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ev-pierce-writes · 3 years ago

Text

Quantum Entanglement

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Fem!Reader

Words: 6.4k (oops)

Rating: 18+ (get outta here ya children)

Summary: Steve Rogers decides to disappear, take some time for himself in the solitude of a small town where he meets you.

Warnings: p in v. oral fem receiving. size kink (reader is much smaller than Steve in more ways than one). soft (very very soft) fem dom.

AN: This is stupid soft. Just simping all over the gd place. I'm so sorry but my baby Steve deserves nothing but the purest, sweetest form of love and that's what he's getting, though I imagine he likes to be ordered around. Took me way too long to feel good about this.

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There had been the snap. And then the resurrection. Steve had lost everyone he loved and then had most of them returned, and it felt good to go back to normal, in some ways. In other ways, it was stifling.

As the world reeled and tried to figure out how to "be normal" in a time that was anything but, normalcy felt forced, rushed, exaggerated. He wanted to be in this world, of course. The 1940s were no longer his home, and Steve had everything he wanted here. But he didn't feel complete. A piece was always missing, something from a past life, that he couldn't quite name but knew he had to find.

So he disappeared. Went undercover as some might call it. Bucky knew, of course, and Sam on some level. But to the rest of the world, he had slipped quietly back into the past to live the rest of his life. In reality, he'd slipped into Herrington, Massachusetts, a small coastal town where he was invisible to the world.

He'd found a little house, a cottage on the beach, and settled in completely. He didn't need a job, the government was more than willing to pay him a severance check of some sort, but he took one anyway, stocking the local grocery store and delivering groceries to the elderly when they ordered. It was just antiquated enough to remind him of a faraway time, of the past, but didn't force him to give up his wifi and color television. That was something he'd come to love.

And that was where he met you. You, the petite spitfire with a bone to pick with the entire world. Fierce, loyal, and slightly terrifying when double-crossed. The first time he met you, you had come out of your great-aunt's house shaking a fist over the groceries.

"I told Mr. Pierce," you were yelling, "not to skimp me on the meat." Mr. Pierce was the grocery store owner. And the meat in question was a roast, for what purpose, Steve wasn't sure, but one that apparently did not satisfy your desires.

You hadn't been the one to answer the door, that was your great-aunt Agnes, a kind, leather-faced woman who liked to tip Steve a healthy amount for "carrying all those heavy groceries for a silly old lady like me."

"It's no problem ma'am," he'd replied and stepped back toward his motorcycle, recently decked out with a basket on the back to transport deliveries. Then you'd chased him down the road until he noticed you and stopped, shouting all the way.

"When you see him," you said, your finger wagging in his face, puffing and out of breath from your yelling and running, "tell the bastard that's the last time he gets away with making me pay for his shitty cuts of meat."

Steve didn't really know what to say, but then your face softened, your voice calmed, and you took a deep breath. Maybe the panicked look on his face had made you have a change of heart. "I apologize for yelling at you, I know you're just the messenger. But that slimy son-of-a-bitch is going to get what's coming for him someday."

"I'll let him know," Steve replied with half a smile on his face.

"You aren't from around here are you?" you had asked, a sudden look of curiosity in your bright eyes.

Steve nodded. "Just moved here."

"Look, I'm really sorry." You stuck out your hand and introduced yourself, and Steve had found that hand to be surprisingly supple and calloused for its tiny size. "Let me make it up to you. Aunt Agnes seems to like you. We're having a potluck tonight, her place. Why don't you come by and meet the neighbors? I'm sure they'd love a new face, especially one as handsome and friendly as yours. Maybe make some friends, even."

You were being surprisingly friendly and sincere, and Steve had no choice but to accept the invitation.

So that's how he ended up in an old lady's backyard, handing off a bowl of his mother's jello salad (it was a potluck after all), and accepting a beer from a man who looked similar enough to be your brother (a cousin, it turned out). You didn't even notice his arrival, flying about, getting everything set up, taking part in the appropriate amount of small talk. Earlier, when you'd chased Steve down the road, your hair had been flung all about your head, wisps of it sticking out from all directions and looking positively a mess. You'd been wearing jeans with mud on the knees and a t-shirt that had more holes than necessary for your arms and head. Now, your hair was pinned back and tamed and you floated about in a soft blue sundress, revealing a delicate plane of skin across your shoulders and tan arms and legs.

The calloused hands and muddy jeans made sense now as well. The backyard of Aunt Agnes' house was primarily a garden, not only beautiful rose bushes and creeping wisteria but rows and rows of fruits and vegetables, cucumbers, tomatoes, watermelon, strawberries. The work was obviously the product of a talented gardener.

Aunt Agnes was the one to welcome him in, having noticed Steve before you did and taking his arm. She began to talk, of you and the neighborhood and her many, many family members. She introduced them one by one, though most of the names he immediately forgot. But it was a blessing to not be recognized and he relished the feeling. Sure, he'd grown out his beard and his hair was a bit longer than the standard military high and tight, and he wore a flannel with the sleeves rolled up instead of red, white, and blue spangles, but it still amazed him that he could pass through the world like this.

Eventually, the conversations became too much, and Steve excused himself to the kitchen to find a drink while he waited for the food to be ready. Really he just wanted some silence, a relief from society. But you'd beat him there, and, ever the busy bee, were scrambling to fill a cooler with more ice.

"Steve!" you exclaimed when you saw him, pleasant surprise plastered across your face. "I'm so glad you came."

You reached out and gave him a hug that took Steve so much by surprise he almost forgot to return it. It was shockingly warm, your arms around his neck, and though he had to stoop down to your level, he wrapped his arms around your waist anyways.

"I hope they didn't overwhelm you out there. My family can be a lot."

"No, not at all. Just needed some quiet. I'll let you get back to work."

"I could actually use your help if you don't mind."

You directed him into the front room toward a stack of boxes, cases of drinks he assumed. When Steve returned to the kitchen, all four boxes piled in his arms, you nearly dropped the glasses in your hands in shock. You recovered quickly, trying to remain polite despite your poorly hidden astonishment, but Steve could already tell you were trying to compute how he had managed to carry over a hundred pounds of drinks in one go.

"You can, um, put them on the counter I guess," you managed to stutter out. Your sudden flustered state was amusing, and Steve noticed he liked the way you seemed almost embarrassed, cheeks flushed pink, though he had no idea why you should feel that way.

But then you picked back up with your normal bubbly chatter, and Steve found himself lingering longer and longer in the kitchen with you until he realized neither of you were doing anything but talking, the work abandoned in lieu of discussions about the town, your stall at the farmers market, and eventually, very naturally, the passing of your parents. The slip into deep conversation was easy, surprisingly easy, easier than it had ever been with anyone else, even though Steve felt himself having to lie a bit about his past. Sure, he could admit to being from Brooklyn and having no family and his stint in the military, but that was about the extent of it. He found himself wanting to tell you more but refraining.

When your cousin called that food was ready from the backyard, the jolt back to reality was abrupt and almost unwelcome, until you smiled and allowed him to put a hand on your back, pulling Steve out to enjoy some food.

As night fell, lights twinkled on in the backyard, and the summer heat reduced to a light thrum as the breeze from the ocean swept through the town. Fireflies glowed in the darkness of the low trees behind the house and you seemed to glow as well, good food and friendly conversation lighting your face up with joy. You caught Steve's eye several times during the night, noticing him watching you from across the garden, but he didn't care. He liked that his attention made you smile.

Finally, the party began to dwindle, as parents with young kids trickled out, followed by the older folks, heading off to bed. Soon, even Aunt Agnes turned in and only the cousins close to you in age remained. They pulled out the stronger bottles of alcohol, sitting in plastic chairs and passing shots around the barbeque that still glowed hot with coals. Steve accepted every pass of vodka that came his way, despite knowing it wouldn't get him even remotely drunk. But the camaraderie of the moment helped ease a bit of that gaping hole in his soul so he clung to it as best he could. And you were sitting next to him, insisting he take a sip, and again he couldn't turn you down.

"And then Jack nearly sunk the boat in the bay," you were saying, telling the story of one of your cousin's finer moments. "Your dad almost killed us."

"Oh you want to bring that up?" he teased. "How about the time you snuck out and Aunt Agnes caught you making out with Michael on the beach."

You blushed bright red at the reminder but protested that was years ago. Then another cousin brought up his own late-night escapades and you devolved into a fit of giggles, leaning so far out of your chair that Steve had to catch you before you slipped right to the ground. Your hand gripped his to recover but, to his surprise, you never removed it, even as you righted yourself in your seat. Your hand just remained in his, your small fingers wrapped in his large ones, as you turned to pester him into telling a story.

"What about you Steve? Tell us an embarrassing story."

He looked around at the group and they leaned in expectantly, curious to know more about the stranger who was quickly becoming a friend. Steve didn't know what to say, most of his stories involving things he wasn't yet ready to reveal about himself. So he picked one from long ago.

"I once picked a fight with a guy at a bar. He was a bit of a Nazi. Got my ass kicked. Fortunately, I had a friend to back me up or he definitely would have killed me."

Everyone looked shocked. "But you're so strong," someone spoke up. "Look at you. How could anyone beat you in a fight?"

Steve shrugged, not wanting to admit to it being a pre-serum story. "Guess I'm a bit of a pacifist."

He turned to you to gauge your reaction. Your eyes were wide, sparkling with mischief and curiosity and a hint of disbelief. For a moment Steve thought you had figured it out, figured out who he was, but then you started giggling again and the only thing keeping you in your seat was his hand in yours.

"That's not embarrassing Steve, that's just the most fucking noble thing I've ever heard. Making us all look bad."

Your teasing words made his heart flutter in his chest and he felt like he could get used to this crowd.

Eventually, the coals of the barbeque started to wink out, and the cousins excused themselves for the night, heading home on foot to the various houses they had come from. It seemed no one lived too far apart in this town. Suddenly, the backyard was quiet.

"Can I give you a hand cleaning up?" Steve asked, not wanting to leave you with the job that looked a bit overwhelming to him.

You looked around and shrugged, a little tipsy but fully aware that it was a big mess. "I'll probably just take care of it in the morning. Can you just help me get the dishes inside?"

Steve obediently gathered up plates and cups, filling the dishwasher in several trips. Finally, the last were inside and you stood in the kitchen filling the sink to wash the pots and pans while Steve tried awkwardly to find a way to say goodbye.

"Um, thank you," he said at last, "for welcoming me into your community. It means a lot. I'll, uh, see you later I guess. Have a good night."

You stopped your scrubbing to look up at him, bubbles up to your elbows, your face flushed from the warm night air and the alcohol.

"Steve?"

"Yeah?"

You paused, hesitant, eyes searching his face for confirmation of a mutual feeling. "Do you ever feel like you were meant to meet someone? For a reason?"

The question hit him like a ton of bricks, and he realized that this night had made him feel exactly that way, that somehow he was meant to end up here and meet you, of all people. Why else had there been an instant connection unless this was just the way you were with everyone?

But your question made him think otherwise. You had to be special. Steve, in that moment, could do nothing but nod in affirmation. And then, like you had both had the same thought at the same moment, you were meeting him halfway, rising on your tiptoes, wrapping your arms around his neck, and kissing him. Really, truly, kissing him.

It was like that missing piece had found itself. You slotted your soul into his and Steve was pressing you to his chest, wrapping his arms around you, and lifting you so he didn't have to bend down to reach you. Your wet hands tangled into his slightly too long hair, pulling him impossibly closer, tasting one another's tongues.

And that was the start of it, of late-night motorcycle rides down the causeway, of Saturdays spent on the beach that tapered into drinks with friends, of dinners filled with your chatter and smiles and laughter, and Steve couldn't believe how lucky he was. He was not used to this feeling, of building friendship and companionship and perhaps even love. And he certainly wasn't used to the intense desire to reach out and pinch your ass every time you showed up at his house wearing those gardening jeans, high-waisted and tight and so goddamn cute.

But he never did, was never sure how you'd react. You kissed him, a lot in fact, every morning that he came over and every night that he dropped you off at home. And you never shied away from telling him how handsome he was, how much you liked his hands and his arms and his short beard, how sweet he was and kind and soft and gentle. So many words, words that made his head spin and his world wobble and sway. But it never came to be more than that, never late at night when he was thinking of you most. And oh lord, did he think about you, how your small frame might fit against his in bed while you spooned and slept, or how tight you'd be if he fucked you until the sun rose. He didn't particularly like sleeping in bed, it was too soft for his taste and he tended to take the couch or even the floor most nights, but he would sleep in bed for you if you would just tell him that was what you wanted.

It was like you were waiting for the right moment. And apparently, that moment was July 4th, during the annual celebration. Steve had whispered to you that it was consequently also his birthday, and had begged you to keep that a secret, but it seemed you had simply forgotten the fact entirely. The day passed without mention that Steve was turning 39 (105 if he'd been really counting) and you kissed him as the fireworks exploded over the ocean, sitting in the sand, hands tangled together. He thought the two of you would sit through the show, but then you were standing and pulling him to his feet as well and slipping away as everyone else's faces were turned to the sky.

At your house, you pulled a small cake from the fridge, just big enough to split between two people, and lit a couple of candles as you sat next to him at the kitchen table. Of course, you hadn't forgotten.

"Make a wish," you said with a happy smile. So he did, hoping this summer would never end. "What did you wish for?"

"Can't tell you, otherwise it won't come true," he replied. But then you pouted and he lost all resolve. "How about I show you instead?"

The look on your face said it all, shock mixed with intrigue and the mischief he had noticed that first night almost a week ago. So he reached down and tugged your chair closer, forcing you to face him with your knees between his. And then he leaned over and kissed you, taking your small cheeks in his large palms, putting all the power of his suppressed feelings behind it. He hoped you understood that he wanted more than to just kiss you, he wanted to occupy space inside you, fill you, complete you. Steve could feel your smile against his lips.

You pulled away. "Did you wish that I was dessert instead of the cake?

"I might have. Should we make my wish come true?"

Again you smiled, bright and guiding like a lighthouse torch, and something in your demeanor changed. Instantly, you were relenting to his touch, letting him pull you further into his lap, straddling his waist and settling into him like that was where you were meant to be. The quiet house, probably as old as him in this New England town, creaked in the silence of the night, only occasionally disturbed by the bang of a firework. But it all faded away with you in his arms.

You fit perfectly, just as Steve had hoped.

"You gonna be gentle with me, big man?" you whispered, that same brilliant smile on your face, wiggling as close to him as possible, the fingers of one hand tangled into the hair at the nape of his neck, the others tracing down the point of his sharp nose and pressing against his soft lips. "You gonna fuck me good? Be a good boy?"

Oh, Christ. Steve nearly lost his mind with your hips so tight against his, lost it at your words that made his heart race and color rise to his cheeks. He could be good. Really damn good. You seemed to know something about him that Steve didn't even know about himself, of how much he liked your praise, your commanding tone. If there was anything he was good at, it was taking orders.

"You just keep telling me what to do and I'm all yours," he mumbled against your fingers, the thump of his heart beating in time with yours somewhere deep in your chest, echoes of one another in the silence of the house. Your hand came to grip his chin, pushing another kiss against his mouth, a kiss with lips parted in a sigh, the mingled palate of you and him, like a glass of wine on the beach and chocolate melted on the tongue, sweeping over taste buds and breathed into starved lungs.

"Mm, you taste so good. Like you were created just for me, don't you think?" you asked.

"Built from the best material, just for you." Built to love you, he wanted to say. Steve shut up instead.

You hummed with pleasure and the hand on his chin gripped a little harder, a little more suggestively. He opened his mouth obediently as you slipped your thumb between his lips, and he let you press it against the soft muscle of his tongue. You wanted him to taste you, so he did, his teeth biting gently down on the pad of your finger, another pleasant hum running down your body and straight to his groin.

He waited for your instruction.

"Undress me."

He complied, obediently. Steve's large hands hiked your sundress up around your waist, revealing the softness of your hips. His fingers smoothed up the length of your thighs, kneading at the flesh of your ass that he had so longed to touch. Your reaction was music to his ears, a soft moan leaving your lips and breathed against his, and Steve closed his eyes, arousal spreading through his body at the thought that he was making you react this way. His length hardened, tight in his pants, pressed against the thin layer of fabric that covered the heat of your core. The thought that he might not fit flickered through his mind but it dissipated at the feeling of your fingers pressing into the rough stubble of his jawline.

Steve's hands continued to travel further up your body, taking time to release the zipper of your dress down the length of your spine, and you answered his quiet, "can I?" by pulling slightly away and lifting your arms over your head. The dress landed somewhere in the kitchen and Steve dragged you close again, arms wrapped around your back to encompass you completely, his lips finding purchase against the skin of your neck.

"Look at you, so perfect," Steve mumbled, face pressed into your hair. If he had looked up he would have seen you blush, but he was too preoccupied letting his senses discover every piece of you he could touch, smell, or taste. He wanted to envelop you, inch by inch, roaming and discovering and satiating his curiosity, but you dragged his attention back to your face.

"Hey, eyes up here," you said, pulling his face toward yours and locking gazes. The intensity of your eye contact was stunning, but there was something else behind those eyes, something other than intense attraction and unsatisfied arousal. Was it doubt? Insecurity? The reason why you kissed him for so many nights and never asked for more? You were searching for something, and it came in the form of a question. "You won't leave me after this, right?"

There it was, the bit of insecurity, a fear of loss, of transience, of lacking control. Someone had hurt you before. Maybe that's why you approached everything in life with such ferocity and sincerity. But Steve would never hurt you like that, never let you feel that way again. He hoped you could see it in his eyes the way he felt about you, but words would be more reassurance. "I'm yours tonight. And tomorrow. And the day and week and month and year after that, if you'll have me that long. Whatever it is you need, I'll give it to you."

You blinked and then smiled and pressed another quick kiss to his lips before murmuring, "touch me" against them. So he did, trailing his hands over every sliver of skin before him. He felt the goosebumps rising in their wake, the downy hair on your legs and arms, the heat of your core against him, grinding almost imperceptibly to find some kind of friction, any friction. He wanted to touch you so desperately, but he got the sense that you needed to take the lead, that it would give the control you felt you lacked. So he slid a hand down the plane of your stomach and stopped just shy of dipping into your panties, waiting for your word. But you were no longer interested in playing games. Your hand found his and pulled him lower, using his fingers to press into the seem of your cunt, and he found you slick and warm with desire.

You urged him forward. "Rub my clit, baby. Slowly. Gently."

Slowly and gently. That he could do. His fingers crept absentmindedly closer to the swollen bundle of nerves and when he landed there, touch soft and circling, you jerked against him, your whole body moving with the force of anticipation and a cry leaving your lips. And though it seemed to burn, seemed to be torture for yourself, you demanded he do it again. Your forehead leaned against his, eyes shut tight, and Steve watched as your face contorted in pleasure as he flicked and circled again and again and again.

"Yes, baby. Perfect. So good. So. Fucking. Good."

Every bit of you was soft, from your neck where he placed his kisses to the curled hair hiding the swollen bud of your clit where his fingers played gently and rhythmically. Even the orgasm that gushed from your smooth cunt and stuttered from your lips was soft. You came with a choked cry as your hand pulled him closer by the back of his head, your tits pressed to his chest. Steve looked up to watch you devolve into pleasure, eyes squeezed tightly shut, your hair messy and swirling about your face, the straps of your bra slipping from your shoulder.

"Bed. Now. Right now," you demanded before you even had a chance to come down from your high. He would have been just as happy to have you in the kitchen, just like that, but Steve picked you up, with you latched to his chest like a koala, and carried you upstairs. You felt feather-light in his arms, easily tossed onto the mattress, your hands reaching out to pull his white t-shirt overhead and grab at the plane of his chest. Even as Steve kissed you again you couldn't stop tracing your fingertips over the lines of his torso, the ridges of his abs, the v-line that led tantalizingly toward the waistband of his pants. He felt his cock twitch and strain against the fabric of his boxers, the rough cotton not enough to stimulate him but enough to make him ache for your pussy. Your fluttering hands were not helping and Steve pictured your thin fingers wrapping around his length.

"Look at you," you said. "You're fucking perfect." It was Steve's turn to blush.

Steve wasn't...inexperienced. But it had been a while, to say the least, since he'd had the time or energy or capacity to even feel attracted to anyone. And even longer, perhaps never, since he felt the way he felt about you, like a bee to a flower, drunk on sweet nectar and high on honey. That was you, the delicate flower, so small and tender beneath him, yet as stunning and resonating and thunderous as the fireworks bursting somewhere overhead.

Fighting to survive was all Steve had known for so long, standing up to the bully and helping the fallen to their feet, that it was a relief to not have to be that man for you. You didn't require protection or help or anything from him at all, and yet you welcomed his presence endlessly. Steve realized he was not a need for you, but a want, and for the first time he felt valued for something real, something that wasn't just his brute strength, but something almost bordering on love. This he understood as he stared at your sweet face, caging you beneath him in bed.

"Earth to Steve," you said softly as your legs wrapped around his waist, pulling his pelvis down toward yours and dragging a deep groan from his lungs. He hadn't noticed he'd stopped kissing you and was getting lost in drinking you in amidst his reverie until your small hand pressed to the back of his neck and gently guided him back to your lips. But you stopped just shy, your eyebrows knitted in concern, taking his leisurely manner for uncertainty. "We can stop if you want."

"No, definitely not."

"Good. Then stop staring and kiss me."

"Where?" he teased.

"Everywhere, big man."

Everywhere was doable. So he started at your lips with one so big and breathless it rivaled Mount Everest. For a moment he let himself forget about everything except how long he could go without oxygen against your lips. But there remained more of you to taste.

Steve's lips connected with your chin and slid down your jawline, taking time to kiss the pulse of your neck and the dip of your clavicle. The fan of his breath tickled across your skin and you giggled, the purest sound of joy bubbling from your lips at his touch. More of that he wanted. So he continued down to the valley between your breasts, full and round despite your stature, removing your bra as he did so, nibbling lightly at the peaks of your chest before replacing his teeth with his pinching fingers and moving lower again. Lower toward the edge of your ribs, arched upward to meet the movement of his mouth, toward the slope of your hips, his sharp nose following each kiss as your underwear joined your bra into the abyss.

Your thighs he kissed, top to bottom, left and right, but it was your ass he couldn't get enough of, filling his grip with handfuls of your flesh, using it to pull you toward the edge of the bed where he kneeled, lifting your hips toward his face, your legs slung one over each shoulder. Steve sunk his tongue into your folds without warning and you gasped, your thighs suddenly squeezing tight around his head.

"Yes, right there," you hissed between ragged breaths.

He responded by burying deeper, gripping you harder, and moaning with delight at your overwhelming taste and scent bombarding his senses. You squirmed but didn't pull away as Steve's hands worked their way back up your stomach to cup the tissue of your breasts, the width of his palms capturing the flesh in one big handful. Your hands covered his, holding them there, forcing him to press you into the bed while his mouth left you twitching and bucking beneath his touch.

And in spite of the urgency with which Steve wished to devour you, he continued on leisurely, doing his best to build you up slowly and gently pick you apart bit by bit the way you had asked him to do it before. Your body betrayed its delight, evidenced enough by the way your legs hooked around him and held him down, but you praised him anyways, rapture falling from your lips between sporadic moans of pleasure.

"Fuck, Steve, you're so good, oh God yes, baby, you're doing so good, taste me like that," you cried, and the words spurred him onward, hurried his movements just slightly, his tongue circling your clit, fingers circling your areolas. He would do whatever you asked, jump off a cliff, take a bullet to the chest, drown himself in a river, if only to please you. But you would never ask anything of him that he couldn't give, and Steve knew the moment you asked for his heart it would be his heart you'd receive. And with that intent in his mind, he made you come undone with a silent cry.

Eventually, the trembling ceased, even as he continued to drink your release with the ministrations of his tongue.

"Oh fuck, you like the way I taste baby?" you asked. His affirmation came out muffled and sloppy between your legs. Even you were breathless, barely getting out the words, but you pushed him nonetheless. "I wanna hear you say it, Steve. You like eating me out? Like drinking my juices?"

"Fuck, yes, you taste like goddamn heaven, darling."

"Kiss me, Steve."

"Yes, ma'am."

He complied without a second thought, crawling back up your body to lean over you, giving you a taste of the heaven he had just dipped into. When your fingers found his belt, he helped you remove the rest of his clothes. And then your hands were roving down his chest again, searching blindly until they found what they were looking for. Steve groaned at your touch on his swollen cock.

You gasped. "Oh, God."

Before Steve could respond you pushed him over onto his back and straddled his thighs, eyeing the length on display before you, fingers around it as if testing the girth and finding them unable to wrap all the way around.

"Oh God," you repeated. A short laugh bubbled up from your throat, the controlling front you'd managed to maintain this whole time slipping from your tone.

"Something wrong?" he asked, feeling slightly inadequate under your scrutiny. Steve sat up to meet your eyes, hands finding their place on your hips.

You gazed at him, eyes wide and glassy. "You're gonna split me in half with that thing."

"We don't have to. Not if you aren't comfortable."

"Oh baby, I'm gonna get real comfortable sitting on your cock." Your sultry grin was back and you rose up on your knees to look down at him. Your other hand swiped between your legs, two fingers gathering the warm, wet juices of your orgasm, before joining the first around his cock. You pumped, rolling a drop of precum off the tip with your thumb and rubbing it down his length, mixing the release of your pleasure with his. Steve barely held back from bucking his hips into your hand. He would save that for your pussy.

"I want you to fill me," you whispered. "I wanna be so fucking full. Just go slowly, okay?"

"Slowly. I got you, baby girl. You can take me. Let me fill you."

Steve lifted your hips and guided you forward, aligning your entrance with his length. You moved at a crawling pace, letting gravity sink your pussy around him, pausing every inch to adjust to his intrusion. His biceps stung with the grip of your fingernails in his skin, but it was a welcome distraction from the rush of pleasure threatening to tip him over the edge prematurely. Agonizingly you dipped further, a cry falling from your lips, until you were fully seated, the tip of him pressed into the cavity behind your cervix. You were warm, so, so warm, and soft and tight and you fit perfectly, just like he knew you would.

"Fuck, Steve, you're so big."

"Am I hurting you?" he asked, wiping away a tear from your cheek with his thumb.

"No, fuck, no, you feel so good. I just--I can't move."

"I got you, darling," Steve whispered, his face falling to your chest and burying it in the soft flesh of your tits. And then he wrapped his arms around your waist and did all the moving for you, lifting you up and sinking you down again, just fast enough to make you gasp for air and whine his name. With every thrust, you cried out in pleasure.

"Don't stop, Steve, please, baby, don't stop."

The fingers of one hand tugged at his hair dampened by sweat, nails scratching lightly across his scalp, as the other fell between your legs. You pressed your fingers around your clit and along your entrance, feeling where Steve's thick cock was pushing in and out of your tight pussy, feeling how big he was, how much he filled you. The meandering touch of your fingers almost sent him straight over the edge.

But it was the slick warmth of your cunt that was too much, and Steve found himself resting his forehead more and more heavily against your chest, willing himself to give you everything you wanted before he even thought about himself. The satin scent of your skin, like talcum and rose and his cologne, intoxicated him with every breath, and he sucked and nibbled on one breast and then the other, mindlessly attending to the most sensitive parts of you. A drop of sweat rolled down your sternum and Steve chased it with his tongue, licking a warm stripe up the center of your chest.

"Tell me what you need, darling."

"Fuck, that's perfect," you whined. "You fuck me so good, baby. Don't stop. Gonna make me come--make me come so hard."

Your fingers pressed against your clit once more and then you were clenching around him, your already tight pussy settling into a pulsing vice grip, your body shaking against his while he kissed the sweat from your collar bones. Steve felt you pumping the life out of him, riding out your orgasm and dragging him closer to his. The hand that had been on your clit moved to cup the weight of his balls, pinching and massaging as they pulled in heavy with the need for release.

"Where do you want me, darling, you gotta tell me."

You practically ordered him to come inside you, told him you wanted to feel him sticky between your thighs all night and it was suddenly Steve's turn to come undone, his hot seed pumping deep inside you, his twitching member finally finding release. He moaned your name against your lips, pulling you into a final searing kiss.

When, after a good twenty minutes of not moving from that position, of breathing heavy and kissing softly, you finally pulled away to lean down and lick his cock clean, the sticky mingling of you and him on your tongue, and he had to fight the urge to get hard again. And when you kissed him again, he tasted that mingling, two souls becoming one, as they were meant to be.

He slept next to you for the first time that night, your small frame encased in his, even though there was no need to share body heat in the dead of summer. But he actually slept, no dreams, no nightmares, no waking up in the middle of the night. Just deep, heavy sleep, your head tucked beneath his chin, back to his bare chest, his hands holding your breasts, and your hands holding his. Tangled together. Souls as one.

#steve rodgers x reader #steve rogers #captain america #captain america x reader #avengers smut #captain america smut #steve rogers smut #simping for steve rogers #steve rogers fanfiction #captain america fanfiction

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fific7 · 4 years ago

Text

That Swept-Back Hair

Billy Russo x Reader

@omgrachwrites 500 Follower Celebration

AU Prompt: Friends with Benefits

Summary: How will Billy Russo react when his FWB finds another lover? Bearing in mind that he’s a complete hypocrite.

Warnings: Swearing, jealousy, fluff with mentions of sex.

A/N: Loosely based on S1 Billy, it’s non-canon & set in my imaginary Punisher universe.

(My GIF)

»»———————————————　⚜　———————-————————-««

Your phone was jumping like a jack-in-the-box on your bedside table, the blue light of the screen illuminating the wall behind it every few seconds.

You rolled over with a groan, taking a moment before picking it up and looking at it. Of course it was Billy Russo, who else would it be at 1 AM on a Saturday morning?

The guy next to you in the bed also rolled over, covering his mouth as he yawned, eyes half-open.

“Everything OK, Y/N?” he asked.

“Yeah, Raf, just a needy friend.... gonna call them back, so do you mind staying hush-hush for the next few minutes?”

He yawned massively again, speaking through it, “Ahhhhrrrrr...yeah... no problem...”

You hit the ‘Favourites’ star next to Billy’s name in your contacts, hearing it start ringing.

It went to voicemail so you hung up, slid the phone onto the table and threw your head back down onto your pillow. Fucking Russo. Blows up your phone with missed calls & “Pick up!!” texts then doesn’t answer when you call back.

It rang two seconds later, just as Raf had turned towards you, opening his mouth to no doubt ask you about your ‘needy friend’. You rolled your eyes and grabbed it, but the screen went dark just as you did so.

You hit redial, it rang out, went to voicemail. “Fuck!” you ground out between your teeth.

Your head had touched your pillow again for about 5 minutes, when there was a staccato series of knocks on your apartment door.

You shot up in bed, quivering - ah hell, it couldn’t be, could it? Really?

Raf had dozed back off in the meantime & didn’t even stir when the knocks rang out sharply in the quiet apartment. Not much of a guard dog, you thought, quickly throwing on your discarded PJs.

You padded barefoot over to the front door, confirming via the peephole that Billy Russo was indeed outside in the hallway, leaning on your doorframe so he could place one eye right to it. You spotted an eyebrow wiggle as you made eye contact. Oh holy hell!

You straightened your shoulders, took the chain off and unlocked the door, swinging it open.

“Billy!” you said quietly, with a small smile, “What brings you here?” You hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him for about three weeks. Not that that was anything new.

He moved gracefully past you like the panther he was, even though you’d been trying to subtly block him from coming in. He was dressed in one of his sharp suits, so you guessed he’d been at one of the never-ending stream of events he attended.

Your mouth drew into a line. Whoever he’d gone there with must have bucked the trend and bailed on him. Otherwise he wouldn’t have turned up at your place when, in his mind, the night was still young.

He turned towards you, placing both hands on your hips as he did so, pulling you up against his muscled chest.

“Now, Y/N, why do you think I’m here, holding my best girl in my arms?” the New York accented voice purred in your ear.

He leant in and kissed you hungrily, deepening the kiss immediately to a passionate one.

You pulled away, escaping his grasp. His eyes widened in surprise, a small frown making its way onto his brow. A few locks of his dark hair had fallen forward onto his brow and he swept them back up with his fingers, a reflexive gesture for him.

“I tried to call you back,” you mumbled, “I’ve... uh... got a friend staying with me at the moment.”

He shot his trademark smirk at you. “Hey, that’s OK. We can be quiet for once, yeah?” Grinning now.

In true romcom fashion, Raf picked that moment to come wandering into the lounge, clad only in his boxers, both hands ruffling through his short hair.

Billy’s mouth dropped open. He made a quick recovery, though. Gestured with a thumb.

“So... this your ‘friend’?”

He looked Raf up and down. He was a 6 feet 3 firefighter with the FDNY, and to put it mildly, he was ripped.

He topped Billy by a couple of inches, and by a few pounds. Billy scowled at him.

Raf eyed up Billy too, turning to you and asking, “This your ‘needy friend’ you were talkin’ ‘bout, Y/N?”

Oh crap.

Billy’s scowl turned to a furious glare, aimed right at you. “Needy?!! Ah, fuck this, Y/N! I think we all know who’s needy around here.”

Your mouth rounded into an offended O, but before you could reply, Billy was out the door and it slammed loudly behind him.

Great - now all your neighbours were gonna be mad at you too.

»»———————————————-　⚜　-———-———————————-««

You had then spent an uncomfortable half hour over a coffee with Raf, explaining the dynamics of your non-relationship with Billy.

“Now,” he’d said, brow furrowed, “let me get this straight. He’s part of your friend group, you see him every so often at a bar or at one of their places - but never his. He sees tons of other women but turns up here for booty calls whenever his busy schedule allows?”

He shook his head. “He’s using you, Y/N. What a selfish prick.”

You bristled, “Look, we go back quite a ways. Since he was in the Marines. I knew Frank first as we were neighbours when we were kids, and I eventually met Billy through him. He’s Frankie’s best friend, they’re Marine brothers.”

“And how long have you been ‘friends with benefits’?”

You muttered your response. “Sorry, what was that you said?” he asked.

“Three years,” you repeated reluctantly.

“Damn.” he said. “And what am I, exactly? Filler for whenever fuckboy isn’t calling?”

“No! Raf, you’re a really nice guy, and I love spending time with you.”

He stood up, heading to the bedroom. “Look, I’m gonna go. I need a few days to try and get my head round your fucked-up relationship with the suit-wearing Marine.”

He’d left shortly afterwards, saying he’d call. You weren’t sure that he would.

You met up with Karen for lunch later that day. You’d been co-workers first off, then had become good friends. She was currently dating Frank, your childhood friend.

You were so glad that he was back out socialising, in a small way, after losing his wife and kids in a brutal gang clash just over a year before. They and several others had been what the papers described, rather callously, as “collateral damage” while minding their own business in the public park the gun fight took place in.

Frank had understandably closed himself off to a large extent as he grieved and after a decent interval, you’d tried your best to draw him back out in a gentle way. You’d decided to indulge in a bit of Matchmaking Lite, and had invited Karen along to a night out with the rest of your friends. You knew Frank would be there and as you’d hoped, they hit it off right away.

You spilled what had happened the night before to her, grateful for a shoulder to cry on. She looked and sounded sympathetic, but you knew she wasn’t a big fan of your arrangement with Billy. She again voiced her astonishment that you still had it going on with him.

“Karen, without making you vomit by sharing too many details, Billy is just the absolute best in bed. He’s got the stamina of an ox. Several oxes, in fact.” You just knew your eyes had a faraway look in them.

Her mouth pursed in a ‘moux’ of distaste. “But still, Y/N, he’s just so damn selfish about it! It’s all on his terms.”

“You know he’s got commitment issues.”

She choked on her espresso martini. “Ya don’t say!!”

“It’s complicated.”

“Look, honey, I’m gonna be straight with you. It is anything but complicated. He spends 90% of his time at Anvil, 9.9% with other gals, and guess who gets the remaining measly 0.1%, the crumbs from his table?” She pointed her finger straight at you. “Coconut for the lady over there!”

You sat in silence for several minutes, turning over in your mind what Raf, and now Karen, had said to you. Eventually you nodded slowly. “You know what, Kar, you’re totally right. I just let the great sex blind me to all the rest of his fucking bullshit.”

Time to cut Billy loose.

Not that you ever had him tied down in the first place. If you were being brutally honest.

And you weren’t sure whether he’d even bother showing up at your place ever again.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

The next day being Sunday meant that some serious ‘Me Time’ was in order.

Sitting on the sofa, you stared off into space, thinking about the two men in your life. You huffed to yourself; you hadn’t heard from either of them so far, and that was probably for the best. You could do without being stuck in the middle of some kind of testosterone-fuelled conflict between the two of them.

Then you laughed out loud at yourself. Who were you kidding? You’d probably never see either of them again! You stood up, stretching out your shoulder and neck muscles. Time for a bit of self-pampering.

You had a long relaxing bath, gave yourself a leisurely mani-pedi, ordered in some pizza, and began to go through some layouts for work the next day.

You were a digital content editor at the newspaper both you & Karen worked for. It was okay as jobs went, but it didn’t set your world on fire. However, what did excite you was that the newspaper’s parent publishing house was about to launch a travel magazine, and you’d applied for a transfer.

What really made butterflies pop up into your stomach, though, was the fact that the magazine’s content editors would also be contributing instead of just collating. You’d already had an interview with the Editor in Chief, and should be hearing back within the next few days.

If someone else got that position you’d applied for, you’d just have to shove them out of your third floor office window at the very first opportunity.

While you were thinking of potentially becoming a murderer, there was a familiar pattern of raps at your door. Your heart sank straight through your boots.

You knew it was Billy before you opened the door. It sounded ridiculous but he had a certain way of knocking. Peremptory, demanding, with military precision.

He stood outside your door, tensed up and rigid, with a carefully blank look on his face.

“You alone?” he barked, by way of greeting.

You crossed your arms over your chest, glaring at him. “Why, hello Billy. How are you? I’m fine, Y/N, how are you? Yeah, I’m great.”

He glared right back. “I asked if you were alone.”

“That’s highly unlikely, Billy, seeing as how I’m so needy!”

He huffed and marched inside straight to the sofa, sitting down and leaning his arms on his spread-apart thighs. He clasped his hands together, letting them dangle loosely between his knees.

“You said I was needy first.” Sulky face.

“Hey, are we back in school or something?”

He looked up at you, dark eyes staring into yours intensely. “Why d’you get with another guy, Y/N?”

Straight to the point, then. OK, you were going to return the favour.

“What, I’m not allowed to have a life? D’you think I’m going to just sit around, waiting to gratefully receive 5 minutes of your attention every few weeks? Like some kind of fucktoy, to be picked up and dropped at will? Seriously?”

He clenched his fingers until the joints went white. “I thought you were happy with the way things are between us!!?... our... our arrangement. You’re important to me. And you know I care about you!” Not meeting your eyes at this last comment.

“Huh!!!” You leant against your kitchen island, you weren’t going to get into Billy’s orbit. Too risky.

“So important that you spend all your time at work, while bedding half of Manhattan? Leaving me with the crumbs from your table, as someone put it recently.”

He shot up from the sofa, fury in his eyes. “Who fuckin’ said that?!”

You shrugged, “It’s not important. What is important is that our arrangement, as you call it, is over. Since you put it in such business-like terms, think of it as a contract which has been terminated.”

Billy stalked across the room until he was an inch away from you, eyes boring into yours. “No.”

You laughed in disbelief, eyebrows arching. “You think that just cos you say ‘No’ it’s not gonna happen? Because no-one ever says no to Billy Russo, is that it?”

He grabbed you, lips finding yours in a ferocious kiss. One hand crept up the nape of your neck, his fingers running through your hair, while the other hand pulled your hips to his. He had an impressive erection. You gasped as you felt the pressure of it against you, but pushed him away, escaping to the other side of the kitchen island.

“Just go, Billy. Please.”

He stared at you, wide-eyed, those dark pools of his looking suspiciously glossy. Was he...? No way.

Billy turned on his heel and slammed out of your apartment. Again.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Billy knocked his beer bottle off the table with his elbow, as he leant forward to drunkenly wave a finger in his friend’s face. Luckily, it fell onto the grassy verge below, rather than the decked patio they were sitting on in Frank’s back garden.

Frank grabbed his finger. “Russo!!! Chill out, man.”

“She tol’ me... t’go, Frankie, I was kissin’ her an’ she jus’ said Go!” slurred Billy. Frank squeezed his eyes shut at the whiny tone then looked back at him.

“Bill! We all warned you she wouldn’t put up with your bullshit forever. You should’ve known this was comin’ bud.”

“Bu’ I... I... love her,” he blurted, then stared at Frank, eyes wide, part horrified, part terrified.

“Got a strange way of showin’ it, Bill. Picking other women over her, until you decide it’s time to hook up. Surprised she’s stood for it so long!”

Billy swayed slightly in his garden chair, just staring back at him, nodding repetitively like a bobble head every so often.

“I gotta get her back, Frankie.”

“Whooo,” Frank huffed out a big breath, “well, ya always did like to choose the impossible missions, Russo.”

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

You were beginning to understand what having a stalker was like.

When you left work the following day, the first person you spotted on the sidewalk outside your office building was Billy Russo.

You hesitated, shocked, then nodded and said quietly, “Hi Billy,” before continuing your short walk to the subway.

He fell into step alongside you. “M’gonna show you just how much I care about you,” you heard, then he was gone. Just gone, into the crowd of commuters around you.

That was just the beginning. Every morning, one single rose of the palest pearly pink would be delivered to your office, laying in a swirl of black chiffon within a silver gift box.

Texts would drop into your phone at unexpected hours. “Please forgive me. Let me back into your life. I love you, Y/N.”

The first time you saw those words, you nearly dropped your phone. What the....?

Gourmet meals and bottles of rosé prosecco would be delivered to your door, precisely 30 minutes after you’d get home. Was he watching you or something? A little shiver ran up your spine. He was still a sniper, after all.

You would catch glimpses of Billy when you left the office, and outside your apartment. Without a shadow of a doubt, he meant you to see him, he would never be so visible on a real surveillance job. But he didn’t ever approach you.

Then you got your dream job. You, Karen and a bunch of your colleagues went to your regular bar after work for a quick celebration. There was a toast proposed to your new job at one point, and one of your male colleagues grabbed you in a friendly bear hug after they’d all shouted “Cheers!”

You were looking past his arm as he hugged you, and found yourself staring into Billy Russo’s dark eyes. Casually dressed, he was leaning on a high table near the door, a beer in front of him.

Billy lazily pushed back from his table, strode over to you, swiped you out of the guy’s arms, wrapped his own arms round you and planted a kiss on your temple, with a nonchalant, “Hi, sweetheart.”

Karen, who had heard all about your last encounter with Billy, looked thunderstruck. You’d be getting interrogated later, that was for sure.

He, meanwhile, landed another kiss right next to your lips and said, “See you later at home,” giving you a quick squeeze before walking off.

Your female colleagues meanwhile were swooning over Billy, one of them commenting that she wasn’t surprised you’d kept so damn quiet about your hot boyfriend. You gave Karen a meaningful look and just smiled back at them all, neither confirming nor denying anything.

However the feeling of Billy’s body against yours, the delicious smell of him, his lips on your skin, had set your heart racing at a dangerous speed. You really did try to push those thoughts aside.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Flopping down onto your sofa when you got home, you laid your head back on it and thought about that evening. As expected, Karen had questioned you ruthlessly as you left the bar together, like the perceptive investigative reporter she was.

Talking as you walked to the subway, you’d given her every detail of all the deliveries, glimpses of him and texts you’d received in the last few days. Karen had stopped walking, looking at you in surprise. “Y/N, why didn’t you tell me about all of this before now? Hell, Frank told me he had some crazy plan to win you back, but I never really thought...” her voice trailed off.

“Is it working?” she asked next. “Mmmm, yes and no, to be honest,” you said. “Don’t let it!” she said firmly, “This is what he should have been doing all along, instead of treating you like a total afterthought.”

You nodded, “Can’t argue with ya on that,” you agreed. “Is he going to turn up at your place, d’you think?” she asked. “Wouldn’t be surprised,” you laughed, “I think that was Billy giving me a heads-up.”

So as you’d been 90% expecting, the familiar knock at the door came about 15 minutes after you’d got back. You got up and after checking the peephole, sighed and opened it. “Hi, Billy.”

This was like déjà vu. Billy brushed past you and sat himself down on the sofa, in the same pose as the last time. Head down, hair falling forward and hiding his eyes from you. This time, you bit the bullet and sat at the opposite end, leaning against the armrest so you were facing him.

“Well, Billy.... leaving aside the stalkerish overtones, I guess I should thank you for the roses, gourmet meals and prosecco.”

He swung his head towards you, eyes wide. “They were just to get your attention. Frankie told me it’s what I shoulda been doin’ anyway, all along.”

You nodded, “Yeah, he’s not wrong.”

Billy heaved out a big sigh, head dropping. “I know I’ve been a complete shit to you, Y/N. Took you for granted.” He met your eyes again, “Truth is, I was fallin’ in love with you, and I really didn’t know how to handle it. I thought it was... just sex to you, so I... I was a coward and tried to ignore it, and acted like I didn’t give a shit about you. I just couldn’t have you kick me to the curb if I told you how I felt.”

You were genuinely shocked - Billy had never talked about his feelings before. You’d accepted this in the past, telling yourself it was due to his upbringing in the system.

“So you meant what you said in your daily texts, then?”

He nodded, still looking straight at you, “Yeah...I meant it, I do love you, Y/N.” Then he quickly looked down again.

Before you could stop yourself, you’d leant along the sofa and your fingers were pushing that silky hair off his forehead. He looked up at you, taking hold of your wrist and kissing your pulse point softly. You stood up, saying “C’mere, you,” and took hold of his hand, pulling him up along with you.

He put his arms round you, burying his face into your hair and just holding you. “I’ve missed you,” he mumbled. You laughed, “What?! Even though you hadn’t seen me for weeks before the night you landed on my doorstep?!”

“I know, I know, you don’t need to remind me I’ve been a complete prick. I’ll be honest, I think it took me seein’ you with that guy, and him actin’ like you were his, to give me that kick up the ass I needed.” The dark eyes looked down at you, and he sniffed, “He still around?” You shook your head.

“Nah. I think he thought I was completely insane for still being with you.”

Billy laughed, “Maybe he’s right....” he looked at you, serious again. “You willin’ to give me another chance, Y/N? I promise you I’ll do it right this time. The whole dating thing, asking you to be my girlfriend after three dates, all that stuff... everything.”

“Everything? Like, what if I say no sex to start with? And no running off to other women to scratch that itch? You’ll swear to all that? Really?!”

“I swear to you, on my Ka-Bar.”

“Wow,” you said, knowing that the knife was never out of Billy’s possession. It was an integral part of him. Maybe he was serious after all.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

A small kiss on your cheek woke you the next morning. Those eyes, those dark liquid pools, stared into yours, while a thumb ran over your cheek. “Mornin’, sweetheart,” smiling down at you. Reaching up, you ran your fingers into his hair, moving it off his forehead. “Morning, sweetheart,” you echoed, smiling back.

You and Billy had shared a bed but nothing else, except hugs and hand-holding. You were in your PJ’s - well, camisole top with matching shorts - and all Billy had on were his boxer briefs. You couldn’t deny you’d had thoughts of just leaping on him during the night... let’s face it, he was one hot dude. And he knew how to ‘look after’ a woman in bed, as he himself put it.

But no, you were determined he was gonna have to work for it, just like he promised he would. So you’d had to show some self-discipline, well, a lot of it, actually. He’d passed the first test - he’d actually stayed all night. Usually he was gone before the morning light stole through the curtains.

Now, he kissed your bare shoulder and leapt out of bed, like he was back in the Marines. He stood still for a moment, sideways next to the bed, having a leisurely full body stretch. Billy knew full well you’d be totally enjoying the view. A little tease from him to remind you what you were missing.

The sunlight, which stole through a small gap between your curtains in the otherwise dim room, picked out the sculpted muscles on his back & torso. Then he turned slightly more, ensuring you wouldn’t miss seeing the hard-on he was currently sporting. You shook your head, with a slight smile on your lips. The cocky big bastard.

“Where you off to, Billy?” you asked, thinking to yourself, if he’s headed to Anvil, he can fucking shove his second cha......

“I’m gonna make my beautiful almost-girlfriend a cup of good Italian coffee.”

You smiled at his departing back as he disappeared out of the bedroom. “Oh, Billy?”

His voice drifted back through from the kitchen, “Yeah, darlin’?”

“Can I please get some toast with that, too?”

“Sure, sweetheart.”

You stretched luxuriously, nestling your head into your pillows.

Looked like you were going to find out what having a panther on a leash was like.

#ben barnes #billy russo #billy russo fanfic #billy russo imagine #billy russo x reader #billy russo fanfiction #that swept back hair

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imagineaworlds · 3 years ago

Text

I Love You (Part Fifty-Eight) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual

Request: None.

Warnings: SMUT!! Cursing. Dom/sub relationship. Dirty talk. Bondage (belts). Sex toy (vibrator). Edging. Impregnation kink. The reader does go by they/them pronouns, however, Hotch refers to them as female when saying “good girl”. Drugging(s).

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Greenaway!Reader

Word Count: 9646

Timeline: A few weeks after part fifty-seven.

Criminal Minds Discord Server

Mine and Hotch’s anniversary was approaching, and even though we had vacation days saved up, we decided that we weren’t going to take time off to celebrate. It was going to be over the weekend, but still. If Strauss wanted to call us in for a case, we were going to show up. But, Rossi didn’t want me and Hotch to worry about it because our anniversary was more important, according to him, so he told us that he wanted us to focus on each other and not work. On Friday afternoon, Rossi showed up at our door, and without warning, he put a ring of keys in Hotch’s hand while saying, “No work. Not a single second of it. I want a figlioccio (godson) before I die or so help me.” When we asked what all of this was about, he dodged by giving us an address and strict orders to stay away until Tuesday morning.

“Dave, what is this?” Hotch questioned, turning the keys over in his hand.

He explained that he still had a place out in New York City that he didn’t use anymore. It was all ours for the weekend so that “Mom and Dad can have a little alone time.” I blushed at his comment. Our strict orders to stay away included a less than “veiled” threat that he would go to the Director himself and have us fired on the spot. I remembered thinking to myself that he was being a little hyperbolic, but I understood his point.

So, when Morgan showed up an hour later—something that was apart of Rossi’s plan all along, it seemed—we packed a few bags, got in the car, and we started driving up to New York City. Morgan had apparently asked if he could babysit Scarlet and Jack with Jessica while we were gone; but Hotch seemed absolutely terrified that we would come home to a burning house, even though I was insisting that it would be fine. I trusted Morgan. I knew that he wouldn’t actually let anything happen to our kids, especially since I got to see up close how good he was with Scar while Hotch was gone in the Middle East. One day, he was going to be a great dad. Besides, Jessica was going to be there, which meant that Hotch really had no reason to worry because we trusted her around our kids all these years, and Morgan was just like another big kid. She could wrangle all three of them, if she needed to.

When we arrived at Rossi’s place, I felt my jaw practically hit the ground. When he said he had a place in New York fucking City, I just assumed it was a small apartment, since that was the extent of what most of the city could afford. But not David Rossi. Not the Italian millionaire who insisted on spending his money on small, stupid, worthless things, like cigars and expensive pancetta. I should have known. If he was going to buy a place out there, he was going to go above and beyond, and he was only going to give me and Hotch the best of the best. That was why he gave us the keys to this place for the weekend. It was a huge floor-through apartment on the top floor of one of the nicest buildings around. Getting up there was a challenge, but it was also fairly simple, in some weird way. There was a doorman, and there was security which we had to check in with since we were unfamiliar faces. However, once we mentioned David Rossi, everyone’s demeanor changed. They all started apologizing for the inconvenience, and they were practically begging us to tell them if we ever needed anything… even though we really wouldn’t need anything at all. We just wanted to get upstairs. So, they all magically left us alone.

Up in the apartment, Hotch and I couldn’t help but laugh at how big and ostentatious it was. This felt absolutely ridiculous Was it necessary? No. However, was it incredibly nice? Yes. It was a relief to be alone again with no work, no friends, no kids, and absolutely no worries. It was just me, him, and an ugly bear rug in the living room.

Hotch let go of the bags he had brought up before turning and sweeping me off my feet. I gasped then giggled. It had caught me so off guard, but now that I was in his arms, I didn’t care about anything else in the world. All I could think about was his eyes. They were staring right into mine, searching for little signs that told him how much I loved him. And that was when I noticed a familiar sparkle in his eyes. It was the sparkle that said he loved me so fucking much that he’d die for me, but also that he would do anything I wanted for me… everything.

I kissed his jawline, just under his earlobe. “I brought the black box,” I whispered seductively.

“Oh, really?”

“Mhm.”

“You don’t want to see the city or get dinner first?”

“No, Sir.”

He set me down on my feet. “Find the bedroom while you’re getting undressed.” He spun me around so that I could lay eyes on the hallway where the bedroom could be. As I took my first step in that direction, I felt him slap my ass, making me giggle, and he chuckled. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I said, taking off my shirt slowly while walking, then turned to throw it at him.

I picked up my pace. Kicking off my shoes, then sliding out of my socks, I could spot the bedroom in the distance, the door wide open, practically inviting us inside after a long day of driving, and what was sure to be a long night, too. Racing down the hallway, I hopped and shimmied out of my pants, catching myself on one of the walls every time I wobbled and nearly tipped over. I was standing in just my panties and bra now when I entered the bedroom, finding the forest green comforter that I sank into as I jumped onto it.

That was when I heard shuffling outside. I bit my lip, hurrying to reach behind me so that I could unclasp my bra before Hotch could come in and scold me for not obeying his command by getting undressed faster. As my bra fell, I tossed it to the side. Just as I saw his shadow creep towards me, I laid down and lifted my hips up so that I could push my panties down, and then set them to the side for him, if he wanted to use them as a gag, or if he wanted to put them in his pocket, or even if he just wanted to disregard them entirely by throwing them onto the floor.

“Look at you,” he teased lightly, his voice lower than usual. There was his Dom space. I recognized it immediately without even having to look over at him. “So good for me, baby.” I dared to glance at him with a smile creeping onto my face. “Put your hands at your sides for me. Keep your legs together.” I did as I was told. I wasn’t willing to rock the boat just yet, though I knew I would once the opportunity presented itself. “My good, obedient, eager whore.”

I melted at his words. “Yes, Sir,” I croaked, even though I meant to sound confident. I swallowed hard and tried again. “I’m your good, obedient, eager whore.”

He grinned ear to ear. After taking a second to admire me as I was sliding into sub space, Hotch looked around the room for somewhere to set the black box. When he had decided on the desk to my left, he headed there without saying anything. I was so anxious. I wasn’t sure if it was because we were somewhere other than our bedroom at home, or if it was the fact that we had both slid into our respective headspaces so easily, or if it might’ve had to do with the fact that Halloween had only been a couple of weeks ago and I was still entirely obsessed with everything we had done before we were interrupted by the kitchen timer downstairs. Was he going to punish me like he had that day? Was he going to reward me for being so good to him? Would I even get his cock at all? So many questions were swirling through my head, and I wasn’t getting any answers just by watching him dig through the black box.

Hotch approached the bed with two belts in hand. My eyes widened as I watched him expertly loop one of the belts up to make homemade handcuffs. Without even having to demand anything of me, I stuck my hands out in front of me, and he smiled while sliding the belt onto my wrists before tightening it as much as he could. I hissed. His smile didn’t fade in response, though—in fact, it only seemed to grow. As he pushed me onto my back, a wicked smirk replaced his grin. Curiosity and anxiety were coursing through me because I had no idea what was about to come. There was still another belt lying there. But Hotch didn’t go for it yet. He stepped away to grab something else from the black box. When he turned back around, I saw that he was holding a hitachi wand—actually, our only one, though Hotch insisted we should get another just so he could torture me even more, to which I told him no in order to spare myself.

The wand started to buzz after he plugged it into the outlet next to the bed and under the bedside table. I tensed at the sound. This wasn’t going to be good. I almost regretted bringing the entire black box with me in the first place, because now that we were there, I could see in hindsight that it was going to be a very long weekend for me. We had only just gotten to the apartment, and Hotch already had me in sub space. Tuesday felt like a millennium away.

“You don’t cum without permission, slut. Understand?”

I nodded eagerly. “Yes, Sir.”

“You’ll hold it if I tell you to.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good girl…” he muttered, finally hovering the wand over my left nipple until I could barely feel it. I moaned lightly. “You don’t have to be quiet, baby. We’ve got the whole floor to ourselves.” He leaned over me. “And no one’s going to stop this.” He trailed the wand over to my other nipple, rolling it around until it was hard. I bit back a moan. Hotch grabbed my cheeks roughly in his hand and said, “Don’t hold back. Stop that.” But I didn’t let go of my lip. He squinted at me. “You’re really going to be a brat right now? Of all times? Now?” I didn’t answer him. Hotch growled lightly under his breath, sitting up and pulling the wand away from me entirely. “Fine. I won’t let you cum, then.”

“No—” I immediately tried to apologize, but Hotch stopped me with another glare.

“What did you just say?”

I tried to make myself small, hiding myself as far into the mattress as I could. “Sorry, Sir.”

“It’s too late for that.” He turned off the toy before settling it between my thighs, pressing it up against my bare, soaking wet pussy. I rolled my hips. “Stop moving.” I didn’t stop, though. In response, Hotch slapped my thigh harder than I was anticipating, making me yelp. “I said, stop moving, brat. Don’t make me tell you again.”

With the vibrator sitting between my thighs, he moved my legs so that they were pressed together, keeping the toy there without any work. And then it finally made sense as to why there was another belt. I watched as Hotch took the length of the brown belt in his hands, smoothing it out until he found each end, and he pulled it taught, making me flinch. He smirked. We both knew what he was planning on doing with that, and while the thought was certainly appealing to him, I knew that it wasn’t any good for me.

“Lift your knees,” he ordered.

I bent my knees upward just enough so that he could slide the belt under my thighs, and then he pushed my legs down roughly in order to tie the belt around my legs, completely prohibiting me from spreading my legs. The worst part was, Hotch had tied it just over the wand, which meant that no matter how much I squirmed, no matter what I did in an attempt to make it stop, the wand wasn’t going to budge away from my clit. It was going to stay there until Hotch was through with watching me suffer.

As I suspected, Hotch turned on the toy, making me jolt in response to the sudden overwhelming stimulation that was coursing through me. The worst part was… it was on the highest setting. He wasn’t starting out easy, and he wasn’t giving me a chance to relax or get into it. He knew what I wanted. He knew why we were there. He knew what would destroy me. He wasn’t going to take it easy on me.

“So sensitive,” he whispered to himself, dragging his fingertips up and down my thigh as slowly and lightly as he could.

I gasped as the toy hit a sensitive spot. Without thinking, I rolled around and cursed, “Fuck, Aaron.”

He grabbed my hip, making me settle on my back again. “Manners.”

But that wasn’t the point of having the entire weekend to ourselves, now was it? No. The point was that it was just us, without kids or work for once, and I could do whatever I wanted as long as it got him riled up enough to keep us both in bed until Tuesday. There was one thing that would work. Since getting married and having kids, it was really hard for me to maintain my brattiness because any moment we did get alone had to be fairly quick, because who knew when Scarlet would start fussing up again, or if Jack would need something, or if the office would call with a new case? If we wanted any adult time together, it had to be fairly fast and simple. But now there were three days and four nights ahead of us where I could finally be a tease again, just like old times. Like on the plane to St. Louis… How I missed those days. The tiniest thing I’d do would trigger Hotch, setting him into Dom space, giving him any and every excuse to punish me. I almost wished we could go back in time. Not that I would give Scarlet up for anything… but… those early months of dating were so simple and free. For just this weekend, we could afford to be like that again.

So, I did what any good brat would do. I looked him dead in the eye, and I said, “Make me.”

Hotch’s entire demeanor changed. He was already angry with how quickly I went from being his “good, obedient, eager whore” to the brat that was willing to challenge him on every little thing, just because I could. This anger was different. The look that washed over him reminded me of the good old days. We had just started dating, and I told him all about the black box and what it meant to be a Dom, and he just… There was this look of hunger he had when I got bratty. He used to jump me any chance he got—not that he didn’t anymore; it was just different now. But I saw it just then. I saw it as the words left my mouth, and I was immediately filled with regret.

He shook his head while walking to the black box again. “’Make me’,” he muttered, chortling. “’Make me’. Huh. Sure. Yeah…” He grabbed something from the box. “I thought I wanted to hear you scream for me,” he turned with a ball gag in hand, “but now that I know exactly what I’m going to do with you, I don’t think I want to hear your pathetic cries for me to stop or slow down…” He kneeled on the bed, forcing my jaw open with a rough grip on my cheeks. He shoved the gag into my mouth and quickly fixed together the buckle under my hair. “’Make me.’ You don’t get manners at all now. No, ‘Please, Sir’,” he mimicked my pathetic, pleading voice whenever he was edging me, “and no ‘Stop, Sir’, or ‘Sir, I can’t take it anymore!’ because you’ll take whatever I give to you.” He pressed the vibrator against me as hard as he could, tightening the belt around my thighs to make sure it would stay like that. “And no fucking cumming.”

A shiver ran down my spine as I kept squirming my fingers stretching for the toy that was torturing me. It was brutal. The highest setting was stimulating me to the point that my legs were all ready shaking, and I was a whimpering mess behind the gag. I was going to get close soon. I kept stretching my fingers for the wand, trying to pull it away just to catch a break because I didn’t want him to edge or ruin me. Some part of me wanted this to all be on my terms so that I could just find relief by climaxing, but Hotch wasn’t going to give me that satisfaction.

Hotch intertwined his fingers with mine to stop me from reaching. I squeezed his hands. My hips bucked, my head thrown back into the mattress, and I let out a scream. All he did was snicker. I was so close already—Fuck, fuck, fuck!

He turned it off just as I got to the edge. I thrashed around more violently this time, pissed that the stimulation was gone just when I needed it most, but Hotch and I kept holding hands, refusing to let go. He chuckled and brushed my hair out of my face.

“Is it bad that I want to see you cry?” he asked me.

I whimpered. “Sir—”

He turned the toy back on. “I think we’ll keep edging until you cry. Maybe then you’ll have learned that your place is to use honorifics, and that’s it.”

“Sir—”

“Shhh…”

I wiggled my hips to make the toy flick across my clit, which only made the stimulation 10x better, which was taking to the brink faster. “Sir, Sir, Sir, Sir—” I screamed again when he turned it off.

“You have to go slower, baby girl. The faster you edge, the worse it’ll be.”

“I hate you,” I mumbled behind the gag, drool running down my chin.

“No, you don’t.” He turned it back on, but this time on a speed that was much slower, making it harder and longer for me to edge. “God, you look so pretty.” He leaned down to take my nipple in his mouth. His tongue flicked over the sensitive bud, making me moan pleasantly instead of screaming like I had been. I melted into the bed. “So, so pretty for me…” He kissed the other one. And then his phone started ringing, startling the both of us. He groaned and sat up to turn it off, but he froze when he spotted the same. “It’s Sean,” he told me with a confused yet worried tone. “Stay here.”

I whimpered and tugged at the restraints as he started walking out of the room. He answered the call and closed the door behind him. I moaned out as the vibrations hit a sore spot on my clit. Now that he was gone, he wasn’t there to stop me from wriggling around, so I started twisting and turning while trying to find a way to release myself or get the vibrator to move off my clit just to give me a break. But there was no way out. The son of a bitch tied it to my thighs so hard that moving only made it worse. I whimpered around the ball gag again as my orgasm started to build again. At least he wasn’t there to take it away now. He would never know. If I just raced towards my climax, I could finish before he’d come back… Yeah. That was a good idea…

The door burst open just as I thought I could get away with it. I shook my head and cried, knowing that he was going to take it away as soon as possible, and there was nothing I could do to stop him. “I am so sorry, baby,” he apologized sincerely. I looked at him with wide, curious eyes. He wasn’t apologizing in a teasing way. Hell, he wasn’t even in Dom space anymore. Something happened with Sean on the phone. “I have to go.” He stretched over the bed to turn off the vibrator. I moaned as I edged, throwing my head against the mattress. “I’m sorry…” He started unclasping the belt around my hips so that he could pull the toy away. “Sean’s in trouble.”

“Gag,” I tried telling him, though it was muffled and hardly coherent. Hotch somehow understood, because the second the rope was loose enough for me to wiggle out on my own, Hotch reached behind my head to unbuckle the ball gag.

“Don’t talk yet,” he warned worriedly, grabbing onto my jaw to hold it open so that I wouldn’t hurt myself. When the gag was out, Hotch set it on the bed. “Just relax.” He slowly helped my jaw close. “I’m going to make this up to you, I swear—”

I shook my head and sat up. “What’s wrong with Sean?”

Hotch sighed and shifted on the bed so that he could uncuff my hands. “I’m not entirely sure. I just need to meet with him and take care of it—”

“I’ll go with you.”

He shook his head. “No. He’s my burden, and I— I feel bad for leaving you like this—”

“Hotch, this doesn’t matter while Sean’s in trouble. You’ll make it up to me later, just like you said. Your messes are my messes. Remember?”

Hotch threw the belts next to the ball gag. “I’m so sorry.”

I smiled lightly at him. “If it makes you feel any better, you’ve edged me worse before.”

He chuckled and pressed his forehead against mine, his eyes falling shut. “I will make this up to you.”

I kissed him quickly. “I’ll clean up and then we’ll go.”

“I love you.”

“I know.” I kissed him again, then wiggled off the bed, hurrying to the bathroom. “Sean Hotchner…” I sighed to myself. If he weren’t my brother-in-law, I would have killed him myself. Acting like this was alright in front of Aaron was easy, but the truth was that I was frustrated… in more than one way.

----

The Edinburg was where we were meeting us with Sean. As we pulled up to the club, we saw the cops, medics, and witnesses all standing around in the cold, trying to wrap up the scene. Sean spotted us right as we got out of the car. We approached the barricade around the club, flashing our credentials to the cops that were trying to keep us out, and they let us pass through without any problems.

“Thank you, guys, so much for coming,” Sean said, dropping his cigarette on the ground and putting it out by grinding the toe of his shoe against it.

“I didn’t think you were allowed to smoke in public in New York,” Hotch said coldly to his brother.

He slowly started sliding his arm around the small of my back, pulling me close. He hadn’t finished dropping yet, I could tell, and he probably wouldn’t for a bit because his mind was still racing with what we had been doing—and I knew that because I was still thinking about it, too. We were supposed to be there for Sean. He called us, asking for help, and that was what we were supposed to be there for, but the endorphins were still coursing through us which was why we hadn’t settled down to completely focus on Sean yet. We just had to give it a few more minutes.

“You’re not even going to warm up to the big brother act?”

“I figured that it would save us time. You called during our anniversary.”

“So, that’s why you guys are up here.”

“Yeah. Care to tell us what we’re doing here now?”

“The girl I told you about, the one who died, her name was Anna. The cops think that she OD’d, but I’m not… I’m not so sure. She was bleeding everywhere, Aaron. I mean, out of her eyes, her nose, her ears. You don’t do that when you’re overdosing.”

“And you would know?”

“Aaron!” I hissed.

That was rude. I knew that Hotch was done with Sean, he had said that much since Haley’s death, and even when Sean showed up to our wedding, they didn’t talk, but he had no right to say that. Sean was his own person. If he was struggling and needed help, we should’ve been a safe space for him to turn to. But if Hotch kept this ‘tude up, Sean wouldn’t have anyone.

Sean shook off the comment to continue telling us what happened. “My manager wouldn’t let me call 911 until I got her outside so that the club wouldn’t be liable; but by then, she was already dead.”

“Is this the first time this has happened here?” I asked.

“No… My girlfriend, Linda Heying, she died last week the same exact way.”

“She didn’t abuse or anything?” Hotch questioned.

“No. She drank, but after—” He stopped himself so that he could tread lightly. “After something that happened a few months ago, the two of us got clean, and we stopped using.”

“Using what?”

“Not the point, Hotch,” I whispered. I looked at Sean again. “Do you know of a third one?” Without a third case, it wasn’t federal, which meant that we couldn’t take it. But Sean nodded, which meant that the case was ours now if we wanted it. I sighed and looked at Hotch. “Rossi’s going to kill us.”

----

While the team was on the plane, Garcia called to let us know that there was a similar situation in another club just after the victim at The Edinburg. Six people died of apparent drug overdoses, but they had been bleeding the same way Anna and Linda had. So, this had turned serial in less than a night. Whatever had been tampered with—drugs or alcohol, probably the latter considering that Sean was adamant that Linda didn’t do drugs at the time of her death—had made its way into both clubs on the same night. The likelihood that it could be found elsewhere was rising. If we didn’t act fast, this was going to get out of control.

The team was discussing the case and the profile on the jet without us, though. Hotch and I were holed up in the Field Office that we hadn’t stepped foot into since the bombing five years ago. It honestly felt as if no time had passed at all. We had shown up at the office, and everyone was taken aback by how much Kate looked like Haley, and everyone was convinced that her and Hotch had a history—and I was sure of it, too, because they didn’t act like friends all. Kate was always hanging around Hotch, hugging him every chance she got, talking privately and intimately with him, only valuing his opinion. Hotch told me that I was crazy, though. He convinced me into thinking that him and Kate had never done anything, and I believed him, and it never even crossed my mind again until he finally fessed up a couple of months back when I asked him to lay out all of the lies. They did have a history together, but it meant nothing to him. They were just friends in his mind. During that very case, he lost his friend. He lost someone who meant a great deal to him, someone who reminded him of Haley, and at the time, we thought about how hard it would have been to see Haley bleeding out like Kate had, thinking that it would never happen. We were so naïve back then.

I held onto Hotch’s hand when he started fidgeting and bouncing his knee. It was hard for him to be back and to not see Kate, to know that both her and Haley were now gone, and that I was all he had left. He brought my knuckles to his lips and placed a ginger kiss against them as a silent thank you for sitting silently with him.

“We should talk to Sean since he knows the most about the other victims.” He pushed himself to his feet before he could continue overthinking, and he immediately walked towards the interrogation room where Sean was sitting.

“Hotch—”

He closed the door on me, though, so the only way I could spy on them was by heading into the mirror room. Hotch sat down across from his brother. “Six kids bled out last night, just like the others. How well do you know these people that you’re working with, Sean? I mean, they wanted to avoid a liability by dragging a victim out of the building before deciding to help.”

“Listen, Thane hooked me up with the job a couple of months ago. What comes with that is bartending, cleaning, and looking the other way when something’s going down. Linda and I started dating a few weeks after that.”

“By looking the other way, did you suspect that any of the employees were dealing?”

“No. Just buying.”

“What was it that you were addicted to?”

“Aaron—”

“You need to be honest with me right now, Sean, if I’m going to help you.”

Sean sighed and sat back in his chair, wiping his face clean with his palms. After collecting himself, he dared to look back at Hotch. “Cocaine.”

“And you’ve stopped.”

“Yes?”

“And you’re not involved in anything illegal?”

Sean’s posture changed to something stronger, more adamant, but his eyes kept shifting as he answered, “Yes, but I’m not!” He was lying. Through and through, no doubt about it, he was lying.

Hotch noticed it, too, because he left the interrogation room without another word. When he opened the door, I saw Strauss and Rossi coming in just behind him. They must’ve had a long drive from the jet.

Rossi crossed his arms over his chest. “We just got off the phone with Reid, Morgan, and JJ on our way here. Apparently, they found out that the drugs are made up of PMMA, which is a highly lethal drug with delayed results, so Reid thinks that all of the victims weren’t getting high, which was why they kept taking more and more until they overdosed.”

“This is the first time we’ve found evidence of PMMA in the United States,” Strauss said, “and the Director wants it gone. Did your brother tell you anything?” Strauss asked Hotch. He shook his head. “Well, he has to know something, right? Agent Greenaway said he was lying.”

“About something else—”

“He could be hiding things from us. He might not talk to you because you’re family, so, Dave, I want you to give it a shot.”

Rossi shrugged and immediately reached for the door, seeing no problem with going in. Sean didn’t know Rossi. Whenever he had actually been around to meet the BAU, it was while Gideon was around—and the wedding didn’t count because Sean spent all of his time at the open bar. Rossi was a stranger. Sean probably knew how to get away with lying—or at least thought he did—but with Rossi, he would be thrown off his game, which would potentially give us an edge.

So, we watched from behind the mirror.

“Where’s Aaron?” Sean asked as Rossi sat down across from him.

“In cases where family’s involved, we like to have an unbiased agent perform an interview for another perspective.”

“Am I a suspect?”

That was an interesting question to ask. I mean, if he were innocent, he wouldn’t have asked a question at all, he would have waited for Rossi to proceed so that he could just answer all of the questions as honestly as possible. Asking a question made him seem guilty. The way he shifted in his seat uncomfortably, too, was a red flag.

“Should you be?” Rossi asked, squinting suspiciously. Sean rolled his eyes. “How well did you know the second victim, Linda?”

“We used to date.”

“’Used to’?”

“Yes. Before she died.”

“You know, that’s funny,” Rossi sat back, “because most people would say, ‘We were dating when she died’. But you referred to your relationship as though it had been a past tense situation before her death. Am I right?”

Sean nodded. “Yeah. We broke up after we had a fight.”

“Over?”

Strauss turned to look at Hotch, distracting us from the interrogation. As she asked, “Aaron, do you think you’ll still be able to work this case? I need to know,” Rossi asked another question about the argument when Sean didn’t respond at first. What Sean answered with caught Hotch off guard.

“My using… I stopped, though, because of her.”

“When was that?”

“Two months ago.”

“Any relapses?’

Hotch stormed out of the room. I tried chasing after him, but the door slammed on my face slowing me down. I could hear Hotch yelling at Sean from the hallway. “You’d rather not say?! I asked you about this earlier and you said it didn’t matter! People are dying, Sean!” I stumbled into the room, running into Hotch’s back. His stance didn’t waver. “What was it? Heroin? PCP?”

“Jesus, Aaron, who do you think I am?!” Sean exclaimed.

“Clearly, I don’t know!”

“Hotch,” I whispered, grabbing a hold of his bicep, trying to pull him out of the room with me. “Hotch, stop,” I pleaded. “Aaron!” I finally pulled him out of the room and slammed the door behind us again. “Stop this right now! Stop!”

“He’s been lying to us—”

“Which seems to be a running theme in your family.”

Hotch stopped in his tracks. “Y/N—”

“You’re staying out of this until we’re done dealing with Sean—”

“—Y/N—”

“You’re done! Go wait in the boardroom.” I pushed him away, making him stumble towards the room where the team was just walking into. He opened his mouth to say something else. “Go!” I sighed as Hotch officially turned around, his head lowered in shame, and he wandered off. “Sean Hotchner… You motherfucker…” I opened the door again and stepped in. I sat beside Rossi. “Sean, listen to me.” He stared at me. “You need to tell me and Rossi the truth right now before we let Hotch come in and actually deal with you the way he wants. If it were up to him, he would have cut you off years ago and blocked your number. If he comes back into this room, I guarantee you he’s finally going to do it. So, we need the truth. Right now.”

“It was ecstasy!” Sean yelled over me. It was like he was trying to prove something, though I wasn’t sure what. “I got it from Thane.”

“Your boss? The same guy who told you not to call the cops until the dead woman was outside of his bar. You didn’t think to mention that earlier? That’s a lead—”

“Thane may be a dumbass, but he doesn’t kill people.”

“Does it not occur to you that if Thane is the one with access to the drug supply, he might also have access to the person who is doing this, then?”

Sean froze. The entire room was silent as it dawned on him that Linda’s murderer had been under his nose the entire time. “I… I didn’t… How could I…” He fell silent again.

There was a knock on the window to our right, making Rossi and I look over. It was Hotch. I rolled my eyes, thinking that he was asking to come back in, probably after convincing himself that he could be calm about it, which we all knew he couldn’t. But then he held up a case file. There had been another incident. Rossi and I excused ourselves from the conversation with Sean and headed out to the hall, waiting until the door fell shut behind us to ask what happened.

A family was found dead in their house by their daughter who was returning from school. They were on the floor, bleeding from every crevice imaginable, but they were already gone by the time paramedics got there. The thing was, they were a nuclear family in an upper-class neighborhood. They weren’t high risk at all. Why would they take ecstasy in the middle of the day?

“That’s why I’m sending you, Morgan, and Reid,” Hotch said. “The rest of us are going to stay here and keep looking into PMMA and where it’s coming from.”

So, that was how Reid, Morgan, and I ended up in a living room covered in blood and puke, a crying girl sitting in an ambulance outside, covered by a shitty trauma blanket. There wasn’t a single hint of ecstasy anywhere. Morgan and I searched the house while Reid tried profiling the parents, and the family as a whole. According to him they were a happy family. It didn’t seem like they had any problems beyond mild marital issues, which he discovered when he found the bill for couple’s counseling hidden underneath the mother’s journal in her bedside table.

“Nothing here suggests that these two would ever try any drugs, even marijuana,” Morgan said. We were standing in the kitchen now, looking around. “So, why would they suddenly use ecstasy and know how to properly dispose of it before anyone could find it?”

“Maybe they didn’t do X,” I said, shrugging.

“They had been drinking…” Spencer muttered to himself, grabbing a napkin to pick up a wine bottle that was sitting on the counter. I opened the dishwasher to see two wine glasses in there. He was right. “They probably just got home from work, decided to unwind before their daughter would come home.” Spencer carefully set down the bottle, then raced to go find Gina for a drug testing vial. When he returned, he used the dropper to suck up a bit of the wine, then squeezed it into the vial. It immediately turned blue, letting us know that it had been dosed with PMMA. Spencer stood up straight. “The Unsub wants to increase his body count. He doesn’t care who he hurts. There’s probably dozens to hundreds of spiked bottles still out there.”

“Should we put out a warning?” I asked.

“And create mass hysteria?” Morgan scoffed. “We have no concrete proof that there’s more of these bottles out there. We should start by tracking this bottle, then go from there.”

I nodded an agreement. “I’ll call Hotch to let the team know that we’re looking into wine now.” I grabbed my phone and stepped away while dialing him. He answered with his name. “Hey, we’re just finishing up here,” I told him. “Their wine had been spiked, so you guys might want to start looking into where they got the bottle and whatnot.” Hotch hummed and agreement. He didn’t really sound like he was listening. “Baby?”

“Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll tell the team.”

“Your brain’s scattered, I can tell. Talk to me.”

“I’m still worried that Sean knows more than he’s letting on.”

“You just need to give him a break for now, I think. He might loosen up.”

“That’s not the problem. He’s already tense, but it’s because he’s worried about protecting himself from the law and the big brother act.”

“Just take it easy on him, my love. Please.”

“I told you I was done with him after Haley’s death. Why—”

“Because he’s family.”

He sighed heavily. “I know. Listen, I’ve gotta call you back. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Bye.”

Just as he hung up, I whispered, “Bye.”

“Is he okay?” Morgan asked from behind me, scaring the absolute shit out of me, making me physically jump with shock. He chuckled. “Sorry.” I caught my breath and turned to face him. “Seriously… Do you think he’s okay?”

I shrugged. “I think he will be. I think that right now he’s just sick and tired of cleaning up Sean’s messes, but without Sean, we wouldn’t be here.”

“Maybe the two of you shouldn’t be here. Maybe that’s why Hotch is annoyed.”

“You think he’s mad because I’ve been pushing him to work the case when we were supposed to take the weekend off?”

“I think that he’s mad that he loves his brother enough to give up a weekend alone with you just to get dragged back into all of this when you were supposed to be focusing on each other.”

“When did Derek Morgan get all wise about relationships?”

“I’ve always been wise about relationships. You just always forget it.”

Hotch was already calling back, so I abandoned the personal conversation with Morgan to answer what was hopefully going to be a work call. Thankfully, it was. Hotch called again to let us know that Sean wanted to go back to the club to talk to Thane while wired up, potentially giving us information on the Unsub, or at least enough to take down Thane and everyone else responsible for what happened to the victims at The Edinburg.

“Are you sure about this?” I inquired.

“I already tried arguing with him, but he’s stubborn.”

“Sounds like that runs in the family, too.”

“Ha. Ha,” he laughed sarcastically. “Can the three of you meet us at The Edinburg? We’ll have an undercover van to wait in.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I love you, Y/N.”

“I love you, too.”

----

When we jumped into the van, Hotch was listening to the live audio feed coming from Sean’s wire under his shirt, but he stopped somewhat to catch us up on everything. Sean had mentioned that he was talking to the cops. Because Thane was on edge, he demanded to know everything that happened at the precinct and how much the cops knew. Sean played it smart. He said exactly what Thane wanted to hear, and it gained his trust and got the heat off his back. Hotch was actually impressed.

Morgan handed me a vest to put on. As I did so, Hotch continued to explain that Sean was bringing up the spiked wine right now to see if he could get a reaction out of Thane, now we were just playing the waiting game. If Thane said anything incriminating, we were going to move in. If Sean was in danger in any way, we were going to move in.

“Maybe you should dump that wine, just to be safe,” someone in the background said. We all stopped to listen.

“Right,” Thane agreed. “Sean, I need your help with something.” It suddenly sounded like they were on the move. “I need you to dump these.” He was getting Sean involved with a crime to make sure he wouldn’t tell the cops anything, which was smart on his behalf.

“You don’t want me to dump the whole case?”

“No, just those two for now.” Thane sounded really freaked out and on edge.

“Something wrong?”

“Yeah… I, uh… I could’ve sworn there was another case of that stuff.”

Sean hesitated for a second. “I don’t think so.” He sounded nervous now, too. “Nothing’s gone missing since I last did inventory. Everything’s here. Besides, if it really is gone, it’s probably for the best. Just means it’s one less thing to dump.”

“It’s not here… No, no, no, no, no. It’s not here!” Thane smashed something on the ground out of anger. “Fuck!”

“What did you do, Thane?”

“I spiked the wine, you idiot. Three other bottles were in that case.”

“Why the hell would you do that?”

“I thought it was just X! I thought it was going to loosen the girls up!”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t X, Thane!” Sean yelled angrily. “Linda’s dead because of you. Where did you get it? You son of a bitch! She was sober and you drugged her!” The sound of punches being thrown echoed through the speaker, making all of us jump into action.

Just as Hotch made the call over the comms to move in, SWAT raced in to arrest the employees that had been sitting around with Thane beforehand, but Hotch and I rushed straight to the back room to help Sean. Thank had a box cutter out, lunging at Sean. I stopped him by kicking the back of his knee forward, making him fall to the ground. Without hesitation, I knelt down, grabbing my handcuffs from the back of my waistband, and I started arresting Thane.

“You okay?” Hotch asked his brother.

Sean, still upset about the whole situation, silently pushed past his brother and headed outside. I pulled Thane to his feet. Hotch and I glanced at each other for a moment, but I silently shook my head, letting him know that he shouldn’t go chasing after Sean unless he wanted to make things worse, which I knew he didn’t. So, I took Thane outside while Hotch stood still.

As Morgan and I loaded Thane and the other employees into the SWAT van that would take them into custody, Hotch came running out, fear and panic washed across his face. I raised a brow at him. He was running back and forth on the sidewalk, looking high and low. Did we miss something? Was there another bottle somewhere? Someone hiding?

“Hotch, what’s wrong?” I asked him, closing the doors of the SWAT van. Morgan patted it, letting them know they were free to go. “Hotch, what is it?”

Hotch didn’t say anything. He only turned his phone around to show me the screen and the text message from Sean that said: “I’m sorry.” Sean ran for some reason, and Hotch was left worried about his little brother again. Fucking Sean. He did this every time, and there were only so many times that I could keep defending him and continue convincing Hotch to stay in contact with him. He was making my job really fucking difficult.

“Sir, we found the club owner, Jim Peters,” a SWAT agent said after jogging over to us.

“Where?” I asked.

He looked at me, shocked that I was taking the lead and not Hotch. He cleared his throat. “Couple of blocks from here. His car was wrecked with him inside.”

“Is he okay?”

“He’s dead. The M.E.’s there now.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Morgan mumbled under his breath.

The four of us started walking there, taking the SWAT agent’s lead, and Spencer caught up to us, following along my side. When we got there, he immediately parted from us to talk to the M.E. What a fucking shit show. Peters must have been trying to run away from us when the Unsub caught up to him. First, Linda, then he tried going for Thane but fucked up and drugged Anna, and now Peters was dead. Was he going for employees of the club? That had to be the answer, unless someone else fucked up the car and it was just a random hit and run—but considering that we were standing in a dark, quiet, abandoned alley, I highly doubted that this wasn’t motivated.

Reid came to tell us what he knew. The car crash had trapped Peters’ legs, preventing him from running away, but it was the PMMA that had been poured down his throat that actually killed him. So, it was definitely motivated. This was premeditated, the violence indicated a personal grudge because of the overkill, and the fact that this was more personal than any of the other murders.

“It’s too much of a coincidence,” Hotch said. “Sean ran, then this happened… I’m going to have Garcia run a background on Sean.”

“Come on, Hotch,” Morgan said, “you can’t think that it’s him.”

“I don’t, but I can’t eliminate him as a possibility now until I know what he’s hiding.”

I shook my head and sighed. “Absolutely not.” Hotch looked at me, bewildered. “You’re obviously not thinking straight, Aaron. Listen to yourself.” I shook my head again. “Go take a walk.”

“Y/N—”

It was like déjà vu when I insisted again that he leave and he reluctantly and angrily turned to leave the alley. Morgan and Reid were staring at me. They couldn’t believe that I had the audacity to bench Hotch, and that he actually fucking listened to me; but I think some part of Hotch knew that I was right, which was exactly why he listened and left.

“So, what do we know now that this guy is dead?”

“The Unsub doesn’t care about who dies now,” Reid explained. “The innocents were just a distraction, but the real targets, it seems, based on the brutality, are the employees of The Edinburg.”

“So, it’s personal.”

“Yeah.”

Morgan’s phone started ringing, probably with a call from Garcia because he smiled and answered with, “Hey, baby girl.” And then he put the call on speaker.

“Oh, you guys are going to love me,” Garcia said excitedly.

“We already do.”

“Yes, but even more now. I just found out that our first victim at The Edinburg that Sean knew about, Erik Sullivan, and our recently and dearly departed Hatchitt parents, all withdrew money on the days of their deaths from the same ATM. Where is said ATM, you might be asking yourself, well, it’s located in a bodega two blocks from The Edinburg.”

“You’re right, we do love you, Garcia, thank you,” I said. I looked at the boys. “You wanna go check it out while I talk to Hotch?” They nodded and started walking towards one of the black SUVs. I spun around on my heels once they were gone, looking far and wide for Hotch, only to find that he was relaxing against a brick wall on the opposite end of the alley, hiding in the shadows. I headed over to him. “Okay, Batman, what gives?”

“I’m still worried about Sean,” he admitted. “I hate that I am, though, because I’m honestly sick of this. I keep saying it again and again, but I really mean it this time, Y/N, and I need your support on this.” He looked up at me. “I told you that I was done playing his games after he didn’t show up to Haley’s funeral. I found out that you had invited him to the wedding anyhow—”

“You knew about that?”

“Of course I did. You suck at lying to me.”

I smirked. “Or so you think.”

He grinned, too, but after a moment, it faded again. “Once I know that Sean’s safe, this is over. I don’t want our family getting dragged into anymore of my brother’s messes. My job is to protect you, love of my life,” he put his hands on my cheeks, “and our children back at home. Being raised by a distant relative who’s prone to bad habits isn’t a good role model to have around. We’ve worked too hard to protect Jack and Scar to have Sean keep coming back and fucking it all up.”

“I get that, Aaron, I really do…” I put my hands on his shoulders. “But Sean is our family the same way Jessica and Elle are. Therefore, his messes are always going to be our messes. We can’t forget that.”

“I can, and I’m choosing to after this.”

“Hotch, he’s your brother.”

“I know, which is why I want to protect him right now.” He groaned when his phone started buzzing in his pocket. “Hotchner.” His attention suddenly snapped up to me. “Sean, I need you to come in. I think that the Unsub might be targeting Edindurg employees. You’re safer with us at the precinct.” Silence for a bit. “I know that you didn’t kill him, Sean. I also know why you ran.” A beat as I raised a curious brow. “Just come in so that we can protect you. No, wait, Sean—” Hotch pulled the phone away from his ear after his brother hung up on him. “Shit.”

My phone buzzed this time, and I almost expected that it was Sean, for some reason. My hopes dropped somewhat, though, when I saw that it was just JJ, letting me know that Thane cracked without much pressure, giving us everything he knew. We knew about the entire distribution line now because we offered him protection against the Unsub. He told them that the PMMA was coming through a private airport outside of the city. Garcia was already looking into employees who could’ve had a stressor recently to convince them to smuggle the drug and distribute it as a means of murder.

I told Hotch as we headed back to the SUV so that we could race back to the office to catch up with everyone. When we got there, JJ, Rossi, and Strauss were on a video call with Garcia as she looked something up. They asked where Morgan and Reid were. I told them that they were going to take a look at the ATM and the bodega where the victims had supposedly bought the wine, just to see if we could make a connection there. Hotch and I took a seat when no one said anything else.

“Uh oh,” Garcia muttered, typing faster.

“Uh oh?” Strauss questioned.

“I ran financial records for all the people who work at the Franklin Airport, just like I said I would, and I found this one baggage handler, Mike Spiers, who’s been making ridiculously large cash deposits to his checking account on a weekly basis.”

“That could mean he’s the Unsub.”

“That’s what I thought at first, too, but then I found the ‘uh oh’ part. He’s been dead for four weeks.”

“Someone’s taken his place. Whoever is making those deposits is our Unsub,” Hotch said. “It’s probably another baggage handler who knew about Spiers’ death and was paid to look the other way, just like Sean was at the club.”

“Garcia, do any of the baggage handlers show a history of drug abuse?” I asked her up on the screen.

“None. They’re surprisingly squeaky clean.”

“What about drug-related deaths in the family recently?” Hotch questioned. I thought about how great minds thought alike.

“I saw something earlier…” She trailed off while researching. “Larry Feretich—Right, yes, okay, I got it. Larry Feretich’s daughter died two months ago of a suspected ecstasy overdose—I’m so sorry I didn’t spot it earlier, Hotch.”

“You weren’t looking for family; it’s okay.”

“Where did she die?” Rossi asked.

“The Obsidian, which is the other club that Jim Peters owned.”

“There’s the stressor and the personal vendetta for you.”

“Where is he now?” Strauss spoke up.

“He’s scheduled to be working right now.”

Hotch pulled out his phone and started texting someone. “Morgan and Reid are already half way there, we’ll send them to meet up with SWAT and arrest him.”

“Seems like Sean can come back now since we’ve exonerated him,” I said. I stood up and passed my hand over his, knowing that I couldn’t plainly touch him while Strauss was around.

Hotch nodded. “I’ll let him know to meet us at the penthouse, I suppose, since our weekend isn’t technically over yet.”

“You’re damn right it’s not. I meant what I said about a godson,” Rossi joked.

We smiled politely at him before waving goodbye to everyone and heading out of the Field Office to go back to the penthouse. In the car, while I was driving, Hotch texted Sean. I took his had in mine and squeezed. We were okay. Our weekend wasn’t completely ruined yet. Everything was going to be fine.

When we got there, Hotch stayed in the entryway, waiting impatiently. I asked him what was wrong. He looked at me and shook his head, insisting that it was nothing.

“We don’t lie to each other, remember?” I interrogated.

“I’m not lying, baby, I’m just protecting you from the truth. They’re different.” He looked at me. “Can you accept that this one time? For me?”

I nodded, then continued to wait with him silently until there was a knock at the door, encouraging Hotch to quickly open the door and invite Sean in. He waved politely at me and I returned the favor. Hotch was staring at me, though, trying to tell me something that I didn’t recognize this time around. I knew all of his looks, but not this one.

“Can you give us some privacy, baby?” he whispered.

“Sure. I love you,” I whispered back, leaning in to kiss him quickly.

He grabbed my hips. “I love you, too. I’ll meet you in there soon.”

We kissed again before letting go of each other, giving me the freedom to wave goodbye to Sean over my shoulder, then make my way to the bedroom.

-----

criminal minds family: @peggy1999 @gorgeousdarkangel @alex--awesome--22 @oceaneblu @brithedemonspawn @absolutemarveltrash @bshelley322 @rousethemouse @sunshinepower17 @weexinling @pettttyyyc @Braty-angel @Braxdix

#Criminal Minds #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds smut #criminal minds imagine #aaron hotchner #Aaron Hotch Hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner fanfiction #aaron hotchner imagine #aaron hotchner smut

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keanureevesisbae · 4 years ago

Text

Mister Cavill, your dog is kinda fat - Chapter 1

Summary: Veterinarian Olivia Tran has zero time for bullshit. After becoming a mom at age twenty three, the one thing she wants is a good life for her daughter Vanessa. Her ex didn’t want anything to do with her nor the baby and she decided that man are officially banned out of her life. But then she meets Henry Cavill at her clinic and her ban slowly starts to crumble apart. Henry on the other hand is looking for one thing: a family. And when he meets Olivia Tran, he finds just that.

Henry Cavill x Olivia Tran (ofc)

Warnings: None

Wordcount: 2.4k

A/N: The beginnings of a new fic! It’s kind of a build up, so there isn’t a lot of Henry Cavill inthis chapter, but the next one is from his pov and more than 4.5k. I hope you like this new story 🤗

Masterlist // Next chapter

For fuck’s sake, I can still smell the fluids from those anal glands I have been popping all day. Even when you wear gloves every single time, that penetrating smell will just stay with you.

After a long day at the clinic, I can finally call it a day. Of course, I’m on call tonight, but other than that, I can relax now. Working as a vet has always been a dream of mine and now, at the ripe age of twenty nine, I have managed to become doctor Olivia Tran, one of the loved veterinarians here.

‘See you tomorrow, Belle,’ I yell to my best friend and other veterinarian at this clinic.

‘You on call tonight?’ Belle asks.

‘I am.’

‘If you need to go, I can’t watch Vanessa tonight,’ she tells me, while she is checking the ears of a pug, who seems to have severe breathing problems from the looks of it. ‘I have a date.’

‘No worries,’ I say to her with a smile. ‘I probably don’t need to go anyways. Hasn’t happened in the past months, so I highly doubt that something will change tonight. Please let me know how your date went tomorrow.’

Belle, the gorgeous brunette with legs for days and blue eyes as big as Rapunzel, flashes me a bright smile. ‘Of course, dear. Give Vanessa a big kiss for me, will you?’

‘Will do.’ I walk out of the clinic, give a sweet Jack Russell a scratch behind his ear and check my watch. I have twenty minutes before I have to pick up Vanessa, but it’s a fifteen minute walk if I hurry and if I just stroll around, it’s twenty minutes. Can I manage to buy myself some cookies or should I wait after I picked her up?

I think I would have a very happy six year old if I waited with the cookies after I picked her up from school.

I bury my hands in the pockets of my coat. Yesterday it was official: the summer has passed and autumn is here. I always love it when I see the green leaves slowly turning orange or brown and cover the pavement with a blanket of crunchy leaves. It’s Vanessa’s favorite season as well, but that’s mostly because it’s her birthday on November 12th.

I never planned on becoming a mother at twenty three. I never really gave it a big thought, the idea of having kids. In the far far far future I might’ve become one, but I always thought I had more cool aunt potential.

The day I found out I was pregnant, I was scared, but since I was in a pretty serious relationship with Wesley for almost three years, the man I thought I’d end up marrying, I figured we would make this work. We would marry, have this kid and live happily ever after, maybe even have a few more.

But Wesley broke up with me when I told him about the pregnancy and that I was going to keep the baby. I went to my parents for comfort, thinking that they and my two brothers would be supportive of this. We got through the time that I was partying all night, getting tattoos and smoked some weed out of my window. I mean, we would be able to handle this right?

But my parents kicked me out when I told them I was pregnant and I was going to keep the baby. ‘But what about your degree?’ I can still hear my mother say those words, but what was maybe the worst thing, was seeing my brothers turning their backs to me. Their literal backs towards me. ‘You worked so hard and you just got a job as a vet,’ my mom began to yell.

To be fair, I was their only hope. My brothers dropped out of high school and are now sort of working in construction, but they can hardly finish a job ever. My mother never worked a day in her life and my father was a lawyer. I told them that I could work something out, with a bit of help of them, but my mother just pushed me out of their house and told me to never bother them again, if I was going to have a kid out of wedlock.

So I had to do it by myself. I had to find a place for me and the baby to stay, but thankfully Belle was already working at the vet and decided that I needed a bit of help. I could stay with her, even after the baby was born. Belle went with me to the ultrasounds and when I went into labor, she was right there with me.

Belle is Vanessa’s one and only aunt and my best friend. When you get pregnant and not only your boyfriend leaves, your family disappears out of your life, you also notice how many people despise you. My friends from college all of the sudden seemed to have fallen off the earth and never checked in with me.

Now I have a happy six year old, a nice home for the two of us and a baby sitter Belle, who is becoming less and less available, since she has discovered the world of Tinder, because she wants a boyfriend.

I hear the bell ring when I step onto the schoolyard. It doesn’t take long before I see my daughter running towards me. Her baby blue coat is hanging open, her backpack in her hand and a rolled paper in the other. She insisted on wearing her boots to school today, but leave it to her to cover them in mud.

Entirely.

I catch her when she jumps in my arms. ‘I missed you, my lovely lady,’ I say to her.

Vanessa peppers my face with kisses, something she always does when I pick her up from school. I brush the hairs out of her face, including the sweet bangs that she insisted on having. Originally she wanted the same haircut as me from when I was the same age as her, but since I have severe traumas of the bowl cut, I had to spare her that and opt for some sweet thin bangs.

‘Mommy,’ she says, ‘I missed you a lot.’

‘Well, you want to go to the store, so we can buy some cookies?’ I ask her. ‘And maybe tonight we can order a pizza.’

‘Yes, yes, yes!’ She gives me a tight hug.

Sometimes I doubt my parenting skills, especially when I look around the schoolyard. I watch those mothers who are housewives, with very handsome husbands and kids that always look formidable and put together and probably only eat fatty snacks on their birthdays. Sometimes I wished I had that: a husband, a man that Vanessa could look up to.

I figured that when my ex Wesley couldn’t provide that, my brothers and father would step in and treat my daughter like they treated me: a princess.

Now I have to do that myself.

It can be tiring, being both the mother and the father for Vanessa, but if I could turn back time, I’d do it all over again.

With Vanessa’s tiny hand in mine, we walk towards the store, to buy some cookies that I desperately craved the entire day I was at work.

Vanessa looks a lot like me. She’s basically my clone. People often stop us, simply to tell us that Vanessa is like a miniature version of me. I always like compliments about my daughter. I mean, she is my world.

When we arrive at home, I help her change into something more comfy. ‘Mommy, can we please have a pajama night?’ Vanessa asks, while I help her out of her dress.

‘It’s four in the afternoon,’ I say, knowing exactly what she wants. ‘You want to wait two hours before you wear your pajamas?’

Vanessa shakes her head. ‘No, I want to wear my pjs now.’ Her bright smile nearly lights up the room. I watch her nose scrunch up as the corners of her mouth curl up, the only trait that she inherited from her biological father. ‘Are you going to wear yours too?’

I don’t have anywhere to go and besides, after all popping all those anal glands today, I desperately want to get out of these clothes. ‘Yes, sweetie, I’m going to wear mine too, but first I’m going to take a shower.’

‘No bath, mommy? Because I like baths.’ Her dark brown eyes start to gleam with enthusiasm. ‘Please, mommy, please.’ She pouts, knowing damn well I can’t say no to that.

≫≫≪≪

The second Vanessa is in bed, I have some time for myself. I love every second we get to spend together, but it’s nice to have a breather every now and then. I stare at my arms, to see how Vanessa has colored in my tattoos. She’s obsessed with them and when she’s in school, she sometimes tries to draw them on her own arms by memory, sometimes even drawing on others when they want to. A few weeks ago, her teacher asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. ‘Well, I want to be two things,’ Vanessa told her. ‘Like my mommy I want to be a vet, because I love animals, but I also want to draw tattoos on people.’

I sit up straight, looking at the drawing she made me today in school. She always makes drawings for me, but they are always the same. She draws a house, with me in it and herself. And outside she draws a dog and a man, with suitcases and moving boxes next to them. ‘Because,’ she explains every single time, ‘one day you meet a nice man who has a dog and he can become my new daddy. A daddy that does want me.’

Belle didn’t agree on me telling Vanessa her real dad didn’t want her, but I figured she needed to know the truth. Her biological father is a low life that disappeared into thin air and didn’t want to be involved in her life.

Vanessa understood, to the extent that was possible, but she really wants a dad, preferably one with a dog. Though she keeps pushing me, I can’t start dating again. Vanessa is the most important person in the world and men simply don’t fit into this—in my head—perfect picture. Vanessa is my life and men are big fat losers, so I don’t need them. I don’t want them, because the chance of them getting tired of maybe me, maybe Vanessa and leaving, is something I can’t risk.

Vanessa already lost her real father, what if a man that becomes really important to her, leaves too?

At around eleven I drag myself to bed, placing my work phone beside me. I hate being on call, but like I told Belle, I didn’t have a call in months, so I think I’m good.

I’m dreaming about Keanu Reeves (the only man on earth that I’d break my no man ban for) and how he takes me out on a lovely date, has Vanessa on his lap and helps her to cut her food, when the phone starts to ring.

‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ I mutter, before I click on my nightlight. It’s three in the fucking morning. I don’t want this. ‘Animal Clinic Westside, doctor Olivia Tran, how may I help you?’ I say when I pick up the phone.

‘Hello, I’m terribly sorry for calling at this hour, but my dog is vomiting and I see some blood in it.’ Oh, poor man, he sounds so panicked. ‘He collapsed and is breathing really heavily and I don’t know what to do.’

I sit up straight in bed and rub my eyes, as I try to be as alert as I can on this early morning. ‘Sir, it’s okay. Did your dog eat anything out of the ordinary today?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘You think it’s possible for you to come to the clinic? I’d like to see the dog.’

‘Of course, of course.’ The man on the other side of the line has such a lovely and deep voice. He could become a voice actor or a narrator like Morgan Freeman. If liquid gold had a voice, it would sound like this.

‘I hope it’s not too much to ask, but could you take some of the vomit with you? Especially the part with some blood. I’d like to check it.’

‘I’ll bring it with me, of course.’

‘What kind of breed is your dog, sir?’ I ask, while writing it all down on a piece of paper.

‘An American Akita. His name is Kal.’

I don’t think he ever went to our clinic, I think to myself.

‘I’ll be at the clinic in about forty minutes, mister…’ I say, hoping that this man will say his name.

‘Cavill,’ he quickly says. ‘And I can be at the clinic in about an hour.’

That name does sound kind of familiar though, but I could’ve sworn that this man isn’t in our database. Maybe I went to college with him or to high school?

After we hang up the phone, I quickly get out of bed. I opt for a pair of tight fitted black leggings and an oversized sweater (after I put on a bra, because who knows mister Cavill is handsome and my nipples don’t want to keep that a secret) and I slip on some white sneakers. I put my hair into a bun. I freeze when I’m moisturizing my face.

I kind of forgot I had a daughter. I don’t like the idea of bringing Vanessa with me, especially since it’s three in the morning and she’s asleep, but then I realize that tomorrow it’s Saturday. Plenty of time for her to catch up on her sleep and plenty of time for me to feel less guilty about dragging her out of her dreams.

‘Sweetie,’ I whisper, when I gently wake her up. ‘Mommy has to go to the clinic, but you can’t stay at aunt Belle tonight, so you’re going with me to work.’

Vanessa was a groggy mess when I nudged her awake, but when she realizes she can go with me to work, her eyes light up. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, someone has a sick doggy, that needs to be taken care of.’

She gets up out of her bed and I help her with her socks, though she is perfectly capable of doing so herself. ‘You’re gonna save a doggy?’ Vanessa asks.

‘I’m going to try.’

I hand her a thick vest and while she puts it on, she says: ‘You’re a hero, mommy.’

With a smile on my face, I softly pinch her cheek. ‘I guess I am.’

Taglist: @thelastsock // @flhorah // @sausagefest1996 // @laufeysodinson // @xxxkatxo // @memoriesat30 // @henrythickcavill // @crimsonrae // @henryobsessed // @madbaddic7ed // @summersong69

#henry cavill #henry cavill x ofc #henry cavill x oc #mister cavill your dog is kinda fat #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill x Olivia Tran

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louisapennyfeather2021 · 4 years ago

Note

Can you do a Jack Kelly sister x race or Albert (up to you) and Jack finds you guys kissing and is about to kill race or Albert. Then you all sit down and Jack gives the classic dad talk. This could be plantonic Jack/ race or Albert love. (You also don’t have to make it a sister I’m just a girl myself haha)

I finally made myself do this, mostly because I said I'd have it done by Friday and that's in less than four hours, but I'll(hopefully) make it happen!!! Have I finished my essay? Of course not, but I did finished my math tests! Planned procrastination is somewhat effective, right?

Anywho, here it is!

Relationships: Brother!Jack, Reader x Albert

Pronouns: She/Her as the person who asked did clarify that she is a girl :)

(psst... I can always make this with they/them pronouns if anyone would like that)

A/N: This is definitely not my best work, but it's not bad!!! I always feel awkward trying to write Dad Talks, but never enough to not write them at all!!! Maybe it'll help that I'm awkward with it so it'll be projected onto my work haha!

Warnings: some kissing, a bad word or two. That's about it? Oh, also, I'm really bad at writing kissing stuff lmao

Setting: 1899 Duane Street Lodging House

***

"No, Y/N, you gotta wear ya cap right or ya gonna look like ya ain't got hair." Jack snatches Y/N's hat from off her head before flipping it and placing it on her head correctly.

"Jack, cut it out! Ain'tcha got somethin' better t' do?" Y/N swats at her brother's hand, ducking to avoid his mother hen behavior.

"He ain't got nothin' t' do cause he's too busy hoverin'." Crutchie snorts from where he sits on the front steps of the lodging house. Jack throws a half-hearted glare at Crutchie, which gives Y/N enough time to sneak past Jack and hurry down the street towards Newsies Square.

"Hey, where d'ya think yer goin'?" Jack calls. Y/N huffs and shakes her head before looking over her shoulder. As soon as she does, she takes off sprinting down the street, Jack chasing her down. Y/N squeezes past some of the guys that are making their way down the street, successfully managing to not completely shove Jojo into a walk on accident.

It's not unusual for Jack to be so overbearing, specifically with Y/N. Sure, he's oddly protective over all the Newsies, but he practically turns into a bear with Y/N. Jack says it's because she's his "baby sista' 'nd nothin's ever gonna happen to no sister o' mine."

Y/N understands to an extent, of course, but it makes some things, well, difficult. Specifically hanging out with friends. Or maybe someone who's more than a friend.

"Someone's rushin' this mornin'." Racetrack Higgins snorts as Y/N hurries to duck behind him and Buttons. Both wait outside the gates for Weasel to come open them. Albert leans on the gate opposite of Race, raising an amused eyebrow at Y/N. She playfully narrows her eyes at him before breathing a sigh.

"Just my parasite of a brotha'. Again." Y/N grumbles. Jack treats her like she's still a kid, when really she's just a year and a half younger than him. To some folks, that's a lot, but when you're forced to grow up on the streets of New York, it's just numbers.

"Ain't like he's doin' it for nothin'." Race scoffs a laugh, sharing a knowing look with Buttons before glancing between Albert and Y/N where she's still hiding behind the two smirking boys.

"Oh, shuddup. Jack ain't gotta worry about what he don't know about." Y/N glares pointedly at both Race and Buttons.

"Don't worry, I've kept Racer from hawkin' yer secret t' all of Manhattan." Buttons shoves Race's shoulder. Race squawks in protest and he starts arguing with Buttons. Y/N laughs, knowing Race would keep her secret no matter what. It's just funny to see Buttons get a rise out of Race.

"Could be worse. Buttons could'a taken his cigar." Albert chuckles, although he absentmindedly rubs his upper arm. He's learned the hard way not to take the blond boy's comfort object. However, that doesn't keep him from occasionally stealing it.

"You'd know how that turns out." Y/N sneaks behind Race as he argued with Buttons and stands next to Albert. She doesn't stand too close, especially since Jack is probably on his way with the rest of the fellas.

The last thing Y/N needs is for Jack to get suspicious of her and her relationships.

So Y/N just leans on the gate near Albert, both laughing as Race and Buttons start on a tangent. Eventually the others gather around, Jack and Crutchie being the last to actually show up. As soon as he's at the gate, Jack starts fussing over Y/N's hat again. She smacks his hand away and glares at him, receiving a horribly hidden laugh from Albert.

"Would you stop swattin', I'm tryin' t' make ya not look like a hooligan." Jack huffs.

"You know we're a bunch'a kids that sell papes for a livin', right? Hooligan is the nicest thing folks can call us." Y/N rolls her eyes. Jack opens his mouth to respond, but he doesn't get the chance. Instead, the sound of the gates rattling and snarky comments fills the air. Y/N turns to see none other than Oscar and Morris Delancey hesitantly opening the gates.

"What, no hello?"

"Wake up on the wrong side'a the cave this mornin'?"

"Aw, did'ya not have someone t' tuck ya in last night?"

The jabs make Y/N's face go red to hide her laughs. The dramatic eye rolls and frowns on the Delancey Brothers' faces are pure gold. Y/N doesn't doubt that either brother would go after any Newsie if it wouldn't get them in some trouble. After all, good ol' Mr. Pulitzer needs someone to make money for him.

As some of the guys keeps teasing the brothers, Y/N sneaks past them with Buttons, Albert following not too far behind. The three line up to get their papers, waiting for Weasel to slither his way to the distribution stand.

"Alright, line it up!" As if hearing his name, the Weasel himself stands grumpily behind his money box.

"Mornin' Weasel! Long time, no see!" Y/N grins brightly. The annoyed twitch under Weasel's left eye is enough to make Y/N snort.

"Not long enough." He grumbles.

"Aw, don't be such'a grump." Y/N mock pouts. She pulls a dime from her pocket and flips it onto the money box before moving down to take a stack of papers. She's grateful when Morris hands her the stack, although he does it with a sneer. Nice to know he's not specifically angry at her, at least not angry enough to throw her papers at her like he'll likely do to Jack and definitely to Race.

Y/N waits by the gates for her selling partner, aka the one and only Albert DaSilva. Thankfully Jack hasn't picked up on the Y/N and Albert almost always being partners. They switched it up once and a while to throw off any suspicion, but they're usually selling together. After all, it's one of the only times they can be together without the worry of Jack seeing.

"Ain'tcha sweet for waitin' for me?" Albert teases as he reaches the gate, his head down as he organizes his stack of papers in his bag.

"We both know you'd get lost if I let'cha go alone." Y/N snorts a laugh. She successfully ducks a playful swat from Albert before she looks over his shoulder. She sees Jack taunting Weasel and she knows she has a few seconds to leave before her brother chases her down. "C'mon, best we get a head start on Jack."

"Well stop screwin' around then." Albert grins and hurries out of the square, Y/N right on his heels.

They hurry through the streets of Manhattan towards the Brooklyn bridge. They usually take up selling along the waterfront, sometimes a few blocks around the bridge. They mostly sell at the bridge because it's one of the furthest spots from where Jack sells. Meaning they can hang out once they finish selling morning papers in peace.

"Bet I can sell all my papes b'fore you can even hawk a headline." Albert elbows Y/N's arm as they reach the bridge, the area slowly coming to life as people hurry to get to work.

"You're on." Y/N smirks before hurrying across the street to start selling.

The two spend most of the morning selling, taking a few small breaks to hide in the shade of an alleyway from the July sun. Y/N manages to finish selling her last paper just a few minutes after Albert. The red head is all smirks when he notices Y/N finish after him.

"Don't come smirkin' at me, you bet that you could sell out before I even started. You didn't say nothin' about finishin' first." Y/N points a finger at Albert as they turn down one of the alleyways behind the produce market. Y/N holds an apple in hand and Albert has a pear.

"Should'a bet I'd win first, that way I'da got a free lunch." Albert sighs dramatically and takes a bite of his pear. Y/N rolls her eyes for what feels like the millionth time today before eating her apple.

"I still don't see how ya eat those things." Y/N mumbles.

"I don't see how you can't!" Albert scoffs before finishing his pear.

"Too sweet. And soft, they make a mess." Y/N shrugs and takes another bite of her apple.

"You just can't handle how sweet pears are cause you're so bitter." Albert laughs. Y/N's mouth drops open and she doesn't hesitate to throw the core of her apple at Albert, effectively hitting his neck. Albert gapes, although there's a slight upturn at the corner of his lips. "Low blow, Kelly!"

"Aw, did I hurt the your ego on accident?" Y/N can't hold back the laugh the bubbles up from deep in her stomach. Albert gives her a "seriously?" look before he jumps at her. Y/N accidentally let's out a panicked squeak before turning. She gets a few steps before Albert wraps his arms around her and squeezes her into a hug from behind. "No fair!"

"I think you should apologize." Albert hums, his chin on top of Y/N's head. She's not short, but the way she's standing makes it easy for Albert to rest his chin in top of her head.

"Do you realize how awkward this is?" Y/N squirms. Her feet are in front of her and she's practically leaning against Albert, it's almost like she's trying to sit down. "Seriously, I think you're gonna break my back."

"Apologize 'nd I'll let go." Albert starts swaying back and forth, making Y/N grip his arms and shuffle her feet to keep from completely slipping to the ground.

"Ain't got nothin' t' apologize for." Y/N finished the sentence in time for Albert to sway further and nearly drop Y/N on her bottom. She squeaks again, making the obnoxious red head laugh and try to keep a firm grip on her so she won't fall.

"You're ridiculous." Albert shuffles back and helps Y/N stand up, laughing when she huffs in annoyance. Albert moves around to stand in front of Y/N, his arms crossed as he meets her faux annoyed expression. "I still think you owe me 'n apology."

"I don't see no reason why." Y/N shrugs, although the corners of her mouth twitch up into a horribly suppressed smile.

"That's a lousy thing t' say." Albert pouts, receiving a raised eyebrow from Y/N. The girl takes a small step closer to Albert and shrugs her shoulders slightly.

"Lousy ain't always bad." Y/N jokingly winks. Albert shakes his head with a laugh before naturally gravitating closer to Y/N. She follows until her nose bumps Albert's, the two of them getting closer until Y/N closes her eyes and feels Albert's mouth lightly touch hers.

Y/N hums into the kiss as Albert reaches up and rests his hand on the side of her neck. She follows, her hand gently wrapping around Albert's wrist and her thumb rubbing the soft skin. She can't help but smile as she moves her mouth againsr Albert's. This is far from the first time they've kissed, but with how little time they get to spend together, every kiss feels like the first.

Y/N still gets butterflies in her stomach. She still gets that happy high afterwards.

But even the happy high can end in a snap.

"Oh, hell no." Y/N's eyes snap open and she quickly pulls away from Albert. Her wide eyes meet Jack's furious frown as he stands near the mouth of the alleyway. Behind him, Race stands with an apologetic expression, Crutchie next to him with a hand over his mouth like he's holding in a laugh.

"Oh boy." Y/N whispers. Albert turns around, his expression matching Y/N's.

"Hey, Jack..." Albert awkwardly waves at the fuming boy.

"You're dead, DaSilva." And that's all it takes for Albert to bolt down the other end of the alleyway, Jack right on his heels. Y/N just stares in shocked silence, hardly noticing Race and Crutchie come to a stop next to her.

"I swear, I tried to distract him." Race rushes, although Y/N doesn't seem to hear as she opens and closes her mouth in shock.

"You are so in for it." Crutchie busts out laughing.

I'm so dead, Y/N thinks.

***

"Jack, you need t' calm down!"

"Calm down?! He was suckin' my sista's face!"

"Oh, no, gross, that's definitely not what we were doin'."

"You stay out of this!"

"Okay, everyone shuddup!" Y/N yells from one corner of the rooftop of the lodging house. Crutchie leans against the fire escape, watching and occasionally throwing in a comment or two. Jack paces around the roof, eyes narrowed in on Albert. The red head stands near the edge of the roof, as if he's ready to make a break for it if need be. Y/N stands somewhat between Albert and her fuming brother, sort of like a last resort for a barrier between the two. Y/N faces her brother, her arms crossed under her chest and her mouth set in a thin line. "Jack, it was just'a kiss 'nd I like Albert. S'nothin' wrong with that."

"Nothin' wrong with that? Everything's wrong with that! You're my sista', Albert's s'posed t' be my pal! Seein you two lockin' lips is just-" Jack wiggles around and gags, his nose scrunching up.

"Oh, we are not having this conversation because the thought of your sister kissin' a boy makes ya uncomfy." Y/N rolls her eyes before planting her hands in her hips.

"She has a point." Crutchie comments. Jack whines and shuffles around like he's about ready to throw himself off the rooftop.

"That don't change the fact that it's gross and weird and just wrong. She's my sister." Jack stares down Albert and points at Y/N.

"Yeah, 'nd it just so happens I was kissin' someone you know and trust! S'not like I was kissin' a Delancey or nothin'." Y/N's comment makes the other three on the roof gag and squirm uncomfortably. "Oh, we all know it's true!"

"Doesn't mean we wanna hear it." Albert shivers in disgust.

"Alright alright alright." Jack exhales heavily. He paces a few more times, shakes his head and pursing his lips. Y/N waits in silence with Albert and Crutchie, all three knowing Jack needs a second. When he finally stops pacing, all the attention trains in on him. "Fine, okay, s'not the worst thing ever, I'm gonna set some ground rules."

"What?!"

"Seriously?" Y/N whines, something she unfortunately shares with her older parasite- um, brother.

"Yes. Now I d'know how long this has been goin' on, but I'm sayin' right now that we will not be havin' any littles-"

"I'm gonna be sick." Y/N gags, and it's unfortunately a legitimate gag that makes bile sting the back of her mouth. Albert must inhale sharply and start choking on his spit because he starts coughing obnoxiously. Even Crutchie, who had found the whole situation so hilarious, looks like he's going to be sick.

"Oh, quit it ya pansies." Jack huffs. He angles towards Albert, his eyes narrowed again. "'Nd you. If you hurt my sista' in any way, I swear you'll find yourself swimmin' in the East River in no time."

"I'm definitely not planning on it." Albert manages to say before coughing and clearing his throat, his eyes watery from coughing.

"Good." Jack nods in satisfaction. He looks at the sky and seems to ponder before signing. "Get'a move in, gonna have evenin' papes out soon."

Albert throws an anxious look at Y/N before hurrying to the fire escape. He disappears, Crutchie quickly following and leaving the Kelly siblings alone.

"Y'know, ya could'a told me." Jack's shoulders sag. Y/N kicks her foot awkwardly, her eyes trained in the ground.

"Not if it risked ya reactin' the way ya did t'day." Y/N mutters. She looks up to see Jack sigh and move closer to her.

"I can definitely tell ya I wouldn't have chased him down." Jack snorts.

"I guess that would've been a perk." Y/N hums. She meets Jack's gaze and suddenly the two start laughing. Jack reaches over and playfully shives Y/N's shoulder.

"C'mon, weirdo. We got papes t' sell." Jack shakes his head.

Y/N smiles and follows him off the roof.

That's one crisis averted.

Granted, they still have the rest if the day left.

#Newsies #newsies #newsies broadway #newsies imagine #newsies memes #newsies imagines #newsies x reader #albert imagine #albert dasliva #albert dasilva #albert newsies #albert x reader #albert dasilva x reader #jack kelly #brother!jack kelly #jack newsies #sister reader #she/her pronouns

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darling-i-read-it · 4 years ago

Text

Rum

Jack Sparrow x reader

Word Count: 800

Warnings: drunkenness,

Author’s Note: I miss Disneyland

Summary: Jack and the reader go off the ship to get some rum

Genre: fluff

I don’t own these characters. They belong to author/director

(not my gif)

Ships were the most freeing thing is what Jack used to tell you. Well he liked to talk about the Pearl a lot and you supposed that was about the extent of his freedom. But you agreed, for the most part. How the water underneath you could lead you anywhere you wanted to go. How the crew was the stubborn family you had grown to love. How your captain seemed to be the only man you ever trusted enough not to trust ever.

“Oi! Come ‘ere !” Jack called.

You had been watching the sea underneath you as you moved at a steady pace across it. You turned around to catch sight of Jack coming up from below deck, giving you a look as he talked to Elizabeth Swan who had just narrowly taken the reins on this trip.

You walked over to Jack and her, already preparing to take her side in loo of making Jack mad.

“What’s wrong?”

Elizabeth gave you a look but Jack was already swaying in annoyance.

“She seems to think that the rum is expendable,” he said. You made note of the bottle of rum in his hand which you took from him easily.

“I seem to think you have a boat to run or else the crew is going to start looking to Lizzy for some guidance and you know how annoyed you got last time.” The three of you got flashbacks to Jack threatening to throw himself off the boat if anyone listened to Elizabeth instead of him. He even liked her.

“Lizzy?” Jack questioned.

“Reserved for friends only,” Elizabeth said, taking the bottle of rum from you. He reached for it but she was already gone.

“This is why it's bad luck to have women on a ship,” he muttered. You shook your head.

“You love us.”

“I love you and that is the extent of my love.”

“I won’t tell Gibbs you said that.” You looked over the edge. “We’re about to get there, go on babe, land us.” He pushed past you to the wheel.

You were only landing for some supplies but you didn’t think that anyone would hand them over to the guys so you and Elizabeth were tasked with getting most things. That didn’t matter though, it just so happened you were more persuasive than the boys.

Just before you got off Jack grabbed your arm.

“I’m going with.”

“Why?” you questioned. He gave you a look.

“The rum. I have to get the rum,” he said with a look on his face that made you laugh. You and Jack had been friends since you were teens and he still made that face whenever he talked about rums. Plus, ever since the two of you had started periodically sleeping together your relationship had grown even closer.

“Why don’t you let me get the rum,” you said, patting his chest. He shook the head and his eyes narrowed on Elizabeth.

“Not with her around, you’ll never make it alone.”

“Jack.”

“I’m going with.”

You got off the ship together and you waved to Elizabeth as she took her metaphorical shopping list. She had the weapons, you had the food which was perfect for Jack's plan.

It was late at night, the darkness over the city. People were alight with the party and were more than happy to help you and Jack out by drunkenly throwing things that you needed at you. Jack made a beeline for the rum.

“I wish we were like them,” he mumbled annoyed. You raised an eyebrow, following his gaze to a couple obviously drunk and all over each other.

“Jack get me a glass of rum and I have no problems with that but I would much rather get this stuff back to the ship.”

“We can’t stay the night?”

“Do you want to out race the people looking for Elizabeth?” He pretended to think about it.

“No not particularly.”

“Go get the cases.”

He was all too happy to do that as you grabbed the free (?) box of food off the side of a stand. You had stuffed your pockets and bag. You looked over at Jack who had so many boxes you could barely see his face.

“Ready to head back?”

“You promise we’ll be back?”

“I can’t promise that but I can promise to get drunk with you on the ship.” He trained his neck up to look at you, smiling happily.

“Ah I like the sound of that.”

“Come on, let's beat Lizzy.”

He scoffed.

“Lizzy.”

#jack sparrow x reader #jack sparrow imagines #pirates of the carribean imagines

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chocosvt · 4 years ago

Text

connect universe

⚬ pairing: cyborg!hansol x reader | future!au ⚬ word count: 4315 ⚬ warnings: alcohol consumption, violence ⚬ genres: angst, heavy fluff, elements of a futuristic/dystopian society.

✧✎ synopsis: hansol’s first time at an underground party isn’t what you expect it to be. you want to acquaint him with what it’s like to live normally, but the fabric of his past continues to control him.

✧✎ a/n: this is a side story to connect! i recommend you read the original fic first if you haven’t already (link is here) i rly luv this universe and i didn’t want to just stow it away!! i’ll expand on it more in the future (pun whoops)

You didn’t understand how anyone could look at Hansol and interpret him as someone malignant, someone evil. He was anything but a menace, and during the progression of your relationship you came to realize that his gentle nature was often a curse rather than a blessing. It brought you to ache, because he let people walk over him. Hansol had become so accustomed to brutal temperament that he rarely even lifted his finger to those who refused him and belittled him and reduced him to his bionic parts.

The worst part was, Hansol hated when you defended him. He would crinkle into himself like he’d just heard an ear-piercing scream and then grasp onto your wrist, shaking it, begging you to drop the argument because it was worthless. Even if you didn’t see it that way, his pleading was so genuine and desperate that you had no choice but to swallow the bullet on your tongue. Nonetheless, you practiced everything in your power to make him feel love, to understand love, that it wasn’t some weapon of faked promises but the deepest sentiment you had ever felt. “I know what love is because I have you, Hansol.”

When he first moved in with you, he experienced many nightmares, in which he’d slam awake in bed with his fists crumpling at the sheets, every circuit beneath his skin thundering in a bright, icy blue. His right leg would be jittering so quickly that you feared its bionics might burn out. But Hansol never dreamed of his chiefly horrendous past when you held him in your arms. And so every night you would press his head to your chest, feeling him squeeze around your waist while you stroked through the soft fibres of his hair until he fell asleep. Hansol thought he understood love a little more when you did that.

He was learning news joys and pleasures that he’d been reprieved of while contained in the laboratories. One evening you found a stray kitten stumbling around through some newspapers in an alley, and brought her home to clean up. But what was most shocking was when you placed the kitten in the sink.

Hansol peered over your shoulder, his eyes violet and beaming lowly. “What is that?” He then asked, flinching slightly when the kitten opened its tiny mouth to squeak.

It was an unprecedented type of astounding. How could Hansol not know what a kitten is? However, the more you spoke with Yoojung’s father (responsible for fixing much of the cyborg’s faulty wiring and circuits) you realized Hansol didn’t know much about being a person. What he did know was fear.

“That’s what happens when you grow up in a lab with a bunch of Metal Surgeons and Circuit Technicians. You never were a person, and you’re not yet a cyborg either. You’re an experiment.” He told you.

And with those chilling words chiseled to the underside of your flesh, you adapted an extra attentive level of care when it came to Hansol. You taught him how to handle the kitten without accidentally crushing it in his iron-reflexes, how to brush her fur and tease her with a small toy and give her baths once she’d roll around in the garden. After coming home from a tiresome day at work, almost nothing else could match the happiness you felt upon seeing Hansol asleep on the couch, the kitten curled in a fluffy ball against his chest. She liked to mush her face against his bicep whenever he cradled her in his firm arms.

“He’s so gentle,” you expressed to Yoojung’s father, “he won’t even kill a spider.”

The man flipped up his welding helmet. He gave you a stern look, as though you should know to speak better, and suddenly there was this sickly pounding of your heart.

“The boy is gentle, and you’re not incorrect to think that. But don’t curse yourself by being naïve. He has that switch in him.”

“So does everyone.” You had countered, a shiver tickling down your neck.

“Not everyone is designed the way he is,” Yoojung’s father reasoned, setting down his torch, “no matter what, Hansol is not entirely human. He is devoid of feeling many emotions to their fullest extent. You can associate sunshine on a rainy day with happiness, but that doesn’t mean happiness is what you feel. A cyborg knows merely the word, not its sensation. I want you to think safe. Hansol knew anger and violence in that laboratory before he knew compassion. It’s wired into his mechanics.”

That day, you left the garage with Hansol as this enormous lump sat in your throat. You examined the chronicles of your relationship.

Not once had the boy ever gotten angry or displayed contempt. Even when your kitten gave Hansol his first scratch, he recoiled in sadness, confusion, rather than an immediate instinct to be forceful. He asked you what he did wrong, and you had to hug him tighter than ever before while he teared up, because he genuinely didn’t comprehend that it wasn’t his fault, that the kitten just didn’t want to be held at that time. You thought about when Hansol kissed you, how he’d always guide you to lay on your back, just his fingertips rubbing softly against your waist because he was so afraid that you might not want him closer. Of course, you always did, to which he would emanate pink at your encouragement.

“If there ever comes a time when you need to deescalate Hansol, I suggest you pin-jack him.” Yoojung’s father had cautioned just before you left the garage.

“Pin-jack?” You questioned. “What’s that?”

He searched his toolbox and picked up a screwdriver with a flat tip. “Anything that can be inserted into the sensory slot at the back of his neck. If you manage to touch his chip, it’ll momentarily reset his data board. He might be delirious coming to, so you must be careful.”

Pin-jack, you scoffed inside your head as you walked home with Hansol, I’ll never have to do that.

“I think we’re getting close. Yoojung said the portal should be under the Interstitial Bridge.”

Hansol followed you, trusting your judgement as you gleaned the instructions Yoojung had earlier sent in a text message. It was difficult to differentiate much in the nighttime, especially when the Interstitial Bridge was located more toward the outskirts of the Nexus. There was hardly any luminosity apart from the moon and the few blue lightning bugs that sparked between the dark seams. Furthermore, it was difficult for Hansol to understand much of your words when the floodgate had been opened, for the concrete trough that was usually dry and empty was now gushing with contaminated city water.

Just up ahead, you could detect the silhouette of the bridge.

The portal must be under it. You knew it was wise to act quickly considering the portal’s location switched every hour, a simple safety precaution in order to spurn the Stargazers. They always attempted to shut down much of the inconspicuous activity that took place outside the eyes of the Nexus. You were anxious, but excited to say the least. This would be Hansol’s first time attending an underground party. It was extremely difficult to receive an invitation let alone successfully pinpoint an entrance portal unless the host themselves gave you the instructions on how to discover it. Yoojung managed to secure herself an invite, and extended the text containing the portal’s location to you and Hansol.

“I think I see it!” You squeaked triumphantly and grabbed onto Hansol’s hand.

Together, you ran beneath the bridge. Embedded into the misty stone was an oval-shaped hole, outlined in a glowing hue of amethyst. The black centre of the portal seemed to ripple and convulse, and every so often there would be an orange flicker against the blackness. You weren’t sure how Hansol was going to respond to such an environment: loud music, dim, flashy lights, the suffocating closeness of unfamiliar bodies, air that constantly grew thicker with humidity, it definitely wasn’t to everyone’s liking. But you figured Hansol would appreciate your offer rather than insisting he stay boxed into your home, unable to experience anything which may help move him from his self-loathing.

“Have you ever been through a portal before?” You asked him.

Hansol shook his head. “No, never.”

There was a faint shimmer of worry in his eyes. You smoothed a hand down his neck and leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his mouth, hoping to reassure him.

“I’m not going to let go of your hand, okay? I promise.”

You stepped into the portal first. It was much like shifting through quicksand, for it was something smooth yet heavy, and the further you pushed into the blackness the colder it felt. Eventually, the portal filled with a blinding white light that swallowed around you, yet you squeezed your eyes shut and persisted, your fingers still interlaced with Hansol’s. No more than a second later did you sense the brightness dissipate, and when you opened your eyes, you were met with the vivacious party. You had emerged underneath a metal staircase, to which there was the loud clattering of heels and shoes walking up and down. When you looked at Hansol, he appeared a bit disoriented, but smiled nonetheless.

“Let’s go find Yoojung.” You whispered into his ear.

The atmosphere was quite intense for Hansol. It seemed as though his mechanics were spinning on overdrive, attempting to process such an influx of sound and warm bodies and scents. He stuck close to you as best he could. He was able to relax upon reuniting with Yoojung, for your touches to his arm weren’t met with rigidity and he even accepted a pineapple cocktail from a whirring hover-disk.

Though that didn’t signify he was completely subdue. A few people had managed to note the code tattooed just in front of Hansol’s ear, and while no one pitched a concerning comment, you could tell the boy had felt uneasy from their blatant, often unconscious stares, how they probed every inch of his body attempting to discover all his bionic scarring and accessories. You tended to pull him away and keep him distracted by the other means pertaining to nightlife and underground partying. For a little while you danced undisturbed, which allowed you to discover Hansol’s great sense of rhythm as he twirled you around and guided your hips and swooped you in close against his chest.

“Are you having fun, Sollie?” You murmured, holding onto his shoulders.

He pressed his forehead to yours, kissed you with a zealous edge of roughness and a smirk. You took that as confirmation, and you danced until it became hard to breathe.

But then trouble seemed to take shape in a form you least expected: Changkyun.

Once you and Hansol rediscovered Yoojung near the bar where she had been sipping a brilliant, lime green beverage, you sensed a pair of fingertips slide up your back and turned around uncomfortably. Your expression quickly morphed into shock when you were greeted by Changkyun’s dreary, smiling face, a heavy stench of alcohol radiating from his clothing. You hadn’t been on the best terms with Changkyun. He was never able to adjust to your breakup very well, and there was a reason Yoojung had also begun to distance herself from him. He smiled at you, mumbled something you didn’t quite catch.

“Changkyun,” Yoojung cautioned, setting down her drink, “I think you should clean yourself up a bit and head home. Minghao can open a portal for you.”

He ignored her. Instead, his foggy gaze was allured to you. “So, I take it you’re still w’Hansol?” He slurred despite the boy standing right next to you.

You didn’t answer his question, repeating, “I think you should go.”

“If I had known you’d throw our whole relationship away just to end up w’someone whose half-metal,” Changkyun scoffed, “I never would’ve dated you.”

Hansol stiffened at your side, his eyes wide.

“Changkyun,” Yoojung snapped, “you need to go. Now.”

“What?” The boy persisted defensively, as though he were innocent, with not one inkling as to why he was being dealt this cold treatment. Changkyun approached Hansol and gave him a slight shove against his shoulders. “How come you’ve got nothing to say Bionic Brain? Did you short circuit?”

Something flickered in Hansol’s eyes, and yet he still didn’t crack, rather he merely swallowed and furrowed his brow. It boggled you that Hansol was able to control his temperament, because you were certainly fuming. You stepped in between them and tried maneuvering Changkyun to the side. He stumbled a bit since his coordination had been utterly shredded by the copious alcohol in his system, though his glare never separated from Hansol. Right when you believed the situation was deescalating, you sighed in relief and exchanged a tiresome glance with Yoojung; however, Changkyun had managed to once again press himself right next to the boy and your heart dropped.

“Y’know what they say,” Changkyun hissed between his teeth, “they made you a cyborg because you never would’ve been good enough as a human.”

And with that, Changkyun gave a rough bump to Hansol’s shoulder. The only difference was that he lost his opportunity to walk away unscathed. This shroud of fear gripped onto you tight, rendered you paralyzed, unable to even wriggle a finger as the indifferent light in Hansol’s eyes had been demolished. Instead, his gaze was blazing. It burst into a bloodied shade of red that you had never seen before. The usually invisible circuits lining his neck and cheek started to glow in the same colour, and as Hansol curled his fingers through the collar of Changkyun’s shirt, pinning him hard against the edge of the bar, you saw that the wires in his right forearm were transmitting signals at tenfold their regular speed.

“What did you just fucking say?” Hansol growled, though you could hardly recognize his voice. It had a metallic, almost vibrational undertone. It was sharper, completely stripped of its soft grit, rife with vitriol.

Changkyun squirmed helplessly, like fresh prey caught between its predator’s jaws. Not even Yoojung was able to move, for she was in the same boat as you, unbeknownst to Hansol’s aggression and the seething hatred that he maintained for Changkyun in his eyes. Somehow, you managed to snap from your trance when Changkyun tried to knock Hansol with a punch, though the cyborg easily grasped his wrist and began twisting his entire arm. You grabbed onto Hansol, attempting to push him away, battering against his side in desperation, begging him to stop with panicked tears glued against your cheeks.

Your ex-boyfriend released a horrible cry, as though Hansol were going to break his bone. No matter what you did, Hansol’s strength was akin to steel, it was unparalleled.

It forced you to confront your only option.

Digging into your pocket you retrieved a small nail file. You didn’t allow yourself to think, rather you braced a hand against the back of Hansol’s neck and dug the nail file deep into his sensory slot, as far as the blunt metal could reach until it touched his chip and there was a blipping spark. Yoojung gasped as the colour suddenly melted from Hansol’s gaze. Every circuit beneath his synthetic flesh dimmed and his arms dropped rather lifelessly to his sides. Changkyun didn’t hesitate. He scrambled his way out from underneath Hansol, his chest heaving, sweat glistening on his temples and fear engrained into his face.

It wasn’t until you pushed against Hansol’s neck in order to withdraw the nail file that you realized how terribly you were shaking. The boy’s grey eyes flickered, and you knew he was going to reboot.

“We need to get him out of here,” Yoojung said, wrapping an arm around his waist, “it’s not good for his database to restart in a setting like this.”

Dropping the nail file on the floor, the tears still wet against your cheeks, you assisted Yoojung in helping Hansol walk. Changkyun had disappeared into the shadows.

Yoojung was able to discover Minghao on the balcony that overlooked the dance floor. It was troublesome guiding Hansol up the staircase since his delirium was so thick. He kept mumbling these indiscernible fragments while odd clicks and beeps reverberated from inside his body. You could feel how hot the metal beneath his skin had become, for even just brushing against his forearm was akin to ghosting an iron skillet. Minghao was the party host, and he had been the one to rearrange the portal. Yet, he didn’t seem eager to reopen another gateway so abruptly.

“It’s dangerous,” he began, his black, smooth suit shining against the lights, “the Stargazers have been breathing down my neck ever since my last terra. I’m a sliver away from getting put back in the Void.”

“I know,” Yoojung huffed, adjusting her grip around Hansol’s waist, “I swear, you can set a time limit on the portal for just a minute. That’s all we need to get him out safe.”

With the long, dark fringe shielding Minghao’s eyes, it was impossible to decipher his thinking. However, you did note his foot tapping against the floor. You didn’t know much about Minghao, apart from the fact he lived sumptuously and had managed to become one of the most suspicious citizens within the Nexus. Yoojung said he would be empathetic. Apparently, Minghao sustained irreparable damage to his left eye while being contained in the Void and her father had to fabricate a robotic replacement.

At last, Minghao sighed, running a hand down his face. “Alright, alright, I’ll open one.” He pulled up the sleeve of his suit. “But—you better get in and get the fuck out. I’m not going back there.”

Locked around the boy’s wrist was a silver titanium band. When he pressed his thumb against a slight groove, a series of amber dots gradually lit up around the bracelet.

“Command: open exit portal at sector D4-East, Z-Underground,” Minghao spoke so naturally, as though he knew the coordinates like the back of his palm, “Command: release at sector B2-West, Z-positive, BR-ITS. Time limit is one minute, zero seconds. Force shutdown.”

Minghao then shone his bracelet at the wall, where an amber beam pierced against the brick and opened an exit portal. Yoojung thanked him at least four times, to which he simply nodded and wished you luck with managing Hansol home safely. You pushed through the portal, sensing the coldness unforgivingly squeeze around you.

You sat on your bed, plucking at the tassels of a pillow in your lap. It was almost three in the morning and this sickness had been harbouring in your lower-tummy ever since the dispute at the bar. A shiver traced like the point of a knife down your spine as you kept visualizing that striking redness in Hansol’s gaze, a redness so harrowing and tinged with rage that you hugged the pillow to your chest for measly comfort.

But you knew it wasn’t just anger: pain, betrayal, the exhaustion of having to lace one’s own wounds while knowing they were going to split wide open again, these sentiments too flashed in that redness. A tear rolled down your cheek and splashed onto the pillow.

Yet there was a timid knock on your door, and you quickly wiped your face. Hansol entered your room. He had been laying on your couch ever since he returned home, allowing his mechanics to completely reconnect with his sensory chip. When he sat uncertainly on the edge of your bed, his right knee was already bouncing and there was a pale blue colouring his eyes.

“Are you feeling better?” You hummed, tracing the pillow’s embroidery.

Hansol nodded, looking at you peripherally. “I’m fine.”

There was an unmistaken coarseness to your voice. It was taking all your strength to not erupt into tears like you had done at the party. The feeling of digging that nail file into Hansol’s neck, jamming it so hard into his slot that his chip had sparked and this lifeless aura overwhelmed him, it made you nauseous.

You sniffled, squeezing the pillow tighter. “H-Hansol,” he turned to you with such a concerned countenance that your chest ached, “I’m sorry for pin-jacking you. I’m really sorry.”

The manner in which your tone warbled was heartbreaking. Hansol shook his head. He etched closer to you and extended his hand toward your knee, but his touch immediately withered away the second you flinched ever so slightly. Hansol felt like he’d burned himself.

“No,” he pleaded, “no, no, no. Don’t be sorry. I’m not mad at you. I could never be.” The ice in his eyes had seldom shone this brightly, and it only seemed to disturb more emotions inside you.

Hansol peered into his lap, then licked his lips and murmured in a shaky voice, “are you afraid of me?”

The question stunned you as though it were a daunting flash of light. Consequently, your mind had become hazy, and you struggled to articulate the words that could capture your every feeling. Hansol spoke up again, to which his right leg had finally stopped bouncing.

“I would never hurt you.” He met your gaze with utmost clarity. “I-I can’t promise that I won’t hurt other people… Just… I would never hurt you, ever.”

Your fingertips curled far into the pillow and you could almost hear the blood pumping in your own veins. There was no doubt he was speaking truthfully. You knew Hansol wouldn’t harm you.

“If I had never used my nail file,” you gulped heavily and held eye contact, “would you have done it? Would you have broken his arm?” Somehow, you already suspected the answer.

Hansol nodded. “I wish I could tell you the answer that would make you happy, but I can’t lie to you. I know that makes you uncomfortable. I’m sorry.”

Tossing the pillow aside, you sat up straight and shook your head. “It’s not about me, Hansol,” you relayed with urgence, “everything about this night is a lot to process. I don’t know anything about your anger, or what being a cyborg entails. But what I know is that you’re hurting. You keep this darkness inside and you shouldn’t.”

“Because if I don’t people will get hurt!” He exclaimed, clenching his fists while the circuits beneath his forearm and cheek illuminated with lurid colour. “That switch is part of me. They designed me to have it and I can’t rid myself of it! ”

You were fortunate to have not one experience with the laboratories. And yet, Hansol had been tainted since he was a child. He experienced the forefront of their cruelty and their invasive experimenting. He was altered and tapered and tested on. Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat. Hansol was open about many things exempt from his time at the facilities. His journal was the precious tool that captured his every secret.

The boy then gripped onto his right knee, which started trembling once more, his eyes tenuously flickering into a rose shade. “Whenever I feel like I’m slipping… I think about you, and my anger goes away. But that club—it was so loud, so many distractions, so many people and conversations. My sensors haven’t been overwhelmed like that in ages.”

You leaned forward with a great exhale, your hand curling around the boy’s inner thigh to comfortingly squeeze. “Baby, if it was too much, then you should have said something to me.” Cupping his cheek and turning his head toward you, his eyes were rather glossy.

“I wanted to try it,” Hansol huffed, “I just want to be with you, and do things you like.”

Tracing your thumb below his eye, you couldn’t help but sigh again. For someone with an impressive installment of metal components, his heart couldn’t be any more tender than it already was. You swore that if you poked it, your finger might sink right through as though you touched something impossibly soft and squishy. A shy smile gradually danced to the corners of his mouth as you kissed him once, then twice, then wrapped your arms around his neck and suckled the remaining flavour of sweet pineapple from his tongue. You pressed your forehead against his, studying his face with such ardour.

“We can do things you like too, y’know.”

Hansol sniffled. “I like playing with Ppomo.”

Only a moment later, and your kitten was slipping between the thin gap in the doorway. She leapt onto the bed and mewled in her high-pitched tone, most likely imploring for someone to scratch the black and cream fur behind her ear. Ppomo’s favourite place seemed to be Hansol’s lap (you’d have to agree with her on that one) for she curled up in a small ball while he drew a gentle hand along her back. Resting your head against Hansol’s shoulder, you joined him in the petting until she fell asleep.

You thought about what Yoojung’s dad had drawled on that particular day you visited his garage, hoping to get some of Hansol’s mechanisms tweaked: a cyborg knows merely the word, not its sensation.

But you didn’t think that was necessarily true. Instead, you believed it was more accurate to say that Hansol could pinpoint many sensations, he just didn’t know what they were. He learned it was love when you held him and kissed him, happiness when he made Ppomo purr, excitement when he twirled your body in a breathtaking circle before pulling you into his chest on the dancefloor.

And you intended to teach him the name of every sensation that allowed him to feel so wonderful.

✧✎ a/n: awhile ago i answered an ask abt my expansion of the connect universe so if that lovely human reads this, i hope you liked it!! i’m not really sure where these fics into hansol’s attempts at human life will take me.

maybe i will write an entire fic that details his time at the laboratory... i’m not sure yet!! in the mean time i’m trying to write this mingyu summer fic which i wanted to write last year, but ya... dreams crushed didn’t happen :_) ANYWAYS I HOPE U LOVE CYBORG!SOL AS MUCH AS ME he just wants to pet his kitten!!!!

#seventeen scenarios #svt fanfic #vernon scenarios #hansol scenarios #seventeen vernon #vernon angst #hansol angst #seventeen fanfic #seventeen angst #vernon fluff #svt x reader #vernon x reader

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ladylynse · 5 years ago

Text

Hey, folks, not sure if writing a bonus chapter of my Star-centric reveal fic Helpless counts for DP Side Hoes Week since it’s not a new fic, but I’m going to pretend it does. (This can be read on its own if you go off the starting point of Star already knowing Danny’s secret.)

Gathering for a training session was supposed to be a good thing. A simple thing. Straightforward. Except nothing’s really straightforward anymore, and Star’s not sure why she ever thought it would be. [FF | AO3]

-|-

“Why are they here?” Danny hissed to her, unable to hide his nervousness as he peered around the corner of the school at Paulina, Dash, Kwan, and Valerie. Valerie was the only one prepared—she was already doing stretches, while Paulina was just using a compact to touch up her makeup and Dash and Kwan were arm-wrestling on the bleachers—but that wasn’t the point.

The point was that Star had invited them all to the football field, to meet on one of the rare Thursday nights when Valerie didn’t have to work, and they had all come. That already spoke volumes, whatever Fenton thought.

Star crossed her arms. “Because I asked them to come. Because they all need a training session, too. And because you brought enough weapons with you, anyway, didn’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but only because you said you wanted to try different stuff, and….” Danny trailed off and set the box he was carrying on the ground. The others would know Danny was here if they looked over and saw her standing where she was, but he was mostly hidden by the corner of the school. If he decided to bolt, she wouldn’t be able to stop him. He wasn’t afraid to use his powers in front of her now, providing he thought no one else would notice. “Seriously, Valerie does not need to be here. She has better aim than most people.”

“Which you know how, from watching her toss stuff into the garbage can from halfway across the room?”

Danny didn’t answer, but that was fine. Star didn’t really want an answer. She hadn’t pushed Valerie on that front, and she hadn’t really pushed Danny, either, aside from a bit of pointed needling. She still wasn’t sure she wanted to know the truth yet.

The fact that Danny was Phantom, that Paulina had a crush on the kid she routinely called a loser, that Dash idolized the guy he shoved into a locker almost every day, that Valerie had dated Danny despite ranting about Phantom at every opportunity, was more than enough to take in.

If Danny didn’t want to tell them his secret, fine. Whatever. She wouldn’t tell them either. But letting himself be bullied to this extent for the sake of invisibility was just stupid. Maybe it was being a halfa, maybe it was being a teenager, but he did not have the sense of self-preservation he claimed to have. Star had seen social suicide more than once, and this was definitely it.

You could still not draw attention to yourself without being the school punching bag.

Frankly, she’d argue that Danny would draw less attention to himself if he wasn’t always being picked on and showing no physical signs of it. Really, if he could be slammed into the street so hard that it formed a crater and he didn’t even bruise, being shoved into a locker wasn’t going to leave any marks. And it didn’t. Nothing she’d seen did, at least not for any length of time. Eventually, someone else would notice, and that would be the attention he claimed to not want.

Of course, when she tried telling that to him, he didn’t listen.

“Look,” Danny said quietly, “I’m fine with showing you some stuff, but they’ll…. They’ll have questions. And Dash will shoot me with something. You know he will. I’ll just pretend to get sick and—”

“Stuff it, Fenton, you’re doing this.” He blinked at her, and Star rolled her eyes. “Seriously. It’s not going to blow your secret. Trust me, no one is going to put that together without more clues than the fact that you know how to use the stuff your parents invent. Which is totally normal, seeing as they’re your parents. Besides, if you were this freaked out by the very idea of anyone seeing you as a semi-competent ghost hunter, you’d have never led us all when we fought to get our parents back. You even said yourself that you know how to work all their gear. It’s not like that’s going to be a new revelation.”

He opened his mouth and then closed it.

She smirked. “Let me carry that box for you, and you can go back to pretending to be a weakling. Want me to tell them Jazz dropped you off?”

“They’re not going to ask,” Danny muttered, but he helped her pick up the box of weaponry—which was good, because it was heavier than it looked. She grunted and shifted its weight, trying to get a better grip. The last thing she wanted to do was drop this and set something off.

Even knowing what she did, it was hard to remember that Fenton was really strong—especially compared to what she’d seen him do in gym class, which was practically pathetic by anyone’s standards. Sure, she didn’t expect everyone to be able to climb a rope, but he couldn’t run for thirty seconds before gasping for air. For someone who fought a lot, he was really unfit.

Of course, that might be because he spent most of his time flying and phasing and not running and dodging like the rest of them. Or at least not dodging as much as the rest of them, since she’d seen him dodge, and his quick reflexes spoke for themselves. Granted, they all had the chance to hide, and he didn’t.

But all too often, hiding meant being cornered, and being cornered meant being helpless, and she wasn’t doing that again.

Which was why they were doing this.

Besides, Danny owed her for keeping this a secret. Well, technically, either they were even or she owed him for saving her life more than once, but he thought he owed her, and she wasn’t going to correct that assumption.

“Fenton’s here, you guys,” Star called as they got closer. Danny was doing a remarkable job of trying to hide behind her, keeping well out of Dash’s reach without making it overly obvious that that’s exactly what he was doing. Really, she’d never realized how good he was at that kind of thing.

Star dumped the box unceremoniously on the bleachers, unable to hold it any longer, and winced at the clink and clatter of the weapons inside. Luckily, nothing exploded. She glanced over her shoulder at Danny. “What’d you bring?”

“Just a variety of stuff,” he mumbled, edging around her towards the box.

Dash beat him to it. “Outta my way, Fenturd,” he said. He tossed a couple of ecto-guns towards Kwan and kept rummaging. “I don’t see that bazooka thing in here.”

“It’s not a beginner’s weapon.”

Dash rounded on Danny. “You think I can’t handle it?”

Danny’s eye twitched. “It’s best for everyone to start off small.”

“I told him to bring more compact stuff,” Star put in before Dash could get out the retort that had to be on the tip of his tongue. She peeked into the box, spotting a small cylinder which had rolled into the back corner. “Seriously, Fenton? I told you the lipstick laser thing was a bad idea.”

“Ooh, I want that one,” Paulina said, finally putting her compact away and coming over. “Make up is the best weapon a girl can have!”

Star bit her tongue and handed the weapon to Paulina. She couldn’t contradict her in front of everyone and expect to remain friends. Besides, she was pretty sure the whole point of the Fenton Lipstick thing was to make a weapon that was easy to carry around and to hide. In Paulina’s case—and even in her own, if she trusted herself a bit more—it would work perfectly.

Danny claimed these weapons didn’t actually harm humans, but she was pretty sure he was a halfa because of some lab accident—can’t just have been contaminated food if he was the only one out of the whole family affected—so she didn’t put too much stock in any of the so-called safety features of these things.

Still.

There were enough ghosts around that she was willing to take the risk.

Of course, Dash and Kwan were already shooting at each other with ecto-guns and trying to dodge the blasts, so she should find out soon enough how detrimental it was for a human to be hit.

“Is that a whip?” Valerie asked, raising an eyebrow at Danny as she looked up from the box.

“Jack-o’-nine-tails. You��ve probably seen my dad using it. It’s, um, a little more advanced than some of the other stuff. Not really point and shoot, I mean, but if you can get a ghost—”

“I’ll play around with it,” she said, scooping it out of the box and heading to the far corner of the football field, well away from Paulina and Dash and Kwan.

“You thought I’d be good with a whip?” Star asked, not bothering to hide her smirk.

“You’re a cheerleader,” Danny muttered. “You have to have a good arm. Here,” he said, abruptly changing the subject by pulling a baton-like weapon out of the box and handing it to her. “This is Mom’s latest version of the Fenton Utility Weapon. It’s similar to the version you used on the pirate ship, but it can do a lot more stuff. If you don’t like that, try the wrist ray. That’s Sam’s favourite.”

Star pressed a button on the side, and a green light shot out of the top like a light saber. Danny jerked back, narrowly avoiding the beam. “Sorry,” Star said. “I didn’t know it was going to do that.”

“Press that button again,” he said. She did, and the light vanished. “Now grab it at the top and twist. Just, like, half a turn. Point it away from me and press the button.”

This time, something like a cattle prod shot out of the end and crackled with electricity.

“You can experiment with it; there are a bunch of different settings, but the button is always the main on/off activation. Press and hold it to activate the safety when you’re done. I’ll, uh, I guess I’ll set up some targets and see if I can convince the others to actually use them.”

“I didn’t invite everyone just to mess with you. You know that, right?” Danny avoided looking at her, so Star added, “I figured you’d say no if I asked.”

“So you did it anyway? I told you, I don’t want to stand out in a crowd.”

“That’s not what this is about. It’s…. Danny, you’ll always be able to fight back against ghosts. You’re a weapon; the only extra stuff you need to carry with you is a thermos. Do you even remember what it’s like to feel helpless?”

He snorted. “Of course I do. Being the kid no one pays attention to is great, since it’s easier for me to sneak away, but sometimes I can’t use my powers. Case and point, the last time you used something like that.”

Star frowned. “You practically equipped the entire class. How exactly were you helpless?”

“Fine, so maybe that’s not the best example. But even when we were stuck in detention together, I couldn’t really fight back until you were out of the room.” He hesitated. “And, I mean, yeah, in hindsight, pushing you through the floor might not have been the smartest idea, especially when I didn’t know what you were going to fall onto, but I’m still not great at clones. The point is, my hands are tied if someone who doesn’t know my secret is right there, watching me, and all the ghosts know it. Including some of the ones I haven’t run into before, apparently.”

There was a yelp from the middle of the field, followed by Paulina’s indignant, “Watch where you’re pointing those! You almost messed up my hair.”

Star wasn’t entirely surprised that Dash’s response was more laughter than apology.

“Yeah, okay, but believe it or not, these guys? And me, obviously? Always helpless in a ghost attack. No defense. It’s basically run, hide, hunker down, and hope someone—you, the Red Huntress, even your parents—comes along and saves us. And it sucks. A lesson in how to use your parents’ stuff might not stop Dash from whaling on you, but if he decides to buy something—”

“He’s just going to keep that ecto-gun. You know that, right?”

“—then he’ll have a way to fight back and defend himself. That assurance is invaluable.”

“He took the net-gun, too. Neither of those is invaluable.”

Star growled. “Fine. You’re not happy. I get it. I’m sorry for thinking I could help my friends.” Sarcasm wasn’t a good point to end this conversation on, not when he was helping her, so she added, “Thanks for not backing out when you saw them.” She couldn’t keep her annoyance and exasperation out of her tone, but it was marginally better than saying nothing.

“I promised you a weapon. And they would’ve found out you had one sooner rather than later.” He shrugged. “It might be better this way.”

Great, now she felt horrible for overreacting. Star took a deep breath, let it out, and then said, “Yeah. But I’m sorry. Really. I should’ve run it by you.”

“Trust me, this is not the worst surprise I’ve gotten in my life.” He grinned at her. “See if you can find all the weapons in that. My last count is twelve, but I don’t know if I’ve found them all, either.”

Danny ran off to try to convince Dash and Kwan not to shoot at each other—or maybe to tell Paulina not to try to use the laser to scorch a picture into the grass—and Star couldn’t help but laugh. It was just….

Even with all he put up with as Fenton, even with all he did as Phantom, he was still nice enough to take the time out of his night to make good on a promise to her. She knew Dash’s opinion wasn’t going to change overnight and that he’d have Danny in a locker tomorrow, given the opportunity. She knew Paulina would sneer at him and call him a loser even if she never relinquished the lipstick weapon. She knew Kwan wasn’t going to see this as anything but a bit of fun—bonus points if a lot of it came at Danny’s expense, most likely.

But she also knew it could be a start, and he couldn’t even see that.

Star jogged closer to Valerie—not near enough to be within range of the whip, which Val seemed to be getting the hang of very quickly, but near enough that she was sufficiently far enough away from the other three. Danny was right; Valerie was good, even with a weapon she hadn’t used before, and the others…. Well, not so much. But that might just be because they lacked focus.

That and Valerie’s black belt training, since that probably helped somehow, albeit not necessarily when it came to using a new weapon.

Star tried multiple combinations of movement on the puzzle box that was the Fenton Utility Weapon. She’d found five more weapons—pole extension, machete-like blade, mini grappling hook, electrified whip, and what was presumably a phase-proof weighted net—when she heard Dash and Kwan cheering, followed by Paulina’s trilling laugh.

Somehow, it didn’t come as a surprise to see Danny entangled in the net-gun’s phase-proof net.

It certainly couldn’t be the first time he’d been caught in one, but he could hardly get out of it using his ghost powers, and the fact that Dash was beginning to jog around and drag him meant he couldn’t get out the way anyone else might, either.

Star ran over. “Cut it out, you guys. Fenton’s helping us.”

“It’s fine,” Kwan said. “We’re training.”

Dash grinned as he ran past her. “Yeah, Fentoenail’s the ghost, and we need to wear him down.”

Right now, all they were doing was covering Danny’s clothes with grass stains as he tried and failed to wrestle free. If he wasn’t so resilient, he’d end up with a bad friction burn, but as it was….

“Don’t worry about it,” Paulina said as Dash passed Danny to Kwan. “They’re just having some fun.”

Danny was right. She shouldn’t have invited them. She didn’t even know how to make them stop. They weren’t going to listen to her, especially if Paulina was on their side.

She still had to try, though. “C’mon,” Star yelled at them, “Fenton’s doing us a favour! Don’t you wanna be able to do something the next time a ghost attacks instead of just running away?”

She could see that Danny had set up targets at the far end of the field. She could also see that they hadn’t been used. At least, she was guessing that the scorch marks in the grass were from when the weapons had been aimed at him, not at the targets, since they were similar to the ones left earlier and, well, since they led away from the actual targets. Dash and Kwan should have decent aim, and even Paulina….

“This was a stupid idea, wasn’t it?” Star said to Paulina when no one answered. “The only one who’s getting anything out of this is me. And Valerie, I guess.” Star glanced over her shoulder to see what Valerie was doing—surely she’d try to step up to help Fenton? They were still friends—only to realize that Valerie was no longer there.

“What are you talking about?” Paulina said. “I’ve got this cool new lipstick weapon. I can’t wait to show the ghost boy. I’m going to ask him to teach me to use it, and we’ll spend so much time together, and—”

A high-pitched scream cut Paulina off. Dash. He and Kwan had stopped dragging Danny and were instead running back towards her and Paulina, and behind them—

“Yes, you should run, whelps,” Skulker said, levelling a pair of missile launchers at them. “I am the Ghost Zone’s Greatest Hunter. My reputation should precede me.”

He’s baiting Danny. Star didn’t know why it surprised her. He was ignoring Danny for now, focusing on them to force Danny into action. Taking him while he was strapped in the net would be cheating, not just easy prey. But as long as they were there, Danny couldn’t—

“C’mon, Star, move,” Paulina grabbed her hand and pulled, and Star obediently started running.

She was always running.

She hated running.

“I…I can’t….” How could she say this and not completely lose her social standing in Paulina’s eyes? “It’s my fault Fenton’s here. I’ve gotta help him. You guys hide.”

“It’s just Fenton,” Paulina hissed, tugging her harder as Star tried to slow. “He’ll be fine. He always is. Besides, he brought all those weapons. He has to know how to use them.”

“He needs to get out of the net first.” She jerked her hand free. “Just hide. I’ll find you as soon as I cut him free.”

“The ghost boy can help him.”

The ghost boy was him. Danny might be able to get free easily enough once the others were gone, but if something slowed him down—

“It’s my fault he’s here,” Star said again, and then she turned and started running the other way. Paulina shouted after her, but when Star finally looked back, Paulina was rounding the corner of the school.

Dash and Kwan would be able to keep her safe. They still had an ecto-gun, maybe two, between them. And Paulina still had the lipstick weapon. Valerie…. Star didn’t even know where Valerie was. Somewhere safe, probably, having spotted the ghost and run in a different direction? Except, if she’d seen the ghost, wouldn’t she have said something? Or, more accurately, screamed something?

Star tried to remember what combination would yield the knife on the Fenton Utility Weapon. When she wound up on something that looked like garden shears, she deemed it good enough and kept running, holding the weapon out to one side in case she tripped.

She was not exactly inconspicuous, and it wasn’t long before she was back to wondering if she was even sane. Skulker was pointing the weapons at her now, and she was still running towards them, and Danny—

Why wasn’t Danny freezing or blasting his way out of the net?

Why hadn’t he transformed?

Why was he just sitting there?

What the heck was he waiting f—?

A blast of pink energy hit Skulker’s form. Star ducked on instinct, despite still being over ten feet away, and only looked up again when she heard the Red Huntress speak. “Hey, ghost scum, scram or see what it’s like to face a real hunter!”

Star scrambled forward, closing the distance between her and Danny while the Red Huntress distracted the ghost. “Why the heck didn’t you transform or try to get away?” she hissed as she made a clumsy attempt to cut him free. “We’re lucky the Red Huntress showed up when she did!”

“Lucky,” Danny said flatly. “Yeah. That’s one way of putting it.” He took the Fenton Utility Weapon from her shaking hands and cut himself free. That was just as well; she could see at a glance that there was no way either of them could untangle the knot by hand, not when it was pulled that tight, and she couldn’t blame him for not wanting to use his ice powers in front of the Red Huntress.

He collapsed the weapon, handed it back to her, and crawled free. “Keep low,” he said, as if she planned to do anything else while Skulker and the Red Huntress traded blows practically on top of them.

She followed him to the bleachers. As cover went, it was barely better than nothing. “Why aren’t you going to help?” she whispered. “Even if you don’t want to transform here, you can run off and—”

“She can handle this one,” Danny said, nodding in the direction of the Red Huntress. “She’s a good shot, and I don’t want to push my luck.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I don’t want her to realize that there are two ghosts here. It’s not exactly a secret that she hates Phantom.”

Star frowned. “Why didn’t…?” Maybe she shouldn’t ask. Maybe she shouldn’t press him. But, given what she knew, his inaction seemed at odds with the way he usually went about trying to save them all. “I don’t get it. This is a ghost. I know the Red Huntress is here now, but you couldn’t have known she was coming. Why not just free yourself once we were all running away? You know no one’s going to look back until after they hope they’re out of sight.”

Danny shrugged. “Cameras?” He didn’t even try to sound particularly convinced.

“Fenton, c’mon. Remember how I said I wasn’t stupid?”

He sighed, looking utterly unconcerned by the firefight going on in the air barely twenty feet away. “Look, the Red Huntress has a way to detect ghosts. It’s, like, a smaller, way more inconspicuous version of Mom and Dad’s Fenton Finder. And it’s accurate. And when it goes off, if she can get away to help, she does. So I wasn’t surprised to see her turn up.”

Star stared at him. “You can’t know that she wasn’t busy. That she was close. You just…. You can’t. Which makes you not trying to save our butts kinda dangerous, don’t you think? Just because you handed us all weapons ten minutes ago, doesn’t mean we have a clue how to use them effectively. I couldn’t even….” She waved the Fenton Utility Weapon around vaguely. “This kind of thing takes practice. More practice than five seconds.”

He had the nerve to smile at her. “Glad you recognize that. Do you think you want to stick with that weapon or try a different one? Like I said, Sam—”

“Danny. I’m serious. I don’t…. Even if you weren’t really hurt by Skulker’s weapons, we could’ve been. The Red Huntress….” Star trailed off, watching as the hunter in question pulled out a thermos of her own—not a Fenton Thermos, despite the obvious similarities—and captured Skulker. “She’s not always going to be there. And neither are you. Which is why I want to learn something. But I can’t…. If you planned this, if you talked to Skulker and the Red Huntress and—”

“Wait, hold on, you seriously think I planned this?” Danny looked incredulous. “Star, I don’t plan ghost attacks. I don’t stage anything to look like the good guy, whatever my parents think. And even if, for some obscure reason, I decided to try, you really think the Red Huntress would agree to help? No. Just, no. Even if I asked her as Fenton, she doesn’t trust ghosts. She’d never agree to a crazy plan like that.”

“Well, then how else can you explain being so…so nonchalant about all of this? You didn’t even look particularly worried when I came to help you out of the net!”

Danny let out a slow breath, glanced over in time to watch the Red Huntress speed away on her jet sled, and turned back to Star. “Okay. Look. I didn’t know Skulker was going to show up until a few seconds before he actually did. That’s usually all the warning I get. But I knew the Red Huntress was close. I saw her. And I know how sensitive her watch is. I knew she was going to hear it beep and then find a way to run off and come back to fight Skulker. I…I know who she is. And how dedicated she is. Even if she’d rather have a crack at Phantom, she’s not going to just let a ghost go when they’re threatening her friends—or anyone else in town.”

Star frowned. He wasn’t saying what she thought he was saying, was he? That was ridiculous. Just because he wasn’t the only classmate she had who ran off when a ghost attacked—

“Is everyone okay?”

That was Valerie’s voice.

A few seconds later, she was running around the corner of the school.

Her eyes barely scanned the football field before they zeroed in on Danny and Star, despite the fact that they were still crouched in shadow beneath the bleachers.

“Star? Danny? Are you all right?” Valerie ran closer, circling around the bleachers to meet them from the back. “Did Paulina and Dash and Kwan get away okay?”

Valerie never had liked Phantom.

“We’re fine,” Danny said. “Glad you got away safely, too.”

“You two were cutting it close,” Val said. “Star’s right; we really needed this training session. I…. Thanks for showing us your parents’ stuff, Danny.”

Danny hadn’t really shown her anything. He’d confirmed that the weapon Valerie had chosen was a whip, and she’d figured the rest out for herself. Without nearly decapitating anyone or, as far as Star had seen, even shocking herself with its electricity feature.

Like she was familiar with the weaponry, if not the weapon.

“We’re going to have to do it again,” Star murmured. She had to be wrong. This…. No. This was Valerie. Her best friend, aside from Paulina. “Might not bother to invite the others if they won’t take it seriously, though.”

Valerie rolled her eyes. “I know what you mean. They never listen to me. I was thrilled you listened to me and asked Danny to do this. I should’ve thought of that ages ago. But if we can at least get you to be able to defend yourself, we can work on the others.”

Was she pretending her extensive martial arts training was enough to give her an edge to using ghost hunting weapons, to the point that it didn’t matter that she should be completely unfamiliar with the technology?

“I, uh, vote that they don’t come if I do this again,” Danny said.

He was pretending this was normal.

He was always pretending.

So was Valerie. And, now, so was she. Even with them. Even with each other. Even….

Oh, man, should she tell Valerie her suspicions? Even if she never mentioned anything about Danny? Would that be enough to get Val to open up to her if she was right, or would it just make her brush it all off? Danny had tried to throw her off the scent, but his secret was different, and she and Valerie had always told each other everything. Which boys they kinda sorta liked, what they actually dreamed of doing when they were adults, as opposed to what they thought they’d end up doing, what they really thought about—

“I’m off Monday night,” Valerie offered. “I wouldn’t mind trying a few more of your parents’ weapons, Danny, if you’re up for this again. Just the three of us. We don’t have to tell the others, and Lancer usually doesn’t give us an awful amount of homework right away.” She glanced at Star but said to Danny, “Sam and Tucker can come instead. I mean, you’ve probably shown them this stuff already, but Star and I can use the extra help.”

Maybe this wasn’t really happening. Maybe she was just dreaming this, and she’d wake up and she’d have to live through another Thursday and then they’d get to the real training session that night, where none of this had happened.

Except Star’s heart was still thundering in her chest, and she already had a cramp in her leg from crouching in this position, and she didn’t even need to raise a hand to know that she was shaking.

“That works for me, unless I get detention or something.”

Valerie snorted. “Try not to sleep in class or miss it entirely.”

“I mean, I always try.”

“Guys.” Star didn’t realize she’d actually spoken aloud until they were both looking at her. “Another training session sounds great, really. I could definitely use it. Just…. I don’t want to plan it right this minute. I’ve got…stuff to think about.”

“Like what you’re going to say to Paulina if she broke a nail and blames you?” Valerie asked. Star shot her a look, and she relented. “Okay, okay, I might still be a little bit bitter over the way she cut me out. But, really, I’m glad you’re finally taking the initiative and doing this. You need to be able to protect yourself.”

“We all do,” Star said, but they already could. She was the only one of the three who couldn’t. They were willing to help her, and that was great, but….

Seriously.

How had she not noticed this before?

Especially after she’d figured out what was up with Fenton?

Not that she’d known exactly until she’d tricked him into confessing, but still. She’d known something was up. And with Valerie, she…hadn’t.

But something was very clearly up, and now Star was almost certain she knew what it was, and she just….

“Why don’t we head to the Nasty Burger? The others are probably there anyway, and you can catch up with them. It’ll calm you down. You still look pretty freaked out, Star.”

Was that Danny telling her that he knew that she’d figured it out? The thing he’d hinted at but never explicitly told her?

“You wanna bring your parents’ stuff to the Nasty Burger?” Valerie asked. “And you want me to walk in there with you? You think I want to lose my job?”

“Well, you guys can go ahead. I’ll just stash the stuff in my locker or something and meet up with you after.”

“The school’s locked.”

“Then I can take it home. Or phone Jazz. Or just skip it entirely. I mean, Sam and Tucker—”

“We’ll help you pack up,” Star interrupted, “and you can phone Jazz to pick you up again while I text Paulina. Valerie’s right; she’ll be with the boys. We’ll, um, meet up with you another time, unless Jazz is okay with running the stuff home on her own and you can catch up with us later.”

Star knew she wasn’t mistaking the look of relief that crossed Danny’s face. “Sounds good.”

It was what he’d asked her to do: cover for him when the others couldn’t.

She just…hadn’t imagined it would be like this.

Of course, she’d never imagined any of this. How could Danny and Valerie—

“C’mon, Star.” Valerie pulled her up to her feet, and Star couldn’t find the energy to resist. Danny was ignoring them, talking on the phone to Jazz—or Sam or Tucker pretending to be Jazz, for all she knew. “You’ll feel better with a small, low-fat chocolate shake in you. My treat.”

“Thanks,” Star murmured.

“Trust me,” Valerie said as she let Star collapse onto the front bench of the bleachers and began to pack what was left of the FentonWorks weaponry back into the box, “some training days are rougher than others. You can’t let one bad experience turn you off. The key is to stick to it.”

“Right.” Star wasn’t going to disagree. This had been her idea. She’d asked Danny to do this, and she’d asked everyone to come here. Including Valerie, who obviously didn’t need it nearly as much as the rest of them but had been happy to come anyway.

But maybe that was okay. Maybe she didn’t have to confront Valerie on this. She was still coping with finding out about Danny; she could broach the subject with Valerie later. Much later. Or maybe she could wait for Valerie to feel comfortable with telling her on her own. That was possible, right? She was already keeping Danny’s secret. She could keep Valerie’s, too.

She didn’t have to mention that it was odd that Valerie knew exactly how to disengage a tangled, torn net from a net-gun that she had supposedly never used before.

She didn’t have to ask how Valerie knew to collapse and then activate the safety on the Fenton Utility Weapon.

She could just…turn a blind eye to it for now. Like Danny was, and probably Sam and Tucker, too.

She could let a couple of the best ghost hunters in town teach her how to defend herself against ghosts, even though neither of them would admit to being nearly as good as they were in front of the other.

Yeah.

She could do that.

And if the opportunity ever came up to try to subtly convince Valerie that Phantom wasn’t the evil piece of ghost scum she thought he was, well, Star could take it. She owed Danny that much, since this clearly hadn’t worked out as she’d hoped. Valerie already knew Star supported Phantom, so it wouldn’t be strange. And if Star had to hint that she knew Valerie’s secret to get her to listen, well, she could cross that bridge when she came to it.

Some things really needed to be taken one day at a time, and Star was good at that.

-|-

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#danny phantom #dp side hoes week #dp star #dp fanfiction #phanfiction #fanfiction #my writing #ladylynse #dp snippet #snippets #hopefully this counts?#I did it anyway

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nadderqueenastridhofferson · 6 years ago

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Hate on Astrid

Hey everyone Mun here and I would like to rant a bit about people hating on my girl Astrid.

Now this isn't the first time I have heard about people hating on Astrid and probably won't be the last. This is however the first time I am speaking out about it. I have seen people say things like: Astrid is an abusive character because she's hit Hiccup. A lot of people reference the first movie when it comes to this.

But first I would like to point out what a lot of people are neglecting to look at. They are Vikings! Looking back on History Viking women were very dominant. A strong Viking woman was praised and sought after. They held more freedom and power then most women in their day and age. They were allowed to own property, divorce their husbands, and even take back their bride prices after divorce. There was a viking woman by the name of Lagertha who fought with Ragnar Lothbrok in a battle against the Swedes who was so impressed with her that he pursued her and won her hand in marriage. Viking women were allowed to defend themselves and those they care about. Yes men ruled the house for the majority of the marriage but should he die the woman got full control of property, trade, and what ever else they owned. Now that I have said that here is my thoughts on Astrid Hofferson.

Example 1:

Dragon training when she lands on Hiccup while trying to run from Stormfly. Astrid is more concerned with getting her axe out of Hiccup's shield then whether or not she is hurting him. First off, they are in the middle of fucking DRAGON TRAINING! They are being attacked by a dragon. Who in their right mind is going to think about whether they are hurting someone when said person is trying to save their lives. She was in a panic as a Deadly Nadder was bearing down on them and her only weapon was embedded in Hiccup's shield which was stuck. Of course she wasn't thinking about whether she was hurting him or not cause she was trying to stop the Nadder from killing them. She didn't apologize because she was angry, angry at the fact that he wasn't taken their training seriously which meant that with his lack of attention it was going to get someone or even himself hurt and/or killed. She doesn't hate Hiccup. If you watch carefully in the beginning of the movie when Snotlout makes fun of Hiccup she actually looks upset at him for being mean.

Example 2:

When she confronts Hiccup in the cove where she bends his arm and hits him with her axe. First off she was trying to get answers and two she was angry. Again she is a VIKING WOMAN. She has been trained her whole life to be strong, to not show weakness. Not everyone can control their actions when their emotions get the better of them. You can't tell me you haven't hit your friend or loved one when you are upset with them or think they are doing something stupid. And it wasn't like Astrid stood there and continued to beat him up. Also let's not forget the fact when she saw Toothless for the first time she GRABBED HICCUP WANTING TO PROTECT HIM!! HOW IS THAT ABUSIVE? She saw a dragon, her first instinct was to protect Hiccup.

Example 3:

She hit Hiccup after their romantic flight. That punch she gave him had no heat to it at all. It's like me when I hit my boyfriend in the stomach because he scared me or is being an annoying adorable dork. I don't hit him hard, it's a love tap. I would like to also point out the fact that Astrid followed the hit with a kiss. These are the ways that Astrid shows her emotions. Her world completely changes when Hiccup becomes a huge part of her life. Until then they may not have been exactly friends but she also didn't hate him or tease him like some of the other kids. Which if anyone has watched the deleted scene with Hiccup and Astrid in the forge they would see that. She even takes a bit of interest in his inventions.

Example 4:

She hits him at the end of the movie saying "That's for scaring me." Again... punch had no heat to it at all. Like I said in my previous example if my boyfriend scares me, mainly out of reflex, I hit him but instead of going around screaming about abuse he just laughs and makes it up to me by giving me a kiss. Oh hey look! That's EXACTLY what Astrid did... TWICE. Astrid is a viking/shield maiden, raised in a viking world and culture. I don't see anyone screaming about abuse when she hits Snotlout or when the twins beat each other up. It's their world, their culture. People need to get their fucking facts and truly look at their world and how they were raised. Yes Hiccup has never hit Astrid but he is the only viking who is a fucking Pacifist to an extent. Although I would like to remind everyone of the time he punch Snotlout in the face. *cackles* Pricless. *coughs* Anyway... He fights when he has to but he would rather talk things out then fight. Astrid was raised to be strong, a fighter. That's all she knows is how to fight. We don't know much about Astrid's homelife or who her parents are, we have only ever heard her talk about her Uncle Finn. For all we know her parents could have enforced in her brain to talk with her fists first. It's not her fault.

And may I point out that DESPITE ALL OF THAT Hiccup is still head over heels in love with her. We need to look beyond those incidents to what happens after and in between. Things that she says to Hiccup like for example: 'You've lost everything, your father, your tribe, you best friend.' She isn't saying this to hurt Hiccup. She is saying this to get him to think, think outside the box, find another solution. It's the same thing when she says "You gave him his freedom, what did you expect?" In the third movie. She isn't saying it to hurt him but again to get him to think clearly. Make him see, open his eyes wider to see the bigger picture. She loves Hiccup more then anything in the world. Because of him she looked at the world in a brand new light, saw things, did things she never would of dreamed about if Hiccup hadn't showed her how. She is the person she is by the end of the third movie because of Hiccup. He is her world and she is his. Together they are a force to be reckoned with. I also have a Hiccup blog and I have been roleplaying and cosplaying as Hiccup for years and one of my best friends, my Astrid, feels the same way I do. I am tired of people dragging Astrid through the mud and painting her as the bad guy. This goes for Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons. I like the idea of Hiccup, Jack, Merida, and Rapunzel being friends and I am a fan of the Hijack ship but I'm not going to make Astrid a raging bitch or a cheater or make her out to be someone she isn't to get a fucking ship! I have a hijack rp that I am doing with a friend and Hiccup and Astrid are childhood friends. They may not be a couple but they have a good relationship, she is even good friends with Jack. Now I'm all for creative liberties and people writing how they wish but I will not be involved in any thing that involves hating on Astrid. I love her character dearly and I will not sit quietly and let someone bash her in front of me.

Just had a thought, her punching Hiccup in HTTYD2, you know the punch that made his dorsal fin pop open. That was not a malicious punch, she was fucking teasing him. Again look at the culture.

*huffs* Okay I've said my piece. Rant over.

Mun out

#hate on astrid #astrid hofferson #hiccstrid #astrid #hiccup #hiccup horrendous haddock #httyd #httyd2 #httyd3 #how to train your dragon

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daryls-dixon-antoni · 5 years ago

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Chapter 11.) Slabtown

I wake up in a plain white room; so much like a hospital, the sound of ticking echoing in my head.

I blink a couple of times, looking around in confusion. My wrist is bandaged up, as though by a doctor and I have an IV drip in my other arm.

I stand up and limp around, when I look down I see that my ankle has been wrapped more professionally as well. I'm definitely in a hospital room, there's a part of me that wonders if everythings just been a dream; like one of those fever dreams.

If I open the door; I'll be back in a world that still makes sense. My husband, sons and daughter will all still be alive. Hell; I bet their on the other side!

I rush over to the door, and try to pull it open to find it ... locked.

It was all real, then.

I start pounding as hard as I can against the door, trying to break it open. That's when I hear what sounds like a police scanner; so I immediately look around my room for any weapons. None. Okay, breathe, uh.... IV! I pull out the IV from my arm, and brace myself for a fight.

When the door clicks unlocked and a woman in a police uniform walks in, her light brown hair tied back into a tight ponytale and a strict 'no nonsense' look on her face, and a balding man with glasses and a beard following right behind her dressed in a doctor's uniform complete with a stethoscope.

I have my hands and feet in the proper boxing positions, but I wait to make my move, watching them closely.

The man has his hands up and addresses me as though I were a wounded animal, "Everything's okay. Okay?"

My eyes move to the Police Lady, instinctively knowing she's the bigger threat. She seems to know she is, and orders, "Put it down," she's gesturing to my IV Needle I still have clasped in one hand. "Drop it right now." I shrug, dropping the needle, but not my fighting stance.

"I'm Dr. Steven Edwards," the doctor dude puts his hands into his pockets as the lady puts her thumbs in her belt. They're trying to get me calm. I relax my stance, letting my hands fall to my sides, but keep my muscles ready for a fight.

"This is Officer Dawn Lerner. How are you feeling?"

"Where am I?" I snap.

"Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta," Dr. Edwards reponds.

"Atlanta? No. No! How the hell'd I get to Atlanta?"

"My officers found you on the side of the road surrounded by rotters."

"Run! Get out!" I blink back the vision of Daryl fighting off all those corpses. I'll never know if he made it. Just like I'll never know if Mason did.

"Your wrist and ankle were both fractured and you sustained a superficial head wound," Dr. Edwards says. "Can you remember your name?"

"My name?"

"Yes, do you know it?" Dawn asks, coldly.

"It's Antionette. Can I go?"

"If we hadn't saved you, you'd be one of them right now. So you owe us."

Dr. Edwards and I walk into a room with beeping monitors and a respirator hooked up to an unconscious man.

"Couple of them out there were on a run about a week ago. They found two boxes of Bisquick and a Merle Haggard tape at a truck stop, and then this gentleman under a bridge. Cardiac arrest and extreme dehydration.

"And I tried to do what I could," he steps forward and after pushing a few buttons, all the machines turn off.

We stab the guy in the head and move the body to a metal gourney.

"Somebody ran out of dolls to dress up."

I close my eyes deeply and then we wheel the dead guy out of the room. Dawn is talking to another police guy with short black hair.

"Hold up," the Dr. says, and he starts speaking with Dawn. I don't pay much attention, just trying to keep my head down so I can get out; find my son, find Daryl, find Sev.

Breaking out seems like one of my best bets, I recognize the type of people these guys are. They keep you in debted to them so you can never leave.

When we start moving again, I ask the Dr. "How many people do you people have?"

"Just enough to keep us going," is his answer. When he realizes I won't be responding he continues, "Some of us started here, some came as patients. Everyone has a job." Some came as patients... meaning they never left.

We toss the man down an elevator shoot.

When I'm retreiving food for the Doctor, a police guy with salt and pepper hair and eyes that bother me for some strange reason says, "You're looking better and better," I stare him down. "We had a lead on some guns, so me and my partner were pretty far out. That's when we saw you, wriggling in the road." I blink, but don't turn away. "You don't remember me, huh?" Silence. "Yeah, one of them rotters was eyeing your thighs when we showed up. But I got there first. Jacked that rotter up. I'm Gorman." I continue to stare. "When someone does you a favor, it's a courtesy to show some appreciation. Unless you want me to write down everything you're taking. Everything costs something, right?" I ignore him and take the tray, and walk away.

As I'm walking down the hall towards the Doctor's room, I hear Dawn barking orders. "We'll find Joan. Until then, you've got laundry duty and I want my uniform."

A boys voice joins in as they both say, "washed separately and pressed." Dawn stops talking, but the boys' voice says, "I know."

"Smart-ass," is Dawn's response.

I walk into the Doctor's room to the sound of real music, and he's sitting with his feet on a desk, flipping throuth a book, he sighs, "I used to feel like I was drowning in research. Now the oceans are dry," he slams the book closed, "and I'm suffocating in boredom. He throws the book across the room.

I stare at him and he points at a painting displayed next to his desk, "That's Junior Kimbrough. Do you like it?"

I glance at it, the imagry is nice. "I guess," I say, shrugging.

I then place his tray on his desk, and he looks at me, "Where's your food?"

"I am not eating anything from here. I can't owe you people anymore than I already do. I need to leave as soon as I can."

"Have you ever tried guinea pig?"

"No, I haven't." I respond.

"I didn't think so." He smiles, and gestures to the place in front of him, "Sit down." I hesitate, looking at him closely. "Dawn doesn't have to know. Come on." He reasures me, so I take a seat and he clears some of his books off his cluttered desk before cutting a peice of the guinea pig and offering me to take a bit off the fork. I grab the fork and try it. It's not half bad.

"Well?"

I shrug, not wanting to speak too much to anyone here. He laughs, "It's good enough for Peru."

He also takes a bite, and I look around his very cluttered room. Honestly, the place is a mess, but it's somehow also homey. The doctor gestures back to the painting, "It's a Caravaggio. I found it on the street outside the High. Like trash." He stands up, "It doesn't have a place anymore. Art isn't about survival. It's about transcendence. Being more than animals. Rising above." I listen to him talk about his art a while longer.

"We got a new one," A new police woman says.

They are pushing in a gourney with a man on top of it. A new male police officer adds, "Found his wallet. His name is Gavin Trevitt."

The woman continues, "Fell from a first floor apartment trying to get away from some."

The man walks past me to whisper in Dawn's ear as Dr. Edwards starts checking the man out, "He's lost a lot of blood and his vitals are dropping. I don't think he's gonna make it."

The male officer addresses Dawn out loud, "We've already given him gas-"

Dawn cuts him off, "I got this. You said you wanted to save people, so save him."

"I don't even know the extent of his injuries," Dr. edwards states, "Look, this one's a loser. You said you didn't want me wasting resources."

"Well, today I want you to try."

Dr. Edwards considers this for a moment before turning to me, "Okay, plug the EKG and the ultrasound into that battery pack, go."

I move and do as he says, and he says, "Good. Good, good, good. Now attach it to the patient."

I do so, and the moniter begins beeping, and as Dr. Edwards starts doing an Ultrasound on the guys chest, the beeping becomes loud and rapid.

"Tension pneumothorax. Punctured lung. Antionette, I need a large hollow needle in that cabinet." He goes to give me a set of keys, but Dawn intercepts them and opens the cabinet, grabbing the hollow needle and handing it to Dr. Edwards who stabs it into the mans chest, clearing his airway, I think? Whatever he's doing, it causes blood to squirt out throuth the needle.

The beeping on the machine slows and Dawn asks, "Is he gonna make it?"

"He fell from a building, Dawn."

"Is he going to make it?"

Dr. Edwards pulls open the mans lower shirt, "You see these bruises? He has internal bleeding, but I need a CAT scan to know how bad. And even if I could determine that, I don't have the tools to save him. I told you, this was a waste of resources."

Dawn turns around and slaps me, breaking open my stitches, and it takes every single ounce of self control not to punch her right back.

I tightly clench my jaw as Dawn says, "Steve, try to grasp the stakes here," she then walks out, slamming the door behind her.

We go to 'my room' to stitch my cheek back up despite my arguments to leave me alone.

When he finishes he says, "Noah left you a new shirt."

"I don't want a new shirt," I mumble, looking at the clean scrub top that matches the one I already have on.

"She likes things neat," Dr. Edwards states, pointing to the blood stain on my shirt.

"Shouldn't have slapped me. There wouldn't be any blood on my shirt if she hadn't."

He sighs, "I'll wait for you outside."

I change shirts, finding a lollipop inside of my new one. I stash it under my pillow before leaving the room to see two police people struggling with a woman who most definitely does not want to be here. She's wearing the same blue scrubs I'm in.

"Dawn needs you, now," the male officer states, so we rush in after them all.

"She's lucky we found her. Whatever you were thinking, it wasn't worth it. Okay, you have two choices. Either we cut off your arm or you do."

"Screw you and your little bitch!-"

"Smart-ass whore," Gorman states, moving towards the woman, but Dawn pushes him back, "Gorman, get out of here!"

Dr. Edwards approaches the woman, only to get kicked by her, Dawn holds her down as Dr. Edwards says, "It's anesthetic. You need it."

"Go to hell," is the woman's response.

"She made her choice," Dawn states. "Do it. Do it."

Dr. Edwards takes something out of his pocket, obviously he is going to use it as a tourniquet.

"No, no, no! I said leave me alone!"

"We're not going to let you die! We are not going to let you turn!"

I start to walk out the door.

"Where do you think you're going?" Dawn seethes.

"I don't want any part of this."

"Do you want her to die?"

"She wants to die, that's obvious."

"Help us save her."

"Antionette," Dr. Edwards states, "I need you to hold her down. Do it now," He sounds much calmer and kinder.

"Now."

I move forward and help hold down the poor sobbing woman.

"Keep your hands off me! I'm not going back to him!"

"You don't have to," Dawn reassures her.

"You can't control them!"

"I will."

"Antionette, you ready?" The doctor asks me, and I nod, helping hold down the woman who begins to struggle even harder, trying to thrash as she screams. Dr. Edwards saws off her entire lower arm. No remorse, I guess.

I go into the laundry room to get rid of my new set of bloodied uniform per Dawn's request.

"You okay?" A darker skinned boy asks, his hair is cut short and a kind smile is on his face, "I'm Noah. Of the Lollipop Guild."

"Antionette," I greet, shaking his hand. "Thanks for the sucker."

"Figured you could use a pick-me-up after this morning." I hand him my dirty uniform, and he says, "Guess I should have brought the whole jar." He hands me a new uniform saying, "Here, this should fit."

"Do you know why that curly haired woman left?" I ask. "I mean, how long did she really have left before she payed what was due here and got to leave without them dragging her back?"

Noah shakes his head, "I haven't seen it work like that yet."

"What do you mean, how long you been here?"

"I guess about a year. Dad and I were both pretty messed up when they found us. They said that they could only save one. For the longest time, I actually believed them. Now I get it. Dad was bigger, stronger. Would have fought back. Would have been a threat."

I frown, "They let your dad die?"

"And Dawn just looked the other way. See, she's in charge, but just barely. And it's getting worse. It's why I'm out of here when the time is right. I came looking for my uncle. Gotta get back to my mom."

"Where is she at?" I ask, kindly.

"Richmond. Virginia. We had walls. See, they think I'm scrawny. They think I'm weak. But they don't know shit about me. About what I am. About what you are."

"You don't know me. But I need to go find my son, so I understand what you mean."

"You have a son?" I nod. "How old?"

"Just over ten now."

I'm doing some work for Dr. Edwards, currently pouring bleach into a tin bucket, when Dawn walks in behind me.

"Shepherd, you've already pulled a double. I got it from here."

I tense my muscles as she orders away her officer, leaving us alone and without witnesses.

"Yes, ma'am. Thanks."

I hear Dawn approach me and turn to see her holding a tray of food as she says, "I know you didn't have breakfast. Peace treaty?"

"I'll eat when I get out."

Dawn sits on a red container and pats the one next to her. I stay standing and just look at her, "You know, you shouldn't see this as a sentence. I'm giving you food, clothes, protection. When have those things ever been free?"

I look at her, "I know how to hunt for food, I have no problem with messy clothes, and hand me my pocket knife back, and I wouldn't need your protection, either."

"But you did need it." I glare at her, unamused. "Try to look at the good we're doing. Hard as it was, we saved Joan's life. Trevitt's life. We saved your life. I'm keeping all of us going here. That is not a small thing. It's taken a lot to get us here, Antionette. And I believe that what we had before all of this isn't over. And when we're finally rescued, when this nightmare ends, we're gonna need to rebuild."

"You seriously think someone's coming? After all this time, seriously?"

"There's still people like us, Antionette." She snaps, "People trying to keep the world alive, to fix it. Until then, we all have to contribute. To compromise. If we take, we give back. It's only fair. So keep working off what you owe and you'll be out of here in no time. If that's what you want."

"I think I made it clear that's what I'll be doing."

"Well, then you have to eat. Otherwise, you'll get weak. You won't heal, you'll require more treatment, and you won't be able to do your job."

"You could let me go out and hunt. I'll catch and eat my own food."

"We don't leave if it's not a necessity. I know you didn't ask for this. I didn't either." I stare her down, and she gives a hefty sigh, before getting up and walking out.

I was asked to clean the blood from the floor of the now one handed woman's room, I mop the floors whilst quietly singing,

"I'm only human and I bleed when I fall down, I'm only human and I crash and I break down. You're words in my head, knifes in my heart, you build me up then I fall apart, I'm only human..."

"Hmm. That's really nice"

I look at Joann, who is now awake and looking at me, "Do you want me to go get Dr. Edwards?"

"No, please. Not yet."

"I'm sorry I helped them..." I tell her.

"She can control them. But she doesn't because it's easier. Because she's a coward."

"How bad did Gorman hurt you?" I ask, softly.

She shakes her head, "It doesn't matter. I guess it's easy to make a deal with the devil when you're not the one paying the price."

Back in my room I look underneath my pillow to try to find that lollipop Noah had given me.

"Lose something?" Gorman's voice asks from my doorway. He pulls the sucker from his pocket and unwraps it, "This is yours, ain't it?" He puts it in his mouth. "Mmm." He pops it back out of his mouth, "Sour apple. Like the kind Dawn acquired from pediatrics." He steps closer to me, but I hold my ground. "Suppose you could have a taste. See if it rings any bells."

"I don't want it," I say, as calmly as I can.

"Oh, come on, now." He puts the sucker on my lips, "I just want to be sure I'm returning this to its rightful owner." He tries forcing it into my mouth, so I slap him, hard across the face with my casted arm.

He steps back a hand holding his cheek as he looks at me with blood boiling anger behind his devilish eyes.

He takes a threatening step towards me when we both hear Dr. Edwards voice from the door, "Leave her alone."

"The girl should have been mine."

"Nobody's yours, Gorman. Nobody. And if you think you're getting Joan back-"

"Oh, I'm gonna get her back." He turns to face Dr. Edward, and asks, "You think Dawn's gonna stop me?"

"I will."

"You stepping up, Doc?" Gorman takes a step towards Dr. Edwards.

"What happens when you get sick, Gorman? When you get an infection? When you get bit?"

"Hmm. I think there's gonna be somebody. Somebody who ain't you."

Dawn approaches the scene with another police dude, Dawn says, "Gorman." With a warning tone to her voice.

"And maybe somebody in charge who ain't her." He says, putting the sucker back in his mouth as he backs back out of the room, Dawn leaving with him.

I look at Dr. Edwards, "What the hell is his problem?"

"Come on, let me tell you a story."

We go onto the roof, looking out into a broken down Atlanta.

"When everything started, Dawn reported to a guy named Hanson. They had orders to clear the hospital and move everyone to Butler Park. It was close to midnight when we heard the jets, the bombs. The screams. I was on the third floor. Dawn and Hanson's teams were doing a final sweep. And we knew it was bad. Just didn't know how bad till we came up here. The city had fallen. And everyone we evacuated they were just gone. We kept mostly to ourselves at first. Till the food ran out. We started going out on runs, a few of us at a time. We'd see people who needed help. Barely holding on. But we were barely holding on ourselves. Came a time I couldn't look away anymore. I found this kid. Napalm burns on his clothes, his skin. Dawn said we couldn't spare the resources. So we struck a deal. I'd use what I could to heal him and he'd compensate us for those resources through service. Now-"

"You're not at fault for what she's turned this into."

"We lost some people, that's what's at fault. Hanson cracked. He made some calls that got people killed. Dawn took care of things. She took care of him. She saw us past it. Kept us together. Kept us alive."

"How is this living?" I ask, watching him pace.

He chuckles darkly, "We're still breathing. Patients we brought here, they're still breathing. Outside these walls, alone, unprotected, they'd be dead. We'd be dead. We're not the ones who make it. As bad as it gets, it's still better than down there."

"You're wrong. I am one of the one's who will make it. I need to get back to work."

"How about you look in on Mr. Trevitt and call it a day?"

"Alright, I guess."

"He's stable, due for another 75mg of Clozapine. And tomorrow we'll start fresh."

I walk away, and go prepare the Clozapine, crush it to dust, liquify it and then insert it into the man's arm.

"Still at it, huh?" Noah asks, startling me.

"Yeah," I agree, giving a heavy sigh before all the machines start beeping rapidly, and Mr. Trevitt starts seizing, my heart stops, "Fuck!"

Dawn stabs the now dead Mr. Trevitt in the head then rounds on me, "What did you do to him?"

"I didn't do anything," I reply, coldly.

"He was fine until the two of you were alone with him. Something happened. I want you to tell me."

"It was an accident," Noah starts and I look at him, "Antionette left to get some gauze. I was mopping. I must have unplugged the ventilator somehow. It only stopped for a minute."

"That isn-"

Noah cuts me off, "I got it working again."

"Take him to my office," Dawn orders.

Gorman pulls Noah's arm and drags him out of the room.

Dr. Edwards steps forward, "Dawn, it was an accident." Dawn storms out of the room. "It was an accident," Dr. Edwards repeats.

"Noah lied, Mr. Trivett started seizing. It killed him."

"Seizing? Well, you gave him Clonazepam, right?"

"Clonazepam? You didn't say Conazepam. You'd said Clozapine."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

I hear Noah yell, "Please!" from down the hall and go to rush to his side, to tell Dawn the truth; but Dr. Edwards stops me, "Antionette, we need to deal with Mr. Trevitt while he's still warm."

"You deal with Mr. Trevitt, but I have to stop her!" I snap, as I hear Noah continuing to plead, "Please, stop Please!"

"We can't- you can't stop it."

I pull my bedding up on my bed, wondering how in the hell I ended up here? I'd give almost anything to be back out in the world of the dead then to have to deal with this places weird ass politics. This places crooked people.

Dawn comes in, closing my door behind her. "You really think I didn't know?" I stare at her. "Noah's smart. Probably my best worker. But that story he told about the ventilator? Boy's not much of a liar."

"So you, what? Beat him for the hell of it?"

"I didn't want to. I had to. A good man's mistakes almost ended everything for us, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let that happen again. Every sacrifice we make needs to be for the greater good. The second it isn't, the second we lose sight of that, it's all over. The thing is, you're not the greater good. You're not strong enough."

"I'm plenty strong."

"How many people had to risk their lives to save you? In here, you are part of a system. The wards keep my officers happy. The happier my officers are, the harder they work to keep us going. And this hasn't been easy. There have been compromises, but it's working. And after they rescue us, we're gonna help put the world back together. Because we're the ones holding on. That's the good we're doing here. That's the good you're doing here. That's what makes you worth something. But out there you are nothing. Except dead or somebody's burden."

"You're wrong." I say, glaring at her.

"Oh, yeah? Some people just aren't meant for this life, and that's okay."

"I was literally raised for this life. My siblings and I called our childhood home the Zombie Bootcamp. When the world fell to shit, I single handedly kept not only myself alive, but my husband and two boys as well."

"And where are they now?"

I take a step back.

"Like I said, some people aren't meant for this, and as long as they don't take advantage of the ones who are, it's okay." She leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

I find Noah and see his eye already blackened and swollen.

"Oh my god," I whisper.

"It's not as bad as it looks. I'm okay. Watch," he flicks his bruise, "Painkillers. It barely even hurts. Dawn needed Trevitt for something. I know that's what that was about. Screwed-up thing is, she's trapped, too."

"We aren't trapped. I'm getting us out of here."

"Basement's the fastest way out. Any noise and we got rotters."

"Easy fix, we stay quiet."

"I can keep an eye on Dawn. She keeps a spare key to the elevator banks somewhere in her office. Think you can find it?"

"Hell yeah, I can."

I wait and watch for Noah's signal, and as soon as I get it I quickly and quietly make my way to Dawn's office.

I first search her filing cabinet; but only find the wallet to Mr. Trivett, my curiousity get's the best of me, and when I look inside, I see that he was a doctor. Things start falling into place in my head.

I move to the desk to see Joann, dead on the floor. Suicide.

I start rummaging through the desk, break open her bottom drawer and take the key right as Gorman opens the door, "Hey there. I hope I'm not interrupting," he closes the office door behind him.

"Dawn asked me to fetch her key for her," I say, holding it up for him to see.

"Did she, now? See, I was just with Dawn and I don't seem to remember that." He steps in front of me, enclosing me between him and the desk, "It's okay. Maybe she doesn't have to know. Maybe there's another solution. You know? A little win-win for both of us." He sniffs my hair and I try to pull away from him, noticing Joann's hand move. She's becoming reanimated. "So how about it, Annie? We gonna work something out here?" I close my eyes and nod; ready for Joann to get up and eat this son of a bitch. "Good girl. Now, Joan, she's not such a team player. Lucky for me you're not being a fighter." His hand goes up my shirt and I immediately bash his head with the jar of suckers, he falls right onto Joann, who in turn immediately attacks Gorman. Good, one less douchebag to deal with. I grab his gun off him and stuff it into my pants before walking towards Noah.

Dawn stops me by saying my name, "Everything okay?"

I nod then say, "Hey, I think Gorman was trying to speak to you, said he'd be in your office."

"Thank you, Antionette." I nod.

Noah and I start rushing towards the elevators, I tie some bedsheets to the edge and Noah asks, "Ready?"

I nod, beginning to tie him in the sheets. "I'll come down after you, alright?"

"Okay."

I gently lower him down and then toss the rest of the towels and bedsheets over, ready to lover myself down. But one of the dead jump out at me from one of the floors and I fall, my landing cushioned by the stinky unanimated dead people that have been thrown down here.

Noah holds the flashlight and I hold my new gun. When Noah is grabbed by one of the reanimated dead, I start shooting them all, every one of them in the head as I continue to push both Noah and myself towards freedom. Once we're out in the daylight, I take off, the dead blocking off our exit; so I go to the side; a hole on the fence allowing us an escape route. I try to keep my pace slow enough that I can help Noah get out, but that's when I get surrounded by the dead. I keep fighting my way to freedom, when someone jumps on me and pins me to the ground, I struggle until I see that Noah has made it to safety and that its one of the living now currently handcuffing me. I completely relax, letting the man pull me painfully up and then back inside.

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

"Does it matter?" We are in Dawn's office with the two dead bodies. "Why do you let this shit happen?" I ask, gesturing to the dead bodies. "Why did it take her comitting suicide for her to be free from him? You knew it was happening, and you didn't do jack shit to stop it."

"So that we make it."

"Why? So your imaginary rescue team can save you? No one is coming! There isn't any magical helicopters coming to rebuild the new world. This is it!"

She doesn't answer me, just takes the broken picture frame to hit me over my head.

I sit in a chair in Dr. Edwards room as he checks my healing process to my forehead. "You're healing quickly. Should be ready to jump back into it in a couple more days." He stands up and says, "Well, that should about do it."

"You told me the wrong medicine to give Dr. Trevitt. Was it because he was also a doctor?"

"Trevitt was an oncologist at St. Ignatius. I knew him. They would have kicked me out. Maybe Gorman, maybe he would have killed me. I didn't have a choice." I shake my head, disappointed in the man who could have been good.

Dr. Edwards continues, "When they arrested Christ, Peter denied being one of his disciples. He didn't have a choice. They would have crucified him, too."

Later that same day, the new person they bring in is Carol! Daryl's best friend. She's alive; which means others did survive the Prison.

#daryl dixon #daryl dixon fanfiction #the walking dead #the walking dead fanfiction #season 5 #chapter 11

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