#striped carnation | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

empathicliar · 1 month ago

Text

⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀what you deserve ¸.•* eren yeager.

𝟔𝐤. 𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 , 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐝.

༺❀༻ || 𝐬𝟒!eren , 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐫!eren , 𝐩𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐲-𝐝𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐤!eren , college ua , for my caramel babies , eager!eren , she / her pronouns , overstimulation , sweet talker , lots of kisses , multiple orgasm's , strangers to lovas , plot based , no protection , cream pie!! >~< , dirty talk , use of pet names.

" when you put a lil' umph in it, that's when i lose control. "

⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀

there's only so much you can handle in a day's worth before overstimulation kicks in. rocking in a chair for four hours while getting a new row of ginger bundles sewed in by your auntie is already enough. gossiping about how your uncle is a piece of work can get added to that list too.

the white juicy couture track suit you have on is hugging your curves tighter than normal. you have ymir's 'friend' historia to thank for that. you'd only spoken to her once about how loose your tracksuits were and how badly you wanted them tighter and she got to work, completely redoing the threading to boost your ego a little to much.

eager with your hair to be done, you'd already marked a couple of other errands off the list. your fingers nails are coded with medium length cut-out shaped nails. a white base with some carnation pink painted bows. not wanting it to be to basic, you got some pink and white zebra stripes on your middle and pinky fingers.

your white painted toe-nails are covered by the ugg's you had to throw on due to the weather. you were always saying you hated summer until it wasn't around anymore and the cold had you shivering in the warmest of places.

its something about looking, feeling and smelling good that has you obsessed with yourself all over again. the vanilla scent is leaking off every surface of your body, the oil drops in your purse coming in clutch every time you wanted a refresher.

it's about four pm when your hair appointment is done. its something simple you could always deal with. 18 , 22 , 24 inch hair reaching your plush ass, your back already itching from the prickling nest.

" thank you s'much auntie! " you're exclaiming in her ear, already squeezing her to death with a hug.

you're not even close to being done. this winter break is going to be different. you naively figured you could get everything you wanted done while in college, yet when you finally touched the grounds it's like your shoulders slumped further down into a unforgivable pattern.

you stopped taking care of yourself mentally. you never stopped being a pretty bitch, nothing stops that. you got all the main things done. your hair was always styled, you don't play that. you're always soft and buttery smooth. the pet peeve for any hair on your body making you cringe.

you were always smelling good, it just became apparent you weren't going out of your way to take enough time for everything. by the time five rolls around, your sitting on your phone outside of your homegirl's house, waiting for her to get home.

mirrors by jhene aiko is playing softly in the back, your tinted windows are up and the bag of chick-fil-a nuggies are half eaten to your right. being your passy princess until further notice.

it doesn't take long for nicki to get to her place. she has big shopping bags in her hands, big balling on one of these cold ass afternoons. " you have a key to my house, you could've went in. " nicki reminds you, it slipped your mind completely. you glance at the hello kitty charm that hung in-front of your key fob, your dorm room key and her house key.

the long, black table you'd laid on more time's than your own bed has a ring light above it. a strollie with different lash things you'd never taken a hobby to is on the right side of it and the actually bundle set you asked for sits beside a bottle of water. eating the rest of your nuggets while nicki took a few bites of her salad, you both talked for God knows how long.

it's been a while since you've been in this cozy place. the apartment is on the first floor and in a gated community. you were so proud of nicki, she kept her word on making it big in life.

" you still going to ymir's tonight? " she asking while scratching the top layer of your lashes. wrong decision. it's like talking through an intense orgasm. your grabbing her hand to stop her to reply. she's only laughing at you the whole time.

" y-yeah girl i am. " your muttering out, your own laugh pouncing off the walls. nicki is a pro when it comes to getting you up and out of her chair satisfied. she snaps a video of the lashes and your making a fake brave face the whole time trying not to chuckle from the silence.

your in your car again by seven o'clock. playing with your hair in your review mirror, tucking the strands behind your ear and letting the multiple fans in your car fully dry your lashes. the song is back to playing at it's last pause while you move your lid's up in a uncomfortable position and let the air hit the base of your water lines.

you've driven to ymir's place so many times from nicki's house, you've gotten familiar with every back road, speed bump and pothole. the potholes brings back a awful memory of damage you wanted no part of remembering.

the weekend commute of straight peace was in motion. you got to ymir's house later than usually and took a joyful stride to your favorite love seat. the comfort makes you stifle a moan. you've done to much today to not get a break.

a song from ymir's recycled playlist is playing, it might be from sza's new album but you aren't to entirely sure. the only thing on your mind is food and weed. in the middle of the table there's snacks. cheddar popcorn, cherry bite twizzlers, some sour gummies and gushers. you opted on the popcorn and two packs of gushers.

on the back, light tan wall is a flat screen tv that's curved more towards you than it is connie and you finally correct your suspicions when you notice the name of the song and artist. i knew it, your thinking out with bunched up arms.

its seems like its been to long since you've been here and genuinely had time to stay.

since college had started in february, you branched out quickly when it came to friend groups. it wasn't a challenge when said friends had been around since high school. ymir, the brown haired girl with freckles and the nicest jaw line known to man offered you weed for exchanged of a pencil in junior year and connie, a surly boy with short, almost balding grey hair and a sleeve tattoo his mother didn't approve of just so happened to be next to you pouting from your win.

only a month into knowing them both, you were already coming to ymir's house and smoking like no tomorrow. connie tagging along some of the days, but he was mostly with his own group at the time. after high school, you figured this was going to be the time you all parted, saying ' i'll see you tomorrow bitch!' and never actually seeing them.

you were more than wrong when you realized you all had been planning to go the same paths.

those year's led up to these moments. now, every weekend ymir would host these little... parties or when it was strictly chill vibes and no one had the time or the energy to run around with don julio in each hand. she would host a small kickback. only inner friends only.

that consistent of you, ymir, connie's dumb ass, a girl named sasha, who connie knew in pre-school, sasha's close friend jean or john. you'd forgotten a little to quickly for your liking. they'd been coming around for months and last and least, jean's friend eren yeager.

eren's... alright. you don't have anything bad to say about the boy. he's always sweet enough to you but it seems like every time you want to engage in a conversation, its over shadowed by whatever else someone is saying. at the end of the day he's still a stranger you hadn't taken the full time to get to know. it's funny how many times you'd shared a blunt with him, lip's colliding yet never learned a single thing about him.

he has a attracting spirit. the kind you found hot to an extent. he's the type to wear strong fragrances to turn heads and its exactly what he does. that skunky scent of lavish soap and expensive cologne he seemed to never leave the house without was a dead give away he was in the area. he's always adorn in sweat pants and baggy shirt's that don't do him any justice.

you could tell he takes pride in his look, well he somewhat did at least. he always has this self-approving look on his face. his fingers are always decorated with silver rings that go well with the skeleton bone tattoo that paints from his left veiny hand to his shoulder.

it makes it hard not to look his direction when he makes such a grand entrance. he's a real eye catcher, a pretty boy you knew shouldn't be anywhere in your area. you don't do good with flirty looks and bed room eyes. they could lead you to a spare bedroom any fucking time.

" |⋆|, ghost face or michael myers? " ymir asks, breaking you out of your mini tundra.

" probably ghost face, he's so fuckable. " connie rolls his eyes, taking a big hit from the blunt he'd been preparing for minutes. the bud is covered in ashes' by the time he pulls away, heaps of smoke coming from his side of the room.

sasha, who got the second best seat in the house sat a few feet away from you. she giggles. " real recognizes real. " you nodded with a smirk and clapped her hand, the noise echo's in the spacious living room.

" you nigga's are just freaky, that's all it is. " you almost let a 'shut up connie.' fall from your lips but the front door opens. in walks the person who was always late. eren. he has his hands in these loose, black sweat-pant pockets, you don't have to see those daring fingers to know he has them covered with hard looking rings. the grey t'shirt he's wearing has a design on the front you cant really decipher.

" what's up yeager. " eren tilts his head up for a greeting and makes his way to connie. his plush lips twist into a confident simper as he daps the two guys up.

eren's speaking again, taking a glance at the table with half of the snacks missing and only two rolls left. " y'all couldnt wait on me? "

" you take forever. " you say, bringing a dark blanket to your chest. " so what? " eren replies with smugness, his green eyes peering at yours with pure coy. you only return it with your infamous eyeroll to kill his dreams.

'i hate a nigga that knows he's good looking. '

" you live the closest. " stating the obvious, eren plops down in the seat in between connie and jean, folding his arms over the back, man-spreading his clothed legs to get some more room. its like he knows you want to look at his every move. he's too damn fine for his own good.

it isn't long before he's changing his seating position and he's reaching at that brown wooden table for a pack of rolls and the weed grinder. he opens the black container – seeing connie left him enough for one blunt. he's taking his win quickly.

finger's making quick toil on folding the creases in, tongue slipping out to seal it. you're face is fuming when he brings the lighter to the end of the blunt and the light reflects on his face. he's so focused on the misty smoke and not wasting the little he has, he doesn't notice the gushing look he's getting from the woman across the room.

'did it just get hotter in here or something?' you take a glance to the thermostat next to the goldish rimmed painting hanging above your head. sixty-seven degrees and no showing of anything getting hotter anytime soon. you chew on your lip. its probably that thick ass blunt ymir made you. it has to be kicking in or something.

speaking of the freckle faced stoner, she walks back into the room, you hadn't even noticed she'd gotten up. she's empty handed, using one of her hands to swipe a strand of hair out of her face. " bro, can we start the movie? i'm tryna' hang out with historia later. "

sasha ooo's like a school girl, wiggling her pale, small fingers teasingly at ymir. " you're always with historiaaa~. " sasha has this silly smirk on her face and the brown skinned girl groans from it, flipping her middle finger in her direction.

usually it takes a while to pick a movie. by this time the weed is hitting all of them and blurring the limit for time. they would often scroll through the same list on netflix and not even realize it.

this time is a little different, ymir is in a real rush to get to this 'friend' of hers. she has the tiny roku remote in her fingers as she continuously flicker through the movies. she ultimately stops on a scary movie and clicks the screen. she sends a look around the room for any concerns then actually plays the movie.

before the credits have even started the pop of a chip bag is already sounding around the room and cheesy flavoring is flooding your senses. sasha's wincing with a pouty smile, not realizing how alerting the noise was.

the first scene is a white girl manually popping corn. the volume is low but the surround sound speakers ymir got installed almost a year ago make it seem much louder. it isn't long before that same girl is killed in front of a big front yard.

by the time the movie ends, everyone is pretty much out of it. heads leaning on arm rest's. the lighters have stopped clicking and the smell of weed isn't prominent as it used to be. you'd grown used to that cozy smell. the foggy room is actually clear for the first time in years.

wiping your eyes like a kid, then realizing you had on lashes. you curse underneath your breath. looking around the quiet room, sasha and jean are sleeping soundly. connie was sleep twenty minutes into the movie. you could hear his loud ass snores. ymir isn't even in the room anymore. the second the movie ended she was gone out the front door but not without giving you a loused side hug.

you figured you were the only one functioning correctly and tossed the blanket to the side. the cold sends chill's down your arms but you don't mind it. it feels sort of good. your painted feet hit the tiled floor with a small 'plap' sound and you glance around the room to make sure it hadn't woke anyone up.

" where you going' ? " jumping, the fabric of your white, zip up jacket is grasped. instead of consoling your fear, the mad-man laughs.

" stop laughing bro, i almost had a heart attack. " you pause, taking a breath. " thought yo ass was sleep. " you explain further, standing up fully and getting a good, well hazy look at eren. his phone light is on dim and he's barely bringing it up high enough to make it known he's awake.

both of his shoulders are pretty much in use by the two boys he's squished in between. instead of looking uncomfortable, it looks like he found slight comfort in them being next to him. it's leaving a smile on your face instead of a panicked frown.

he hum's, dropping the dark phone in his lap. " still didn't answer my question. " you tilt your head, thinking back to said question.

when it finally hits your scuzzy mind, you're letting out a soft 'oh!' " no where, well i don't know. i just want some fresh air. " you're falsely admitting, stretching your body to release any tension.

did you really need some fresh air or were the stirs from connie and jean making it known they could wake up and once again take away the little time you had to get to know eren? it's probably the bud thinking for you at this point.

" you can come with me. " turning on your heels, you almost miss the several groans from jean and connie from being pushed aside. " you that eager nigga? " questioning with the slightest amount of tease, he's right behind you in a heart beat.

" nah. " turning back to look at him, he's already looking at your back side with a smirk. his own limbs being stretched out. he slips on his slides and you didn't feel like putting on your boots, so you opted on stealing ymir's flip-flops she kept by the door.

you didn't really plan this far out. it has to be around eleven or so, your to high to drive home, you actually didn't need any air and you can already tell its cold as hell outside. it was just the perfect excuse to get out of that room and into a more private one with eren, no one was going to interrupt your mission.

men are so easy, your practically nodding to yourself. ymir's back door is opened and closed within seconds, the back porch is nicely clean except for a few leaves and dirt that you didn't really care about right now, you swiped some dirt off the second step and shuffled to the left to give him some room.

eren is sitting down on the first step soon after, without the hassle of wiping anything down. now, its quiet and cold, and there's really nothing to say or do when the wind is speaking.

" how long you been in shiganshina? " he asks after long periods of silence.

" my whole life. " your replying, low eyes blurry with the upcoming mist from the weather. " and you? "

" born and raised. " then its quiet again. your messing with your acrylic's , only looking up when a tree bristles loud enough to sound like it might fall.

" those are really pretty. " quirking your head up, it seemed like you're staring into a bottomless pit of beauty. eren's not even paying attention to anything but you and the way your skin is still so moist in such cold air.

its little details on his face you thought you'd already noticed before that have you feining. you squint your eyes. his nose is pierced on the right side. the actually dot isn't a dot like yours. its a silver star that's small but glance worthy when anyone see's it.

his hair looks so healthy, not only in the sun but also in the moonlight. you're kind of jealous of that. even in its normal state in that low back bun, you can tell he isn't using men's one-hundred in one. the wind casts a breeze in your direction, that's giving you another reminder. the soft smell of lemon and something sweet like pineapple's is hitting your nose. such different smells that go rewardingly well on him.

" gimme' your hand. " your obeying it without question, he chuckles at the haste and you dare to drag your hand away. " i'm playing pretty, i just want to see. "

" why? " asking nicely and still letting him slither those slender, tattooed fingers over your bedazzled nails, he's humming again and not answering your question now.

" hello? " rubbing his thumb over your knuckle gently, the calluses of his own has you quietly swallowing. he perks your hand up finally and actually looks at the nails now. " my bad, my mom does nails. " you frown, still not understanding what that has to do with him looking at your hands like a meal.

giving him a better show, you half curl your hand and lay it side ways in his own. your palms touching and forming heat you didn't know you needed to entirely bad. " so? " you mutter, not returning the eye contact you know he has on you.

" nothing, she could just do better than this. " he flaunting out, stretching those delicate fingers ever so slightly. you don't even realize he brings both of your hands down and resting them on his rough lap, you're to focused on the cute little gesture's he's making.

" you letting me meet your mommy already? " it was cute how he wanted to get his mom some new clients, he must be a momma's boy. eren's nodding instead of laughing though, replying with simplicity. " yeah. "

" what's up with you bro. " you chuckle. " i don't even know your birthday and your trying to let me meet your mom's- "

" march thirtieth. " cutting you off, you almost forgot you had even said anything about a birthday. your brain is realtering itself to remember that date when this high is over.

eren's not ashamed to look at the prize he wants. he's been plotting for fucking months and nothing is going to break him out of this. his low, emerald eyes are falling down the pattern of your silver zipper, falling into your lap. undressing those lacey panties he just knows you have on under those pants.

it has you shying away, wanting to turn around in your respectful seat. that's when it hits you. that grip on your hand wasn't from your other one. it's from his, unmoving and finally locking into those intimidatingly attractive eyes, your glancing at those wet lips he managed to always keep looking mushy.

you know they are the softest lips you'd ever feel. like pillows sent from heaven. you grip his hand, no longer just wanting to feel his sweaty palm, but those fingers- his fore arms, his strong shoulders. everywhere he'd allow you.

" eren... " encaging his fingers into a tight hold, he takes a quick look at his thigh. he isn't able to hide the side smile that's forming. you don't even know why you're calling his name, you just wanted him to say something with that slutty voice of his. – just acknowledge you in every way possible.

" yeah? " your beady eyes are watering from the constant pressure of wind and its becoming so fucking obvious you both don't want to be in the cold anymore.

" what are you trying to do? "

" you want me to be honest baby? " baby... that word has you dripping, squeezing your thighs together to take away that ache in your cunt. you nod. you can't find those confident words anywhere in sight. its hard to say men are easy when you're soaking just from being close to him.

" i wanna take you to a room and make you feel real good. " his head is cocking to the left and those eyes he kept on you are dropping lower. his hand twitches in your grasp and it doesn't take much to know he's putting you in eight different positions in his head.

" we don't even have to fuck, i just want to eat your pussy. "

your mouth lathers with saliva, and your standing up to entirely quick. eren is laughing behind you and your so horny you don't even tell him off. you don't care about the three people on the couch sleeping good. you want to take this pretty boy up on his offer.

⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⚔︎

⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀

folded up, knees to your chest. the air is hitting your warm pussy. your panting from the littlest touches to your body. plush form being demolished by the stronger man keeping you still. eren has his hands in the bottom creases of your knees, applying pressure that only gives you minimal lay away to move around.

your pussy is leaking on the sheets, all type's of fluid leaving a stain you didn't care for. he's mouthing on your cunt, his spit coating your pussy in a new layer of slick. eren kept his word. he didn't need to fuck you to feel good. he made that known when he took a long lick from your entrance to the top of your cunt in a slow strobe, whimpering hard.

" stop squirming baby. " he's muttering into your pussy, kissing your puffy clit. face full of your cum and arousal. he's so deep in between those legs he can barely breathe. his stubbled chin constantly coming in contact with your needy, waiting entrance.

you cant keep your hands from gripping at any and everything. your holding onto the spare room pillow, covering your face and mouth to keep the others from hearing the total mess you're steady becoming.

" nah, move that. " you don't listen, your voice pouty and muffled in the pillow. eren doesn't have time to play games with you, he's been doing that for months. he snatches the pillow away himself and throws it at the wall.

" i wanna hear you. fuck them. " your spasming on his tongue again before you can speak. weeps of moans falling on deaths door from the amount of pleasure happening on your pretty pussy. your hiccupping from the lack of air entering your lungs, to caught up on the way eren is twisting his tongue over your sensitive clit.

eren's been licking, flicking and sucking on your clit for almost a hour. he just can't get enough of you. you taste so sweet and tarty, its like a fucking desert he can only indulge in. anything your body is willingly to push out for him to taste he's sucking it up.

fucking his tongue in and out of your tight hole, eyes open the entire time to watch you come undone. your hair is sticking to your face, the ginger bringing the caramel out of your skin and aiding your beauty. he didn't think you could get any more sexier.

" fuck baby, " smacking your inner thigh, he gets a breather before he actually dies in the best way possible. " pussy to damn dangerous. " he's huffing and hitting those soft, thick thighs, wanting nothing more than to leave his marks on your skin.

your cute little face scrunches and yelps fill the room, his mouth falling back on those fat lips to get another sample, tasting that sweet juicy fruit. his jaw is hurting and damn near begging for it to end but he doesn't give a fuck. he wants to make you feel good, too good.

your to much of a pretty girl to not have someone in between these legs every day. " 'ren! " eren speeds up, ignoring those pleas. " 'ren, baby please. " you're begging, the knot in your stomach forming from the endless pleasure. you don't know if your begging because its too much or he's to damn good at this and you need to repay him somehow.

– between the base of your thighs being smacked and the vibration of eren moaning, a shock ascends throughout your body. cumming for the third time that night. stars are forming in the far corners of your eyes. it feels like eren has full control of your body. he's keeping you still with only two arms and smirking from how fucked out you already look.

your body is still twitching and it takes a army and every working limb you have to pull him off of you by his hair. he's raspy and to happy for someone who could've died from being to pussy drunk. your chest is heavy and it feels like you can finally inhale properly.

" my bad. " sheepishly apologizing, he plants a soft kiss to your abused clit and toothily smiles when you give him a death stare. gently bringing your knees from your squished chest down, he's kissing your sore knee-caps, wetly sucking on the frontal part of your thighs.

somethings bothering you heavily and its making your chest warm unnaturally seeing him care about every aspect of your body. " why are you taking care of me? "

" whatchu' talking about? "

" this. " you lazily point at his hands that sting a way into your pores. " you kissing on me like you love me and shit. "

" wouldn't go that far. " your rolling your red eyes again and dragging a hand down to your tummy, letting it rest for the time being. " this is mandatory though. you just fuck with the wrong boys. " you want to take it as a stray but actually process it. have you really been messing with guy's who didn't think to care for your body?

it has you recurring every misaligning person you let into your safe space and have a way with your figure. " hey, don't think about it " eren snaps in your face. " that's why i'm here, ima take care of you baby. promise. "

biting your lip, your pushing everything away because he asked you too and something about that foreign feeling doesn't feel to damn bad. you don't have it in you to talk or ask him for anything else, but you spread those legs of yours and beckon him to come here. how can he ever say no to you.

he's shuffling in-between you, applying his hand on one of the pillows next to your head. you stare into his alluring eyes, raking your hand from your own stomach to his. he's gulping, his adam's apple plumping with nerves.

" you wanna fuck me yeager? " he feels like a virgin when you speak like that. anxious and scared to disappoint, he's nodding, bring his head down to plant a soft kiss to your plump lips. just like you thought, they're so pulpy and flush. he kisses like butter, like a piece of bubble gum that's so slinky you almost want to swallow it.

the kiss is deepening with the mood, the fist in his hair is keeping him from cumming in his pants. he almost doesn't want to pull away but he can feel her dripping under him and there's only so much his dick can take before it's begging to be buried inside that soft cushion.

he's making quick work with his clothes. sitting on the balls of his feet, he's tugging his shirt over his head. the sight of his toned chest has you gawking. it's a good thing he only wore comfy clothing, you would've pounced on him the moment he walked into this house.

" take your time... " you joke, casting your surly eyes to the space below your plush tummy. tapping your nails on your stomach. he's already groaning from the sight. you didn't think he could get any faster, he's slipping out of pants and those tight boxers in second.

to say you were disappointed never crossed your mind. you're actually fucking nervous. he's thick, with a healthy pink tip and some inches that make you squeeze your stomach in.

" don't go getting scared on me pretty. " stroking his length, he's bringing your left leg up, kissing the base of your ankle sloppily. his dick is leaking with pre-cum, slouching his tip on your clit. you both let out a soft gasp.

the feeling is euphonic, sensitive clit being brought back to life with one little swipe. your grinding lightly on his tip and he's hissing from how wet she is. " yeah baby, mhmm... you know how to do it. " he praises, his teeth biting into his cheek.

" put it in 'ren. " lifting your hips, you get so close to pushing his dick in and he aids it, his brows knitting, mouth falling open when he aligns it right, sliding into your entrance with ease.

the moan's fall off the wall. he's stretching you so well. the pain almost feels too good. your mouth shaped into a 'o and your hands are fumbling for something new to grab. eren has his head draped down to watch him slip inside of that pussy that cant help but suck him in.

he's whimpering when you clench- moaning when you're folding your legs around him to push in deeper. it's like he can cum from this alone. you just hugging him in has him gapping.

" pussy to fuckin' wet, fuckkk. " he's groaning out in between deep thrusts, pace picking up fast as fuck for someone on the verge of tapping out. your body is following his orders, back arched with intent to make him feel good. eyes rolling from the captivity of his being.

its almost to much when he pushes in to deep, hips runting into your poor cunt like she hadn't been through enough. his tip is ramming into that gushy spot inside of you that has your brain shuttering to working. your mewling loud -- unable to form a single coherent word.

legs pulled tight to hold him in, cunt tightening on his dick making his steady thrust sloppy for mere seconds before he's back to putting in work. dainty fingers coming to rest on his v-line, not pushing but not letting him reach that spot that makes you go fucking crazy. he's silent with how bothered he is about that hand, he knows you're still sensitive and recovering from those heavenly orgasms, but he's to entuned to stop when he knows it'll make you feel so, so good.

" move it. " he's stating with attitude, you refuse to and he only slows down. you whine from the loss. your moaning his name pathetically, lifting your own hips to get that feeling back before its gone. he holds your supple hips down, leaning down to kiss and fondle with your brown nipples.

" e'ren, come on! "

" you gonna keep that fuckin' hand down? " you nod, panting, surprised you were even able to speak in the first place. he's returned that pace little by little, watching your fingers retreat to one of the blue pillows behind your back, eyes closed.

head hanging low, hair coming out of that bun from all the tugging, he almost looks like a greek status above you- one hand on your tummy, squishing it down to feel the cave his dick is making, the other bringing your left leg back to his lips, folding you – he's to caught up in how response you are to his touches.

propping your ankle on his shoulder, leaning down to look you dead in your watery eyes. you cant shy away from nothing now. he's thrusting in deep, pussy gushing all over the sheets and his length. eye's faltering when it comes to keeping that contact.

" i'm so close baby. " he's warning you and your nodding to agree with him, your arms lifting to his neck, dragging him down for a kiss. tongue lacing with his like second nature – eyes shut when that knot in your guts is on the verge of breaking and broken cries are falling in between the kiss.

" gonna cum in you baby, you don't mind that d-do you? " to head-struck, your nodding like a idiot in heat. that gives eren a new goal, he's stroking in like a wild animal, biting his lip so hard it bleeds when you squeeze him.

trying your hardest to keep your moans in, eren pushes in one last time and hits that blurry spot that renders you brain dead. your moaning, clawing on his v'line with that new set to keep him from moving. cunt completely spent and aching again when eren is painting your walls white.

the warm feeling only making it worse, now he cant move or you might regret it. eren's heaving, one hand on the headrest to puff out and rush in the smell of sex, vanilla and shea butter.

" fuckkk i gotta' get you a plan b asap. "

⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀

©𝙀𝙈𝙋𝘼𝙏𝙃𝙄𝘾𝙇𝙄𝘼𝙍 any sort of stealing or modifying is prohibited, mess with your momma not me.

#omg is that neemie? ✩#eren yeager #attack on titan #fanfic #blktumblr #anime #eren fanfiction #black reader #eren x reader #aot smut #eren x you #neemie's babies.#explore #university

727 notes · View notes

planetdream · 3 months ago

Text

striped carnations.

characters. hwang hyunjin, reader, lee minho + special guests

genre. angst, flower shop!au. words. 5.6k

synopsis. upon hearing the news that your boyfriend is going to propose to you, hyunjin realizes that he's had feelings for you all along

fic contents: hyunjin is both a chronic overthinker and a hopeless romantic. needless pining. angst. heartbreak. talks of marriage and relationships. suggestive content: hookups; heavy make out + implied drunk sex.

💌 if you think you've seen this before, it's because you have! I deleted it like a month ago lmao....but here it is again <3

Hwang Hyunjin has always been a big fan of flowers. A flower can describe the emotions behind every pivotal moment in one’s lifetime—a wedding, a funeral, graduation, or a life-changing event—though not limited to only those situations; Hyunjin's love for, and belief in flowers reaches across all occasions and sentiments. His admiration of flowers as a whole goes beyond the smell, or how visually pleasing and/or vibrant in color they look. Flowers allow him to express feelings that he feels words simply cannot—even if no one else around him understands it in the way he does. Hyunjin loves flowers because of the stories you can tell with them, and thus, he chooses to document his life with flowers.

As a small child, Hyunjin would pick flowers at the park for his mother; or one of his various personal art projects. A bundle of flowers bunched up in his tiny little hands as he ran to his mother with the widest, dimpled grin he could make. To his mother, the flowers are a sweet sentiment of his admiration towards the woman raising him. However, to Hyunjin they meant so much more than that—a physical manifestation of a deep awareness that he couldn’t find the words to explain until he matured as a person. This habit of gifting flowers out of pure emotion was probably the one constant in his life other than the crushing weight of heartbreak.

Heartbreak is much like flowers. It has so many different colors and feels, it takes on a multitude of shapes and smells—and it is pretty easy to romanticize.

When Hyunjin was in kindergarten, he gifted a daisy to a girl he had a small crush on. She ended up stomping on them, but that didn’t stop little Hyunjin from pining after her. The tradition of Hyunjin picking flowers as a romantic gesture continued in a slightly different way as he got older, and the helpless pining after something unattainable never stopped. Coincidentally, a few of his exes are named after flowers—the unfortunate downside of that is that it still pains him to look at whatever flower the ex had been named after, even if they ended the relationship on good terms.

These are some moments and beliefs that have shaped Hyunjin—and his future.

In the second to last year of his high school career, Hyunjin began working at a flower shop close to his childhood home. Morning Glory Floral—located between a convenience store and a bookstore (both of which are frequented by Hyunjin)—is a tiny little flower shop that Hyunjin knows like the back of his hand. He’d originally started out as a cashier and order taker until he eventually worked his way up to being one of three floral designers at the shop.

He typically runs the shop most days of the week, opening in the early morning and closing in the late afternoon unless he happens to work Thursday, Friday, or Saturday—on those days the store is open until 7PM. Hyunjin usually arrives an hour, or sometimes two, before the shop opens just to get a headstart on things. He prints out invoices, splitting the orders between their type—local, domestic/international; additionally divided between funeral, wedding, and those non-applicable—as well as making sure pre-made flower arrangements are ready for pickup. The shop is fairly busy on a normal day (although that typically comes down to season), therefore, a lot of Hyunjin’s time during the day is making sure things are running smoothly and without delay.

Floral design is an art. One of the many forms of art and creative expression that Hyunjin excels within. In his mind, floral design can easily be compared to architecture or interior design (both Hyunjin contemplated as career options). The vase is the foundation—who or what is this flower arrangement for? What color helps express the emotions behind the arrangement? Then—what flowers should be used (if the customer doesn’t have a request)? What should be the focal flower that grabs people's attention? Do the flowers chosen represent the overall message? Which filler flowers and greenery should be used? The shape of the arrangement matters too. As do a lot of other minuscule details.

The details are important to him. Making sure the customer is satisfied with his creation is easy, hardly anything to worry about, but making sure that he’s satisfied with the work he’s done is an entirely different thing. A simple glance at Hyunjin creating a flower arrangement and it doesn’t seem like it takes too much time or energy. He moves in fluid movements, placing one flower after the other, a blank expression on his face. In reality, it’s a time-consuming process and it takes a lot of thought and precision to create the arrangements he does. Still, his hard work pays off greatly. He didn’t know he’d be where he is today, but he’s great at what he does—which is why people always come back.

His favorite floral arrangements to make are the ones that have to do with romantic love—a date, wedding, or anniversary—since Hyunjin feels it gives him a lot more freedom for creative expression. Like floral design, love is of significant importance to Hyunjin, especially romantic love. Seeing people express their love and admiration for each other via flowers is beautiful to him, as he is a hopeless romantic after all.

A small order of carnations arrived at the shop one morning. Unmarked and not on any receipt nor written in any book. Carnations are typically cut flowers (as in, used for decorative purposes), so consequently, it’s not unlikely for the shop to have extra, especially since Felix, one of the other floral designers, loves to use them for arrangements. The flowers catch Hyunjin’s eye in particular, not only because they’re striped carnations, but because there are three of them, obviously not enough to do much with unless for a small arrangement.

Felix, as full of knowledge as he is, once explained to Hyunjin that during the Victorian era, carnations were used to speak very straightforwardly. Unlike other flowers that have many different, complicated, and often overlapping meanings, carnations could be used to respond to something—like a love proposal. If one was asking another for their hand in marriage, the recipient of the proposal may respond with a yes by giving the proposer a solid color carnation, such as pink, white, or even red; however, the yellow carnations mean no. Striped carnations generally mean a refusal of love, almost regrettably so. I love you, but I cannot be with you. A message that Hyunjin is more than familiar with.

Perhaps it’s an omen. A sign that he’s going to fall headfirst into another relationship resulting in yet another heartbreak. A sign that if he falls for someone again, he may not get back up this time. Hyunjin often wonders if fate is real—he knows it is, he can feel that it's real—but has he been fated to fall in love over and over again just to reach the same emotionally catastrophic end that he always does? Maybe he did something in a past life that would warrant this anguish.

He shakes the thought from his mind, for the time being, choosing instead to blissfully and ignorantly fall victim to his subconscious. He won’t admit it out loud, and when the thought arises, he pushes it out of his mind in embarrassment, but Hyunjin loves the feeling of heartbreak. It stings. In both the worst way and the best way. And while he genuinely does hate heartbreak, it’s almost like he’s addicted to it.

And then the bell of the door rings, signaling to Hyunjin that there’s a new customer. He looks up from behind the counter and his eyes meet Lee Minho, your boyfriend.

You and Hyunjin had met in the fourth grade. It can only be described now, all of these years later, as an instantaneous click. You both felt comfortable with each other and eventually opted to do everything together, very soon becoming the best of friends. From grade school to adulthood, you’ve kept a secure friendship. Confiding in each other about everything—when one of you is low, the other is sure to pick them up.

There’s a sheepish smile on Minho’s face as he approaches the counter. The expression takes Hyunjin aback. The smile is surprising because Hyunjin swears that the older man typically has a permanent scowl on his face. Hyunjin greets him, giving a small smile and a wave.

“Need flowers for a date?” Hyunjin asks, fixing his standing posture.

“For something better actually,” Minho’s smile grows wider, as if he cannot contain it. Hyunjin thinks this might be the biggest smile he’s ever seen across Minho’s face. Minho places his hands onto the cold surface of the counter, lightly tapping in it. “I’m proposing this weekend.”

Hyunjin’s jaw drops in awe. Never had he thought Minho was a man interested in marriage. Not only that, this means he’d be losing his best friend to married life. Next thing he knows, you’ll start having kids! His mind begins to race around, unforgiving.

When Hyunjin the two of you were younger, you and Hyunjin would talk about your hopes and aspirations for the future. Of course, the topic of marriage and creating a family entered the conversation. You expressed that when you truly love someone, there’s no need to get the law involved for a piece of paper. Hyunjin couldn’t help but laugh, he felt that your reasoning was a bit childish, joyous of true, deep love. However, when you told him that though, it put a couple of things into perspective—most significantly, how you and Hyunjin are opposites. Hyunjin aches to get married and wants a few children too, he thinks the idea is beautiful. Still, for Hyunjin, the possibility of him actually getting married feels too far-fetched; unimaginable, and unattainable. Would anyone love him enough to want to marry him?

Minho breaks Hyunjin away from the depth of his mind. “I was thinking of a nice bouquet to give them, and you’re my guy for that.”

Hyunjin exhales as he looks at Minho. He can’t even crack a small smile. He feels he should be happy—but something within him feels wrong. Someone dear to his heart is getting married and he can’t even pretend to be excited. He should be happy for you. He knows he should be happy for you; but he cannot find happiness within himself at all at this moment.

Hyunjin and Minho aren’t exactly friends. Had it not been for you, they doubt they would have even crossed paths. It’s not that Hyunjin doesn’t like Minho, he’s a cool, upstanding guy; but is he worth being your boyfriend? Let alone, is he worth being your husband? In Hyunjin’s perspective, absolutely not. Sure, from the things you tell him, Minho treats you with love, care, and the utmost respect, but Hyunjin thinks there’s something…off about him, even after four years of you and Minho being together. From Minho’s perspective, it’s obvious that Hyunjin has a crush on you. He’s teased you about it multiple times, but to you it seems highly unlikely that your best friend since practically forever would be in love with you—but it happens.

“Here, I’ll show you the ring.” Minho fishes into the front pocket of his jeans, pulling out a black velvet box. He opens the box, places it on the counter, and turns it to Hyunjin.

The ring is gorgeous. Hyunjin can tell it’s been updated and has had a few repairs, probably a ring kept within the family. He knows this because after looking at so many rings, both through work and in his own free time (self-admittedly pathetic of him to just go looking for engagement rings and wedding bands while he’s desperately single), he’s starting to notice the small differences.

“Wow.” Is the only thing that leaves Hyunjin’s mouth.

Minho continues to talk, but it all goes in one ear and out of the other. Hyunjin is lost within his head. One thought after another, layering and locking himself within his own mind. Hyunjin remains on auto-pilot for the rest of his conversation with Minho. Towards the end of it, Hyunjin fishes out the most pathetic fake smile he possibly could. Hyunjin, per usual, promises to do his best at making the best floral arrangement he possibly can. Before he leaves, Minho says something to Hyunjin that sticks with him for the rest of his day.

“They’ve always liked your arrangements, so just do what you do best. I trust you.”

The carnations are back. Another three.

Coincidentally, they arrived on the same day that Hyunjin has to create the floral arrangement for Minho’s proposal. Hyunjin can’t lie, while this project was constantly on his mind; subconsciously putting all the pieces together one by one—he absolutely put the entire thing off until the last minute. Hyunjin has never once dreaded coming into work until now. Just the thought of working on the arrangement makes him sick to his stomach. But now there’s no more time left.

Everything that Hyunjin needs for the making of the arrangement is spread out right in front of him.

He chooses a white vase as the foundation—white, along with being a symbol of purity or innocence, is also a symbol of new beginnings and marriage, the latter representing what the arrangement means as a whole—sleek and rounded in an hourglass shape. Usually, for engagement bouquets, Hyunjin uses a clear vase to ensure that the flowers stay healthy and alive (of course while being taken care of). However, neither you nor Minho are any good when it comes to taking care of flowers, so Hyunjin figures he can do whatever he wants when it comes to his creation.

The foliage comes first—Hyunjin preps the stems, pulling off the lower leaves that might hang in the water, clipping the ends off the stems before they dive into the water. Floral arranging is not only art, it’s a science. The plants have to be inserted into the vase at an angle so that the arrangement can take shape. The arrangement needs to be balanced and colorful, preferably. Vase arrangements require layering, it’s easier to start with the heavier flowers first; two red chrysanthemums on opposing sides. He cuts the stems so that the flowers hang low in the vase, almost acting as a focal point if not for his statement flowers.

As a standard for his arrangements and bouquets, Hyunjin chooses flowers that signify love and new beginnings. He also needs to make sure that the flowers he chose actually look nice in the bouquet, as if not, he feels the need to completely start over.

As he works on his creation, Hyunjin allows himself to get lost within his thoughts. Everytime someone comes into the shop, a smile on their face as they’re picking out flowers for their lover; Hyunjin feels something within him break, just a tiny crack at the surface of his identity. For a brief moment, with his work, he’s allowed to peak into the lives—the relationships—of others. Everything from the great moments of excitement to the bad moments that hope and pray to be forgiven. All of it sends Hyunjin spiraling into the depths of his memory.

He remembers his high school years. Going back to classes after the summer he hit a growth spurt. His voice got a bit deeper, too. Suddenly, all eyes were on him. Hyunjin was desirable. Shy as he was, he enjoyed it. And after a few experiences, he’d seemingly gotten over his timid behavior, though still introverted. It was a strange time. He remembers falling deep into infatuation only for things to not pan out. Before the situationship begins, the sharp sting of heartbreak lingers.

Just a few months back, Hyunjin got his heart broken yet again when his now ex-girlfriend left him to get back with her ex; some total loser named Changbin, of whom she had been originally dating sometime before Hyunjin. It’s not you, it’s me, she said. I just don’t feel the same as you, she said. Maybe we’ll meet later in life, or in the next, she said. He knew she didn’t mean it. That she was just feeding into his past-life and karmic romantic ideologies to lessen the blow. Within that same week (at minimum, three days later), he sees a mutual friend post a picture from a double date including said ex and her boyfriend.

It stung. Badly. And he’s over it now. In fact, he’s so over it that he can hardly remember her name. Sooyun? Miyeong? See? He can’t remember it. It wasn’t the worst breakup that Hyunjin has experienced. Not by a mile. The worst actually was a couple of years ago, his longest relationship which lasted a year exactly, getting betrayed on the one-year anniversary of their one-sided love. The memory still stings, so Hyunjin prefers not to talk about it—but once it comes time for self-reflection, he thinks of the memories in awe—sickly attached to the distant memory of something that failed to work out. What if? He thinks.

But three months (yeah, his most recent relationship was only three months; yes, he’s still a bit broken) with someone—constantly talking to them, getting acquainted with their lifestyle, seeing them often, kissing them, feeling them—changes a person; for better or for worse. So, Hyunjin is lucky he got out of it with only hurt feelings. A faint tug at his heart and, understandably, anger surrounding the situation, if anything. Nothing unmanageable that he can’t work or date away.

Past relationships have driven him into a slump. Depressed and unable to create or live, even, until he finds himself somewhere within the next person—both metaphorically and actually—when he’s really at his worst; the ‘best’ thing to do is to relieve his stress by burying himself inside of someone in an effort to escape intense personal feelings. This occasionally backfires whenever he catches feelings for whoever he fucks and the cycle repeats itself. Over and Over. An unfortunate life lesson that Hyunjin has to continue repeating: spiritually, possibly due to the sins made in a past life; but actually, because he rarely ever learns from past mistakes, especially if it has to do with romance.

Hyunjin, is, quite simply, a hopeless romantic in every sense of the term, but at a specific level of naivety. Aching to see the good in people or a situation even if it has near-disastrous results to his psyche. Before even speaking to someone, he’d have already envisioned their first few dates, their marriage, and growing old together. It embarrasses him badly. And no matter how many times he has to sit down with himself, reminding himself to calm down, that he should take things slowly, he’s already experiencing heartbreak.

He’s tried the dating scene multiple times since this most recent breakup. A few dates here and there, and more than a few hook-ups as well (What can he say? He’s a single man). He was mostly encouraged by other friends, and you, to reopen his Tinder account and get back out there. And Hyunjin, easily influenced, did just that. It didn’t last long though, simply due to the fact that he found himself bored almost immediately after each date or hookup. He’s simply wandering through life, boldly yet blindly, without inspiration.

Then he feels that spark. It’s just as he’s putting the finishing touches on his creation.

That very familiar, almost sickening spark deep within his soul that he found himself craving after going so long without. Feelings. Of the romantic variety. For you. He can say that he initially realized them during a party hosted by a friend of a friend. You were surrounded by some of your close friends, drinking, and smiling all pretty as you do; and that’s when it started. It was like the universe expanded in a way that could be physically felt—similar to that of an out of body experience—an intensity that feels so right. He could damn near feel the temperature changing in the room due to some kind of universal shift. The vibrations of the music gets heavier, and the chatter of people blurs together—time slows down but is going all too fast.

But perhaps he’s had these feelings for you for a while now. Maybe since you first met as children. Hiding them deep within himself. Covering up his feelings by searching for you through countless other people. Perhaps it is why many of his relationships never work out.

It has to be fate calling out to him. Hyunjin clings to this thought and the feeling that it gives him.

Hyunjin questions himself like he does every time he realizes that he has feelings for someone. What do I like about them? He ponders it. Though it doesn’t take long for him to figure it out. Everything. He likes everything about you. From the way you type on your phone to how you order food at restaurants. He loves how concentrated you get when reading something and he likes how you walk a little weirdly. He likes your opinions and the way you see the world. Those small, specific things that make you who you are, are what Hyunjin loves. You as a person, inside and out. The good and the bad. All desirable and undesirable things.

This is bad. Really bad. The realization feels bad.

Hyunjin has had feelings for tons of his friends before. He never tells them, but if he does—because hey, life is short—then it never goes past a -with-benefits label. His friends mean a lot to him, and while a romance could strengthen a relationship, it could also weaken one. Some people are meant to stay friends. Perhaps that could change between you two. But it cannot. Hyunjin remembers one little fact: you are in a committed relationship. Of four years. With Lee Minho of all people.

What does Lee Minho have that Hyunjin doesn’t? He’s just as pretty. Just as charming. And he’s a few centimeters taller. Plus, he’s known you longer than Minho has. If anything happens, you’d certainly pick Hyunjin, right? But Minho wants to marry you and Hyunjin doubts himself as being ready for that type of commitment even though he craves it desperately.

By the time that Hyunjin has finally finished the final pieces of the floral arrangement and sneaks away from his thoughts, Minho saulters into the store. Speak of the devil.

He’s smiling just as wide as he had days ago. Tonight is the night that he proposes, Minho informs Hyunjin. To which, Hyunjin congratulates Minho—but he hopes that you say no. He prays that you say no and, just to add insult to injury, you laugh in Minho’s face, despite how crude it’d be. In the pit of his stomach, though, he knows that you’ll say yes to Minho.

Minho leaves with the flowers after a few minutes of chatter; but not before he pays and leaves quite a hefty tip.

The rest of Hyunjin’s day goes by dryly. A permanent pout rests on his face, as noticed by his coworkers. He’ll just shyly smile so as to not cause any worry. Hyunjin remains on autopilot. Smiling, talking to his regulars and answering the questions he might receive throughout the day. For the most part, though, he retreats to the dark and cozy area of his mind.

—

He decides to take a refreshing walk back home. It’s only about a fifteen minute walk, and he does it often. More time to think. His headphones are tight against his ears, but not uncomfortable. Hyunjin initially chooses to blast a soft, slow tempoed song before he switches to something more heavy and aggravated.

The music is cut and a millisecond later, his phone rings. It’s you. Oh, god. You’re going to rub your relationship in his face.

When Hyunjin answers it, there’s an, albeit fake, smile on his face as if you could see him, and he begins to speak in a typical cheery tone. He’s cut off by a sob. He can’t understand a thing you’re saying and he panics. He stops in his tracks, hand curling to grasp at air in a panic. His eyes widen while he searches for any thought in his brain to console you.

“Are you home? I’ll be on my way, okay?” He informs you, voice filled with worry. “We can stay on the line until I get there.”

And he stays on the phone with you until he reaches his home; and then the entire fifteen-block walk to your place. Avoiding the eyes of those who wonder whether he might be talking to himself. He hurries, speed walking the entire way—and almost sprinting at one point when your sobs had suddenly gotten worse—in order to reach your apartment in less time than it would usually take.

He’s buzzed into your building and within a few seconds he’s at the door of your apartment. He doesn’t need to knock, as you open it immediately. Tears are staining your cheeks and you walk up to hug Hyunjin, not bothering to welcome him into your home.

Now, everything is seemingly on pause, and Hyunjin is comforting you through your own heartbreak. Once again, time is both slowed down and sped up—he’s present but still lost in his head somewhere. Still, he waddles the both of you into your apartment, and kicks the door closed with his foot.

He notices the flower arrangement he’d made just hours prior, sitting untouched on the kitchen counter.

“You wanna talk about it?” Hyunjin questions. Dealing with those emotions, especially right after they surface, is difficult, and the last thing Hyunjin wants to do is push you into speaking about it—he knows the fresh wounds of a heartbreak all too well. So, he remains by your side, patient, and comforting until—if—you decide to speak.

The two of you begin rocking side to side slowly. It’s soothing, and you’re able to speak just quietly.

“Well, he proposed,” His stomach turns, tightening to the point where he becomes nauseous for a moment. Hyunjin even nearly rolls his eyes, but the thing that relieves him is the reason he’s here—obviously you turned Minho down. That, or Minho dropped dead; but that’s not as likely. Yet, the thing that nearly makes Hyunjin sicker is how much he hates that he’s happy that you declined the proposal.

“And I declined. I-I said I wasn’t ready for marriage yet. Told him I wish we had discussed it a bit more before he did anything so we’d be on the same page. B-but I begged for us to stay together and he said… he said he couldn’t do it.”

You bury your head in Hyunjin’s chest, weeping a bit more.

“I know it hurts,” His words get lost in his mind somewhere, feeling as though he isn’t adequate enough to comfort you.

“It hurts so bad.” You grab his hoodie with your fist tightly, twisting and tugging at it.

“Let’s just cry it out. That always helps me.” He suggests, hand running up and down your back.

“Cry with me? Like that scene in Midsommar?” You laugh through your sobs despite the hurt you’re in. Not that it matters to Hyunjin, of course. You can feel him laugh and, fortunately, it makes you smile.

“Only if you want me to.” He unknowingly returns the smile. You don’t respond, but you ponder it—even as just a joke.

The room falls silent but the silence is comfortable. That’s what you love about being around Hyunjin. You intrigue him, and while he always wants to know what’s going on in your mind, he never pressures you to speak. Sometimes, we learn more about ourselves—and to an extent, other people—through silence.

The hug breaks. You fail to meet Hyunjin’s eyes. You walk off to sit in the living room and Hyunjin goes to get water for the both of you. He sets the glasses of water down and takes a seat next to you.

“Where is he?” Hyunjin asks. His palms are sweaty, so he wipes them onto his jeans.

Your frown somehow deepens before you speak. “Went to stay with his parents.”

Silence. Hyunjin can tell that you’re lost in thought. He feels a bit odd. Individually, you both have gone through a significant amount of breakups; but each one is different from the last. It’s been so long since you’ve had your heart broken. To see you like this after so long—eyes red and puffy with a tear stained face, bottom lip quivering as you try to console yourself—it breaks Hyunjin. He does what you would do for him.

“What will help take your mind away?” His voice is soft, barely above a whisper.

You ponder for a moment. “Remember back in February when you and Miyeong broke up? The sleepover we had while Minho was away? We stayed up all night eating snacks and watching romance movies,”

He nods. Despite being deeply hurt to the point he got sick, the latter part of that week was one of the most enjoyable times that he’d had in forever. The two of you ate, drank, cried, and watched cheesy romantic movies (to which Hyunjin cried more). Through the stuffy fog that is heartbreak, Hyunjin was reminded that, sometimes, life isn’t so bad.

“What if we did that again for a couple of days?”

Hyunjin ponders it, considers it, but… “We both have work.” He pouts.

“Not tomorrow, though. I just don’t want to be alone right now,” You need him. A crutch. A support system. And you know he’ll never let you down. “Plus, you act like you haven’t stayed over for long periods of time before! Remember the time that Jisung refused to shower out of spite so you slept over here?”

Hyunjin lets out a short chuckle. He knows that when he goes back to his apartment, it’ll be left a mess. But for you, he doesn’t mind cleaning up after Jisung. “Fine. But only because I love you and I want you to feel better, loser.”

—

“You just have to find your thing, you know?” Hyunjin takes another shot. Neither of you are sure just how many you’ve both had.

“Like, you know, my thing is art, and flowers and, you know, expressing myself with them. It’s the one thing I can always come back to and feel good about. Not betrayed, not hurt, or anything. But good. That shop—god—it’s like the one place in this world that’s for me.”

He’s venting now. He shouldn’t be. This is all about you. Tonight is all about you. So he cuts himself short, words still lingering on the tip of his tongue. There’s a momentary silence, eventually broken by you.

“Are you implying that you want to fuck your flower shop?”

“Wha…? No! I’m just saying…I’m trying to help you!” His ears become red.

“Hm. Not sure. Sounds like you’re confessing your love for your job,” Hyunjin looks at you with a face full of temporary disgust. “I’m jooking! Find my thing, something to express myself with, I know, I get it.”

“I’m sorry,”

“Don’t be.”

Silence once again occupies the room, planting itself comfortably between you and Hyunjin. Hyunjin doesn’t mind the silence. You do, though.

“You know what’s kinda funny?”

“Hm?”

“Minho used to mention, from time to time, how he believed you had a crush on me,” You smile. Hyunjin, however, is caught off guard, eyebrows raised with his eyes slightly wide. “I would always laugh it off but part of me kept thinking What If?”

“What if I had been with you instead of Minho. I mean, you wouldn’t propose to me without having a simple fucking conversation, right?” You ramble on. “You wanna know a secret?”

“Sure.” “Two secrets! It’s actually two secrets!”

“One,” You tilt your head to smile at Hyunjin. “I had the biggest crush on you for years. But I was so hurt because you kept going after literally every fucking body else. Wish you had paid attention to me.”

“And Two!” You continue, not as sad. Ignoring the previous sentences that came from your mouth. “I wish I could kiss you right now. Would you let me?”

He can’t believe the words that come out of your mouth. For a moment, Hyunjin feels ill. He’d somehow missed the signs. You wanted him, too. His eyebrows string together in a brief expression of sadness. He shakes it away. Hyunjin nods and leans in, his eyes close and he puckers his lips. Within a second, he feels your lips on his and then your hand on his thigh.

Sparks. That’s the only way that Hyunjin can describe it. Your mouth is warm, wet and Hyunjin can only melt into you. The two of you melt into each other. Lips mashed together as your tongues slip into each other's mouths, swapping spit. At this point it’s more than kissing. It’s heavy and messy. It’s full of hurt and passion and the feeling of being missed. Or having something missed out on. Uncertainty. Neither of you have come up for air to interrupt the makeout session. Losing yourselves within each other's mouths—lips and tongue, occasional teeth.

You end up climbing atop of him to straddle. Breaking the kiss to pin Hyunjin to the floor. You stare down at him, searching within his eyes. “Do you want me?”

“So much.” The two words leave Hyunjin’s mouth desperately. He’s in anguish.

He tries to sit up, to chase your lips but he’s properly pinned. You plant one soft kiss against his lips. You stand, beckoning Hyunjin to follow you to your room; disappearing into the hallway. And Hyunjin does just that; leaving his sober self to pick up the pieces of a drunken, immoral night.

#hyunjin x reader #hwang hyunjin x reader #stray kids x reader #skz x reader #hyunjin angst #hyunjin fluff #stray kids angst #skz angst #lee know x reader #skz au #hyunjin imagines #stray kids imagines #🌑 — vivid dreams #🌑 — vividdream.skz

161 notes · View notes

hydrating-art · 2 months ago

Text

Mother 3 spoilers!!! explanation of painting under the cut!! click on images for better quality!!

"Its just kind of empty now that you arent here anymore." … "I miss you, Claus."

Lucas sits on a swing, next to an empty one. Though, the swing next to him only holds a franklin badge, the same one he had to fight Claus with. Under the swing with a badge had 3 flowers, a pink carnation, to represent remembrance, a gladiolus, to represent strength and character, and forget-me-nots, to again-represent the remembrance of loved ones. Lucas also wears a sweater of his similarly red and yellow stripe shirt, to represent the childhood that was ripped away from him, yet he still wears his shorts because he holds onto him being a kid still.

#dehydratedyaoifan's art #my art #mother 3 #mother 3 spoilers #angst #mother 3 angst #lucas mother 3 #claus mother 3 (mentioned)#watercolor #I fr hope yalls enjoy!!!! worked hella hard on this!!!!

96 notes · View notes

thelastofhyde · 8 months ago

Text

hit the road, jack!

pairing. ex!jack daniels x fem!reader synopsis. the last time you sat in jack’s infamous bronco, you broke his heart. now, a year later, you’re sitting in it with a mud-stained wedding dress and he’s driving you back to the man you left at the altar. is one night, a thousand miles, and a well-timed car radio enough to remind you of the love you shared? warnings. road trip au, exes to lovers, runaway bride!reader, mutual pining, miscommunication/no communication, idiots in love, exes in love, minor character death, infidelity, one ( 1 ) comment regarding food restriction, mentions of period, smut ( unprotected piv, dirty talk, sex in public spaces, implied creampie, fairly non-descriptive ) the reader of this fic is mostly non-descript, with mentions of having hair long enough to stick to her neck when wet and hands smaller than jack's. word count. 14.7k hyde's input. quick disclaimer that this fic was admittedly better in my head, but i tried my best :') it unfortunately never got to reach it's full potential as my friends dragged me off on an unexpected trip on friday for my birthday (which is today aka the 23rd). because of that, i've not had time to finish the last few scenes as well as i'd hoped to (it's literally 5 am as i'm editing it bc it's the only chance i've had) but i don't want to post this any later as this is my entry to the #SummerLovin'24 event, organised and hosted by @pedgito, @chaotic-mystery & @amanitacowboy , a massive thank you to them for creating such a fun event. i really enjoyed taking part and i can not wait to sink my teeth into the other amazing fics from this event. if you care to listen, here is a playlist of songs mentioned/featured in the fic.

INTRO — silver springs.

“Time cast a spell on you, but you won’t forget me.”

Stevie Nicks et al chant out of old speakers, a bass blown out over time and an intruding static that demands to play alongside the band. Perched upon the bar counter, they sit adjacent to a cash register that shakes each time it opens, a slam seemingly the only way to close it. The swish of a mop over chequered vinyl flooring and the squeaks of a waitress’ coffee-stained sneakers play to their own tune. The passing of time turns it all to background noise.

Through lunch, through dinner, and two shift changes you’ve survived. Out in the parking lot now sits only a semi-truck, its drivers, two men in scuffed boots and jeans that fray at their seams, the only other customers that remain. One tucks into a Sloppy Joe, the other has fallen asleep against the table, his coffee turning as cold as your own.

You ordered the coffee for nothing more than an excuse to sit a while longer. Time for figuring out what’s next. What you’ll do, where you’ll go, how you’ll get there. The elderly couple who’d been kind enough to take you off the side of the road, moving luggage into the trunk to make space for you in the backseats, are now long gone from the roadside diner.

It wasn’t a sorrowful departure. You were quite happy to see them leave, and take their pitiful glances and unasked questions with them. The looks still linger on in others. Each pair of eyes you’ve encountered, dragging over the expanse of your messed up hair, and your smudged eyes, and your mud-stained gown. It’s not hard to imagine the scenes they play out in their heads, of a bride scorned and abandoned on what was meant to be the happiest day of her life, a day meant for vows and first dances twisted into one of heartbroken wandering and roadside pit-stops.

You wonder if any of them know you’re not the victim, but the aggressor. The one who fled, leaving behind a bouquet of striped carnations, marigolds, and purple hyacinths.

Tires crunch on gravel as a car rolls into the parking lot. Whichever fool sits behind the wheel has their full beams on. A light flickers over your head. It’s been doing so for the past hour, an irritating reflection in the window that steals your attention back into the diner.

The waitress is eyeing you again, a weary look on her face that tells you she wants to approach but doesn’t know how. Maybe she wants to ask if you’re okay, or enquire about the events that led you here, deep in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe she just wants you to close your tab and leave.

The bell above the door rings as it opens. It’s been a while since you heard it do so. A smile comes over the waitress as she greets the newcomer. Her eyes seem to take them in, slowly. From top to bottom, and right back to the top. Innocent, if not a little flirtatious. She’d not looked at either of the truckers that way. Perhaps this is her lover, here to wait about and keep a watchful eye as she works the night shift. You can’t imagine it’s the safest place in the world for a woman to find herself working through the twilight hours, nothing but open road and sky-rise trees surrounding the diner.

A sip from your coffee. It’s as cold as you expected. Bitter too, having not found your voice in time to ask for sugar. Your stomach growls, a plea for a meal. If you’d only stayed at the venue, you’d be full of vanilla frosting, and smoked oysters, and… had it been the coronation chicken or the roast sirloin the wedding planner had gone with in the end? You can’t remember. What you do remember is her unwanted advice: just stick to some light bites, no bride wants a food-baby in her pictures.

In retrospect, you’d disliked her from the moment you met her. But you had no desire to plan a wedding. And no time either, much to your future mother-in-law’s chagrin. So out she’d gone, a cat on the hunt, dragging home some mousy-brown haired wedding planner as a sacrificial lamb. Better it be her than you who stresses over the shade of napkins, and the taste of merlots, and the seating arrangements.

Footsteps thud against the floor. Slow, deliberate, not a stumble in the way they move. You stare back out the window and spy a cowboy hat reflected in it. It belongs to the waitress’ lover, who by now is likely making his way over to pull her in real close and swoon her with a kiss only men blessed by southern charm possess.

A different version of you, a happier version, used to be kissed like that every morning.

“Are you lost, sweetheart?” The voice of a man echoes. Softly spoken, yet loudly heard in the quiet of the diner. In the window, the cowboy hat stands right behind you. You turn slowly, let your eyes dance over its owner. Like a sculpture plucked out of ancient Rome, he’s a fine art only the most delicate hands could shape. He’s brown-eyed affection. He’s an aquiline nose. He’s a well-groomed moustache. He’s Jack. “Think it’s a few miles up north they’re expecting a pretty bride.”

Leather jackets and well-fitted jeans have been traded in for a suit. Simple, classic. White shirt, black tie, a trademark cowboy hat you’d never failed to spot amongst any crowd. There’s a crinkle where a cheeky grin meets eyes framed by full brows and lashes, a scar on his right temple a reminder of the kind of man he is. Dauntless, righteous, brave. An undercover agent, posing as the CFO of one of the largest whiskey distilleries in the world.

An illusion plays out where no time has passed and his is still the face you come home to each night. A lot can change in a year, however, like the bed you sleep in, or the ring upon your finger.

He welcomes himself into the seat across from you. The protective barrier of a water-ring stained table keeps a safe distance between you both, yet you still feel his knee knock against your own as he makes himself comfortable. One arm stretched over the backrest, the other rests against the table and drums a nervous tune with his fingers.

“You’ve worried a lot of people, darliln’,” his gaze studies you. You wonder if it’s the same look he used to give his targets. The thought sours the sweetness of seeing his pretty eyes after all these months. “Runnin’ off like that, not even a hoot or a holler to let your daddy know you’re alright.”

Your dad. He’d slipped off to the bathroom, a kiss to your cheek and a promise he’d be back in time to walk you down the aisle. What must he have thought, rounding the corner to the sight of a bouquet, abandoned a la Cinderella and her glass slipper. Before you stew in guilt for too long, the rest of Jack’s words catch up to you.

He knew you ranaway. That glimpse of a cowboy hat amongst the pews had not been an illusion.

Jack was at the wedding.

“What happened?” His hand seeks you out. Warm as you remember him to be, large enough to engulf your smaller palm in his. “Why’d you run?” You stay quiet. Shrug your shoulders, eventually, and stare down as his thumb brushes over your knuckles. “You gonna give me a proper answer, sweetheart?”

Another shoulder shrug leads Jack to a sigh. There’s a pause in the quiet tension brewing between you, in the shape of the smiling waitress, pen and pad in hand. Her eyes seem to dart between you both, and you can almost hear her wondering who Jack is, if he’s the man you were meant to meet at the end of the aisle. There’d been a time when yes was the only possible answer to such a question.

“A glass of your finest whiskey. Neat, of course. And how ‘bout somethin’ to please a sweet tooth, hm?” His foot bumps yours beneath the table, calling you to look at him. You meet his eyes, watch him raise his brows in question. “Spied a pretty mean lookin’ cherry pie on my way in. That sound good to you, darlin’?” Your mute staring continues. Your stomach takes control, answers him with a disgruntled growl from within. His head turns to the side, laughing, and he nods at the waitress. “Think she’s gonna need a slice of that pie, miss!”

The right to speak returns to you at last, as you watch the glass of liquid caramel be placed down in front of him, head turning to stare out the window, a familiar Bronco sits poorly parked, obnoxious in the way it treads the line of two parking spaces.

“You shouldn’t drink and drive.”

Surprise flashes over his face, but he recovers quickly, untensing his shoulders as he sinks further into the booth. “Didn't order it for me,” he slides the glass of whiskey over to you. “Eat up, drink up. You need it.”

Though it kills you to admit it, the first bite out of the pie feels like heaven in your mouth. Tart, sweet, with pastry so golden it’s as if King Midas baked it under the heat of his own hands. A sip of the whiskey isn’t so great, but you stomach the burn and accept the erasure of nerves it promises. Your eagerness to clear the plate and empty the glass has nothing to do with the approving smile Jack watches you with.

“How did you find me?”

“You doubtin’ my skills?” He’s teasing. You know this. Still, you fall into the trap of a panicked head shake, a cough over the final bite of cherry goodness. “I stopped at a gas station. Runnin’ on an empty in the middle of nowhere ain’t on my list of wants, you see. Overheard two kids talkin’ about some bride sittin’ at a dinner a few miles down. Don’t take no Hercule Poirot to figure it was you”

“Oh.”

You shouldn’t feel disappointed by his answer, there’s no reason a man you hurt so deeply would have any vested interest in finding you.

The last you’d seen of Jack was through your car’s rear-view mirror, his tear stricken face watching you drive away, five years of clothes, and shoes, and memories stuffed into your car. He’d begged you not to leave your shared home; offered to sleep in the spare room, give you both time to work things out between you. You’d been the one to declare it useless.

“This isn’t something we can fix, Jack!”

“But, darlin’, I love you.”

“A happy coincidence, I was lookin’ for ya anyway. You gonna tell me what’s goin’ on inside that head of yours yet?” At least this time your mute stare is paired with a head shake. “Look, I mean well when I say this, but darlin’, you’re lookin’ a mighty mess. Now, a pretty mess that may be, but a mess all the same.” His hand is back on yours, squeezing with enough strength to ground you and keep you from floating off into the landscape of your own conflicted mind. “So here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna take a trip to the gents, then I’m gonna square up whatever we owe this fine establishment, and then we’re gettin’ that pretty caboose of yours up'n out of here.”

Frozen where you sit, it takes a few moments for the warmth of whiskey to settle in your bones, lurching you forward when it does, a gasp and a tight grip at his wrist, holding him back before he can stroll away from the table.

“Where are we going?”

“For a drive, sweetheart.”

TRACK 1 — vienna

You and Jack are no strangers to a late night drive.

An entire love story, told within the confines of four wheels and a chassis. The very night you met, you wound up in his passenger seat, arms up in the air and the wind blowing through your hair, the charming cowboy next to you taking every joyful laugh as a plea to go faster, nothing ahead but the open road and a southern voice crooning out of the radio. Too lost in your own head, that’s what he’d claimed you to be, having strolled up to a lonely-you in a crowded bar, lamenting over a glass of bitter white wine, freshly fired and with no real clue of what you were going to do next. Never one to entertain a stranger, you’d tried to brush him off, but he flashed that smile and invited you, so tenderly as the intro to a Bruce Springsteen song began to play, to just give him one dance.

One dance led to unimaginable love.

As time passed, a relationship burst into full bloom, the imprint of you carved into the car’s leather. Jack insisted you grow accustomed to the life of a passenger princess. He picked you up from work, drove you to all your girls’ night outs, sacrificed hours of necessary sleep to drop you at airports, and train stations, and whatever other public transport your work trips demanded you to travel upon. But how could you dream of saying no when you got to ogle the view of him, one hand on the wheel, the other on your thigh, effortlessly manoeuvring his beloved vehicle.

The car came on couples' vacations, too, road trip getaways. Up north, past the Canadian borders, and down south to the skyline of Mexico City. Out west, a trail up to the Grand Canyon, the Empire State Building in the east. But the late night drives, those were your favourite. Times when life felt too much, with work stressing you out, or your parents giving you grief, or a stress headache gnawing away at your remaining sanity, Jack would tug you wordlessly out into the driveway, buckle your seatbelt, and drive off into the night. Roof down, radio on, the cool breeze clearing your mind.

The only breeze you feel now blows in through an open window.

Pulling away from the diner, Jack turned the wheels south, out into the dark of the night. Trees wall the road in, a never ending sea of pine-green lit by headlights, the looming presence of a dark, dangerous, rumbling sky above. A storm brews ahead, awaiting the perfect moment to crack open and drop a downpour on the world. Little words have been exchanged between you, most of them spoken by Jack, as he tells you about the nightmare he had checking in at his hotel, and the difficulty he had finding the venue, and just how beautiful you look in your dress, tears tracks and messy hair aside. Softly playing over the radio, Billy Joel seems to speak to you, pleading that you slow down, you crazy child.

“D’you remember our trip to Vienna?”

Your head snaps over to Jack. His eyes remain on the road ahead, and a part of you is thankful, unsure of how you’d fare gazing into them as melancholy tangles itself in their shades of brown. The other part misses how it used to feel to catch him watching you from the driver’s seat, affection incarnate as his loving gaze burned heat into your cheeks, your own voice pleading him to pay attention to the road, the light’s already green, Jack!

“How could I forget you almost getting us kicked out of Saint Peter’s church?”

“Hey, now darlin’, let’s not start playin’ the blame game!” His head turns once in your direction, a teasing smile splashed upon his rosy lips. You try not to think about how you’ve felt that very smile pressed against your mouth, memorised the shape of it so perfectly you could draw it with your eyes shut. “You knew what you were doin’ wearin’ that pretty little sundress.”

The dress in question had been a purposeful attack, an attempt at getting payback for the night prior, in which Jack found pleasure in reducing you to tears, begging for release hour after hour, after hour of edging touches. Never the best at putting up a fight against his pouting lips, pleading eyes, and filthy tongue, you’d caved into his hands the moment they skimmed their way up the length of your thigh, the watchful eyes of any Lord above be damned.

“I still dream of the garden’s at Schönbrunn Palace,” a sigh floats out of you as your brain hits play on a kaleidoscope of memories of strolling the grounds, hand in hand with a man you’d imagined yourself being with for the rest of your life.

If I asked you to marry me, would you say yes? He’d asked, as you watched a couple get engaged before your very eyes.

Promise me we’ll get married here, and I’ll consider it.

“I still have nightmares of the boat.”

“The boat!” The patterns in the kaleidoscope shift into images of a viennan skyline reflected upon glassy waters, a city cruise dragging you down the canal. “I still can’t believe you fell off it!”

“I jumped.”

“Backwards? Just admit it, you fell into that water!”

“I jumped, to make you laugh!”

“Oh, don’t worry, me and the coast guard were definitely laughing!”

A silence settles between you both. Jack drums his fingers along to the closing notes of the song, your foot does the same. It crosses your mind that this, in itself, may very well be a dream. Sitting back in the Bronco, staring over at Jack as he drives you both into the aimless night. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s visited your dreams.

You watch him inhale, deeply. With a blink, his eyes reflect the moonlight, glassy with unfallen tears, the image of him too beautiful to be fiction.

“Sometimes I wish we’d never left Vienna.”

His words cut you deep, the sorrow he speaks them with cuts you deeper. Barely a week back in your own home, suitcases still unpacked, pulling into the driveway hours after the unexpected funeral of a friend, you broke both your hearts.

All that goes up must come down and, in the very same place your relationship started, it ended. Sat across from him, rain beating down on the windows, tears trailing down your face. He begged you to stop before those words came out of your mouth, tried his best to switch the engine back on and pull out into the road. You’re just stressed, darlin’, he’d said, a deceptive whine in his voice cracking his straight-faced facade. Just need to clear your head, right? Lemme take ya for a drive. It was too late, your own hand curling back around the handle and forcing the door open, the water from outside flooding in. I’m sorry, I can’t be with you. Not anymore.

“Yeah,” you exhale, shaky. Swallowed emotions, a tight lipped smile, eyes that search for sanctuary out the window. “Me too.”

In the wing-mirror, lighting crashes amidst the sea of pine-green.

TRACK 2 — purple rain

A perfect summer’s storm.

Mother nature’s mid-June release of pent-up heat, making space amongst the skies for what’s yet to come in the scorching months of July and August, the last of any rain to be seen until September brings back the sombre skies and cooler weather. The rain falls heavily, a persistent thump-thump-thump of water that bounces off the car’s roof, bonnet, windows. In the sky, thunder roars an angry sound, each one louder than the last, followed by an even brighter flash of lighting that electrifies its surroundings, turning the black night into shades of violet, and midnight, and indigo, and purple.

“You’ve not bought any new albums? None at all?” The question comes as you flip through Jack’s collection of discs, a notable lack of change in his roster since the last time you’d sat in his car.

This lack of change is likely not without good reason, like the lack of time to go CD hunting between secret missions to save the world, or a general lack of interest in newer records. He’s always been a fan of the old fashion, after all, the home you’d once shared made up of collections of vintage whiskeys, and classic records, and faded wallpaper that he convinced you gave the kitchen charm.

“Nothin’ new since…” His eyes shift over your way, the look in them enough to wordlessly end his sentence. “You were always the one buyin’ me music. Said you didn’t want me get-”

“Getting bored on missions,” impulse seems to be what forces you to speak, an honest smile sent his way. “I remember.”

It had been a while into your relationship, with i-love-yous and apartment keys exchanged, until the truth of Jack’s job came up.

On your first date, he’d told you he was a businessman. A few dates later, he specified that he was an investor, dipping his fingers into the honey jar of some classically Texa whiskey distillery. Only a half lie, and not one that was hard to believe. Every fibre of his being, stitches and loose threads included, made sense as a man in the business of selling whiskey. The overzealous amount of Statesman whiskeys occupying the shelves in his apartment, the photos he’d send of the view from his high-rise office, the endless number of suits and ties that occupied his wardrobe, even his damn name, Jack Daniels.

Then, out came the truth.

A phone call from one of Jack’s co-workers, Ginger, lasting no more than five minutes and of which only three words mattered: Jack’s been shot.

A bullet through his head. Any ordinary man would have died. Yet there was your Jack, eyes open, a measly bandage over his temple, and standing up-right. To your own credit, you managed to keep a grasp on your sanity long enough to drive him home, cook him dinner, and sit yourself down across from him at the table. But when he pricked his finger on the tip of his knife, the rivulet of blood dripping down his finger was enough to send you over the edge. Open mouthed sobs, hands clinging to him the instant he sank down on his knees at your side, tears staining every inch of his white cotton t-shirt.

You could’ve died, Jack.

Now how could I go dyin’, when I got such a pretty reason to live for?

You begged with questions, he promised with answers. Hands intertwining with your own, a gentle voice guiding you out the apartment, the soft slam of a car door closing. He turned the key in the ignition, pulled your hand up to his mouth for a kiss, and drove you both off into the night. Under the melodic fall of rain beating down on the car, you came to terms with three facts: Jack was involved in the business of selling whiskey; Jack was otherwise known as agent Whiskey, esteemed senior agent to the Statesmen secret intelligence agency; and Jack was not often shot- at least not in the head.

Arriving home that night, with the rain falling heavy on your front lawn, you’d tried your best to dash from the car and into the house but Jack had other plans. He’d gripped your hand, and pulled you close, and kissed you under the flash of lighting. And when you dared whine that your clothes were soaked, he held you tighter and let himself guide your body into a gentle sway, two lovers under the moonlight and the storm. That night had ended with a fatal promise from Jack, your limbs entangled upon a shared bed, his lips pressing into your forehead.

I promise I’ll always come home to you safe.

“Don’t need no discs anyway, already got all I need right here,” Jack’s impeccable timing, seemingly sensing the shift in your demeanour. It’s like he knows what you’re thinking about, and trying to drag you out of the past and back to the present, his fingers stretching over to turn the volume up. A familiar set of haunting chords plays over the radio, a grin instantly appearing on his face. “Shit, they even got Princ-”

“Stop the car.”

“Huh?”

“Just pull over, Jack!”

Despite the confusion, he abides by your words, foot pressing down on the break, hands steering the wheels off-road, fingers switch the car off. Without the hum of the engine, the rainfall grows louder, the view out the windscreen suddenly blocked behind a wall of flowing water. The radio plays on, the voice of an angel singing lyrics that so aptly match the purple shades painted across the sky by the storm above. There’s a cautious echo of your name, and, for a moment, it’s easy to forget this is the first time you’ve heard him actually say it in over a year. It feels like just yesterday he was calling out to you, begging with solutions you weren’t willing to give.

Your heart beats with a longing to escape your chest, hard and steady against the cage that is your ribs. Your eyes fill with emotions from the past and of the present, as every version of yourself that’s sat within this car comes together as one. Your hand curls around the silver grip of the door, pulling it open and lunging yourself out into the pouring rain.

Under the storm's wrath, you’re reborn. Baptised by mother nature, a soul cleansed of all its prior troubles, returned to you brand new and free of heartbreak. As the rain soaks your face, your neck, your dress, it washes all the pain away. Breathing easy, head tilted back, eyes closed. It's the feeling of being alive, an anomalous euphoria found only beneath a thunderous sky. The tears that dare fall here mean little, a known comfort that they’ll mix with the rain and be swept away.

Enthralled under the moonlight and barefoot, you drift on through the trees that line these woods, chasing the sweet promise of petrichor. You’re unsure if it comes from the sky, or the trees, or Jack, but something calls your name. A fallen tree trunk becomes your own personal tightrope as you dance over the length of it, one careful foot in front of the other, arms stretched out to the heavens above. All it takes is one misplaced step and you lose your footing, slipping over moss and bracing for impact that never arrives.

“Heaven to Betsy, darlin’!” Jack’s hands, warm as a summer breeze, catch you by the waist, your shoulder socking him square in the face as you fall back into his figure. He makes no complaint of pain, taking it like a champ and placing you back down on steady ground, upon unsteady feet. “Did’ya sneak a few extra whiskeys when I was takin’ a leak?”

You open your mouth to reply, to deny, but the rain comes to a stop, and the thunder no longer rumbles, and the moonlight breaks through the parting blanket of clouds, and you’re suddenly so aware of how close you both are.

Like his hands, do his lips still feel the same? Soft as a feather, pillowy as a cloud, as sweet as a peach? It’s not something a married woman should be thinking about another man, about the man another version of her had loved.

But you’re not a married woman, are you?

Wet to the bone, it's as if your wedding dress has shrunk, possessive linen meant to warn you away from leaning forward till your face meets his.

“Careful where you point those eyes, sweetheart. Don’t go givin’ me a reason to make a dishonest woman out of you.” His warning only makes you want to lean in more, test just how dishonest he’s willing to make you, in a dress you wore for another man, upon a forest floor covered by moss, and mud, and rainfall.

He’s stepping back and holding out his hand before you can even try, saving you the trouble of mixing up your head even more.

Careful steps back to his car, where the radio plays on as Prince’s voice slowly fades out. The headlights are back on, the key sits in the ignition, and you half wonder just how quickly he chased after you, abandoning his precious car so carelessly at the side of a darkened country road, free for any Tom, Bill, or Sally to claim for themselves.

“You’re lucky I got spare clothes in the back,” Jack’s voice echoes out from where he stands, bent at the waist, and rummaging through the floor of the back seats. You want to think he’s not going this on purpose, putting himself on display so obviously, but it feels easier on your conscience to blame him for your own inability to stray your eyes away from how snugly the soaked dress pants hug his behind. “Ain’t no hope in hell I’d let you in my car, all drippin’ wet.”

“You never used to complain about me being wet in your car.”

It’s a quickfire response, the kind you don’t quite get the chance to think over before you say it. Though it may shock your own ears to hear, it seems to shock poor Jack more, the smack with which his head hits against the car’s roof loud enough that you almost feel it in your skull.

You rush over to his side, dress dragging through more mud, and more leaves, and more broken gravel. No chance to even rest your hand upon his arm, Jack’s already pulled himself out the car to face you, a splash of pink brewing across his cheeks and a hand soothing over the back of his head. In the backseats, his hat lays abandoned, knocked off in the commotion.

“Can’t just be sayin’ things like that, darlin’,” he says as he holds out a change of clothes for you, smugness in his voice yet a shake in his hand. “Not unless you’re tryin’ to give old Jack over here a heart attack.”

In silence, you both turn your back on each other. Jack does so in spare of your modesty, and you, in search of someplace dry to lay down his clothes. You do so upon the passenger seat, hands immediately contorting every manner of way they can to reach the dress’ buttons that span down the length of your spine, each more finicky than the last. You manage to free only two, in the very centre, before you sigh and wonder if the entrapment you feel in the white gown could get any more literal than this.

“Jack,” it only feels right to seek out his aid, you tell yourself, the sooner the buttons are undone, the sooner the dress will be off, the sooner you’ll be changed, and the sooner you’ll both get back on the road again, destination unknown. It only makes sense, really, so who could blame you when you say, “come help me out my dress.”

No reply comes your way.

At first, you think he’s not heard you. Then, you worry that he has, and is choosing to ignore such a request, thinking it best he keeps his hands away from any act that involves undressing you. Then, fear that you’ve given him that heart attack after all. Fingers brush wet hair off your shoulders before you can turn to check on the cowboy.

Cicadas scream out into the night, and some faceless host rants over the car radio about the rising conspiracy theory of spycams in childrens’ toys, and your heart beats louder than any set of drums could ever hope, but all you can hear is the steady breaths Jack pulls in and blows out behind you, so close you feel each exhale brush your skin. His fingers do so too, with each button they pop loose, each inch of skin he reveals.

Before you can ask him to touch you with more than just his mouth and breath, his own voice fills your ears.

“I used to dream about doin’ this someday.”

“I think we both know this isn’t the first time you’ve gotten a girl out her dress, Jack.”

“Is your mind ever anywhere but the damn gutter?” A pinch delivered against your left side, a chastising tsk accompanying his words. “I meant that I dreamt about this, me helpin’ you take your weddin’ dress off.”

There’s an audible hitch in your breath, one that perfectly tells Jack everything your own voice seems to fail to. Air stings at your eyes, yet you refuse to blink, too aware of the tears building within them. His warm hands dance back up your spine as the final button is loosened, tracing slowly over skin he’d once memorised, a missionary returning to the land it once knew.

Your dress falls to the floor.

“‘Course I never thought I’d be doin’ it on the side of the road, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

TRACK 3 — lover you should’ve come over

“Wait, are these pyjama pants?”

The realisation dawns upon you twenty minutes after you hit the road again. Confined to the small space of the Bronco with little to look at— besides Jack, his clothes still damp and smelling of summer rain, a towel laid over his seat— you’ve resorted to the finer details, picking apart the scraps of clothing he’d handed you. A plain white t-shirt that, when paired with one of his tight-fitting jeans and a corduroy-lined leather bomber jacket, becomes a Jack Daniels staple. You find it best to ignore how it smells of campfire, and sweat, and the cologne you’d bought Jack on your last anniversary. He’s paired it with a pair of blue chequered pyjama pants, loose-fitting yet tied securely around your waist by a fraying draw-string.

“Took myself and the old gal up to Alaska a few weeks back, chasin’ after a view of the Northern Lights.” There’s a flash of something hot, bright, green as you register his words, myself and the old gal, tamed and dampened only when you remember that’s what Jack calls the Bronco, his old gal. “I was livin’ out my car the whole trip, figured it was easier than trynna find some inn out in the middle of the Alaskan woods. In fact, if you check down there, pretty sure you’ll find some uneaten energy bars I packed for the trip.”

He seems to point aimlessly down at a space around your legs, hand back on the wheel and guiding the wheels around a harsh bend before you can truly pinpoint what he’s referring to. You settle on the glove compartment, sitting upright and reaching a hand out to pop it open.

Then you remember what it houses, the weapons Jack carries in there. The lasso, the whip, the pistol, the bullets. A sickness burns your throat, your eyes unable to even glance down at the opened compartment, instead searching for Jack’s own eyes that stare back with equal amounts of surprise.

“I forgot those were in there.” He steals the words right out your own mouth, a nervous chuckle following them. You’d known to never touch the dreaded compartment, for your own sake, too eager to forget about the parts of him that made him an agent, the parts of him that put him in danger. “You can read ‘em, if you want. They were written for you anyway.”

Confusion floods the soul, curiosity winning over survival and dictating that you muster the courage to turn your head, take a peak at what sits inside the glove box. When you do look, you find there’s no whip nor pistol, no piece of Agent Whiskey in sight. What is there are the energy bars he’d promised, a hiking guidebook of sorts, a map, and a stack of wrinkled envelopes.

One glance back at Jack, he encourages you to take them with a nod, and so, you do. Feel the weight of them all in your hands, do your best to not drop any as you pull them out onto your lap. They scatter all over you, each a different shade of white, unopened and all sporting a red return to sender stamp. All appear addressed to the same place, and it takes only a moment of wondering why it seems so familiar for you to realise.

It’s your old address.

“They’re all labelled with dates, I wrote the first one a few weeks after you left. Wasn’t sure where you’d moved to, I figured there was a chance you’d gone back to your old place. I never forgot about how much you loved that apartment,” he says, and you did. Leaving it behind had been hard, the first real home you’d made for yourself since moving out of your parent’s place, the first space you made your own in the world. The idea of making a new space with Jack, a place you could build together, share together, had outweighed the pain of saying goodbye to your little one-bed apartment. “Wrote the second one because you didn’t reply, and I was missin’ you. Then I just kept writin’ em, and sendin’ em, and waitin’ on you writin’ back, even if just to tell me to get lost. I got a note back, along with the letters, but it wasn’t from you. Some older couple moved in to your old place, told me they’d been keepin’ em all safe incase you ever came round to collect your old mail, but they figured it was time I stopped writin’ to a ghost.”

Attentive to his every word, you search for the letter with the earliest date. Sent two weeks after things ended, with a colourful stamp and a seal that’s slightly opened at the edges, the glue’s hold loosening with time and neglect. You tear it open completely and unfold the sheets of paper found within, eyes drawn immediately three quarters down the page.

I saw our friends tonight for the first time since you left. They asked how you’re doing and where you were. I thought they were just being cruel at first but no, they didn’t know about the break up. I told them you weren’t feeling well, that you decided to stay home tonight. I guess I just wanted one more night where you were still mine, even if it was just in the eyes of our friends. I will tell the truth next time I see them.

You feel as though you’re invading his privacy, reading over words he’d written months ago, despite being the intended audience. That doesn’t mean you have the willpower to stop, however, eyes diving deeper down the page.

Or maybe I won’t have to tell them. Maybe, next time I see them, you’ll have come home. There’s still a chance for us. I believe it because I love you. You said this wasn’t something we can fix. I think you’re wrong. There’s never been an issue we couldn’t solve by talking it through, why should this one be any different? Let’s get coffee, darling. Our usual place, our usual time, next Tuesday. We can get through this, you just have to let me know it’s something you want, that I’m something you still want.

Jack’s quiet in the driver’s seat, forgiving with the time he gives you to read over his letters. When the turning of pages and the ripping of envelopes rings too heavy in the car, your shoulders tensing up in a discomfort of disrupting the peaceful silence, he wordlessly turns the radio back up and the voice of Jeff Buckley greets you both.

You return to his letters, the second he’d sent already open in your palm.

I went to our usual spot. You never showed up. Your lack of reply to my letter should have been enough to tell me that, but I still had hope. Maybe I really am a fool. Our friends seem to think so. I told them about us and they immediately asked what I’d done wrong. There was no answer I could give them. The worst thing isn’t just that I’ve lost you, it’s that I don’t even know why.

You open the next envelope, and the next one, and the next one, paragraphs melting together into a heartbroken shape.

I tried to sleep in our bed. I lasted half an hour before crawling back to the guest room. Our room just feels too empty without you. I smell you everywhere no matter how many new sheets I buy.

Eggsy and Tilde got married. It’s the first wedding I’ve been to without you. I’m doing a lot of firsts without you recently. I hate it. Our friends (am I wrong to call them our friends? I’m not ready to just call them mine) tried setting me up with someone new. They showed me a picture and she’s beautiful, but I just kept comparing her to you. Against your beauty, she’s nothing.

Your mother was at the Statesman ground tour today. I was surprised to see her, she already done the tour years ago. I tried not to talk about you too much, I didn’t want her knowing how desperate I am to hear about you. Congratulations on your promotion, I always knew you’d get it. I’m so proud of you for finally applying for it. I heard you’ve started seeing somebody, a veteran turned mechanic. Your mother was kind enough to give me his name. I hope you understand that I don’t want to invade your privacy but I had to make sure you’re safe. The guy’s got a clean slate, other than a sketchy trip down to South America with some other vets. He seems like a good man. I want you to get your happy ending. Are you happy? I’m not.

Only one envelope remains unopened. The weight of it sits heavy in your lap, a fear settling in that has you not wanting to open it. You study the front of it, find out it was mailed three months ago. The radio moves in sync with you, it seems, the song that plays reaching its climatic moment at the same time as you do, tearing open the final letter. Next to you, Jack clears his throat and wrings his hands over the steering wheel.

This last one, you read the letter in full.

Darling girl,

Spring came faster this year. The daffodils you planted bloomed in early March. I’ve been tending to the garden, I know how much love you put into it. The flowers are coming up alright, the fruit and vegetables not so much. If only I had your green thumb.

I visited Tequila last week. I don’t know if it’s right to call him that anymore. Champ’s still not named his successor, part of me thinks he wants to retire it. That’s not what Tequila would’ve wanted. He would’ve wanted Ginger taking on the mantle. The grounds he’s on are beautiful, if not sombre. They overlook a lake, and the grass is cut everyday, and the sun shines on his grave from sunrise to sunset. I didn’t say much to him, just sat and enjoyed the view. Thought about a lot of things, and finally realised why you left.

You were scared. For me. I thought you were being selfish, breaking my heart like that, but I finally understand how awful that day must’ve been for you. We’d just buried my comrade, our friend, and you had to watch Tequila’s wife say her last goodbye, knowing it was almost me in that casket and you on the podium. That was my mission he went on, I could’ve been the one who didn’t come home to the woman I love.

I’m sorry I took so long to understand. I retired from my position at Statesman. I’m agent Whiskey no more. I’m coming to find you, and hope you give me one last real try at fixing us.

Love always,

your Jack.

“Your wedding invitation found me first,” Jack says, foot off the accelerator, eyes off the road, hands on the wheel.

The weight of his stare drags down to your lap, where the heap of papers now all sit, piled atop one another and rustling with every movement you make. Your own eyes have welled with tears that slip down the apples of your cheeks and splash the papers below, smudging the ink.

The confirmation of his invite knocks out the questions of how he wound up in the pews.

“I didn’t invite you,” you’re unsure if the truth is crueller than fiction. No part of you wants him to think you’d be so spiteful, so hurtful as to invite him to a day you’d once promised to share together. “I didn’t invite anyone. I was… busy, with work. My mom dealt with the invites, she must’ve written you down by accident.”

Your lips may be the ones to say it, but your own ears struggle to believe. Your mother’s always been a meticulous woman, practical, with her affairs eternally in order. The only mistakes she makes are the ones she means to.

“Yeah,” Jack sighs out from the driver’s seat, resignation in his voice. “I figured you didn’t invite me.”

TRACK 4 — 50 ways to leave your lover

Jack drives deeper into the night.

Out the car window, you watch as the world flies by, a blur of unlit trees and unmarked road signs. Earlier’s storm has rolled away and revealed the blanket of stars above, twinkling alongside a full moon. The road is long, and winding, and seemingly never ending. There’s no discussion of destination, no sanctuary you’re waiting to reach. You feel no urgency for it, either. So long as you sit right where you are, passenger in a car, you don’t have to take the wheel, you don’t have to choose where to go, or what to do. You can just exist within this liminal space, where no wedding lies in the balance and no hearts lay broken.

It’s just you and Jack, like the old days, going for a drive.

“Ask me,” permission comes off your tongue as you observe the driver and his less than subtle glances your way. “I can see the wheels turning in your head. Everything you wanted to know in the diner, I promise I’ll answer this time.”

“I guess I’m tryin’ to put myself in your shoes, figure out what was runnin’ through that pretty head of yours,” Jack is, at his core, a gentleman. For hours, he’s let you sit beside him, biting his own tongue and fighting back his own curiosity, a trait so vital to his existence it led him into a world of spies, and guns, and movie-esque kinds of evil. Even now, with your promised approval, he eases his way into his questioning, the part of him that knows you better than your own self dictating that this is something he must address with care. “How’d you do it?”

“I just slipped out the back, Jack,” there’s a chuckle of sorts that welcomes itself out the depths of Jack’s chest, your choice of words going hand in hand with that of the Paul Simon record reaching its end over the radio. As quick as the humour appears, it goes, leaving nothing but the unfortunate reality of the situation. “Someone left a door open, it led out onto the back gardens. The further away I got, the faster I started to run. I made it all the way past the highway on foot before an older couple pulled over. They dropped me off at a diner, and that’s where I stayed until-”

“Until I found you,” it’s a reminder you shouldn’t want, the image of Jack setting off to find you in the midst of the commotion of a missing bride. It’s not healthy for your poor psyche, already at odds with what it wants, no need for further complications brought on by unresolved feelings. You can’t help but smile at him, however, no filter strong enough to cover your subconscious’ joy. “Why did you run away?”

Your smile fades.

The promise you made is already at threat of being broken. You thought there’d be more questions, more time until he hit you with the heaviest of them all.

Why did you run away?

You know the answer. Of course you’ve known the answer, from the moment you decided to turn on your heel and sprint down the halls, in search of an escape. As much as you can pretend otherwise, and feign naivete, you can’t change the truth. That doesn’t mean you’re ready to admit it out loud, and so you refute it with a question of your own: “Why did you come to the wedding?”

It would be easy to forgive Jack for getting irate when faced with your avoidant response. He doesn’t even acknowledge it. Instead, he spins the steering wheel and shoots you a smile, the kind that used to keep you warm at night.

“I wasn’t goin’ to come at first,” comes his admittance. You can’t say you blame him, really, a picture of yourself in his shoes, receiving an invite to his wedding. The thought conjures a painful throb from your heart. “Nearly tossed the damn thing into the fireplace when I got it. A few weeks later, I met with Champ for a drink. Drank myself blind, till I started tellin’ him all about the invite. He told me I had to come.”

A lift of your eyebrows, a snap of your head towards him. There’s a desire to have his full attention on you. There’s also the awareness that the road acts as a buffer for the tensing heartache that swells and lulls between you, each exchange of words a game of painful chess. You make the choice to bring forth a pawn this once, a simple why?

“He said I’ve been livin’ with life on pause since you left, maybe watchin’ you marry another man would be the thing to help me hit play at last.”

INTERLUDE — go your own way

Like tires upon gravel, time rolls on.

No matter how easy it is to forget about the world outside, look out the window and pretend you’re simply on a train, trapped in a constant onward motion, there’s no ignoring the orange glow that begins to grow on the horizon, nor the red lights on the car radio that read 05:38. A new day grows fast upon you and, where you remain mute to it, Jack can not allow the fantasy to go on any longer.

The tires screech against the gravel and everything comes to a stop.

“Thinkin’ time’s up, sweetheart,” his hands retreat from the wheel, finding purchase on his thighs. You try not to follow their descent over the tailored suit, try not to think about the thick muscles that sit hidden beneath the black trousers. It’s not your place to think about them anymore. “Where are you goin’?”

Decision has never been something you’ve struggled with, much less when the choices are so simple and limited. Either you go back to the wedding venue, and meet whatever fate awaits you of scornful mothers, and disappointed fathers, and abandoned fiances. Or, you can go anywhere.

You make a mistake, let your mind wander to places it shouldn’t, and end up asking yourself where will Jack go. He still lives in the home you once shared, this you know. Will he go there, pour himself a drink, and try to forget this night even happened?

You can still picture it all. The coffee table Jack hand-carved, both your initials engraved on the side. The picture frames all along the wall, a mural of memories shared between you. The matching set of mugs, eternally sitting on the drying board, waiting for Jack to stagger his way down the stairs and fill them with boiling coffee. If you walked through that door again, would you find everything just the way you left it? Or, has he gotten a new table, changed the pictures in the frames, bought new mugs? Is there someone there, right now, sleeping in his bed and waiting on his return?

A bitter taste overcomes your tongue at the thought, your insides twisting up like you’ve not spent the past few months sleeping next to someone else and saying yes to proposals you weren’t expecting.

“What do you think I should do?” You don’t want him to tell you to go home, you want him to say come home.

“You can’t ask that of me. My answer’s gonna be nothin’ but selfish.” Would it really be so bad, you wish to ask, if Jack was selfish? Maybe life would be easier if he was. He clears his throat, like he clears his mind, and gone is your moment to tell him you want selfish. “I can say this, though… Your fiance’s a good man, a kind man. Kind enough to trust your parents words and let me, a stranger, go searchin’ for you. He deserves to know what decision you make. It ain’t just your weddin’, it’s his too.”

He’s right, and you hate it.

There’s no way you can tell him now that you were even contemplating not going back, of disappearing into the sunrise with him, driving till life leads you down the right roads to find a new home, your old home, Jack.

The muddied wedding dress seems to call to you from the car boot, a whispering of your name that tells you to put it back on, go back, and walk down that aisle. You owe that much to your fiance, if he’ll still have you. With him, you’ve never had to worry about him coming home safe. With him, you could live a happy enough life, keep yourself busy enough to ignore all the what-ifs your mind would try seduce you with.

Besides, that’s what Jack needs, right? To see you marry another man, a final nail in the coffin named us, so he can finally move on with his life. You owe him that much, at least.

With a nod of your head and the straightening of your spine, you set your choice in stone, “drive me back to him, Jack.”

The engine shudders to life and the radio sets itself back on course, some upbeat voice that demands you go your own way, a musical slap delivered upon your face. Jack turns the steering wheel, rerouting the car’s course with an effortless u-turn before he presses down on the accelerator, propelling you forward down the paths you’ve already travelled.

You tell yourself you’re doing the right thing, even if a familiar dread starts to settle in the pit of your stomach, brushing them off as rational nerves. Who wouldn’t be anxious when facing a man they left at the altar?

A yawn escapes you.

“We’re a few hours out from the chateau.” There’s something in his voice that weighs on him, the tone between you shifting to something of desperation. Goodbye is a few hours away. This time, for good. “Sleep, it’s late.”

“Aren’t you tired?” Pull over, you want to say. Let’s sleep. The wedding can wait a few more hours.

How unfortunate that he cannot read your thoughts, understand the intentions behind your staring as you recline your chair, turn to face him on your side, hands crossed protectively over your abdomen.

One blink, and your eyes are already fighting to stay open, dragging you down into the depths of slumber.

“I’m fine. Don’t sleep much these days anyway,” the sound of Jack’s voice fades slowly into the background, melting away with the hum of the engine, and the turn of the wheels, and the voice on the radio. “Never got used to the feeling of an empty bed.”

TRACK 5 — i’m on fire

When your eyes next open, the sun’s warmth is caressing your face.

The sound of children’s laughter fills the air, and the smell of smoke fills your lungs, and the feeling of resting against Jack’s shoulder fills you with dread. Fearful to move, you take in all of him that you can see from this angle.

There’s no suit upon him, replaced with the casualness of a cotton t-shirt and a pair of faded denims. The hat’s back on his head, the curls of ungelled hair that peak through dry as a bone. A cigarette rests neatly between fingers on his left hand, the right one grasping at the neck of a beer bottle. No wheel sits in front of him, no gear shift keeps space between you. The Bronco’s been replaced with the view of your parent’s backyard and the comfort of a well cushioned outdoor couch.

You know this memory.

You’ve lived this memory.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” just like you remember, Jack’s stubbing out the half-smoked cigarette the moment he notices your open eyes. “How you feelin’?”

“Like my uterus is trying to carve its way out of me,” your mouth plays along with the dream, speaking the same words it had years ago.

“That good, huh?” A beer stained kiss meets the corner of your mouth, another follows up to your forehead, as Jack’s free hand reaches into his pocket, reemerging with silver foil between two fingers. “Got these off your mother. Let me go get you somethin’ to eat, then you can take two, hm?”

You remember thinking that you love him. You didn't dare speak it, however, simply nodding as you took the blister packet of paracetamol out his offering grasp and uncurled your legs back down onto the floor, stretching your arms. Jack bends down, presses his lips against the crown of your head, and then he’s off, venturing over to where your father stands grilling another round of burgers on the barbeque.

Jack’s always been a confident man. He carries himself with a head held high and a careless smile on his face, no chip on his shoulder and no flare for anger in his bones. A southern gentleman, who knows his own charms and, most dangerously, how to use them. Place him alone with your father, however, and watch how he crumbles like a house of cards. To the untrained eye, it’s unnoticeable, but you don’t miss the glances he spies your father with each time he throws out a joke, nor the way his hands can never seem to relax, a nervous tic of drumming against his thighs or balling into fists as he makes conversation with the older man. He’s desperate for the approval of your monotonous father, so desperate he fails to see he won it months ago,

“Eat up, drink up, you need it,” he says as he hands you the paper plate, and his half-drunk bottle of beer. He settles back down on the couch, pulling you into him once more. “Your old man was sayin’ we should probably head off soon, ‘fore it gets too late. Think he’s startin’ to warm up to me, he’s even worryin’ bout me drivin’ in the dark.”

“Oh, he loves you,” you take a bite, break two of the pills out their casing, wash them down with a swig of bitter beer. The summer sun burns in the corners of your eyes, forcing them into a squint. “He kept looking for you at the dinner table at my mom’s birthday, you should’ve seen his reaction when I told him you were stuck in New York slaving away in your office.”

Months later, you’d come to find out he wasn’t in New York, surrounded by mountains of paperwork, but somewhere in the south of France, hunting down some billionaire wine-maker with plans to poison the crops of surrounding vineyards, leaving only his wine safe to consume.

In your memory, Jack plucks the hat off his own head and rests it gently upon your own, a shaded barrier against the bright light in the sky. You thank him, he watches on quietly as you continue to eat, gaze not peeling itself away from you the whole time.

“What? Do I have ketchup on my face? Or, in my hair?” You’d asked him, mid-chew. No answer, more staring. Panic made a debut in your mind, suddenly alert to his unusual behaviour. “Wait, is it a bug? Jack, is there a bug in my hair?”

“I love you.”

No build up, no grand-speech, no overly romantic setting.

He said it like one shares the weather, or the time, or what they’re wanting for lunch. He said it like it was something he always said, would always say, despite it being the very first time you’d heard him do so. Tears had flown in quickly, your hormones already gone haywire with the unexpected arrival of shark week earlier that morning. There’s a vague assurance that you told him you loved him too, through tears, and he teased your weepy face with kisses down your cheeks and full-chested laughter.

“Bless your cotton socks, my sweet girl, cryin’ all cause old Jack says-”

“Tell me now baby, is he good to you?”

You jolt awake.

Jack’s by your side, suit on, hair air dried, one hand on the wheel, the other rests out the window. The roof is down, letting the sun shine on you and his caramel eyes. An old Springstein song plays in the background, the very same thing that coaxed you awake. Just like the dream, he takes a few minutes to notice your opened eyes, head turning your way as another car shoots off ahead of you both, overtaking him.

“You were mumblin’ in your sleep. Were you dreamin’ of somethin’ sweet?”

“I was,” too quick comes your reply. Too honest. Nerves have you stumbling over words, scrambling to pick them off the floor of your mind and spew out the first thing that doesn’t involve Jack and his easy-going professions of love. “About the first time my fiance told me he loves me.”

You regret it as soon as you speak, the visible halt to his smile. He overcorrects it, forcing a grin that stretches the corners of his mouth so tight it almost looks painful. “Well, c’mon, don’t go keepin’ it to yourself!”

“He, uh, wrote it in the sky.”

“How romantic. Pricey too, I bet.”

“It was his best man who did it, an ex military pilot.”

As you try to reminisce on the day, little memories blossom in your mind. Instead of vivid motion capture, the day is black and white, no sound. You don’t remember where you were, what he was wearing, how you felt when you read those words up above.

It happened only two months into your relationship, that you do remember. You also remember being parked in your old neighbourhood the night before, twenty minutes spent trying to will yourself to go knock on the door to your old home. The Bronco was in its usual spot, parked outside. No lights were on as you pulled away and willed yourself back to rational thinking.

“Jeez, if that’s how he’s tellin’ you he loves you, I can’t imagine how he proposed.”

You wonder if this is as tortuous for him as it is for you, listening to you detail the life you’d gone on to live just months after walking away from five years of love. “In a restaurant,” you can’t remember the name, or what you ate, or what you wore, as if the memory is one that doesn’t belong to you, never belonged to you. “I ordered dessert, ‘will you marry me?’ was written on it in cherry sauce.”

“You must’ve said yes immediately.”

“I did.”

You leave out the part where the whole restaurant had watched him get down on one knee, or the part where you rushed to the restroom right after accepting the ring, spewing your guts out in a stall. By morning, you told yourself it was fine, you were just feeling nervous.

After all, you loved him enough to spend time with him, so why not spend the rest of your life with him?

TRACK 6 — she’s always a woman

It had been too easy to forget the thing you loved most about road trips with Jack.

It wasn’t his constant commentary of interesting facts on sites you’d drive past, or his love for taking the long-way to anywhere and everywhere, or his ever-present need to drag your hand up to his lips with every few miles.

The thing you loved most was listening to his voice, unfiltered, unashamed, outloud, singing along to his favourite songs. The voice of a crooning angel and the shyness of a bashful fox. Every so often, when he’d catch you watching him a little too fondly as he sang along, he’d throw in a voice crack, or twist up a lyric into a sickly innuendo.

In the present, it’s you who interrupts his spirited rendition of a Billy Joel classic.

“You were right, in the letters,” the leather of your seat squeaks as you fix your posture, sit yourself up straight if only to force yourself to stop observing the way his lips fall into a natural pout and, instead, focus on memorising the licence plate that drives ahead. “I’m sorry.”

“Right about what?” As though nothing has changed, his hand extends towards your own, effortlessly intertwining your fingers, beginning an ascent to his mouth before mind takes over instinct and he’s letting you go, setting you free.

You give up on the licence plate ahead, turn your face once more towards Jack and his pouty lips.

“I couldn’t be with Agent Whiskey anymore.” A relationship made up of a man, a woman, and an agent. Whiskey would kiss you goodbye in the morning, while Jack would be the one to come home to you. With the passing of time, three became a crowd, and so you removed yourself. “I didn’t want to break your heart, Jack, I swear. But I also didn’t want to let you break mine. And you did, every time you walked out of our home and left me wondering if you’d ever come back. Then, when Tequila… You loved your job. You loved being Agent Whiskey. How could I ask you to leave that part of you behind?”

“Darlin’ if you think there’s any world where losin’ you was easier than losin’ Whiskey, you’re out of your mind.” Like his first I love you, he speaks words that flow out of him as easily as an exhale, as though they carry no weight to them. As though they do not momentarily flip your world on its axis and have you wishing he’d turn the car around, driving you both off into the forever you never got.

Yet another car overtakes the Bronco, its driver angrily pressing on his horn. You both continue to ignore the speed at which Jack drives. Up ahead, everything you’ve been dreading comes into view, an unmissable billboard. Clearview Manor.

50 miles to go. 50 miles till goodbye.

“I’m hungry.”

“Those energy bars should still be in there, if you’re wantin’-”

“Jack, I’m hungry,” you say it louder, hoping he’ll pick up what you’re laying down.“Can’t we stop somewhere for breakfast?”

His answer comes in the form of a left blinker switching on, wheels cutting over gravel and carrying you off the main road. Then, as if to break your heart some more than his last declaration, he turns to you. “If it had been me waitin’ on you at the end of the aisle, would you have ran?”

You try to picture it.

Jack, in his suit and tie, hands clasped behind his back to keep him from drumming nervous fingers over his thighs, eyes brimming with tears as you take your first step down the aisle. Would the panic have settled in? Would you have felt that same wrongness as when you’d been sneaking a peak at your fiance waiting down the aisle?

Would you have ran?

“It’s not something I planned, y’know? Running. I didn’t think it was even an option,” you’re laying your final card on the table, a truth you couldn't bring yourself to admit earlier at last coming out to play. You’re unsure if it dismisses or further condemns you for your runaway crimes. “I took a peak, at the ceremony hall, while waiting for my father. I needed to see what I was about to walk into. I guess I thought the nerves were just from that, the unknown. Then I saw you, a few rows from the back. At first I thought I was hallucinating, that you were just a man who happened to be wearing a cowboy hat. But then I saw my mum pulling you in for a hug, and I caught a glimpse of your face. That’s why I ran. I couldn’t… marry another man, not with you standing in the crowd.”

“You’ve not answered my question,” it’s the first you’ve seen Jack put his foot down since he dragged you out the diner, the seriousness etched into his frowning forehead and stamped onto his lips. “Would you have ran?”

“No.”

Jack just keeps driving.

TRACK 7 — dancing in the dark

“You can’t be serious!”

Squeezed into the corner booth of a dingy, run-down bar, you and Jack sit across from one another, digging into a stack of pancakes lathered in maple syrup.

The bartender and two of his patrons glance at you both every so often, and you have to wonder how odd a pair you and Jack must make. One dressed to the nines, if you ignore the dried mud at the bottom of his dress pants and his loosening tie, the other wearing yesterday’s make-up paired with cotton pyjama pants. You prefer it to the stares you’d gained in your wrinkled gown.

“Deadly. I’m a serious tap-dancin’ student,” his fork stabs into the fluffy goodness, dragging it along the plate, soaking the pancake in as much syrup as possible. You try not to think of mornings that used to be spent like this, sitting at your own table, flour in his hair and eggshells in your own, both of you ignoring the disastrous mess in the kitchen begging to be cleaned as you tuck into your homemade pancakes. “Retirement breeds weird hobbies.”

“Before long, you’ll be playing bingo at the old folks home.”

“I just have to ask, I really do,” a dread you haven’t felt since stepping out the car— with the help of Jack and his offering hand, the other holding your door open— creeps back in. You don’t want to talk about your own current reality, not when it’s been so easy to pretend none of the wedding fiasco happened and, instead, you’re simply catching up with Jack after bumping into each other in this bar. “This fiance of yours… is he bigger than me?”

As quick as it inflates, the tension pops.

“Oh my god, Jack!” You laugh, a little too loudly, and dip your head as other tables turn their heads your way.

“What?”

“You did not just ask me that.”

“Oh, but I did.”

“You can’t just say things like that!” In mock surrender, he throws his hands up. Your own grab ahold of your knife and fork once more, an ironclad focus on the near-empty plate as you will the shameful heat away from your face, mumbling over your words. “But, no, he isn’t bigger. Happy?”

“You’ve no idea.” As though you’re being haunted by music, a song begins to play over the speakers. You’re not the only one who takes notice, Jack’s eyes lighting up with a devious look, his legs already rising out of his seat. “Think that’s our queue, darlin’.”

“Sit back down.”

“Oh, c’mon now, don’t be so uptight,” he lays out his hand, begging for you to place your own in it. Flashes of a memory, six years back, the very same song playing as the very same man attempted to coax a dance out of you. “One dance, sweetheart, then I’ll leave you in peace.”

Just like your younger self, you’re incapable of resisting his baby cow eyes, letting him guide you out onto a makeshift dance floor before it’s too late to run back and hide in your seat, the eyes of strangers already piercing you with their questioning stares. If you weren’t deemed a strange pair with your attire alone, you certainly are now, feet stumbling awkwardly along with Bruce Springstein.

“This song was playin’ when we met,” he says it like you don’t know, like you don’t remember, like you aren’t replaying that night as you speak, pretending you’re both in that same crowd of swaying bodies, young, and naive, and on the cusp of experiencing the greatest love you’ll ever know, rather than here, on an empty dance floor, stumbling blindly through the hardships of holding each other so close, mutually aware you’re dancing on borrowed time and, soon, you’ll have to go. “Knowin’ now how it ends, if I was sent back in time, I’d still ask you to dance. I’d do it all again.”

“This gun’s for hire, even if we’re just…”

He spins you, drags you closer, sways you. It’s far less care-free than the first dance you shared, no alcohol to dull the shame and a whole lot of history packed between your bodies.

The first dance had been the thing you had dreaded most about your wedding, dancing with your husband, to a whole room of loved ones watching. Dancing now with Jack— even through all the embarrassment you feel as an elderly couple point over at you— feels easier, less daunting, so much so that you can’t help the way you start to laugh, arms loosening around his shoulders, hips moving less abashedly.

The two of you inch closer, and closer, and closer as the song reaches its end. Like a happy couple finishes their first dance, Jack’s mouth lands atop yours.

A gentle kiss, innocent of sin, it begs you to give back, to press your own mouth against his. You answer its calling, hand clasping at the back of his neck, holding him safely against you, less he drifts away and reveals this all to have been a dream, a nightmare, a delusion. Like coming home after a cold winter’s day, his kiss is the comfort of knowing you’re exactly where you belong.

And it’s absolutely terrifying.

You rip away from him, flashes of your fiance’s face blinding you as you stumble off, doing what you do best: running away. You miss the way the patrons all go back to their own drinks, and the way a new song comes on, and the way Jack chases after you, stopped only by the slamming of a bathroom door.

You come up for air when you find yourself faced with the image you paint in the mirror.

Never has there been a more heartbroken girl, eyes a mess of tears, and faded eyeliner, and smudged mascara, hair a nest fit enough for any bird to build its home in, body draped in the clothing of an ex-lover. It’s almost as frightening as the image you made yesterday, wedding gown freshly laced and make-up pristinely done.

A knock rings against the door.

It’s followed by a gentle call of your name.

You switch on the tap, welcome the cold splash of water over your face. Pray that, if you scrub hard enough, you’ll wipe away the taste of him, forget the shape of his touch, purge yourself of the desire to follow anywhere he may go. Your hand slips down your face, the dim bathroom light catches on something.

Your engagement ring, a tight shackle that binds you to someone else, reminds you of the closure you owe to Jack.

He calls your name again.

“Darlin’,” it’s muffled behind the door, but the regret in his voice is all too clear. “I just got caught up, I’m sorry. Come on out and we’ll get back on the road-”

The hinges creak as the door opens, only a crack, and your hand shoots out, grabbing a hold of Jack’s tie before you can will yourself to be rational.

He lets you invade his space with little protest, mouths returning to the dance they never got to complete. Hands move, slipping off ties, and undoing draw strings, and locking doors. There’s a mumble, are you sure, followed by a moan, please.

All hope of forgetting his skin is lost, a leg hooked around his waist, fingers tangled in his hair. He bites at your neck, and kisses along your jaw, and pants into your ear, all the while his hips rock back and forth against your own, filling you inch by inch. Mouth covered by your own hand, muffling a cry of his name as you feel him brush against that spine-tingling spot inside you. Your head falls back, eyes slip shut. Jack’s quick to rectify it.

“Watch, darlin’,” he whispers, a hand tilting your eyes down to where your two bodies meet. “ Want you to see how perfectly your lil’ pussy takes me.”

You do as he says, hypnotised by the sight of his cock, glistening in your own arousal, sawing in and out of you, each thrust deeper than the last.

“He can’t fuck you like this, can he?” Despite his ego-fueled words, there’s a desperation in his voice, a soul lost in a sea of darkness, searching for a life jacket. “Tell me he can’t.”

He can’t, you tell him, clinging onto him tighter, needier, begging him to never leave.

Any minute now, you worry, someone’s going to knock on the bathroom door, kick you both out. Instead, the music that plays outside the door seems to increase in volume.

“Fuckin’ made for me, meant for me,” both of you grow increasingly desperate, fingernails digging into flesh, and mouths rejoining in a frenzy of kisses, and the tightening of an invisible string, drawing you nearer and nearer to the edge. “My sweet girl.”

An end that comes all too soon, both of you exhausted, and spent, and collapsing against one another, a sticky mess left between your legs where his hips continue to rut into you through his own overstimulation.

“I’m sorry,” his head falls against your shoulder, burrows into the warmth of your neck. There’s a press of his lips against your skin, and a million apologies that follow. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I love you, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I love you.”

“It’s okay, Jack,” you lie, sooth a hand over his back, ignore the tears you feel falling against your skin.

TRACK 8 — hit the road jack

The clock reads 13:18 as Jack brings the car to a stop.

A set of stairs lead up to a grand double-doored entrance, a sign post declaring the extravagant building as Clearview Manor. Rented for the whole weekend, the wedding party isn’t cited to leave until late Monday evening. Though all cars remain parked in the driveway, no familiar faces await your arrival.

“I hope you get your happy ending,” the two of you step out of the car in sync. A voice whispers that it’s the last time you’ll step out the Bronco, you brush it off and follow Jack as he makes his way over to the boot. “No one deserves it more than you, Jack.”

“No promises, darlin’,” he extends his arms to you, you almost move in for a hug.

The sight of your wedding dress, no longer porcelain white, stains of brown upon a greying fabric, reminds you of why you’re here. You try your best to smile earnestly as you take it off his hands, but fear it only heightens the distress that dilates your pupils. “I’ll see you inside, right?”

The boot slams shut, and it’s an awful reminder that your time together is coming to a close, Jack dons his signature smile, cowboy hat back on his head, a head that’s shaking no.

“The mighty fool that I am, thinkin’ I could stomach watchin’ you get married to another man. After this little road trip of ours… well, I guess I just ain’t ready to hit play yet.” A tongue made of lead, shoes filled with weights. Moving feels impossible, talking even more so. You want to say his name, tell him you don’t need to marry another man, crawl back into the Bronco and beg him to drive off. “Go’on, get! There’s a good man in there, waitin’ to give you everythin’ you deserve.”

Instead, you just turn on your heel, take the first step towards the rest of your life. A life without Jack.

Halfway up the stairway, the sound of Jack’s engine reaches your ears, followed quickly by the obnoxiously poignant car radio, giving its final performance for you both.

“Hit the road, Jack, and don’t you come back, no more, no more, no more, no more!”

Eyes meeting where Jack sits, back in the driver’s seat, you share one last laugh.

OUTRO — everywhere

“Thank god you’re okay.”

Two arms, strong and secure, wrap around your waist.

On the other side of the bridal suite door stands both your mother and your mother in law, ushered out by your fiance upon your return the moment he noticed the panic on your face as questions and fingers prodded at you.

You block out the thought of the scowling faces, burrowing your own into the space between his shoulder and neck, whispering your inquiry on, “how bad is the damage?”

“We told everyone you were suffering from food poisoning. All our guests think you’ve been spewing out of both ends the past few hours, but I think that’s justified for the bruising you’ve given my ego.”

“Santi,” the shape of your fiance’s name feels foreign in your mouth, the taste of it sour on your tongue, so much so that you can’t say it in full. “I’m so sorry-”

“Don’t be, what matters is you’re here now.”

Jack was right, your fiance is a nice man. A good man. A man anyone would be lucky to land in the arms of, the kind of man people dream of, and romance authors write of.

But to you, his arms just feel like a cage you’ve lost the key for. “Why did you ask me to marry you?”

“I don’t know. We just… make sense.”

“We do,” you pull apart, at last, nodding your head along to his answer. “But is that all marriage should be? Two people who make sense?” You stumble a few steps back from him, feet needing space to begin pacing back and forth as your filter slips and the word-vomit begins to spew itself out onto the pristine carpeted floors. “Do you really love me enough to spend the rest of your days with me? Because I don’t think you do, and I don’t think I love you like that either.”

Santiago is calm, collected, and completely unresponsive.

The longer he watches you pace and rant, the quicker you do each thing, as though you’re racing ahead to escape the fear of breaking his heart more than you already have, his love possibly more intense than you make it seem. He ends that fear in one foul swoop of words.

“When you didn’t walk down the aisle, I felt relieved. I also slept with someone at my bachelor party and the guilt has been eating me alive.”

“I just fucked my ex in a bathroom!” In an almost paradoxical response, the pair of you keen over in laughter, any expected animosity thrown out the metaphorical window and leaving you both no choice but to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. “God, we’re a mess.”

“Wait, the cowboy’s your ex? I should’ve known, your dad told him you were gone before he even bothered to tell me.” Santiago had little luck at winning over your dad, though admittedly it was no fault of his own but, rather, your father had yet to move on from Jack. There’s a sudden commotion as Santi rushes past you, peeling back the curtains and peering down out the window. “What car is it the cowboy drives?”

“A Bronco.”

“Well, you might wanna hurry, because he’s just pulling out of the parking bays.” It’s more than just a warning. It’s a blessing to leave. Overcome with emotion, you dive back into his arms and find there’s no fear of goodbye, not like there had been with Jack. An engagement ring that slips off with no resistance, no longer a shackle that ties you both together. You hand it back to him gently. “Go, before it’s too late! I’ll take care of this mess, see if I can spin this in a way that’s heartbreaking enough to get our deposit back.”

There’s more you want to say, but now’s not the time. Apologies and thank-yous can wait till you pick up your things from his apartment, right now you’re too busy rushing to the door.

A call of your name comes when you’ve got one foot out it, treading into the now motherless hallway. You face Santiago with a smile, ready to say that magic word.

Goodbye.

“Promise me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t invite me to your wedding.”

You make it out the double-doors, which slam loudly shut behind you, before you spot the retreating shape of Jack’s car and an anxious glee commands you to break out into a sprint, legs kicking faster than they ever have before.

Don’t speed up, you think, watching as the Bronco slowly creeps down the driveway.

“Jack!” You call out to him, hoping that, with the open roof, he’ll somehow hear you over the radio. Pushing your feet to move a little faster, your arms join the mix, waving wildly to the wind, a careless attempt to catch his attention in the rearview mirror. “Wait!”

The car breaks with a squeak, the blaring music comes to a halt, and Jack turns to face you with his own eyes, as though he can’t trust the mirrors. When you reach the car, you pull at the door handle and find he’s already unlocked it. You slide in with ease, back into the seat you’ve always belonged in: by his side.

He can’t seem to move, frozen with his eyes focused on nothing but you.

“Drive, jack,” you finally proclaim, asking him what you should’ve the moment you saw him in that diner, in the pews, in the heartbreaking hours post-burying a friend.

“Where to, darlin’?”

“Anywhere, everywhere!” You can’t help the smile that overcomes you as he pulls your hand up to his mouth, planting a familiar kiss upon it, before the engine hums back to life. “It doesn’t matter, as long as I’m with you, all roads lead home.”

Like old times, you lean forward and turn up the radio, a familiar tune filling the air as you sink back into your seat, the wind back in your hair and an open road laying ahead, ready to lead you both wherever the wheels may take you.

“Oh I, I wanna be with you everywhere.”

bts with hyde. this is just a little reflective commentary that i put down here, to avoid flooding my author's note with too much rambling. please feel free to skip this!!

this fic is a compilation of firsts for me. it's the first challenge i've taken part in within the pedro fanspace, which has been equally exciting as it has been daunting. i struggle immensely with writing on a time schedule, and so i'm pretty proud of myself for not posting this (too) late.

this is also my first time writing for jack. admitedly, i'm not sure if i've done justice to him, as his character is somehow incredibly strong and, yet, so open for interpretation that i found myself struggling to connect with him in my writing. i have no plans to write for him in any future wips, but that might change. it was definitely fun to push myself out my comfort zone and write for a new character!

something i want to praise myself for is the attention i put into smaller details of this fic. for example, each flower mentioned in this fic has a very specific symbol/meaning attached to it, fitting with the themes of the scenes in which they're mentioned. the other place i hyperfocused on very unimportant details is the playlist. it opens and closes on the only two songs fronted by a female vocalist, with my intention being that these songs are a representation of the reader's inner turmoils and thoughts in the opening and closing scenes. the rest of the playlist is full of male vocalists, giving a peak into jack's mind despite the entire fic being told through the reader's eyes.

okay, i've given myself enough delusional and unnecesary praise, i'm going to sleep now. please don't be mean if you didn't like this fic, it's literally my birthday 🫡

if you've read this far, ily, i hope you have a good day !

#summerlovin24 #jack daniels smut #agent whiskey smut #pedro pascal smut #jack daniels x reader #agent whiskey x reader #pedro pascal x reader #jack daniels oneshot #agent whiskey oneshot #jack daniels fanfic #agent whiskey fanfic

301 notes · View notes

scary-grace · 16 days ago

Text

among the wildflowers - a shigaraki x f!reader oneshot

You were raised to hide your magic, but Tenko didn't learn about his until it was too late. When it erupts with deadly consequences and splits the two of you apart, you turn to your own magic for a solution, even knowing that it could change you for good. If it brings Tenko back to you, it'll all be worth it - no matter how long it takes.

This is a slightly late submission for Challenge Friday over @pixelcafe-network, for which I received the prompts 'striped carnation' and 'stock flower'! I decided to combine them into one fic, which naturally got sort of long. 7.1k, lowkey medieval au, magic, flower symbolism, setting-appropriate violence, pining, etc. dividers by @strangergraphics.

Once upon a time, you were a little girl who lived with her mother in a small cottage at the edge of a great estate. Your mother tended to the estate’s vast gardens, sometimes accompanied by the lady of the house, and you followed at her heels, speaking only when spoken to but learning by watching the rest of the time. You don’t remember the first day you set out with your mother and a handcart full of tools and supplies. It was what you always did.

You remember the day you met the lord and lady’s children, though. As though it was yesterday. All you have to do is close your eyes and think back, and suddenly you’re there again – sitting up in the wild section of the gardens mere seconds before Hana and Tenko could trip over you. Hana stopped in time. Tenko couldn’t. He knocked you over completely and the two of you sprawled out in the dirt. Hana fell down, too, but only because she was laughing so hard. “I warned you, Tenko! I said to watch out –”

“I couldn’t see,” Tenko protested. “The grass was too high. Are you all right?”

You nodded. Your mother had told you not to speak to the lord and lady’s children unless spoken to, and while Tenko did speak to you, you didn’t need to answer out loud. Tenko scratched idly at the side of his neck and peered closer at you. “Where did you come from? Are you alone?”

“She’s not alone, silly. Her mother is the gardener.” Hana smiled, offered you a hand up. Not taking it would be rude, so you took it. “What are you doing out here?”

“Listening to the flowers,” you said. For some reason, you were more comfortable speaking to Hana than Tenko. Tenko made you shy. “They can talk.”

“I knew it! That’s why we’re here.” Tenko produced a book, one that looked far too frail to be dragged out into the garden. “This says flowers have their own language, and if we can learn to talk in it, we’ll be able to send messages without anybody else understanding. If you already know it, you can teach us!”

“And talk to us, too!” Hana beamed. She was still holding your hand, and when she sat down, she pulled you down with her. Tenko sat down on her other side and handed over the book. “It’s all right if you can’t read. Tenko can’t read yet, either.”

“I can too –”

“I’ll read it out loud,” Hana said importantly. She opened the book, flipped through it to a certain page, and started reading. “Abecedary. Volatility. Abatina – that’s fickleness –”

“Those aren’t good,” Tenko said, frowning. “I don’t even know what those are.”

You didn’t, either. “I know all the flowers in the garden, but not those. Keep reading – please.”

You only remembered please at the last second, remembered you were talking to nobility far too late, and cringed in expectation of a punishment. Even the village children, confident that they were your betters, were always quick to reprimand. But Tenko was nodding in agreement, and Hana kept reading, as requested. “Acacia – friendship. Do you know that one?”

You did, and you brought back a sprig for each of them. That was how you made your best and only friends.

Sometimes they both came to find you in the gardens, but as the years passed, more often it was Tenko alone, fleeing his father or already banished from the house. He brought the book with him, and sometimes his dog, too, and no matter where you were in the gardens, they always found their way to where you played. Tenko could read by then, and you were learning, a little. Enough to read about the language of flowers, and the meaning of each bloom you and your mother tended to.

“You said you could understand the flowers,” Tenko said to you one day, and you nodded. “You didn’t mean it like this.”

He tapped the book. You nodded again. “I can hear what they say to each other. I can’t always understand it, but I hear.”

Tenko’s dog was sleeping in the grass a few feet away, snoring. Tenko watched you with bright eyes and a smile that still made you shy. “Tell me what they’re saying.”

“They gossip and chatter like hens in a henhouse.”

“Or like my grandparents at tea,” Tenko said, and laughed. “Do they talk about us?”

The flowers really only have one thing to say. “They want Mon to stop watering them.”

Tenko laughed harder, and beneath the sweet, raspy sound, you could hear the flowers whispering. Urging care, urging caution. “Don’t tell anyone, please.”

“I won’t. I swear,” Tenko said earnestly. He held out his hand to link little fingers and swear, and you crooked your finger around his. “Tell me when they say things about me.”

“I will,” you promised. “Keep reading?”

Tenko turned the page, still clumsier than Hana ever did. “Alyssum – worth beyond beauty. Amaranth – immortality and unfading love.” He stumbled over the next few, his mouth tangling around the syllables, until his lips split and he worked it out. “Ambrosia – love returned. Oh, no –”

His lip was bleeding. “Let me,” you said without thinking, and you ran your fingertip over the split, coaxing it to heal quickly. Tenko froze beneath your hand. “I’m sorry –”

“You fixed it,” Tenko said. He raised the hand that had been scratching his neck and nudged your hand aside, tracing over the healed split himself. “You’re magic –”

You shushed him hurriedly. “Don’t tell anyone about that, either.”

“I won’t,” Tenko said. “Not even Hana. She talks to Father, and Father doesn’t like magic.”

You knew. You’d heard shouting from the manor, heard a few details from Tenko himself when he came running after the latest fight. Tenko’s grandmother, long dead by then, was a witch with tremendous power, who abandoned Tenko’s father to be raised by strangers so she could pursue an old enemy. Hana and Tenko weren’t supposed to know about that, and neither were you. “He says magic makes people selfish,” Tenko said. He looked at you with something like awe. “But you aren’t.”

“My mother says magic doesn’t change who a person is. It’s all about how they use it.”

Tenko smiled again, and a different split opened in his lips. “What are you going to use it for?”

You sealed the new split, too. “This,” you said, and almost immediately you felt his lips stretch into a wider smile beneath your fingers.

Your magic is the magic of wild places, of things that grow and change, and you had only small uses for it until the summer of your twelfth year. That was the year plague swallowed the countryside, scoured the village, and left the manor house untouched. It left your cottage untouched, too. Your mother went to the village one day, leaving you home to tend the gardens, and never returned. A messenger brought word that she had fallen sick. Another brought word that she had died, not half an hour later.

Tenko’s father was not unkind to you. He ensured your mother was laid to rest properly, at his own expense, and when you begged an audience from him with tears still drying on your cheeks, he granted it and let you make your case for why you should be allowed to take on your mother’s role rather than being cast out. “I have followed her since I was able to walk. I know all that she knew about the gardens, and I could learn more, for I can read. I am a diligent worker. I will ask for nothing. Only – please, do not send me away.”

“You’re still a child,” Tenko’s father said, almost dismissively. “How do you expect to care for yourself alone?”

“I know what to do,” you said stubbornly. Even though your hope was fading, you held firm. “I can tend to the gardens, and to myself.”

It was quiet for a moment. “Due to your inexperience, you’ll receive half your mother’s previous wage,” Tenko’s father said. “And you’ll take your evening meal here, at six o’clock each evening. Do you understand?”

It was more than you had hoped for. You nodded enthusiastically, smiling so hard your face hurt, and at your first meal with the Shimuras, you spent most of it staring down at your bowl, tears slipping down your face. Hana walked you home, with a bundle of food from the cook for your breakfast, and although you looked for Tenko, he was nowhere to be found. Hana was long gone and you were lighting the candles when he dropped something on your doorstep and ran away.

“Tenko?” you called out. “Tenko, come back.”

He was gone. On your doorstep was a bouquet, tied messily with twine, and as you sorted through it, you named the flowers one by one. Evergreen thorn – solace in adversity. Everlasting – never-ceasing remembrance. Marigold – grief. It made for an awkward bouquet, but you did not love it for its appearance. You replanted the bouquet in dark soil and coaxed them back to life, and many years later, you sang to them until they grew into a strange hybrid tree, one with thorns and flowers. It grows still. If anyone asks you, you could show it to them.

You mourned your mother. You would mourn her forever. You were always lonely, but the evenings you spent with Tenko’s family were peaceful ones. Looking back, you think that your presence kept the worst of Tenko’s father’s temper quiet, simply because he did not wish to misbehave in front of a stranger. Lady Shimura was always kind to you, and Hana and Tenko had been your friends for many years by then. You were never foolish enough to think you were part of their family. You were grateful for the time you had.

The night the Shimuras died, you’d retired early. You felt ill, and ill at ease, and you couldn’t explain why. Whenever you came upon a feeling you couldn’t explain, you were apt to blame magic, and you thought it wise to experience whatever was about to happen out of sight. You were correct to believe that magic was at fault for the discomfort and unease that swept over you. It just wasn’t your magic that caused it.

The legends say that Hell woke within the Shimuras’ house that night, wrecked it from the inside out until nothing but the foundation was left. If a piece of damnation came through, it left Hell far from empty behind it. You heard screams and terrible sounds, and the flowers whispered to you of what had happened at the manor house in the dark of the moon. They told you all they could see and all they had heard. By the time Tenko fell heavily against your doorstep, you knew most things.

Most things, save one. You brought him inside, cleaned blood off his hands, resolved to say nothing – and even as you were so resolved, you were opening your mouth. “Did you mean to do it?”

“No.” Tenko shivered, in spite of the blanket you wrapped around his shoulders. “Not all of it.”

“Your father,” you said. Tenko nodded, cringed away from you when you reached for him again. “Let me help.”

“I could hurt you.”

“Your magic needs time to build back up. Mine does, when I use a lot of it,” you said. “It’s safe, for a little while.”

“Why don’t you hate me?” Tenko looked at you. His grey eyes had gone red, his black hair gone blueish-grey. There were fresh cuts over his eye and lip. “I killed all of them. Why aren’t you scared? Why aren’t you sad?”

You were. You’d show it more, later, once you finally wandered up to the ruins of the manor house and saw what had befallen the people who’d been kind to you. In that moment, all you could see was your best friend in front of you, bleeding and frightened and alone except for you. “I know why it happened,” you said to Tenko, and his shoulders stiffened beneath your hands. “It’s your magic, but there’s something within it. I can see it. Like corruption or root-rot. I could draw it out –”

“No.” Tenko recoiled from you. “It’s not safe.”

“If it’s unsafe for me, it’s unsafe for you, too,” you argued. “Please, Tenko. Let me help you.”

Tenko hesitated for a long moment. Somewhere in that moment, you reached for him, tracing your finger along the cut over his eye and healing it closed. For the first time, it didn’t heal smoothly. What happened to Tenko the night his magic erupted would leave a scar. It was the same with the one on his lip, too. He spoke before you could pull away. “In the morning.”

“In the morning,” you agreed, and as easily as taking the next step down on a staircase, you leaned in and kissed him.

In a love story, a true romance, you would have made love all night, and he would have left something behind with you – a child, maybe, with eyes like his used to be and your life-magic in its veins. The truth was simpler. You kissed your best friend and he kissed you back, his hands shaking and his mouth uncertain against yours. You led him to your bed and the two of you slept in each other’s arms. Slept, and nothing more. Tenko fell asleep within moments, wrung dry by the horror he’d been part of, and you stayed awake a while longer, sensing the corruption within him, planning how to draw it out when daylight came.

When you woke in the morning, your bed was cold, and when you went in search of Tenko, he was gone. The plants told you he had left, gone far beyond your reach, and if you had entertained any thoughts of chasing after him, they dissipated when you saw what he had left for you: A striped carnation, white with red edging the petals. You knew he knew what it meant. You could hear it in his voice as he read from the book – striped carnation, refusal. Tenko was gone, and he didn’t want you to follow him. You were alone.

It was a full day and night before you ventured up to the manor house, and even then, it was out of obligation. The Shimuras had offered your mother proper funeral rites, so you owed them the same. As you walked, you saw that sections of the gardens had begun to die, a black stain spreading across the grounds towards the ones that still lived. Corruption, the same as that which infested Tenko’s magic. An infestation that would only spread. You could have helped. Why wouldn’t he let you?

You reached the manor, and you saw why. You did what funeral rites you could, but there was barely enough of the Shimuras left to perform them for. Even Mon hadn’t been spared. You thought of what the flowers told you, of how terrified Tenko was as his magic slipped from his control and turned wild, and your heart broke again. It was easy to imagine why Tenko had fled rather than allow you to try to heal him. If it hadn’t worked, you would have died. Just like your best friend’s family did. And because corrupted magic corrodes and decays, it had begun to spread. It would consume the Shimura estate, destroying all your hard work and your mother’s, erasing every place you and your friends had been happy, leaving nothing but a wasteland.

You sat down in the midst of it all and wept – for their loss, and soon, every loss you had ever felt. Tears splatted down into the stinking dirt and crushed flagstones, but you paid them no heed as you mourned Lord and Lady Shimura, Hana and Mon, your mother and the garden she’d loved, and for Tenko. Tenko, who left you to save you. Tenko, who left you here, amidst the ruin of everything either of you had ever loved.

It seemed as though you wept for an age. When your tears ran dry and you wiped your eyes, you found that something strange had occurred in the places where your tears struck the ground. The dirt they’d soaked into was no longer rotting. It was black and cool to the touch, loamy when you picked it up to crumble between your fingers. The Shimura estate was devastated, yes. But there was no law that said it must remain that way.

You thought of how far the corruption had already spread. How much it would continue to spread as you worked against it, one small patch at a time. Restoring this place to life would be the work of a lifetime, or of several – and yet, it would be worth doing. It would be worth doing even if Tenko never came home. But as you sunk your hands into the next patch of ruined earth, biting the inside of your cheek against the sting and letting your sorrow bleed through, you hoped that he would. That he would come home, and find a place that had healed, just as he could.

The work of a lifetime, or several, but you were thinking in terms of a human lifespan, and with every day you spent using your magic to its limit, your lifespan shifted. A year spent clearing an area the size of a single garden plot was nothing to you. The ten years or more you spent breathing life back into a single tree flew by, barely missed. The years changed you, but not in the way they should have, and still, you kept count of time. You spent a century repairing the corruption before the corruption began to fight back.

It was a living thing, the darkness that had twisted your best friend. It thought to wear you down, to force you to leave in defeat. But you fought it every day, not tirelessly but ceaselessly, for every square foot of soil, until at last it gave up the areas you had reclaimed as lost for good. You were not fool enough to think that you had won. The corruption had left the bounds of the Shimura estate many years ago. It was abroad in the world, and it needed its strength for a greater purpose.

Although you fought your hardest, there were some scraps of corruption that you could not eradicate, some scars in the earth that could not be healed. So you drew them up instead, weaving them into the roots of the trees, shaping blossoms resilient enough to stand the rot. Those plants were wild and dangerous, but part of your garden all the same. You tended to them just as you tended to the others, and soon they stood proud among the rest.

All around you was proof that the corruption was not irreversible, that it could be survived, that one could carve out a life in the aftermath of destruction. When a great darkness arose on the far side of the world and people fled before it, some of them found their way to you. Your garden had spread far beyond the bounds of the Shimura estate by then, too, and they dwelt in peace at its edges. The heart of the new forest was the Shimuras’ old house. No one ever ventured there.

You rarely allowed yourself to be seen, but when you did, it was to learn of the outside world. When you asked the new arrivals what had driven them from their lands, they all gave the same answer, under different names. Destruction embodied. The Lord of Evil. The Demon King. The Symbol of Fear, Shigaraki Tomura, a dark magician whose life meant death for everyone he touched. Old beyond counting, eater of souls. The enemy of all that was good.

“He will destroy this world,” an old woman said to you solemnly, her voice devoid of hope. “All life is his enemy. He’ll come for you.”

Your forest teems with life. Life bursts into being every day, every second. You were not sure whether she was telling you to flee or simply relaying your doom, but you knew you could not run. You were making this place for proof, for a boy who must have been long dead, a man who would never come to see it. See, you wished you could say to Tenko, it’s healed. It was hard, but it’s healthy now.

You vowed then that you would stay. As more refugees fled into your forest’s embrace, as the Symbol of Fear crept slowly across the land, you held true. You will hold true until your own death, or until Tenko comes home for good.

“I grow flowers,” you say to the boy who’s come to the Shimura house to speak to you. “Entire gardens of them. They would tell the whole of the story I just told you, if anyone still knew to read their meanings – or knew how to listen.”

“It’s said that art was lost long ago,” the boy says. He leans forward, his eyes bright with interest. “Can you teach me?”

“Izuku,” the man who accompanied him says uncomfortably. He’s tall and rail-thin, scarred by the battle against the corruption, his years of fighting long past. “Ask the question.”

They explained who they were to you, but you knew already. The flowers had brought you warning of them, and you needed to look at them only a moment to understand what was happening here. The old man can fight no longer. He’s entrusted all to the boy. This boy is meant to slay the Symbol of Fear. “How old are you?” you ask, and the boy stammers out an answer. “Fifteen. I was that same age when the estate fell into ruin.”

“Was brought to ruin, you mean,” an even older man tells you. This one is short and stooped. “No matter what you have done to it, this is still the birthplace of the evil we face.”

“The boy who carried it was born here, yes,” you allow. “But he was not its source.”

The old man lets out a short, sharp bark of a laugh. “Was? Is. Shigaraki Tomura lives still.”

Your heart goes still for a moment, and once more, the flowers whisper to you – urging caution, urging care. “It’s my job to defeat him,” Izuku says to you. He shows you the sword he’s carrying – a mighty blade, almost too heavy for him to lift, woven with the magic of seven sorcerers before him. “Will you help me?”

“Defeat him? Or kill him?” You watch the older men exchange guilty glances. “I can help you with neither.”

“But you’ve stood against him all this time –”

“I have been waiting for him,” you say. Tenko still lives. Magic has changed you, lengthened your life – why would it not have done the same to him? “I want him to come home, so he can be healed.”

“Healed?” the old man scoffs. “The Symbol of Fear knows no peace. The rest of us will find it only in his death.”

The younger of the two old man puts up an argument of some kind, and beneath it, Izuku turns to you. “You would heal him?” he asks. “How?”

“You see this place?” You gesture around at it. “It was once wracked by the same corruption that troubles my friend. Evidence of it still lingers. What happened here will never be forgotten entirely. But it has healed. So, too, could he be. If he chose.”

“I have faced him before,” Izuku says. There’s a strange, hopeful light in his eyes, faint and flickering. “I saw what haunts him. He looked as if – as if –”

You wait. “As if he was asking to be rescued,” Izuku says, and although it’s been many years since you cried, a tear slips down your cheek. “I don’t want to kill him, if I could save him instead.”

“Then we shall not kill him,” you say. “When the Symbol of Fear comes to us, we will face him together. You will not need your sword.”

“But –”

“Your sword has done what it needed to do. It brought you this far,” you tell him. Izuku nods slowly. “Now your heart must lead you.”

Izuku’s heart must lead him, as your heart has always led you. As Tenko’s heart, what remains of it, leads him home.

You know when the Symbol of Fear reaches the forest, because the refugees who have settled there begin to flee inwards. Once, armies rode with him, but they long since turned against him, fought him or fled. Now only a few dark magicians ride at his side, each bearing their own wound that will not heal. That has not healed yet, you remind yourself, as the flowers sing to you of their coming. There is always a chance for healing.

You had feared you would lose pieces of the forest to the corruption as Shigaraki Tomura traveled through it, either to his purposeful efforts or to the dark magic grown into them, reverting to its original purpose. But you had not counted on life, on hope. Growing alongside the darkness has made your forest resilient, has made it wily and strong. Although the corruption sinks into the earth with every step Shigaraki Tomura takes, it spreads no further.

When he’s close, but not yet within sight of the ruins, he comes to a stop. You sense him there, even if the flowers were not whispering of it, and when you realize where he’s stopped, your heart lifts. You rise to your feet, and Izuku scrambles up, too. “Is it time?”

“Yes,” you say. “Remember what we spoke of.”

“I remember,” Izuku says – but still, he brings along his sword.

You hear their voices before you see them. “Why are we stopped?” one says irritably. “The heart of the forest lies beyond.”

“Give him time,” another says. “Perhaps something important lies here.”

“What could be important? This place has been abandoned for a hundred years.”

Longer, unless you’ve mistaken your count of mortal time. It would appear abandoned to their eyes. You come into view of your old cottage just as a shadowy, white-haired figure steps out of it. In his hand, he clutches a striped carnation. “That flower was cut recently,” one of the dark magicians observes. “Someone still dwells there.”

“No.” Shigaraki’s voice is painful to hear, because it’s Tenko’s voice, pierced through with shards of glass and dragged over rough stones. “This has been here for a long time.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s magic, silly,” a female voice says. “It’s – oh!”

You don’t see what startled her, but Izuku must, because he neglects his feet and snaps a twig. The sound echoes sharply, and Shigaraki Tomura’s head snaps up, and as you meet his red eyes for the first time in hundreds of years, you’re overcome with feelings you couldn’t describe even if you had all the flowers in the world to spell them out.

He’s terrifying to behold. Wreathed in darkness shot through with bloodred, his hair long and wild, his face scarred. His hand is missing a few fingers and his stance is uneven, as though he’s prepared at any moment to lunge into battle or topple to his knees. The corruption writhes beneath his skin. His lips are dry and cracked, and as he studies you, his mouth splits into a smile more horrific than Tenko ever wore. Still, he bleeds the same.

“I saw the fairy-story written in the flowers,” he says. “You must be its author.”

“I am.” You incline your head. “What did you think?”

“Foolish.” The corruption has ahold of Shigaraki’s jaw, making it move awkwardly. “I never trifle with such useless things.”

“The language of flowers is long forgotten,” you say. “When did you learn to read it?”

“When did you?”

“I’ve always understood them,” you say. “You were the one who taught me to read.”

For a moment, you believe you see him falter; then he lets the striped carnation fall, and draws his sword. “This forest resists our efforts, and you willed it to life. Our position will be much improved when I kill you.”

“Kill me if you must.” You stay Izuku’s hand as he reaches for his sword. “First, I must show you something. Come with me.”

Putting your back to Shigaraki is dangerous, but he remembered enough for the cottage to stymie him. Maybe he remembers enough for this. You let Izuku walk ahead of you when the path narrows, and soon enough, you’re standing in the same field where you first met Hana and Tenko. “Do you remember this?” you ask. He looks blankly at you. “Then this, perhaps. The first flower I ever brought to you.”

“Acacia,” the Lord of Evil says after a long pause. “For friendship.”

You keep walking. A glance over your shoulder shows you that the dark magicians are inspecting the field, trying to divine the magic that made it what it is. Shigaraki Tomura marks your steps closely. “You are an illusionist,” he accuses. “This place was ruined long ago.”

“What does your heart tell you?” you ask, and he scoffs. “Do not tell me you have no heart. I hear it beating.”

His hand rises to his chest, rubs at it as though he’s in pain. “You should be more frightened than you are. I intend to corrupt this place so thoroughly that nothing will grow here ever again.”

“You will have a hard time with that,” you say. “It’s happened before.”

The flowers are descendants of the first flowers you woke out the ground, but the trees are old enough to have survived the corruption. You show the Symbol of Fear the veins of assimilated dark magic running through their trunks and in the veins of their leaves. He scoffs. “You call this healing?”

“What happened cannot be forgotten,” you say. “But life continues. It can grow. It can be good once more.”

You keep walking, Izuku at your side, the Symbol of Fear following, and his allies following further behind. “You are a fool,” the Symbol says to you. You ignore him, and he changes targets. “And you, brat. We’ve fought before. What nonsense has she filled your head with, to make you stay your hand?”

“I do not stay my hand,” Izuku says. “I promised I would try her way first.”

As far as answers Izuku could have given, it could be worse. You stop walking and turn to face the Symbol of Fear, who barely stops walking in time to avoid knocking you over. It was otherwise the first time you met, and based on the expression that flickers briefly across his face, he recalls it, too. For a moment, the shadows seem to lift, and you see the man Tenko’s become beneath them. If you die today, as well you might, at least you saw him one last time before the end.

On the walk to the old house, you pluck flowers from the ground, collecting every flower you remember Tenko reading aloud to you, every flower he offered. Marigold, everlasting, evergreen thorn; alyssum, amaranth, ambrosia; a bouquet that makes no sense save as part of a story. The flowers hum to you, and when you check over your shoulder again, you see the female magician picking a few flowers of her own, passing them to the others. For study, you think, until you see her tuck hers behind her ear. Oak-leaf geranium – true friendship.

“Your friends are young,” you say to the Symbol of Fear. “Their wounds are fresh compared to yours.”

“They could still be healed,” the Symbol of Fear says. You sense Izuku’s eyes darting between the two of you, shocked into silence. “If you heal them, and keep them here, perhaps I will leave this place untouched.”

“You know better than to think you can do that,” you say. “This is still your home.”

“It was never home,” the Demon King insists, and yet, he keeps walking. “Why do you delay the inevitable?”

“I do not delay,” you say. You pluck one last flower, round one last turn. “This is what I wished to show you.”

The Shimura house was destroyed down to its foundations, the earth turned hot and poisonous, such that nothing would grow there again. It took you a long time to work the darkness free of it, and longer still to coax seeds to take root there. Longer than that, even, for them to grow tall, and when they grew, their branches formed the outline of the house that once stood here, without your knowledge or your will to guide them. Shigaraki stops cold, stares. The shadows that surround him writhe and whirl in your peripheral vision. “It’s still here.”

“It’s not as it once was,” you admit, “but it is still here. And so am I.”

“I am not.” Tenko’s voice is rough and bitter. When you turn to face him, you find the shadows peeling back, enough to see his scarred mouth, a glimpse of his cheek. “There is nothing left of me but horror.”

“I don’t believe you,” you say. “And even if I did –”

You meant to give the bouquet to him whole, but you change your mind. Instead you pluck a single flower from it and hold it out. “Do you remember this one?”

The shadows begin to creep over his mouth, but he raises the hand with the missing fingers and claws them away. They attack his hand instead, and you see them biting into his skin. Izuku sees, too. He draws his sword. Tenko speaks in that same rough voice. “Stock flower,” he says. “You will always –”

He breaks off, staring at you. “You will always be beautiful to me,” you complete the sentence. “You’re home now, Tenko. Let me help you.”

“I can’t.” Tenko loses his grip on the shadows, and they swarm back over his face, leaving his hands raw and bleeding. “It won’t let me.”

You reach for him, but Izuku stays your hand. He steps forward, sword drawn, and looks into Tenko’s eyes. “It’s my task to save others from you,” he says. “But I see before me someone who needs saving just as much.”

“There is no salvation for me,” the Symbol of Fear says. The shadows are consuming Tenko’s body. You can see it. “Only destruction. Yours, and everyone’s.”

Izuku’s grip on the hilt of his sword tightens, and your heart seizes with it at the thought that all is lost. A twig snaps behind you, and when you look around, you see that while most have fled, some of the refugees have been drawn in to witness. The Symbol’s magicians are poised for a fight in turn – and rather than stepping forward with a swing of his sword, Izuku speaks. “What afflicts you? Show me.”

For a moment, all is still and silent – or it must be, to all but you. The flowers hum and the trees breathe in and out, and the people who stand amongst them swarm and throb with life in their turn. You feel the unevenness of those who are wounded, the fog that surrounds those who are sick at heart. Tenko’s companions are both, and so is he. You see it for a split second, when he tears himself free of the shadow entirely and casts it aside.

It wounds him. You see skin rip, blood spurt. But the corruption is gone from him, separated completely for the smallest of moments. Within that moment, there’s more than enough time for Izuku’s enchanted sword to decapitate it where it stands.

The corruption does not die cleanly. It screams, a sound that shreds your eardrums and makes the flowers mute, a sound that the rest experience only as a gust of rotting wind. Even in pieces, it still lives. Tenko’s magicians cast their spells upon it, breaking it apart again, but it’s Tenko who delivers the blow that scatters it to near-nothingness for good. You’ve never seen Tenko’s magic, corrupted or otherwise. It’s snow-sky grey, the way his eyes once were, and its touch is softer than you thought it would be. Under his power, the corruption dissolves into pieces your forest was born to absorb.

The forest is Tenko’s, too. You know by the way it bends towards him as he falls, the life within it surging to meet him. One of the dark magicians races forward to catch him, and you catch him, too. The two of you lower him to the earth together.

Tenko is terribly wounded. The corruption tore away pieces of his flesh as he pulled free, and his magic is overtaxed. Even if none of those things were true, his body is still rent by old wounds and poorly healed scars. To survive this will ask a great deal from him. All your skill and power will mean nothing if he does not wish to live on. You touch your best friend’s face for the first time since he left you, heal a split of his lip with a single trace of your finger, and pray that he will try.

His magicians have surrounded you, Izuku shoved thoroughly to one side. The magician who caught Tenko with you meets your eyes, his features contorted with fear and confusion. “Will he live?”

“He may,” you say. “Time will tell.”

The corruption no longer lives in this world, but its effects remain, and there are lesser wounds, lesser evils, that abound. There is only so far your forest can spread by your own will. At some point, others must take on the task alongside you. Those who wish to return their homes carry seeds and saplings from the forest with them. Wherever they plant them, they will grow alongside the darkness, and grow strong.

One day, you’ll walk past the edges of the forest and see things for yourself, but that is a long time away. You determined to renew this place for Tenko, should he ever choose to come home. It took a long time to heal, and so will he. So will his friends, with their own wounds and sorrows, but time is something you have in abundance.

“I studied magic,” Tenko tells you as you lay on your backs in the grass, staring up at the sky through a canopy of leaves and a scattering of clouds. “It’s not meant to do this.”

He gestures at the two of you, using the hand that’s missing two fingers. You take his hand, raise it to your lips and kiss it. “What do you mean?”

“It should not have cast us out of time,” Tenko says. “Magicians live and die like anyone else. Or at least they should.”

“I never studied magic,” you admit. “Perhaps I broke some rule in renewing this place. I don’t know.”

“If you had broken a rule, you’d feel it,” Tenko mumbles. You glance over at him and find him grimacing. “I feel it daily.”

You’ve heard tell of the terrible things Tenko did in the throes of the corruption, and what you haven’t heard in tales, he’s told you himself. You know what it cost him. “Does it itch or hurt? Or ache?”

“Today it aches. Like the cold of a grave.” Tenko edges closer to you, and you close the gap until you’re lying in each other’s arms once more. “You need not use magic to make me feel better. I always felt better with you, even when we were children.”

When the two of you lie this close, it’s always an effort not to fall asleep. It’s as if your body intends to make up for the centuries of nights lost as quickly as possible, even in the middle of the day. You kiss Tenko’s hand again and burrow a little closer against his side. “This is where we always met up,” you say. “It took me a long time to make it grow again. What do you think?”

“It’s different,” Tenko says. His hand turns in yours, holding it securely against his heart. “But it feels the same as before.”

The two of you lie there for a while in silence, and you cast your mind out, seeking the edge of your forest, seeking the saplings and sprouts that have been planted far past its boundaries. Someday, when the world has long forgotten Shigaraki Tomura, you and Tenko will venture out to visit them. You’ve spent so long in your small corner of the world. You’d like to see more of it. And you know Tenko would like to see it with unclouded eyes.

The corruption may be gone, but it haunts him still. His body rattles sometimes with the memory of pain, or else his skin crawls at the phantom sensation of a force outside himself, peeling up his skin and making him itch. Sometimes, when his body rebels, he drowns himself in you. Other times, he can hardly bear to be touched. It frustrates him, more so for the fact that he thinks it frustrates you. It doesn’t. You know better than anyone else that healing takes time.

“We were always here,” Tenko says aloud, after a long time. You nod into his shoulder. “I always asked you what the flowers were saying about me.”

“I always thought it was funny that you never asked me to teach you.”

“I was worried I couldn’t,” Tenko says. “And I knew you’d tell me the good things.”

You laugh. Tenko’s voice takes on a hesitant note. “What are they saying now?”

“They say that I love you, and that you love me.”

“I do.” Tenko’s cheek is flushed when you kiss it, and he turns his head for a longer kiss, too. “What else do they say?”

You tell him, in between kisses, as life continues around you – a life that looks different than it did before, a life that will never be the same. A life that has changed, and still a life worth saving. A life worth living, too. You and Tenko are a long way from an ending, if one even exists for the two of you. But if you were to close the tale here, you know you could call it a happy one.

#shigaraki x reader #shigaraki x you #tomura shigaraki x reader #tomura shigaraki x you #shigaraki tomura x reader #shigaraki tomura x you #shimura tenko x reader #shimura tenko x you #tenko shimura x reader #tenko shimura x you #x reader #reader insert #man door hand hook car door #a bisquared production

76 notes · View notes