#one piece hurts me so bad but oh the angst is wonderful

[beomiracles]

Hii! I was wondering if you could do a Beomgyu fic where Beomgyu and the reader have been best friends their whole lives. They are now at college together. Beomgyu also could be kind of a bad boy, stoner, emo type. He could also be in a band or something. I would say the reader is much more soft and kind of the opposite of beomgyu. Maybe he is slightly jealous/possessive. Also dom beomgyu?? This would literally make me soooo happy! Could be a combo of angst, fluff, and smut! 🩷🩷

500 BASH SPECIAL

#serene adds ✎... this one might be one of my favourites so far hehe !! the ending is a little abrupt but if I didn't end there I would've continued for forever I fear >.< those pictures of him got me acting different.

wc -> 2k

pairings grumpy!beomgyu x sunshine!reader warnings implied stoner!beomgyu, themes of jealousy, reader is kinda oblivious, best friends to ???, fingering, neck kisses, soft dom!beomgyu

“Hey! You joining us or not?” Your friend’s voice calls out and you tear your gaze from your phone screen as you blink up at him. “O-Oh yeah, I was just checking if Beomgyu was done..” — Your friend scoffs as he pulls you along to join the others, “that junkie?” He wonders and you frown, “he’s not a junkie.” None of your friend’s were particularly fond of your best friend. Beomgyu was easy to judge if you didn’t know him, you supposed. But that didn’t make their comments hurt less, though you knew he couldn’t care less for them. 

“I really don’t get why you insist on hanging out with him, you guys are polar opposites”, your friend continues as his grip on your waist grows firmer. “I…uhm, well we..” — “And he’s so touchy with you, don’t you think it’s weird?” Your lips part in protest and your frown deepens, but before you get the chance to defend yourself, he tugs you even closer, making you lose your balance as you cling to him. “Don’t you think you should surround yourself with people more like you?” He says before greeting the rest of your small friend group, earning himself a couple of confused glances from everyone as their eyes fell on his arm around you. Your face contorts into an awkward grimace as you subtly try and wriggle yourself from his grasp. 

“Are you guys ready to-” Your friend is quickly interrupted by the low clearing of a throat behind him. The familiar hand on your shoulder makes your head snap over to Beomgyu who was watching your friend with distaste. “Beomgyu!” You exclaim as you free yourself from your stunned friend’s now loose grip. Hurriedly skipping over to him, you link your arm around his as you smile up at him, “how was band practice?” Your question is disregarded by your best friend as Beomgyu’s gaze narrows down on your friend, his jaw clenching when he swallows. “It was fine.” He states without sparing you a glance, his arm previously linked with yours sliding down to wrap around your waist. 

Awkwardly clearing his throat, your friend avoids Beomgyu’s intense gaze as he turns back to the rest of the group. “A-Alright are we ready to head out..?” He splutters and everyone quietly nods as they subtly try to peer in the direction of your best friend. “We won’t be joining you.” Beomgyu states and you shoot him a confused glance before shifting back to your friend who watched you expectantly. “No I… I guess we won’t”, you say before Beomgyu pulls you away, a scowl on his face.

“Christ angel, why do you even hang out with them?” He mutters as you walk down the empty hallways of your college building. “They’re my friends”, you object, and as you turn left, your mind slowly pieces together where he was taking you. Beomgyu scoffs, but his grip on your waist remains firm as you walk hip to hip, “and him?” — You frown as you glance over to him, Beomgyu’s expression remained stern and almost gloomy as he kept his gaze fixated forward. “He’s also my friend.” You mumble as your eyes drop to the floor in front of you. “Didn’t look like it”, he snorts before you reach the staircase leading down to the basement. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You question as you near the door by the end of the steps. Beomgyu rolls his eyes as his free hand fishes up a small key. “C’mon angel, don’t be daft, he was practically smothering you”, he grunts as he twists the metal in the lock, kicking the door open with his knee. 

“You touch me like that too though?” The statement slips past your lips without much warning and you feel him go stiff beside you. He doesn’t say anything as he leans over you to flick on the light, illuminating the familiar studio, filled with all kinds of instruments pushed up against the walls. “That’s different”, he huffs as he lets go of your waist. You watch him walk over to the collection of guitars before picking one out, a confused pout on your lips, how was it any different if you were all friends? 

Beomgyu liked playing for you, and you liked listening. It wasn’t unusual for the two of you to spend hours down here after class ended, the soft hum of strings filling the room as you listened to him play. But today was different. — Beomgyu had barely finished his second song before he turned to where you lounged over on the small couch. “Come here”, he beckons you over and you slowly pull yourself from the couch. 

“What’s up?” You wonder as you reach him, awkwardly shifting by his chair. “Why don’t you try”, he says as he tugs you onto his lap. Startled by his sudden course of action you instinctively reach for his shoulder as you steady yourself. “Me? But I can’t play I..” Beomgyu shakes his head as he readjusts the guitar over your thighs, his arms brushing against yours. 

Swallowing a small gulp you glance down to the instrument in front of you, desperately trying to ignore his warm breath on your neck as he peered over your shoulder. “Place your hand here”, he guides your fingers to wrap around the neck of the guitar. “We’ll start with an easy chord”, he mumbles as he shows you how to position your fingers over the strings. “Don’t press down too hard, it’ll hurt.” You slowly nod as you let your fingers relax under his. 

Your breath hitches as you feel his other hand glide along your forearm, “here”, his voice is but a low murmur as he shows you how to flick your wrist along the strings. “You need to be light with your movement, put more pressure on the first few and then loosen it as you go.” — “O-Okay”, you whisper as you let your fingers drag along the fine chords. The small note sings out from the guitar, and you find yourself smiling at your small accomplishment as you turn to Beomgyu, immediately bumping noses with him. You hadn’t realized just how close he was. “A-Ah sorry”, you mumble before turning back to the instrument in your lap, your face scorching with color. 

Beomgyu’s face is practically next to yours as he leans forward, his chest pressing against your back. “Let’s try another one”, he muses as he helps you reposition your fingers once more. This time his light touch felt almost electric and it sparked a wildfire within your body and you resisted a shudder. — Not until the soft sounds of the guitar filled the room once more did you find yourself relaxing again. 

As he hums behind you, Beomgyu’s hands on top of yours move to rest on your waist instead, the simple and familiar touch somehow felt oddly sensual. “Try altering between the two chords”, he murmurs, his words dancing across your neck and you bite the inside of your cheek. “Like this?” You ask as your fingers switch back into their former position. The hands on your waist readjust their grip as Beomgyu leans back against the chair, “exactly.” 

The next few minutes are spent in silence, save for the occasional adjustment from your best friend as he redirects your fingers on the strings. Soon you’re able to play four chords and you alter between them as a melody slowly starts to build. — But as you’re about to master the fifth chord, Beomgyu’s once tender touch to your waist carefully spreads down the sides of your thighs. Your fingers on the guitar still as you peer at him through the corner of your eye. “Keep going”, he sighs, “you’ve almost got it.” 

You swallow as you turn your attention back to the guitar, your arms suddenly feeling weak as you grip it tighter. His warm hands on your thighs felt a lot different than any of his regular touches did and your mind struggled to focus on the task at hand as he drew small shapes on your skin, though never breaching past the hem of your skirt.

At first it was only the faint whisper of his breath across your neck, barely there but enough for you to recognize his even breathing, then it grew hotter, he suddenly felt closer, then his lips finally pressed against your skin and you felt your breath hitch, you know he felt it too. “Beomgyu, what are you…” He smirks against your neck before carefully planting another soft kiss, “keep playing.” 

You weren’t sure you would be able to, not when his warm mouth trailed over your skin, when his fingers dug into the flesh of your thighs, not to mention the bulge in his jeans that pressed against your ass through the flimsy material of your skirt. Was this really something best friends did? You had known Beomgyu for the greater part of your life, and while you had admittedly had a little girl crush on him during your pre teens, you never considered it to be something beyond that. — You and him were too different, right? 

“You okay, angel?” His husky voice breaks your train of thought, you hadn’t even realized that you’d stopped playing, or that his hands had slipped beneath your skirt. You blink, once, twice, three times as you meekly clear your throat. “Y-Yeah m’fine”, you chirp and Beomgyu chuckles against your skin. “Tell me if you’re not”, he then adds, suddenly sounding serious and you nod, your lips parting in surprise when his fingers dip inside the cotton of your panties. 

“Why don’t you try the fifth chord again?” He murmurs against your neck as he presses another open mouthed kiss to it, making you shudder. “Okay”, you whisper as you distract yourself by focusing on the strings before you. You’d almost gotten it when his fingers suddenly rubbed up against your clit. Immediately you lose whatever small sense of composure you had left as your thighs squeezed around his hand, a high pitched moan being pulled from your throat. 

His warm breath travels up to the shell of your ear and he gives it a feathery kiss. His voice felt soft against the side of your face when he spoke again, “you still okay?” — Biting your lip, you nod as you carefully glance over at him. He was watching you with a tender expression, his lips curved into a faint smirk as he let his fingers glide between your folds and you feel the color on your face intensifying. 

His gaze doesn’t waver as he pushes a finger inside, his eyes fixed on your reaction as your mouth falls open, breathless moans falling from your lips. “Have I ever told you that you’re pretty?” He murmurs as he curls his finger inside of you, making you squirm on his lap as you grip the guitar tightly in your hands. — “Y-you have..”, you stammered as a small whine passed your lips. Beomgyu often called you pretty, or cute, you thought it was something friends did. But he shakes his head before sliding a second finger inside your wet cunt. “No, not like that.” — “Pretty like…well pretty like this.” His eyes glimmer as he watches the way your eyebrows scrunched together, your eyes fluttering as you struggle to keep them open.

He looks almost to be debating with himself for a brief moment before finally leaning in to tenderly press his lips against yours. Your eyes widen, if only for a split second before they close as you reciprocate the kiss. — “Beomgyu”, you cry as his fingers brush past the small bundle of nerves that made you throb. He hums against you as his thumb circles your clit, “‘s okay, angel”, he reassures as he feels you clench around his fingers, your orgasm soaring through you and you shudder as you moan into his mouth. 

Was this something best friends did?    

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[love-toxin]

Okay but miscommunication trope is only super yummy when there’s a happy ending. Liiiike reader thinking they’re getting kicked out of their relationship in the fruity four, they’re not wanted anymore, maybe even bring replaced (ie with someone like Chrissy), and so every little sarcastic quip or ignoring is seen by them as the others not loving them anymore 🥺. Until one day it all comes crumbling down and I can’t decide with is more angsty, you breaking down telling the others they don’t love you anymore, or you trying to be brave by announcing you’re leaving and the fours hearts just dropping as they try to scramble to convince you to stay and why?! Why are you leaving!?!?! Please! But of course, happy ending when everything’s properly explained and angel is reassured they could never all fall out of love with them ❤️

oh.......miscommunication trope, you say? >:)

(cws: fruity four, gn!angelface, jealousy, post-s4, PTSD, huge miscommunication trope, domestic arguing, you have a tattoo + kinda shitty parents + bad home life, chrissy's a jealousy target, breakups, jopper appearance, you're childhood friends with jonathan, mentions of grief, an almost car crash, very mild head trauma, crying, angst with a happy ending--stick with me angels!)

Sometimes you wish Chrissy would just disappear. Just--poof--and she'd be gone.

It's awful of you to think, but you can't help it. She's just always around, ever since her breakup with Jason she's been by the house much more frequently. You were happy for her at first, because you liked her up until then, and she's always been nice to you. Plus, your partners saved her life back when all that crazy stuff with the Upside Down happened, an event you weren't privy to until after the fact, when you started dating them.

But she's always on Eddie, always chatting him up, always giggling at his attempts to cheer her up, and now she's attracted the attention of your other partners too. They're good friends, and that's good, but....why can you not shake this feeling that there's something more going on? That the arm touches over his jacket and the inside jokes aren't as friendly and harmless as they want you to think?

It's worse than that, though. The honeymoon phase is clearly over--cause all four of them just brush off your concerns, insisting that you're overreacting or just not addressing them at all. So you haven't been piping up when a joke hurts your feelings, and you've bitten your tongue when one of them has to reschedule something you've planned, and it's gotten to the point that they've wondered why you're so quiet all of a sudden. Why would they care? You think with a sour feeling in the back of your throat, rubbing the tattoo on your arm that Eddie gave you and wondering if that was just practice for someone else. You're not oblivious to the way Chrissy is slowly being invited into gatherings and dinners with everyone.....just like you were in the beginning. And after an especially heated fight with both Eddie and Robin, the worst one you've ever gotten into in your entire relationship, he got so pissed off that he just told you not to come to the dinner they had planned, and they'd take someone who actually wanted to go.

That was a couple days ago, and the air in the house has been strained for nobody else but you. You're equally as hurt by Eddie yelling at you as Robin silently going along with it, even though you slammed your bedroom door in her face when she tried to follow you, and waited until Eddie tugged her along to leave before you allowed yourself to cry. You're sick of the feeling that none of them really care for you, that you've been demoted to a piece of furniture in the house, because they've clearly lost interest. And they don't care when your things start disappearing from the house, when the clothes in your closet start dwindling, leaving behind nothing but the ones they've bought for you--no, they'd rather moon over Chrissy fucking Cunningham, and you've just taken all you think your heart can handle.

"I'm going out!" You call into the house from the front door, without any of their four voices responding. When you sigh, turn, and step out to turn the corner of the house, though, you bump right into one of them.

"Oh! Hey, baby." Steve steps back and readjusts the paper bag full of groceries he's got his arm around, keys halfway tucked into his pocket. "Where you off to?"

"Um....just, uh, gonna go visit my parents." You weren't really expecting him to pry, with how in your head you've been lately. But you're not gonna relent just cause one of the people who promised he'd love you forever, yet somehow can't be fucked enough to find the time to even watch a movie with you, asked you a question that remotely shows an ounce of concern.

"Your parents?" He blinks, shifting again to rest the bag on his hip. "You sure?"

That tone is so irritating. You used to love that almost parental sense of duty, the desire of his to know every detail of every problem so he can solve it. But now, you just feel suffocated, even though you're more distant from all of them now than you've ever been. "What, I'm not allowed to see my family?"

"Hey, that's not what I said! hold on," He moves to put the groceries inside, but you wave him off and start walking past him, your tone clearly frustrated as you encourage him to just forget it. But, in a tizzy, Steve hurriedly sets the bag down on the ground and runs to catch up with you, his hand descending on your arm only to be swatted away--but not for long, when he grabs it again and grips it tighter as he turns you to face him. "Jesus, wait! What's the big fuss? Did I do something?"

"Let me go, Steve." You refuse to look him in the eyes, but you can't break his grip. Why can't he just let it go, so it's less painful? "I don't wanna drag this out."

"Drag what out?" Finally, it dawns on him as his eyes dart from the keys clenched in your hand to the windows of your car parked in the driveway, boxes clearly piled up in the trunk and in the backseat that none of them seemed to notice you moving.

".....So that's it? You're breaking up with us?" Steve says it with disbelief, like he's expecting you to say something or anything different. It's almost a little satisfying when you respond in the way he never could have expected, even though he should've by now. Even though it feels bitter on your tongue as soon as it comes up.

"You know what? Yes. That's exactly it." You finally wrench your arm out of his grip, and each of those words sting as they come out, but you won't cry, you refuse to cry in front of Steve today. "I'm leaving tonight, and I'm never coming back to Hawkins again."

"Why?"

"Ask your new girlfriend."

"Who? Wait--Chrissy?" He shakes his head, and what comes out next is more cruel than you wanted to be--but he just won't get it, it won't happen unless you make them realize why they don't want you anymore.

"Wow, the jock has a brain! Well done, Stevie." He grimaces at once, and god, you wish it would all stuff itself back into your throat.

"What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you being such a-"

"I know you're in love with her, Steve! For fuck's sakes, I'm not as stupid as you think I am!" You shout into the broken silence of the front lawn, wishing from the deepest reaches of your heart that this could all just be a horrible nightmare. Not reality. You don't want to be facing those big, soft eyes of Steve staring back at you in shock and pain, so you just turn your head and hope he doesn't see how much you're shaking.

"I get it, okay?! She's prettier than me, and nicer, and she doesn't have my fucking issues--and you guys clearly like her. It's like I don't even exist when she's around." You move aside to gesture towards your car, keys clutched in your hand so they won't fall or get taken from you, because you know Steve is reckless when he's upset. "None of you even noticed I was packing. Nancy fucking helped me put a box in yesterday."

Just then, both your heads turn at the sound of a car approaching--and just in time, you realize it's Eddie, his van's tires crunching the gravel of the long driveway as he pulls up to a stop beside your car. And lo and behold, sitting in the front seat with a smile on her face is her. Chrissy waves to you through the window, and as if your heart isn't in the process of shattering into shards that dig into your lungs, you raise your hand to acknowledge her back. You turn back to look at Steve one last time. Memorizing his face, because you know you won't ever see him again, as you take a few steps backward and hand him your parting words.

"Don't break her heart, Steve. It sucks."

With that, and with nothing but confliction reflecting back at you on his face, you turn on your heels and make your way around your car, bidding Eddie and Chrissy a stiff goodbye as they get out of the van and you get into your car. You reverse, roll back out of the driveway, and shift gears to start puttering down the road. And as soon as the house is out of your rearview mirror, that's when you feel those tears spilling out that won't stop until well after you pass the Leaving Hawkins sign on the side of the road.

A week into your new start in the city, you haven't gotten any more closure than when you left.

Living with your aunt isn't great, but it's something. The apartment is small, and you still haven't found a new job--you did call the Palace to inform them that you were quitting, though, to which you were greeted with nothing but indifference as you left a message on the answering machine. Figures that nobody in that town would miss me, you think, but you can't dwell on it for too long, because then you'll start thinking of them and it'll have you sobbing into your pillow again. Even worse is that you can't even fully express your pain to your family, your aunt, anybody--because they'll all think you're a freak, and it won't be surprising that your "relationship" ended so badly. You don't even really speak to your parents or your family in the first place, so you can't expect them to show you any sympathy. In fact, if they said anything to you, it would probably be that you should be glad it's over so you can live a normal life.

You don't want normal. You want your Robin talking your ear off about something gross for hours, you want Eddie burping into your ear and laughing, you want Nancy falling asleep on top of you and drooling on your chest, and Steve--you want Steve to come over while you're both on your breaks, talking with his mouth full and stealing bits of your lunch while kissing you in between each bite. You want that love back, you want it so badly it hurts, it hurts your heart every time something reminds you of them.

Maybe that's the worst part. That they don't want that anymore, they want someone that can share those memories with of that terrible tragedy, who knows how they feel and relates to those nightmares that wake them up in a cold sweat, who they can compare scars with and laugh with now that it's all over. They want someone scarred but beautiful, someone perfect, and you can never be that way no matter how hard you try. It explains why you haven't gotten a single phone call, or a letter, or anything since you left, and that treatment extends into your second week in Indy and right into the third. But it doesn't get any less painful, even when you get a job at a convenience store around the corner to busy yourself and help with the rent. Nor when you try going on a date or two, just to spend the whole dinner staring off into space as they talk and wondering what the people you loved are doing right now.

While you're behind the counter at work, your thoughts often drift back to that house by Maple Drive. The path around the back that leads into the woods, where Eddie would take you out for a smoke and to watch the stars for awhile--always with a walkie on hand, just in case, as Steve used to say. The pool that often sits empty, and sometimes you'd look out the window to see Nancy lifting up the cover on it to peek underneath, before breathing a visible sigh of relief and briskly walking away. Sometimes even in the middle of the night, creeping out the sliding glass door in her pajamas. And you remember that bed you often shared with Robin, who gets so clingy when she sleeps....and you wonder if she's sharing it with Chrissy now, if the cheerleader you always thought was such a nice girl is occupying the spot you thought would be yours forever.

Your brow furrows as you stock Camels on the shelf behind the counter, sliding each one into the perfect spot but feeling an itch of irritation when they don't line up. Is Eddie holding her right now? Is he coming up behind her every morning, and nuzzling his nose into her cheek as she stirs milk into her coffee? Is Nancy cuddling her and chatting her up about whatever project she has going on right now? Is Steve picking up her bag, and insisting she let her boyfriend hold the heavy stuff while she sits and looks pretty? They probably are. And they're probably much happier doing it with her, than they ever were with you.

Something thuds on the counter behind you, and you sigh without a sound as the gruff voice at your back asks for a pack while you're at it. Your fist squeezes around the box you've got in hand, and when you turn on your heels to toss it on to the tabletop and reach for the scanner, your eyes widen, and so do the ones on the moustached man that's towering in front of you with a petite woman at his side.

"Hop?"

You breathe out the name, trying to regain yourself as quick as you can--you're pretty used to keeping your tears back now, adjusted to having a straight face so nobody will pry or prod for your feelings. The former sheriff of your hometown that you used to duck out of sight from, laughing and hiding your goods with Eddie right behind you, is standing at your counter with a shocked expression, along with Joyce Byers who seems just as surprised to see you here. And with little else you can think of, you clear your throat and try to crack that tense silence.

"Uh...so, you two on vacation, or someth-"

"Are you fucking with me?"

Hopper cuts you off, hands bracing the edge of the counter as he looks you up and down, the two glass bottles of Coke getting shoved aside by him to fall over and roll across the counter as he reaches across the barrier to grab your arm. Without much struggle, because you have no clue what's going on, you allow the older man to yank your wrist up and turn it over, Joyce hurriedly pushing up your sleeve with her gaze pinned to your skin, like she's desperately searching for something that has nothing to do with your confused questions spilling out on top of each other.

When they've finally uncovered that patch of skin they were looking for, the two of them share a look between themselves, before finally looking back up to acknowledge how baffled and worried you are. It isn't until you scan down to see what they found that the pieces start coming together, the black ink of the tattoo Eddie gave you when you first started dating peeking out at you. It's just a thin, mid-sized black circle on your inner forearm, with five points reaching outward like a sun. But the detail of it has always enchanted you, Eddie's diligent stare as he inked it into your skin burned into your mind. You've considered getting it covered since then, but....you can't bring yourself to do it yet.

"I'll call it in," Hopper says cryptically, stepping back and turning away to bring out the walkie from his belt and start mumbling into it. In the meanwhile, you're left with his partner, and the lady you've practically grown up with since she babysat you a long time ago. You often forget that time, when you and Jonathan would run around her backyard with sticks and rocks to try and build your own castle, while his baby brother watched from the stairs and giggled at your antics. You were so young, and so carefree, it seemed....but it was a happy time, one of few before you met those four.

"Honey, you're alright?" Joyce's voice quivers, anxious for the answer, but you nod as soon as her question registers because you hate to see her like this.

"Ye...Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" She circles round the counter, coming right in for a hug that you return without question. The squeeze is tight, like a mother's embrace upon returning home from a long time away, and you instantly feel a pinch of guilt for neglecting to include her in your plan to leave Hawkins. Now that you think about it, you really didn't tell anyone, except....

"-Kid, relax, we're coming there. No, do not get in your car, sit your ass down so you're there when we get back! Jesus," Hop gets more animated as he talks over the channel, and your hug splits as your head swivels towards the sound of a familiar voice through the static. Steve.

"Are they there? Let me talk to them! Please, Hopper, let me hear their voice-"

It's so frantic, desperate. The first time you've heard one of their voices in what feels like your whole life, and you have to struggle not to cave, bringing a shaky hand up over your mouth as you whisper a "What's going on?" to Joyce. And with your ears perked up, you can distinguish the background noise in the transmission--there are three other distinct voices, talking just as fearfully amongst themselves as they also try to get through to Hop. Nancy, Eddie, and Robin, each with as much indignation as Steve, who must be holding the other walkie.

"We're coming down right now, kid. Just try to calm down in the meantime." With that, Hopper shuts the antenna and gestures for you to follow him, the sweet woman at your side holding your arm as you obey him, like she's afraid you'll vanish if she lets go. You're led out of the light of the fluorescent bulbs overhead to Hop's truck parked by the curb--you at least have the sense to fumble with your keys and lock the front door before you leave--you let him open the door and sit yourself in the backseat, and shakily buckle yourself in as they get in front with promises to explain everything. Still struck dumb with shock to the point that it hasn't really registered that you just left work in the middle of your shift.

But you get an idea of what's happening when you turn your head, and catch a glimpse of a scattered stack of papers on the seat beside you out of your peripheral. Tentatively, as Hop starts up the ignition, your fingers brush over one of the nearest pages--and when you lift it up to survey it closer, the two of them notice you and share another sobering look between them. What's staring back at you is undeniably, unmistakably, a missing person's ad. And the picture is one you recognize immediately, because it's yours. Your photo, details of your last sighting, a description of your tattoo, a list of things for people to look out for....

"You really worried everyone back home, kid."

Suddenly, a bitterness rises up inside you, and the paper crumples slightly as you realize what's really happening. "I'm fine. I just...decided to get out of Hawkins."

"Yeah, well, maybe tell your roommates that, first."

"Hop-"

"They didn't care! I told Steve anyways, so what's the big fucking deal?" Even though Joyce flinches at you raising your voice, you can't be quiet right now. Anger is something you've been almost too numb to endure these last few weeks, but now you could just put your fist straight through Hopper's window--they put up such a fuss for what? To drag you back to that shitty inbred town in the sticks, just to make sure they didn't want you in the first place? It's bullshit.

"They sure as shit care!" Hop shouts right back, casting his signature scowl over his shoulder as he drives through semi-empty streets. It's so late, and so dark, it's unlikely there'll even be many pedestrians. "Do you realize how many times Nancy Wheeler has shown up on my doorstep, begging me to go on another search and rescue for you?! They're worried sick!"

"Why?"

There's silence for awhile, very tense silence, before you repeat your question that says much more than just that one word.

"....Because they thought you were gone. They thought you were there."

There. That's what he means--the other world, the Upside Down. The place you've never seen, only heard horror stories about and snatches of descriptions of when you comforted one of them during a night terror. The missing people, the murders, the experiments....they're all so hard to believe, but then again, you can't deny Will's remarkable return from the dead or Barbara Holland's coverup death, both of which you've been close enough to to know that there's no way they're just elaborate lies.

So they were worried you had died. That your disappearance wasn't of your own volition. They're going to be in for an unfortunate surprise, but by the tightly shut locks on Hopper's truck doors, you know there's no getting out of this until he brings you right back to drop you in their laps.

"We came here to look for you. Your mom finally told us you had an aunt in the city." Joyce offers you another piece to the puzzle, but your mind is still stuck on the fact that your ex-partners seemed so desperate over the walkie. They....they wouldn't want you to die, but that doesn't mean they want you. Figures that your parents would make it more difficult for two of the only people that even remotely have any concern for you too, they're probably profiting off all that glorious attention of having a missing child.

"I have a life here, now. I don't want to go back." Lies. You know it's all lies.

"Listen, kid, whatever happened with your friends, I promise it's not worth throwing in the towel. You've gotta see things through." Clearly it's not worth an argument, you'd rather save your energy at this point. You're gonna need plenty to face that hard conversation you know is coming, when you're gonna have to confirm to them directly that you're moving on. No more running away, or hiding from the problem. You have to face it.

"You don't know anything about me, or them."

The already long drive drags on even longer in the silence that follows, and you make a mental note to call your aunt when they get you back to Hawkins, so she doesn't freak out when she comes home to an empty apartment. You can imagine your manager's gonna call and cuss you out before firing you for leaving the store unattended, too, and you groan and let your head hit the seat behind you. Now you're gonna have to find another job, gonna have to explain to your aunt what you did....or maybe she won't even notice your absence, not until someone makes a fuss about it.

Your mind is left racing with so many thoughts and worries that the scenery passes by without note, the moon barely shining any light on the landscape, like it's all one huge plain with little dots for buildings and trees. Like one big hellscape, but it's numb and frozen over with nothing left but a mocking echo of the world that's no longer here. You don't even really recognize your surroundings until a couple hours have passed, and the Welcome To Hawkins sign zips by and has you sitting up in your seat. Just as you pass it, though, you think you see the glimmer of another set of headlights, a rarity on these quiet streets--and then your whole world shifts violently.

"Shit!" Hop curses as he swerves suddenly, and Joyce shrieks as you all nearly careen off the road and into the ditch, your head cracking against the window and bouncing off for you to clutch at it in pain. A groan is all you can get out when he calls back to you, the dizzy feeling making you a little sick, but as you lift your head and the truck rolls to a stop, you spot the culprit of that downright suicidal speed driving that nearly caused a head-on collision.

Your heart is pierced with a deep chill immediately. You'd recognize that van anywhere, and that curly mane of hair as the driver stumbles out his door even moreso. He's not hurt, just dazed--and for the moment, your brain doesn't immediately go to the question of why you should even care. As he stands there in the road, in the dark, Eddie's form is lit up by the headlights still shining without a flicker, but he doesn't flinch even when it must be glaring directly into his eyes, just holds a hand up to block it out. And when they meet yours as you lean over the console to see him, he doesn't wait a second, hurrying around the passenger's side of the truck to fumble for the handle of your door. With a click, and the light above you switching on as a beeping starts to emit from the vehicle, Eddie's suddenly cramming himself into the backseat with you--and there's tears already wetting his cheeks as he grabs you in a hug, gasping in a shaky lungful of breath like he's shocked he's really touching you. Crying and mumbling into your hair, Eddie buckles when you squeeze him back, falling victim to that desire in the deepest part of your soul that just wanted to hold him again.

"I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it baby, I didn't--everything I said, I swear, I was being such a fucking moron-" He starts babbling from nowhere, and his voice itself is a comfort, having not heard it next to your ear for so long that it aches now.

"Eddie-"

"You're mine, okay?! You're my everything!" He cries, burying his face even deeper into your neck and inhaling whatever scent he can get. You're stunned into staying limp, letting his hands grab and squeeze at you wherever they land--his curly hair tickles your cheek and sticks to it, and that sensation alone drags tears up to the surface, only allowing them to spill when you hear him whispering those croaked pleas of "I love you, I love you, I love you" until you're crying right along with him. It's been so long since you heard it, you'd started believing it was never really true.

It takes minutes that feel like hours for you to both calm down enough to look at each other, your face cradled in Eddie's rough hands as he sniffles and murmurs a "You're so beautiful" so innocently sincere, that it instantly makes you wish you had never left. He smiles, and the world that seems so dark grows a little brighter around you. You're not even privy to the looks Joyce and Hopper are giving each other in the front seat, clearly a little surprised at the passion you two share that nobody else has ever seen. But they know. And when Eddie starts pulling you out of your seat with the promise to take you back, Hop only reminds him to drive safely before he allows you two to shut the truck's door and circle round the vehicle with Eddie's arm clinging to your waist. The air hits you, cool and dry, just like it always is in Hawkins. And when he opens your door for you and waits for you to clamber in, before getting in on the other side and fumbling contently with his keys, you're not sure you really know what to expect. He briefly elaborates that he'd gotten worried, and that he's just glad he spotted Hop's truck before he'd sped all the way out of Hawkins and missed you--but it doesn't last, because soon he's grabbing your thigh and sighing out a breath of relief.

"We'll talk about everything when we get home. For now, I just want to hold you." Eddie offers his hand to you, giving it a grateful squeeze when you slip yours into it and interlace your fingers together.

They'll all hate me for real, this time.

That's exactly how the drive goes, Eddie's shoulders relaxed even as he steers with one hand, and navigates while stealing glances over at you with relief written all over his face, and brings your hands up to kiss your knuckles every so often. But he's just one. The other three....your heart sinks as you run over that last conversation you had with Steve, the way you'd ignored Robin completely, and how you pretended everything was absolutely fine with Nancy up until the moment you left. And it somehow dawns on you only then--they thought you were gone, that you had been taken to the Upside Down, and your heart sinks as you watch the trees pass by in clusters while that dread creeps closer down the road that's so familiar.

Not even the comforting warmth of Eddie's hand could drive that thought out of your mind, even less so when he turns and you hit that patch of gravel that leads up the driveway. He'll stop soon, and you'll be facing the music....and when Eddie shifts into park, you sort of float from your seat to the walkway where you threw your feelings back into Steve's face, and up towards the front door that Eddie opens for you before you cross the threshold into the house. It does feel like home, and you don't want to lose it right on the welcome mat, so you blink away any tears that threaten to spill before you quietly follow him into the living room.

Three heads turn to look your way, too inundated in conversation around the coffee table to hear the door opening, but that stops the second their eyes land on you. Steve and Robin are the ones sitting closest to where you stand, but Nancy's the one that makes her way to you first, her lower lip already quivering enough to break into a sob as she crosses the patch of carpet to throw her arms around you. She's strong enough to grip you tight enough to hurt, but too weak to keep herself on her feet, and you end up sinking to the floor with her as your name floods out of her lungs on repeat, getting louder and louder and louder until she's wailing. You could swear the walls rattle with the volume she cries at, completely coming apart in your arms like you've never seen her do before.

"Don't you ever do that to me again!" She shouts, yet her voice is like a child's, wobbling and whiny and so miserably pitiful that it pains you even to listen to it, especially when she's clutching you so close to her body--so afraid that you won't be there when she pulls away, so she refuses to. You don't have any right to cry when she's so distraught, but with your head over her shoulder, the other two watch your lips curve downwards and your eyes screw shut into a flood of tears that won't stop easily.

"I'm sorry, Nancy. I'm okay." You whimper, burying your face into her curls until your lips brush her jawline, and she shudders into each gentle, praiseworthy kiss that you press there. Up until her sobs subside, and she breaths a sigh of relief that you can feel from her chest against yours, each one sinking and rising into each other as you breathe along with her. "I thought you didn't want me anymore."

She shakes her head, and finally pulls herself back to look at you, a fresh wave of tears streaming down her cheeks when she gets a good look at you. Nancy touches your face, thumbs away your own tears--and you know she's not just looking at you, but the girl she lost so long ago, whose smile she sees in yours on those days she misses her the most dearly. "I never wanted you more when I thought you weren't coming back," She whispers back. "How could I not want you? I love you."

The kiss she lays upon your lips is breathtaking, shaking and sweet and just....everything. Everything you missed and craved like air and water and life.

You're already halfway into her embrace when she laughs out that half-hearted joke, walking back with you a couple steps when you throw yourself into it. And she squeezes you so tight, so hard, the kisses a flurry of needy, fluttering touches all over your face until she somehow finds your lips--and when she does, she makes that last one a kiss you won't shake off for days, the feeling tingling your lips even when she pulls away. Still rubbing that spot on your back that she knows is sensitive, Robin grips you in an even harder hug that nearly cracks your spine, and whispers into your ear: "I'm so happy you're here with me." before she kisses you one last time, last one, she swears, fingers crossed behind your back. But then, she takes notice to the man standing just a foot away--and she lets you go to turn you around, her fingertips grazing your arms as you finally face him.

"Yeah, she, uh....she cried, like, every night," Even as Robin says it and breaks the quiet, she herself is rubbing tears from her cheeks, trying to keep that smile going as you stand and Nancy loosens her hold. She moves aside for Eddie to lay his hands on her shoulders from behind, and keep her steady on her feet. "So did Steve. I told you he cries when we watch Princess Bride!"

"I-I....I didn't mean it, Steve. I never...I've never thought you were dumb." Your voice comes out as a whimper, fingers fiddling with each other as you endure that big, brown, wide-eyed stare.

"I know." He breathes, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. He wants to move, he's antsy, but he won't take another step. "I know, baby."

"Can I hug you?" Steve just nods, but his lip quivers and his features gain that pathetic, sad puppy look, because he was hoping and praying you would say those very words. Your heart soars as he meets your step forward and flings his strong arms tight around your body, crushing you with his huge stature but never loosening up. He instantly brings his hand up to cradle your head against his chest, kissing the crown of it with so much firmness that you know he's reaffirming you're really standing in front of him again.

"I shouldn't have let you leave. I should've slashed your damn tires." He chuckles along with you at the lighthearted crack at breaking the tension, until he chokes up again into a sob. "Nobody could ever replace you. And I swear, I'll never break your heart again."

Steve holds you for a long time, squeezing you and kissing you and brushing strands of hair from your eyes to just look at you, surveying the face of the love he feared he'd never get to cherish again. It's a long time coming, and when he's done, there are three other warm bodies in the room that need attention from the sweet thing they've been killing themselves over these last few weeks.

From there, they catch you up with what had happened in your absence. Steve had walked off to clear his head after you left, and hadn't returned until late in the day--burst through the front door during an unusually quiet dinner and sent them all into a panic, when he realized you really had left and you weren't coming back. The four of them had jumped into action to split up and look for you, Nancy contacted your parents and other family while Steve and Robin tried to find some hint of your whereabouts in the house, cracking open your drawers and notes and realizing how much of your stuff was missing. Meanwhile, Eddie had driven in circles round Hawkins and the outer city limits, trying to find any trace of your car in the dark with the help of passing streetlights.

When those attempts had failed after stretching out into the next day to mid-afternoon, and with your very unhelpful parents insisting they had no idea where you could've gone, that's when your partners had started printing out missing person's flyers and put in an official report with the sheriff's office. And, seemingly having forgotten that you were really the only one who ever checked the voicemail at work, your message tendering your resignation had been errantly erased by your manager--worrying them even further when they questioned him, because if you were really planning on moving away like you said, how could you not tell your employer? It wasn't like you. Their fears had only gotten stronger from there.

The worst had yet to come, though. Because when your car had been found on the side of the road way out in the middle of nowhere, miles and miles away from Hawkins and completely destroyed, the four of them had reached the point of no return. The plates had been torn off, but it was your exact make and model of car, and what were they supposed to believe? That it was just coincidence? That's what Hopper had tried to reassure them with, tried to insist that plenty of cars get found gutted out in the bush, but they couldn't be convinced that it was just some freak happenstance and delude themselves to think that you were fine and dandy somewhere else. The same thing had happened to Max's stepbrother, and they all knew how that had ended.

So started the search parties, the nights spent staying up and studying maps by lamplight, the microwave meals in place of home cooking and sleeping in shifts by the phone, waiting and hoping for some kind of clue to your whereabouts to appear. Finding you had become more important than eating, proper sleep, showering, or attention paid to anything aside from looking towards the horizon to see if you would magically walk back into their lives.

And all that time, you had believed nothing but that they couldn't care less where you were, or what you were doing. When in reality, they could think of nothing but you. That was what had led Eddie to nearly crash into you as you re-entered Hawkins, having been pacing the living room for those long hours after Hop's call until he just couldn't take it anymore--despite the other three trying to stop him, he had dashed out to his van and peeled out of the driveway like a lunatic, just for the slightest chance that he might be there when you needed help. It was so stupid, so reckless, and you'll remember that moment he came rushing around the side of the truck to get to you forever.

Despite them reassuring you about Chrissy, too, when the tears have dried--promising you she's nothing but a friend, and they would have no problems limiting her interaction with all of you from now on--you wave it away, smiling off your stupidity and letting them know that it's fine. You were just being dumb, acting crazy, but you're fine now. And Eddie's eyes narrow at that.

"You're not crazy." He murmurs absentmindedly, and says nothing more until he can slip away from your reunion, and reach the phone in the kitchen. While you're busy dealing with your other partner's crippling absence of affection, he taps his blunt nails into each button, numbly dialing the number he's memorized until the ringing starts and stops.

"Hey, Chris. Angel's back home."

"Oh, that's great! Oh...Eddie, I'm so happy for you. You must be relieved-"

"Yeah. Yeah, I am. Listen, no hard feelings, but....you're my friend, so I'm just gonna be straight. Don't come by the house anymore."

"I--what? Really? I....Eddie, I'm sorry, if I did something to upset you-"

"No, no, nothing you did. Well, not really. But I know how you feel, Chris, and I can't really ignore it anymore." He swallows deeply, and sucks on his teeth as he tries to think of some better way to say it. "I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I don't feel the same. I never have, and I'm sorry if I made you feel like that might change."

"......So that's it?"

"That's it. We can still be friends, but we need space for awhile first, and I'm not gonna ignore you flirting with me anymore. I'm in love and it's not gonna change. Sorry."

"Can we at least talk about it, Eddie? Please? I'd rather talk this out in person."

"No. Bye, Chrissy."

He thuds the phone back on the receiver just a little too hard, and brings his hand up to rub at his neck and try and get the ache out. That didn't feel good, having to confront one of his very few friends with a truth he just wanted to ignore--but the sick feeling he has now can't even compare to how he felt when you were away, and it's an easy decision to make in that regard. He'd take you over her any day. It's a bit of a guilty feeling, but he knows it's the truth even if it hurts Chrissy's feelings, and he's happy even so.

"....Yeah, I missed you real bad, sweetheart. Don't you ever think I wouldn't....or else you are crazy."

"Eddie?" You call out from the living room, and following that sweet voice to its source, he feels himself light up at the sight of you settled back into the couch. Legs tucked up in Robin's lap, halfway into Steve and Nancy's, looking so comfortable and cute as you look up at him. You're where you belong. He's so distracted by the glee and relief of having you home, he didn't even realize how quiet it had been between you all until he came right back from his task. You say nothing more, just hold your arms out to him--and when he gets close enough, you capture him with those pretty eyes of yours, and melt away any ill feeling as you pull him into your chest.

[sidekick-hero]

In Loving Memory

Written for @steddieangstyaugust Day 4, prompt: Angst with Happy Ending

Tags: Modern AU, rockstar Eddie, plane crash, HAPPY ENDING, minor character death

words: 3.3k | AO3 | mature

“Good afternoon, Mr. Harrington. My name is Elizabeth Quinn, and I’m part of the cabin crew today. Thank you for choosing to fly with us. I hope you're enjoying your flight so far.”

Steve looks up at the owner of the soft voice to his right. It’s a young woman in a stewardess uniform with big brown eyes that instantly remind him of Eddie.

“Oh, hello. Uhm, yes, everything is fine, thank you.”

The stewardess smiles warmly. “I'm glad to hear that, sir. I wanted to discuss a situation we’re currently facing. As you may know, flights can sometimes be overbooked, and today we have a few more passengers than seats available in first class. We’re looking for a volunteer to move to another section of the plane. In exchange, we’re offering a significant compensation package, including a voucher for a future flight, a complimentary upgrade on your next trip, and a gift card for our in-flight shopping.”

She looks apologetic, and he can tell she hates asking him this. It’s not a particularly long flight, and he mostly booked first class because that’s what his father’s secretary always did for him the few times his parents had him fly to wherever they were. So giving up his seat for a four-hour flight doesn’t seem too bad.

“Yes, I can move to another section of the plane. That’s okay,” he tells the stewardess and is rewarded with a bright, genuine smile adorned with dimples. Another thing that reminds him of Eddie. He pushes the ache in his chest down and returns the friendly smile with one of his own.

“Thank you so much for doing this, Mr. Harrington. If you have any specific preferences or questions, please let me know. Your understanding and cooperation greatly help us ensure everyone has a comfortable flight.”

With that, she leads him to another part of the plane, presumably Economy class.

“This one right here, Mr. Harrington. It has extra legroom and is situated next to an emergency exit. I will make sure you have a pleasant flight with us. You can call me with the call button or find me at the front or back of the plane.”

Steve nods with another smile that falls as soon as she walks away to prepare for takeoff. His thoughts wander back to the reason he’s on a flight to LA today.

Eddie.

He still wonders if this is a good idea. When he bought the ticket to LA, he was sure of it. The panic that had constricted his throat had lessened as soon as he pulled up the website of the airline and he felt like he could breathe again for the first time when he got the confirmation mail.

It’s a long shot, he knows that. Surprising Eddie in LA after everything that happened but he hopes it’s a grand enough gesture that maybe Eddie will forget how much Steve has hurt him. Robin suggested to just call Eddie and apologize, explain to him why Steve was so reluctant to take the next step with him.

The truth is, Steve doesn’t think he could handle it when Eddie didn’t pick up the phone or just hangs up on him before he can say his piece. If Eddie decides that it’s too much for him, that Steve’s too much, too damaged, then be it. But he needs to see Eddie one last time, drink in those beloved doe eyes one more time.

Steve thinks about why he and Eddie fought the last time they saw each other. Growing up in a very conservative household, Steve always suspected he might like men as well as women, but he denied any attraction toward men because of what his parents might say. He knew they wouldn’t accept him.

He was 31 when he walked into a bar in Chicago with his best friend Robin and locked eyes with the most beautiful man he’d ever seen. Eddie was the first man he ever kissed, ever slept with. He couldn’t help himself, not when Eddie flirted with him, wooed him, and made him laugh with his whole body. Steve always assumed what they had was strictly physical, just some fun between two single guys.

But Eddie wanted more than that. He wanted a relationship with Steve.

Eddie had asked Steve to be his date on the red carpet in LA for the Grammy Awards. Eddie was actually nominated with his band, Corroded Coffin, and he wanted to show the world who he loved. But Steve was scared. Everybody would know he was in a relationship with another man. So he declined, and Eddie left Steve’s apartment heartbroken.

Steve can still see the look on Eddie’s face, the hurt in his eyes. It had shattered something inside him, but his fear was stronger. He had watched Eddie walk away, the love of his life slipping through his fingers because he was too afraid to hold on.

Steve’s thoughts are interrupted by the plane's PA system crackling to life, announcing their imminent takeoff. He leans back in his seat, staring out the window as the plane begins to taxi down the runway. The memory of Eddie's face, the pain in his eyes, is as vivid as ever.

He had tried to justify his fear, telling himself it was about protecting Eddie, about not wanting to put him through the scrutiny and judgment that would come from being seen with another man. But deep down, Steve knew it was about protecting himself. He was scared of what his parents would think, what the world would think.

As the plane ascends, Steve closes his eyes, replaying that last conversation with Eddie in his mind.

"Steve, I love you. I want us to be together, really together," Eddie had said, his voice trembling with emotion. "I want you by my side at the Grammys. I want to show the world who I love."

Steve had felt his heart pound in his chest, a mix of fear and longing. "Eddie, I can't. You know how my parents are, how everyone will react. It's not that simple."

Eddie's eyes had filled with tears. "It is that simple, Steve. Either you love me enough to be with me, openly and proudly, or you don’t. I can’t keep hiding us. I can't keep hiding you."

Steve had stood there, silent and conflicted, as Eddie walked out the door. The sound of the door closing behind him had felt like the end of everything.

The plane levels off, and Steve opens his eyes, blinking back tears. He knows this trip to LA is a long shot, but he has to try. He has to make Eddie understand how much he means to him.

Steve takes a deep breath and pulls out his phone, opening the notes app. He starts typing, trying to find the right words to say when he sees Eddie.

The flight attendants come by with the beverage cart, and Steve looks up to see Elizabeth smiling at him. “Can I get you anything, Mr. Harrington?”

“Just some water, please,” Steve says, returning her smile.

As she hands him the bottle of water, she says softly, “It looks like you have a lot on your mind, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Steve looks up at her as he accepts the cup of water and finds that he actually wants to talk with someone about what he’s about to do. He needs someone to tell him that it’s going to work out.

“I do. I’m on my way to win back the man I’m in love with.”

There, he said it. He admitted that he was in love with another man and now he’s fighting the urge to hide, scared of her reaction. But he holds her gaze, heart pounding in his chest.

“Oh,” she says, her eyes softening, “that explains the look on your face. I think you’re very brave, Mr. Harrington.”

Steve takes a moment, contemplating how much to share. But he feels a strange sense of comfort in Elizabeth’s kind eyes.

“His name is Eddie,” Steve begins, his voice barely above a whisper. “He’s the most amazing man I’ve ever met. He’s kind, talented, and makes me laugh like no one else can. But I let my fear ruin everything between us.”

Elizabeth listens intently, her expression encouraging him to continue.

“We fought because he wanted us to go public, to be together openly. He wanted me to go with him to the Grammys, to be his date. But I was too scared of what my parents would think, what people would say. So, I said no. And he left,” Steve explains, his voice cracking.

Elizabeth nods, understanding in her eyes. “That sounds really hard, Steve. But it also sounds like you care a lot about him.”

“I do,” Steve says, his eyes filling with tears. “I love him more than anything. That’s why I’m going to LA. I need to tell him how sorry I am and that I’m ready to be with him, no matter what anyone else thinks.”

Elizabeth places a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “It takes a lot of courage to admit when you’re wrong and to fight for what you love. Eddie is a very lucky man to be loved so much by you, Steve. I hope he sees that.”

Steve smiles, feeling a bit lighter. “Thank you, Elizabeth. I really hope he does.”

Elizabeth gives his shoulder a gentle squeeze before moving on to the next passenger. Steve watches her go, feeling a much needed sense of hope. He’s made mistakes, let fear dictate his actions, but he’s ready to make things right.

About two hours into the flight, Steve decides to stretch his legs and walks up and down the narrow aisle. He passes families with little kids, an elderly couple working on a crossword puzzle together, and two young women chatting and laughing. It’s fascinating to see so many different lives intersecting in one place.

On his fifth lap, Elizabeth appears next to him, gently touching his arm.

“Steve, could you please take your seat and fasten your seatbelt?”

He looks at her, puzzled. “But the seatbelt signs are still off.”

“That’s true, but from experience, I know the signs could come on any minute. I just wanted to give you a heads-up before the aisle gets too crowded with everyone returning to their seats.”

Steve nods, appreciating the heads-up. “Thanks for letting me know.” He heads back to his seat.

As Steve settles in and fastens his seatbelt, the plane suddenly lurches violently. The cabin shakes with a gut-wrenching turbulence, hurling passengers and their belongings through the air. Panic erupts as screams fill the cabin, and Steve clings to his seat, trying to stay calm amid the chaos.

Elizabeth dashes down the aisle, her face pale and eyes wide. She spots Steve and rushes over, her voice barely audible over the cacophony. “Steve! Call Eddie! Now!”

Heart pounding, Steve scrambles for his phone. His hands tremble uncontrollably as he dials Eddie’s number. The turbulence makes it nearly impossible to hold the phone steady, but he manages to keep a grip.

The call connects, and Eddie’s voice comes through, thick with confusion and worry. “Steve?” He asks and then he must hear the chaos in the background because he immediately adds, “What’s going on? Is everything alright?”

“Eddie,” Steve’s voice cracks as he fights back tears. “I’m so sorry. I should have been braver. I should have been all in. I’m on this plane, and it’s really bad. I wanted to come to LA to talk to you. I wish I could have done all this in person. I wish I could kiss you one last time.”

Eddie’s voice trembles with desperation. “Steve, what’s happening? Why does this sound like a goodbye?”

Steve’s eyes dart around the cabin, the plane shaking violently as alarms blare and panicked voices rise. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t want this to be a goodbye, but I think it might be. I needed to tell you how much I regret being so scared, and I’m sorry for hurting you. I love you, Eddie. I should’ve told you when I had the chance.”

The turbulence worsens, and the plane begins a terrifying descent. The noise in the background grows louder and more intense. Eddie’s voice, filled with panic, tries to reach him. “Steve, stay with me! Please!”

But as the plane’s descent becomes more violent, the call goes eerily silent. Steve’s heart pounds in his chest as the only sound now is the relentless, chilling dial tone. Tears stream down his face as he grips the phone tightly.

Elizabeth returns to Steve’s side, her eyes filled with kindness and urgency. She places a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Hold on, Steve. It’s going to be okay, but I need you to fight. For Eddie, okay?”

Steve nods, trying to steady himself amidst the chaos. He closes his eyes, focusing on Eddie’s voice and the love they shared, holding onto the hope that somehow, somehow, he’ll get another chance.

The last thing he hears is the deafening roar of something massive hitting the ground way too fast.

When Steve opens his eyes, he’s immediately overwhelmed by blinding light and searing pain. He groans, wishing for unconsciousness to take him away again so the agony would stop.

“Steve?”

The sound of Eddie’s voice pulls him from the sweet embrace of nothingness. The panic in Eddie’s voice is palpable, as if he’s on the verge of breaking down.

“’ddie?” Steve mumbles, his mouth feeling like it’s stuffed with cotton and his tongue heavy.

“Yes, I’m here, Stevie. I’m here.” Suddenly, Eddie’s beloved face appears above him, his eyes red-rimmed and watery. “Hi, baby.”

Steve manages a smile, the pain momentarily overshadowed by the sight of Eddie’s face. How he’s missed those eyes.

The thought brings Elizabeth back to his mind, the stewardess with the same eyes. Reality crashes back, and Steve gasps with the sudden realization that he should be dead.

“What… happened?” he croaks, his voice barely audible as his strength begins to wane.

“I promise I’ll explain everything, Stevie, but first we need to get your strength back. I’ll let the nurse know you’re awake.” Eddie reaches for the call button next to Steve but stops to press a gentle kiss to Steve’s forehead. “I’m so glad you’re here. I was terrified of losing you.”

That’s the last thing Steve hears before darkness pulls him under once more.

The next time Steve wakes up, he feels a bit better. The pain is still there, but it’s dulled by the medication, making it manageable. He’s strong enough to talk more than just a few minutes, and he uses that strength to repeat to Eddie what he had said on the phone during the crash.

Eddie is holding Steve’s hand between his, his tear-streaked cheek resting gently on the back of Steve’s hand. His eyes are still red and puffy, but he speaks with a steady voice that is thick with emotion. “Steve, I could never just walk away from you. I knew you weren’t ready, even though it hurt. I planned to talk to you when I got back to Chicago, to tell you that I would wait for you, as long as I wouldn’t lose you. But when you called and I heard all that screaming… Fuck! I can’t even think about it without wanting to throw up. The crash was bad—most of the front was completely destroyed. It’s a miracle you survived.”

Steve blinks, trying to piece together the fragments of his memory. “How… How did I survive?”

Eddie’s gaze is intense as he searches Steve’s eyes. “From what they told me, you were supposed to be seated in the front, but you weren’t. No one could explain why. Your seat was right next to the emergency exit, so they got you out quickly. And you had your seatbelt fastened, which probably kept you from being thrown around too much. It’s almost like fate that you survived. Only twenty-three people made it.”

Steve’s eyes widen as he absorbs Eddie’s words. The thought weighs heavily on his chest: If it hadn’t been for Elizabeth’s warning, he might not have been so lucky. He’s sure she’s the reason he’s still here.

A flicker of concern crosses Steve’s face. “Elizabeth… she was a stewardess on the flight. She moved me to this seat, told me that first class was overbooked and asked if I’d be willing to switch. And she also made sure I fastened my seatbelt just before we started going down.”

Eddie’s eyes grow wide with shock. “But… they said on the news that casualties were below a hundred because first class wasn’t as full as usual. They said no one in that section survived.”

Steve’s heart pounds as he starts to realize the gravity of Elizabeth’s actions. “I need to find out if she survived, Eddie. She saved my life, and I need to thank her.”

Eddie’s eyes brighten with resolve. “We can do that, Stevie. I need to thank this woman, who saved the man I love. What’s her name? I’ll get Chrissy on it—she’ll find out in no time.”

Feeling his love for Eddie surge, Steve lets it overflow for the first time without restraint. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

They share a long, tender look, like lovesick teenagers, before Steve remembers Eddie’s question. “Her name is Elizabeth Quinn.”

Eddie’s expression changes abruptly. All color drains from his face.

“What did you say her name is?”

“Elizabeth Quinn. Why, do you know her?”

Ignoring the question, Eddie asks, “What did she look like?”

Steve describes Elizabeth, including her big brown eyes that reminded him of Eddie’s—one reason he bonded with her almost instantly.

As Steve finishes, Eddie looks even paler. Wordlessly, he pulls out his phone, navigates to an article from the airline, and hands it to Steve. The headline reads: “Airline Grieves Loss of Crew Members on Flight 731.” The article features a picture of a stewardess who looks just like Elizabeth. Her name is listed below the photo: Elizabeth Quinn.

Steve’s heart sinks as he reads the name. “That’s her. Elizabeth Quinn.”

Eddie’s voice trembles as he looks at Steve. “Elizabeth Quinn was my mom. She was a stewardess, and she died in a plane crash when I was eight.”

Steve’s eyes widen in shock. “I’m so sorry, Eddie. I had no idea.”

Eddie’s eyes are glassy as he looks at Steve. “She was the best person I knew. She loved her job and loved helping people. And now it seems she came back to help two more people: me and you.”

Steve reaches out weakly, placing a hand on Eddie’s. “I wish I could have thanked her in person. But I did tell her about you—how funny, smart, and amazing you are. How much I love you. And I should have known, because you look just like her. The same kind eyes and dimples when you smile.”

Eddie squeezes Steve’s hand, his voice breaking. “I’m glad you got to meet her. God, this is so crazy. I was so angry for so long that she left me. I know it’s unfair, but that’s how I felt. I miss her so much.”

“She knew you loved her. She made sure you wouldn’t lose another person you love, because she loves you too. Even if she’s no longer here, she’s still watching over you.”

“Over us, you mean. I’m pretty sure this means you’re part of the family now.”

Eddie still asks Chrissy to check the airline's list for Steve’s savior. He’s not surprised when Chrissy reports that there was no Elizabeth Quinn on that flight.

[nvuy]

palingenesis — il capitano

summary. oh, to the gods, and to be reborn again from your rib.

notes. “nvuy do the corpse bride capitano fic” said about three people so i did it. is this actually corpse bride? no. do i care? also no. my halloween present that only certified freaks are allowed to read. capitano is geniunely not mentioned by his name or his status, so LOWKEY. you could read this as any male lead you want, i guess. but uh… it’s capitano. well. it’s supposed to be.

warnings. mentions of death. mentions of decay (but the khaenri’ah version of decay). capitano is literally a dead man walking. tangents about god and love. standard nvuy fic where everyone is miserable. angst if you squint.

“You used to love me for me, but I don’t even know what I am anymore.” 

There’s a small huff of laughter as you bring your knees to your chest. You wonder how he would react to you after all these years. You surely look different, and rot has set its teeth into your skin, and it morphs into his least favourite colour. 

You wonder briefly, if he would even remember you, was he to ever return. How childish.

You pick up a lone stick in the soil next to you and poke at the withered and abandoned white and yellow orchards surrounding the stone. 

His grave sits idly, silent. 

“I lost myself the day you died,” you admit. Your throat constricts for a moment and you struggle to breathe. “I had no idea what to do.” You lean against the tree stump, as you always do. “I still don’t.” 

His name is etched from many many centuries ago. Not by you, no. You hadn’t even attended the funeral, and to this day, you regretted it. Regret was a terrible ache that never quelled nor strayed too far from your heart. 

The flowers were dead now. You’d laid them here almost a hundred years ago. You hadn’t expected them to live, but the petals were now an ashy black, and the edges that used to be soft and rubbery were now crumbling like paper against your fingers. The petals fell to small pieces. 

The land was withering. Of course, the flowers would rot as well. 

“You’d hate what your home has become,” you tell him. “We’re all rotting. And it all hurts.” You grimace next, but almost playfully. “Everything is blue. You hate blue. You used to tell me it upset you.” You look down at your forearm, and the withering aches upon your skin. “Even I’m turning blue.” It’s more so black than it is blue, but whatever colour it may be, it scars and will never leave. It is your fate, as it is your people’s. 

The forest is quiet. 

His body was buried amongst his favourite orchard field, but those flowers are long gone now, and all that remains is the black and blue prickly grass that you sit in, and a stone with his name left in it. He is somewhere below the ground, his body long decayed and faded and given life to the soil that once grew the most beautiful greenery you’d ever seen. 

Not even that remained. 

“If you were alive, you’d… y’know…” You tilt your head. “You’d rot, too. And for that, I’m grateful you died with glory.” You stare out into the dead fields. “Though, I can’t help but be selfish. I think it would hurt less if you were here.” 

And there it is. 

You hum soundly. “Yeah… you made everything hurt less.” 

There’s a ring in your palm. It’s small, just large enough to slot nicely around the swell of your fourth finger, but the rot has dug into your flesh just enough that it doesn’t fit anymore. Not the way it used to. 

It’s beautiful, however. Silver with white and blue diamonds. He bestowed it to you one night, though it was significantly after his proposal. The proposal itself was… special. Not in a bad way — but in his way. He had been missing for several days after his army had been struck with an ambush. Only a few men had initially returned to seek refuge and aid from the city. 

It was only two months later, after the city had mourned the soldiers’ losses, that they had returned. Bloodied, battered, beaten, but they had returned. 

He’d spotted you that day when he’d ventured out alone to visit his favourite field of flowers. You were sitting amidst the orchards, because this was where he’d usually be. 

And by your wishes, he returned. 

“It’s you,” you heard him whisper. 

You’d never heard a more beautiful sound. 

You turned quickly and dropped the flower from your hands. The colour almost drained from your face before a newfound pleasantry blossomed across your cheeks. You smiled, and it’s the first time you’ve done so in months. “You’re alive.” 

You took a hesitant step forward, as if unsure if his body would crumble to dust the moment you touched him. 

You sobbed pathetically. You held his face, or what remained of it. “You’re here. I thought you–” 

“I am here.” 

You think it silly now, believing he was dead over and over again. Every time he departed he’d come after the expected arrival date, and even then you used to panic and flourish and do everything but accept he was really gone this time. 

And now. 

Now that he is gone, it only took you three-hundred and ninety-four years to accept it. The rest of those you were busy returning to his grave and retelling your day as if he was alive and listening. 

The few people that were left on this side of the city pitied you. Even the grand old Mage had whispered that you’d better off leaving the dead to sleep soundly before he’d left for Snezhnaya. There was nothing you could have done to prevent this, or what occurred afterward. 

You had asked the Mage, once, if necromancy was truly a thing possible. 

“I am sure, even if it was, living dead is worse than living alive,” he had told you one day. “The past is finished.” 

“Is it selfish to think this way?” 

He looked down at you, and there was pity in his glance. “Very.” You eyed the ring still captured around your finger. “But, love is selfish. To want one person for yourself. It is indulgent.” 

“I suppose,” you whispered. “But possession is beautiful.”

And it had been beautiful. 

Just you and him. 

It was hard to adapt. Still is, really. You forget him for days at a time, and then you remember, and then you return. You stop and stare at walls. You glance to where he would be standing if he was around; next to you, at the dinner table, on his side of the bed. You never truly made the bed your very own. It was his, once. 

Just as your heart was — you weren’t able to develop the courage to move onwards with your life, so you were trapped within purgatory; swindled in a void of pure blue, like his eyes. 

Because isn’t being someone’s everything so special? 

Especially someone like him. 

Someone so brave, and courteous, and gentle. 

You never deserved that, really. So it makes sense why he disappeared just as quickly as he appeared in your life. Unfairness. 

You look down at the ring again. 

“You would be mine?” he asked one day, laying beside you in the field. “If I asked?”

You stared up at the sky. “I already am.” 

That pulled a small puff of laughter from him, and he sat up. You followed shortly, facing him. “I have a ring. And a proposition.” 

Oh. You looked down on what he was offering you. 

“It is your burden to oblige, and it is your choice.” You couldn’t see his face clearly through his armour, but there was a flash of that awful treacherous blue he hated so much. “But, if you’ll have me, I will have you. In this life, you and I will be as one, and never apart again.” 

“That is a bold claim to make,” you told him. “There is no guarantee you will not die soon.” 

“To which I rephrase: even when I am gone and you still walk these plains, you will be mine, and I will be yours, and my love for you will blossom through the soil and bloom the flowers that you love so much.” 

You laugh gently. Such a stupid man. 

You want to crush the ring until it welds flat and unwearable. 

Marriage is a privilege to the blessed, and you’re far from it. You receive no watchful eye from the Gods; they don’t care. They killed everyone you ever knew, and loved, and shared this miserable life with. 

The jewel squeaks in its confines as you squeeze. 

Such a stupid ring. 

You breathe in shakily. Stupid, stupid fantasy. Stupid games. Stupid delusions and useless pining and all of this heartache was for nothing and–

How hard do you have to believe in love to love the same person for an eternity? How hard do you have to imagine a world where everything is perfect when what is foretold to be eternal dies with the soul and the flowers in the rot? 

How long do man and Gods have to continue fighting each other before they realise it is futile? Gods are not kind, man even less so. 

Beautiful rot and ruin. 

That’s the world. 

The crows that sing in the trees screech their awful song to mock you. 

So, you drop the ring. You abandon it right where he had abandoned you in the soil. The silver rolls along the stone until it comes to a stop on the cracks. 

And it sits. 

You consider picking it back up. 

You don’t. 

Instead, you stand and turn to leave. 

Fate is fickle, however. 

If you had picked the ring back up, perhaps none of this would’ve happened. 

The breeze hits hard behind you and it sends chills down your spine. 

You glance up. 

The crows are making awful noises again, and you grimace. Though the spindly trees are ugly, you find there’s nothing uglier than the sound of those birds. 

He rather liked them.  

You step away.

Something sharp scratches against your ankle and then twists, and you scream. 

It’s a branch of some sort, and it moves and wriggles like a worm when you free your foot from its grasp. It twitches as if it has not moved in years, as if the bones inside of it were finally coming to life. 

It retreats into the soil beside his grave. 

Then, nothing. 

Nothing moves. 

The crows still and quiet, and you feel as though you can’t find the energy or courage to breathe. Your ankle is covered in soil and scratches, and you’re sure from how weak it stands when you try to apply weight to it that it’s twisted at best and completely sprained at worst. 

The soil does not stir. 

Until it does.

A hand pops a hole through the ground, and it is as still as the branch was, twitching and writhing and feeling through the open air for leverage. 

A hand. A hand like yours—covered in rot and ruin, purple and blue, and the phalanges are swollen with wither and time.

You step back and bite your tongue. A wrist reveals itself next, consistent with blue and bruise, and it reaches until the bloodied terrible fingers squeeze the soil and begin to pull. The hand claws and claws and digs itself from the ground, fingernails dirtied and brown. 

You want to scream. 

Nobody would hear you all the way out here. 

An elbow. It climbs and climbs, revealing more rot and decay. It writhes as if in pain, and you don’t doubt it so. 

You swallow hard. 

A shoulder. Sides of the neck reveal itself through the soil, caked in mud and wear and tear. It’s other arm tears free from the ground. 

And then a face. 

A face unidentifiable and ruined. Sullied with rot and bruise and wear and fade and filth. Two horrific blue lights of sort cast through the pain and the shadow that shrouds its face, and it only prompts you to step back even further. 

To that, the creature leans forward as best it can to try and grab your ankle. It’s waist is stuck in the soil, and it tries to pull itself out, despite how weak it is. 

“It’s you…” the creature whispers. 

You can’t move. You don’t even blink. Your breathing only comes out in short pathetic bursts. 

You’re not sure what it is, but rot has completely disfigured it beyond recognition. It’s sickening to look at. It’s worse than anything you could ever comprehend, and you imagine one day that you will appear the same. 

It manages to free itself from the confines of the soil, though it cannot stand. It hasn’t done so in centuries, nd the feeling of moving limbs are foreign to it, being entrapped below the ground for so long. 

It tries again to reach for you. It’s fingers brush just shy of your foot.  

You swallow hard. “Who…” You feel as though you already know the answer. 

There’s a single eye that you barely recognise. Deep blue like violet satin robes. Darker than the dead blue spruce. Darker than the sky, and lighter than the depths of the ocean where the sun could not reach. 

You know him. 

You bite your tongue. 

Waves of black hair as deep as shadows drown you on both sides until the world has swallowed the two of you whole. 

“I’m yours,” he reminds. “Correct?” He raises the ring you let go of.

It is him. 

You fall to your knees in front of him despite the fear and nausea churning in your stomach. He almost leaps on top of you, but settles in front, hands reaching forward to rest on your legs. He has not felt the warmth of another person, or anything, for five-hundred years, and he only simply freezes at the feeling. 

You furrow your brows and try to control your breathing. You try to push him off to sit up, but he does not budge. 

“You kept my ring.”

Your fingers curl around what remains of his shoulders and he takes your hand. 

“It is you,” you whisper. “How’re you–” 

His old uniform he was buried in is caked in soil, and it’s covered you, as well. He does not bring himself off of the floor, but he leans back just enough to allow you to sit up. You feel you can’t turn to run just yet, and you’re not sure if you want to. 

You can’t steady your breathing. 

He cannot move his legs properly, and so while you freeze, he uses your corpse as leverage to climb further up and rest upon your shoulder. He is heavy, as heavy as a corpse is, but you find comfort in the weight, somewhere. 

“You look so different,” he comments. Rotten fingers come forth to graze the same textured remainders of true flesh across your cheek. “What has this world done to you?” 

“You died,” you say. His lips rest against your cheek and he hums. “I…” 

“I abandoned you.” 

“I grieved over you for five centuries,” you quickly finish. “You were alive this entire time in the ground?” 

“I don’t know,” he answers. “I don’t think so. I feel as though time hasn’t moved at all. But it has.” He looks around, your face still in his hands. “This is the field.” 

You nod briskly. 

“Everything’s dead,” he comments. 

“It has been,” you reply. “For years.” You look elsewhere. “Everyone’s dead.” 

He holds you tight. “I left you in a world like this.” His hair is matted and disgusting, but you reach up and rest a hand on his crown. Guilt presses into his chest like a weight, and he wills himself to ignore it, despite how heavy it is. 

He is a corpse. A corpse. Like you. Like everyone that remains in this place. 

And he scares you. 

Despite how tight he holds you, you fear him. You feel for a moment you are hallucinating; this can’t be real. Your husband cannot spring from the soil and restate his love. Not like this. 

True death was incurable, and he had died many moons before the war in battle. He had sacrificed himself for victory and peace, only for it to end when the Archons set forth and destroyed your home. You still remember them, even if most of them were dead now. That Barbatos and Rex Lapis remained, despite everything, and you wanted them both dead in return. Dead and buried and never to return in the soil. 

“This isn’t real,” you whisper. 

“It is.” 

“No,” you try. “You died. You cannot reverse death.” 

“It is not reversed. I am still dead.” He wants to kiss you, but the fleeting warmth of your skin as you try to pull away and the soil and filth that rests upon his face shies you away with a flinch. “I can be yours again.” His fingers grace over the rot along your face. 

“It doesn’t make sense.” 

“I proposed that I would never part from you, and you I, even after death.” He holds the ring close to your face before he takes your hand. He rests it against your knuckles, perhaps admiring how the silver still shimmers against your skin. “It was a vow.” 

A vow, he says. Your face scrunches up in frustration. “I never married you.” 

“Marriage or not, the ring was a promise of my word, and you kept it all these years.” 

He takes your fingers gently before he parts them and slots the ring where it belongs. It nestles gently close to your knuckle and you swallow. Your finger felt strange without the piece, and wearing it again after only minutes satiated that discomfort. 

His face is… nothing you remember. 

His eyes are barely the same as they were before, and you turn away when he draws close again with a shaky breath.  

“Are you afraid of me?” He’d asked you that many years ago, many times. 

Even now, you feel the same. “Should I be?” You look out towards the dead fields, and you feel something cold bump against your cheek. 

His nose squishes against your skin when he kisses you close to your ear. “No.” 

It is only then through a gentle whisper and his lips do you muster the courage to look at him. He is so different. 

But, he’s still yours. 

“Are you the same man you were five-hundred years ago?” you ask him. 

He leans in as close as he can and his nose brushes against yours. His fingers lock tight around your hand and he squeezes; the silver ring imprints on your finger. 

He smiles, and you fall in love again. 

“I can be.” 

[kinicheous]

dazed | kinich

kinich comes to your rescue, but your oh so poor heart doesn't know how to deal with it.

genres/notes: fluff, angst if you squint, reader is down bad, reader is also injured/poisoned (let me know if something is missing!)

you feel embarrassed. flustered. warm, but in a good way. or maybe not, you can’t tell for sure. you want time to stop, but you also want it to fast-forward you out of the current. you can sense the parts of your body that hurt — which make the reason you’re in this situation in the first place — but your mind is too hazed to care about that really yet. 

kinich’s presence almost throws you off. it makes you let your guard down, but you also feel hyper aware of everything around you. you want to keep a healthy distance that will give the beating against your ribcage a break, but you also want to be closer. closer and closer, impossibly closer, as if you’re not being held against his chest at this very moment.

you’re conscious of every inch of his arm around you, all the way out to the fingertips that dig into your hips to further secure his grip. he’s careful about it, yet knowing just fine what he’s doing, seeing as his vines travel you through the dense jungles of natlan with ease.

the chill air should feel nice against your face like this, brushing it like gentle whips, but it does nothing to cool it down. it’s still burning terribly, and your guess is that kinich can feel it too as you subconsciously nuzzle into the crook of his neck. turns out you’re right because he soon sighs,

“don’t tell me the poison’s giving you a fever.”

you definitely don’t have a fever.

you don’t try to respond back with more than a shake of your head. much to your relief, he doesn’t question it any further. just a quiet “good”, and you realize that even one word alone has a special ring to it as long as it’s spoken in his voice — the more you comprehend that fact, the more pathetic you feel. 

kinich opens his mouth, ready to speak. he doesn’t have a particular interest in scolding someone who’s injured and poisoned to the border of comatose, but this is slightly different; on his way back from a commission, he’d just happened to stumble across your miserable state; it was surprising to see someone greatly familiar with combat crouching back against a tree, heavily breathing while in desperate attempts of hiding from tribal warriors. were you on a commission of your own? or fighting an informal battle? a misunderstanding? he wasn’t sure, but watching them about to gang up on a single, damaged person — who he, on top of that, knew very well — didn’t sit right with him. before you knew it, you were no longer on dangerous ground. or any ground at all.

kinich truly is ready to speak, but nothing comes out when he suddenly feels you fisting his shirt, tightly collecting the fabric between your fingers. so, he closes his mouth, letting out a deep breath through his nose. “stop being scared. i’m not going to drop you.”

you definitely aren’t scared.

you couldn’t be, ever. you trust him, possibly a bit more than you’d like to admit, and you don’t like this type of feeling — this type of affection, one you initially thought would be softer, sweeter and kinder, only to turn out to be much more violent. it feels rather like being internally assassinated, or like having your flesh dramatically ripped apart.

you simply never expected that falling in love with someone meant exposing the most fragile pieces of yourself. 

you can’t handle that any further, so you make a meek attempt to push yourself away from him. claiming that “you don’t have to carry me all the way back,” that “i can walk on my own”, yet it doesn’t surprise you the slightest when he holds you even closer with a scoff he doesn’t even try to cover.

“if i dropped you off by your door right now, i don’t think you’d even make it to your room,” kinich sighs and for a second, in the middle of your growing exhaust, you have to wonder if you’re actually feeling his lips graze the top of your head, “so just rest until we’re there.”

[quinnyundertow]

Picking up the Pieces

For my bby Choso

MANGA SPOILERS BELOW

Angst with a happy ending, Hurt/Comfort

1,800 Words

Summary:

The fight with Sukuna has finally ended. Before he’s wisked off the battlefield the boy named Yuji begs you to try and save what’s left of his older brother.

AN:

I have been drowning in writers block. The manga has me so damn depressed and the one I want to live most right now is our baby Choso. He deserves to live that domestic life he never got to feel. Best big brother ever.

Picking up the Pieces

Choso had thought for sure he had died. No he definitely died. He had protected his little brother with his life. There wasn’t a more noble way to die. Now his brother would have the chance to thrive and grow old. Find a first love, have his first kiss, buy his first home. Have children that would have called him uncle Chocho. Never mind that Choso never had the chance to do any of those things either. Yuji would have the chance that he never did; and that made it all worthwhile.

“I’ve got you, just hold on.” Someone is talking to him. The voice is what he imagines angels sound like. Do curses get to go to heaven? Maybe death won’t be so bad. “Don’t you dare die on me.”

He’s so tired. More tired than he’s ever been in his existence. A part of him is annoyed you keep shaking him awake. Just let him rest for a minute. “Yuji needs you, so you can’t give up yet.”

Yuji? Who’s Yuji and why did he-? Yuji. Yuji! He takes a gasping breath in as his chest keeps getting harshly pushed on. He doesn’t know what CPR is but it’s painful. You keep pushing against his broken ribs. Don’t you know that’s excruciating? Wait, what about Yuji? “Yuji?” The words come out strangled and almost too low to hear.

“Holy shit you’re alive.” Your voice breaks with a mixture of relief and joy. “We're not out of the woods yet but damn it but we’ll get there!”

He tries to ask for Yuji again but all that escapes is a hacking cough from all the smoke he inhaled during his fight with Sukuna.

Thankfully, you somehow manage to understand and respond accordingly, “Oh, right. Yeah, Yuji is okay. Better than okay. Well I mean they rushed him to Shoko, our healer, but he’s gonna be okay. He’s not a vessel anymore. They won. I don’t know how they pulled it off but they won.”

The wave of relief that washes over him is visible. Your voice is coming in a little panicked now, “Woah, woah, woah! Nope! Yuji is okay but he still needs you. When they rushed him off he was asking for you. He begged me to save you. Said you’re the best big brother in the world.” Your tone warbles and his face feels wet. At least he thinks it does. Are you crying? Why are you crying? He’s a curse. You’re presumably one of Yuji’s companions, a sorcerer. Shouldn’t you want him dead? He’s straining to try and make out your features but you look like a shadow on a curtain or static on a tv. Are his eyes even open? Does it matter? He feels so nice, so warm. You’re cradling him and he can’t help but wonder if this is what his mothers love would have felt like. If his father wasn’t a rapist and if he hadn’t been born a monster.

“Shit, shit, shit. I’m losing him again!” Your voice is shrill and screaming as you wake him up again. You’re yelling names he doesn’t know, “Nitta! Nitta!” The sound is fading out. He can’t hear anything now. That’s alright. It’s perfect to go back to sleep to. He’s so warm and lovingly held. Just a little nap, well..maybe a long one. A nice long sleep.

~~

“I’ve got you, just hold on.” Your fingers keep slipping as you’re trying to do chest compressions. There’s just so much blood. The entire area reeks of it. Blood, smoke, dust. Smells of a battlefield. His pulse is so slow you’re not sure if it’s stopped or not. “Don’t you dare die on me.” This was bad. The worst you’ve ever seen. His body is so burnt and mutilated at this point he isn’t able to regenerate like a curse normally would. You try to infuse him with your cursed energy but it’s like his body doesn’t know what to do with it. It’s trying to shut down and you’re here telling it to work harder.

You can’t give up though. You’ve barely met the man in front of you but you know Yuji. As Shoko rushed Yuji off the battlefield his eyes had met yours. Choso’s name on his lips, his eyes a plea. “Please, Cho- tell him he’s the best big brother I could have asked for.”

The pain in Yuji’s eyes had been so raw. So visceral. Not even knowing what you were agreeing to you had yelled to Yuji, “I’ll do everything I can!”

So here you are. You aren’t sure if your reverse curse is even doing anything at this point. There are so many disconnected pieces of tissue. Blood vessels and veins so destroyed there is nothing left to repair. Nowhere for your technique to start. You can’t create something from nothing. He’s not breathing. Chest compressions. You’re throwing all the strength you have left into them. You vaguely remember someone saying you should push to the beat of “Staying Alive”. The song feels inappropriate in your head but it helps your timing. At least you hope it does.

The curse lying on the ground has given everything for his brother. Now you need him to live for himself. Grunting with exertion you manage to say, “Yuji needs you, so you can’t give up yet.”

When the corpse in front of you gasps you’re momentarily stunned. When are you supposed to stop chest compressions? Now? He’s hacking and you're trying to help him clear his airway. You're shocked he has an airway. Sukuna had practically obliterated him with flames. His lips are moving. You feel your cursed energy finally managed to find something inside of him it can work with.

Hands under his underarms, you pull. He’s not as heavy as you expected. Of course he isn't, he doesn't have anything left below the knees. You’ve managed to get his head resting on your thighs as you sit in the crumbling city turned battleground. He manages to croak out one word. “Yuji?” The word comes out strangled and almost too low to hear.

“Holy shit you’re alive.” Your voice breaks with a mixture of relief and joy. He would ask about his brother when he’s the one who is holding on by a thread. “We're not out of the woods yet but damn it we’ll get there!”

He’s giving this terrifying sounding cough that’s more liquid than air; but to cough means he has something there to cough with. His eyes open and his pupils are unfocused and blown. They don’t respond at all to light.

His brows are furrowing in panic when you don’t immediately respond, “Oh, right. Yeah, Yuji is okay. Better than okay. Well I mean they rushed him to Shoko, our healer but he’s gonna be okay. He’s not a vessel anymore. They won. I don’t know how they pulled it off but they won.”

His lip somehow manages to curl into a hint of a smile. He must not be able to feel any pain due to all the adrenaline. He’s relaxing against you and his eyes are closing. “Woah, woah, woah! Nope! Yuji is okay but he still needs you. When they rushed him off he was asking for you. He begged me to save you. Said you’re the best big brother in the world.” Your tone warbles and you’re yelling at yourself to hold it together. Tears fall from your visage on to his. You want to at least comfort him in his potential final moments.

Your hands go to rest on his cheeks. Your fingers lightly caressing him as you continue to give everything you have left in yourself to heal him. You brush his dark sweaty bangs off his forehead. His eyes open partially again staring into the sky. He’s rejecting your cursed energy again. “Shit, shit, shit. I’m losing him again!” You have to make an executive decision. You had been trying to give him the strength to kickstart his own regenerative capabilities but there’s not enough energy in him anymore to utilize it. You have to stop the bleeding. You have to sacrifice his legs below the knee if he’s going to survive. Rather than regrow the limbs like he normally would you focus purely on closing every open wound you can find. FUCK. Where is Shoko? Where is Arata Nitta? Someone? Anyone? There are too many wounded and dying. Not enough healers. Never enough healers.

A streak of platinum blonde hair in the distance catches your gaze, “Nitta! Nitta!” He was one of your underclassmen before you graduated. The Kyoto school is small enough to where everyone knows everyone. Nita’s looking for you in the rubble, unable to tell where your voice is coming from at first. “Arata!” His eyes lock on yours and he’s sprinting through the chaos. He looks like a track star the way he’s jumping building detritus like they’re hurdles.

He’s leaning over you trying to find where you are bleeding from but it’s all Choso’s blood. At least you think it is. “Can you help him?” Nitta’s face jerks down to what he had thought was a corpse in your arms.

He’s shaking his head no but he’s doing the movements for his technique. It won’t heal the curse hybrid but it will buy him time and at this point you’ll take anything you can get.

There’s a sharp tug in your gut as your cursed energy feels like it’s suddenly being siphoned out of you. You originally couldn’t find any of Choso’s energy to help him. Now large lifesaving gulps of your cursed energy flow into the man fighting for his life on your lap. You gasp in pain as you try to limit the amount of energy you are giving out at once. Choso’s not even conscious but instinctually his body is struggling like it’s drowning and you're the life preserver.

Nitta looks panicked, “He’s going to kill you!” You can’t afford to pass out now there are so many more people that need healing. Choso is unconsciously pulling you under with him. “This is a curse. It feeds off our kind. He’ll take from you until there’s nothing left.”

Shit. You feel like you’re going to faint. Choso’s eyelids are fluttering, they open as if seeing you for the first time. He’s clearly still delirious as his onyx eyes look at you confused. You visibly flinch, a groan in pain leaving you as he takes more of your energy. Understanding clicks in his brain and the rapid siphoning of your energy abruptly stops. Nitta is calling your name.

Nitta tries to pull you away from Choso so he can’t cling to your energy again, but you refuse to budge. You're not sure if Choso is even conscious despite his eyes jerkily roaming your face. Caressing Choso’s brow, you lean over him. Your lips are near his ear as you murmur comforting words. “I’ve got you. Everything is going to be okay.”

Chapter 2

AN:

If people want more I’ll continue. It just flowed out so here it is. Please don’t comment if you don’t have anything nice to say.

[agi-ppangx]

stranger (hwang hyunjin x gn!reader)

angst, hurt without comfort, break up, reader is in shambles

an: that's definitely not my best work so im really sorry for any mistakes >< nonetheless i hope you'll enjoy it, bc in my head the idea was pretty cool :3 also, the paragraphs written in italic are the memories, i dont know if i made it clear enough😭

“yn, don’t make it even harder,” hyunjin whispered as he glanced at your face. you must’ve looked truly pathetic - the tears were making their way down your red, puffy face and you were sobbing loudly. you couldn’t believe what had just happened - did he really break up with you or was it just a bad dream?

“hyune- baby, please, i-” you stuttered, gasping for air in between sobs.

“i’ve made my decision. goodbye, yn.” with that he closed the door, leaving you on the floor of your apartment. your vision was blurry and you were too weak to even get up. that day you fell asleep on the floor by the entrance, foolishly hoping that hyunjin would come back to you.

you recalled the memory, stepping out of the shower. it was the first time in a week when you decided to take care of yourself after hyunjin broke up with you. it’d been a hard week, but you couldn’t remember much anyway. the only thing you knew was the pain in your chest as if your heart was ripped from your body.

you didn’t bother to put on any clothes or to brush your damp hair since you headed straight to bed. you dropped your tired, achy body on the messy beddings and you shivered. it’d been raining for the past few days and you wondered if the sun had peeked into your bedroom through the curtains and told the clouds to match your mood so you wouldn’t feel lonely. you curled yourself into a ball, placing your hands on your shoulders as the raindrops pattered softly on your window. tap, tap, tap, the rhythm of the rain made your finger move faintly against your shoulder and suddenly the memories flooded your brain.

you felt someone tapping your shoulder and you yelped, blushing instantly as you realised you made too much noise in the library.

“sorry! sorry, i just-” the boy started hesitantly, whisper-yelling the apology. “are going to use that book?” he pointed to the textbook you were holding firmly in your hands. you nodded.

“oh, okay, sorry for bothering you!” he said with a frown and started walking away.

“wait! you can join me if also need it,” you suggested with a shy smile and he stopped in his tracks, turning around to you with a grin.

your hand wandered down your body, stopping at the waist. you squeezed it once, just like hyunjin used to do. a few tears made their way down your face.

“we passed!” hyunjin exclaimed as he ran to you with a piece of paper in his hand. you grinned at him as he stopped right in front of you, proudly showing you his score.

“congrats, hyune! are you going to-” you started but never finished as he suddenly grabbed your waist and picked you up, spinning you around, and you giggled. when he put you down he still firmly held your waist with one hand, squeezing it.

“let’s go and eat something, hm? my treat,” he said and you just smiled, letting him lead the way.

you squeezed your eyes, loud sobs now leaving your body as you remembered how happy you two used to be together. the rain outside intensified, turning into a downpour, and it made you feel even worse. “stop crying” you thought. “show the sun you’re okay so the clouds won’t have to suffer anymore.”

you moved your hand to wipe your wet cheek, but you just rested it there, suddenly remembering how hyunjin used to cradle your face.

“look, i can hold the whole world in my hands,” he whispered, looking you deeply in the eyes as his hands held your cheeks. you blushed and playfully hit him in the arm.

“stop being cheesy,” you whined, dropping your eyes because hyunjin’s gaze was too piercing for you. he giggled at your words and kissed your forehead.

“i just really love you, you know?” he then said and you hid your red face in the crook of his neck, breathing his cologne and relaxing completely as his arms protected you from the outside world. in that moment you felt complete.

a long wail left your body. it hurt, it hurt so much you thought you weren’t going to make it. what was left for you anyway? there was no one who could hug you after a long day, no one who could wait for you with warm dinner, no one who loved you.

you brought your hand to your hair, desperately trying to comb through them as hyunjin used to whenever you felt too overwhelmed. you grazed your nails on your scalp, imitating his movements, but it only increased the pain. you didn’t know how to treat yourself anymore - you gave all of you to hyunjin and as he left he took your heart with him, leaving you with the void that nothing and no one could ever fill again.

you wrapped your arms around your body again, squeezing yourself as hard as you could, but you soon realised only hyunjin could embrace you tightly enough for all the broken parts of you to fall back into place. with the day he left you you became a stranger to yourself.

taglist !

@lynlyndoll @iyenbread @flooo71 @skz-streamer @inniescandy-01 @hannahhbahng @prettymiye0n @ggsez31 @laylasbunbunny @like-a-diamondinthesky @axel-skz @kittymaryam-thebrowniefairy @l3visbby @skzhoes

[justabiteofspite]

WIP Wednesday

Was tagged throughout the past few weeks by @inkymoonbunny, @xxnashiraxx, @preciouslittlebhaalbae, and @verbenaa, so here's a hefty piece of lonely reflective Ascended Astarion angst since I didn't post anything last week.

Just for context, this is a Bad Ending AU set years after the brain where my Durge, Henri left A!A before being turned into a spawn, going off by herself to become a famous bard and has only just now returned to perform at Astarion's engagement party to an important elven figure as part of his political strategy. So this is him reflecting back on their relationship before talking to her for the first time in a long time.

When was the last time he had bedded her? They had been taking a break from the activity because his former self couldn’t handle it, the weakling. Astarion couldn’t help but wonder if that was a reason she ended up leaving after all. Even with his power he couldn’t fix himself fast enough. If she had let him bed her the night after he ascended, surely he could have gotten her to stay. Fix the times before that where he’d been out to use her and she had seen right through it. “It wasn’t difficult, you know, to see that whatever it was that you wanted out of this, it wasn’t me. Well, more than what I could provide. And you were clear that these nights together were just us having fun, nothing serious. I liked you beyond that but I didn’t know how quickly these urges were going to escalate. So why not go along with it and pretend? I get to experience a bit of life I’m not going to get to otherwise. And you’d move on to some pretty elf after we get to Baldur’s Gate where you have more options. I wouldn’t be leaving someone behind hurting after I needed to be...put down.” “Well, you’re not getting put down like some sick dog, for one, so let’s agree on that first,” Astarion snapped, feeling like he was going to vomit, “We are killing whatever this is and freeing you just like we’re killing Cazador. Alright?” She smiled softly, her eyes glassy, “Alright.” “Second, some pretty elf? Really? I’m already a pretty elf, my dear, why introduce competition? Where the hells did that come from anyway? Don’t tell me you think you’re unattractive in any sense of the word.” “Oh, I know I’m attractive just...you don’t seem to care for tieflings in general and between that and me looking like I walked off an autopsy table I thought I was more of a novelty item than anything else.” “Well, you’re not. So, there.” Gods he’d made a mess. “And as soon as I figure all this nonsense out, we’re redoing all your firsts with me. Properly this time. Real. Because I never want to make you feel like that again.” But Astarion never had the chance to fulfill his promise. And now he’d gotten himself a pretty elf and Henri was stuck with those memories of him using her.

No pressure tags: @elinorbard, @batbuska, @ladyduellist, @roguishcat, @tealfling

(If you already wrote something, feel free to just tag me in it!)

[vallification]

“womanly advice” // JJK AU

incl: satoru gojo, suguru geto, nanami kento, choso kamo (all separate)

content: angst, hurt, comfort, jealousy, unrequited feelings, drinking, flirting! no established relationship/pre-relationship.

wc: 3.4k

please like, reblog, and tell me your thoughts!!!

satoru gojo

you sway to the music pouring from the bar speakers, pressed against other warm bodies on every side, caught in the middle of the dance floor. shoko is pressed against your front, and her movements are abnormally stiff and laggy despite the copious amount of whisky and coke flowing through her veins. following her line of sight, your eyes land on the bar where gojo sits with geto at his side, both hunched over and whispering to each other animatedly. shoko’s expression is a mix of curiosity, concern, and confusion, but she continues to dance with you despite being distracted.

“what’s going on?” you ask, your voice slightly raised so she can hear you over the music once she tears her eyes away from the pair of boys at the bar. she maneuvers herself around to face you and brings her lips to your ear so she doesn’t have to be as loud, and says one word: “you.”

it’s said so plainly, but it almost sobers you up with how much that one simple word shocks your system.

your eyes widen in confusion, eyebrows stitching together as you pull back to look at her face. you search for any indication that she’s joking, that she doesn’t actually know what the problem is, that she’s just teasing you, but you come up short. shoko raises her perfectly maintained eyebrows in a knowing look, as if you should know exactly what she means, but your silence tells her that you know nothing of the sort. thin eyebrows raise impossibly higher on shoko’s forehead as a metaphorical nudge in the right direction, which is met with your unwavering, lost stare. her expression now matches yours, contorted in confusion, and she pulls you aside from the sea of bodies.

“are you playing dumb right now?” shoko asks, both of her hands planted firmly on your shoulders. you shake your head and try to look back at gojo and geto, as if you might be able to piece everything together with context clues, but shoko forces you to keep looking at her. “be for real with me right now. are you stupid?”

“is this about me not texting him back the other day? because we talked about it and i thought he was just being dramatic, i didn’t think he was actually upset at me,” you ramble, bewildered at the notion that gojo was actually that hurt at your “improper text etiquette.” jaw hanging slack as you talk, shoko mirrors your state of bewilderment, wondering how you got this far in life while being so oblivious. “i mean, he’s an adult man, shoko, i don’t know what you want me to do about—"

“oh my god.”

“what?” you bark, your patience spreading too thin to keep playing contextual tug-of-war with shoko, who says nothing before disappearing into the crowd.

now that you’re alone, confused, and frustrated, the dance floor loses all of its appeal and you accept your new position against the wall. you find a little bit of comfort in your glass, which is still half full despite its time in your hand as you danced. the ice has melted, watering down the fiery contents of the glass, but you bring it to your lips and nurse it anyway. it’s a pitiful attempt to get back to your prior level of drunkenness, because you don’t want to face this right now. not sober, at least.

what was “this,” anyway? “this” was the fact that you gave gojo exact instructions on how to successfully woo someone else and you were sick over it. looking at him made you sick, laughing with him made you sick, being around him made you sick; it made you sick to think that there was someone he wanted so bad that it threw him off his game. that was why you were avoiding him. there was no way that you were ever that someone, and that hurt. it was easier to withdraw from gojo prematurely than to sit and wait for whoever that someone was to take your place.

it's juvenile, and it’s shameful, and it’s not something a true friend would do, but you can’t help it. you didn’t think it would hurt his feelings, but by the time you noticed how close you two were it was too late. he knew your coffee order, your morning routine at work, your bed time, your weekend schedule, and you knew his. guilt (or alcohol) stakes its claim in your chest, uncomfortable and heavy, and your throat starts to feel tight, and you can feel your eyes start to brim with tears, and you need to get out of here.

once you leave the bar, you manage to get fifty feet down the sidewalk before you hear the door open, and you hope that it’s not gojo with every fiber of your being. from behind you, you can hear him calling your name, the alcohol, shoko, and geto prohibiting him from straying too far from the bar in his effort to search for you. you keep your back turned to him out of embarrassment, not because of him, but because you don’t want him or anyone else seeing you cry.

gojo finds the opportunity to break out of the two pairs of hands grasping the back of his white shirt and takes it, his long, drunkenly-wobbling legs sprinting down the side walk to you. he grabs your forearm to spin you around, desperate for you to face him, but you yank it out of his hand and hold it up to hail a taxi instead.

“come on, don’t do that,” gojo pleads, his words slurring together like wet ink smudged on a page.

“stop,” you say, commanding your voice to be as steady and calm as you can manage while being upset. he throws his arms up in exasperation at your reaction.

“it’s you!”

you spin around when he says that, and while a big part of you would love to believe that, there’s a sea of women who feel exactly the same way. you bridge the gap between the two of you and meet his eyes with your own, pointing up at him.

“that’s fucked, satoru. don’t say shit like that. that’s seriously fucked,” chastising him, you search his glossy, striking blue eyes for that familiar teasing look, but you don’t find it. you wish that you did. gojo’s face twists up in an inebriated amalgamation of bewilderment, confusion, and frustration.

“how is that—what? how is that fucked? it’s fucked that i’m being honest?”

“you’re not, and that’s why it’s fucked, satoru. that’s—why would you say that?” you scoff, and like an angel sent from whatever heaven awaits you, a taxi rolls up to the curb. throwing open the door, you can hear gojo frustratedly begging you not to get in, to wait, to talk to him, but you get in anyway.

as the cab drives away, you turn around in the backseat, and watch gojo crouch down on the sidewalk as the distance between you grows further.

suguru geto

from where you sit a few barstools down, you watch geto tie up his long, dark hair, leaving the view of his face completely unobstructed. even in the dim light, you can see the skin of his face and neck flushing pink, glistening with the lightest layer of sweat, courtesy of the stuffy atmosphere of the bar and the alcohol flowing through his veins. he’s laughing at whatever story gojo’s telling, and he looks and sounds so beautiful that it feels criminal to even think about looking away from him.

in your drunk, awe-stricken state, you want to chastise yourself for the time you spent moping about geto’s feelings for someone else, the time you spent ignoring him, and the time you spent groveling with jealousy over whoever geto’s got his eyes on. to you, there’s no conceivable way that whoever they may be is lucky enough to have this view—it’s seriously flawed rationale, but you won’t remember that thought when you sober up.

at some point between geto tying his hair up and now, gojo had wandered off to talk to strangers and shoko had wandered off to flirt with the hot bartender, leaving the two of you alone. you pull yourself from your trance to play off your staring problem, looking around the place a few times before settling your eyes on the neon sign hanging from the ceiling above the front door. he’s already caught you, though, and you hear his low laugh as he slides into the seat next to you.

“you okay?” he says, his smooth voice thick and sweet in your ears like caramel. all you can manage is a nod, still looking anywhere but at geto. to prevent yourself from saying something idiotic, you bring your drink to your lips, sipping at it slowly and relishing the burn it spreads through your chest. you can feel his eyes on you, his gaze ever-so intense, seemingly unfazed by your avoidance. it almost feels like he enjoys that you can’t meet his eyes. “you mad at me?”

“no,” you manage to murmur into your glass. you glance at him from the side of your eyes, and you praise yourself for looking away earlier while you had the chance. geto’s eyes are nearly half-lidded, his usually silky brown irises now shaded almost black in the dim light of the bar, and god, you feel like a pitiful deer at the mercy of a hungry tiger. there’s something about the way he’s looking at you that makes you want to spill everything you’ve ever thought or felt about him in a pathetic effort to make him stop looking at you like that.

“what’s the matter then?”

“pffft, nothing, i’m just—” you gesture vaguely around you to the dingy bar before throwing back the last of your drink, flinching as it goes down. “i’m just doing this. which, y’know, means nothing is the matter at all. in fact, i don’t think i’ve ever felt better. so—"

“look at me,” geto interrupts your rambling, and you look at him immediately. he’s got you exactly where you didn’t want to be, because you’re not sure you have the strength to defy anything he asks of you now that his eyes have yours locked in place. your eyes only leave his when they flick down to his lips, which look impossibly soft when he speaks again, beckoning to you like a siren would a sailor. “i miss you.”

for several seconds, he just stares at you, and you can almost feel the friction of his eyes dragging over your face—once, twice, three times, over your lips—before they lock back onto your own. you feel like a loser, frozen in place, unable to control your own body as geto pins you in place with something so simple as eye contact. in the back of your mind, you weigh the probabilities of what his intentions are: is he messing with you for fun, or is he into this? you pay no attention to which way the scales tip, you’re on autopilot, mentally scrambling to gather every last bit of self-control you have and standing up.

“i have to call my mom right now,” you blurt, and your jellified legs carry you out of the building and down the sidewalk as far as they can manage.

nanami kento

if you weren’t a coward, you’d admit that the reason for the heavy feeling that hangs on your shoulders is nanami’s admitted affection for someone else, but since you are a coward, you blame it on the monotony of your life. that wasn’t exactly a lie; you have settled into a comfortable routine, and although it’s nice to feel so stable, it’s lonely and lifeless.

sometimes you wonder if you’re too strict with your dating criteria, but every time you reevaluate your standards, there is nothing that sticks out as unattainable. not that it would matter, though, because you know exactly who you want. but he doesn’t want you. rationally, you’re not sure why he would want you (even if the other person wasn’t in the picture), because outwardly, you’re nanami’s opposite. you’re quicker to humor than you are stoicism, you’re louder than you are quiet, and you could be a lot more mild-mannered than you are.

it wasn’t like you were the type to feel worthless because you’re single; you’ve been single for several years now, and it didn’t phase you until you started getting closer to nanami. he was something out of a storybook, a fairy tale even, and you can still feel the devastation you first felt when he asked you how to win someone else over.

your mind drones on and on down the pathetic, beaten path of self-pity as you browse through the store’s selection of glittering necklaces and earrings. the glass countertops of the display cases are spotless, scratchless, and shiny, perfectly showcasing the expensive jewelry inside, resting peacefully atop red velvet pillows. retail therapy helped distract you when you felt sorry for yourself, at least. there were few experiences that matched the feeling of buying something new to take your mind off of your sad reality.

in the display case below, you spot something simple but gorgeous: a white solitaire diamond necklace with a thin, yellow gold chain. it’s got the perfect price tag, too, in the range where you won’t feel too guilty for buying it, but the purchase will still scratch the itch that retail therapy feeds on. before you can ask for a closer look, an inexplicably familiar scent washes over your senses. oud, sandalwood, amber, something peppery and warm—it’s something you relish each time it makes itself known, and it’s so distinctly nanami that you whip your head around to search for him.

the familiar blond scans the contents of the various displays, dressed impeccably as usual, but without the watch that habitually decorates his wrist. he looks regal, in a way, and you wonder what life would look like standing next to him, clutching his arm, willfully ignorant to the rest of the world… the watch. you try to think back to earlier in the day when you saw him, if you saw the watch, but then you remember how you dodged him each time he appeared. it makes you feel a little guilty, but he was probably grateful for it. a twinge of sadness follows that thought.

you lower your eyes back down to the solitaire necklace and half-heartedly attempt to block out the alluring scent of nanami’s cologne, but it’s no use. from the edge of your vision, you watch him recognize you, weigh his options, and then begin to approach you, so you try to discreetly fix your face into a more pleasant one.

“hey,” nanami says, taking the place at your side. the ease in his voice is almost jarring juxtaposed against the usual tone he took at work, and you mentally curse him for it, because it doesn’t help your case in the slightest. you try to fight the schoolgirl smile growing on your face, but it wins easily once you look up to greet him.

“hey, nanami. what are you doing here?” you ask, despite wishing you didn’t, so you could go back to feeling sorry for yourself in peace. that’s not really true, though, is it? no, not when he smiles down at you, a smile you’ve only seen grace his sharp features once or twice before. the feeling that follows in your chest could only be the work of butterflies. you hope you aren’t blushing, but the familiar warmth settles on your cheeks anyway and betrays your wishes.

nanami lifts his suited forearm and twists his wrist, signaling the absence of his usual watch, “well, i had to get my watch cleaned, so i’m here to pick it up. i get it cleaned every six months, and i like looking around while i’m here.” his usually tired brown eyes seem to sparkle down at you, and you feel like he’s casting some sort of heart palpitation spell on you. “can I ask what you’re doing here?”

“oh, y’know, just some retail therapy,” you laugh, wondering if that will disguise the near-breathlessness in your voice. he leans down to get a better view of the necklace in front of you, humming in approval at its design.

“it’s beautiful. I saw you looking at it before I came over here, I think you should get it,” nanami says, his sparkly brown eyes locking on yours as he returns upright again. “you’d look beau—”

as an associate interrupts nanami about his watch, you use this window of opportunity to book it out of the store. your eyes are wide, your cheeks pink, your heart racing at the proximity and sincerity of your short conversation with prince charming. there was no conceivable reality where, if that conversation was resumed, you didn’t make a fool of yourself. later, you’ll kick yourself for it, but you’re a coward a heart.

the necklace ended up in good hands.

choso kamo

friday movie nights at choso’s apartment were a cherished tradition for the two of you. well, the five of you now, if you count yuji, nobara, and megumi, who preferred friday nights at choso’s because he was a bit less intrusive than gojo was when they stayed at megumi’s. yuji’s father gifted him a big fabric binder of blockbuster movie DVDs that yuji was adamant about watching all of, which of course bled into friday movie nights. funnily enough, the three teenagers never made it through the last movie of the night, always ending up in a sleepy pile on the floor.

choso sits opposite of you on the couch with the neckline of his hoodie pulled up over his mouth, completely absorbed in the movie playing on the screen. you’ve already seen it before, so you only pay attention in bits and pieces, with the spaces in between dedicated to watching choso from the corner of your eye. sometimes you wonder if he does the same, but you never catch him in the act. his hair is down, pushed away from his face since its free from its usual twin confinements, and you wonder if whatever girl he likes has seen him this way.

you wonder if she’s sat on his couch watching movies, or slept in his bed because she was too tired to drive home. you wonder if she’s worn his shirts and boxers after taking a shower in his bathroom, or if she’s done the dishes with him after making a mess in his kitchen. heat rises in your face as jealousy rears its ugly head in your stomach, and while you watch him from the side of your vision, you pray to whatever will listen that you stay the only person who can say they’ve done any of that.

choso’s oblivious to your feelings on the other end of the couch. it almost makes you angry at him.

you wonder who she is. you wonder what she looks like. you wonder if she’s as mean and nasty as you are when you’re jealous.

one thing you’ve always hated about yourself is that you never fail to cry when you get upset. it doesn’t matter if you’re sad, or mad, or frustrated, or jealous, it’s almost certain that your throat tightens like it’s wrapped in barbed wire, and your eyes begin to well with hot, fat, pathetic tears. those tears almost always fall before you can catch them, and the choked down, heaving breaths almost always make a sound before you can silence them.

choso is your best friend, and he is no longer oblivious to your feelings on the other end of the couch. ish.

he sits up, his dark eyebrows stitched together in concern when he notices the tear that sits on your cheek, shining in the light cast by the movie on the screen. choso places a big, calloused, comforting hand on the bare skin of your knee as he tries to figure out the source of your upset, but he doesn’t find one. you flinch unnaturally at his touch, but he doesn’t move his hand.

“are you okay? what’s wrong?”

“the- I’m- it’s just the movie,” you fumble, your whispering voice warbled by your tears. the movie in question? superbad. choso gives you a funny look, his eyes flicking between your crying face and the screen, only becoming more concerned from there.

“are you on your period?” he asks, and you bring your hands up to wipe at your eyes as you start to laugh at his question.

“you’re not supposed to ask girls that, choso,” you fake-scold, which makes him laugh too. however, he’s still concerned, because you’re still teary-eyed.

choso wiggles his way over to you, now sitting on the couch in the proper position with your legs slung over his lap. one of his strong arms snakes its way behind you to pull you closer to his chest until he’s semi-holding you, resting his chin on top of your head. you try to reel your tears back in, but once you’re pulled to his chest, the entire dam breaks and you start to cry as silently as you can manage so you don’t wake the sleeping pile of teenagers.

“what’s wrong?” choso whispers, holding you as tightly as he can in this position. he’d held you while you cried before, but it was never like this. there was always a reason known to him, something obvious, but there isn’t this time. he wonders if it’s connected to your weird behavior this week, or if you’re depressed, or—he doesn’t know, but something must have happened.

“you can tell me,” he murmurs when you say nothing, frowning at the way you seem to sob a little harder after he says that.

“no, I can’t,” you whisper through your fingers. choso pulls back, just enough to see your face, confused by your response.

“why not? you always tell me everything.”

you bite your bottom lip to try and make it stop quivering, and you shake your head, burying your face back in choso’s chest. his chin resumes its rightful place on top of your head, but he’s still as confused as ever. choso says nothing this time, holding you in silence.

twenty minutes pass, only filled by the sound of rolling movie credits and soft sobs that devolve into the occasional sniffle. your arms are now wrapped around choso’s torso, weakly clinging to him as he holds you halfway in his lap.

“can I sleep like this, sir?” you whisper, your voice wavering, on the edge of tears again as you do a pathetic salute. you don’t know if you’ll ever be able to sleep like this again. choso laughs and maneuvers the two of you so that he’s in more of a reclined position, kicking his feet up on the couch without compromising your place in his arms.

“yeah, of course, ma’am.”

a/n: i have been writing this for 7 hours. you better like it or else. i'm jp but the smau will resume with this context for the next update :)

[safedistancefrombeingsmart]

What did John say in his letter to Sherlock? We never find out and I regularly wonder what John could have written. Here's my version of John's letter.

(Also, this is my 1st time writing anything, so this is a bit nerve- wracking stressful. Not a native speaker, not beta'd/ britpicked, and so on.)

Warnings: nothing too bad, just a bit lot of angst.

Broken

You broke me, Sherlock. You broke me in so many ways and I don't know if I can ever recover from it.

I have been damaged before. By Mum and Dad, by Harry. Bit by bit, piece by piece I rebuild myself, every time. Then came Afghanistan and it broke me more than anything before, inside and out. It took away my career, my future and I was certain that I could never fix what the war took from me. I was ready to end it all, on my own terms.

But then I met you and to my surprise you could repair what I could not, not on my own. You gave me purpose and brought back joy to my life. I felt alive. Needed. Happy. I don't think I've ever been this happy before, and I am sure I never will be again. I was convinced that you would never do anything to harm my happiness. But you did.

You broke me, shattered me when you jumped off that damn roof. You crushed my heart into a million pieces when you leapt into inevitable death, when I saw your skull cracked open and your dead eyes and the blood. So much blood. I didn't know that it was just a magic trick. A lie. Why did you have to lie to me, Sherlock? Not trust me enough to take me with you? I would have gone everywhere with you, done everything for you. Everything. I think that's what hurt the most. You not trusting me. I trusted you. With everything I had. And you broke that trust by not trusting me.

I don't know how I managed not to fling myself off that same roof. Oh, I've thought about it. Many, many times. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't do this to Mrs. H. or Greg who had already lost a son (or close enough) and a friend. I could not be that selfish. Yes, I thought you were a selfish bastard. Doing that to us. To me. Even made me watch. Cruel doesn't even come close to describe what you did. Did you know that I don't dream about Afghanistan anymore? I dream about your Fall and the cracked skull and the dead eyes and the blood. And how I failed to save you. You never needed saving, but I didn't know that and it haunts me to this day.

I don't know what Mary saw in me. I was a grieving, broken man with no purpose. But she insisted that she liked me and I couldn't convince her that I wasn't worth her time. She distracted me from the grief and in a way she saved me, not unlike you did when we first met.

And then you came back. And I should have been happy, right? The miracle I had asked for so many times. But you treated your return like a joke, like it didn't matter -like I didn't matter- and you ridiculed me and something else inside me broke and this time I broke something of yours in return. Sorry about the nose, but I was so FUCKING angry and you kept talking and you kept being an enormous prick and it made me so angry.

Mary thought she talked me around, to see you again, to talk to you again. The truth is: I needed no one to talk me around. I could have never stayed away from you for too long. As soon as (most of) my anger had vanished,  I was drawn back to you like a moth to the light. And I thought that, maybe, I could be happy again. With you AND Mary by my side. And a little girl on the way.

And then you got shot and I nearly lost you. Again. My heart shattered to pieces, again, while I waited for news at the hospital. And as if it wasn't bad enough with you nearly dying, it was bloody Mary who tried to break me this time by breaking you. How could you not see who she really was? The world's only Consulting Detective and the smartest man I have ever known, and you didn't bloody know??? I could not leave her, not with Rosie on the way. I didn't want my little girl to grow up without a father. I promised her to be a better father than my own and I could never break this promise. Not before she was even born. But you made me break that promise. You didn't pull the trigger, that day in the aquarium, but you might have as well. You SWORE to protect Mary so my little girl would have a mother and she still died. I cannot care for Rosie, not on my own. I can barely take care of myself.

I am a broken man, Sherlock, I am not the man I want to be. Not anymore. I am a washed up soldier and doctor, a single father who can't take care of his daughter, a son and brother being only 1 step away from following his father's and sister's footsteps and becoming a full blown alcoholic.

I can't be near you anymore. Not until I get better. And I don't know if I ever can. I do not trust myself, with all the anger and sadness and guilt and broken promises. Maybe this time I am broken beyond repair.

Do not contact me. Do not follow me. Do not spy on me (same goes for you, Mycroft!). Don't even think about me. Do not! Sherlock, I mean it. This time it has to be my way, not yours.

I don't know when I can bear to see you again, if I can bear to ever see you again. And this thought breaks whatever is left of my already broken heart.

John

(AO3 link)

[bensonsbobblehead]

The Village it Takes 

pairings; Spencer Reid x Mom!reader (ft Daughter!oc)

Spencer fakes his death ( basically how Emily did) leaving you and your 11 year old daughter behind.

Content Warnings; angst, sadness, talks of death and grief.

a/n; Hiii, I am working on a taglist and how to make one for the future im so sorry im still fairly new to this.

wc; 1.0k [ first ]

Spencer was always better with her, you were her best friend but Spencer was her diary. He encouraged her to do things he knew he would never be able to do. She was so outgoing, thanks to you, even though he was shy Ronnie brought out another part of him. After he died everything changed for the household. It was harder for Ronnie to adjust specially as she’s approaching womanhood.  

The two of you had argued almost everyday just for it to end with her breaking down in the end. You knew this was just her way of dealing with her father being taken from her. That didn’t make it any better for you though. Seeing Cameron like this was the hardest thing ever.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so mean mom.” She spoke after two hours of silently watching tv, “I just miss dad so much I want to scream. Some days it hurts to breathe and it makes me so angry. I miss him” she said randomly as you both watch tv together.

Thirteen was suppose to be a fun age where you begin to learn who you are or could be. Camerons chance was taking from her now she’s consumed with this grief. The same grief you were dealing with in your own way. It hurt you so much he was missing his beautiful creation grow up. 

You pushed her glasses up off the bridge of her nose, “I know its so hard, I miss him so much it hurts to breathe but I have you and you have me, this is how we get through it.” Kissing her on the temple.

You pulled you daughter into your side rocking her until she fell asleep. You were both abruptly awoken by the sound of your phone ringing. A call from Aaron Hotchner, which wasnt rare but why was he calling so late? He said in a few words that you needed to head to the BAU. 

You gathered your things wondering what in the world this could be about. You held Ronnie’s hand as you headed up to the office. Your heart was ponding reminding you of the last time you were here. You had came to clear out Spencer’s desk and collect his badge. You remembered it like it was yesterday. All the sad eyes watching you attempt to pick up the pieces of what was abruptly left behind. 

“Do you think something bad happened again?” She asked squeezing your hand harder. 

“I’m not sure Rons” you tried to reassures her also wondering the same thing. You all were led to the bullpen with Cameron opting to sit at her dads old desk. The room was filled with your husband family, Jennifer, Aaron, Emily, Penelope, Rossi, and Luke.

“As you all know Dr.Spencer Reid was pronounced dead three years ago.” Confusion spread across everyone’s face and Aaron continued, “Three years ago I made a decision to keep the identity of Dr. Reid and I take full responsibility.” 

“What do you mean keep the identity of him a secret?” You asked still completely confused, 

“Mr.Scratchs son was caught and killed by the fbi a few hours ago. Three years ago he couldn’t know Spencer was still alive and neither could any of you. Once again I say I take full responsibility” Your face cringing at the name of the man who caused you and your family so much pain. 

Then it hit you Spencer was still alive?

“Aaron what are you fucking saying to me? That my husband is alive?” If this was true all those days spent talking to his grave meant nothing. The picnics or visits to the grave after Ronnies competitions were nothing. Spencer was walking this earth while you were here going through the worse pain in your life. Asking with glassy eyes, you were pulled out of your thoughts by Penelope head snapping toward the door. 

“Oh my God” she said with tears falling from her blue eyes. 

There he was Spencer Reid, the love of your life, the man that made you a mother, he’s alive after three years. He stood tall and a bit bigger with his long curly hair. 

“Y/N I’m sorry, all of you really.” He walked in giving hugs to everyone in the room. You hadn’t even moved, you didn’t know rather to be happy or angry at him. For never saying anything for letting you believe he was gone. 

“Y/N, can — can I hug you?” He asked sincerely not wanting to startle you. Before you could even think your hand was moving to slap him across the face, your angry completely took over. 

“THREE YEARS SPENCER?!?, you left me and your own DAUGHTER and still slept at night?” You yelled causing the entire room to become silent. Spencer stood there with no response which only made you more upset. 

“Say something! Say why you did? Just fucking give me a reason to put us through this” you were hitting him in the chest causing Hotch to grab you. 

“YOU don’t fucking touch me!” You snapped toward him, the man that watched you break down silently after putting your daughter to bed every night. Aaron had been there for you and Cameron since he “died”.

Jack and Cameron were always friends before her dad passed and were even closer as time went on. Most of the time having Ron distracted helped you deal with your grief with Aaron by your side, he was one of your husband’s closest friends.

“Daddy?” You heard Ronnie’s voice from the door, you completely forgot you even brought her. 

Everyone turned toward the teenage who stood tall just like her father. She was even wear their matching converse they decorated together. Spencer turned taking in his daughter, immediately regretting everything . She grew so tall and looked so mature, he missed it all. 

“Cameron I’m so sorry honey, I never meant to hurt you sweetie” he didn’t move allowing her to feel whatever emotion she needed. Her eyes filled with tear with a small weep escaping her lips. Her breathing became uneven, she was gasping for air. 

“Dad? You’re alive?” She asked grabbing her stomach looking for some sort of comfort.

“Yes, I’m here sweetie.” Spencer said walking toward Cameron causing her to step back while shaking her head.

“No, No, I—-I, Mama I can’t —-” she said falling to the floor, gasping for air. you pushed pass Spencer immediately hoping into mom mode. Spencer stood still unsure of what to do to help his own daughter. His heart shattering seeing the pain all of this has caused.

“Im right here baby, just keep following my breathing.” You told her as you sat on the floor with her, Emily coming to sit with her too. 

“In and out” you guided her as her breathing evened out, “I’m right here with you love” you pulled her into a bear hug while looking back at Spencer.

You all got up from the floor as you headed toward the elevator with your daughter not saying a word to Spencer as he silently followed behind.

[maxs-deactivated]

Old vinyls.

Pairing: Joel Miller x reader.

Summary: Joel's feelings bloomed even before the outbreak. 20 years, a lot of losses and survival later, he finally finds one of his missing pieces. A Joel Miller one shot.

A/N: bro I have NO IDEA of when I actually wrote this, I just remember it taking me a few days to finish, and I never posted it bc I tought it was bad, but now I reread this and OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS IS WONDERFUL?! Hope you guys like it as much as I did :)

Warnings: hurt/comfort, crying, soft Joel, drinking, swearing, lil bit of angst, happy ending, this thing is long af, it's been a long while since I watched the show/saw anything about the game so it might be a little out of character or just "off" in general, there's not really any mentions of gender for reader so here you go my fellow non binaries :D

Anyways, let's get to the fic.

You knew Joel.

Before the outbreak he was a single father, a very caring and loving one. Being his neighbor meant seeing him every now and then, being that type of colleague you see once in a while and say hi.

At least for the other neighbors.

You, in the other hand, was much more close than that.

To start with the fact that Tommy was your best friend, you two met at high school and became inseparable, so naturally you would know his brother, Joel, and his niece, Sarah. You always lived there, nearby, so it was normal for you to hang out with both brothers whenever you could and even take care of Sarah when Joel would come home late from work. You knew her since she was born and, hell, she was almost part of your family too.

Not that you would admit it out loud though. But you really cared for her, and for her father.

As you grew closer to Tommy, you grew inevitably closer to Joel as well. Since you met him you knew he was a cool guy, respectful but yet playful, not like the guys you met before that only talked about hooking up and making out, no, Joel was gentle and friendly and, when you know him, talkative. It always drew your attention how he looked after Tommy and, later on, Sarah. it was endearing to see.

When Sarah was 12, you moved in the house right next to Joel's, wich was the number one reason you became so close to him.

Oftenly you picked Sarah from school and had her sleep in your house because Joel would come home late, always recieving an apologizing look and a shy smile the morning after when he would come to take her home and, oh! How you loved that smile.

To "pay his debt" (as he liked to say) he'd take you out to some bar or a restaurant whenever Sarah went on a sleepover at a friend's house, and you two always ended up sitting on the corner just sipping on your drinks and talking about life, giving each other advice, sharing life experiences, and above all having a good time. He'd also not drink any alcohol just to drive you home safe, and refuse to listen to any of your protests.

One night you were at a restaurant, on the other side of the city, talking like always and Joel laughed at something you said, genuinely laughed. And that was when you realized you had fell in love with the man, you were always giving him those looks and scarlet cheeks without even noticing, until this night came and changed everything, you were now aware of every little glance, casual touch, any smile and laugh he gives you, you were drunk i this feeling.

But Joel? Oh, he already knew that for so long.

The moment for him was when you came to lunch with him and Sarah at his house, something around a year before. You helped him cook the meal, wich made him notice how much better that dish tasted with your touch to it whether it being just your presence or the ingredients you put, he wasn't quite sure yet.

After you all ate, you sat on the couch and Sarah suggested to put on some music, and right after that start looking through Joel's vinil collection. Let's say she knew what she was doing, first she put on some rock, Gun's and Roses, just in the ambience as you both talked and she washed the dishes. After that she found the vinil Joel had bought only and exclusively because you recommended from a band you really like, you say it reminds you of home, as your father used to play those songs all the time.

He watched as your eyes went wide with a look of excitement when realization washed over you, the melody forcing you to your feet and pulling Sarah. You rocked back and forth, dancing with the teenage girl, as you sang with the most wonderful voice you ever had.

The sparkle in your eyes mixed with Sarah's laughs and the vibe of the song made him realize how much of a wonderful person you are. Always kind to other and wiling to go out of your way to help someone, your charming personality and your unique style, oh! How much he loved that.

Joel not only saw your gorgeous features but also you, the real you. That is scared of thunders, that loves music, that cooks like a chef and have those little quirks and mannerisms he picked up unconsciously, all of that drove him out of his mind and he loved the feeling of loving you, it made him feel alive. Of course seeing how much Sarah likes you too and the way you're so caring towards her just makes it clear: you're the one for him.

Joel's drunk into it since that day. Every time you wave at him from your yard, every time he takes you to these restaurants and bars, when he sees you in his passanger seat, and the fact you just grow more and more admirable to him... It only makes him want you even more, it makes him want to be the one to treat you right after seeing so many partners destroy you. He'd glue pice by piece if needed.

Talking of bars... In one of those times you two went out, you decided to leave the bar you were at and go back to Joel's place. The food at the bar was absurdly expensive and your stomachs were grumbling way too loud for you to just spend the rest of the night there.

Once you got to his house, he made two sandwiches for the both of you and you ate slowly, never losing the topic you were talking about. When you two finished, Joel went to wash the dishes and once again you decided to put on some music.

Looking through his vinils you saw one you also had, a very very old one, dated in the 40's/50's. It started to spin and a few songs into it, it started playing one you really liked: 'Cheek to Cheek - Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong'. By that time Joel had already finished, he walked into the living room still wiping his hands with a towel when you started swaying around to the calm yet enthusiastic beat.

Moving your hips, you felt the melody entering your body and giving you the best feeling of peace. For Joel you looked ethereal in such form, unworried and calm.

A tought crossed his mind and he acted on it before the opportunity scaped. Joel approached you behind your back as you still had your eyes shut closed, feeling yourself through the song, he then placed his right hang on your waist testing the waters. First he had to know if you were okay with that, little did he know you were melting inside, unable to come up with something to do or say in that moment, so you just kept going, like nothing was happening.

As you didn't show any sign of discomfort or didn't flinch from his touch, he placed the left hand on the assigned place on your waist like it was supposed to be there for so long. Now becoming more comfortable, he swayed with you and came even closer, with that your hands automatically went to his, guiding them lower to your hips.

It felt like a dream for the both of you, and of course you wouldn't ruin it with any obvious comment, so you just accepted each other's presences and enjoyed it.

By the middle of the song you kept your hands in his as you turned to face him, still dancing lightly.

Joel looked into your beautifully colored irises and saw the contentment, making him bloom a smile of his own. As you also stared at his honey eyes you placed your arms on both sides of his head, lightly and gently wrapping your fingers around the back of his neck.

Ever so slowly you approached each other unconsciously, ending up doing exactly what the music says, dancing cheek to cheek.

In a few moments you pulled back, just to look at him in the eyes again, now you saw the desire and all the unspoken words and your eyes dropped to his mouth, slightly open and awaiting for what comes next. Yet you decided to speak up before things got confusing.

"I, uhm..." You start, looking down "I really like you Joel, and I don't mean just as a friend or in a way to get this situation to increase... I really do like you, and I have for a time now" now you look into his eyes again.

Joel seems surprised, probably much more because you had the courage to say it first than with the actual statemente, he already suspected your feelings. He opened his mouth a few times, looking for the best words to not fuck this up.

Before starting he let out a relieved breath "when I'm with you I feel alive" he let's out "You make my days a little bit brighter and you bring the colors of love back into my life" Joel laughs "gosh, I'm not even good with words but for you I have practiced this speech for so long... Waiting for the day I would be able to call you mine".

His gaze soft yet eager for you, analyzing every reaction of yours, he's been waiting for so long, poor man. While you're still processing what he just said.

"then do it, I've been your's for so long already" you breath out, coming closer again, but thus time your lips finally touch.

After that, what I can say is that your relationship is solid as rock, you love each other so much and absolutely no one can get into it, you are inseparable.

... Well, at least you thought.

A few days before the outbreak it was your father's birthday and you couldn't just not see him like the past two years, you decided to visit him, perfect timing for disaster.

As the snow falls outside the window of your house in Jackson, you remember it all like it was yesterday...

"Are you sure you don't want to come with me?" - you ask Joel as you hold onto his jacket. He just returns with a chuckle.

"C'mon! There's still time! You go home, pack your's and Sarah's things and I buy you two tickets, what do you think?" - you try again.

"You know I can't just leave everything behind, love. Sarah has school and I'm about to take that project" - Joel plants a kiss to your temple.

You're disappointed but not surprised, you alredy knew he couldn't come with you, but something within told you to push him and Sarah into that bus with you. Maybe it was just the idea of being three weeks away from your boyfriend, but there was still a bad feeling in you that you can't seem to get rid of.

He locks eyes with you, his honey eyes always seemed the things to calm you down don't matter what happened, and he opened his mouth to say something but the words never came out, you decide to talk then.

"I know love, I just... Have a bad feeling, you know?" - you sigh, looking to the ground then back at him.

"I'll miss you a lot" - you confess.

His gaze softens, with his hands wrapped around your face he leans to a kiss, that is interrupted by an announcement on the speakers, saying your bus was waiting.

Joel gives you one last peck on the lips before pulling you into his embrace. The man is not very good with words, you know that, so this is his way of saying 'I'll miss you too'.

When you pull back, his big brown eyes are filled with unshed tears, sight that make your own set water up. Painfully you break free from his grip, slowly walking away as the tears rolled down both of your cheeks.

...

When you first came to Jackson and you saw Tommy again after 20 years, you had talked to him about... Well, over all everything that happened but mostly what happened to Joel.

But Tommy isn't dumb, he knows who you are even after 20 years apart, he knows if he ever tells you where Joel is you would go flying to him in the same instant, but with all those ridlers and infected around he couldn't handle the idea of letting you go, even more after just reuniting with his biggest friend. He won't risk it.

When you two sat and talked, you asked him if he knew where Joel was, but Tommy shrugged, said in a breath that he just didn't talk to him for a long time and, as Joel is, he probably didn't stay in the same place for too long.

He also tol you about Sarah... With a painful voice he told you how he just watched as he lost his niece and his brother on the same night, because Joel just... Wasn't the same anymore, he changed, he did things (but Tommy never told what things)... Joel isn't the same man you met 20 years ago.

"Well, I didn't expect him to be the same" - that's what you told him, gaining a pitiful gaze from your friend.

Tommy feels pity for you, he thinks you're so lost in the world, and that you need for a purpose so bad, you will chase down any opportunity to go back to that old life of yours. You told him it wasn't about it but of couse he never listened, he just wished for you to wake up to reality, wich in his mind was, that you are now safe, in a place you can live the rest of your life in peace.

But it didn't erase your deep sadness.

It's been five months since you came to Jackson, it haven't been half as bad as you tought it would be, actually people here are neighbourly, everyone helps everyone. Gosh, you like this place. But you can't forget how lonely you feel now.

Of course, there's Tommy and his wife, but now you live alone in this enormous house he got you. Such a huge place and nothing to fill it with if not solitude. But the worst part of it is how seeing Tommy again resurfaced the feelings for Joel you so long burried away, as the only way you found of copig with the fact you would never see him again.

The problem is that now there is hope.

And suddently the urge to know more, to find him, hits you. You can find him, you just need the right clues.

You came back to your house, unlocking the door and shutting it behind you, you saw the map spread over the dining table and for a brief moment the possibility of staying and just... Leaving Joel be, crossed your mind. For a moment it doesn't seem so bad after all... If he didn't come to you before, why would he want you now? The person who took people's lives, who learned how to use a gun on their own, who can't sleep at night with the ghosts of the people they killed... You're not yourself anymore, why would he want you back?

But before you could think further into it, a knock behind you brings you back into reality. Turning the knob again to open it, you saw Tommy, in an euphoric state.

"You need to come with me, right now" - The man says with a wide smile across his face.

You're still clueless - "What happened?".

Before answering he pulled our of the door, dragging you by your arm across the street, right to the construction he was helping with.

You see the horses and recognize some of the people standing with them, but there's one little girl, around 13 or 14 years old, you can't record.

Abruptly Tommy stops to turn to you, with tears on his eyes - "someone heard your prayers, my friend".

He then placed a hand on your shoulder, leading you into the crowd of people, as you got further into it, your eyes catch Maria talking to a man, his salt and pepper hair falling over his eyebrows and then you saw it.

His big brown eyes.

Staring into your own.

Your heart drops and your knees turn weak. How are you even still standing?

"Joel?" - you call his name, but he is still unsure if it's a dream or not.

His heart beats loud on his ears with the realization, you are alive.

Tommy lets go of your shoulder and you waste no time in running to Joel, straight to the safety of his arms, safety you longed during 20 years. But yet he stays froze in place, maybe his mind was tricking him? Could it be an hallucination? He's tired and haven't slept in at least three days, he can't just trust his eyes right away.

But it is not necessary.

You finally get to him and he don't hesitate, his hands reaching for both sides of your face as he examinates it. Your gaze never leaving his as well.

Desperate arms pull you into his embrace. He smells like wet grass and wood, not the expensive cologne he used to wear when going out with you, but it isn't a problem. After all you found him, or better saying, he found you.

Joel tuck his fingers around the back of your neck and under your hair as he wishes to get closer to you, if it's possible. And he cries.

You hear his snifles on your ear and feel his tears leaving a wet spot on you jacket.

Joel's not good with words, you know that, but this is him saying "I missed you". This is him telling you about Sarah, Tess and how he lost himself the night of the outbreak, and it doesn't need one word to make you understand. He lost everything. But for what it seems, he just found everything again.

[yeonslayjun]

Dumb and Dumber - Hualian

Hua Cheng and Xie Lian are so OBVIOUS and OBLIVIOUS at the same time Honestly They amaze me ngl

Cuz Hua Cheng be Like - Wdym Gege Loves me?? That's impossible like I don't think he loves me solely for the fact that I'm one of his last believer left and that I built a FUCKING CITY for him and how I ran helped him in a case and dressed up as a Groom and gege was a bride (Oh his dead heart definitely started beating then pls ) and how I Built a temple to worship him and how I released 3000 lanterns for him and that I've made 10,000 statues for gege and not how I have red thread of fate on my finger bc he tied his hair on my finger

ALSO wdym I had my gay awakening at the land of tender??? Impossible He's my god I can't have those feelings for him bc I'm a dirty piece of shit (NO YOU ARE NOT)

and DEFINITELY NOT HOW I GAVE HIM Spirtual Power... DEFINITELY NOT HAHAHA.... Now let me just ask his hand for marriage OH nvm I'm unworthy he doesn't like me ( WHILE XIE LIAN IS SITTING ON HIS LAP ) let's make it into a joke hahaha..... OH? Gege's says he's happy for my beloved when will he know it's him talking about?? :( ( let's ignore he didn't know half of these lmao)

OH MY GOD GEGE SAW THE STATUES That's it I'm getting disowned by him He'll hate me ofc he will... I knew this would happen no I'm okay, IT'S FINE... Yeah he really should make it clear that he doesn't love me huh? :((

Like Hua Cheng is SO DOWN BAD for Xie Lian Like Honey we get it You exist to LOVE your Taizi Danxia and to serve Cvnt and angst

AND

My guy Xie Lian here is SO VERY OBLIVIOUS like I get that he was practicing abstinence but bro's like -

Oh Hua Cheng is such a pretty name *giggles* Oh and his hands were so beautiful and he was gentle with me too when he dressed as the Groom *blushes* Oh Crimson Rain Sought Flower is his name? *swoons* HOLY SHIT HE'S HOT *nosebleeds*

I like this kid san lang. OoO Did he just suck the poison out of me?!?! DAYUM he killed so many people at once *swoons x2*... WAIT IS HE HUA CHENG??!?! Oh my gosh IT IS Hua Cheng ajhsjdhsudhu Let's act calm and composed hehe. Let's sleep together cuz He would never hurt me >:( I wonder what happened to the kid who said he'd worship only me :( He was a good kid yk? Had one eye covered too kinda like you actually haha Funny Right???

He's so perfect as a "sworn brother" ( Yes I'm looking at you SQX) protecting me and shit. Wait he trusts me??? ME?!?! huh?!?!. San Lang~~~. AHHH HE RELEASED 3000 LANTERNS FOR ME AHHHH I LOVE HIM as a friend ofc ofc.

Oh I LOVE getting Spiritual Energy from him <3 that wasn't a kiss nope it wasn't.... ERROR 101 San Lang asked my hand in marriage ERROR.... o h He was Joking :( ofc he was :((( I wish he wasn't tho :((((( SAN LANG HAS A BELOVED?!?!? Ofc he has He's such a handsome and kind man he probably gets all the bitches he wants But why do I feel smth weird in my heart?? (IT'S CALLED JEALOUSY YOU DUMB MOTHOFO )

Honestly God (Jun Wu LMAO) Knows how he survived the past 800 years like BRO WHY IS YOU SO STUPID when it comes to love?!?!? Like ISTG He's one of the smartest of all the jokes called "GODS". But he still doesn't get it till he saw the 10,000 statues Hua Cheng prepared like pls

ALSO Hua Cheng the ghost king who defeated 33 gods and how his smartass self esp rubbed the floor with them Civil Heavenly Officials But the one moment he needs it to realise the VERY OBVIOUS FACT that Xie Lian loves him The Genius Smartass is nowhere to be seen

But tbh I can't blame Hua Cheng much here cuz Xie Lian was very oblivious to his own feelings pls BUT STILL

Their Slow-burn was too much for me Like the chemistry was SO OBVIOUS but they're just Dumb kids when it comes to feelings *sighs* The Hualian Brainrot is rotting my brain away as we peak

[cheri-2047]

Genshin angst headcanons

scaramouche lyney kaeya ga ming

my bad if I accidentally mischaracterized them

Scara:

He used to love hanging out with people. (Just like niwa) to make him feel like he has a heart. To try to get him to be human even if deep down he knows it will never happen. Whenever he is alone, he feels dead and empty.

he spaces out a lot, while walking, doing his homework and other shits. But when he does it’s because he wonders what would have happened if his mother loved him. He wonders if he would still be a monster

he’s the type to laugh the pain away, but when he does he’s still crying a lot (this is based on one of the lines he says)

He wonders if it’s really worth it. Like with relationships if it’s worth continuing. Deep down he’s still scared of being betrayed and abandoned again

lyney

He physically cannot cry around others. Even if he wanted to, he physically cannot. He has a hard time accepting himself and is always wondering if people would actually like him.

I bet he tried opening up before, he really did. But then people laughed it off, thinking it was a joke and taking it for a mere piece of entertainment.

i bet after arguing with freminet about his mask, he spent hours telling lynette how much he felt bad. He wanted to apologize but didn’t know how.

he cares for everyone, even if he has his own problems. He comforts people when they are down but…he always wonders, who will comfort him when he is down?

if people were to criticize him then laugh, he’d laugh along. Like “oh the magic trick u did earlier was so bad!! Haha!!” And hee laugh along. He is used to this type of criticism but once everything piles up, he actually gets hurt.

Kaeya

Whenever he’s drunk, he drunk mumbles. Except he’s whispering too soft for anyone to hear.

he loves to drink because not only does it help him forget (he actually doesn’t forget) he likes the feeling of warmth. He missed the warmth of “home”

this man hates looking at himself without his eyepatch. He thinks that if he never interfered with diluc, diluc would have been happier. He thinks that it’s all his fault.

ga ming

When his dad sold all his dancing stuff, he cried and cried. Talking to the moon thinking it’s his mother. “Mom…what do I do? Why..dad took away the one thing I loved and the archons took you away from me too…what more will they take?” Typa stuff

he’s very uncomfy whenever people try to persuade him to go back home. He dislikes thinking about it and when he does, he keeps his mind busy. This kid barely ever has breaks because his mind is busy avoiding problems.

he can’t be sad, not because he’s scared but because he knows his mother wouldn’t want him to be. But he knows one day he will spill and everything will come out. Hes very scared for that day.

this was not proofread

[irulaan]

THE ONE | SIRIUS BLACK

— I persist and resist the temptation to ask you if one thing had been different. Would everything be different today?

nav | masterlist

✧ PAIRING. sirius black x fem!reader

✧ WORD COUNT. 3.6k

✧ WARNINGS. angst. cheating. inspired by my own last breakup. mm slightly proofread and all over the place, expect mistakes, sorry! chronology? who’s that? very ooc sirius

The Christmas dinner that year had a gloomy aura. And everyone pointed the finger at your miserable frown and lost eyes, and of course the big sign above your head with bold crimson letters, ‘heartbroken’. Most of them cataloged you as selfish and whiny; why bring your long face to such sweet festivitie? As if you wanted to have those judging eyes all over you, as if you wanted to be there.

You’ll have a few spoonfuls of whatever that doesn’t trigger your desires for throwing up. Maybe you’ll still do, since your emotions are tied up in knots in your stomach.

Poor of them if they dare to ask you how it all started…

Steadying your breathing, you tried to locate your friend without success. She isn't there, because if she’s not early, then she’s not attending. Resigned and a bit anxious, you decided to take a seat. Alone.

The professor just walked in. “Page number 58” Was all she said.

A ragged breathing and faint footsteps caught your attention and your eyes followed the sound to found one of the most eccentric sixth graders. The blond one, well blond, you weren’t sure—his hair resembled the warmest sand. And he was always hurt, a few scars marring his soft skin. You didn’t like to stare. But you had seen him before, of course, he was in that group—the marauders, as they’d named themselves.

He sat beside you. Trying to tame his breathing, he wiped a few beads of sweat from his forehead. His darkish hazel eyes found yours, by his expression you knew he didn’t recognize you. It’s okay, so you smiled, and he did his best to try to imitate you. Maybe he wasn’t very used to smiling at strangers? But there was something else. His constant movements and his wandering eyes were screaming something that wasn’t your business to translate.

But there you were, concerned, once more, by a stranger who didn’t even knew who you were.

“Are you alright?” You whispered to him, and he turned his face towards yours, what it felt like a whiplash. He had piercing eyes and an expression shouting “lunatic”. But he ends up nodding.

It’s weak. And you’ll curse yourself until your death for scavenging into your pocket for a piece of chocolate. “On bad days I like to have one of these. Not much but they’re delicious” You offered to him, and he was clearly confused. How could you mind if you knew he was a troubled soul? “It’s yours” It’s the confirmation he needs to accept it, after all, he just cataloged you as nice, bit weird tho.

This time his faint grin matched his eyes. It isn’t uncomfortable to watch. “Thanks”

He looks hesitant to eat it, but ends up devouring the small theat. It was his favorite flavor. He isn’t searching for new friends but in that second, even if it sounds pathetic, he thinks you’ll be a good friend.

The boy clears his throat, startling you, so you shoot him a look. He’s fine, and he mutters, “Oh, uhm,” He’s looking at your possessions scattered around your open book, searching for a name. And you don’t have a problem understanding what he meant.

With a smile, you say your name.Then you pointed at the forgotten aluminum wrapper tossed on the table, near his own open book. “It’s good, right?”

He finds himself surprised. He felt caught and he doesn’t even know why. “Oh, yeah, it’s perfect, it's not about this… I was wondering, ubm” He’s not usually this awkward, he’d built a confident façade over the years. This was just the full moon’s residue. “Do you have… Can you lend me your last week’s homework? … Please?”

You nodded, almost too excited. Not a lot of people asked for your homework. It’s dumb to feel proud. It’s stupid to feel great because you’re being needed by a stranger that probably is about to forget your name.

“Oh, yeah, of course, you’re lucky she didn’t give us much…”

It's okay to regret that pivotal moment when you saw someone crumbling before your eyes, despite your good intentions. You couldn’t despise Remus, he just opened a door but you shouldn’t have entered into his world. Introducing you to the raven-haired boy was his doing but it was your fault to fall for his empty words and ghostly promises and with it, you destroyed everything.

His laugh makes your heart flutter, but you won’t admit it, not now. “Do you have something to do this weekend?” He inquiries, looking down at you with his bright grey eyes and a playful grin.

You held his stare, as you enjoyed searching for undiscovered eye’s details or marks across his face.

“Oh, no, not really…” There’s a beat of silence. Sirius is about to open his mouth, but you formulate a quick question to rescue you from the second hand embarrassment. “What about you? And the boys?”

He frowns, it’s subtle, but still noticeable. “I don’t know about the boys… not really” There's another awkward pause, which seems to drag on and yet is over too quickly. This is far easier for him, you should’ve known. “I was wondering that, because I think it would be great if we go out… to Hogsmeade, together?”

Oh, there are birds chirping in your heart so loud you could hear them. “Yeah, absolutely” You tried to not smile too big, too enthusiastically. It’s pointless, you don’t really want to hide what’s happening inside you, but you’re afraid too.

Now you know you shouldn’t have to accept it, you shouldn’t have jumped into his sticky, harmful webs.

That day you gave him your best smile, your best content eyes. Your softest tone. “We’re going to have a really great time!”

In the present day, and far away from that memory, you understood why your friends hated him so much, even if at the start he hadn’t technically done anything wrong. They knew. Maybe you knew too, but choose blindness.

You thought you'd never understand how things changed so fast, the thing is they didn’t. It was subtle, almost unnoticeable how everything was much more vivid and tender than everything before he asked you to be his girlfriend under the beating sun of august. Everything after felt like a weird, gloomy dream.

“I’m sorry I didn’t think you’ll care that much” He had the cheek to shrug.

Your face softened, no longer holding a frown. Angry melted into disappointment. “Of course I care…” Your voice is delicate and he felt like the worst human on earth.

“Don’t make that face,”

Swallowing a knot in your throat, you gather the strength to speak your mind. Fighting how afraid you’re to mess up the relationship. “Siri, it’s just—You know I, we see each other almost everyday and I don’t—I can’t understand why.” You paused to take a breath, to stabilize yourself, to not go to dark places of your mind. It’s inevitable. “It makes me think you don’t wanna go out with me…”

He desperately shakes his head, like he thinks he can change your mind. “Of course I do! You make me laugh, you’re intelligent plus you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen” Outside, you rolled your eyes. Inside, even knowing it was the most common and ordinary line ever, you feel your heart warming. But your face still had that pout. Those glossy eyes. That dark grey cloud above you, ready to wet your cheeks. “I’m sorry, I just have a lot going on right now, You know, with the boys, and other stuff”

And you act like you forgive him. Because you’re good, because you love him, because you’re worried you’re doing everything wrong. “It’s okay,” I’m getting used to it already, you don’t say. There’s thoughts sharp as daggers threatening to cut your poor heart. You had to get away. “I think I’m going I—“

“—How about we go out next week? I don’t think I have something to do” Your heart beat again with anticipation. And you’ll hate him for every word he has ever said to you.

“Sure, but promise me you’ll remember…”

“Of course I’m going to remember. I’ll make it up to you... you’ll see” He promises, once again. And you have no option to believe him. Because he says he loves you. Because maybe you’re being unfair; he has a lot going on in his mind, and you had to be fine being the last of his priorities. “I love you, and I’m really sorry”

He loves you, and you love him. “Love you too,” You suppose love it’s enough.

At some point everything went downhill. He can’t even remember why he was so vexed by you. You couldn’t go to this place with him because you had plans with your friends? Fine, until he started to feel insecure, until the mind that their parents created could see the sun.

You were tired of canceling any plan just for him to forget almost every single time. So you don’t actually realize when you stopped doing it. It seemed natural, like you left behind the sweet feeling of being excited to find out where you were going, what you’ll be doing… all of that replaced by an icy and somewhat uncomfortable feeling of waiting for something that won’t be coming to you. A kind of longing you despised, but couldn’t shake off your mind.

And the first time you realize, was all Sirius fault.

“Don’t look at me like that, Siri, I’m trying to understand you,”

It hurts you seeing him so distressed about something you did, or say. His breath quivers and you could see his fingers are shaking from the anger he felt. And in your mind it was your fault.

“What's so hard to understand?” He whispers, then, he looks at you. Meeting your confused expression hiding your desires to cry underneath. “Fuck, are you stupid?”

You gasp. There must be something else stressing him to this point. It couldn’t be just you, could it be? “Siri…” It’s soft and inviting but he can’t return from his state. “I’ll cancel, okay? And we’re going wherever you want, uhm?”

He shakes his head. His raven waves are disheveled by the many times he had passed his fingers through it. He wanted to come back, but there’s something stopping him. “No, I can’t keep telling you everything you need to do—let me finish!” You opened your mouth again, to say something. To try to get the pieces together, to fix it. But he wasn’t that kind of person. He needed space to think—you had guessed some time ago, because he doesn’t acknowledge it. “Go have your fun, I’ll have my own”

He disappeared, out of your reach. And forever.

He felt guilty, and he wondered if it would ever stop. He was out of his mind, thinking you’ve done the worst to him. Even at some point, his wasted mind told him you were both done. He had seen you angry—or maybe afraid? He doesn’t even remember, but he hadn’t seen that expression on your sweet face before. He swore he would recall, but he never did.

Deep down he knew he had screwed up a long time ago, and a long time ago he stopped caring. After all you’ll feed your heart full with his excuses, empty promises and words he can’t believe he said so lightly.

He took you for granted.

Now he hates you. For not being there, for not standing your ground and trying to change things… and trying to make him a space where he doesn’t deserve to be.

Your heart was falling off your sleeve when you saw him at the table. He was alone. While the others are still sleeping upstairs. The italian summer breeze won’t be enough to soothe your tormented mind, it won’t heal your wounded heart. You didn’t even want to remember why you’re doing this — weren’t you enough?

It was hard to believe you were still there. After everything you knew, you’d still given him a chance. Every step towards his form was touring your crushed heart. “Can we talk?”

He smiles, leaving behind everything he was supposed to do. You don’t miss how his eyes try to avoid yours. “Oh, darling, I’m going somewhere, maybe later?”

At his futile attempt to leave, you became desperate. “No, I can’t wait. I need to talk to you right now.” He caught how your hand is trembling, while trying to reach for him. But it’s late, and the guilt has started to eat his rotting mind. He can’t say it to you. And maybe you wanted to talk about something else—how could you know? “I won’t insist again, please”

He’s being reckless and carelessness, but he doesn’t have the courage to ignore your plea. So he stays glued to the chair. “Fine but it has to be quick”

“Don’t you have something to tell me?” Your voice is breaking under the pressure of what you know. And it’s impossible for you to look into his eyes and confront him. But he shakes his head. And you see everything falling down. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. “I just have one thing to say, but I was just thinking…”

He takes all of his strength to smile. And it’s a pathetic excuse. “Nope, not really. I love you, that’s all”

You frown. Feeling your tears raining down, wetting your cheeks. “But it means nothing now,” He screws his eyes close. Drowning in guilt. In despair because he doesn’t know if you’re going to forgive him. “I know what you did, Sirius”

An horrified expression hardens his features. And he stands up, to embrace you. “I—I can explain it, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry”

In your misery, you accept it. Because it’s his arms. Because he smells familiar, like safety. You had to indulge in it, before losing everything. And it’s not too late when you realize he’s none of that. And had to rip yourself away from him. Your big heartbroken eyes stared straight into his soul. “You weren’t even going to tell me…” Your lower lip twitching, under your faint voice.

His heart shrinks, and he doesn’t know what to do. “I was waiting—“

“—You’re always waiting, it seems” You cut him off, suddenly annoyed by his pathetic cries and words. It almost seems like he doesn’t care at all. Then, why’re you there? Your voice can’t help but keep breaking. “I don’t care about your explanation… your acts have been screaming you wanted this to end. But I assume you’ve been waiting,”

His glossy eyes found yours again to deny your sayings. “That’s not true, please, how could I ever want to break up with you?”

There’s a soft humorless laugh slipping through your mouth. “But you did. Or were you thinking fool me would forgive you for this?” And there’s a bittersweet after taste in your mouth. And he’s shocked, because you never had tried to hurt him with words. In fact, he only was hurt by the collateral damage of things he did or said. “I don’t deserve this, Sirius”.

He falls to his knees, knowing you won’t take him back. “I’m deeply sorry, I swear I can make it up for you,” But you both knew he can’t, even if he was given the chance, he’ll just keep hurting you.

His head hangs low, and there’s some satisfaction in the back of your mind. Knowing he was hurting—or at least he’s good at pretending—even if you’re going through the same.

Suppressing a sob, your voice is a foggy punishment, “We’re done” It’s all you say, leaving him there. And everything after is a blur. No one asked, no one tried to stop you. You didn’t travel alone back home. No, one of the girls decided you couldn’t be left alone. You weren’t expecting anything, they were Sirius’ friends after all.

And Christmas passed by, and other festivities, birthdays, and parties. And you were a ghost. Only your closest friends saw you, as you kept yourself away from Sirius’ circle, not even wanting to hear his name in conversations. But time keeps passing by. Time wasn’t waiting for any of you.

You thought you’d gathered some strength by the time Remus’ birthday came around. It wasn’t foolish to think you could bear seeing Sirius, probably with a pretty another one wrapped around his finger—holding hands and dancing heart to heart to the torturous beat of your favorite song, by his favorite muggle band.

The bricks are cold and rough against your bare, tender back. You light a cigarette, trying to calm your nerves of not seeing him accompanied.

His smell, how his feet struck lightly the pavement gave it away in an instant. This wasn’t supposed to happen, this was—he’s supposed to be a stranger, someone you’ll be meeting again under different eyes.

He stopped and stayed glued to that spot. Near the wall. Only sighs came out of his mouth for what you felt was an eternity. You know he’s dying to speak, but he’s no fool, he knows he has only one opportunity, before you come back inside, running away from him.

He’s helpless if he thinks he still has time. “I’m sorry,” His voice wavered. He never learned how to approach hurt animals, especially if he was the perpetuator of their bubbling anxiety and misery.

You look at him, and you can only be sorry for your buried relationship, for what his hunger for self sabotage and poor emotion control has done. You don’t care if you’re unfair, he deserves all the credit for burning everything to ashes.

A humorless grin adorned your face, “It’s okay, Sirius, you don’t have to do this”

But it’s not okay. It never was.

He closes his eyes, “I regret every single day what I did at that party,”

And you sigh, “I know, I regret that too”. But it wasn’t all, you wish ti add.

And Sirius has to stare at you with his silver eyes, there’s no grin on his lips. He had to know you’re being honest. That you’re not a stranger.

He takes a deep breath, encouraging himself to ask for forgiveness, to explain everything he couldn’t back then. “I should have listened to you. I shouldn’t have let my thoughts taint what we had” Sirius takes a pause. You had a worried expression on your face — you don’t want to go through this, to awake your resentment for him. “I want you to know I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you. And I want to tell you that I care, I tried to send you letters and all”

You nodded, you knew, even if he didn’t say it. Entering into Sirius’ mind wasn’t easy. He had to let you in order to get to know the real one behind every mischievous grin, teasing eyes and flirty words. It was just a slip. That, you understood.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t read them. I despised you, and then you stopped sending them”.

Now it’s his turn to understand your doings. “Yeah, I didn’t want to push yourself more” There’s a silence loud enough to push Sirius to an edge and he wasn’t prepared to jump, he doesn’t feel he has the right. But he opens his mouth, “Do you think we…?” And his eyes are shining silver, under the dim yellow lights.

“Siri…”, You whispered, feeling almost sorry for him. He knew it was bad news. “I know you regret it because you broke us, and I hated it, because it doesn’t let me come back to you” His breath wavers and his heart shatters to sharp pieces. “We should stay as friends, as I still care about you”.

He closes his eyes, as a flow of undesired anger sends shivers down his spine. “I can’t be your friend, I’m in love with you!” He lifts his arms, trying to reach for you. He can’t. He knows you’re already so far away. Have been for a while. “I can’t bear having you so near yet so far away. Like life is mocking me!”

Waiting for him to finish, you watched how his hand carded through his thick, raven curls.

“Sirius, I thought so too. I thought I would be forever and always in love with you—I was head over heels, but not anymore.” You paused, “What I'm trying to say, it’s that everything will pass. Time would work things up, and then we’d just remember the good times, and we won't turn these gatherings into our personal hell”.

He shocks his head in disbelief. As if he has a right to deny your feelings—to deny you’ve moved on. “You don’t love me anymore?” In his eyes there’s a plea, and you don’t have what he wants. Lips disappearing into a thin line, you lightly shook your head. “When did you realize?”

“Sirius, I don’t think—“

“—Please,”

He just wants to bury the idea you’ll ever be together again. “When I saw you earlier… and I didn't feel my heart would explode. Didn’t hear the birds chirping…” You pause to smile, and it’s warm, nostalgic. “When I saw you earlier and realized you couldn’t hurt me anymore”.

Your voice fainting at the end of the phrase was everything he swore he wouldn’t do to you. “Shit, I really screwed everything”

When his red rimmed eyes connected with your own, a pang of pain spread through your stomach. You longed to reach for him, embrace his body, shield his mind from anything that could harm him. But he was the one responsible. So you stop yourself.

“Hey, maybe I was distracting you from meeting the love of your life,” He smiles. And you finally feel relieved.

[frenziedfireworks]

hii! i was wondering if you could write a fred x reader fic that has a bit of angst and fluff? after an argument with fred, the reader gets drunk at a random houses party and ends up a sad drunk mess & he ends up finding her and they speak for a bit and everything turns out to be alright.

doesn’t have to be exact, but i hope this made some sense<3

Arguments

Fred Weasley x Reader

Summary : Fred snaps at you when he gets home and you leave. You drink yourself into a stupor and still hear his words replaying in your head.

CW : Hurt/Comfort, drinking/smoking, cussing

A/N : I hope this is what you had in mind! This idea was cute!

masterlist

You were in a terrible mood. Fred had got home early, complaining about how work was bad and how a kid broke half of their products. You had listened and gave him a small hug but it seemed that wasn’t what he had wanted. 

“Get off. I’m not in the mood.” Fred pushed you away and began walking to your bedroom. Your eyes widened at the rude attitude and you felt tears well in your eyes. You grabbed at your coat and glared at his retreating form before opening the house door. If he wanted to be a bitch then he could do it alone. 

Your feet fell against the cobbled streets as you made your way to Angelina’s. You knew that she was planning a huge get together and had originally turned her down in hopes of spending the night with Fred but now that was out of the question. Your hand knocked against the door and it swung open to a half-drunk Angie.

“Y/N! I thought you weren’t coming! Get in here!” She pulled you into the house and you noticed some of your old friends circled around the table. Beers lined the counters and the room reeked of smoke.

“You all having a fun night?” You smiled as you approached them, glad to have an excuse to get shitfaced.

“Y/N!” Katie screamed and jumped up to hug you. “It’s been so long! I’m so glad you came!” The girl was interrupted as a hand tugged you away. Much to your surprise it was Lee. “Hey you. Thought you could use one of these if you truly want to get the party started.” He passed you your first beer and you sat down. 

—

Before you knew it you were four beers in and already feeling the repercussions. Much to your dismay though, the alcohol was not working in your favor. Instead of living it up and ignoring your issues, you were sitting in Angie’s bathroom sobbing your eyes out. Your friends had asked if you were okay but you just shooed them away saying that it wasn’t your night. You weren’t lying after all, it really wasn’t.. Your mind continued to play Fred’s words in your head, feeling as if it was a knife stabbing you over and over again.

A knock at the bathroom door shook you from your groggy state and you groaned. “Please leave me alone guys! I’m not feeling good.” You said between sobs. 

“Let me in Y/N.” Fred’s voice filled the void and your body froze. Why in the world was he here? In your drunken state you tried to piece it together, eventually coming to the conclusion that Lee had called him.

“Y/N! Please darling.” Fred slammed his fist against the door again and you begrudgingly pulled him in. Your face was lined with tears and you wobbled as you tried to stay standing. 

“What do you need?” You sneered at him and looked away. First he ruins your night and then follows you! The audacity.

“I came to fetch you love. Lee said you were sick and I think we need to talk.” Fred’s hand wiped at your cheeks and you shrugged out of his touch. 

“Oh so now you’re fine with comfort and affection?” You chastised and rolled your eyes. Fred sighed and his hand found yours.

“Y/N, I am so truly sorry. I was overwhelmed when I got home and everything was too much. I snapped when you were only trying to make me feel better. I really do love your hugs and want nothing more than your affection every day for the rest of my life. Please forgive me.” He squeezed at your hand and awaited your response. You looked at him for a few seconds before you started to cry again. Your arms wound around his form and he just held you in place. The two of you basked in eachothers presence for a while before you pulled back.

“Please don’t do that again. I don’t think I can take it.” You whispered and Fred bobbed his head.

“Never again love. I didn’t mean it and I am so sorry.” He reached out to place a soft kiss on your forehead. His arm wrapped around your back and he began to push you forward. 

“As much as I love sitting in Angelina’s bathroom I would much prefer the comfort of our own bed.” Fred teased and you let out a little laugh.

“I guess that’s fine.” You respond and the ginger gives you a grin.

“Thank you for your confirmation, my liege. I was worried you would say no.” He faked a curtsey as the two of you made your way out. You only rolled your eyes and smacked his shoulder.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You love it though.”