#some sort of... tube manager

[motecomic]

>Next

You and Arkon get the shutter to open up. Its two halves slide neatly into the top and bottom of the tube like they were never even there.

Looks like the tube here is missing, the hole in the bottom leading down into some other DARK CHAMBER FULL OF GARBAGE featuring some more creeping NEURAL VINES. 

You suppose you could probably FIT ANOTHER TUBE into this hole. With Arkon’s help of course. 

 >Juniper: Dive into TUBE SOCKET.

[beeapocalypse]

one day and im already rlly in love w the physical kitty clones idea. cats tip-tapping around my brain. theres so many weird possibilities

[spotsupstuff]

Annoying bio nerd back at it again sorry

But do ancients have a spine? Because that is a very specific structure that anemones do not have irl. I can't see any other way for them to support walking upright than to have some sort of back stick

yeah man they do it's pretty blatantly displayed too

[ghost-proofbaby]

september love (e.m.)

eddie finds you awake on the first night he's home from the hospital, and wonders what you're thinking.

pairing: eddie munson x reader

warnings: mentions of canon ending of season 4, except eddie didn't die. mentions of hospital and medical procedures (in passing). sort of sad, sort of not. a little bit of angst? hurt/comfort. religious imagery (specific mentions of heaven).

wc: 1.7k+

an: this was just some sort of weird rambling upon seeing the poem mentioned above at like 11 pm? 1 am? who knows. time is a construct. also, reader is compared to a 'violent' dog/animal during eddie's recovery, and if you like this metaphor/vibe, then i strongly suggest and urge you to go read @myosotisa's fic Half Life. she does it far more beautifully than i ever could, and it is one of my favorite fics. ever.

Your head is on his chest. 

Your temple and your ear are flush with the soft cotton of his wrinkled t-shirt, the one he insisted upon sleeping on his first night home, and it’s all you can think about. The smell of week old laundry, the stubborn linger of a cologne gifted too long ago to remember the worn name of. A steady heartbeat that still pumps along a little too slow for your liking. The rise and fall of each promised breath that you force your lungs to pace themselves with. Just enough heat radiating off of him to keep you warm, here in bed, here in the dim light of twilight as he rests.

No tubes and no IVs to worry about. No nurses barging in every ten minutes. No beeping of a dozen machines to be your symphony tonight. 

No, you don’t need a machine now to keep track of his heart rate. You’ve learned to do that entirely on your own; your heart has learned how to match his with each dulled thump against the skin you cling to through this dingy old t-shirt.

It can’t be long after 3 AM, the moonlight almost as bright as a rising sun as it peeks itself in through the curtains of the window, as if whispering to check if you might still be awake.

And you are. And all you can think about, is your head on his chest. 

It’s been over a month since you’ve had this type of moment with Eddie. A moment where you’re truly, sincerely, utterly alone with him. Privacy had become a delicacy that you weren’t aware of the fragility of. You hadn’t understood its importance until you had to bask in its absence, always on edge for the next body to walk into the room and take the air out of your lungs. Always anxious for the next sound of news, always worried for the next shoe to drop. 

You’d forgotten what it had felt like for Eddie to twitch his fingers along your spine in his sleep, and for you to be the only witness to his quiet worship, even unconscious. 

Your lips part, and you almost consider whispering hard truths into the trembling night air. There’s a million and one dying words cementing your tongue to the roof of your mouth, and you know that every single one you could even manage to utter would only make you sound like a broken record. 

I’m sorry this happened to you.

I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.

I’m sorry I couldn’t prevent it. 

All things already said to him when he had been drifting in and out of consciousness in that hospital bed. All apologies already buried between muted sobs as you’d clutched his knuckles a little tighter than you should have, a little too selfish in the moment to wonder if it might be hurting him. The only thing on your mind had been keeping him, holding him, feeling him. He was alive – he was alive. And for the first seven nights of his endless rest, all you could wonder is for just how much longer that desperate prayer could ring true.

Would he leave you again? Would he lose the fight? 

You can’t recall without bias which one of you had been the true wounded animal in that little room, scented with burning bleach and cacophonies of nearby patients just beyond the curtains. 

Eddie, looking up at the police who had finally come once he woke, eyes big and teary as he’d tried to wrap his head around his new reality.

You, baring teeth and claws at them in the end, ready to bite hard at anyone who got too close.

It wasn’t just the police. It was everyone. 

It was the same juxtaposition between the two of you at those nurses who would interrupt the nights, always frowning so dutifully at the sight of your carefully curled figure at Eddie’s side. When friends and family came to visit, and they all had the same look of disbelief. As if they were about to tell you that you had imagined it all; he hadn’t survived, he hadn’t come back to you, you were imagining it. You’d been all bark and awaiting bite towards Steve Harrington and the newly revived Jim Hopper, all the same. Their figures bore no difference to you when it came to protecting what was so holy to you. Him, Eddie, here and alive. Eddie, who slept enough for the both of you those nights. The pain in your back from all the uncomfortable hours spent in that little chair at his bedside was insignificant, all the headaches you’d endured from the smell of iodine that still clung to the air after every surgery were pitiful attempts at the Universe removing you from him. 

If you could, you might try to recall your reaction when Dustin Henderson had babbled on through tears as to what had happened to Eddie when the two were left alone. His final act of heroism, or so he thought. 

But you can’t. Right here, right now, you aren’t capable of living in the past. You’ve been haunted enough these last few weeks, and all your numb mind can handle is counting the beats of his heart. Like the rhythm of a song – 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. Staccato verses that you sometimes whisper in time, getting worried when they don’t follow the infallible metronome you’ve set for him. 

“You’re still awake.”

The murmur of his voice is a drink of cold water, startling in the dark greys and blues wrapping the two of you up. 

You lift your head ever so slightly against your better judgment, “Go back to sleep, love.” 

“Touche.” 

You can see his grin even through the shadows. It’s weak, not yet quite as vibrant as it once had been, but it’s there. He’s still alive. He’s still grinning. 

“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” The pads of his fingertips are more intentional against your spine now, longer strokes and mindless shapes, “I’ve got a penny in my pocket if you tell me.”

His words are only slightly slurred. Probably residual of the pain medication they’d prescribed him.

“I wasn’t thinking about anything,” you say, and you mean it.

You hadn’t been thinking. You had just been listening to his heart and his breaths, feeling the weight of him beneath you. 

Little things you had taken for granted once upon a time. Never again, your soul aches as you let your head drop back to his chest carefully. Never again.

“You’re just laying awake, not thinking about anything, at…” he trails off, turning his cheek and squinting in the direction of the alarm clock across the room. The glow is dim, and you know you’ll have to change the batteries soon, “Four in the morning?”

4 AM. Last you had checked, it had been 3 AM. You hadn’t even noticed an hour had passed. 

“Is that really so hard to believe?” you smile up at him, and it’s just as sincere as your words had been. When his honey brown eyes meet yours, warmth drizzles down your entire being. Across your brain, down your spine, wrapping around your limbs. You could spend an eternity here, simmering in his warmth, content to your heart’s fullest capability. 

You’d almost lost him. You’d almost lost this warmth. 

You take a second to memorize his features. Studying him as if you didn’t already know every curvature, every freckle, every winkle better than you knew your own soul. You’re looking at him as if you may never look at him again, and he can tell. 

He doesn’t have to say that he gets it. His hand simply wanders up to cup your face, basking in you as you were him. Two souls, intertwining over overlapping legs and synchronized heartbeats, and he doesn’t have to say a word. 

The moment his fingers card into your baby hairs, you’re turning your mouth quickly to that warm palm. One, two, three kisses. Quick pecks, rapid succession. A secret language that you know he, and only ever he, can begin to understand. 

I love you.

I love you.

I love you. 

It drowns out all sorrow, all guilt, all hauntings. Your cracked lips, and the feeling of those lines across his palms. If there is a Heaven, it’s not somewhere in a pearly gated kingdom above. There are no hark angels and there is no bearded man awaiting. 

It’s here. It’s now. It’s 4 AM, in bed with your lover, getting to experience moments you’d come so close to losing for eternity. 

Do the poets know? They must. All the love, all the adoration, in both your bodies is too abundant for them to not feel it. To not write about it. 

“Go back to bed, love,” you repeat almost a perfect imitation of your first command when he had awakened, and this time, his eyelids flutter with your words, “I’m not gonna disappear between now and sunrise. I promise.” 

“No,” he quickly whispers back as his eyes fully shut, and your palms smooth out the wrinkles of the shirt to feel the ridges of scars hidden for now. Scars he’s ashamed of, for now. Scars you’d one day show all the love in the world to, sacred proof that he came back to you, only once he was ready. One day. “But you’re looking at me like I might.”

His words are heavy in the shades of violet now sinking into the room. But the moon is high in her sky, and the crickets are chirping to the East, and he’s right.

You’re terrified the daylight will steal him from you. You’re terrified the new day might tear away all that you’ve sunk your teeth into. 

“I’m not going to,” he mumbles around a yawn, arms slowly encasing you, pulling you in closer, “I’m not going anywhere. Yeah?” 

He’s back with that warmth, coaxing you right back into heavenly notions with him. You let him; he baits you, and you follow. 

“Yeah.”

It’s a sigh. Of hopefulness, of relief, of belief. 

This time, the I love you is more than a prayer repeated in your mind. And he somehow manages to say it back, just as he begins to slip back under. Still holding you and hands still twitching where they rest against your back. 

Let daylight come. You aren’t capable of worrying about it, or stressing about all that has happened. You aren’t capable of thinking about anything right now, because only one thing matters as your temple and ear find his heartbeat once more. 

Your head is on his chest.

eddie's taglist: @capricornrisingsstuff @thisisktrying @mediocredreams @vol2eddie @corrcdedcoffin

@ches-86 @alovesongtheywrote @its-not-rain @feralchaospixie @cheesypuffkins87

@thebook-hobbit @babez-a-licious @eddies-acousticguitar @aysheashea@kellsck

@cosmorant @billyhvrgrove-main @micheledawn1975 @eddiesxangel @siriuslysmoking

@witchwolflea @tlclick73 @magicalchocolatecheesecake @mizzfizz @nanaminswhore

@mikiepeach @ali-r3n @hawkebuckley @alwaysbeenfamous @darkyuffie-blog

@vintagehellfire @lilmisssiren @elvendria@loveryanax@stylexrepp

@princessstolas @fangirling-4-ever @eddiesguitarskills @babez-a-licious @josephquinnsfreckles

@writinginthetwilight @trixyvixx @kittydeadbones @munson-addict @bluejeangenies

@cryingglightningg @joannamuns9n @missmarch-99 @rhirojo@findmeincorneliastreet

[moonstruckme]

hi !! i saw that your requests were open and i'd really love if you wrote something with james (or poly!m !!) with a gn!reader taking up literature in uni who tends to get back pains from being hunched over reading and writing almost all hours of the day (definitely not projecting, hehe!)

i love the stuff you write and everythings just so sweetly written and portrayed so lovely !! thank you for keeping the marauders fandom alive lol

Thank you ml <3

modern au

poly!marauders x gn!reader ♡ 709 words

James plops down beside you on the couch, and when he pokes your spine you straighten reflexively. 

“Sorry,” you mumble, only half in the room as the rest of your brain continues working on your essay. 

“Are you really not done yet?” Sirius asks, putting a bag of popcorn in the microwave. You start typing faster. They’re going to want to start the movie soon, and then your laptop is going to be wrested away from you whether you’ve reached a stopping point or not. “I can’t remember the last time I spent more than a couple hours on an essay. You’ve been laboring over that thing all day.” 

“It’s a long one,” you admit, “but it’s hardly labor.” 

“Sure looks like it, when your back is hunched worse than a coal miner’s.” 

You give him a deadpan look. Sirius glances down at your fingers, still typing rapidly, and shudders. 

“Fucked how you can do that.” 

“Literature students might be the new coal miners,” says James.

You hum dubiously, looking back to your work. “Not sure that’s a super fair comparison.” 

“Yeah, I wouldn’t quite say that,” Remus agrees with you, “but it’s not like you’re not doing yourself any harm when you write all day like this, love. Your back is already hurting you—” 

“You’ll probably get carpal tunnel,” James adds. 

“—and I know looking at your laptop for this long gives you headaches.” Remus’ slow strides into the living room feel like a countdown clock. You manage to hammer out the end of your sentence just before he pulls your laptop out from under your fingers. “If you’re not careful, it’s gonna fuck up your sleep. That’s enough for tonight.” 

You sigh but don’t complain, rolling back your shoulders to ease some of the tautness there. Your spine crackles, quicker and louder than the popcorn popping in the kitchen, and James flinches away from you. 

“God, make it stop,” he pleads. 

You ignore him and roll your neck to the side, eliciting a series of cracks from there too. James makes a dramatically horrified sound and squeezes his eyes shut, and Remus grabs your head in both hands, restraining you. 

“Don’t,” he tells you severely. “We’ve been over this.” 

“Freak,” Sirius says lovingly as he pulls the bag of popcorn from the microwave. 

“It hurts,” you complain. 

“Sounds like it, fuck,” James agrees emphatically. Now the danger has passed, he leans towards you again, splaying a protective palm over your mid back. “Sirius, could you grab my icy hot from the fridge? Here, lovie, lie down.” 

Remus lets go of your face somewhat reluctantly, letting James help you lay across his lap. His hand smooths up and down your spine, pressing down lightly upon muscles rigid with tension. You sort of wish he’d just crush you. You’re sure he could, he doesn’t spend all that time at the gym for nothing. 

“I’m gonna get you a back brace,” Remus mutters, fondness under the veneer of resentment in his tone. 

“That'd be kind of hot.” Sirius lifts your feet, dropping down onto the couch before passing James the tube of cream. “Those are the strappy looking things, right? I’m for it.” 

“I do not consent,” you say clearly, then hiss as James applies the cool balm to your lower back. 

He and Sirius laugh. Remus reaches over to press your shoulders back down. 

“Easy, angel,” says James. “It’ll help.” 

“I didn’t know it’d be this cold,” you defend yourself, a little laugh tripping out of you as well. “You do this voluntarily?” 

“You’ll see why in a bit.”

“If I were spending all of my Saturday hunched over my laptop and a bunch of books,” Sirius says, “I think I’d at least use the right ‘your.’ What are they teaching you, babe?” 

You suppress a groan. You’d sent Sirius a grammatically incorrect text two days ago, and he’s yet to stop lording it over you. 

“That was autocorrect,” you tell him again. 

He hums noncommittally, tracing a path up your calf with his forefinger. “I’m just saying, can it really be worth it if we’re making those sorts of mistakes? Will they even still give you your degree?” 

“Sirius, their back is getting tense again. Knock it off.”

[alchemistc]

for the intimacy prompts, it's buck & tommy so of course gotta go with #7 kissing scars or #50 patching up a wound or whichever other prompt sparks joy for u <3

Buck's late. Holy shit he is so late. He'd promised Maddie he'd be at the house like, half an hour ago, but he'd gotten caught up in a conversation with Jana from B shift on his way out the door and it'd been just enough time to cause an extra half hour backup on the highway that had clogged up all his usual back road routes, too.

With this in mind, he's rushing as he parks the Jeep, barely paying any attention as he shoves his door closed and practically sprints up the walkway.

And of course, of course, he's jittery, rushing, so it takes him three tries to get the key in the lock, and by the time he swings the door open with apologies on his lips, he sort of wants the floor to just swallow him up.

There's no Maddie. There's no Maddie or Chim, who would definitely be standing in the entryway giving him shit for somehow ending their shifts at the same time and still managing to be late.

All there is is the faint sound of voices coming from down the hallway, so he follows those until he catches the light leaking out from the open door of the bathroom.

As he nears, the voices become a little clearer. Jee says something, too soft for Buck to catch, a little strain in her voice he's vaguely concerned about until the other voice responds, in a familiar cadence that has Buck stopping dead in his tracks for half a heartbeat before he remembers - crap, he'd invited Tommy over, too, when it became clear it was the only 'free' night they'd have for like, six days, and now not only is he late to babysit his own niece but he's left Tommy the task of sending Maddie and Chim off on their date.

Buck ignores the little skip of his heartbeat at the idea that Maddie and Chim had felt comfortable just ... leaving Jee in Tommy's hands. That's a dumb train of thought - Chim knows Tommy, and Maddie hasn't made a secret of how much she likes Tommy, too, there's no reason to get gooey about it.

"...and viola!" comes Tommy's exclamation, and in the bathroom, Jee giggles. He must be making a face, or doing some gesturing. Jee's a little obsessed with Tommy, still, just as enchanted as Buck by the way his focus is always so intent when she's telling him something, by the way he's always got a follow up question, by the way he's not remotely afraid to dissolve into giggles with her.

"Now you!" Jee exclaims, and Buck knocks on the doorframe, tilts his head in to get the scope of things. Jee's up on the counter, legs kicking, a bright orange bandage on her knee and the box in her hand being brandished in Tommy's face where he's kneeling on the bathroom floor. There's a tube of Neosporin open next to her, and some bloody paper towels in the trash, but Tommy and Jee both glance up at him with smiles on their faces.

"Hi Jee," Buck says, and Jee waves, in that weird age where she'll be talking a mile a minute and then go completely mute for like twenty minutes until she's had time to process something. She kicks at the cabinet below her and shakes the box of Band-Aids at Tommy's head, and Buck gets the message. "Hi, Tommy."

Something soft and quiet passes between them. Buck's trying to be cool about this relationship, but there are times where the comparisons start to rattle around in his brain, a bit, and he's - it's never felt like this. He can't imagine Chim and Maddie even feeling comfortable enough to leave Jee alone with Natalia or Taylor, let alone actually asking them to join him for an evening of Bluey and hotdog Mac and Cheese. And it's - maybe he's just older, more settled in his bones. Maybe the secret sauce is those relationships not working out, so that Buck knew exactly what he was looking for, and what he wasn't. He's grateful for that, but mostly he thinks it's just Tommy - how steady he is, how grounded, how one look from Tommy can ease a days worth of worries crawling under Buck's skin.

"Sixty words a minute for the last forty-five and suddenly you don't wanna talk to your Uncle Buck?" Tommy teases, massive hand curling around the bottom of Jee's foot to shake her leg, and Jee giggles and ducks, arms crossing and head shaking 'no' as she presses her heel into Tommy's palm and nearly launches herself into the mirror behind her. Buck slides a hand behind her head to steady her - clearly she's a little accident prone today, and he's not particularly in the mood for a visit to the hospital this evening.

The movement brings him close enough for Tommy to touch, and he wraps his free hand around Buck's calf, squeezing for a moment before he uses it as leverage to lift himself off the bathroom floor. This bathroom isn't nearly large enough for two grown ass men standing shoulder to shoulder, they barely fit toe to toe.

"Hi," Buck says, when Tommy comes level with him, chests brushing and a familiar fond look in his eye.

"Hi," he repeats, grin going wide, and next to them Jee squirms and grabs at both their arms.

"No kiss!"

Buck tilts his head, and Tommy mirrors it, brow raised. "You heard the lady," he admonishes in a wry tone when Buck's gaze darts immediately for his lips.

This doesn't seem to satisfy Jee-Yun, who leans forward to smack at Tommy's wrist. "No, kiss!"

The change in tone is enough for both of them to glance down at her. She's pointing at her bandaged knee, which makes a lot more sense. Shed spent the last 118 barbeque demanding every couple in her immediate eyeline kiss for her entertainment, like an extremely cute fork against a champagne glass.

Buck's not thinking about weddings, though. He's not.

(He absolutely is, but at least he and Tommy have, like, talked about it. In vague hypotheticals, but... still.)

Jee slaps her knee for emphasis.

Clearly whatever she did hadn't injured her too badly, but there is a rule. You bandage something, you gotta kiss it better.

Tommy eyes the distance back to the floor like he's eighty years old, not a fit forty, so Buck makes it easier on all of them by squeezing in and swinging Jee over his shoulders, her legs fucking pinwheeling enough to force Tommy to duck as her breathless giggles fill the echoing tiles of the bathroom. Settled onto Buck's shoulders, Jee digs her fingers into Buck's hair, and Tommy leans in and makes an exaggerated smacking noise as he presses his lips to her bandage.

She shifts her weight, pleased, and tugs hard on Buck's ear. "Okay, now kiss," she demands, and Tommy snorts with laughter as he leans in.

[bokunoheros]

LIPSTICK STAINS & MIRRORS

CHARACTER: SHOUTO TODOROKI

GENRE: FLUFF, SMUT

TAGS/WARNINGS: reader is gender neutral but written to be afab (shouto calls you princess once), reader is implied to be shorter than shouto, y’all are like 20+, married and live together, mirror sex, kissing, so much kissing, i love kissing, oral (m. receiving), fingering (reader receiving),  inappropriate quirk usage (temperature play), shouto is a tease but in a loving manner, cervix kissing, chair sex, riding (reverse cowgirl), cumming inside, and aftercare, also kinda lazy ending?? bc i stayed up til 10am finishing this and wanna be done so bad

SUMMARY: you just ordered a bunch of new lipgloss and can’t wait to try it out — subsequently, your husband thinks you look beautiful, but doesn’t know how to verbalize it. 

WORD COUNT: 7.7K

🦊’s A/N: this wasn’t actually going to be the first fic i posted here, but i DID just get a bunch of lipgloss i've waited a week and a half for, and would love to do the following <3 anyway shoutout judydoll they didn’t sponsor this but i wish they would. // also i pulled like two all-nighters writing this so i’m sorry if it like. starts unraveling a lil at the end i didnt actually proofread this god bless everyone thank you for giving this fic a chance

you had just ordered a bunch of new lipgloss you’d gotten in a buy 2 get 1 free sale, and it had finally come in the mail! after squealing excitedly and startling your poor husband, and highschool sweetheart, you quickly ran up to your shared bedroom and sat down in front of your vanity. fumbling with the box for a second, you get up to grab a pair of scissors from the bathroom before using one blade to cut through the packaging tape sealing the contents inside away. 

once you’d managed to get your greedy little hands on the new products is around the same time shouto had wandered into the bedroom, where he stood leaning against the door frame, watching as you excitedly looked down at your lipstick and wondered which one to try on first.

hm……. maybe the more natural looking color instead of the red..? probably, since it's less likely to leave a stain, you think to yourself, oblivious to your husband's presence — until you caught a glimpse of him in the mirror, that is. 

“oh! shouto, just in time,” you grin, waving him over. “which one do you think i should try first?” you ask, knowing he had always shown an interest in the process of how you did your makeup. not that he had actually verbalized said interest, rather, it was something you noticed while you were still in highschool. after months into the actual relationship, you two had finally had sex and you had stayed the night at his house. once this became an almost routine of sorts, you'd begin bringing stuff to stay overnight, and get ready for class in the morning, including a few makeup palettes. and so, shouto slowly took an interest in the way in which you’d do your makeup — be it just some eyeshadow/liner, or a fully beat face, he found it to be so…..interesting. 

that being said, the youngest of the todoroki family takes a step towards you and away from the doorframe to look down at the lipsticks in your hands and picks the one in the shiny silver, almost holographic, tube and says this one. 

huh, what do you know? he had picked the lipstain! guess it’s meant to be, then.

untwisting the cap, you shift in your seat slightly to better face the mirror as you pull the wand from the bottle, and find yourself face to face with the applicator you had been tweaking over for what felt like ever — a nice, smooth, iron tip! one of a kind, really, as you had never seen anything like it before! looking into the mirror, your gaze lingers on shouto for but a moment before focusing on your own lips and applying the stained lipgloss evenly — and then one more coat for good measure. 

“what do you think?” you ask sweetly, turning around in your seat to face him.

what he thinks? obviously, he thinks you look stunningly, jaw droppingly gorgeous regardless of what you’re wearing, or if you have makeup on or not (save for the times you’ve ugly cried around him…), but god…. he can’t ignore the way his body suddenly feels flushed as he looks at your lips and the red-ish color currently staining them.

“i think — it looks nice,” he says simply as he takes a few steps closer to you, up until he’s directly behind your vanity chair and planting his hands on the back of it.

“just… nice?” your voice comes out softer than normal, and you sound audibly disappointed. at this, shouto begins to internally panic as he thinks of a way to get his admiration.

“very nice,” he corrects quickly, and you can’t help but let out a little chuckle at how rushed he sounded — you understood that your husband wasn’t exactly a stellar wordsmith, so you weren’t actually too upset with him.

“that’s it?” this time, you sound much more lighthearted, as you raise a brow at him and watch him speedrun the five stages of grief through his expressions and slight body language.

“....i think, you look very lovely,” he’s finally able to vocalize. even after all this time, he still got somewhat bashful when complimenting you — it wasn’t his fault! you just happened to render him speechless and left his dick hard every time you did anything! fuck… how should he go about this? maybe he should just show you what he thinks? yes…. that should work. 

“stand up,” he says all of a sudden — he didn’t sound demanding or rude or anything, but there was a certain firmness to his voice that had you obeying without a second thought. without a moment of hesitation, shouto steps around to the side of the chair so he’s standing almost in front of you, and plants his large, calloused hands on your hips.

“shouto….” your voice comes out as a mere whisper as he pulls you closer toward him, left hand coming to cup your cheek as you look up at him.

“hm?” is all you get in reply as he leans in to kiss you tenderly.

tilting his head slightly to the side, he slots his lips over your painted ones in hopes of properly conveying his feelings on how he thinks you look. truthfully, as embarrassing as it may be, shouto wishes you’d put some lipstick on him so he could kiss you all over and leave a physical mark as you so often did to him. maybe one day he would have to sneak some of your lipgloss for himself to surprise you with? perchance… (you can’t just say perchance!) that being said, he takes advantage of the lipstick you’re currently wearing and hopes it transfers onto his lips. 

and just like that, you’ve forgotten all about your new lipstick, or anything that wasn’t your husband, really. when you first met him, it was a little difficult to imagine shouto todoroki as a good kisser, and it was kinda true initially!, but after a little guidance and experience, he very quickly got the hang of it and used his newfound skills to turn you into nothing more than a panting mess.

swiping his tongue over the seam of your lips, he pulls away with a slight grin just as you part them for him.

“hey…..” you whine. “that’s not fair.” 

“what isn’t?” he asks in a way that would’ve made you think he was playing dumb if he wasn’t….. well, like the way he was. you know your husband well enough to know that he was asking an earnest question, as he often teased you without meaning to or being aware of it.

“just… kiss me again, …please?” you ask in such a saccharine voice, shouto finds himself unable to resist for even a moment as he eagerly leans back in for another kiss.

god…. he was just so fucking weak when it came to You. he could never tell you no or deny you of what you asked for — hell, the first time you asked if you could kiss him (when he was still a kissless virgin), he accidentally bonked his head against yours in trying to copy the way you tilted your head to the side. …only, he had tilted his in the same direction as you, making for a very awkward, very laughable (but memorable) first kiss.

“mmh,” he hums quietly, pleasurably, as his lips work against yours — gently and tenderly, full of nothing but adoration for you, his sweet spouse. 

there just truly weren’t enough words in the world for shouto to describe his affections for you, so instead, he often took to showing you exactly how he felt; more often than not, this led to fleeting but heated kisses throughout the day that left you on your toes and wanting for more. jesus, did he even realize the effect he had on you? (he did Nawt.) 

this time, it was you to take the initiative to swipe your tongue over his plump lower lip before nibbling on it lightly and sucking it into your mouth. at this, the softest little moan slips past shouto’s throat at the feeling and he pulls you closer to him, so much so that your chest was now flush against his as the hand on your cheek leaves a cooling sensation against your flushed skin. 

releasing his lip with a wet, almost schliiick kind of noise, you go to pull away from the kiss, just as he had done earlier, just to find the hand on your cheek had shifted to cradle the back of your head, and the hand on your hip had turned into an arm wrapped tightly around your waist as shouto’s tongue manages to slip into your open mouth.

you can’t help but giggle at the almost ticklish feeling of the wet muscle running around the inside of your cheeks before his tongue is suddenly ice cold and you’re squealing and trying to push him away.

“shouto!” you cry with no real irritation or upsetness — all he had done was catch you off-guard, really. okay, so maybe he could tease you on purpose every now and then..! it just wasn’t often that he did such a thing! he was typically kind of oblivious to a lot of things — not that it was his fault or anything; he hadn’t exactly grown up with the best social cues or …. uhm. family, in general, really….. (touya and enji i’m looking at you). 

“yeah?” he breathes, looking down at you with stars in his eyes.

“what was that about?” you ask, trying to steady your breathing, chest heaving slightly as your hands find their way up to his chest, where they rest on his boo—well defined and muscled pecs. 

“what was what about?” he echoes, tilting his head, actually playing dumb this time—he knew damn well what he had done this time around, and he couldn’t contain the little smile that tugged at the corners of his plump and almost pouty lips. he loved using his quirk to tease you — given, he’d been extremely hesitant about it at first, worried he might hurt you, or somehow cause some kind of permanent damage. thankfully, as the years went by, he gradually warmed up to it, and now? he couldn’t get enough of your reactions! like when he was fingering you, and suddenly his hand started to get a little too hot, or a little too cold, depending on which one he was using; it wasn’t enough to actually hurt or cause any damage, just some mild discomfort turned to pleasure once you got used to the feeling. and sometimes, whenever you let him cum inside or somewhere on you, his cum felt hotter than it should — sure, yeah, cum is warm, but…. his was just hot! it didn’t scald or anything, but it was definitely an added sensation that wouldn’t be possible without his quirk.

“you know what..!” is what you would have said had shouto not leaned in to kiss you again—effectively cutting you off and rendering you speechless. so maybe he knew he was a good kisser; he was highly observant after all, and would have to be a moron to not realize that he at least left you breathless every time! sure, he didn’t realize the full extent of the effect he had on you, but… partially aware is better than completely oblivious, right? 

this time as you two kiss, the hand cradling your head moves back down to your hip, and before you know it, he’s picking you up and sitting himself down in the chair you were previously sitting on not too long ago. 

“ah–!” you gasp at the sudden movement and change in position. now straddling his lap, with your back to the mirror, shouto begins trailing kisses down to your jawline and then the column of your neck. now, your husband wasn’t a particularly sloppy kisser. no, more often than not, he was very put together in almost every aspect of his life, and the bedroom was no exception. well, save for the occasions shouto just simply could not contain himself, and it was beginning to seem like one of those situations as he runs his freezing tongue over the sensitive skin of your neck, causing goosebumps to form as he nibbles at the junction where your neck and shoulder meet. 

“sho–shouto—,” you breathe as he peppers kisses over your tender flesh. it had taken him a long while to be able to show affection so freely, and even now, he still had some trouble, but compared to the todoroki you knew in high school, he had improved by leaps and bounds! 

your husband merely ignores your soft cry of his name—his dick doesn’t, though, and you can even feel it start to twitch to life beneath you. fuck. all you had done was put on a little lipstick, and?? now your husband was glued to your neck, nipping and biting along the way, even stopping in a couple places to suck against the skin there in order to leave a couple hickies! 

“don’t tease,” you try to chide him, but it comes off weak and a little pathetic sounding as shouto finds a particularly sensitive spot on your neck and takes full advantage of it. jesus christ! his tongue was so cold!! it was such a contrast to the heat of his breath, you couldn’t help but pant at the feeling. 

“‘m not,” is the only thing he says, it was more of a mumble, really, as he bites down harder than he had previously, and you can’t help the squeal that leaves you as his teeth sink into your skin.

“shouto!” if you didn’t know any better, or if you had married someone more… aggressive (katsuki)...., you might have thought your husband had drawn blood — he didn’t, obviously, as he would never intentionally hurt you, but he did like to toe the line of pleasure and pain often enough to keep you on your toes, just enough pain for it to be able to bleed into an acquired type of pleasure.

“yeah?” he all but hums in response, sounding pleased with himself.

he doesn’t give you a chance to respond, however, as he quickly pulls away from your neck to plant another heated kiss to your glossy lips. it doesn’t last very long, though, as he pulls away just far enough to look at you properly, and his eyes widen when he sees the way your lipstick had been smudged and it had spread slightly down to your neck (it was more like lightly red-colored patches in the shape of his lips peppered vaguely over your flesh). 

“will you put on some more lipstick?” he suddenly asks, sounding out of breath.

giggling quietly at his request, you nod and oblige, shifting to turn around on his lap so that your back was against his chest, and your ass against his steadily growing erection. grabbing the tube of lipstick from your vanity, you untwist the cap and begin to apply more, focusing wholly on your lips during the process, completely missing the way shouto was eyeing you in the mirror.

after putting the cap back on and setting the silver bottle full of what felt watery liquid when you put it on, but wasn’t actually, back down on your vanity’s surface, you tilt your head to face your husband, who had wrapped his arms around your waist while you had been applying the aforementioned beauty product, and smile at him.

“better?” you wonder aloud, knowing it was much better indeed.

“mhmm,” he hums sweetly, one hand coming up to all but squish your cheeks, just without the pressure, to better tilt your head towards him as he himself leans in for yet another kiss. you swear, the first time you kissed shouto, a switch flipped in that poor boy’s brain, because ever since then, he’s been addicted to them like they’re crack—he needs your kisses the same way he needs oxygen to breathe or a therapist for his generations of trauma stuffed into a single, incomplete lifetime. (please….. please, go to group therapy with the rest of 1-a, i’m begging.) 

shouto can’t help but smile against your lips as he pulls you flush against his chest and rolls his hips, and consequently, his hard-on, up against your ass. neither of you can contain the whimper or little gasp that slips past your throats, nor can you help the way one of your hands comes up to thread itself into his peppermint-colored hair as you part your lips needily, trying to shift around in his firm grasp. 

despite the quality of your lipstick, it still transferred partially onto his lips, simply due to how fresh the coat was, not that your husband minds. he’d revel in the way he’d get to smear lipstick over your body, and — pause. his hands suddenly find themselves planted on your hips as he manhandles you to face him again, and meets your gaze for a moment before pressing a kiss to your forehead. but in that moment, you could see all the love and admiration in the world swirling around in his beautifully mismatched eyes, and you couldn’t control the wide-ass smile that had spread across your face—so wide, in fact, your cheeks hurt. even though it was such a simple action, you could truly feel his love for you in everything that he did. 

“i love you—so much, y’know,” you practically coo, hands moving to cup his flushed cheeks as you simply just look at the man you had married. goddamn! he was so beautiful! taking in all the fine details of his face, you notice the faintest little dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose, and the way even his eyebrows, and even his awfully long lashes (he got them from his mother), are different colors. his perfectly plump and pouty lips to match his overall softer facial features. how could anybody be so perfect-looking? it was just simply unfair! even with his ice burn scar and somewhat sparse left eyebrow growth, it didn’t change a thing in your eyes. 

shouto feels his heart flutter at your words, and his grin stretches to be almost uncharacteristically wide as his hands shift lower on your hips, closer to your upper thighs, and his thumbs begin rubbing tender circles against the plush flesh there. 

“i — love you more,” he whispers back. the words sound shy coming from him, but you can tell he means his words. you may have fallen first, but shouto fell harder. his smile softens a bit as his hands move up to cup your cheeks tenderly before pressing another kiss to your painted lips. god. he truly could not believe how lucky he was to have you — you, who brought him out of his shell back in highschool, you who showed him love can be tender and soft, you who taught him how to let love into his heart. 

now, it was shouto’s turn to show you just how much he loved you.

sliding his tongue over the seam of your lips, he lets out a soft hum as he grips your thighs before sliding his hands slowly upwards and up under the t-shirt you wore—it was his, actually!—and over your bare ribcage. you can’t help the goosebumps that broke out over your skin at the feeling of his calloused hands against your much softer flesh, nor the chill that runs down your spine and causes your nipples to stiffen under the thin fabric—especially with the way he begins to palm and grope at your tits. 

“mmnh,” you hum at the temperature difference of his rough hands, and let out a soft moan when it increases drastically all of a sudden, your right nipple freezing cold and the left a little too hot for comfort—even your body was unsure of how to react to such a feeling, but it sure does send a throb down to your clit, and you can feel a damp spot begin to form in the seat of your panties, which is all you happened to be wearing under your stolen shirt.

“shouto, please,” you whine, squirming around on his lap, and dragging your thinly clothed cunt over the erection in his stupid grey sweatpants that always drove you crazy. 

“please what, love?” he asks, pulling away just enough to rest his forehead against yours. 

“god…. just— fuck me,” is all your able to get out, but, lucky for you, your husband has something even better in mind than just that. sure, he couldn’t wait to get his dick wet—to feel the way your cunt wraps around his sensitive tip—god, he can feel himself leak pre-cum like he’s some excited teenager again, and he groans at the nature of your request.

“mm, …not yet,” he smirks, and, before he’s even processed what he himself is doing, he had already licked an embarrassingly hot stripe up the length of your neck.

“shouto!” you squeal. “what was that for?!” 

“felt like it,” he replies simply before attaching his full lips to your neck once more, where he began nipping and nibbling at all your most tender spots, before he finds your sweet spot and bites down particularly hard and begins suckling against the skin there, determined to leave a mark of sorts. now, while shouto was not one to leave marks in obvious places—he was perfectly content with marking you in places only he could see—he just couldn't help himself for some reason..! maybe it was because he was feeling rather bold at the moment, or because he couldn't get enough of the sweet, quiet noises you were making as he nipped and sucked at your flesh until you were sure the skin was raw. 

“sho—” you can’t help but wiggle in his lap, cunt grazing over his erection. when he groans at your actions, you repeat your actions, rolling your hips down against his as he marks your neck up in pretty blue and purple and reddish hues. 

suddenly, an idea pops into your mind, and you find yourself melting off of his lap and onto your knees between his legs, eager hands reaching to unbuckle his leather belt and pull it off of him. 

“wh–what’re you doing, baby?” shouto finds himself breathless with a flushed face as you begin to unbutton his pants and tug down the zipper, exposing his all-too-tight black boxers and the wet spot that had formed on them. you only grin and lick your lips at the sight, of course, eager to get your husband’s perfect cock in your mouth.

“what’s it look ‘m doin’, huh?” you look up at him with big wet eyes and pouty red lips. “now lift your hips f’me,” you instruct him, and he does as told, so you can tug his pants and boxers down in one swift go.

shouto hisses as his sensitive tip comes into contact with the cool air of the bedroom, and he looks down at you a little embarrassedly, biting as lower lip as you kissed his swollen and flushed head before taking it slowly into your mouth. 

“ah–!” your husband moans as you suckle around his mushroom-headed tip and he can’t help the way one large hand falls down to rest on top of your head, long fingers burying themselves into your hair as he begins to set a moderate pace for you to bob your head. unfortunately, poor shouto still had trouble controlling his reactions whenever you gave him head — your mouth and tongue were simply too skilled for your own good! for his own good! 

tilting his head back to look at the ceiling instead of you, in an attempt to not bust too early, he catches a glimpse of the lewd sight in the mirror and—oh god. his dick fucking twitches and he feels an embarrassing amount of pre-cum leak from his sticky tip and into your hot mouth. 

“jesus christ—fuck,” your husband groans—it wasn’t too often that he swore, only when he was especially mad, passionate, or, in this case, especially horny. “take it easy, honey—please,” he whines, hand gripping your hair tighter, forcing your head further down his thick length despite his contradictory words. you pay his actions no mind, however, only doing your best to suppress your gag reflex and hollow your cheeks out around him before swallowing thickly; you even went as far as to deepthroat him all the way, uncaring of the way drool seeped past your lips and all around the base of his cock. swallowing around him again once his leaky tip hits the back of your throat, and shouto’s hand grips your hair a little too tightly—not that you minded in the moment. if anything, it made your pussy throb. as did the way he was panting and moaning softly above you. god…… his little noises were absolutely divine and each and every one sent a jolt to your clit. 

much to his embarrassment, shouto is surprisingly noisy in bed — not exactly loud per se, but certainly unable to contain all his little huffs, puffs, and soft moans and quiet groans. but it wasn’t like it was his fault! how exactly was he supposed to stay quiet when you’re making him feel so damn good? jesus, it wasn’t fair! for him, anyway; for you, his sweet sounds only made you all the more hot and bothered. 

his gaze falls down to meet yours, and then further down to his dick and the way your glossy lips wrapped around it and the fucking lipstick stains you were leaving around him. how was he meant to last like this? (here’s a hint: he wasn’t!) 

pushing against his hand for a moment, he lessens his grip as you pull off him with a sickening schliiickk noise and wrap one hand around his base as you pant for air, looking up at him with doe-like eyes. 

“shouto?”

“yeah?” his heart is pounding and he bites his lip as he looks down at your flushed face that now had a thin sheen of sweat over it, and he feels almost ashamed for the way he immediately craves your mouth back around him.

“i want you to cum in my mouth, okay?” you tell him with a soft smile, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear before taking him into your mouth once again, all the way down until your nose was flush against his mix-matched pubic hair and you had to actively breathe through your nose so you didn’t hurl. shallowly beginning to bob your head, your tongue laves over the underside of his veiny cock as the hand previously wrapped around him moves to cup his balls, fondling them softly before giving them a gentle squeeze.

“oh—sweetheart,” he moans, dick twitching violently in your mouth. “don’t stop,” he all but begs you, rolling his hips up, forcing himself further down your throat. you actually do gag at this, but are able to swallow most of your excessive drool down, only some of it spilling over and out of your mouth and onto to your husband’s dick, mixing beautifully with your lipstick stains, and poor todoroki groans at both the sight and feeling.

all it takes is a few more bobs of your head and another squeeze to his balls before they’re tightening and suddenly he’s cumming down your throat—just like you had asked him to. god, he swears you’ll be the death of him!

swallowing around his awfully sensitive length one final time, both to tease him and get his cum down, you pull off of him with another disgustingly wet noise before looking up at him oh-so-sweetly.

the hand that wasn’t still fondling his balls comes to wrap around his dick, pumping it slowly as you press a little kiss to his flushed and shiny tip, licking it playfully and swirling your tongue around it for a moment before you actually stopped teasing his cock with your mouth and just with your hand.

“baby, please—” his voice is uncharacteristically whiney and his hips buck up into your grasp. despite his natural temperature regulation due to his quirk, shouto finds his entire body feeling hot, so hot, thanks to your delicate touch. “just—ah!” he moans softly as your hand begins moving up and down his shaft slowly, moving up and up until you could place your thumb over the slit of his red and swollen head and run it over the horribly sensitive spot. 

“god–damn, sweetheart—give me a moment, please,” he begs you, hips bucking upwards as his cock twitches simultaneously. shouto feels like he’s losing his mind as you pump his oversensitive length and he has to keep his eyes away from the mirror lest he nut again—no, the next time he came today, it would be inside you, his beautiful fucking spouse. “just let me breathe.” one of his large hands comes up to run through his hair and push his bangs out of his face just for them to fall right back in place once it exits his hair. 

with a scoff and a roll of your eyes, you blow a puff of cold air over his cockhead and let out a playful okay. 

“i guess,” you giggle, looking up at him from your spot on the floor. it’s true that your knees were starting to get a little sore, but you figured you were basically done anyway, so, naturally, you went to stand—just for shouto’s massive hands to land on your hips, up under your shirt, and turn you around so that you’re facing the mirror before tugging your panties down to your now reddened knees in one swift movement.

pulling you onto his lap, his painfully hard cock pressed into the crack of your ass, you whine and squirm in your husband’s strong grasp.

“b-baby?” you sound audibly confused and shouto can’t help but smile at your reaction as he presses a kiss to the side of your neck.

“shh,” he hushes you gently, one hand coming down between your legs to stop and rest on your clit. 

“sho-shouto,” you can’t help but whine as he applies a slow but firm pressure to your achy bundle of nerves, gently starting to trace teasing circles over it.

“can’t i make you feel good, too?” he whispers into your ear, catching your gaze in the mirror. his heterochromatic eyes are glued to the reflection of yours and you feel a chill run down your spine as he nuzzles his nose against your neck as his middle finger dips down to your dripping slit before bringing it back up to rub against your pulsing clit.

“ah!” an airy breath escapes you and your back arches at his calloused touch. “fuck,” you hiss as he begins pressing soft kisses to the already brusing flesh of your neck and finger moves with experience over your slick button. 

the first several times you two slept together, shouto was rather shy, and not particularly bold — always scared he was going to hurt you somehow or fuck up your pleasure, and then you’d want nothing to do with him; so it took a bit of instruction and teaching him what it is you do and don’t like, but shouto, ever the fast learner, quickly caught on and figured out what exactly he had to do and how he had to do it in order for you to feel good. 

“that’s what i like to hear,” he mumbles, more to himself than to you, nibbling on the lobe of your ear before blowing a puff of cold air onto it. todoroki could never get enough of the noises you made — the same way you couldn’t get enough of his whimpers and whines — and would do anything in his power to elicit such sweet sounds from you.

“sh-shut up,” is all you’re able to get out, unable to think as he brings his middle finger back down to your slit and actually inserts it into you this time — fingering you in the lightest, most teasing manner possible, while he heats up his hand, his right arm wrapping around you tighter to keep you in place.

shouto just chuckles at your poor attempt at a quip as he licks a chilly stripe up the column of your neck, causing you to shiver as a devious grin stretches over your husband’s usually sweet face. 

“oh, honey,” his voice is low and deep and admittedly makes your pussy clench around the single finger stuffed in it — god, you wish he’d add a second or third to actually stretch you out. and, almost as if he had read your thoughts, shouto curls his finger inside of you before pulling it out about halfway so he could slide another in until—he just stops, one finger half way in you with the tip of another barely poking at your entrance. 

“sho–shouto?” you all but whine, hips wiggling futilely, wishing he’d just scissor your cunt open already!

“look in the mirror,” he commands softly. nodding hesitantly, you reluctantly look at your reflection and take in the lewdness of the scene: shouto had your legs spread out over his, keeping them open by borderline entwining your lower legs with his, with his thick ring and middle fingers positioned against your cunt, and his chin now resting on your shoulder, piercing gaze capturing your own. 

as he finally begins easing his ring finger into along with the one already in there, you can’t help but squeeze your eyes shut, and just like that, any movement stops.

“i didn’t tell you to close your eyes,” he mutters, right hand coming up to slip under your shirt and pinch a nipple. 

“ah! ‘m sorry!” your eyes immediately fly open as you try to focus your gaze on the sight in front of you as shouto’s fingers get progressively hotter the further they slip into you, and suddenly—you were burning from the inside out!

“mmh, shouto….” you whine, one hand coming up to tangle into his hair, giving it a light tug. 

your husband merely ignores you as he focuses on pleasing you instead; curling his all too hot fingers at just the right angle, spreading them apart to scissor your pretty pussy, his eyes trained on your reflection and each little way you react to his touch—the way you flinch and try to close your legs, just for him to effortlessly prevent this by spreading his a little wider. god; he had learned to be a little too good at this for your own good. 

“nngh—, c’mon baby, don’ be a tease,” is all you’re able to get out as your husband takes his goddamn time fingering you; this couldn’t even be considered as finger-fucking! the feeling of the calloused pads of his heated fingertips rubbing against your already hot inner walls as he pumps them slowly—your internal temperature felt like it was skyrocketing, when in reality, it was only one or two degrees higher, something shouto could easily remedy should he switch hands. 

“i’m afraid i don’t know what you’re talking about, lovely,” he smiles gently, beginning to pepper kisses along your neck once more. fuck, you coudn’t stand when he played dumb like that — he had to have known what he was doing!! (and he did! that just wasn’t for you to know.) “if there’s something you want…. then you’ll have to ask for it directly, my dear,” he tells you cheekily, and you can physically feel his smile against your skin as he begins to suck against the junction of your neck and shoulder.

god! damn him! 

“f-faster,” you whine, wiggling and rolling your hips against his slow moving fingers, just for shouto to pull them nearly all the way out of you. “sh–shouto! goddammit! please don’t tease me!” you plead, eyes beginning to lightly water over out of sheer frustration. tugging at his hair, you try to twist around enough to give him another kiss — just for him to avoid your lips, too!

“uh-uh,” he chides, his freezing free hand pinching one of your nipples, and you gasp louder than you would have liked to at the feeling. “watch yourself in the mirror ‘n ask nicely and you can have anything you want, princess,” shouto says softly, physically unable to stop smiling. sure, most of the time, his teasing was truly unintentional, the other half of the time (a little less than half, really, it was closer to 60/40) was completely on purpose, as hearing you whine his name or for him to touch you never failed to turn him on or bring a somewhat sadistic smile to his usually stoic face. 

nodding, you refocus your attention onto the large vanity mirror, with the chair scooted far back enough so you could clearly see his fingers buried in your glistening cunt, and you physically can’t control the whimper that slips past your throat as his index and pinky fingers move to spread your slick folds apart so you could get a better view of what shouto thought was the most perfect pussy in the world—ever since you’d first had sex (despite his initial nerves), he had quickly grown addicted to the feeling of your cunt wrapped oh-so-snuggly around him. 

finally, your husband finally began to finger you in earnest, crooking his fingers in such a delicious way so deep inside you—much further than your own fingers could ever reach, anyway—and suddenly you wish it was his dick filling you up, not just his fingers..! unbeknownst to you, this was both shouto’s brief way of giving his sensitive cock a rest so he could fuck you properly without creaming too early and making sure you’d get to cum twice, too.

“you’re so tense,” his voice has a saccharine lilt to it, and you feel goosebumps erupt over your skin as he watches the way his fingers pump in and out of you, and he can feel his length twitch and drool pre as he imagines your cunt fluttering around his dick instead of his fingers.

“‘s not my fault—you’re not exactly making it easy f’me to relax,” you complain, shifting around in his grip as you give his hair a light tug. 

“oh? i’m not?” his gentle smile stretches into a shit eating grin as he slides his fingers out of you entirely before bringing his hand up to his mouth to lick your slick off the digits that had been nearly knuckle-deep inside you less than a moment ago, except—he only sucks off his ring finger, leaving the middle one for you to suck on instead, bringing it up to your plump, glossy lips whilst softly telling you to open your mouth. of course, you obeyed without a second thought, happily, and almost hazily, swirling your tongue around his finger in a similar manner you had done with his cock. the action reminded shouto of such, and he lets out a quiet groan at the feeling.

“mmh,” you hum pleasantly around the digit that was pressing down lightly against your tongue. you weren’t too pleased, however, about the lack of stimulation your pussy was receiving, and you decided to make this known to your husband.

catching his eye in the mirror, you let out a little whine and wrap both your hands around his thick wrist as you purposely let the drool in your mouth build up so it begins to seep down his hand and slowly trickle onto his forearm. 

“baby, please. please just fuck me,” you mumble, tugging on his wrist to pull his calloused, slick finger from you spit-soaked mouth. 

shouto really was planning to finger you to an orgasm, honest, but—when you asked so sweetly, he just couldn’t say no to you!

“fuck,” he groans, both hands quickly settling onto your hips in order to lift you enough to align your soaked slit with his flushed and achy cock. “y’know i can’t tell you no when you ask like that,” he says before letting you slowly sink all the way to the base. 

“you feel so good,” he groans out as your puffy pussy wraps around him tightly.

“s–so do you,” you whine out, feeling his head kiss the entrance to your cervix. jesus christ, how was it possible to hit so deep? “s-so, so good,” you tell him, trying to look at the two of you in the mirror and the way your cunt envelopes him and—it’s just too embarrassing to look at! 

squirming in his grasp, you try to turn around to better face him so you could plant a kiss to his plump lips. shouto, however, simply uses one large hand to squish your cheeks and hold your face in place to watch as he lazily fucks up into in the mirror. no matter how bad he wanted to kiss you (that would have to come (cum) after you), he just enjoyed that flustered look on your face too much to not indulge in it! besides, he was always so sweet to you, he’s sure you can handle some light teasing. 

“aa–ahh! sh-shouto! fuck!” you cry as he begins bouncing you up and down his needy dick. you whimper at the way he throbs inside you and your cunt clenches tightly around him—making your husband groan loudly too. “sho–!” it’s all you can do to look into the mirror at the lewd sight, and embarrassingly enough, it only serves to turn you on even more.

“hmm?” it’s all he can do to hum out a response as he keeps you moving up and down, strong arms moving with ease as he rhythmically rolls his hips up into yours. “what—” he hisses from the way his tip hits against your cervix, with nowhere left to go. “what is it, love?” he does his best to answer coherently, needing you to be the one fucked dumb first. without a second thought, one hand abandons your hip to slide down your abdomen all the way back between your legs where he began rubbing slow, tight circles against your neglected clit.

“ah! f–fuck!” you moan as he soon sets a steady pace against your throbbing bud, steadily working you up to an orgasm, the knot in your stomach tightening. 

it doesn’t take much longer before you’re quivering in shouto’s grip and whining about how close you were, and he can’t help but feel a sense of pride wash over him as he pushes you closer to the edge. 

as your cunt clenches and flutters around him, shouto feels himself growing uncomfortably close as well, and soon finds himself asking if it’s okay if he came inside.

“yes, please, baby,” you whine and nod your head, one hand moving to entangle itself into shouto’s hair as he finally allowed you to kiss him once again.

and, with a few more thrusts, you find yourself cumming in sync as the horribly tense knot in your stomach finally snaps and you’re creaming all over your husband’s cock.

“oh fuck,” he groans, dick pulsing once, twice, before finally squirting his thick, hot seed deep into your womb, leaving you feeling both gross and contently full.

after rubbing your clit throughout the duration of your orgasm, shouto still doesn’t stop, even once you began coming down from you high, and you can’t help but jolt in his lap from the oversensitivity.

“sh-shouto, you can—you can st-stop!” you manage to spit out, biting your lower lip as you watch his calloused fingers rub steady circles against your poor clit. 

“but—” he pants. “you only— only came once,” he tries to explain, rolling his hips up into you despite his own sensitivity, desperate to make you cum again. 

“i– i know, but—’m sensitive, baby,” you try telling him, quickly feeling that familiar knot start to form again.  “ple—please!”

despite your pathetic little mewls, your husband ignores you in favor of your excess pleasure, significantly warming up the fingers playing with your puffy clit. 

it’s not long before you’re cumming one more time, evening out your total to two—equal to what you had given your oh-so-doting husband (even if you only went out of your way to actually give him a single orgasm—he just happened to cum a second time because you felt so good wrapped around him).

“fuck, baby,” you moan, back arching deeply as he slowly lessens the pressure on your throbbing clit. shouto never disappointed you in bed, or in this case, just simply in the bedroom, and for that, you were eternally grateful.

once you were done making a mess around the length of his dick, your back falls flush against his chest, and you both pant heavily for a long moment before either of you are able to recompose yourselves.

afterwards, shouto helps lift you off his softening dick, and into the bathroom so you could piss (always piss after sex, y’all), before going downstairs to get you a glass of water and then returning back to your shared bedroom to wait in your king sized bed.  once you re-entered the room, your husband sits up in the plush bed, with his arms extended out to you, your water already on your nightstand. 

with a smile, you make your way over to the bed, with only slightly wobbly legs, and curl up in your loving shouto’s strong arms, where he holds you close to him, resting your head against his chest, where you could hear his beating heart—a sound so soothing you were almost lulled asleep by it until you heard the quietest, faintest whisper of, “you’re so beautiful,” and you can’t help the grin that breaks out across your face as you tell him he is too, something shouto has never been too sure of how to process, but over time, as the compliments he received increased, he slowly learned how to handle and accept them properly.

“i love you,” you say in sync, and you let out a little giggle at this before saying jinx! and pressing a kiss to his cheek before nuzzling your head back against his chest and yawning deeply.

[moodymisty]

[ 𝕸𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖞𝕸𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖞'𝖘 𝕸𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 | 𝕬𝖔3 ]

Author's Note: Inspired by this conversation. I'll be making one that takes place while Reader is alive as well, but the one where you aren't just got finished first. Enjoy.

Warnings: Sanguinius/Fem!Reader, Major character pseudo-death(Reader), Worship, i don't know consider this a sort of writing practice type thing for me

Guilliman finds himself having to hold the vile taste in his throat down, as he looks upon the scene in front of him.

...He remembers you.

He remembers the friendly smiles you gave him, and he remembers the smiles you would reserve just for Sanguinius. He always wondered what Sanguinius found worthwhile in being with you; In managing his legion, the expectations put on him by the entire galaxy, The demands of the Emperor, and a relationship with you. But then he would spot the way Sanguinius would look at you, like you were everything he had ever hoped for, and Guilliman would feel a twinge of something. He never quite figured out what it was.

And now you're here. Dead.

At least Guilliman would've wished as such, but instead you lay in an eternal state of unrest much like he was, not too long ago.

Sanguinius had once voiced to him that he was worried his sons would idolize you much like they did him. They were already beginning to towards the start of the Heresy; You'd become less of a person and more of a ideal, an extension of Sanguinius' own supposed anglicism. Sanguinius had found it distressing. He didn't want them to blindly follow something because of a holiness put on them. Sanguinius could handle that sort of thing, persuade those thoughts away and order them to stop, but you couldn't. You weren't meant to.

Guilliman had appreciated him confiding in him at the time, but hadn't offered much to soothe his worries. Perhaps that had been a mistake. He remembers exactly where they were, how the sky had looked. And each time he remembers it, he wants to yell at his past self to say something; To spurn some sort of action and prevent this.

"She still looks the same,"

The primarch mumbles, remembering your face in the last snapshot of his mind. Your skin had been pallor, you were falling ill, but you still soldiered on. You had to. While you had given most logistical and battlefield duties to Chapter Master Raldoron after Sanguinus' death, you still held significant sway in the chapters rituals and other types of decision-making. They wouldn't allow you to divert those duties, the anglicism they had put on you had begun to grow and grow even back then, wearing down on you like a disease.

Sanguinius' genesons had nothing less than the utmost respect for you, which Guilliman had watched morph into the thing that Sanguinius had feared the most. It wasn't his place to step in, so he never did.

The glass coffin which holds you does nothing to hide a single thing, displaying you and the delicate lace gown you lay in. It was the dress you'd worn when you married Sanguinius, and Guilliman doesn't know how to feel about it. The sleeves do well to hide the tubes and machinery that digs into your wrists, deep into your lifeless veins. They keep your body psudeo-alive, he presumes, to stay off decay.

However it seems it's drawing blood out, which he finds interesting. Though he doesn't have the time nor the desire to dwell on why such a thing would be needed.

"You remember The Mother Angel?"

Dante is more composed than most of the other Blood Angels, but Guilliman can still sense the awe in his voice from the primarch's eyes having touched their Mother Angel in life. He stands across from him, having decided to show Guilliman this sacred place.

"Her name, It was,"

Guilliman can't find himself to say it.

"I remember her, yes. Quite well."

Dante stands in reverence as if he's waiting for Guilliman to continue.

"I remember her voice, her face; I remember her wedding. I remember her putting Sanguinius' fallen feathers in her hair and dancing a fool." He clears his throat before continuing. "She lead the Blood Angels for a decade after Sanguinius. Then she fell ill. I always respected her tenacity and ability to lead a legion of Astartes despite her limitations."

Guilliman feels regret. He wishes he would've said more to Sanguinius when he'd voiced his worries, perhaps it would've spurred more action to prevent this outcome.

Sanguinius was the only one of them to find love, and look what happened; You got desecrated by it. Perhaps Corvus and Fulgrim were right to abandon the prospect all together. It seems to bring nothing but horror in the end. The only one of them to find love and that love got turned into it's own hideous creature, completely removed from what it had stood for.

His brow furrows, and he purses his lips in preparation to speak words that he just ends up swallowing.

"This, this is..."

Guilliman cuts himself off. He knows he shouldn't say these things in these chambers they call hallowed, in front of their Chapter Master. he needs Dante, he needs the Blood Angels more than he needs to protect a promise he never made in the first place.

"What, Lord Guilliman?" Dante urges him on, curiosity on his face.

"With all due respect, Master Dante," Guilliman looks to him, face stoic.

"If I were to say how I truly felt about all of this, I imagine you would no longer be willing to lend even a single man to assist the Ultramarines."

Dante looks at him confused, but doesn't show anger regarding his implications. Guilliman can see his lips twitch, eyes flickering down to your glass coffin for a moment.

But Dante just doesn't see it, and Guilliman knows it.

You've been like this for thousands of years, none of them see this as anything unusual. Generations of Blood Angels have been reared on you being this deity, the wife of an Angel, and there is no possible way to raise them out of that. What is done is done.

Guilliman is the only one seeing it as something wrong, as he is an outsider.

"Now, what is it you wished to discuss with me, Lord Dante?"

Guilliman changes the subject and turns away from the centerpiece of this cathedral, only allowed entry by the most elite of Blood Angels. He attempts to forget your body is even there, as there isn't a single thing he can do about it now.

He hopes Sanguinius will have mercy on him, next they meet.

[too-much-tma-stuff]

Will You Take Care of Her (Part 8)

Previous | Masterpost

TW: descriptions of violence

Danny ran to the tube and before Jason could say anything Danny had punched it, shattering the glass and badly cutting his hand, not that he seemed to notice. Alarms started to blare as Danny dragged the girl out and onto the floor, Jason slammed the door shut before people could rush towards them, jamming it closed. Leaning against the door to make sure it stayed closed as he watched Danny with ‘Ellie’. He didn’t know what was happening, but he knew they needed to save this girl and Danny would need time to do that so Jason could buy some time.  

“No nonono,” Danny murmured as the girl started to melt, her fingers and feet starting to collapse into some sort of green goo. “Don’t you dare destabilize on me, we’re the only ones left,” Danny nearly snarled, changing back into his ghost form. The transformation was quicker this time and as soon as it was done he lay her down on the floor, pressing his hands against her chest.

It looked like he was about to start doing chest compressions but instead he sent a wave of some sort of crackling green energy through her body. She arched slightly but didn’t otherwise respond, Danny snarled louder and did it again. 

Jason could hear the pounding of feet behind the door as people rushed down to find out what was going on. There was yelling as they tried the door and it wouldn’t open. Jason set his back more firmly against the barrier. Danny hadn’t even noticed the noise yet, too focussed on saving the girl.

“Come on, come onnn,” Danny muttered as he sent a third shock through her and then she gasped and coughed, white rings of light flashed over her body and her hair turned stark white, her clothes turning into some black and white outfit with a P on the chest, and her fingers reformed. She hadn’t opened her eyes but she was alive and Danny looked like he was ready to cry with relief. 

When he looked up his eyes were glowing green in swirling patterns that drew you in and refused to let go. You could see the angry and unnatural flames dancing behind his eyes. “Jason, come take her and then stay out of my way. I’ll clear the path, get her out as soon as you can. I’m bringing this entire place down,” Danny growled, his voice reverberating and echoing. 

Jason nodded and dived away from the door and past Danny, scooping Ellie up as Danny stood up, his hands morphing into long, curved claws not unlike his usual choice of weapon. They glowed with bright green energy that bubbled and warbled unsteadily, nothing like the Timerean’s other than the colour. When the agents managed to force open the door Danny shot immediately, the power ripping through the person right behind the door who went down immediately, gurgling on their own blood as Danny flew forward hot on the heels of his first blast. He roundhouse kicked the next asshole in white into the wall and Jason heard the crunching of stone and bone and he was sure that one was dead as well.

He had never seen Danny fight like this, he never used his powers and Jason could see why as Danny absolutely tore through the bodies blocking the hall outside. There was already blood splattered over the bone white of Danny’s mask, and he didn’t seem inclined to stop.  Up until now Jason had wondered why only he seemed to have episodes of blinding green rage, but it turned out it just took Danny more to get to this point. It was impressive, it was horrifying and bloody, and Jason was mostly disappointed that he wasn’t going to get any kills of his own after seeing what these people had done. But Danny deserved this vengeance and catharsis more. 

Jason followed behind Danny with his gun drawn and Ellie held close to his chest, watching his footing on the blood slick ground. He couldn’t fall behind now, Danny’s blows were shaking the foundations of the building and they needed to get out as quickly as possible. As angry and out of it as Danny was Jason couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t accidentally hurt them while trying to protect them. 

Danny was living up to the name Hyena as the skull that Jason had been sure was a mask opened and powerful bone jaws ripped an agent’s throat out leaving the canines dripping with fresh blood. Hyena shot through the nearest goon opening a bloody hole through their chest. Someone tried to shoot him and Danny snarled as the impact threw his shoulder back and tore a hole through his flesh dripping with a thick green substance. The hole quickly reformed, the same couldn’t be said for the goon when Hyena threw them to the floor and crushed their skull.

Jason got the chance to finish off a few who were still alive on the ground after Danny passed and as soon as he got a clear line to the door he made a break for it, sprinting out with Ellie. Danny was on his heels, defending their back until they were out, or just indulging in as much bloodshed as he could. Jason skidded to a halt a few meters back when he realized Hyena wasn’t behind them and turned just in time to see Danny take off his mask. He opened his mouth, his jaw unhinging as energy gathered on his tongue before a Sound split the night. A shrieking wail that vibrated the very air, and Jason barely managed to not drop Ellie to cover his ears as the concussive blast cracked the walls of the base. 

Jason’s ears were ringing too much to hear the screams he was sure were there as the part of the facility that was above ground collapsed in on itself. Danny’s scream took out… he had no idea how much forest behind the lab as well, well he could see what Danny had been talking about with collateral damage before. Jason shook his head and pulled the detonator out of his pocket, pressing the button, listening to the muffled sounds as, below the ground, the bombs took out whatever was left of the base. The fire from the bombs spread quickly and soon the burning fascility lit the night as Jason and Danny stood in front of it, panting and, in Danny’s case, crying. 

“Red Hood, what happened?” Tim- What the fuck Tim!? When did Tim get here?! Asked. 

Jason glanced around and saw that the entire Teen Titans were there, well, except Impulse who Jason suspected was trying to find non-existent survivors. The best Jason could do was give Robin a helpless little shrug before looking back at Danny. 

“Hyena?” He asked softly, snapping Danny out of his daze he turned towards them. 

He approached and went to rest a hand on the girl's hair before hesitating, noticing his hands were covered in blood. He let out a bitten off whimper and tried to wipe it off on his suit as much as he could before he touched her, stroking her wet hair back from her face. “Oh my Little Star, I’m so sorry,” Danny murmured to her.

“Thank you,” He told Jason softly before taking the girl from his arms, holding her close as he glanced around, spotting their audience. “Robin,” He sighed, some tension releasing from his shoulders which wasn’t really the reaction Jason was expecting. He approached them slowly, changing back into his human form as he went, and thank god Tim had already had dinner with them a few times so he didn’t jump to attacking them. Jason wouldn’t have blamed him, this did not look good, and Danny was covered in blood.

“You,” Hyena said, his gaze drifting to Superboy. “You’re Superboy, you’re the clone right?” He asked, and Superboy glanced at Robin before nodding warily. “She is too,” Danny sighed looking down at her. “Back when I was still a hero my nemesis made her, she’s… my daughter, in every way that matters, my flesh and blood but I… the way I am now I can’t take care of her. I never could really, since I was still just 15 when she was made,” He said with a self deprecating little laugh. “I managed to stabilize her but I can’t keep her.” 

He looked up at them, tear tracks carving their way through the blood on his face. “She goes by Phantasm when in costume. Will you take her? She’s… she’s a good kid, she needs someone better than me. Your team, or if she needs an adult she’d do well with Wonder Woman of Martian Manhunter.” 

Superboy had a determined set to his jaw as he nodded and held out his arms, letting Hyena pass Phantasm over to him. “Thank you,” Hyena sighed, tired and sad. “Tell her her template loves her, and tell her where to find me and she’s welcome to visit. Just warn her what I am now, I was very different when she knew me.” 

“What happened here?” Tim asked again. 

“Remember I mentioned being experimented on by mad scientists?” Danny asked wryly, Tim nodded and Danny simply gestured back at the facility. “I didn’t realize they still had her or I would have burned the place to the ground a long time ago. Here,” He said, fishing a USB out of his pocket and holding it out to Tim. “This has info on the organization, I meant to give it to you eventually anyway.” 

Tim took it and Danny slumped back, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Come visit me soon, and tell me how she’s doing if she doesn’t want to see me. Please? I… really care about her.” 

“Right, okay,” Tim agreed awkwardly. Danny nodded and then turned, walking back over to Jason who lifted his arms, letting Danny walk into them. 

He held Danny close to him and felt a cool wash of invisibility fall over both of them as Danny transformed again and wrapped his arms around Jason’s waist before taking off again. He flew them back to where Jason had left his bike in silence. Once they landed and Danny had transformed again, every time he did it seemed quicker and smoother. Jason drove them home, not caring about the blood that soaked into his back from Danny’s clothes. It wasn’t exactly the first time he’d been covered in blood. 

“You didn’t tell me you had a clone,” He said softly into their shared com when they were about half way home. He’d wanted to wait till Danny was ready to talk about it, especially after such an emotional experience, but he needed to know. 

“I thought she was dead like the rest of my family,” Danny murmured back, pressing his forehead against Jason’s shoulder. “I saw her destabilize myself. I didn’t know they had any way to keep her alive. And I don’t like to talk about the people I’ve lost, it hurts too much, and they’ll still be gone either way.”

“I get that, but we have to talk about it soon now, you know that right?” Jason asked, and felt Danny nod against his shoulder.

“Yes, I know. Tomorrow okay? I’m so tired, and I need a shower.” 

“Ya, we’ll both feel better after a shower and some sleep,” Jason agreed as they arrived back in Crime Alley and headed for the nearest safe house with good water pressure and a bed.

-------

Danny took a while to go to sleep, once they were both clean and in bed he broke down. Jason didn’t know how long he held Danny while he cried softly against his chest, but he didn’t mind, Danny needed it. Finally they both fell asleep, though Jason knew he slept better than Danny.

In the morning Jason woke up before Danny and carefully slid out of bed, dressing and going to pick up breakfast and coffee for them. This wasn’t their main safehouse and didn’t have many groceries or he would have made them breakfast himself. Danny was just starting to stir when he returned with breakfast sandwiches, Danny’s Deathwish coffee, and a normal one for himself.

“Hey Moonlight,” Jason murmured to Danny, putting the food down on the bedside table and leaning down to kiss Danny awake properly. “I brought breakfast,” He said, waiting for Danny to sit himself up groggily before pressing the cup of coffee into his hands. 

“Thank you Boo, you’re so good to me,” Danny sighed as he accepted the coffee with his eyes still half closed. Jason hummed and leaned against Danny’s shoulder as he drank his own coffee and ate his sandwich. Watching as Danny drank about half of his coffee before reaching for the sandwich, by the time he’d finished he looked a little more alive. 

“How are you feeling?” Jason asked softly once they were both finished, bunching up the empty packaging and shoving it back in the bag.

“I’m alright, I’ll be able to talk today, but I’d like to go back to our nest first? I feel safer there,” Danny admitted, giving Jason completely unnecessary puppy-dog eyes, Jason would never have said no. He knew Danny was happiest there, in the nice apartment near the center of their territory, Danny’s haunt, that they had decorated and really made Home.

“Oh course. You get dressed while I throw out the trash and then we can head home,” Jason agreed and Danny nodded. They both slid out of bed and did their assigned tasks before Jason drove them both home. It wasn’t that far, but covered in blood and exhausted as they were last night Jason had wanted to drive through as little of Crime Alley as possible. 

Once they were home Danny collapsed on their couch with a slight groan and Jason went to make them both a cup of tea. He brought them back to the livingroom and put the cups down on the coffee table before nudging Danny to lift his head so Jason could sit down and Danny could rest his head back in Jason’s lap. He combed his fingers through Danny’s hair gently, and waited quietly for Danny to organize his thoughts. 

“I got my powers when I was 14, after I died. It took me a couple months to figure out how to control them, but once I did I went into being a hero pretty much immediately, I called myself Phantom. The same portal that killed me let a bunch of really powerful ghosts through into our world and they started picking fights with me and causing damage, so I protected my town. Even though most of the town seemed to think I was evil too and all ghosts were bad. 

“I had my two best friends, Sam and Tucker, helping me, and then later my big sister Jazz when she found out what I was doing. My parents were incredibly prejudiced against ghost, the GIW got most of their information and weapons from them if that gives you an idea, so we never told them. 

“Then I found out I wasn’t the first like me. When my parents were in college they built a prototype portal and it opened on top of their college best friend Vlad. He wasn’t a true halfa like me, more like a human with ghost powers, maybe 70/30 at best but he got obsessed with me, he’d already been obsessed with my mother so my mother’s son with his powers… He tried to kidnap me, he wanted me to renounce my dad and go live with him, be his perfect son or whatever. When he realized I never would, he started trying to clone me. 

“Enter Ellie, the only halfway stable clone, because ghosts are basically impossible to clone. He sent her to me to gain my trust and betray me. She said she was my cousin at first, and I accepted her right away, before she shot me in the back so Vlad could kidnap me again. He said the only way to stabilize her was… I don’t remember exactly what he said, but whatever it was I basically let him torture me to try and stabalize her. And then once he’d gotten what he wanted he admitted he’d never been planning to save her, he was going to let her and all the other clones die once he had what he needed for a ‘perfect clone’.

“Ellie freed me and we fought him together after that. I knew she was my.. At least my little sister, if not my daughter, I would have tried to care for her, even though I was a kid and my parents were threats to both of us, but she’d been trapped in Vlad’s lab for all her short life. She wanted to be free and to travel, so I let her go and helped her where I could, and when she asked. 

“When my parents eventually found out about me and they… didn’t react well, they denied I was their son and captured me. They would have experimented on me themselves if the GIW hadn’t found out they had me and demanded they ‘hand over the specimen,” Danny paused with a bitter laugh and picked up the cup of tea. “Of course my big sister and my friends were home then too, trying to convince my parents they needed to let me go when the GIW decided the quickest way to get their hands on me would be to just… bomb the house. Of course they were… I didn’t die, but all the humans did.

“While I was still in shock they nabbed me. Vlad and Ellie actually teamed up to try and save me, but they were captured too, and there was no one else to come for us. I thought they’d both been killed during the experimentation as well. I’m sure Vlad was since I saw his body, but I guess they managed to pause Ellie’s destabilization and, you were there when we found her, and saw me restabilize her.” Danny finished and took another sip of his tea.

Jason drank as well, as he processed what was no doubt a very summarized version of a very fucked up string of events skimming over a lot of gory details. “Any other bits of your past that might pop up to cause us trouble?” Jason asked dryly and Danny winced.

“Well, my ex-rogues might, especially now that Em has seen me and knows I’m still around. If they do, I'll deal with it quickly. I was always gentle with them before when I was a hero, now I’d really show them why they shouldn’t mess with me,” Danny said, bearing his teeth in a brief snarl. “Other than that… there’s Dan. He’s an evil future version of me from an alternate future where he destroyed the world, that reality doesn’t exist anymore but thanks to time fuckery he still exists in this reality. I defeated and imprisoned him, but I lost track of the thermos he was trapped in after the explosion. It’s unlikely anyone will release him, but it is possible.”

“Why are heroes' lives always so complicated?” Jason asked rhetorically, rubbing his face with one hand with a soft groan. “Well, now I know so I can be prepared for any of this shit huh?”

“Ya,” Danny agreed sheepishly. “I’m really sorry Jason, you didn’t know how much drama and baggage I came with when we first got together… If you-”

“No, I see where you’re going with that and No. I love you, and it’s not like I have any less baggage, and if anything my baggage hurts you way worse than yours hurts me. I’m not leaving unless you want me to,” Jason said firmly, feeling Danny relax back against his lap.

“And I absolutely do not want you to,” Danny confirmed with a smile. “I love you too.”

“Good. And… I want you to know I’m really proud of you Danny. For facing your trauma last night, and for telling me about what happened to you. You’ve been handling all of this really well, better than I have really. I admire you a lot Cub, you’re too good for me really, but that just makes me want to be better so I can be worthy of you,” Jason said softly, unable to quite make eye contact with his boyfriend, embarrassed by his own emotional vulnerability.

Danny pushed himself up on one elbow and pulled Jason down by the back of his neck to kiss him sweetly. “That means so much Jason, and I feel the same way. The good you do, the way you channel your pain, it inspires me too. In the future where my family was killed and I ended up staying with Vlad instead of you, I destroyed the entire world. I didn’t even conquer it, I just killed… everyone. You keep me grounded, you remind me there is such a thing as an innocent human, and letting you command and channel my violence has kept me sane,” Danny murmured as he curled against Jason’s chest. 

“I guess there’s a reason why ‘you make me better’ is such a relationship cliche huh?” Jason chuckled and Danny laughed before they settled into a comfortable silence as they finished their tea. “Do you think Ellie will like me?”

[on-my-vigilante-sht]

Capitol Punishment Prologue (II)

Haymitch x Reader

Summary: The Capitol continues to torture it’s victors no matter how long ago they won through punishment, exploitation, and worst of all; their relationships.

A story in which Haymitch’s lover is a plaything for the Capitol.

Warnings: Canon level violence, alcohol, murder, systemic poverty, exploitation, rebellion (?), more reliance on movie than book, suicidal thoughts

Word Count: 4.2K

Prologue | Masterlist | Part I

As you and your mentor entered a room with the tube that would put you into the arena, your fear finally came to the forefront of your mind. Your breath became erratic as you confronted your almost guaranteed imminent death. Haymitch noticed your sudden stiffness, forcing you to look at him. “Hey, you’re okay. You’re gonna be okay. You’re smarter than any of them. You only have to do this once. Okay?”

Seeing his sincerity and hope, your facade broke. “I don’t wanna die,” you finally admitted, tears pricking your eyes.

That broke his heart. You had spent so long convincing yourself and everyone else you were okay with dying. As upset as he had been because you were so willing to leave him, he admired your composure. But now there was a scared girl in your place. Haymitch knew you couldn’t win. You had only scored a 3 in your training. No one would bet on that. And while you had managed to survive alone in 12 for eight years, maybe you had been right. Maybe you were only able to survive in the Seam where people were indifferent and sometimes even kind. Here, your death would only benefit others.

Pushing all those thoughts aside for your sake, Haymitch gained the slightest smile. “There she is,” he murmured. “I know you can do it. You’ve actually struggled to survive on your own. The others probably can’t say the same. C’mere,” he said, pulling you into a hug. You reveled in the first comforting touch in god knows how long. His chin rested on top of your head. “You’re gonna run away from the cornucopia and then steal supplies. No fighting, okay? You’re gonna fly under the radar. That’s how you survived in 12, right?”

“Thirty seconds,” an automated voice came over the speaker, telling you that you had to get in the tube.

Haymitch finally pulled away. “I’ll see you soon,” he tried his hardest to smile, wiping away your tears. You returned his strained smile before unsteadily making your way to the tube.

Haymitch kept his facade up until you were out of view, having been lifted into the arena. He almost immediately pulled out his flask, taking a deep swig.

~

Being pushed up into the arena you were blinded by the sun and immediately confronted with a nearly unbearable heat. Gathering your bearings, you observed the arena. It looked like some sort of canyon. From what you could see, it wasn’t very wide in some spots. The largely empty field surrounding the cornucopia looked to stretch about a mile behind you before you could spot some trees. It’d be a long time before you could get cover, you just hoped that the others would be too distracted fighting each other to notice you running for a mile.

Turning your attention back to the cornucopia you spotted all sorts of weapons and supplies. Based on the heat you were tempted to try to grab some water but you kept Haymitch’s words in mind. Not to mention that if you went towards the cornucopia you lost valuable time to get to cover.

15… the timer read. 10… 5… 3, 2, 1! The buzzer went and you immediately turned, running for the trees.

You ran for god knows how long. You weren’t sure if anyone was following you but you were too afraid to look back. Afraid of turning around to see your fellow children slaughtering one another. Afraid of seeing someone chasing you, and even worse, slowing down enough, incidentally, so they could catch you. So you kept going until you finally reached the trees and even further after that. You finally let yourself slow to a stop in order to catch your breath.

Completely alone and without any supplies, you knew you needed to find someone soon so you wouldn’t die of exposure or be completely defenseless. But upon hearing a twig snap, you came to the conclusion that you weren’t in the position to run anyone yet so you continued running.

~

You eventually moved to the edge of the forest, figuring that if any singular tribute had set up camp in the open you’d be able to spot them easier. You had spent the better part of the afternoon learning to climb trees. While you lacked the muscle to actually climb, you made up for it with a malnourished frame that allowed you to climb up tree limbs that would snap under a career’s weight. You eventually figured it out, fortunately in time to see a fire spark up about a hundred yards from you.

But as you were watching the fire the Capitol music began to play, blue light flooding the sky. Looking up, you could see the fallen being projected onto the night sky. You counted as they went. The District 3 girl, District 4 girl, District 6 boy, both tributes from District 8 and 11, and finally Alder. Eight in total. Fairly low bloodbath, you had seen as many as 3/4 of the tributes get wiped out in the first 10 minutes before.

You weren’t sure how to feel about Alder. Yeah, he had been a dick but he was still a person. A person you knew. Who had a life and a family. You were sure those who knew him were wishing it had been you instead of him. Hell, you were only alive because Haymitch had only mentored you. And he had told you to run away. You were also relieved you wouldn’t have to kill him. Trying to shake off the knowledge of your district-mate’s demise, you turned your attention back to the fire.

Whoever had started a fire in the middle of a field wasn’t completely stupid. They were surrounded by a few boulders and rocks, judging by the weakness of the fire you wouldn’t have spotted it if you weren’t up in the trees.

You waited for a while until the fire was out, signaling that the tribute was asleep. So you crept from the trees, praying that this poor child you were about to kill had supplies so it’s be worth it. You couldn’t really afford to let your humanity get in the way if you were going to have any shot at getting home.

~

Haymitch watched the games from the penthouse. This had been the first year in a while he had actually sat down to watch the games. He never bothered to watch the hopeful kids he was forced to meet get slaughtered. But he watched this year, proud of you for running away and figuring out how to climb.

The cameras had only been focused on the careers ever since night fell. He supposed everyone was alone because when no fighting was going on, they only played the footage of ally interactions. The careers had formed a group. All of them except for the District 4 girl who had been killed with a spear to the chest while fighting over it with the boy from 7 during the bloodbath.

The careers had set up camp, the boy from 1 already establishing himself as their leader, having killed the boys from Districts 6 and 11, and then both tributes from 8.

But the coverage of their little bonding session was interrupted by cameras focused on the sleeping girl from 5 and you, creeping across the field.

“What do we have here?” Caesar asked the audience and Lucius Caecilius, this year’s other announcer, rhetorically.

“It looks like the District 12 girl, Y/N L/N, is on the move. The question is, if Necole Carrick wakes up, who will win in a fight?”

“My money is on Carrick. She has supplies, L/N is completely defenseless,” Caesar explained.

“Let’s see,” Caecilius said as you finally reached the girl from 5.

Haymitch watched in anticipation as you perched yourself on a rock, just above the sleeping girl. He held his breath, could you actually do this? His heart stopped as you carefully reached down, slipping the knife out of the girl’s hand. He watched you sigh in relief as you grabbed it. The camera was focused on your face as you seemed to steel yourself before softly leaping onto the ground next to her before quickly swiping the blade through the girl’s carotid artery. You jumped as the canon went off, showing the audience how shaky you were. Tears were pouring down your face as you grabbed the backpack and any other supplies before running out of the field, safely into the trees.

~

By the time the sun came back up, the tears on your face had dried and there was a puddle of vomit at the base of the tree. You had found some dried meat in the pack so you had nibbled a little on that, careful not to waste your rations. But eating had helped you stop shaking enough to climb down the tree. Unfortunately, the pack hadn’t contained any water, but it did have an empty water bottle so you set off to find water.

You had stuck to the walls of the canyons, figuring that if you had to climb them, you could. There wasn’t much room to grip them but it was possible. Fortunately, the trees still provided enough shade for your pursuit of water to not be dire.

As you continued on you became less confident until you noticed something. You couldn’t be sure but you were pretty sure you had reached a point where the walls of the canyon were curving into you. But as you continued on, you found an opening in the wall. It was mostly covered by vegetation and would go unnoticed had you not been following this wall for hours. Seeing as there were few reasons for you not to go in, you went, finding that it sloped down into the ground. Continuing on, it became lighter. Streams of light came from thinly covered holes in the ceiling, up into what you realized was the main arena. It was a miracle you hadn’t fallen down here.

As you were realizing this may be a good place to hide, you could hear it. Running water. You practically cried in relief, moving closer to it. As you reached a small stream, you immediately kneeled to the ground, scooping the water into your hands. You had learned that running water was less likely to contain dangerous pathogens or bacteria but you should still boil it. Regardless, you didn’t care. You finally had water.

After cleaning yourself off a little and filling your water bottle you continued on, following the stream. But as you went, you heard footsteps above you. Making sure to stay out of view from the streams of lights, you waited for the footsteps to be gone. But they never went away, instead, the boy from District 10, the boy who had ogled at you in the elevator, fell into the cavern. You didn’t waste a second jumping on top of him. Unfortunately, he wasn’t as disoriented as you thought he would’ve been because he tossed you off effortlessly.

The next thing you knew he was on top of you, his fists wildly hitting you. Getting your feet under him, you were able to kick him in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. Distracting him enough that you could kick him off of you. You fumbled for the knife in your pack as you noticed him crawling towards his fallen sword. Seeing him, you disregarded the knife in your bag, going towards the sword. You managed to reach it before him but just before he could grab the handle, you had to grab the blade. You nicked your hand but were too high on adrenaline to notice. You slipped it from his grasp before grabbing the handle, swinging it down into his head before running off.

You could hear his screams of agony as you ran back to the entrance, afraid his screams would draw other tributes. You certainly didn’t want to be trapped down here with the careers, being trapped in a canyon with them was bad enough. But by the time you reached the surface, a canon went off. Unless another tribute had been killed, at least District 10’s suffering had ended.

You no longer felt safe on the ground, you couldn’t just stay in one tree, and you certainly wouldn’t be able to just jump from tree to tree so you began to look to the canyons. There were ledges higher up you could theoretically walk across, it would just be a struggle to reach them. So you prepared yourself, subjecting yourself to bleeding fingers until you finally reached a ledge you could actually stand on. It was about 10 feet off the ground and went decently far. So you walked back towards the Cornucopia, occasionally climbing down and up as ledges got too thin and you had to go to another one.

You continued on like this for a while until you spotted the blonde hair of District 4’s male tribute. He was alone, unusual for a career tribute. You made sure he was alone before silently making your way down the canyon. He didn’t notice you as you followed him for a bit. Eventually, he stopped, turning to the canyon wall before unzipping his pants. You hesitated for a second, not wanting to be put in that position but this was your best opportunity so you took it.

As he finished, you crept up behind him, quickly wrapping your arm around his head, pulling it back so you could easily draw your knife across his throat. He tried to scream, but you cut so deep he couldn’t. This time you watched, blood pouring from his throat as the life left his eyes. Once the canon went off, you knew you wouldn’t have much time so you quickly took the belt lined with blades before running off, not wanting to risk the other careers seeing you as you tried to climb.

Reaching another remote area, you slung the blades around your hips before climbing up into a tree for the night. You hadn’t slept in nearly two days so you knew you’d have to figure something out tonight.

As you were settling down you heard chimes from above. Looking up at the sky you found a silver parachute floating down towards you. It got caught in the leaves of the branch you were on, forcing you to precariously balance on the end to reach it. How ironic it would be if you died in the Capitol’s game while reaching the thing the Capitol gifted you to survive.

You managed to grab it, settling back where you had been before opening it. First, you saw a note.

Good job, sweetheart - Haymitch

You couldn’t help but be embarrassed of the heat building in your cheeks but you tried to ignore it. Opening up the container you found some sort of salve. Unsure of what it was you reached a finger into it, immediately noticing a soothing sensation on your torn up finger. You looked at it, noticing the blood was stopping so you quickly spread it over your marred hands and any other random scrapes you had gained from all the climbing practice.

You sighed at the soothing relief, resting against the grunt of the tree.

~

“Well, it’s been an unusually bloody second day, this looks like this may be the quickest Hunger Games in a while,” Caesar recapped for the audience.

“Yes, it has,” Caecilius agreed. “For those of you unable to tune in today the allies from Districts 1, 2, and 4 decided to split up today. Unusual behavior for this alliance as usually the members of this group, known as the careers, stick together until they start fighting one another. But they had a fairly successful day. Collectively they eliminated the male tributes from Districts 3 and 5, the girls from 6, 7, and 10, as well as both tributes from 9.”

“And in a surprise, Y/N L/N has eliminated the males from Districts 4 and 10. I’d like to remind everyone that she scored a 3 in her training evaluation,” Caesar reminded, looking genuinely surprised at her success.

“Clever one, she is. She kept the careers’ focus away from her. Only a matter of time before the remaining careers figure out she’s the one who killed their ally.”

“They seem to be figuring it out right now,” Caesar laughed as the cameras focused on the remaining careers.

Today's deaths were being projected into the sky and they had noticed their ally’s death. They were currently trying to track the canon fire today to figure out who could have done it. Trying to determine whether or not the killer had already been eliminated. But as they discussed they failed to mention the possibility of District 12’s female tribute.

“Oh, seems they’re forgetting someone,” Caesar laughed.

“Can you blame them?” Caecilius laughed along with Caesar. “I don’t believe a female tribute from 12 has made it past the first day since the 50th games when Haymitch Abernathy won.” Caesar murmured in agreement before he changed everyone’s attention to recounting today’s deaths, playing them on the screen.

“I’ll just say, everyone better watch out for L/N, she’s a sneaky one,” he commented as the video of Piers’ death was played.

~

You were woken up by a canon. Based on last night’s light show it was just you and the careers. Fuck. You were their target now. Unless they were stupid enough to think they were the only ones left and they were killing each other right now, saving you some trouble. But you weren’t quite that lucky as you heard voices.

You cursed internally as you realized the careers were literally walking below you now. You could hear them. “Who the hell is left?” a female voice demanded. “I’m pretty sure everyone else is gone.” You rolled your eyes, why would she admit that?

“No,” a male voice interrupted. “There’s one person left. I’m not sure who but eight died the first day, ten yesterday, and we just killed one more. There’s one more person left.”

“Well then, who the fuck is it?” She then began listing both tributes from each district, including you. “Who else is left?”

“I don’t know, but the math doesn’t lie. Eight plus ten plus one equals nineteen. Twenty-four minus nineteen equals five.”

“Whatever,” another male voice interrupted. “We’ll do what we did yesterday. If we split up, we can find whoever is left.”

“But that’s how Piers died!” the other girl protested.

“You know only one of us get out, right?” the last male who spoke corrected her. “If we kill whoever else is left, we ensure it’s one of us. And we all know one of us deserves to go home more than this last pest, right?” The others murmured in agreement before splitting off to find you.

As you waited to ensure you were alone you steeled yourself. You’ve already killed three people. If you just left everything behind and killed four more people, you could end this today and go home. But before you climbed down, you heard the chiming of another parachute. Looking up, you found another silver parachute floating down towards you. You reached out, letting it fall into your palm. Opening up, you found a note.

Get your strength up before you win this thing - Haymitch

You couldn’t help the smile that crept over your lips as you opened the container, revealing a stew. You hadn’t realized how hungry you were as you quickly ate, uncaring that you didn’t have any utensils. By the time you had finished, you had calmed down enough to set off on your mission.

It didn’t take long before you found the girl from District 2. Unfortunately, she wasn’t as dumb as District 4’s male tribute because she noticed you coming. She immediately chucked a spear at you as she turned to face you. You were able to move enough so it wouldn’t pierce your torso but it did manage to graze your shoulder.

Seeing as she didn’t manage to kill you, she immediately began running. She was fast. So, doing the only thing you could think of, you threw one of the knives in your belt at her. You were surprised the blade found its mark, sinking into her back. She fell but she wasn’t done yet so you walked over, taking her spear and stabbing it into the back of her neck.

As you continued on you noticed the thinly covered spots in the ground. Realizing that moving around unseen was a tremendous advantage, you slipped underground, ensuring you didn’t break anything in your descent. You first located the stream, replenishing your water before continuing on. You listened for footsteps as you went, almost giving up until you heard the light footsteps of who you assumed to be District 1’s female tribute.

Following the path of her footsteps, you tracked her, waiting until she was close enough to a hole for you to make your move. As soon as she was, you jumped, pulling yourself out of the earth. You had been planning to drag her underground but based on her scream, she saw you. You cursed as you dragged yourself up, giving chase to her.

She wasn’t nearly as fast as the girl from 2 because you caught up with her easily, tackling her to the ground. She struggled against you, starting a flurry of swinging limbs as both of you tried to get the upper hand. She was a lot bigger than you, attributed to her better nutrition, but she still struggled against you, screaming the names of her allies.

As you continued struggling you realized you’d have to shut her up quickly and get the hell out of there before it became two or three against one.

You found the strength to pin her, sitting on her back before sending a knife into her jugular. Just as the canon went off, you heard a yell. “Historia!” the boy from District 2 called in horror. Shit. He was huge. You’d never be able to beat him by brute force. So you ran. You went for the nearest tree that didn’t look impossible to climb but once you were about three feet off the ground, you felt a yank pull you down to the ground. Hard. You fell with so much force you were pretty sure he broke a rib because your chest exploded in pain.

You watched in horror as he swung his sword up, poised to lodge itself in your head but, with much effort, you rolled away just in time. You struggled to your feet, still holding your ribs. You threw a knife as best as you could which lodged itself into his arm. But he just ripped it out before running towards you with a sword. You jumped out of the way, once again, just in time. You knew this wouldn’t last, you were way more injured than him. As he ran at you again, you prepared to accept your death until you heard a yell. Opening your eyes you saw half of him was underground, leaving only his torso still above the earth. The only reason he hadn’t fallen completely through was because the sword sticking through his chest was lodged in some rocks, keeping him propped up.

You gasped at the sight. He looked up at you, tears in his eyes. “What are you looking at?!” he yelled. “C’mon, you did this! Kill me!” he demanded. His face was full of rage and pain, so much so you couldn’t tell if he genuinely wanted you to end his suffering or not. You would have if it weren’t for his flailing arms you were sure would try to drag you to death with him. So you turned, leaving him screaming as you stumbled towards the cornucopia to finish this.

You continued on for what seemed like forever. The pain in your chest was only getting worse as breathing became harder. The only, very slight, relief was the sound of the canon as the boy from District 2 finally died. The only question was whether he had succumbed to his injuries or if the final tribute, the boy from District 1, had put him out of his misery and told him to be careful of you. Either way, you knew you had to get the drop on District 1. You couldn’t beat him by brute force, especially in this state. So you went to the Cornucopia, waiting for him inside and trying not to fall asleep.

~

“C’mon, don’t fall asleep,” Haymitch murmured to himself as he literally sat on the edge of his seat.

The sponsors who had sent you food and medicine sat around him, watching too. Everyone was shocked when you started picking off the careers, even more so when you managed to avoid death at District 2’s hands. He had nearly let the tears fall when the boy had dragged you to the ground, clearly injuring you severely. But you managed to survive and now you just had one more obstacle to overcome.

“Oh, here comes Blackford,” Caesar announced as the boy from District 1 ran out towards the cornucopia.

He stood in front of it, arms stretched out, with a sword in one hand. “C’mon! I know you’re out there,” he bellowed. “Let’s finish this!”

“Here she comes,” Caecilius announced as you slipped out of the cornucopia. You stepped up behind the boy, wrapping your arms around him, blade poised exactly like you had when you killed Piers.

Murmurs of excitement grew the closer you got to him, and cheers exploded as the canon went off and the boy from 1 fell at your feet. There were several congratulations to Haymitch and your sponsors as he tried not to cry in relief. You were alive. You were gonna be okay.

Prologue | Masterlist | Part I

[fruitmins]

Agust Dad—Seven

➭ summary: Your a producer from another company that he happened to be collaborating with on his 2nd album D-2. At the release party— one drunk action leads to another, you do the worst thing you can do in the industry

➭genre: short series, pregnancy au, idol au, angst, dad au

➭warnings: slight angst + slight fluff??, mention of nausea, rushed to edit this so might have mistakes

<next part>

note: it’s 1AM but I don’t careee. my masterlist is coming soon. so many people have birthday’s in October, shoutout to all the October ARMY’s 🫶🏽 thank you EVERYONE for being patient with me

Taglist: @welcometomyworld13 @tatyhend @jiminiesunicorn @littlestarstinyseven @baechugff @thelilbutifulthings @tearykth @familiarlikemymirror3 @coree730 @prajusstuff @wobblewobble822 @choisoorin @manuosorioh @0funsite0 @whipwhoops @bergandysam @aloverga @illnevertrustmyselfagain @silentreadersthings @butterymin @girl-nahh @linneasblog @cuntessaiii @nikkiordonez12 @chl0buggy @serendididy @llallaaa @ghostlyworld @roguesthetic @captainchrisstan @bxcndd @lukeys-giggle

Pain.

Your head is pounding and thumping in your ears.

As you slowly come to, you feel nauseous and dizzy. And it only worsens when you slowly try to lift your heavy eyelids. You slowly open your eyes, your vision cloudy and your mind foggy. You try to look around the bright room, which immediately makes your headache worse as the light makes it more difficult to see.

You blink away the sleepiness from your eyes, and as your vision starts to come into focus, you realize you're lying down.

You slowly come to the realization that you're in a hospital bed, hooked up to tubes and IVs. A faint buzzing noise fills your ears.

You try to move, but your body is completely paralysed. A cold breeze cuts through you, making your teeth chatter and your bones ache.

You’re confused and scared and worst of all, your memory starts to come back.

As the memories of the last few days come flooding back into your mind, you remember the overwhelming anxiety you felt. You feel the nausea increase as you remember the events before you passed out. The fans picking your body apart, speculating about your pregnancy, calling you various cruel names.

You suddenly feel cold, so cold that your teeth practically click. You shiver, your body struggling to retain some sort of warmth. A sense of dread washes over you as you think about what might have happened while you were unconscious.

Underneath all of the icy breeze, your feel some of your skin warmer than the other part of your body.

You look down in the hospital bed you’re lying in. You don’t have a blanket, so when you find the source of the warmth your eyes widen.

Yoongi is there.

Right next to you, fast asleep on your legs, his hand rests on your stomach. You don’t know how long you’ve been in the hospital, or how long he has been with you, but he looks exhausted.

i’m here now

Despite how peaceful he looks while sleeping, there are clear eye bags under his eyes. And you swear you see some dry tears on his clear skin.

Your heart leaps at the sight of Yoongi, the sight of him in tears and looking exhausted breaking your heart.

You want to call out to him, but you're unable to speak. Your throat itchy and closed up.

The machines attached to your body beep and emit various sounds as the data they measure gets recorded and updated.

Yoongi shifts slightly, his eyes opening to reveal tired and puffy eyes, the marks of a man who hasn't slept in days. He sits up slightly, his eyes widening when he looks up at you and he realizes you're awake.

My throat closes even more at the sight of him slowly waking up. It’s a dangerously beautiful sight.

His beautiful eyes fluttering as they slowly open and look at you. The slow realization that you were wake. You don’t like how your heart flutters at the thought of him worrying about you. But it does.

“Y/N..?” His voice is soft and quiet sounding relieved but heavily concerned.

“What happened?” You manage to choke out in a shaky hoarse voice, staring back at him with your own widened eyes.

Yoongi's eyes flicker with worry as he sees the state you're in. Your voice is hoarse and your throat is sore, making you sound like you've been screaming for hours.

"Y/N..." Yoongi says softly again, getting to his feet and moving next to you slightly frantic.

"I should have expected this," he mumbles, his shoulders sinking. "You were already at your limit, trying to keep our relationship a secret. I should have warned Jin or something.." he can’t even look you in the face as he talks.

“I-It wasn’t your fault..” your voice is scratchy and shriveled so you’re not surprised when he still doesn’t relax in the slightest. But he couldn’t have known this would happen.

Even though he is stood up at the side of your bed, his hand stays gently planted on your stomach.

You remember the intense pain you felt before passing out. The sharp stab you felt that left you breathless.

“I-Is the baby okay?” You ask cautiously, almost scared to hear the answer and slightly panicked. You’d never forgive yourself if anything happened.

Yoongi hesitates, looking at you before nodding carefully. "The baby seems to be okay, thankfully."

Relief washes over you, and Yoongi takes a minute to let you digest the words and let you breathe before speaking again. "The doctors wanted to run a few tests, to make sure the baby is healthy. And we did, and thankfully, the baby is safe. But you’re gonna be here for a couple days to make sure.”

Yoongi looks at you, his gaze is full of relief but behind it all, you can see the beginnings of sadness and guilt. "It's not easy, Y/N, to watch you struggle like this." He pauses to collect himself, and your heart races at his words.

After all of the early mornings you spent together, after all of the things he has done for you so far. You can’t help but feel fuzzy inside. You can’t help but feel wanted and safe around him, despite how you felt earlier into your pregnancy.

You open your mouth to speak again, but he stops you quickly. “Wait—“ he says before walking to a nearby counter and grabbing a water bottle. It’s open, but it’s still almost completely full. He had been so stressed he wasn’t drinking water..?

He gets up and hands it to you, before sitting back down in the chair that he was by your legs. You quickly gulp down the water, clenching your thirst and your dry throat.

“Thank you..” you mumble with a cough as he gently takes the empty bottle out of your hands and helps you sit up. “How long have I been out for?”

Yoongi's eyes flicker as he tries to remember. "It's been a few days since we admitted you," he says carefully, trying to keep his voice gentle. "But they said you were dehydrated and exhausted, so they wanted to run some tests and keep you on observation."

“And I’ll be here for you every step of the wa—“ his voice is cut off by his phone ringing loudly. His head snaps to his pocket, an angry expression flashing on his face as he pulls it out of his pocket.

He takes a look at the caller ID and his angry quickly flashes to sadness. “It’s Jin..” he says, looking back up at you and you feel your heart get heavy.

Undoubtedly he was feeling guilty about the whole thing. He was nice to you even before the entire thing and has helped you in many ways.

He declines the call, but you can see his fingers swiftly typing away before putting it back in his pocket.

The sight of his phone brings you back to a harsh reality of what was going on while you’ve been unconscious. Or what you don’t know is going on while you’ve been unconscious.

“Have you seen..the media?” You ask in a low cautious tone. Yoongi sighs heavily in return, his head falling a bit. "Yeah," he says quietly. "The media is in a frenzy."

He shakes his head, his voice low and filled with sadness. "Twitter is going crazy. We're still a trending topic." he says softly, his tone is serious, and it sinks into your head how bad the situation might be.

"It's... not good," he says softly. "People are calling you names for keeping the baby, and they're not being very nice to me either. They're speculating how I feel about it, suggesting that I don’t care about you since I wasn’t standing next to you.“ His voice is filled with disappointment, and slight rage for accusing him of not caring for you.

You can’t help but feel guilty about the whole situation. You can’t imagine how much trouble he must be in with the company, how he must feel about his own fans turning on him.

You let out a shaky breath as you look down at your lap. Hormones kick in, and tears start to build in your eyes. You feel so overwhelmed by everything, even slightly guilty that this all took away from Jin’s big moment.

Despite being at such a low point in your life, Yoongi being here made it better.

"Hey..." Yoongi says softly, noticing you cry. “Don't worry yourself with what these people say. You're doing nothing wrong. We’re gonna focus on you and nothing else.”

He smiles at you, trying to help make you feel better. "I'll get you some food and a blanket."

He stands up and heads to leave the room, leaving you alone with your thoughts once more.

Yoongi walks back into the room minutes later, carrying a blanket over his shoulder and a small tray in his other hand. He hands you the blanket and sets the tray down next to you.

On the tray is a small container of soup, a cup of tea, and a few small pieces of bread. It's nothing special, but with the stress you've been going through, it might be what you need.

Yoongi sits down on the bed next to you and looks at you with concern. "Do you need anything else?" he asks softly.

“No, but thank you.” You say softly as you start to sip on the soup, looking down as you ate to avoid more butterflies in your stomach.

Yoongi watches you eat, his eyes flickering with concern as he studies the way you move. You look so frail and exhausted, and he hates seeing you like this.

"It's no problem," he says, his tone light and calming.

He looks at you with a small smile, his face expressing the feeling of satisfaction that he's able to take care of you.

A couple of minutes of silence, and he doesn’t even glance down at his phone once, despite the constant buzzing.

There’s a soft knock on the door as you’re slowly eating and a nurse pops her head through the door.

Yoongi's eyes widen as he sees the female nurse walk into the room, followed by the unmistakable form of Jin behind her.

"Jin..." Yoongi says slowly in a greeting, looking over at him. He looks almost as bad as Yoongi, if not worse. You notice how exhausted Jin looks. His eyes are dull and lifeless, and there seems to be something weighing on him. You hated that you were right about him feeling guilty.

"Are you okay?" Jin asks gently, stepping forward into the room and closing the door.

“I’m okay, thank you.” You respond with a slight smile, trying to clear up his gloomy state but it doesn’t help much. He’s bright smile is replaced by a small weak one.

“The rest of the members wanted to come, but I told them you would probably be overwhelmed..” Jin says softly.

He looks at Jin and smiles again. "Thank you for coming all the way here just to check up on her."

Jin nods, his tone more somber as the stress of the situation settles on his shoulders. "I'm just glad you're up and alright. How are you feeling?"

“Better..” you mumble as the doctor clears her throat. “We’re gonna do an ultrasound now that you’re awake. And since you’re about 21 weeks along you have the option to know what the gender is if you want.” She says happily with a smile.

Yoongi listens to the doctor in silence, his eyes flickering towards you and the doctor. When she's done speaking, he gently touches his fingers to yours, squeezing them.

He leans close, his voice almost a whisper. "Whatever you decide, I'll support your decision," he says, his voice barely audible and filled with a bit of anxiety.

You glance away from him, hoping you’re not blushing by how close he is and your eyes find Jin’s. You take a pause to think about it before answering. “I think it should be a surprise for us.. So Jin can through an awesome gender reveal party.” You say with a warm smile.

Yoongi smiles slightly, and the tension is lifted a bit. "I think that's a good idea," he says softly.

Jin looks between the both of you with a small smile, taken aback by the request at first but you can see his eyes brighten a bit. "I'll do my best to plan the most extravagant party you've ever seen," he says, his voice filled with excitement.

Yoongi looks at the doctor, seeing if she has anything else to say before he nods towards her. "Can we begin?"

"Of course," she says, gesturing for you to move to the ultrasound machine.

Yoongi gently helps you move towards it, positioning you on the bed so the ultrasound machine can get a better image of you and the baby.

But of course, now you and Yoongi can’t see the baby to reveal it’s gender so the two of you close your eyes as she examines the baby. It feels like only a few seconds passed before she leaves the room with Jin, assuring you two that the baby was okay but telling you to take it slow for a week or two.

Yoongi moves out of the way and opens his eyes once the nurse and Jin leave, looking towards you. "How are you feeling?" he asks softly, making sure you're okay.

You notice the relief on his face as you open your eyes, and you smile slightly, happy that you're both okay and the baby's healthy.

“Better.” You say again, this time more warmly and lightly. The slight change in your tone brings a warm smile to Yoongi's face.

"Good," he says softly, taking your hand. "The baby's doing alright, thankfully. You need rest, though," he tells you, his voice calm and gentle. "We'll talk more once you've gotten some sleep."

“Okay..” You say with a small nod, knowing that you still felt weak and cold. Now that you knew the baby was well, you were gonna trend very carefully.

Yoongi looks like he wants to say something more, debating with himself before letting out a sigh. “This is gonna sound stupid, but I heard somewhere that by this stage, babies can hear.”

You glance up at him curiously as he said this. It makes you intrigued that he was even reading about it. “And I thought it would be cool, if the baby heard the song we worked on together.”

Your eyes widen at his words. You’re undoubtedly flushed now, but Yoongi can’t tell because he is to busy avoiding your eyes.

“It’s stupid.” He groans to himself once he hears your silence but you quickly snap out of your thoughts and quickly shake your head.

“No, no. It’s sweet. It might actually help me fall asleep.” You reply softly and Yoongi glances over at you, raising an eyebrow at you suspiciously.

You let out a small chuckle at his stunned reaction. “I’m serious.” You mumble and he takes a small moment to study you before silently pulling out his phone and pulling up the song.

You lean back against the hospital bed, yawning softly as you do and seconds later you hear the song start playing. He sits down and scoots the chair closer to you, closer to your stomach.

Memories flood your head about your time working on the song with him as you close your eyes. How easy it was working with Yoongi, listening to the whole album, and of the party as a result. Memories you blocked out a long time ago.

But memories you know longer wanted to hide from. Memories you now cherished.

[randombush3]

revocate animos (with or without me)

alexia putellas x reader

part one, part two, part three, part four

the second half of this part (it didn't fit in one post lol)

words: it's over 14k. i had lots to say.

summary: the final part, which originally had a different ending but i was told it was evil so i changed it.

warnings: it's mainly just sad, there's a bit of smut though

notes: i could give you so many excuses as to why this is being posted now but no one wants to read that so i'll just say sorry x

anyway, i got very lost along the way at points and had some serious plot crises that had me tearing my hair out. i researched children's behaviour to the point of needing an honourory qualification, and i spent the last three hours ignoring my girlfriend while i finished this off.

for as much as i put these two through (and myself tbh), i'm sad to finish it off. BUT ALSO NOW IM FREE.

have fun reading! and sorry about the length of it

London smells of dirty rain and exhaust fumes, of a homelessness crisis and inflation attempting to impersonate that of the Weimar Republic; greyish streets, cracks in the pavement, thousands of spices from all over the world. Grubby patterns, hidden by the smudging of millions of bottoms, coloured poles that used to match the train line but no longer do. You breathe it all in, eyes closed as the motion of the underground jerks you sideways, the train leaving London Bridge just as you left Barcelona. Without looking back. 

You had laughed when they told you they’d send a driver to get you from the airport. The luxury of some shiny black car held no appeal when compared to the familiar Northern line, its blackened route well-travelled and your own brick-road home. 

Part of this choice to ‘slum it’ is borne of your desire to return to the past; a time before the fame and the fortune, when camera flashes came from your parents’ Sony Cyber-shot and not paparazzos with a hunger to splash you across the front page of a slimy gossip magazine. There was no Alexia, then. The extent of Spanish in your life was Anya studying for her A-levels, and you’d spend time writing songs without it feeling like pulling teeth. Without having to relive some of the worst moments of your life. 

Those hadn’t happened yet.

God, you were so naive then back then. 

Your London shows are in Wembley. Two nights, two journeys through your album, through your heartbreak. Both are sold out. 

“See it, say it, sorted,” you mouth along to the voice, pushing the handle of your suitcase upwards, rising from your seat. The doors of the tube swoosh open, the yellow line of the platform attacking your tired eyes as Highgate station is revealed to you. You hear a whisper of ‘is that Y/n L/n?’ but you don’t turn around. 

The wheels of your suitcase gurgle against the bumpy pavement leading up to your house, but they grow quieter as you approach. They must sense the tension, glad to have the smoother surface of your driveway to move across as you force yourself to continue walking forwards. 

A woman is standing on your porch. Her body swivels around as she hears you stop just behind her. 

Leah takes in the sight of you, deciding that you definitely did not enjoy Barcelona. “I was just about to ring the doorbell, but I guess you wouldn’t have answered the door anyway,” she says with an awkward chuckle, not sure if you want to talk about how rough you look. You cried the entire flight, and refused to contact anyone once you had landed, hoping they assumed your plane had crashed and you had drowned somewhere in the English Channel. 

“I got here in the morning.” Your voice is unused. It croaks, shattered. 

“Let me get your bag?” asks Leah, rather firmly, leaving you no room to decline her request before she has stepped off the porch and into your personal space. She looks up at you, wondering how you manage to look so beautiful even now, hand blindly reaching out for the hard shell of your suitcase as she stares. “How’re Nico and–” 

Your lips silence her before she is finished. Leah freezes, surprised this is the moment you have chosen to kiss her.

But she misses you as soon as you pull away. 

“I’m so sorry,” you whisper, and she cringes at the self-loathing that drips from your words. A tear rolls down your cheek, but you are unsure whether it falls because you have kissed her or because you want to kiss her again. “I shouldn’t have done that.” 

You must have argued with Alexia. Leah’s realisation weighs heavy on her heart. Something has to have happened for you to have made your move, because Leah had been starting to accept the idea that you were still in love with your ex and she was nothing more than a friend. She had been looking forward to your concert tonight, in all honesty, and was excited to see you again, glad to have you in her life in any way, shape, or form.

“Because,” she starts hesitantly, “because you didn’t like it? Or…” 

“Leah.” 

“If you wanted to kiss me again, I wouldn’t mind.” 

“Leah,” you repeat, the vowels almost failing to drop from the tip of your tongue. This is a dangerous game, but the look in Leah’s blue eyes tells you that she is happy to play it. “Leah, I… I shouldn’t have kissed you?” 

“Is that a question?” 

You blink. “I’m not sure.” 

“If it’s a question, I’d say that the answer is the opposite. And that we should go inside.” She slides her hand over the metal handle of your suitcase, warm skin covering your fingers where your grip is still curled around it. “But only if you want to.” 

Do you want to? 

You value your friendship, you really do; Leah has been there for you many times since you met her, never asking too many questions. She means something more than what you crave from her, and doesn’t deserve to be the woman you use to detach yourself from reality. 

But Leah is looking at you with desire that has been missed, relentlessness promised by her toned muscles. Leah is looking at you as though you are the only star in the galaxy or the sun on a rainy day. Leah is looking at you like she wants to devour you, and you, with no soul left to give, resign to letting her have your body.

“This won’t change anything, right?”

It’s a mean question. You know that. 

“Course not,” Leah lies. 

You let it convince the both of you. 

Pink glitter covers the dining table at one end, and shiny green stars are scattered on top of the brown grain of the wood on the other.

“She might be at soundchek,” Alexia explains to Nico, who is finished with his Mother’s Day creation and is now intent on FaceTiming you to show you the card he has made. “And cards are supposed to be a surprise. That’s why we made envelopes!” 

“But you said my card should be put in a museum,” he replies with a frown, his nose crinkling in confusion just as yours does. “So we show her now.” 

“Mi amor, that’s not how it works,” laughs Alexia, reaching out to ruffle his hair. With Elena settled comfortably on her healthy knee, gleefully pushing piles of glitter around so that it mixes with the glue smeared on her card, it is safe to say that this year’s cards are going to be successes. “Mama has promised to call when she gets home, and you can tell her that you have a surprise for her. That will build up the excitement, and make it even better when she gets to open it.” 

Your son has become a cynic. “And when will that be?” 

“Mother’s Day is on the 19th, so we have three days to wait.” You have purposely chosen a chartered route to Tokyo that flies via Barcelona so that you get to spend the day with your children before your fortnight in Asia to end the first half of the tour. “Do you want to write the words out for Lela once the glue has dried?” 

“I don’t know what Lela wants me to say,” he explains with great concern, turning to his sister with a very serious expression. He speaks to her in English, because he knows that this card is for you. He understands that there are two Mother’s Days, though he thinks it’s because he has two mothers, and that Alexia’s day is in May. When Alexia opens her mouth to speak, Nico is quick to shut her down. “Calla, Mami, no sabes nada de inglés.”

Your legs slam together but find no available route with Leah’s body in between them. 

It feels… good. 

Liberating.

You haven’t brought her into your bed, which she notices but doesn’t comment on. It’s excusable to be on the sofa, to have stayed downstairs for the hours she has spent trying to make you feel better, because the clock has only just ticked its way to lunchtime. You laugh to yourself at the thought of that, amused by the notion that you have already eaten.

Leah is curious when it comes to you. That much you had expected, having been aware of her lingering gazes long before the sores on your heart had calloused into tougher muscle. She has been waiting for this resiliently, and you present yourself to her as though you are a new toy she finally gets to play with. She kisses you slowly at times, to memorise the warmth of your tongue or the jut of your chin, but she often grows impatient, wanting nothing more than to end her torture and find out what it is like. 

What is it like to have a woman like you? To wake up next to you, kiss you, touch you? 

How does your mind work? What do you smell like just after getting out of the shower? Does your accent ever slip, or is it really that posh? 

The air in the living room is hazy now, and your eyes close in bliss as you let your sweat seep into the grainy fabric of your white sofa. Leah doesn’t crawl into your open arms as you assume she will. 

She wipes her mouth. 

Although Leah has enjoyed this very much, she knows that this instance has not been you allowing her to start to love you. It has been for her to help you forget how much pain you are in. Somewhere deep down, she cares, but she doesn’t try to search for the emotion.

“So,” she says with a giggle, as if you are two teenage girls, best friends who have decided to kiss so that they can practise for the real thing, “do I need to send an apology present to your makeup artist?” Sitting back on her knees, she swipes one hand down to pluck her t-shirt from the floor, pulling it on top of her naked body before sending you an exaggerated smirk and prodding the developing bruise on your neck.

“Fuck,” you groan, batting her hand away. “I completely forgot I had that thing tonight.” You also need to call your children before Alexia bans your name from her household (if that hasn’t happened already). 

“That ‘thing’ being your concert at Wembley?” 

“I’d have thought selling out Wembley is the norm for you now, Captain,” you tease, clearing your throat. “England have done it, Champions of Europe for the very first time.” 

“You’re freakishly good at a commentator’s voice.” 

“Gotten used to being my own commentator. Only Spanish streams in my house – even United matches!” You smile at your own frustration but it quickly sours as awkwardness drops on top of you. You bring your arms up to cover your bare chest, but Leah clears her throat with softened eyes and you no longer feel so exposed. 

You feel safe.

“What happened in Barcelona?” You shake your head at her question. “That bad, huh?” she presses. 

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” you tell her, grey clouds hanging over you as your voice darkens and lowers. “Like, at all.” 

“I think you should. It’s better it comes out now than later when you’ve had lots to drink and no idea who you’re ranting about it to, isn’t it? And it’s just me; I’m not going to judge you.” 

“But you know her. You know her friends.” Your hands move to cover your face. Leah can have your body, but you don’t want her to have your tears. “Thank you for caring, babe, but I think I’m going to handle this one on my own.” 

“Well, you know that–” 

“You’re always a phone call away.” You smile, tears sucked back inside you, bottled away in glassware you store in crates labelled ‘VERY FRAGILE’. Desperate to change the subject, you adjust your position on the sofa, sitting up. Leah tries very hard not to stare at the curves of your chest. “You know, Lee, I never thought you’d be that good in bed.” 

…

Alexia is in desperate need of advice. 

Her muscles contract and relax, the tissues pulling on her bone, which, in turn, pulls her. She is strung along, driven perhaps by her leap in recovery and impending comeback. She almost breaks out into a jog, but the church she has dragged herself to comes into view before she can gain speed. 

She had not expected this from herself. 

It’s nothing special to her, though she will admit that the architecture of the building does hold some sense of divinity, but the heavy wooden door is propped open and she is drawn inside. 

The Sacrament of Reconciliation, Fridays, 17.00-17.30. 

Alexia checks her watch, the golden links gleaming on her wrist, catching the sunlight that filters in through the glass windows. 

She catches a glimpse of white behind the doors of the Confession booth, becoming acutely aware of how empty the church is. The curtain has been pulled back, bunched to the left-hand side carefully, as though the previous handler had moved with peace. 

It can’t be that bad, can it? 

It’s just like therapy. 

Her feet carry her forwards once more, leading her into the wooden booth. It smells old. The cushion she kneels on is blue, she thinks, but she cannot tell because it goes dark once she pulls the curtain shut. 

Alexia is not a religious person. Sure, she signs the cross before stepping onto the pitch, and, like most people she knows, she is baptised, but her faith is limited to that. When she tore her ACL, she spent evenings trying to pray, trying to force her to believe in Him. It would have been comforting to know that someone had a plan for her, was watching over her carefully with the knowledge of how it was going to play out. It was to no avail. 

But somehow she knows what to say, and so she does. 

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” She recites the words like lines from a play, head bowed in shame as she writes her next sentences in her mind. “This is my first and, probably, my last confession.” 

Silence. 

She rests her hands in her lap, shuffling around to ensure she is not pressing down on her knee in any way that is harmful. It would kill her to have to push back her return to the pitch because of some stupid thing she has spontaneously chucked herself into. 

“I messed up.” She laughs. “No, that is actually an understatement. I know this is a church and I really shouldn’t swear, but I fucked up. Father, I had Heaven in my hands and I threw it away as though it were meaningless. Was it greed? Was it greed that led me to do it?” 

“Do what, my daughter?” 

The priest sounds younger than she’d thought he would be. 

“I had an affair with a woman whom I am certain I do love a little bit, but, by doing that, I destroyed a life that was perfect. Was it greed?” 

“I think you know the answer to that.” 

“Was it temptation?” Alexia tries again, desperately. Part of her yearns for the priest to tell her it was the Devil so that she can shed the responsibility. “I love my wife. More than anything, I love her. I do not think my own life is worth living if it is not in service to her, to our children, to the smile she reserves for her favourite people. I… I didn’t attempt it, but I thought about killing myself.” She swallows the lump in her throat. “Only once, but I thought it all the same. My sister called me selfish.

“It’s just – forgive me – fucked, isn’t it? I got carried away. I got lonely, I was alone. I craved something to make me forget, to pinch the gaping hole in my life shut. I relied on it to make me feel better, and it did for a time. But now it has made me feel much, much worse.

“And I am sorry! I am so, so sorry. I have grown sick of the word; I’ve used it so much that it holds no meaning anymore. It doesn’t do my regret justice, nor my quest for forgiveness, and I’m really on that quest, Father, I want to stress that to you. I lost my temper and said things I should not have said – things I don’t even believe – but I did not mean them then, and I do not mean them now.” 

“You are not religious,” accuses the priest, very gently. His voice washes over Alexia’s ears like a wave of warm saltwater from the Mediterranean, and she feels comfortable enough to swim into the expanse in front of her. “Our God is forgiving, but it is not His forgiveness that you seek. I cannot give you a prayer that will make her absolve your sins, because our holy words are not spells.” 

“Father,” croaks Alexia. As her lips part, she tastes the saltwater of the sea, dripping down her cheeks as though the tide has come in and there is no other option than for her to be flooded. “Please help me. I don’t know what to do.” 

The priest speaks, but she assigns the voice to someone else. 

The first thing you forget about a person is what their voice sounds like. It lingers like a feeling you can’t quite name; distant, distorted, enhanced by fantasy.

Alexia does not remember her father’s voice. 

The realisation is crushing. 

She knows his words – they are her prayers – but, like Catholics do not know the voice of their God, she can no longer hear the voice of hers. 

What would her father say if he saw her like this? On her knees in a Confession booth, backed against the wall with nowhere to hide?

This is not the girl he was proud of. Alexia, of course, is not that eighteen-year-old anymore; she hasn’t been for a decade. But, recently, the legacy of that unknown Levante player has disappeared. 

Alexia is so very lost. 

She does not know where she is in her own city. In her home. 

She does not know her place in her life, much less her place in yours – if you will still grant her one. 

She has not felt the thrill of football for months, has driven herself to Hell and back, and considered giving up enough to be on the brink of actually doing it. 

She has seen countless meals hit the water of her toilet, never digested, never deserving of the very thing that keeps her alive. 

She has counted your sacrifices, memorising the digits of an ongoing figure so that she can punish herself with the knowledge. 

She has tried to forget English, tried to improve her English, and taken vows of silence. 

She has cried and cried and cried until the only thing left for her to excrete is her hot, red blood. 

She has searched for a way out of the maze. She has failed every time. 

Alexia is lost without you, and she knows it. Everyone knows it, perhaps even you yourself. Do you revel in that fact? Do you enjoy it? 

You have a right to watch her suffer. You do, you do, you do. 

Alexia runs a hand through her damp hair, sweating as she sobs in the booth next to some stranger who she will never meet again. Her mouth is dry but her cries are wet and raw, and they scrape her throat as she chokes them out, losing her breath and falling silent only to catch it and begin again. The cushion burns her knees as though she is trapped in an inferno, the darkness blazing against her skin. 

The priest talks to her for a long time, not letting her leave until she has calmed down. She sniffles, wiping her nose with the back of her palm before softly pressing her thumbs to her blotchy cheeks to clear the final tears from them. 

When he is finished, he instructs her to take a few deep breaths, which she does. “You are not entitled to her forgiveness,” he reminds her. He begins the Prayer of Absolution – he insists for the sake of closure – and Alexia walks away from the church no more than five minutes later. 

She is still stuck in the maze, but she has restored that voice in her head that she knows will help her find her way out.

…

“So you went to church?” Olga asks with an amused smile, taking the first sip of her latte, relishing in the gentle burn of the liquid. She needs this coffee; she stayed up late last night because she knew Alexia has been struggling. There is nothing worse than being asleep when Alexia calls her for help. 

“I have no idea how I ended up there,” Alexia explains, somewhat defensive about yesterday’s catharsis. “Confession is way better than therapy. There is too much accountability in therapy.” 

“You have a lot to account for.” 

She huffs out a breath, taking a sip of her own drink. “I know, Olga, but I cannot change the past, so what would you like me to do?” Olga doesn’t reply. The brunette parts her lips, but promptly closes her mouth when she sees Alexia’s slight discomfort. “Mama wants you to come to dinner tonight. I… I do too.” 

Olga’s smile is big and genuine. “I’d love that,” she answers. “Eli is the best cook out of our friends’ parents. Everyone knows that.” 

You’re in London, childless, and are watching the grand old Arsenal play (reluctantly, forced to by Leah if anything). Alexia has seen the pictures of you at the match on Instagram; she has already felt the frustration that you are most-likely never going to watch Barcelona play again unless it is to support the other team. Like clockwork, Alexia seeks to fill the gaping hole you have left in her life. Somewhere, somehow, the lines of friendship between her and Olga have blurred. 

…

It takes just over a month for Leah to crack. 

You appear in London every two weeks, attending meetings and events, but she has decided, once and for all, to see through your excuses. You come to London for her. She knows that, and so do you. Leah’s ego has not reached a size where she believes she is enough for you, but the facts (and Lia Wälti) tell her she is wrong. 

Except, what Leah tends to leave out is that no matter how many times you let her sleep with you, she still is unable to access a certain part of your mind. 

She has never been upstairs in your house because you always prefer to go to her place in St. Albans. She has never slept in your bed, nor woken up next to you. 

You talk to her like she is still the same old Leah, the captain you befriended during the tournament of her lifetime, your entrance in her life intertwined with the ecstasy of winning the Euros. She closes her eyes and thinks of how you looked that summer; white England shirt, sunglasses pulled down over your eyes. Smiling, cheering. For her, she greedily claims to herself.

Sometimes, in her mind, you lift your sunglasses – you always seem to be crying when she pictures this – but Leah is only vaguely familiar with the timeline of your divorce. This is the issue.

There is a door that you have locked and refuse to let Leah find the key. It leads to heartbreak, to Nico and Elena, to a family you once had. 

“I wish you would let me in,” Leah says one day. (The day she cracks.) She tears her ACL two days prior, something that makes you feel guiltily nauseous, and you have come to visit her. She knows that you had flown over the minute you had swapped custody with Alexia. 

Your legs curl into your chest as you try to reduce the amount of space you are taking up on Leah’s sofa, cautious of her injured knee. Leah misses the warmth of your thighs, and wants to revoke her conversation starter instantly, pained that she has to even ignite the fire of this forbidden topic. “What do you mean?” comes your quiet reply, unwilling to disturb the peace of her living room. The peace of existing side-by-side. 

“Exactly what I said.” Leah nods to emphasise her agreement with herself. “I wish you would let me in, because how do you expect me to love you if I don’t know you?” 

She sees the bullet fly through the air; she sees the moment it hits you, the way you go rigid. Dead. Dying? 

“It’s crazy because it usually takes years for me to feel about someone the way I feel about you, and I just… I just wanted to tell you that it’s okay to let me in. I want to hear everything, to know everything.” 

“Oh.” What had you expected when you kissed her? “Oh, Leah.” 

“You don’t have to apologise.” She assigns your guilt, the tears in your eyes, to your distance. Perhaps you hadn’t realised, perhaps it is a coincidence Leah has never slept in the bed you used to share with Alexia. Maybe you are unaware that Leah has never heard you speak Spanish, and doesn’t know a single thing about your life in Barcelona. 

You’re a busy person, after all. 

“No, no,” you dismiss quickly, shaking your head. Leah can’t help but wonder if the paranoid voice in her head is right; has she been reading too much into this? “Fuck, I am such a twat.” 

But you don’t elaborate further, asking how she’s feeling, distracting her from your realisation about her realisation. Before Leah knows it, you are making her laugh harder than she has in a month, and soon, like most good things, your visit comes to an end. 

Returning to Barcelona is a little weird. 

You feel as though you have done nothing but check over your shoulder the entire journey, staring the past straight in the eye and wishing you could change it. 

You hadn’t meant to make her fall in love with you. (But she has. Oh, she has.) 

This week’s swap is no different; the same park as usual, the same pleasant weather to undergo an unpleasant task. 

On the bench usually occupied by Olga, a different, blonder head comes into view. 

“Irene?” you ask in surprise, wondering if she has been sent in Olga’s stead or just so happens to have brought Mateo, her son, to the very same park. You sit down beside her, somewhat pleased to not see Alexia’s henchwoman today. “Where’s the free childcare?” 

The defender’s eyes narrow, as though she is debating whether or not she should tell you. 

Irene has known Alexia for a long time, and, by extension, has known you for a long time too. She is calm, level-headed, and mature, much like Alexia. Except Irene hasn’t ever thought to cheat on her wife. 

You are clearly in a lot of pain, and you have a right to be; Irene does not rise to your comment. “Olga has gone on holiday,” she states with practised neutrality. 

“Ah, they’ve broken up.” 

Eyebrows raised, she turns to you, breaking her line of sight that encompasses Nico, Mateo, and Elena. The playground is small enough, and very safe. “They were never together.” You wait patiently for her analysis of whatever the fuck was going on between them. “Olga said she wasn’t what Alexia needed. She’s on holiday with Carla, and I guess she is quite upset.” 

“And Alexia?” You know Irene does not like to gossip, nor stir the pot. So you can be nosy about how she is doing. 

“I think her ego was bruised, but she sees Olga’s point. She has been… better recently. She’s focused on getting back onto the pitch, and Jona is only saying good things about it.” Irene’s eyes brighten at the thought of her captain’s recovery, and her tone soars through the air. The entire team has worried for Alexia, spending their own nights tossing and turning, wondering if the old version of her will ever return. “I know you two don’t speak, but if you did, you’d get a glimpse of what it was like before.”

You can’t help your smile, and Irene does not make you feel pathetic for wearing it. “Good.” 

“I heard you were in London?” 

“Visiting a… friend.” Irene is not a gossip, you remind yourself. “I think I might have to stay in this country for a bit and let things cool down over there.” 

She chuckles. “Whose heart have you broken?” She won’t tell Alexia, when Alexia inevitably asks about you, that you are seeing someone. Not that you have confirmed that to her. 

“I’m yet to break it,” you tell her, sighing, “but I know I will, and that is much, much worse.”

“Hey, at least you have two weeks of being endlessly busy to keep your mind off it.”

Children change a lot in two weeks, so Irene then launches into an update on school, clubs, and everything else. She gets the information from Alexia, of course, who writes out a list every time you switch over. No one has ever handed you the piece of paper before, worried that her handwriting will be an unnecessary reminder of the pain she has caused you, but, for some reason, Irene does today.

You are not put off by the swirling Spanish in front of you, instead choosing to study it. You have spent hours in Alexia’s lap as she scrawls out football notes upon football notes, scribbling prompted by footage or, freakishly, her own memory. From the lightness of the indentations of the pen, you figure that Alexia is exhausted. From the half-finished sentences, you decide that she was rushing when she wrote this. 

But, as much as you delight in your brief analysis of the evidence in your palms like Sherlock Holmes solving a mystery, you can’t ignore just how greatly you have missed the letters that swim between the lines (and the hand from which they were written). 

Irene spares you your dignity by standing from the bench and checking on the children just as your tears begin to fall. 

…

You take one last look in the mirror embedded in the sun visor, ensuring your hair is perfectly in place and your earrings match your cream, sleeveless turtleneck to poise you just between casual and smartly-dressed. A quiet grumble from the backseat draws your attention away from your reflection, though your last glimpse at your concealed eyebags and red-rimmed irises leaves you feeling a little dejected and mourning the days you’d actually get some sleep. (Or wouldn’t, smoking cigarettes on the balcony while talking Alexia’s ear off.) 

“Mama, we go,” decides Elena with a huff, tugging on the buckle of her car seat. 

It’s Nico’s first-ever recital tonight. 

He started playing the piano in September, when his teacher at school had mentioned how he boasted to the children in his class that he was a musician: ‘if I am Catalan because my mami is Catalan, then I am musician because my mami is musician’. You felt guilty. His teacher says he is naturally talented, voice lacking surprise but praiseful nonetheless, and is proud to name Nico his youngest student at tonight’s show. 

The bouquet of daisies you ask Elena to hold makes her look like a miniature carnival float, and she toddles into the venue by your side while you do mental gymnastics between the knowledge that Alexia will be here tonight and the nerves for your son’s performance. It’s nothing complicated, but you worry he will hate it. This is the only thing he does that is a nod towards you; his one deviation from his worship of Alexia. 

“Mami!” squeals the walking flowers as soon as you make it to the half-full hall. You direct your gaze to the three rows your daughter refers to, every seat lined with either professional footballers or family. With a sudden rush of blood to your head, you feel out of your depth.

You’re not sure whether the hazel eyes that find yours help or worsen that. 

“Keep it moving,” you mutter firmly, holding her hand so she does not make a break for it and tumble right over to the cohort of FC Barcelona and Seguras. Not wanting to get too close to them, you take your seat in the penultimate row, knowing Nico will not be able to see you over the grand piano set up on the stage wherever you sit. “You can talk to her later, sweetheart.” 

She is in an obedient mood, most-likely intimidated by the tension in the air. You tell yourself it’s the stress radiating from the line of performers sitting on the front row. Nico stands on his chair, waving first to Alexia and then to you (it’s your turn with them so you are a lot less exciting right now), before he is lightly scolded by his teacher and the first child walks up the steps and onto the stage. 

Five uninspiring children later, Nico is finally led up onto the stage. His teacher sits down on the piano stool and nudges him forwards. He smiles brightly at the room. You reciprocate, encouraging Elena to do the same to keep her engaged with an admittedly boring event. 

“Bona nit a tothom! Jo sóc en Nicolau i tinc quatre anys i ara aniré a tocar ‘Brillia Brillia Estel Petit’.” The audience melts before him. “Mama, that means ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’,” he whispers loudly. 

You send him a thumbs up. He sends you a grin back, before giggling as he climbs onto the piano stool beside his teacher. 

Situated comfortably, feet dangling adorably far away from the pedals, his chubby, little fingers hit the ivory keys once, then twice. 

You pray this goes well. 

It does. 

He plays with two hands, something you hadn’t expected, and Elena holds in her noisy yawn until after he is finished so she must have been invested in the performance. Your own hands sting after you clap with such prideful force that you are the loudest in the room, and the hoots and hollers from Alexia’s territory only make Nico even happier as he bounces down the steps and back to his seat to wait for the others to do their pieces. 

After the recital has finished, you walk down the aisle separating the seats in half to get to Nico, daughter-less courtesy of a squadron of football-playing kidnappers. 

“How was that?” you ask him smugly, his arms wrapping around you in a tight hug. “I knew you would be brilliant, even when you were scared you weren’t going to be. Do you know how proud I am of you?” 

“This much?” He holds his hand about thirty centimetres apart. “Mami says this much.” 

When he widens his hands, you gesture something even bigger. 

“‘Immensely’ is the word I would use.” 

“Im-men-lee?” 

“Es que nuestro orgullo llena una casa sin techo. Hasta el cielo.” 

“Up to the sun,” you amend, ignoring the way the voice has made you stiffen. You don’t read too much into her misuse of the collective pronoun. There is no ‘our’ in ‘affair’.

Alexia’s hand hovers by your waist for a moment, muscle memory getting the better of her before she draws it back into her body. Nico gives her a matching hug, telling her how much he has missed her. 

You try not to blame yourself for his derailed childhood. 

“You were amazing, petit,” Alexia says, picking him up with one strong arm and settling him on her hip. You grip the wrapper of the bouquet you are holding. “Did Mama get you a gift?” 

He peers at the daisies in your hand with curiosity. Shaking his head, his confusion deepens as he studies the bouquet you are extending towards him. “They are for Mami? Flowers are for love.” 

“I love you,” you tell him, not trying to make a point but instinctively prickling in the presence of Alexia.

The silence is awkward. 

A few metres away, whilst entertaining the sleepy toddler on her lap, Mapi is excitedly talking to Alba. “Y/n hasn’t killed her yet,” says the defender with glee, one of your admirers. The team respected you before, never questioning their captain’s judgement nor family, but when word got out about the affair amongst the older girls, most of them began to see you as more than Alexia’s wife. A new layer to your character was revealed; you are a strong, independent, and successful woman. Football nerds sometimes forget success comes in more forms than blaugrana kits. “They made such a beautiful couple.” 

“They did.” Alba watches as you talk to your son, your eyes actively avoiding the woman in front of you. “Our mother has sent Alexia over there to invite her to dinner. It killed me to see her sit alone.” 

You are too used to the feeling of eyes on you that you no longer notice the weight of people’s stares, but, if this were not the case, you would know that most of the heads attached to the bodies sitting in Alexia’s rows had been swivelled towards you for majority of the recital. Pity is never a desired emotion to have offered to you, but the Barça girls can’t help but feel that way whenever they see your forehead crinkle in an attempt to understand Catalan, presuming you only speak Spanish as you have more than enough on your plate. (And, as most of the players will admit, your children speak better English than them, so one can only assume that it is your main method of communication.)

“She’s a very good mother,” Mapi comments with a small nod, sucking a sharp breath in as she begins to sympathise with you even more. Not a day goes by where she witnesses the suffering Alexia’s idiocracy has caused – as Ingrid, her girlfriend, knows very well – and does not fail to scream in frustration about her best friend’s stupid mistakes.

“She’s a very good person.” 

They fall silent as they see your head tilt up, jaw clenching as Alexia begins to speak to you. 

“Can you hear what she’s saying?” whispers Eli to her daughter, equally invested in the conversation. “I knew I should have sent you; Alex is too socially awkward.” 

“Mami, she is talking to her wife,” replies Alba, though she remembers what happened the last time Alexia and you had spoken and the outcome of that. Maybe that commences her increasing agreement with her mother… “I guess you– Are they coming over here?!” 

Even you seem surprised by how your legs carry you towards the Barcelona clan, a step behind Alexia and Nico. Hesitant would be an understatement, but most of them are too preoccupied with congratulating the four-year-old they have come to watch to notice your tight-lipped smile and trembling hands. 

“Hola,” you say shyly. 

Eli pulls you into her strong embrace without missing a beat. “Te he echado de menos, hija.” 

You try very hard not to burst into tears. 

They take you to dinner; a plan you had known about but not envisioned yourself included in. Although it’s your fortnight, Alexia (through the conduit of Alba) had previously arranged to drop Nico and Elena over to yours before midnight. 

You blow off your FaceTime call with Leah.

The restaurant is on the lower level of fine-dining. It’s chic, but it does not make your children feel unwelcome. The table is set for five places, though Alba informs you that the reason for this is because the reservation was made before she broke up with her girlfriend. 

“Mama, what are you going to eat?” asks Nico, slipping back into his old life seamlessly, mixing his English with the Spanish he knows everyone can understand, his legs swinging underneath the table with an enthusiastic energy. He is still too young to pick up on how far apart his parents are sitting, or how you refuse to let your eyes linger on Alexia’s tanned skin, far too much of it shown off by the tank top she sports in the humidity of the busy restaurant. 

You glance around the room, searching for those who have recognised you. Under the weight of at least four curious stares, you motivate yourself to enjoy your meal. 

“Not sure yet, babe,” you answer. “Alba, do you fancy sharing something?”

“Yeah, of course.” The younger Putellas smiles. Alexia knows who has lost the war.

Dinner passes with light conversation centred on very neutral topics. No man’s land is clearly the children, and you had never expected to be so desperate to continue a conversation about school lunches until the other options are how Alexia had an affair with her teammate or that your song with her favourite singer is topping the charts and explicitly about being cheated on. 

Although you and Alexia both watch how many times your wine glasses are refilled, Alba lets loose, as does Eli (probably to ease the stress on her heart that her girls force upon her). Their cheeks redden and Nico begins to yawn, Elena already curled into your side halfway between dreams and reality. 

“Should we head out?” you ask it to the table, but the only functioning person is Alexia, really, and so you close your eyes to avoid having to make eye contact. 

“I should probably get Mama and Alba into a taxi.” 

“If you call one for them, I will call one for us?” Your suggestion is instinctive; an old habit reminiscent of many similar nights, back when there was love and happiness and a relationship that didn’t feel like walking on a floor made of broken glass. “Or did you drive here?” 

“No, but you drove,” comes Alexia’s reminder. Internally, you face-palm. Parking the car before dinner seems like years ago; something feels different now. “But if you don’t feel up to it, I could drive you home. I haven’t had much to drink and I have nothing else planned for tonight. Elena is practically in a coma anyway.” 

You laugh – a softened version of it so as to not rouse the dead weight of your daughter. 

“Are you sure?” 

It’s late.

“Yes, I’m sure.” 

I don’t care. 

“Mama,” Alba slurs, pulling her mother in close. “The saint has given her sinner a second chance.” 

It may not be as quiet as she thinks it is. Alexia, occupied, is deaf to the comment. You are not.

This is not a second chance. 

This is a lift home. 

The last time all four of you sat in a car together was the day you found out about Alexia’s affair. 

You had suffered then – are still suffering now – but your anger was hot and sharp and new. Fresh wounds. 

Now, though more scabbed-over than healed, those wounds no longer seem to gush blood; you entertain Alexia’s stiff small-talk. 

She asks about the tour, never veering too far off the road of practicality and shared custody. When does it resume? Which has been your favourite show? 

“Wembley is like playing El Clásico in Camp Nou,” she determines, not needing to ask about that because she knows you too well. 

Your memories of the London shows involve a naked Leah Williamson. (If only she knew that!) 

“Yeah, London was great.”

Awkwardness is part of Alexia’s personality; something you are fairly certain you still love. She is shy, though it perhaps comes off as stoicity, and she has never been good at making conversation. You know she hates it, and you know that her eyes, Alexia’s eyes, are gazing at you every time she thinks you are not looking. 

She is weary about the desire darkening her pupils, but she does not do well to hide her hunger nonetheless. 

“Go into the carpark,” you instruct as you approach your building.

Wordlessly, she presses the correct pin into the pin-pad, never having forgotten it. 

She parks the car beside a new-looking Mercedes. It’s not a car for children, and she imagines it reeks of cigarettes – there is no way you have stopped smoking. 

It belongs in the carpark; in your little world of celebrities and male footballers; of money and fame and fortune. (One could argue you lack the latter, what with your current situation.) Alexia’s life has never moulded with yours. 

Perhaps it never will. 

Perhaps she slept with Jenni because they are equals, you think. Because Jenni understands Alexia in a way you cannot. 

“Mami,” cries a quiet voice from the backseat. You stop staring at the grey, concrete walls, snapping back to reality as Alexia shifts to turn her attention to the source of the whimpering. “No quiero que te vayas.” 

“Lela, me tengo que ir.” 

“Pero–” 

“You could always come up to say goodnight to them?” 

It starts off innocently. 

Of course it does. Of course you are nowhere near forgiveness, more likely to forget about the crushing affair before you excuse any of her actions. Sometimes, you wish for amnesia. Sometimes, you refer to the tab open in Safari – ‘is there a drug that makes you forget?’. 

Alexia is granted a tuck-in and a story for each child, glad that their rooms are separate so that her time in her home is prolonged. The walls are familiar, the floor is the same. There are new pictures in new frames, but the old ones have not been removed. If you had ever wished to take photographs of your relationship down, you have never acted on it. 

She realises you must not spend a lot of time here alone. Maybe you cannot bear it. Maybe your life in London is more important to you than she had thought. 

Anyway, for as much as she subtly noses around and draws out the night, she has no intention of overstaying her welcome, sure that she probably did that the minute she stepped inside. 

In fact, she is on her way out, under the assumption that you will not want to speak to her.

“So you’re back to playing?” 

“Sí.” 

A doorway conversation. 

You’re English. You’re very polite. Alexia knows this, tries to not get her hopes up. 

“Does that mean you don’t want a taste of this ‘97?” You hold the bottle up to her, the cork lying on the granite worktop with the incriminating suggestion that you have already had a glass. 

“We play the day after tomorrow.” 

“Oh, Ale, this is a good one.” 

How many times have you said that to her before? The same tone, the same look in your eye; red tinting your lips, one hand on a lighter because you smoke when you’re drunk, even if you refuse to touch the cancer-sticks when you are sober. 

“Was this a gift?” she asks, drawn into your magnetic field like a flimsy paper clip; thin, worn metal trying to piece the pages of her life back together. “Or have you been making ridiculous purchases again?” 

“I can assure you that it is not ‘ridiculous’.” You moan in delight as you take a sip from a glass you subsequently hand over to her. “Gosh, that is divine, and you are simply going to dissolve when you taste it.” 

Dissolve she does, but one can attribute that to the company. 

The contents of the bottle dwindles quickly, paired with a vulnerable retelling of her ACL recovery (sans suicidal thoughts and huge, huge regret about the affair – she doesn’t want to bring that up, seeing as you are clearly trying to forget about it), and the warm breeze of the Barcelona nighttime. The salty air from the mediterranean mingles with cigarette smoke, though Alexia softly says that you really should stop. 

You hesitate on your next puff, but you inhale it all the same. “I like my wine smokey.” 

She opens the next bottle for you. 

The wine glasses are soon discarded, pouring becoming shaky and difficult. 

“They sleep all the way through the night here,” observes Alexia, surprised that no little hands have knocked on the glass door leading to the balcony. The last time you had reached for the wine, you’d moved closer to her. You have not yet returned to your original seat on the other side of the rattan sofa. 

You raise your eyebrows, under the impression that they were both sleep trained. “They don’t at yours?” 

“Elena keeps trying to sleep in bed with me.” 

“Maybe she likes you more,” you suggest with a light, alcohol-infused laugh. “She must have been upset to find her place filled by your friend.” 

“No,” murmurs Alexia, “it has never been filled. Though I don’t think you can say the same.” 

You swallow the stickiness of the wine running down your throat.

“Not in our bed. My bed.” You fight yourself. “Our bed.” 

“In Highgate?”��

“Anywhere,” you breathe. 

“It’s been months,” croaks Alexia, your hand pressed against her stomach as you slowly lean into the feeling only she can give you. “Months.” 

You kiss her. Time folds in on itself, and you are transported back to when every touch was electric; when nothing was tainted. The pain of the past months, the heartbreak, momentarily fades into insignificance as you lose yourself in Alexia’s warmth.

Her fingers tangle in your hair, pulling you closer, afraid that this moment might slip away too soon. The taste of wine lingers on your lips, and she craves the softness of them – she has been craving them since July.

“Well, now it has only been seconds,” you whisper as you pull away. 

With a sense of urgency, she chases your mouth once more, strong arms pulling you on top of her, manipulating your body against her with no hint of uncertainty. 

Alexia knows you well.

Her touch lacks curiosity and exploration. Her hands are experienced and confident in their movements, and she has hoisted you up and brought you to your bedroom without needing to have been told that this is what you want. 

“Is this what you want?” she asks anyway. 

“Please.” 

And she really doesn’t make you beg. 

Your hands roam her body with a primal hunger, instinctive touches to the most sensitive parts of her, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. Her back is tense, muscles flexing as she pushes your clothes off your skin, her own following their path soon after. 

Parted legs and soft moans. 

She slots herself between your thighs. 

Her tongue is determined, fierce. Sloppier because she is drunk, but, then again, so are you. 

Your fingers repay the favour. 

“More,” you request just as she pulls away. 

“Is it in the same place?” 

You nod, panting.

There is a playful glint in Alexia’s eyes as she finds the strap just where she left it. As she secures it in place, you wipe the sweat from your brow, forcing your mind into the dirtiest of thoughts to ward off the building regret.

The room is dimly lit, and the air heavy with desire. Your heartbeat pulses in the silence, the thrum of the organ drums that guide Alexia’s slow, deliberate steps back towards the bed, kneeling atop the scrunched sheets. 

She positions herself between your legs once more, and you can feel the heat of her body radiating against your skin. She leans in closer, her breath hot against your neck, sending shivers of anticipation shuddering down your spine. 

With trembling hands, you reach out, nails digging into tanned, taut skin. You pull her closer to you, urging her to take whatever she wants. 

You want her to have you. You want her to make it hurt less. 

As Alexia presses inside, a jolt of pleasure courses through your body. You cry out, the sound igniting a blazing inferno within her that grows hotter the moment you ask her to move. Feverishly, her hands move over your chest, finding purchase on your breasts with a dormant possessiveness as her hips begin to drive the strap in deeper. 

Your breath hitches in your throat as you surrender to the overwhelming sensation, encompassed by someone so divine that you begin to separate yourself from all things wrong with this situation. The headboard thuds against the bedroom wall as she pounds her thrusts into a rhythm, and you shut your eyes as you quietly ask her to kiss you.

Tears cascade down your cheeks, but you do not know to whom they belong. Her tongue smothers your moans, and her hips begin to snap into yours more urgently, with more desperation. The pressure builds inside of you, and you feel as though you might explode. 

You feel as though this is the end, and you are glad that here is where your misery terminates. 

You’re glad, you’re really glad. 

Your back arches, your chests pressing together, large hands holding you close to her. 

And then it all comes crashing down. 

Everything. 

You wipe your eyes once the orgasmic bliss subsides, seizing your wine haze as the tide goes out and destroying the blindfold that had deprived you of seeing things straight. Right now, with the pleasant ache between your legs, you can’t quite bring yourself to regret it, but you know you will. You haven’t forgiven her; you’re not sure that it is possible. 

“You can shower, but you can’t stay here.” 

…

Nico knows that he is special. He is lucky, and he is loved, and he gets to go to a very nice school that Mateo (his ‘cousin’) claims is fancy. 

He likes his teacher. She reminds him of someone he once knew – you have suggested the nursery helpers back when he lived in London. He is not sure if you are right, but he doesn’t remember what London was like so he tries not to think too hard about it. 

Nico’s friends, like Pau who is sitting beside him, all think it is really cool that he can speak English. Pau says she hears his mother on the radio sometimes, but Nico hasn’t yet grasped the concept of fame past the annoying camera flashes and big, sold-out stadiums. He dislikes fame as he knows it, anyway, because the cameras hurt his eyes and the stadiums are so loud that he has to wear ear-defenders that squeeze his skull a bit too much. 

“My mum is from Bilbao. My dad is from Barcelona,” states Paula as she swipes a crayon over the sheet of paper her drawing is on. Green wax slowly stains the white to form ‘grass’. Everyone is drawing their family today, although Nico hasn’t yet started, waiting for his teacher to circle their table so that he can ask for another piece of paper. “And this,” Paula carries on, squiggling brown hair onto a smaller version of the stick-figure father, “is Ander, my big brother.” 

“Who is that?” Nico asks, pointing at the fifth figure on the page, guessing that the fourth and Pau-sized person is, in fact, Pau. 

“My sister! She’s called Nerea, and she plays basketball.” Pau promptly makes an orange circle the size of Nerea’s head, which floats in the air between her and her sister. “My mum says Nere is going to be a lesbian, but I don’t know what that means.” 

“My mums are lesbian!” he blurts out, excited enough to garner the attention of his teacher. When she appears, he grins at her sweetly; the kind of smile that has melted many hearts, though Nico is unaware of how many people know he exists. “More paper, please.” 

“Nico, you haven’t even tried with your first one.”

She isn’t harsh at all, but he has slowly learnt to stop asking follow-up questions. Six months of exasperated ‘I don’t know, Nicolau’s has taught him that. 

He shrugs. “Okay.”

He learnt what a shrug was the other day, when Mapi told him off for doing it to her. (“Don’t shrug your shoulders at me, Nicolau Putellas!” she had chided playfully. “All I asked was which of your mamas’ houses we need to go to.”)

“Nico, what’s ‘lesbian’?” 

“Mama says football is lesbian. Basketball might be lesbian! That’s why your sister is lesbian.” 

“My mum says that lesbians kiss girls.” 

“Mama kisses girls! And Mami. And they used to kiss each other but now they don’t speak and me and my sister swap houses.” Nico begins drawing it out for Paula when she peers at him, befuddled. “Here is Mama’s.” A big square, a glamorous-looking woman inside of the blue shape; a stick with a circle on the end of it; the notes he sees in his piano music floating in the air. “And…” he says, tongue sticking out as he concentrates on the opposite half of the page, “here is Mami’s.” 

He draws a football. He picks up the red crayon too, and uses both the blau and the grana simultaneously. “Mami plays football for Barça.” He draws two lines on Alexia’s t-shirt. 11. “Mami made me get 11 at football.” Nico had originally worn the 10, but then the affair had come to light and Alexia was suddenly deep in conversation with his coach and apologising to the boy Nico then had to swap shirts with. 

Then, he drops the crayons in his hand and searches for the stack near Paula. He selects the purple one, gripping it tightly, his friend still listening to him with intrigue. 

“This is me and Lela.” Two stick figures are drawn in the middle of the page; the middle ground between each of the squares. 

Nico sometimes feels stuck between it all. 

When Mami got very sad, he and Elena went to stay with Mapi and Ingrid for a few nights. He held his little sister’s hand as much as he could. He always tries to remind her that he is right there with her. 

Mami once told him that it was his turn to protect Elena. Nico hasn’t forgotten that. 

“I keep Lela safe.” He has encouraged her, slightly selfishly, to call him ‘skipper’, which he has picked up from the Lionesses. Luckily, Alexia has not told him off for it because she doesn’t know what it means. “Lela is my little sister. She is a baby. She doesn’t remember what it was like when Mama and Mami loved each other, but I do.” 

The purple crayon scrapes on the page as he presses it into the white, colour rubbing out in the shape of a heart. “Lela and I are together tot el temps. Mami tries to take me from her sometimes, but I don’t let her.” 

His story – and ability to make Paula pay attention for longer than ten seconds – has already attracted the quiet attention of his teacher, but she moves closer as Nico continues. The four-year-old leaves out how Alexia is usually inviting him to training with her. Since Elena has yet to show any interest in football, it remains her and Nico’s special thing, and, of course, his mother misses him when it is not her turn. 

You benevolently give your permission if you have no prior plans. It is upsetting that the only hindrance to extra time spent together is the little boy who once worshipped Alexia Putellas like a god. 

“Nico, why did you want two pages?” asks Paula curiously, assuming he is finished now that his whole family is displayed on the piece of paper. 

He frowns. “Because now I have to do this.” And with that, he tears the sheet in half. 

Paula’s mouth drops open in surprise, as does his teacher’s. 

“What’s wrong?” comes a mature voice, a hand placed on his shoulder just like it is when the other children in his class cry. Nico doesn’t cry. He is strong and brave, like a little soldier. “Did you not like your drawing?” 

“No,” he replies neutrally, “half can live with Mama, and half can live with Mami.” 

“But now you are ripped down the middle.” 

He traces the jagged edges of the halves of his life. One of his legs is on your side, the other on Alexia’s. 

“I know, but it’s okay. I don’t cry.” 

Alexia does, though, when his teacher talks to her that afternoon. 

…

“I slept with Alexia,” you confess quietly, comforted by the sound-proofing of Anya’s home-studio. She asked for help with her album; your success might be contagious, she insists. “Last week, when Nico had that recital.” You clutch your mug protectively, as if she will strip you of the right to drink your tea to punish you for your crime. 

Anya is unsure what you would like her to say. You search her face for anger, but do not find it. 

“If Gio were here, she’d probably slap you.” 

You snort, almost spilling hot liquid all over yourself. “You two are like my mothers, and you’re the nicer one by far.” 

“God, you are such an idiot.” 

“And a slag.” She waits for your next admission with excitement. “I also slept with Leah Williamson.” 

“Do you think you and Alexia are just destined for polyamory?” Her amusement is quite pleasant, but one thing wasn’t dulled by the wine that night and you have been dying to tell someone about it.

Your knee bounces up and down as you gear up for it, having thought it through 

“I think we are destined for each other.” 

Song-writing be damned, Anya fully removes her headphones, placing the equipment beside her keyboard before letting out a small, exasperated laugh. “You are in love with Alexia again,” comes her accusation, with no real malice behind it. 

“I never stopped being in love with Alexia. She just made it a lot harder to love her.” 

Is that an understatement? 

“Hey,” you say with sudden energy, sitting upright and grasping at your phone, tea wobbling over the lip of the mug and running down your wrist. “Should we go to Bali in August?” 

…

You avoid both of your footballers right until the World Cup camps roll around. 

Leah doesn’t get to go, subjected to the ACL curse. Alexia’s call-up is not necessarily unexpected, but you do find yourself wondering how many more betrayals her friendship with Mapi León can handle. (Mapi is on her last straw, but she knows her friend really needed the win after her hellish year. The Champion’s League was never going to sate Alexia’s hunger to be the best at football – possibly an overcompensation for her terrible relationship skills.)

Your children, this time, are delivered to the park by their very own mother. Alexia beats Leah in this sense, because she has a valid excuse to see you without confessing feelings you do not want to hear. 

“I have something for you,” she says just after she has finished her goodbyes, pressing a small box into your hands. Her voice is filled with nerves and you are intrigued, hating yourself for being so. “Don’t open it until you get back home.” Her eyes meet yours for a moment. I’m sorry, they seem to say. “Alright, have fun in Bali, and don’t forget that I legally have custody but I am not going to go to court to battle you for it as long as you put them in Spain kits for Spain matches.” 

She could, if she wanted to be difficult, have you send Nico and Elena to New Zealand during her weeks. It would be very unreasonable, but the contract your lawyers drew up still stands. 

“They were delivered yesterday. I think it’s going to be a struggle to convince them to put on the worst kit ever.” You still don’t forgive Alexia for cheating on you, but there has come a point where acceptance replaces the animosity. Nico’s teacher has been the catalyst in this step forward. The developmental pamphlets she had thrust in your faces were enough for the two of you to come to a mutual agreement of increased civility (that maybe, maybe was only made possible by the fact that you have very recent memories of each other’s orgasms). “But, yes, I agree to your terms. Don’t forget that his favourite player is Alessia Russo, however.” 

“He is in a phase where I am ‘uncool’! It’ll pass.” 

“If you say so, Alexia.” 

“Anyway,” she carries on, rolling her eyes. “Open it when you get home.” She… presses a kiss to your cheek? “I’m so sorry, mi amor.” 

You blink back your surprise, but she is gone before you can reply. 

The small, neatly-wrapped box sits in the palm of your hand, the corners edging off your skin and sticking out as you stare at it. Nico and Elena continue their (unsupervised) playing, but you manage to call out a warning for ‘five more minutes and then we’ve got to pack’ while you examine Alexia’s gift.

Is this how Pandora felt? 

If you open it, what will be unleashed?

Alexia, before now, hasn’t actively pursued your forgiveness. She has given you the time and the space you had broken-heartedly requested, nodding as you communicated your wishes to her through someone else, never before able to confront the face that tore up your life before your eyes. 

There was a time when all you ever wanted to do was talk to her, but she tried to forget about that when she realised the extent at which you went to avoid an interaction. When she had understood your desperation to be left alone fully, she began to breathe. The step backwards gave her room to examine just how royally she had fucked it all. 

She now feels a bit more capable of tackling the clean-up, working with a much clearer mind. Everyone is relieved that she hasn’t killed herself, or, at least, that she is keeping those thoughts at bay. 

You realise that she has bought you a ring, and regardless of whether you wear it or not, she wants to tell you that she is sorry.

...

IT'S NOT OVER YET! THIS WILL TAKE YOU TO THE SECOND HALF

[soobadnoonecanstopher]

Rat Bastard - Part 2

Pairing: You x Kyungsoo

Rating: M (Mature)

Word Count: 8800

Warnings: There were too many beds, Enemies to Lovers, Spiders (imaginary spiders in a fictional story, as fake as you can get)

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Not a single soul had spoken a word to you in more than three hours.

You’d spent the first two of those three hours watching saved Netflix movies on your phone. You still didn’t have any signal and after two solid hours of mindless television, now you didn’t have any battery either.

The third hour was spent laying on your bed, the one situated as far away from him as physically possible, in various positions of extreme unrest and terrible boredom.

Your latest position was an upside down pose with your legs propped up vertically against the wall and your head hanging off of the edge of this tiny bed. It was weirdly comfortable feeling the way the blood pooled deep inside of your brain and your view of this room flipped upside down, the ceiling was the floor now. If you walked across it you’d have several speed bumps in the form of fluorescent tube lights to contend with. One couldn't just walk straight either, there were a few big ceiling fans that might slice up your ankle at a moment's notice if someone happened to flip the switches on the walls. You wondered if the fans still worked. They all looked as if they hadn’t spun in years and you found yourself finding common ground with them for it had also been years since someone had flipped your switch and sent you spinning. You probably had a few cobwebs too. Maybe even some loose wiring.

You tried closing your eyes but this room, with its lifeless cement walls, was too still and too quiet. You started to hear new sounds the longer you existed in this perpetual state of oppressive silence.

You could hear your own heart beating inside of your chest. It was a noisy racket. You could hear your own annoyingly steady breathing and when you held your breath you could hear your absence of breathing and then worse, the count down to your eventual suffocation. You could hear that timer and the small grunts of your lung muscles fighting against your own death and the noisy gasp for air when your survival instincts kicked in and jump started your breathing again — your silly brain refused to let you die. Again and again you listened. A gurgle in your stomach paired with the twinge you felt with the growl. The sound of your throat constricting and the saliva that pooled inside of your mouth was swished backward and swallowed down your throat, temporarily closing up your ears and the sound of the pressure that changed as it went down. Every sound that happened inside of you was up for grabs. Every twitch and breath could be a source of some stimulation for your brain. Eventually your ears drifted further.

You could hear wind outside and some sort of groaning sounds of what you assumed was the building you were stuck inside the belly of, shifting and shaking with the strong winds outside. Even those sounds eventually shifted to the background of your focus and at the tail ends of the third hour you swear to God you began to hear him.

A small shift on top of his bed at the far end of the room. The quietest throat clearing. A rustling of, now, dry cotton fabric as blunt nails scratched three times over an itch on his skin. A deep breath pulled into his lungs slowly and exhaled through plump parted lips. Once you’d managed to tune into the sound of the air of his lungs, you heard another breath. A steady in and a steady out. A quicker, deeper pull of air as his rhythmic pace stuttered just a bit, and the eventual evening out again of his breaths. Was he asleep? Had that lucky bastard actually been fortunate enough to drift off to sleep and spare himself some of this agonizing boredom?

For absolutely no reason you could imagine, and there really was very little reason happening inside of you right now anyway, you could feel the pace of your own breathing even out. It felt almost involuntary the way you felt compelled; with his inhale, your lungs breathed in. With his exhale, your air left your nostrils and you pursed your own lips just a little, allowing some of the expelled air to pass over your tongue and slip over your lips. Your next inhale was perfectly timed again and you didn’t even have to think about the exhale; you were in sync.

It was absolute madness that you were paying attention to this. The only thing that saved you from actual insanity was that you were aware of how insane this was. The really insane people didn't know they were insane, right? This could be what you told yourself. This could be your absolution.

How much longer could you stand? You could always…leave, right?

You weren’t technically trapped inside of this room. Your mind was drifting through the memories of walking into this place following Sara who navigated the confusing hallways easily. She knew the way. You did not. You recalled walking by a few doors and many dark corridors with many large and mature spider webs in some of the corners.

You pictured leaving this room and walking with fake confidence. Just a harmless little journey. A bit of exploration without a flashlight, through some of the sections of this bunker that didn’t receive the benefit of the generator's power.

The exploration would quickly grow spooky with the soundtrack of the howling winds and the lifelike groaning of the building around you as you prodded on down an unknown path. And when you felt the first strings of sticky spider webs brush against your skin, you would soldier through them. When you felt the bigger, stickier ones attach to your arms and legs and lightly pull against you as you tried to take them off, stubbornly transferring them from fingers to hands and thoroughly coating you so that no amount of flicking could shake them loose and when shaking turned harder you’d only gather more webs. Your cool exterior would crack as the panic set in. They would cover your arms, your torso, reaching up to your neck and your face. And by the time the spiders came out, with their pokey legs and their angry jaws sinking down into your skin, the screaming wouldn’t help any. Screaming would only give them another dark and damp orifice to crawl inside of and bite down, giving you some sort of tongue infection caused by their venom that didn’t even have a cure yet because the scientists that study spiders hadn’t had a chance to reach this part of the world to develop their anti-venom yet. Your tongue would turn black and fall off. The spider would lay eggs inside of your windpipe and burrow into all of your tubes, spreading their venom and eggs and crawly legs and biting jaws and you would die an agonizing death, alone in the darkness.

You reached a hand up and scratched at a tickling sensation you felt on your arm. You swear to god you felt the slight tingle of tiny traveling legs the more you pictured trying to leave this room on your own just because you were bored.

What would your obituary say? ‘A testament to her generation’s short attention span, she couldn't tolerate even the slightest bit of boredom. She bravely ventured out into the darkness where she was eaten alive by man eating spiders just for something to break the monotony.’

You heard a real sound. The genuine squeak of old mattress springs compressing on the far side of the room. The squeak was more than just someone shifting in the bed. This was a squeak of real movement. Kyungsoo was moving.

You heard the push off of a body from the bed, followed by shuffling footsteps moving in your direction.

You turned your head to watch him. From your vantage point he was defying gravity and walking on the walls of this upside down room. The silent man caught your eye for a second as his hand landed on the doorknob and he pulled it open.

“Where are you going?” You couldn't help yourself. You had given yourself the heebie jeebies with all the spider thoughts and even though he sucked, he was the only other human being here that you could use as a spider shield. Surely they would go for him first. He smelled good and had soft smooth skin, easier for tiny fangs to bite into. You’d already planned on pushing him through the webs first.

“Out,” he said flatly.

You tossed your legs away from the wall and sprung to life. Leaping to your feet, you reached the door before it slammed shut and you pushed yourself through the opening taking several frantic steps to catch up with him.

Your steps were very quick. You were fueled by fear as you moved and you hadn’t been paying attention enough to his steps to catch the moment he reacting to the sound of you coming up behind him.

He stopped walking forward before you had a chance to shift and you embarrassingly hurled yourself into him, bouncing your chest right off of the warm, solid wall that was the back of the man. You hadn’t braced yourself at all. Your nose bumped against the back of his head.

You bounced off of him with a surprising force. Why did he have to stop so suddenly like that?

You stumbled when you hit him and took three tiny steps back to keep your balance upright and covered your nose with your fingertips. You managed to keep the small yelping sound from the impact concealed under your hand but it felt implied with the obvious thud of both of your bodies hitting together.

Kyungsoo spun around halfway and looked into your surprised face.

“Where are you going?” His eyes bounced against your face lightly and you quickly closed your wide-open mouth and dropped the hand from your nose.

“Out,” you said with a shrug and a tiny lift of your chin.

It wasn’t as if you weren’t allowed to leave, right? You didn’t need to stay back there in that room all alone. You had been planning on venturing out all along. You couldn’t help it if you just happened to leave at the exact same time that he left, and you just happened to be traveling in the exact same direction that he was traveling in.

His eyes narrowed on you for a moment, no doubt jumping to his own conclusions.

You stood your ground, crossing your arms over your chest to really sell it and you did your best to ignore the light tickle you felt running up your leg just above your sock. Spider. Big hairy spider crawling. The second he gave up and turned back around, resuming his forward momentum, you reached down and swatted away whatever it was you’d imagined crawling on you.

Your hand came back empty which you took as a good sign. You hadn’t squished something with a belly full of a hundred eggs against your leg. You didn’t feel the scattering feet of thousands of tiny babies crawling up your leg, under your shorts, seeking refuge in your own personal orifices.

While you’d done an excellent job of matching his breathing pace back inside the room, you were doing a shitty job of walking at the exact right speed to keep up with his quick legs. He wasn’t outright running away from you but he was definitely putting some cardio in right now. This was the pace of a speed walker at least. You caught up to him though and you even managed to read his posture enough to catch yourself from running into him again when he abruptly stopped and turned fully around to face you again.

His eyes were wide and his eyebrows were raised.

“Stop following me,” he warned with a low voice. Yes, yes. The very menacing man is very threatening. You tried not to visibly roll your eyes.

You simply shook your head and shrugged your shoulders in full denial.

You had no idea what he was talking about. The man was losing his mind. You were just out for a stroll. This was a big coincidence and frankly he was acting silly with his suspicions of you.

“I’m not following you. I’m just…going out.”

“Going where?” He challenged.

“Out.” You countered, “Out. Out of the room, just out.”

He definitely seemed like he had a destination in mind as he moved. You wondered if he got some sort of a grand tour of this place that you didn't get before you arrived. He knew you were full of shit, and you knew you were full of shit, but of course you weren't going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it. You wanted to see what he was up to and where he was going because you were not about to be left back there in that silent concrete tomb all alone while he explored and adventured over here doing who knows what.

You’d gathered enough to know that he was headed toward whatever room was behind that solid big blue door at the end of this hallway.

You were going to witness it. You needed something. Anything.

He gave up again and he was moving.

You were on his tail, stepping inline right beside him where he walked so you could pry some intel from him. He obviously knew more about this place than you did.

“What’s in there?” You asked, pointing to the blue door.

“Kitchen.”

“Ooo, a kitchen.”

You reached for the handle when he reached for the handle and you pulled at the door when he pulled at the door. You pushed yourself through the narrow opening when he pushed himself through the narrow opening and you found yourself shoulder to shoulder with this man as he pushed hard against you, trying his absolute best to beat you through this doorway. You weren’t about to just let him have it. The struggle made you grunt and you could feel his body tensing beside you. The struggle turned into a silent shoving fight of hands, elbows, and fingertips; causing you both to get stuck right in the middle of the doorway. The hard wooden door frame on one side of you and a brick wall of a man’s shoulders and thick biceps on the other side of you, pushing you back, forcing himself to move through the doorway before you could manage, with sheer brute strength.

He grunted and pushed back harder and he popped out on the other side of that doorway first.

He won.

You wrinkled your nose and scowled at him, deciding then and there that if it came down to it, he was getting fed to the spiders.

Beyond the doorway the room opened up into an industrial looking kitchen space. It was lit up and to your surprise was occupied with five people. Five whole people were in this room. Their surprised heads turned to look at the doorway the moment the door opened and five people witnessed the fight to get through the doorway with varying expressions of curiosity on most of their faces. Two faces, the two people you found most familiar here, Sara and Mr. Chen had different looks in their eyes. More amusement than confusion.

“There they are! You two are right on time.” Mr. Chen smiled widely with a note of excitement in his tone that you struggled to return with your greeting. You felt too caught off guard with what seemed to be happening inside here.

In here Doh Kyungsoo was a different person. The shift was jarring. He was friendly and smiling and bowing politely, shaking the hands of the three other people in the room. Making their acquaintance. Being very pleased about it. Catching their names and using them immediately to commit them to memory.

He was grabbing a stool and pulling it up, taking a seat around the big stainless steel countertop as if he knew it would be there and he knew something was coming.

Your feet were slower to follow him in here. The more you looked around you began to notice details. There were bags of supplies on the counter. Nothing bad there. Enough food and goods to get you all through the week without being able to leave this place. Pots and pans and kitchen utensils were on the stoves and you could even smell something delicious cooking in here. Aside from the kitchen equipment, you also saw bags, small office supplies for writing. A few had power banks charging their phones. There were wired earpieces unwound on the tables and a portable radio that was on low, giving some weather related reports.

There was a big white board with scribbles on it. The moment your eyes zeroed in on it someone else cleared their throat and another person grabbed the whole thing and flipped it upside down. You were still able to make out your name written there before it was flipped. Below your name, a small list with different bullet points. Details about you. Very basic things. None of it bothered you much. What did send a wave of annoyance though you, was the other column with Kyungsoo’s name written atop and a matching bulleted list. In all other instances that would have also been fine. The real issue you had was the single red hand drawn heart that sat in between both columns.

Someone in this room, maybe even all of them, had been crafting a scheme, it seemed. A scheme that warranted a red heart. It seemed that the five of them thought they were still working on a love match, despite the hurricane outside, despite the change of setting, despite the fact that there was no way…not even if he was the last man on this entire island… not even if the rest of the world ceased to exist and it was up to the two of you to repopulate the human race or it would face extinction…there was no way. RIP to humanity.

Your eyes reached for Sara. She avoided you as you expected she would. The single sheet of hand written paper she held in her hands was her excuse.

It seemed that they had been working hard to prepare something for you both. A fact that surprised the hell out of you given the current limitations and the unusual circumstances, but something that struck you as even more shocking was the nonplussed expression on Kyungsoo’s face. He merely sat down on the stool, chatted with one of the staff members who was preparing some dish on the other side of the counter and acted like he did not find a single thing about this puzzling.

The howling wind outside grew louder for a moment and the lights flickered.

”Okay then. Let’s get started shall we? The first thing on the itinerary that I’m sure everyone has read, the first event tonight is dinner. And of course the meals you will enjoy will be a fine dining experience. Made with locally sourced ingredients and freshly made in house. Luckily Javier, our head chef and our wonderful staff here prepared for such an emergency situation and even though we may be temporarily displaced here in this shelter, we will do our best to give you the most authentic Shifting Sands experience we are able to. Whatever we are lacking in facilities, we hope to make up for with our passion and sincerity.”

Wait a minute, there was an itinerary?

You never got an itinerary. You looked down at Kyungsoo and where he sat leaning his elbow against the countertop and the man seemed much too relaxed in his posture for him to also not have an itinerary. In fact he was the one who came here at the exact time that this event had been scheduled to take place. Not only did he have an itinerary, but he also had planned on coming here for a fancy schmancy dinner without telling you about it; and even had gone out of his way to dissuade you from following him here.

Mr. Chen continued speaking, “Now in the grand fashion of the Shifting Sands Resort. In spite of the unconventional kick off of the Seventh Annual Singles Retreat, and in accordance with the fine print, A. K. A. the terms and conditions that you both agreed to and signed during registration—”

You leaned just a little bit so you could ask Kyungsoo a question without the rest of the group hearing and without interrupting the explanation of what today’s dinner menu would be. It smelled delicious and you were sure you would enjoy whatever they gave you. You’d been getting pretty hungry actually. You hadn’t had a thing since the snacks on the airplane and you’d been trying to ignore your own stomach growling for the better part of three hours since you weren’t sure what kinds of emergency provisions this place had been stocked with. Now that you could smell the food you actually began to relax a little bit. You even spied some alcohol in one of the corners. Some tasty high end food and some cocktails sounded like exactly what you needed right now.

“I didn't get an itinerary,” you whispered over his head, “did you get one?”

Kyungsoo heard you but did not look up at you. His eyes remained fixed on the man in the suit giving his talk.

“Mhm,” he mumbled.

Mr. Chen continued. You admit now you may have missed a bit, “…and your partner will complete a series of fun activities designed to test…”

”So you knew this was going on and you didn’t tell me?” You gasped with the realization of his dirty trick he’d tried to get away with, “You even tried to leave me behind back there!”

“bring you both closer…”

”It's not my job to take care of you, Princess.”

You stretched your hands out toward him but stopped just short of making any actual contact. You did, in great imaginative detail inside of your mind, bring your hands right up to him and wrap them tightly around his exposed neck, letting your fingers dig into the sensitive and squishable windpipe that supplied this man with oxygen and allowed him to say such rude things to you; shaking and squeezing hard enough to get him to make that satisfying ‘GAK GAK GAK’ sound just before the lights went out.

“…and of course, the ———— the specially prepared five-course meal our head chef, Javier, has ready for you. It smells delicious doesn't it? If you don't eat it, we certainly will.”

Mr. Chen and company were all giggling amongst themselves.

Your hands were still raised for attack when Kyungsoo looked up at you but you were quick to drop them and hide them behind your back as you pushed a sweet smile up to your face. If he had noticed your murderous thoughts he didn't mention them because he was looking up at you with his big brown eyes as if he had something else on his mind entirely. Why was he suddenly interested in what you were doing? Why were his eyes so clear and big?

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he whispered under his breath. Whatever it was seemed to have shaken him up a bit. You suddenly wished you had been paying more attention to tonight’s menu.

The next words Mr. Chen spoke sent a chill down your spine.

“If you lose, you’ll face some stiff penalties.”

Wait a minute…

“Although you will still have a chance to win some basic ingredients with certain…limitations attached to their use. Break those rules and you lose ingredients one by one. If you aren’t careful you could find yourself dining on plain white rice tonight.”

He couldn't be serious. You’d agreed to this in the registration terms? You had to be imagining this. Maybe you’d gone mad with hunger.

“Dammit. Son of a— ” Kyungsoo was still having a dramatic reaction under his breath. There was cursing. For once you agreed with the man. There was no way you had agreed to this.

He was standing up and he reached a warm hand down and he grabbed ahold of your wrist, pulling you toward the side of the room with an oddly serious look in his eyes. You hadn’t expected to suddenly be manhandled so your legs reacted with hesitation. He had to pull you a little bit harder to get you to actually move but you protested, “What? What’s happening?” You were unprepared. You felt more confused than you were hungry, if that was even possible.

“Were you even listening? This is why you don't have an itinerary. Come on, we have to win dinner. I’m so damn hungry.” With his complaint, your stomach sounded out in agreement as it growled noisily enough for him to hear it too. “Good, maybe you’ll be motivated enough to cooperate.”

“Cooperate? What are we even doing?”

“Games, Princess. Are you slow? We need to play together and win the right to eat that dinner they’ve got us smelling.”

The games, had your partner been anyone else but him, would actually have been fun. They might actually even be something you could win.

You couldn't wrap your brain around feeling bamboozled. When you raised your hand before the first game to ask, “Excuse me, I never got an itinerary,” the upward inflection at the end made it sound like you asked a question and Sara, who had been setting up for a game, was the one to respond.

“Each pair received one itinerary to share,” she said as she moved to another table where she filled a big plastic bowl with cotton balls. She lifted an index finger and pointed at Kyungsoo. “He’s got it and was told to share it.”

His big eyes looked at you and then away from you. Between your hunger and his crimes against you, you couldn't bring yourself to say anything to him. You felt on fire inside.

It had been sabotage after all. This was who he really was. The more you learned, the more you wondered if the universe had saved you that day you’d been stood up by him.

There was a game involving little plastic spoons and cotton balls, the object of which was to work together to scoop up cotton balls while wearing a blind fold with a spoon held between your teeth and place them into a bowl on top of the other person’s head. It required both parties to get close enough to each other to be able to feel where the bowl was. The goal was to get five cotton balls in the bowl. Five cotton balls and you would eat dinner. Just five. This could have been so easy if only you could trust yourself to touch him without wringing his neck.

When time was called and you removed the blind fold you had a single lonely cotton ball inside the bowl on top of his head. His skin was flushed and he looked slightly damp from the effort. He wouldn't meet your eyes. His straight black hair was tousled on top of his head and it laid in a way that was infuriatingly attractive for how much of a scoundrel he was.

The second game was an instant loss. It was some sort of a trivia game in which you had to act out the name of a popular song for him to guess. The man did not know a single of the top 5 hits making their rounds on social media right now. The next round was him acting out the titles of popular animated movies. You hadn’t watched an animated movie since The Land Before Time betrayed your trust and scarred you for life.

The last and final game was back-writing. He drew something on a sheet of paper stuck to your back and you had to guess what it was. He was allowed to choose his own drawing.

It started out well enough. You were 80% sure it was a pair of eyes. Something with a pair of perfectly round circles. Not too big, not too small. There was a smaller round circle in the center of each bigger round circle and there was something wrong with you when he drew the next part. It should have been something easy, something with a face, but there was something strange you were feeling coming out of the tip of his marker.

Something that threw your mind back to more than three hours ago, the little bickering fight you had with him in the room. His wet shirt and muscles below the shirt. His toned and defined bare chest and — and yours. Your transparent top. That comment he made about your wet t-shirt and about just how much he had been able to see of you. The red hot embarrassment you felt when you realized he had seen everything. You’d dwelled on it for a significant amount of time during the time spent upside down on your bed in solitary confinement. His marker was making a double sweeping motion below the circles. The shape of your breasts below your round areolas and perky nipples in the center. There was no mistaking it. You felt your face grow hot. Your breathing quickened and you could feel the upset brewing inside of your belly. How dare he?

Nipples.

Nipples in the center of breasts. No doubt as seen through a wet transparent pink t-shirt and a very sheer lace bra.

Was this man drawing your own nipples on your back?

You gasped out loud at the thought and before you could control yourself you whispered out a scandalized, barely audible guess.

“N-n-nipples?”

“What did she say?” The two people across from you were whispering to each other. “I think she said nipples.”

“She didn't say nipples.”

“She definitely said nipples.”

Kyungsoo’s marker had stopped drawing. You turned around to look into his face, spinning further in some foolish attempt to see the paper that was stuck to your back in the process.

“Did I get it? Did you draw my nipples? Just to fuck with me, right? Because you saw them earlier?”

Kyungsoo’s jaw was clenched and his marker was still hung in the middle of the air. His face was pink and his eyes were closed.

“My nipples, she said. My nipples. He saw her nipples earlier”

After a few seconds he lifted a hand to run over the length of his own face and he reached for the cap of his marker, quickly covering it and tossing it onto the table in front of you with a noisy clatter.

You were straining, reaching behind you to grab the paper with your fingertips. You ripped it off and quickly brought the paper around to look at it.

It was Pororo. The little cartoon penguin from the children’s television show. It was a pretty good likeness. He did a great job. It didn't resemble a pair of tits at all.

You were a fool.

Across the room, you heard the squeak of a dry erase marker. Someone was writing something on the white board. Sara had made a note below the little red heart that sat in the center space between your names.

- he saw her nipples

“I saw his nipples too. Put that down.” You had your finger lifted and you were pointing at Sara. After a few seconds of her looking at you she turned back around and the marker was squeaking again. She placated you and made it even again. You were temporarily satisfied to see, ‘- she saw his nipples too,’ written below the heart.

“I think one of them is more significant than the other.” One of the staff members, Jun spoke up.

“That’s what I said,” Kyungsoo said in agreement.

“Right?” Jun was going now. “I mean a guy’s nipples, that’s everyday stuff. But when a guy sees a woman’s nipples…that’s first base at least.”

Sara was squeaking again. Long slow squeaks. She was circling the ‘nipples’ bullet points. Beside it she wrote “1st base.”

“Wait a minute,” you spoke up, “how is that first—”

“That's not—” Kyungsoo started to object too.

”Okay,” You were both interrupted by Mr. Chen, clapping his hands together, “let’s move on. So you lost the game. That means we get to eat the five course dinner Javier has prepared.”

Another squeak sounded out as Sara flipped the white board over, effectively ending the discussion that the two of you probably weren’t ever supposed to witness anyway. Heads were nodding around the room. You were outnumbered.

Soon you were distracted by a new task he was explaining.

“Not to fret my lovelies, We still have a kitchen loaded with fresh ingredients for you to win. These games will be easier. I’m not a monster,” He was laughing to himself.

Kyungsoo had come to stand by your side and was leaning in to whisper something to you as you tried to pay attention this time to Mr. Chen’s instructions.

“I need you to stop fighting me if we are going to eat anything. We just need a few things and I’ll cook something good. Can you just be nice for like an hour?”

Was he asking you to make a deal with the devil right now? Yeah you would win these ingredients but you weren’t about to forget how he revealed the incident with your nipples during the drawing game.

“You didn't have to do that…talk about the nipples thing like that.”

You felt his hands on you then. He had gripped you by the arms and he spun you around so you could look into his face. His eyes were wide and his expression was deeply, deeply flabbergasted.

“Are you stupid? You did that. You did it. I drew Pororo. I never said anything about your goddamned nipples. They would never have even known about your nipples if you hadn’t said it.”

Oh he was heated. He must also get grumpy when he is hungry.

But he was right. His eyes were full of fire and passion and you replayed the recent betrayal again in your head. You remembered Pororo now. You had just been in such a rush to blame him for everything that you forgot yourself for a bit. You felt like maybe your brain didn’t work right around him. Maybe it had been the strict no carb, low calorie diet you had been on for the month before this trip. You’d packed plenty of sexy bikinis and you’d finally reached a level of confidence in your body at the expense of your own health to wear them. This was supposed to be a beach vacation, afterall.

“Oh yeah, sorry. Yeah that was a good Pororo. I’m just so hungry, I feel like I’m going to pass out.”

The fire in his eyes went out and his expression softened a tiny bit. If you hadn’t been watching his face so closely you might have missed it, it was so subtle. He was looking very closely at your face. His frustrations were replaced with something else entirely. Something you’d never seen before. Something you didn’t feel comfortable commenting on here. You didn’t need that kind of observation written down anywhere that could come back and bite you in the ass later.

“When’s the last time you ate?”

You closed your eyes with his difficult question. You couldn’t remember times anymore. You’d changed too many time zones to get here. “Barracuda,” you whispered with a little head shake. You really did feel awful. You could feel a sticky dampness on your skin.

“Hey, can she get like a banana or something, I don't think she’s okay.”

You’d had something shoved into your palm. Something sweet to eat. You lifted and you took bite after bite, chewing and swallowing and you were steered to sit down. Sara was beside you as you slowly began to feel human again and you looked up into all the faces in the room, admonishing yourself for seeking out one face in particular. You had no business looking for him first.

“I’m okay now. Thank you, Sara.” You patted the back of her hand twice and you stood up, keeping careful control over where your eyes wandered. Sara seemed to be looking at you much too closely and after a few moments she looked behind her where Kyungsoo sat on his nonchalant stool with his nonplussed elbow propped up on his aloof countertop as he waited for you to get your shit together already so he could eat something at some point tonight. She looked back at your face with a slight narrowing of her eyes before she was standing up and making her way back over to that goddamned white board.

You had to ignore the squeaks. She was reading into things again. She had watched way too many romantic comedies and read too many romance novels.

Mr. Chen was explaining the game as her marker squeaked and squeaked and before you had the chance to read what she wrote, the whole board was flipped around again. You’d caught enough only to notice another two entries had been made into the love column between both of your names. You had no idea what she added, and the curiosity was probably going to give you an ulcer.

Mr. Chen wasn’t exaggerating when he said that the games for the ingredients would be easier. They were laughable really; very basic trivia questions that either of you could have answered back in elementary school. You both soon had a pile of things that Kyungsoo would surely be able to spin up into something amazing. You’d never tried his food before but Claire had once said one of his dishes had almost made her leave her husband, so you were sure it was about to be good.

You should have been more on alert. The games were too easy, you should have known that this psychopath Mr. Chen had something up his sleeve.

“Now, If you recall earlier I mentioned that these ingredients that you won come with certain …limitations to their use,” He was explaining again.

“Only one of you will be allowed to handle these ingredients and cook them,” He said.

The limitations were just that. You were both made painfully aware that the use of these ingredients carried with them the extra rule that only one person would be able to cook.

Well that was easy. Kyungsoo would cook. He was literally a chef. You weren’t that great in the kitchen anyway. You could do very basic things but nothing fancy like he could do. Just when you’d allowed your posture to sag a little bit Mr Chen hit you both with the other half of the rule.

“And the one who cooks, will have to be blindfolded as they do it. Whoever is not cooking will be allowed to see, allowed to speak, and allowed to touch the other person, but none of the ingredients. Only the cook will touch the ingredients and as long as ingredients are touched, the cook must remain blindfolded. Any ingredient the non-cook happens to touch will be forfeited. You will have one hour.”

There it was. You felt so very tired.

You felt blindsided. This was ridiculous. One glance at Kyungsoo told you he had similar thoughts about this. It was evident now that those easy ass games to win these ingredients was a sham and the real game was starting right now.

Kyungsoo had reached your side and you could feel the warmth of his arm as he leaned in beside you.

“So, I guess I will cook. You’ll be the one telling me what to do. This isn’t my kitchen, but just tell me where things are and it might work. You wouldn’t,” his eyes narrowed at you and he lifted a finger to lightly gesture in your direction, “you wouldn’t try and actually kill me, right?”

“Kyungsoo,” you rolled your eyes at his silly question, “I promise I will not intentionally kill you today.” It was the best you could do. You were about to blindfold this man and give him fire and blades. You would probably do your best.

“I guess that’s the best I’m going to get. A flimsy promise.”

You had a sudden thought and you reached for his arm, pulling him back from the pile of ingredients he was examining as he got the kitchen area ready.

“I just had the best idea!” You heard your own excitement. “Let’s just eat the ingredients raw. Like a salad maybe.” You’d been looking at the mounds of veggies, you saw zucchini, lettuce and tomatoes, Picking up the mandoline and pretending to slice the cucumber as you added, “Sometimes you need to eat an entire cucumber,” with a giggle. He didn't laugh. He didn't get it.

He looked at your face and shook his head back and forth. He was not online enough to get the reference.

“Are you a grizzly bear? Eat this raw?” He asked bluntly while motioning to the entire fish complete with head, scales and tail fins that laid on the countertop in front of him. “No way am I wasting this. Look at its eyes. This was caught this morning. Right Javier?”

“Yes, Chef Doh!” Javier shouted in excitement from the big table where the crew, Mr. Chen, Sara, Javier and the two younger staff members, Jun and Roxy, were already eating the fancy dinner, just as Mr. Chen had promised they would. It looked and smelled delicious and you frowned toward Kyungsoo, giving in, out of defeat to whatever maniac-esque idea he had about cleaning and cooking this entire fish while blindfolded.

“Just because I’m eating doesn’t mean I’m not watching you two. Remember the rules!” Mr. Chen shouted across the table between bites, lifting his steak knife and pointing it toward you for emphasis.

Kyungsoo had his blindfold on. You waved a hand in front of his face to make sure he couldn’t see anything and you even dipped your head down below his face to see if he could somehow peak through the bottom. He gave you no reaction and you motioned to the group at the table that the blindfold was secure.

Kyungsoo was just standing there and you very quickly realized the entire point of this.

You had to touch him.

“Umm…” you mumbled out, “I’m going to touch you. Just a warning,” you added lamely.

“I figured you might,” he monotoned and you lifted both of his forearms so his hands were elevated, grabbing each of his hands you turned them palm up.

Ignore this.

This was survival.

Ignore this, it’s not even happening. You repeated this to yourself again.

His skin was warm and smooth. The backs of his hands had some of the softest skin you’d ever felt below your fingertips and you had to actually cradle his hand within yours to hand him the vegetables. He was standing beside the sink, washing things. It was a splashy, messy thing. You grabbed his wrists to guide him to the colander and towels.

“Which way is the bowl?” His hands were reaching across the countertop.

“Left,” you said while also trying arrange the cutting board and knife on the counter.

His hand reached out fast and he knocked a head of lettuce, sending it flying as it rolled off the counter onto the floor.

You heard giggles at the dinner table.

“Sorry, I meant right.”

“Right?” He reached right and found the bowl easily. That lettuce was gone. You weren't allowed to pick it up.

“Yeah, I get them mixed up. Sorry,” It was definitely your mistake. You always had trouble with the horizontal directions. You didn't know what it was about them but they never came out right the first time. Not when you were rushed and didn’t have a chance to really think about it.

“You get right and left mixed up?” Kyungsoo was talking now, he was lining up carrots and zucchinis on his cutting board and he was carefully feeling everything with his fingertips; the location of the knife, the location and orientation of the vegetables and he made a quick cut of the tops of the vegetables, clearing the scraps away with the blade.

“But they never change. Right will always be right. You only have to learn it once.”

“Feels like it moves to me, I guess. I never get it right. East and West too. I’ve always been like this.”

“Ahh, so just touch me next time, instead of saying right or left, okay?,” His small concession left you feeling odd in a kind of warm way. It wasn’t judgmental or pushy. Just accommodating. You didn't dwell on it. He was chopping. He was quick, even without his sight you could see the small touches he made with his finger tips curved in a way to direct the blade. The resulting slices were all perfectly even and he made such quick work of the vegetables you actually had trouble clearing the spaces as he worked. You had to work twice as fast as you thought you might to keep up with him.

The team of staff members had slowly finished their meal and had made their way to the countertop to watch.

One thing that struck you was how very calm he sounded here. Nothing felt urgent or angry. He was very controlled in this environment. There were small whispers.

“Where is the filet knife? It’s long and skinny and very sharp.” And you would respond by leading his elbow in the direction of the knife handle, always being sure to hand him only the handles and never any parts that might injure him. He found a rhythm naturally; moving around the space as if he could actually see where he was going. He even mixed something sweet looking into a container and popped it in the freezer behind him with minimal help from you.

Each of his questions received a quick response from you. Each instruction received immediate action.

“Can you fill the two saucepans on the stove with water and put them on high to boil? She can touch the water, right?”

“I need tweezers and a damp paper towel placed above the cutting board.”

“Where is the trash?”

You were moving as instructed, feeling quite proud of yourself when you’d anticipate something he needed and giving it to him the second he began to ask.

“Towel?”

“Here.”

“Oil?”

“Right here.”

“Garlic?”

“Here it is.”

Eventually a sauce was made. Fish was cut up in sections with a little, “are you very hungry? I’ll make bigger pieces,” as he touched the filet with his fingertips to gauge the size and thickness of the cuts.

Maybe this was your calling. Maybe you were meant to be a seeing eye person for a famous chef. You cleaned up behind him with ease, leading him to the tongs and even letting him know the moment you thought his frying pan was hot enough for the fish. He reached a hand out very close to the pan and you pulled his back hand fearing he might not realize how hot it was.

“It’s okay, I need to feel it.” He got very close to it and said, “You’re right, it’s perfect.” You felt about as full as you could. That was a compliment, right?

He hovered with his tongs over the fish and asked, “do I have it?” And you adjusted his position just a little before you confirmed, both with a soft “yes” and a little tap of your fingertips over his hand that held the tongs.

From your peripheral vision you could see Sara scribbling something on that damned white board of hers.

Most of his mixing and seasoning seemed to be happening by smell. You noticed he leaned in very close to smell everything he was using. Mixing sauces was done by smell too. He would add more of something after getting a good smell of it and finally he dipped his pinky finger in to taste the result. He was mostly quiet as he did this but after a few simple nods of his head he must have particularly liked something he came up with because he dipped his finger in again, holding it out in the direction of where you stood.

“Try this,” he said and you stared at his outstretched finger with some thick light colored sauce on the end of it. Both of your hands were full. You were holding the next things he would need for the fish and he was shaking his finger, looking for you, “where did you go? Taste this.”

You leaned then, letting your lips part over the sauce and trying to get only the sauce between your lips. You left behind most of it on his finger.

What you tasted though, was almost magical. How in the hell did a flavor like this come out of that random pile of ingredients you both won in the games?

“Oh wow,” you remarked honestly. Kyungsoo pulled his hand down and stuck his finger back into his mouth licking off the rest of the sauce you left behind and nodded his head in agreement.

“Good, right?”

Behind you, there was a furious squeaking as Sara wrote yet another bullet point on that blasted white board. Probably calling this little exchange your first indirect kiss with the man. Probably highlighting how you hesitated before moving in and how nonchalant you acted about it while your ears turned bright red from the embarrassment of technically having swapped saliva with the man.

Your hour for cooking was almost up. Mr. Chen had been occasionally announcing the amount of time remaining and you were gathering plates for him to serve things up.

“He can’t see can he?” Someone asked as they watched him work. The other members of the staff were enthralled and you watched in wonder as he plated dishes in pairs, starting with some puree he had made, swirling it beautifully on the bottom of the plate before placing the fish on top and topping the whole thing with two different sauces. On top of all of it went some sprinkling of something bright green and bright orange. The other plate had a chopped salad with greens, nuts and fresh fruit. He even pulled a sorbet out of the freezer for dessert and you could hardly believe this man had really made all of this in an hour while blindfolded. Even with your help the results itself were remarkable.

When the timer went off he removed his blindfolded and looked down at the spread, giving the smallest nod of approval.

“Now don’t go doing something stupid like falling in love with me after you eat this, Princess.”

It had been a joke, of course. It was received as a joke and the room erupted in chuckles. You had trouble with forcing the laugh in a way that was natural and convincing and you knew the reason why.

It was because part of why you’d been so hurt by everything cruel and mean that he had said and done to you so far was because you knew deep down inside that you were already very much in danger of doing the very thing he had warned you against.

So you did not laugh at his joke and the food was probably the most delicious meal you’d ever experienced in your entire life.

You did not laugh at his joke, not like Javier who chuckled whole-heartedly from the kitchen as he took taste tests of everything Kyungsoo had cooked.

You just ate your delicious food in silence and avoided the curious eyes of Sara who, alarmingly, also did not laugh at Kyungsoo's joke.

Sara who only watched you while you avoided Kyungsoo’s eyes for the rest of the night.

Sara, who came to some sort of conclusion that required her to stand up, walk up to her insufferable white board and squeak, squeak, squeak out some new bullet point below the hand drawn red heart that sat between your names.

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

[rogueddie]

Steve felt numb. There had been such a strong mix of good news and bad news and Steve didn't know how to deal with any of it.

Max is alive. Sort of. She's brain dead, which Steve understands as her just being dead. A beating heart doesn't change the fact that she, Max, isn't there anymore.

She's just a body with a beating heart, everything that made her Max is gone. The scolding looks, mocking tone she'd take, the way she'd put on a silly voice and call Steve 'Dad' whenever he worried over her too much. The way she sometimes called him Dad like she meant it, like she genuinely saw him as a father figure.

The way she would insist on him driving her to school and playing some of Billys mixtapes. The way she had cried when she told Steve how guilty she felt for loving Steve, the way she should have loved Billy.

But Eleven keeps trying to bring her back. Every day she goes back to that hospital room, holds onto Max with a bruising grip, trying to bring her back.

And Eddie. Steve still isn't sure how he'd been able to drag him out, running on pure fear and adrenaline. Somehow they'd gotten him to a hospital in time, they'd been able to stitch him together- but it's still touch and go. He's so severelly injured and they have him on so many drugs that, even when he's awake, he's not really. There's so much internal damage too that the doctors can't be sure he'll make it.

But he's alive. He's still fighting through it. And they're clearing his name. Hopper and some agents, working relentlessly on alibis and redirecting the blame. Its hard work, but it's working. And it's good news, Eddie will finally be seen as the good guy he is. But he's still potentially dying.

And Steve is so tired. He doesn't even have the energy to be worried when he sees his parents car in the driveway.

He stops when he finally gets inside though, blinking at the three suitcases he'd be given for travelling, clearly stuffed full. "Uh. Hello? Mom?"

It's his dad that storms in, expression thunderous. He's holding the vest Eddie gave him, waving it like it's damning evidence. "Did you think we wouldn't find out? You and that freak, Munson."

Steve stares at him for a moment. He's so tired, he's ran out of... everything. He doesn't even feel angry. Doesn't even feel irritated enough to roll his eyes. Simply sighs, holds hand ok, giving a defeated, "ok."

"Ok? That all you have to say for yourself?"

"Yeah, pretty much. I'm tired."

His dad scoffs, throws the vest at him as hard as he can. "Go find some hole to crawl inside of then. Change your name."

Steve puts the vest on, ignoring the way his dad flushes red, veins bursting out with his rage. He struggles to get all three suitcases in his hands, but he manages. "Mom not here?"

"She deserves better than what you've become," he sniffs, looking down on him.

"She deserves better than a cheating husband who doesn't love her." He glances to the kitchen. Raises his voice a little, just enough for anyone downstairs to hear him say, "she doesn't know about your secretary though, huh?"

He makes his leave as quick as he can, already sat in the drivers seat by the time his dad storms outside, yelling.

He spends that night in Eddies hospital room. Eddie even makes room for him to curl up next to him- it's a little awkward with the tubes and wires, but they manage it. The nurses aren't happy when they find them, their limbs tangled up together.

Robin looks painfully amused when she finds him sat on the floor outside the hospital, barely stopping herself from laughing when he explains that he was kicked out. She's not as happy when she finds out that he's homeless now but, like Eddie had told him, he has plenty of options.

It's only an hour later that Wayne Munson and Claudia Henderson are arguing about whos spare room would be better for Steve to stay in. It doesn't help when El throws in Hoppers cabin as an option, holding Steves hand and looking up at him with wide, sad eyes.

[trans-axolotl]

I saw in tags of that post that you're okay with people asking questions.

Does a NG tube hurt? Can you take a shower with a feeding tube? Any tips for someone who's about to get a tube?

Totally okay with questions!

For me, my NG tube didn't hurt. It was pretty uncomfortable to get it placed because of the sensory experience, but it wasn't painful. Getting it placed felt really weird, because your body isn't really used to the feeling of having something like that in your nose and throat. The hour after getting it placed was the worst, and even though I totally could breathe, I felt pretty panicked like I was struggling to breathe, was sort of nauseous, and the feeling of it in my throat was really noticeable. For the first three days the tube felt noticeable and caused me some sensory issues, but after that, I couldn't even feel it and it totally was okay to live with.

Yes! There's no issues showering with a ng tube. You'll just want to make sure the tape is secure and to cover the end of the tube.

Definitely recommend cough drops for the first couple days, it can help with irritation. If you're running 24/7 or night feeds, it can take a while to get used to sleeping with the tube, and having a wedge pillow so you can be sleeping a little bit more upright helps. There's a lot of fun types of skin safe tape out there on etsy to decorate if you want that. Make sure someone really explains to you how to use your pump, or if you're using alternative methods like gravity feeding etc, that you know how to run feeds. Getting something like the flying squirrel feeding pump holder and an adaptive backpack can be an easy way to carry around your feeding pump and bags so you can be more mobile, instead of having to be attached to an IV pole. Overall, I definitely just want to reassure that living with a feeding tube is totally manageable, and that you'll still be able to do all the things you're used to doing in your life.

Wishing you the best of luck anon, and feel free to send in more asks if you have any other questions! if any other followers who have had feeding tubes have advice, feel free to add on.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Shapeshifter Anatomy

shapeshifter is a broad category, covering any fictional creature or peoples that can alter the shape of their body. some can shift into pretty much any animal, like animorphs or DnD druids. some are shapeshifters against their will, like werewolves. I'll be covering the anatomical possibilities for shapeshifters with a limited ability to change their shape, more like werewolves.

the anatomy required to change one's form mostly involves keeping a lot of body parts "hidden" until they're brought out to use. there are a lot of animals that can do this! cats have retractable claws, eels have a secondary jaw in their throats, many snakes have large fangs that fold back in the mouth. etc.

hair and feathers are also capable of changing the shape of a creature by the way they move, like the quills of a porcupine or the display feathers of many birds of paradise. this is a much less flexible sort of shapeshifting, but it's a good option for intimidation and courting displays or temporary disguise.

to keep this post simple, I'm just going to focus on a humanoid with a singular monstrous form, but these concepts could be used for a lot of different creatures! though I haven't fully determined how to make someone go from mostly hairless to suddenly very furry. Maybe becoming a werewolf just gives you a lot more body hair growth and it puffs up during the transformation.

(image description: compiled sketches of different animal anatomy. in the top left corner, there are colored diagrams showing the different parts of a human skull and a wolf skull. in the top left, a diagram showing how cat claws retract and bend forward. on the bottom, sketches of moray eel and viper skulls, showing the eel's secondary jaw and the viper's folding fangs. end description.)

It took a while but i managed to find an ask i answered a while back about giving humanoids retractable claws like cats have. so that's at least one part of possible shapeshifter anatomy covered! the tldr is this: retractable claws actually require the first joint of the finger or toe to be folded backwards, and then the claw comes out when that joint flexes forward. it does make the fingers and toes shorter and more bulky at the front, but that's fine.

here's a look at just the skull and upper torso of a potential were-creature or monstrous humanoid.

(image description: colored sketches of a humanoid skeleton with a retractable fang on both the upper and lower jaws, as well as an extra joint on the lower jaw, and neck vertebrae that sit more curved in the first sketch and straighten out to a longer neck in the second sketch. end description.)

this could use more polish before it's really ready to add the fleshy parts on top, and they wouldn't quite look fully human on the outside. If you want to take something like this even further, you can alter the entire skull to be full of small moving joints, like how so many fish are able to fold up their jaws and then shoot them forward like a tube. or the sarcastic fringehead, a fish that can unfold its jaw as a method of intimidation.

(video description: a 3d model of a carp's jaw, showing how it's made of multiple parts that can all move and extend the mouth. end description.)

(image description: two photos of a sarcastic fringehead. the top photo shows this fish at rest, with its jaw frame folded backward along its face. the bottom image shows this fish with its jaw fully extended, revealing a very wide panel of brightly colored flesh on either side of the mouth. end description.)

facial changes like this are probably the most difficult part of making the anatomy for a shapeshifter. but the more moving parts their face has, the more variety of face shape you get! moving to the rest of the body though, let's consider how an upright human figure could shift into a quadrupedal form with digitigrade legs, since werewolves are probably among the more common creatures all this advice is useful for.

(image description: a simplified human skeleton and wolf skeleton next to each other, with an arrow pointing from the human to the wolf. end description)

pretty much all vertebrates have things in common when it comes to the form of their skeletons. the general location of each limb and the ribs and pelvis are always similar. but their exact size and shape varies from animal to animal. so you can't really make a normal human skeleton turn into a normal wolf skeleton. but you can make a weird human skeleton that doubles as a weird wolf skeleton.

(image description: same as above, but now the human shaped skeleton and the wolf shaped skeleton match each other, and the human shaped one is hiding its longer neck, spine, and tail by holding them with a far more curved shape while the wolf shaped skeleton holds them more straight. end description.)

okay they're not an exact match, but I tried. any humanoid being with a skeleton like this is not going to be able to fool anyone into thinking they're a normal human when they're naked. but with the right styling of clothes, a lot of the weird curves, hunched shoulders, and awkward feet problems can be hidden from view.

anything that gets more complicated than this will require extra bones and joints and muscles depending on what exactly you need your shapeshifter to do! a change in posture is a lot different than, say, being able to extend the length of their limbs or alter the shape of their ribcage by making it more narrow and protruding vs more flat and open.

I can't personally cover every single possibility! so you all will have to just use this post as a springboard and go explore more ideas yourself! I started with the idea of taking a human skeleton and altering it, but imagine what this would look like if the base form was entirely non-human! or if they were more of an invertebrate! extra arms can be folded to resemble the shape of a torso, for example. there are so many more options I'm sure I didn't even think of.

go put your mind to work and have fun!