not answering the phone. he wasn’t sure if she’d ever come back, though he wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t.

and one lonely night in november, sam was laying in her room. he’d been curled up in a ball on her bed, her scent having nearly faded completely, when he saw the leather poking out from inside her closet. and he got up. pulled out what it was that caught his eye.

her journal. the one thing she refused to go anywhere without, she had left behind. so he opened it. and he read, and read, and read. he couldn’t stop reading. and he hated himself more and more with each entry. he knew he shouldn’t have read it, but he couldn’t help himself. he wasn’t sure if she’d ever come back, and this was the closest thing to her that he now had.

he watched their love crumple in front of his eyes, the memories burnt into the pages. but their love wasn’t enough for it to stay.

it’s my fault, he’d repeat in his head. over and over and over again. non-stop, like a mantra. and when he got to the last page, he had felt his heart shatter. he had become physically ill at what he read.

it’s like he’s become my ceiling, the page read.

a blank wall i stare at, unmoving and not in love with me, no matter how much i may love him, it finished.

and just like that, sam winchester had broken himself more than he had already been broken. but he would wait. he’d wait for her to return. he’d look for her. he’d hope that she’d come back. and in the meantime he’d work on himself. fix himself. he’d pull himself out of the rut he was in, so that when she came back, he could give her all the love in the world again. so she could look at him with all the light in the world once more.

he would become her the sun again and brighten her world. he realized that he needs to open up to her, that he can rely on her. he doesn’t have to be scared of her love anymore. she wouldn’t run away if he told her what happened. she’d only love him unconditionally. and oh, how sam wished she were still here.

#sam winchester #sam winchester x reader #sam winchester x fem!reader #sam winchester imagine #sam winchester x y/n #sam winchester x you #sam winchester fanfic #supernatural #spn #supernatural fanfic #spn fanfic #angst #so much angst #romantic relationships #₊⁺☀︎₊⁺⋆.˚ aqua's fanfics

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youunravelme · 1 year ago

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hiiii congrats 🥳 so amazing!! you’re amazing!! love seeing you on my dash/notifs and especially your fics!! they’re amazing

only if you have time, but could you do “I saved a piece for you.” with mat <3

i know we don't really talk, BUT ILYSM! your writing always brings a smile to my face!!

this got out of hand, but here ya go!

mat knew you were a hopeless romantic, it was one of the reasons he fell in love with you. the way you sobbed when watching the end of 27 dresses despite it being a very upbeat and happy ending or the way you squealed and thanked him a million times every time he so much as came home with a bouquet of flowers.

you made it easy for him to be a good boyfriend, your very reactions to his love made him only want to love you even more.

"babe?" he walked through the front door, ready to be accosted by your warm hug.

but it never came.

mat furrowed his brows and walked further into your apartment. he found you standing in your bedroom, throwing the clothes you packed across the room while you cried.

"baby, what's wrong?" mat hurried across the room to pull you into his arms but you shrieked and pulled away.

"stay away!" you cried. "i'm sick."

mat stopped, even though he wanted nothing more than to hold you, but not at the risk of upsetting you even further. "talk to me, how can i help you? what's going on?"

you collapsed face first into bed and sobbed. "stupid martha came to work when she was sick and got me sick. so i can't go to the wedding with you, mat. i'm sorry."

mat was quick to sit down next to you and start rubbing your back. "it's okay, i'll just tell ethan we can't make it and--"

you sat up immediately. "no! you're going mathew barzal."

"i can't just leave you here."

you set him with a hard look. "you can and will. i'll get a friend to help me, but you need to be with ethan on his big day." you cried a little more. "just promise me you'll eat some cake, diet be damned."

mat rolled his eyes but a smile was playing on his lips. "it's just cake, babe."

you scoffed. "no, wedding cake is the best cake because it tastes like love and promises and commitment and cherishing the one you adore." if you didn't look so serious, mat would've laughed at how stopped up you sounded.

"okay, if you say so," he conceded.

"i'm glad you see it my way." you paused. "you know what this means, right? me being sick?" mat shook his head. "you can't sleep in here tonight."

he scoffed and pulled you into his chest before placing kisses up and down your neck. "like hell i am, i'm sleeping in our bed with you."

you eventually acquiesced that night, but not without establishing a pillow wall between the two of you (which mat discarded quickly after you fell asleep.

the next morning, he let you sleep while he gathered his things and headed for the airport, leaving his entire heart back in new york.

ethan was the one who picked him up from the airport, and he immediately asked where you were. when mat explained the situation, his friend seemed a bit bummed, more so for mat than anyone else.

"god, i couldn't imagine leaving my fiance at home while i was in another country."

mat blinked. "you do that literally all season long."

but ethan shrugged him off.

when the day of the wedding came, mat's hands felt empty. usually, at the other weddings you'd attended together, you were attached at the hip. mat had a hand on you at all times. though, if he was being fair, his physical touch was not exclusive to weddings and parties.

he couldn't help but think of you in every decoration, every song that was played. he could picture you now wearing the dress you picked out for that very occasion. he could see you walking down the aisle towards him wearing the ring that was currently sitting in his bedside table drawer.

after his speech, mat stepped outside and dialed your number. it rang three times before you picked up.

"mat?" god he loved the sound of your voice.

"hey baby, how're you feeling?"

"i'm fine, have you eaten the cake? how did lenasia look? was she gorgeous? i bet she was beautiful."

he laughed into the phone. "you sound like you're feeling better."

"a little, i miss you though."

"i'll be home tomorrow, i promise. and then we can enjoy the rest of the off season together. how does that sound?"

"sounds like heaven."

the wedding continued on, with mat sneaking a slice of cake to take home to you. he partied, but hated you weren't there to dance to some cheesy ed sheeran love song. he laughed at jokes, but wondered what you would've found funny. he watched ethan and his wife dance together and couldn't help himself from messing with his ring finger on his left hand, wondering what it would feel like to feel cold metal there.

"you okay, barzy?" ethan must've stepped away from the dance floor while mat was zoning out.

he smiled. "never better."

"but you miss her," ethan supplied.

"but i miss her." mat shrugged. "i'll see her tomorrow though."

"is she feeling any better?"

mat nodded. "she's fine now, hates that she missed it."

"it happens," ethan said. "besides, i'm sure we'll see her when you two get married." mat flushed. "that's still the plan right? next month?"

"next month."

ethan smiled and slapped his friend in the shoulder. "best decision you'll ever make."

mat flew home the next day. he politely took a few photos with fans, but for the most part sprinted out of the airport just to get home to you.

he couldn't drive fast enough. couldn't get enough green lights. the elevator up to your penthouse felt too slow.

but it was worth it when he opened the door and saw you wearing his sweatshirt (that had mysteriously gone missing two weeks ago) watching yet another rom com.

he didn't even say hello. didn't greet you. he just sat his bag down and pulled out some tupperware and held it out to you.

"i saved a piece for you," he said.

your eyes watered until you jumped off the couch and into his arms. "i love you i love you i love you!" you exclaimed before taking the cake from him and diving into it. you moaned at the rich flavors before smiling at him. "this is so fucking good. isn't wedding cake the best?"

mat shrugged. "their cake was decent, but i bet ours will be better."

#1k celebration #mat barzal x reader #mat barzal imagine #mathew barzal imagine #mat barzal #mathew barzal #nhl blurb #nhl imagines #nhl imagine

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zaimta · 2 years ago

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Hi i saw your requests was open and wanted to ask if you could do a fire force benimaru x fem reader bath nsfw oneshot/fic if possible with the reader being a second gen just getting back from helping company 8 with a tough mission (sorry if thats a lot)

a/n- no nsfw the most i can do is suggestive/spicy (i hope fr) but imma still write this out bc i love fire force, it's sfw tho i hope that's okay!

˗ˏˋ«────── « 𓆩♡𓆪 » ──────»

you stretched your sore body after a long day of assisting the eighth, they needed some extra help around their derestriction. a product from their “investigation” left a ranging infernal in its wake, as a second-gen your powers came in clutch. you assisted maki with fire control, and at times you were on the front lines assisting their third gens as power support. it was a long and exhausting battle once it was over you were overjoyed and immediately collapsed to the floor to catch your breath.

the eighth's captain squatted next to you with a smile "need a hand there y/n?" he extended his hand to you which you gladly took, slowly sitting up with a slight pain in your core "thanks." you returned the smile he sent you "after this, I need along relaxing bath." he chuckled at your comment "I hear ya! hey, thanks for your help again y/n we couldn't thank you enough." you waved your hand dismissively with a smile "it's nothing really, i'm sorry beni couldn't make it though i'm glad I was able to help you guys enough though."

"dont sweat it were glad to have such powerful allies like you guys at the seventh." he nodded his head towards the matchbox "let's get you home, that bath is waiting for ya."

the car ride was a calming change compared to the battle you went through, you had a good time getting to know the members of the company you were allied with but all good things must come to an end as the matchbox pulled up to asakusa, you waved goodbye to you allies and walked to your home longing for relaxation.

the second you stepped foot into your home you were greeted by hina and hika who ran around your legs in circles "she's back! she's back! waka get your lazy ass up shes back!!" they shouted in unison with excitement, you also made a mental note to yourself to keep beni way from the twins for a while his language was starting to rub off on them.

you kneeled down and opened your arms to hug both of them, they gladly jumped into your arms with wide smiles "what were my two favorite troublemakers up to while i was gone? i hope you didn't give beni too much trouble."

hina shook her head "we were on our best behavior n/n i promise-"

"my ass." a brash voice interrupted her, at the sound of his voice the twins scattered running in different directions with impish giggles. you rolled your eyes with a grin at the sound of his voice "benimaru don't tell me the twins gave you a hard time." you teased him with a smile on your face.

"they were nothing more than a pain in my ass." you giggled at his frustration with the twins, normally they would listen to him more than anyone else you assumed they felt like messing with him a bit today "you need a break as much as i do, let's go to the hot spring i was heading there after i stopped by." you lace your fingers with his and lead him to the bathhouse so the two of you could get washed up first. he helped lather up your body with soap in comfortable silence a few moments went by before he said something "how was your mission with the eighth?"

you sighed "it took everything out of me, but i did enjoy working with them they're an interesting bunch!" you smiled.

"thats one way to put it huh." he continues to lather your body and you roll your eyes at him, in return he pinches your side. you rubbed circles on the spot he pinched unaware of how he saw you rolling your eyes if your back was facing him.

once you were cleaned off the two of you took a dip in the hot spring, you leaned against his chest while he wrapped an arm around you. you were completely content, this kind of relaxation was exactly what you were craving. while soaking in the hot spring you found yourself dosing off, you were woken up by benimaru shaking you gently "let's get you to bed y/n that mission took a lot out of you."

you silently nodded and he helped you out of the hot spring, you didn't realize how tired you were until you noticed how hard it was for you to keep your eyes open, your head was bobbing all over the place as you tried your hardest to keep your head up. he walked you to your room and laid down with you, as soon as your head hit the pillow you were out like a light immediately.

he smiled softly at the sight of you sleeping sound in his arms "goodnight y/n."

as you walked to back to your home after the eight gave you a ride to akakusa, you couldn't help but long for a bath. after a long day it was just what you needed.

#fire force x reader #shinmon benimaru x reader #benimaru x reader #fire force x you #fire force x y/n #shinmon benimaru x you #shinmon benimaru x y/n #benimaru x you #benimaru x y/n #shinmon benimaru fluff #fire force fluff

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bedlamsbard · 1 month ago

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Some concept writing! Deaging isn't usually a trope that does anything for me, but I've been toying with this particular concept for a while now, and wanted to play with it while I was still too discombobulated from moving to work on Home. I do have a pretty good idea of where this would go, but I'm not sure that I'll return to it as a full chaptered fic. also I would have to do a lot of research in order to make Sokovia like. work.

About 4.1K below the break; CACW AU. (Would be SteveNat but they don't actually appear in this sequence.)

*****

By the time Tony got off the stage and checked his constantly buzzing phone, he found he had twelve missed calls from Rhodey, two from Pepper, and one each from the Vision, Sam Wilson, and Clint Barton. He stopped just past the curtain, waving off the dean when he tried to speak to him, and called Rhodey first.

“Who’s dead?” he demanded.

“What?” Rhodey said.

“Who’s dead?” Tony repeated, feeling his shoulders brace in anticipation of the response; he could think of plenty of reasons for Rhodey or Pepper to call, but the others weren’t very likely to. Well, Vision, but not Wilson or Barton.

There was a momentary pause on the other end of the phone, then Rhodey said slowly, “No one’s dead.”

“Okay, so who’s been horribly maimed?” Tony demanded, glancing around. No one was running toward him to tell him that there had been some kind of terrible Avengers emergency, so whatever had happened hadn’t hit the news or social media yet. In his experience, there was no one more willing than college students to put their noses in where they weren’t wanted, and considering some of the people Tony had met in his life that was saying something. “I know the Lagos thing was a shitshow, but I thought all of us were fine.”

“You need to get over here now,” Rhodey said.

“Where is ‘here’?” Tony demanded warily.

“I’ll text you the coordinates.”

“I got a thing.”

“Cancel it.”

“You know I’m retired, right?” Tony said, but he was already walking toward the closest emergency exit, ignoring the dean’s startled expression and attempt to stop him.

He had come in the helicopter, not the suit, which he was ostensibly trying to wean himself off of on Pepper’s insistence. He’d built a suit into the helicopter, though, and it would be the work of a few seconds to get into it and take off; it would get him to the coordinates Rhodey had just sent faster than the helo would. On the other hand, that would probably get the attention of all the reporters who had been in the audience and who were waiting for the press conference that was supposed to follow the event. If Rhodey didn’t want the press to know that they were apparently having an Avengers-level emergency, then Tony wasn’t going to be the one to alert them. At least not yet. He wasn’t about to leave the helicopter parked here for some curious undergrads to dissect, though.

He let FRIDAY take the helicopter out of MIT’s airspace before he engaged the suit and fell backwards into the freedom of the wind, letting himself take a few lazy loops for the hell of it before turning towards the coordinates Rhodey had sent.

As soon as he got there, it was obvious from the air where the Avengers had been and presumably still were. The complex had probably once been an old SHIELD facility, which meant in practice it had really been an old Hydra facility; that was presumably what had brought the team out here. Not only was it in the middle of nowhere, but the area around the site was heavily forested; Tony guessed that none of the scarce population in the vicinity had noticed when the Avengers had flown in. He could see the Quinjet parked on the remnants of a helipad, near the far end of one of the still-standing buildings. The two other structures had both collapsed, one sometime ago from the look of the wreckage and the other so recently that it was still smoking. Wanda Maximoff was sitting cross-legged on the ground outside it, holding a water bottle and looking shaky while the Vision stood beside her. Steve’s shield was propped up against the Quinjet’s ramp, but the man himself was nowhere in sight.

She jumped as Tony touched down next to them, though the Vision looked as implacable as usual. There was a long scrape across Wanda’s cheekbone and dust on her leather jacket and in her hair, but otherwise she looked unhurt as she scrambled to her feet.

“Where’s the fire?” Tony asked, putting back his faceplate.

Wanda looked like she was going to cry, and after a moment, Tony corrected himself and asked instead, “Where’s Rhodey?”

“Colonel Rhodes is on his way,” the Vision said, which turned out to be an understatement, since before Tony could respond Rhodey slammed down beside him, making Wanda jump again.

“Finally, someone sensible,” Tony said, turning towards him in relief. “You know I’m retired, right? Emergency calls are supposed to be Cap’s thing.”

Rhodey had put up his faceplate when he landed, which meant that Tony saw his face go grim as soon as he heard Steve’s name.

Tony felt an odd looping sensation in the pit of his stomach. He and Steve weren’t friends exactly, not the way that Tony was friends with Rhodey or Bruce, but they were friendly. They weren’t not friends. It took him a moment before he could ask, “What’s happened to Cap?”

Rhodey pressed his lips tightly together, then confessed, “We don’t know.”

Tony stared at him. “What do you mean you don’t know? What about –” He looked around at the compound again, taking in the overgrown buildings and leaning fences. There wasn’t another living being in sight. “What about Romanoff and Wilson?”

“Sam’s fine. Natasha –” Rhodey hesitated. “She’s missing too. Sam’s looking for them.”

“What?” Tony said, feeling like he had missed some important details somewhere. “Missing? How? What happened?”

“It’s my fault,” Wanda said, clutching the water bottle to herself. The Vision put a hand on her shoulder and she leaned back into his grip, her eyes sparkling with tears.

Tony turned to stare at her. “What, like – you snapped your fingers and went abracadabra and sent them to Timbuktu?”

“No, I mean –” She hesitated. “Maybe?”

“Maybe?”

“Nobody went to Timbuktu,” Rhodey said impatiently, making Tony return his stare to him.

“What happened?”

Rhodey made a helpless gesture, oddly delicate despite the bulk of the War Machine suit. “Well,” he started, and then stopped before trying again, “Well –”

“Oh, god, they’re dead,” Tony said.

“They’re not dead,” Rhodey said. “That would be easy.”

He glanced up as Sam Wilson’s shadow passed over them, circling once before he backwinged and came in to land alongside them. “No sign of them,” he reported grimly as his wings folded themselves back into his harness. There was an empty spot there; Redwing must have still be off somewhere. “But I don’t think we were ever really going to find Nat around here, not with the woods this thick.” His mouth twisted. “Not from the air, at least.”

“What, like she went feral and ran off?” Tony demanded, more confused than ever. “And took Rogers with her?”

“Well –” Rhodey said again, then thought about it and admitted, “Well, actually, sort of, yeah.”

There was video.

It wasn’t very good video; FRIDAY edited it together from the War Machine’s, Falcon’s, and Vision’s cameras, which meant that it was jumpy and incomplete, overlaid by Rhodey’s and Wilson’s HUDs. All three of them had been outside the building when whatever had happened inside had happened; the only witnesses had been Wanda, Steve, and Natasha. Steve and Natasha were gone; Wanda herself didn’t seem to have a clear idea of what had gone down.

“There was a man –” she said, and then stopped, still holding the water bottle against herself like a teddy bear.

“There was a man, okay,” Tony repeated, prompting. When she didn’t go on, he muttered to Rhodey, “When’s Barton getting here, again?”

“He’s meeting us at the compound,” Rhodey muttered back. “We’re not going to find anything else here.”

There was something terribly final about that. Tony looked at him sharply and said, “Nothing?”

“Not at this point,” Wilson said. There was a grim set to his mouth that Tony didn’t like, though his expression was still a little baffled by the turn of events. He didn’t know Sam Wilson well, since the other man had been Steve’s friend more than Tony’s and had only joined the team after Tony had left, but Tony knew him well enough for government work.

Tony glanced up, where the Vision was just visible hovering above them, using his scanning capabilities to search for Steve and Natasha. The general consensus was definitely that they wouldn’t be found if Natasha Romanoff didn’t want them to be found. Everyone seemed to agree that whatever had been true about Steve Rogers’ woods capabilities in 2016, his ability to get around in them in his current circumstances was probably highly abbreviated.

Tony went to look at the footage again, frowning to himself behind his faceplate, since he had had to lower it to watch the video. From outside, the building had looked well and truly deserted. He watched Steve, Natasha, and Wanda go inside, all three of them careful and wary. For exactly twelve minutes, nothing happened – nothing visible from outside, anyway. Then scarlet energy exploded outwards from the building, making Rhodey and Wilson bank away; Vision had stayed where he was.

For a few moments the energy hung suspended in a nauseating red cloud, like something out of a horror film, then all of a sudden it was sucked back inside as part of the building collapsed in a pattern that was uncomfortably familiar. The video veered dizzyingly as all three men swooped in, the radios suddenly crackling with overlapping voices. At the last minute Wilson pulled back and veered away to fly circles around the building; of the three of them, he was least maneuverable inside, where his wings wouldn’t do much good.

Tony watched the three views on the inside of his helmet, a rather nauseating experience. Rhodey had to force his way through the rubble of the building, while Vision simply phased through it; Wilson kept looping the outside of the building, asking periodically for status updates. It was through his HUD that Tony spotted the figures slipping out of the ruins of the building. As Wilson swooped in for a closer look, he saw that one was a slight red-headed girl in black. She was half-dragging a boy with her, tall and lanky and awkward with it; he actually tripped over his own feet once. As Wilson stooped on them, the girl turned, a pistol in her hand, and shot at him.

He got one wing up to block the bullet, though the action dropped him a few feet in the air and gave the two teenagers enough time to make the tree line that had been encroaching on the courtyard. The girl went unerringly to the thickest place, where Wilson wouldn’t be able to follow with his wings out, still dragging the boy behind her. He looked back at Wilson, his eyes wide, his face thinner and younger than Tony was accustomed to, just like the girl’s was.

They vanished into the woods as Wilson swept after them and had to stop, dropping to the ground as his wings folded up behind him. He followed on foot, or tried to.

Inside the ruins of the building, Rhodey and Vision had found Wanda passed out on the floor. The shield was next to her, covered in a fine coating of dust but otherwise untouched. There was no sign of Steve or Natasha.

Tony retracted his faceplate and said, “What in the Freaky Friday hell?”

Wilson took his goggles off and rubbed a hand over his face. “They looked right at me and didn’t know me. I spent twenty minutes following on foot – trying to, anyway, never found a trace of them.” His mouth twisted a little. “If it’s what it looks like, then that’s all Nat; Steve said that the first time he ever left New York was to go to Camp Lehigh when he was twenty-four.”

“It can’t be what it looks like because what it looks like is insane,” Tony said. “Also impossible. Where’s Thor when you need him, the guy who actually knows about shit like this? How long has it been?”

“Four hours. They could have reached the highway by now, gone anywhere from there if someone picks them up.” Wilson grimaced. “The way Nat looks right now, someone would have picked them up. And she has a gun, so…”

“This is America, everyone has a gun.” Tony started to rub at his temples and remembered just in time that that would be an extremely painful experience in the suit. “Okay, just so we’re all on the same page and I know I’m not hallucinating, what…was that?”

Sam and Rhodey exchanged a significant look, Vision’s expression remained inscrutable, and Wanda clutched her water bottle more tightly to herself, her gaze darting to Steve’s shield.

“They’re kids,” Rhodey said.

Tony winced. “Yeah,” he said. “I was really afraid that was what you were going to say.”

Clint Barton was waiting for them back at the compound. “What happened?” he asked as they all filed out of the Quinjet. The question was obviously directed at someone who wasn’t there; Tony saw him waiting for Natasha and Steve to come out last, and when they didn’t he actually stepped up on the ramp to look inside, where the shield had been stowed in a corner. His gaze went to it, then he hopped off the ramp and repeated the question, his face going serious.

He didn’t take the answer well.

“They’re what?”

Wilson made a helpless gesture in response, stepping aside to let the Vision tenderly lead Wanda into the compound’s main building. Tony eyed them as they passed; Wanda still hadn’t offered any explanation of what had happened, though it was clear that she had been at the center of it. He still wasn’t entirely sure that he agreed with Steve’s decision to bring her onto the team over a year ago. Against Ultron, maybe, but that should have been a one-off as far as he was concerned.

Clint’s expression was grim. “Let me see that footage,” he said when Wilson had finished laying out the situation for him as best he could, which wasn’t very.

He watched it silently once they were inside, then looked around at the five of them – Wanda and Vision had reappeared, Wanda out of her field garments and now in comfortable clothes, the Vision looking as imperturbable as ever – and said, “You know the problem, right?”

“They’re kids?” Tony said dryly. “Or – teenagers, I guess.” Long experience had taught him how to recognize jailbait at a glance.

“No. Well –” He tossed his head, looking uncomfortable, and went on, “If this is what it looks like, then they don’t know us, they just know – uh, whatever age they…are. Were. Are?”

“Uh-huh,” Tony said warily.

“Nat was with the Red Room up until eight years ago,” Clint said, sounding like he was expecting that to mean anything to them.

“Yeah, but she’s a kid, so –”

“She was raised in the Red Room,” Clint said.

“Yeah, but they’re gone,” Wilson said. “They have been for years.”

“She doesn’t know that,” Clint pointed out. “And Steve –”

Wilson winced. “He was a kid in the twenties and thirties,” he said. “But – I’ve seen pictures from before Steve got the serum, and that wasn’t – that was Steve, Steve now. I mean, Steve as a kid, teenager, whatever, but with the serum. Which means whatever happened to him couldn’t undo that.”

They all looked at Wanda, who had sat down heavily on the couch.

“Wanda?” Clint said. “What happened in there?”

She fiddled with her rings, not meeting anyone’s eyes, and then said, “I didn’t know he was there when we went in. I don’t – I have to know someone’s there before I can read them.”

Tony gritted his teeth but didn’t interrupt her; he still didn’t have a good grasp on what Wanda’s powers actually entailed, which grated on him.

“Do you know who he was?” Clint said, sounding very patient. He sat down on the couch beside her, his fists clenching and unclenching before he stopped them with an obvious effort.

Wanda nodded slowly. “Only from the papers,” she admitted. “I never met him.”

Clint blinked and looked around at the rest of them, his eyebrows raised. Wilson had perched on the edge of the coffee table, clearly trying to make Wanda feel more comfortable by not looming over her, but Tony and Rhodey were still standing. Vision had gone over to the kitchen to get her a glass of water; he returned, his passage eerily silent, and pressed it into her hand as he sat down beside her. Wanda took it, then had to cup her other hand around it too to keep it from shaking as she took a sip.

“Our newspapers?” Sam asked. “Someone one of us knows?”

They’d all made plenty of enemies over the years and not all of them had ended up behind bars; theirs wasn’t a profession that guaranteed friends. On the other hand, Tony couldn’t think of a single person who could have produced this result – well, not one that was alive, anyway, since according to Thor Loki was dead. Even if he hadn’t been, this seemed a little too petty for Loki.

Wanda shook her head. “From home,” she said, then clarified, “From Sokovia. He –” She said something in her own language.

“The equivalent would be a baron,” the Vision translated for her.

It was JARVIS’s voice, of course – it was always JARVIS’s voice, and now as always it made Tony flinch a little to hear it. It had been his call and they’d needed the Vision to beat Ultron, but at seventh and last he still didn’t know if the trade had been worth it. He hadn’t even thought about it at the time, what the real cost would be.

“A baron?” Rhodey said, his eyebrows climbing. “They still have those? I thought the Soviets –” He hesitated, clearly uncertain whether or not it was a sensitive subject, but Wanda just shrugged one shoulder. Tony did the math and realized that she probably wasn’t old enough to remember the fall of the Soviet Union.

His memories of the event weren’t particularly great themselves, since it had been the same year his parents died. Even without that, though, he hadn’t been all that interested in what was going on in the Eastern Bloc; at the time the closest he had ever come had been when he and Rhodey had crossed over into East Berlin a few years earlier just to see what all the fuss was about. He didn’t remember having been impressed.

“Families like that don’t forget,” Wanda said, with a faint note of bitterness in her voice. “A lot of them left when the Soviets invaded during the war – the Great Patriotic War – World War Two,” she clarified when they all looked blank. “After independence, when the ones who left came back, they brought it back with them.” She put the glass of water down on the coffee table and drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, and added dryly, “Some of them wanted to restore the monarchy, too, but nobody would vote for it.”

Tony looked at Rhodey, who shrugged helplessly back at him, then asked, “This guy have a name?”

“Zemo,” Wanda said, like that was supposed to mean something to them. “Helmut Zemo.”

“Sounds German.”

Wanda shrugged again. “A lot of people in that part of Sokovia have names like that. Some speak German, too.”

Tony remembered abruptly that he still couldn’t find Sokovia on a map.

“What did he want?” Wilson asked.

She hesitated.

Tony felt himself tense, unwillingly remembering the greasy feeling of Wanda sliding into his mind the previous year. His fingers twitched a little, wanting the security of his suit back, but he had left it in the Quinjet and it would have to smash through several walls to get here. Not that walls couldn’t be replaced, but it would be so messy.

Besides, Wanda Maximoff was, technically speaking, on their side. Even if right now it didn’t feel like it.

“Wanda?” Clint prompted gently. “What did he want?”

She was quiet for a long time, long enough that Tony started twitching. His phone buzzed in his pocket, probably Pepper wondering what was going on, but he didn’t reach for it; he wanted to know what was going on.

“Sokovia,” she said finally, and a single tear slipped down her cheek. She dashed it away impatiently with the back of one hand. “His family died at Novi Grad.”

Tony felt a muscle work in his jaw. “And?” he demanded.

Wanda was quiet again, and then she said, “I don’t remember.”

Tony opened his mouth to call bullshit and then stopped himself with an effort. Maybe it was bullshit and maybe it wasn’t. Right now, at this exact moment, it didn’t change anything. They could get the truth out of her later.

Wilson and Barton joined him and Rhodey in one of the labs later, leaving the Vision to fuss over Wanda. Tony, not being stupid and definitely not wanting to relive his teenage years, waited until the door had shut behind him before he said, “So she did it, right? Whatever happened to Steve and Natasha?”

Clint grimaced. “It sounds like it, yeah. You guys see any sign of this Zemo guy?” he asked Wilson and Rhodey.

They both shook their heads. “He must have gotten out while Vision and I were looking for Wanda and Sam was chasing Steve and Natasha,” Rhodey said. “Ever heard of him before?”

The question was directed at Clint, who shook his head. “Never had anything to do with Sokovia,” he admitted.

“FRIDAY?” Tony said.

“On it, boss.”

“We’ll get something on the guy,” Tony assured the other three men. “If he was in the news, even in a shithole like Sokovia, then we’ll at least know what he looks like.”

Clint shrugged. He sat down heavily and clasped his hands together, pressing them to his forehead. “This guy’s not the problem,” he said. “Well, not great, obviously, but not the biggest problem.”

“Steve and Nat,” Wilson said.

Clint looked up. “Nat, mostly,” he said. “Steve’s probably harmless right now; he doesn’t know anyone. Nat –”

“Come on, she’s a teenager,” Tony said. “I mean, a teenager with a gun, but –”

“She’s still a Black Widow,” Clint said meaningfully.

“You said that already,” Rhodey pointed out. “Look, whatever Nat thinks is going on right now, the Red Room’s gone; she can’t go back even if she wants to. That’s not a problem we need to –”

“Just because the Red Room’s gone doesn’t mean that no one in Moscow’s going to pick up the phone if she tries to check in,” Clint cut him off. “We did all the clean-up we could eight years ago, but there were loose ends that even Fury couldn’t get tied off; SHIELD never had all that much pull with Russia, even after the end of the Cold War. And Nat’s high profile. Leviathan – whatever Leviathan turned into – whoever’s running it now would probably pull out their own eyeteeth to get her back, especially if she can bring Captain America with her. Leviathan was the USSR’s answer to the SSR and SHIELD,” he added in response to the blank looks he got. “As far as I know, Russia kept the name, the same way everyone keeps talking about the KGB even though it’s been the FSB and the SVR for years. As far as we know, they didn’t go belly-up when the Red Room fell, but that’s a big ‘as far as we know.’ And I never had all that much to do with the Russians anyway; it was mostly before my time. You’re going to have to call Fury and Hill to find out more.”

Rhodey massaged his forehead. “You really think Nat’s going to want to go back there?”

Clint’s mouth twisted. “It’s not about wanting. That’s not how places like this work.”

“And Steve does know someone today,” Wilson put in suddenly.

“What, Peggy Carter?” Tony said, doubtful. “She’s, what, a hundred years old? You think he’s going to turn up on her doorstep?”

Wilson shook his head. “If he’s a kid, then he hasn’t met her yet as far as he knows. But there’s someone out there now that he did know when he was a kid.”

They all stared at him, and then Clint said, “Jesus. Steve’s been looking for the Winter Soldier for years and getting nowhere, you don’t really think he’s going to find him now.”

“No,” Wilson said. “But Bucky Barnes might be able to find him.”

#does any of the sokovia stuff in this sequence make historical sense?#who knows! I didn't want to do serious research yet the way I did for home so it is somewhat handwavey and based off things I already knew #cut scenes and concept writing #stevenat deaging concept

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