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the-midnight-blooms · 4 months ago

Text

from the artist's studio | cs

pairing: painter!choi san x painter!reader AU: historical au, joseon dynasty word count: 10.5k

masterlist

I reach out to my lover, he’s trapped within a painting. The muse of a Renaissance artist- he’s so divine he may have even started the movement.

Her feet pattered down the cold floorboards, pushing through the salmun doors-the fabric of her purple hanbok bunched up in her palms. The midnight bloomed in the depth of the spring, where the cherry blossom trees roared with the wind. A captivating beam from the candle paved the way to the front doors, her heart lurching in her chest as she felt an enchanted soul beckoning her name; her vessel bowed in his essence as if the rapping of the door knocker was to the beat of her name, echoing every syllable. With her hand outstretched for the doors, she hauled it open finding a man whose eyes were squinting as the the coarse rain battered against his supple skin; his teeth chattering with the cold. With a brown leather bag sloped over the shoulder of his light yellow hanbok; hands gripped steely over the handle of his heavy cases. He was tall, with broad shoulders, she quickly discerned but his face almost seemed obscured by the dark clouds and the night slowly filtering into the star studded sky.

"Please, Miss, I'm here to see Mr Yim. I'm a new apprentice at the local government office." His voice was almost mellowed by the crash of thunder against the sky, which had them both flinching at its mercilessness. A surge of relief rested upon him as a slender arm in purple outstretched towards him; the warmth easing the shattering goosebumps bestowed upon his delicate skin. With a contented sigh, the figure in front raised the candle to his face; the soft glow illuminated his crescent eyes which bored into another's burgeoning with curiosity.

"Your name, Sir?" Her honey like voice, slid into his ears; lashes gently fluttering as he breathed in the sight before him the beaming light from the candle forging a halo around this angel. Her tight jaw and deadpan expression was immediately dissolved between the influx of enigma that flooded into her eyes.

"Choi San." Nodding diligently, she gesticulated for him to follow her to her father's study. The hallways of the Yim estate were particularly large, a few candelabras were perched on top of the drawers plastered across the panelled walls-the smoke infiltrating into the empty space. They graced the floor with minimal sound, as if there were ghosts traipsing the corridors rather than real people.

Stood outside the large door, she dipped her head in politeness as he gently caressed the lumber; soft knocks restituting off the walls. With the candle perched within a hand of his own, yet another door opened; the esteemed artist tumbled through the doorway into another life.

Just over two decades ago, on a winter night, where the trees were bare of crisp leaves and the ground was brazen with purest of snow; a couple sat by the fire in their bedroom: a new-born cherub encapsulated within her mother's arms. Mr Yim, the father of the child, was a member of a group of scholars who advocated the need for the government to foster commerce, industry, and technology. He was a part of one of the four schools of thought in Joseon that shifted from speculative theory to attending to more taxing socio-political issues. Therefore, despite being renown for his hard work, and steadfast nature, he was also known for being quite reserved- to put it nicely. There were no 'good mornings' or 'good afternoons' from Mr Yim. Nor were there dirty looks and unwelcoming mannerisms bestowed upon his acquaintances. He liked to keep to himself, Mrs Yim being the only woman in the world capable of seeing that man smile.

"Would you like to hold her, dear?" His wife called, the gentle babbling of his child sending a jolt of fear rushing through him. Eagerly, he dismissed the opportunity, to which Mrs Yim had sighed staring down at her beautiful daughter. "She is your daughter, too. You're going to have to hold her at one point."

"I'll hold her when she is a little older than what she is now."

"Before you know it, she will become a woman and you will reminisce all the opportunities you had to cuddle her when you could." Truthfully, Mr Yim was afraid of fatherhood; he never really understood the notion of it but if having a child would make his darling, Mrs Yim, happy then Mr Yim would give her all the children in the world. How could he raise a child when he was left to raise himself? What could he even teach except say to his daughter after every stumble, every mistake, every stutter, every cry for help but: 'find your way'?

Thus, his aloof nature extended to his daughter, who having been pinned by her mother's side until her unfortunate death, became wholly estranged from her father. He was no longer her mother's husband, but rather just a kind stranger who fed her, clothed her, kept her under his roof and gave her almost anything she wanted.

Miss Yim was rather bizarre.

Or at least, that's what the townspeople thought through her poignant introvertedness; maintaining scant friendships, rejecting all marriage prospects almost immediately preferring the confines of her large quarters-which in themselves were situated in the segregated division of the family home. Her rooms were not bright, but panelled with a dark wood that foremost created a dull atmosphere, there was minimal light other than what streamed in through the open doors and windows that overlooked the vast lawn. A porch ran around the whole building, where Miss Yim frequented, all year round, as she drew.

Oh! The most compelling thing about Miss Yim was that in contrast to her academic father, she had particularly excelled in the arts, often taking on commissions from local noblemen requesting venerated portraits of their wives. As well as the opportunity to put her skills to practise, she saw it as a way of putting a few extra pennies in her pocket. In alignment with her reserved nature, Miss Yim found that she preferred to draw using defined, darker mediums such as charcoal, ink and graphite pencils. There was something so true about the loneliness that could be felt from the intricate brushstrokes as the ink spilled across the page. As if the figurines were her, simply founded to be a mere prop in a large frame.

Smoothing down the hairs on her head, she snapped away her gaze from the mirror to the window overlooking the side of the garden, the silhouette of the hanok roofs, carving elegantly into the sky. The trees rocked and the grass rippled with the pending ferocity of the wind. Indeed, the storm would not subside within the next few days. The door to her bedroom slid open, the older maid stumbled in settling the tray upon her bench.

"Will I not be eating with my father today?" Ina looked up from where she was kneeled on the floor, settling the bowls onto the bench.

"Mr Yim is currently accompanied with Mr Choi. Your father requested that you eat by yourself for the duration of his stay, you know how it is." Nodding, she took her seat opposite Ina patiently awaiting for the maid to stop assembling her dishes in a neat line in front of her. Whilst women typically dined by themselves, her father had allowed her to eat with him almost daily; except when there were guests. Despite his neglect towards his daughter, he still valued her feminine dignity and did not trust the vulturous eyes of men that rested their predatory gaze upon her.

"Who is this, Mr Choi, and how is it that I wasn't aware of his arrival until he was knocking on our door?" She questioned, Ina's careful gaze flickered to her before staring out into the open space in contemplation.

"A new apprentice. He’s appointed here, on request of his father." Leaning forward, Ina's voice dropped an octave. "Apparently his father says he's been 'engaging in sin' so he's been estranged from his parents until he gets his act together." Raising a questioning brow, she looked down at her bowl.

"Is he a homosexual?" Immediately, she was wacked on the back of her head by the older maid who didn't miss a single second in scolding her. Her hand sped to the back, rubbing the jolt of pain that seared through her, a temporary look of irritation glazed over her eyes.

"You insolent girl! How could you say such thing, you know how disgraced that is!"

"You said ‘engaging in sin'. I can't think of anything more sinful other than fraternising with men or women." Ina's dirty look penetrated through her bones, provoking a sense of humiliation that would rattle through her in the depth of the night. Scowling at her mistress, she rolled her eyes before getting up from the floorboard.

“Hurry up and eat your food. You need to go to Mrs Kang’s today." Following Ina's orders she gulfed down her food, drowning out the maid's muttering about her being crude and dishonourable.

The light chatter from the front room fell deaf at her ears as she sauntered to the entrance, which the two kitchen maids scuttled in through. Bowing at their mistress, they made a fowl attempt at suppressing a fit of giggles as they subtly snuck a glance into the room. Following their gazes, she warily traipsed in, catching her father converse with their new guest.

"Ah, speak of the devil! Mr Choi, this is my daughter." He teared his gaze away from his mentor to draw his eyes across the room and find the infamous Miss Yim perched by the doorway, gripping onto her onto the full skirts of her dark blue hanbok.

It was hard to deny that Mr Choi was amiable. He was tall, well-built with a toned torso that was still perceptible through his uncreased peach coloured hanbok, dimples adorned his perfectly structured cheeks. He nodded with such elegant eagerness, at her father's command harbouring the position of an obedient son, almost leaving her wondering what was so 'sinful' about that man in the first place? What could he have possibly done so wrong that he had practically been disowned by his family?

"Miss Yim, it's nice to formally meet you." She gave him a polite nod, choosing to stay silent than say something and be met with her father's harsh stare.

"Mr Kang told me you've been over at his home, a few times." Her father spoke breaking the awkward meeting. A breath became lodged in her throat as she anticipated some sort of wrath, after all Mr Yim was supposed to be oblivious to her going out and painting other women for a light commission. She didn't exactly know how he would react to that. "He appreciates your help with Mrs Kang's pregnancy." Mrs Kang is pregnant? That would explain the engorging belly, the mood swings and the other number of odd behaviours that she was listing off in the past few weeks she had been challenged with drawing the difficult woman. At times, Miss Yim thought she ought to have more empathy, it wasn't that she lacked it, it was that she tended to not gift her empathetic abilities to the prejudiced. It was women like Ina, and the cooks that worked in the kitchen that deserved her compassion. Women who strived to be breadwinners, even if it was due to poor socio-economic circumstances. Because women like Mrs Kang were hypocrites to be preaching the old values, pre-Confucianism, when they neglected their own sex.

"Yes, she's been enjoying my company. I intend to go again to deliver herbs she’s asked from Ina’s garden.” She recalled glancing down the extensively large page, as Mrs Kang moaned and groaned when the servants were too late to serve her namul and kimchi.

"Red raspberry leaf, dandelions, echinacea." Grimacing, she looked over her sheet to give the woman a look. "You can just get this from the market, why do you need this from Ina's garden?" Mrs Kang simply pouted rubbing her belly. Now that she thought about it, how did it not occur to her that she was pregnant? Perhaps it was because they begged to slim down her figure in the painting.

"Fresh herbs are good for babies." Were the herbs from the market not fresh enough for her? “I need them picked before they’re here.”

"Perhaps I should add lemon balm to burn that fat." A discourse of exasperated gasps rippled over the room, Mrs Kang waddled out of the room wailing for her husband. It was ruthless and unkind, keeping the unsympathetic Miss Yim awake at night before she travelled back to the Kang estate to see a very unhappy couple.

“I’m sorry, Mrs Kang. You’re beautiful just the way you are, even more with the little belly.” The pregnant woman’s tight grip around her neck, as they hugged, almost choked her to death.

Mr Yim's eyes outcasted through the doorway, there was a light patter of rain yet the howl of the wind had subsided significantly. He let out a small hum before returning back to the young pair staring, ardently, back at him.

"I say Mr Choi, should be your chaperone. It's a little unsafe to be going out by yourself." Before she could open her mouth and argue, her father held out a hand to silence her thoughts. Chewing on the inside of her cheek, she nodded once more, before dashing from the room to have a flustered Mr Choi following her.

Hitching up her skirts, she trudged through the field, the sun had filtered into the sky radiating its essence onto the young souls as they surpassed the reams of houses. Had it not been for the joyous discord of infantile laughter, it would have been quiet; San mustering the courage to initiate a conversation. He cleared his throat, she merely blinked at his futile attempt at grabbing her attention.

"Miss Yim, you must slow down I can't keep up with your pace." He declared, striding faster towards her, the tall grass brushing against his knees.

"I think you can cope, Sir. Your legs are longer than mine." Walking through the grass wasn't difficult but when her hanbok was floor length, lifting up the heavy fabric proved tiresome and not to mention her shoes were sinking into the muddy fields, squelching miserably under her heavy steps. Eventually, San matched her pace as they made their way up the steps to the Kang estate.

A shrill voice eructed into the airs, the domestic staff worked at a proficient speed as they amended the damages inflicted from the storm. As a group of servants raised the logs from the path, San ran to their aid significantly lightening their work load. His charity had left her silent contemplating her initial thoughts on his persona. There must be something impure under all that. Surely? There had to be some reason why his father practically disowned him.

Kang Yeosang stood by his front doors, watching as his staff worked the lawn and through the large home. He sought the enigmatic painter launch up the steps, with an unreadable look painted on her face.

“Good Morning, Miss Yim.”

“Morning, Yeosang.” She greeted, he laughed a little at her dull tone.

“I take it, there’s nothing particularly good about this morning.” He jeered, she huffed at his characteristically exuberant manner.

“Not when my father’s spy is here to be my chaperone.” She turned around on the steps, the pair looking down at San moving the heavy logs from the path, dirtying his robes at that. “He’s the new apprentice at the local office, Choi San, I think he said his name was.”

"Oh, the country boy." Country boy? "He's from Yangdong, have you not heard? His family is amongst the richest, they're both scholars and farmers, now." Across the country, Joseon farming techniques had taken a turn within the last few decades, especially with the establishment of irrigation and rice transplantation methods- bringing Joseon to a state of flourishment. It was safe to say, which farmer wasn't rich now? The admirable farm boy was pushed away by the servants, making his way up the steps. Leaving him with Yeosang, she made her way in the direction of the couples' shared quarters, Mrs Kang draped over her bed, her wrist dramatically resting on her forehead.

"Hello, Mrs Kang." The woman jolted up from her seat, an obnoxious groan emitted from her as she propped her back up against the wall. "I brought you your herbs."

"Thank you, my love. You left your paints, they're just on my dressing table." The herbs were exchanged from her paints, digging into the pockets of her hanbok. The older woman began to natter, the discordant tonality rattling in her ears. Mrs Kang loved to talk. Even if it was about absolutely nothing, that woman talked for the whole of Joseon.

I'm leaving this place with a headache.

She often wondered how it was that Yeosang put up with his insufferable wife. Was it love, or a promise that he had made to Mrs Kang's parents that he would never leave her? The thought made her sigh in pity- to be permanently bound to someone in matrimony seemed like too much effort at times. Perhaps the effort itself is what subdued her mother to misery, the poor Mrs Yim eagerly handing her soul to the Angel of Death. Or maybe Miss Yim had possessed a stone-cold heart frozen over by the neglect of life's intimate essence; overpowered by a sense of maturity held over by her mother's early death. She took it upon herself to make it clear that by the time she was thirty, if there was no proposal that had come around she was going to wholly abandon the idea of marriage and work herself to death.

"That man is so pretty." She spoke, dreamily, Miss Yim's eyes lazily fled in the direction of Mrs Kang's. Her head poked through the doorway where both Yeosang and San were travelling down, engaging in intelligent discourse. "Not Yeo, the other one." The pregnant woman clarified.

"He's ok, I suppose. Not bewitching enough to tempt me."

"That has to be the biggest lie I have ever heard."

"What is Miss Yim lying about now?" Yeosang provoked as both men entered the room. Both women shared a look before the painter slumped onto the dressing table chair. "I suppose you're awaiting your payment."

"Well, my services aren't free." She declared, pompously. Yeosang rolled his eyes before he moved to the opposite end of the room, San had almost drawn his body out of the bedroom, a little embarrassed as the pregnant Mrs Kang ogled her eyes at him. Stretching her limbs, she got up taking the velvet bag. "Thank you, Mr Kang. I'll visit when the baby arrives."

His perfection had her repleted with such distaste for him. Simply put, Miss Yim hated Choi San because he was loved by all. Her father loved him, Ina adored him, the maids were constantly drooling over him it shot her with a sense of annoyance. He quickly became a household name, spoken of when he was at the office with her father and even when he was at home. Everywhere she went it was just him, him and him. The worst thing was, was that he was even trying to be nice to her prevailing through her grim looks and hard words.

“San this, San that. Honestly, he’s not even as esteemed as everyone claims, Ina. He’s just a man, like every other man. And all men are the same. So what if he's good looking, does that suddenly make him god’s greatest gift?” Burying her face into the pillow, an exasperated huff escaped her lips. Ina fell onto her bed, reaching her arms out to stroke her mistress’ back. With a contented sigh, she felt her eyes drooping a little as the maid's soft caresses were gently lulling her to sleep. Her touch felt like that of her mother's, soothing the aches of her heart whilst simultaneously provoking the nostalgia of a mother's love. To have her mother again, to have that woman encircle her into her arms. Rock her back and forth. She longed for her mother's scent again, often chasing the whiff of her familiar saccharine redolence as one chased butterflies in an open field.

“Yet you think of him often. He occupies your thoughts as much as he occupies ours.”

“Hardly, I-,” She stammered in a desperate attempt to recollect her thoughts into a single ambience. “I envy him. How is that he steps into this home for a second and I see my father smile?” Ina’s face dropped, a breath caught in her throat as her mistress spoke aloud the forbidden words she denied her staff to even breathe. The older maid had been rendered silent for too long, giving Miss Yim all of the answers she needed to press forward with her wistful assumptions.

"Perhaps if you grew to understand him, you would know why your father has inhabited such emotions for him. Think of him like a son-in-law. He will love him but not as much as he loves you." The maid reasoned.

"Then that makes him my husband." She grumbled, pulling the duvet over her shoulders.

"Now is that so bad?” Ina teased, before pulling her weight off the bed. With no strength to argue, her eyes fluttered to a close; her soul being dissolved by the night.

The following morning, it was too cold to be even sitting on her porch and with eyes tired of the same dreary scene, she ventured out of her quarters, delving into parts of the home she had missed. By the kitchens, the late Mrs Yim had reserved herself a small room decorated with the tools of all her hobbies in order to enact time alone for herself, away from motherhood and social responsibility. The room was consistently cleaned but usually left empty having it being full of painful memories of the beloved mistress of the household. For the first time in a long time, Miss Yim had felt the drive to find the room again and read her mother's poetry she had spent hours pouring over in the rooms.

Yet it had been almost shot stone-cold dead when the door opened to find San sat by the window hands raised towards the canvas. The anger within her refused to simmer or boil, it was rather the smooth swaying of the soft waves lapping the crust of sand. Her hands feebly reached for the poetry book on the table.

"I didn't know you were a painter, Mr Choi." She proclaimed, her breath hitched in her throat as her eyes sought the intricate details on the canvas. Her eyes glossed over the colours, the succinct shapes, drawing on the brushstrokes herself with the sharp movements of her eyes. It moved her. When was the last time she had been left this breathless?

"You never asked, Miss Yim." Immediately she felt intimidated by his artwork, her own revered drawings felt meek in comparison to his. A mere apprentice in an important official’s presence. To even be this close to him was considered a blessing. "You can sit next to me. I don't bite." Tentatively, she drew closer seating herself on the floorboards next to him; the brush of their fabrics sending a tidal wave of timidness over her. Where was the bold, steadfast Mrs Yim? Long gone, lost to the large expanse of the sea. Drowning under the ocean of his perfection. She didn't even want call for help, allowing herself to be enveloped by his allure. You draw so beautifully, she wanted to say. It's perfect, like something-someone even.

"You should have been a royal painter." The remark was swallowed into a melancholic void within his heart. Sparing a glance, he dipped the tip of the paintbrush into the crevice of the cerulean blue paint before raising to illustrate the canvas.

"Don't say that to my father." She sought the gloom glossed over his brown eyes. Was he, too, held down by social responsibility and expectations? She didn't think it was possible for a man's dreams to be mauled over by society; for she saw it with her father who had the whole world at his feet-picking dreams as if he was picking daisies from a meadow. Dropping her book onto the floor, she rested her head on her knee, solicitude fulfilled the serene atmosphere. Her eyes fell over the fancy metallic pots situated around the easel, which she knew to be various colours of paint pigments. Resting her head on her knee, she tenderly rocked her body from side to side as she watched his hands elegantly work through the canvases.

"Did you ever consider pottery? That's supposed to be quite popular now." Her question breaking through the quiet airs, the delicacy of her voice startling San. It was devoid of boredom, or disinterest like he had always perceived. No lace of judgement like he was silently praying to be diminished from her soul.

"It'll grow out of popularity soon." He stated, resting the paintbrush down to exercise the tense muscles in his hands. "I heard this was the late Mrs Yim's room, I hope you don't mind me being here." It, too, came as a shock to her when she shook her head-with no care in the world that he had colonised the room that she was once sure was hers.

It was sunny for once, which was odd for this time of year-she thought throwing open the door to the porch finding San surrounded by a large number of logs and an axe.

"What's he doing outside?" She pondered, Ina folding up the washed bedsheets before tucking them away into the drawers.

"They stopped properly chopping up the logs so we can use them for the fire, so Mr Choi offered to help." Wandering out through the doors, a smooth current of air tousled her hair, a book held tightly against her chest.

God, he really was toned. Rolling up the sleeves of his hanbok all the way to his bulging biceps, the maids all stopped in their path to rest their elbows on the low garden wall overseeing the vast expanse of grass. Effortlessly he picked up the axe, raising it over his head to slice down the log of wood. She rolled her eyes at her maids, as they watched him with dreamy faces. They nattered in hushed tones, giggling amongst themselves unbeknownst that their mistress was stood behind them. Leaning down to where they were sat on the garden wall, she poked her head in between the sea of charmed maidens.

“What are we looking at?” They squeaked, jumping up from their seats upon sight of their mistress- flapping their hands as some rushed back into the kitchen and others tended to garden duties. “Well? I would like to know too.”

“You wouldn’t understand Miss Yim.” Yes, yes she was the narcissistic Miss Yim who harboured no feelings for men and couldn’t deduce their charming airs. She was the Miss Yim who rejected countless marriage proposals, not based on looks but merely because she found that no man possessed the kind quality in a man that she was seeking. No patience, no loyalty. They were not even ruled by a sense of ambition. So how could she be hypnotised by the sacred beauty of a man, specifically, Choi San.

“Yes, I don’t understand why you’re not doing the job that we’re paying for you to do. All of you, out of the garden, it’s already been tended to!” She shouted, in an instant all of the maids dispersed back into the home. Huffing, she slumped onto the garden wall, glazing her ink pen over the defined lines on the page. Occasionally, she’d peer her eyes over the pages at San, tending to the curve of his body, and the horrific cinching of his waist. When he looked to his side, she hastily returned back to her sketchbook, feeling a blush decorate her cheeks as his steady gaze burned into her skin.

“Very accurate, Miss Yim.” Jumping up from her seat, she screeched the pot of ink spilling onto his face and neck. Whoops.

“Oh goodness, I am so sorry. Ah.” She let out a pained sound, battling with her internal conflict as she grabbed his hand rushing them into the direction of the porch that led to her quarters. Powerfully, she slid the door open darting inside and towards the washroom. Hauling him down to his knees in front of the washing basin, with a soaked rag in hand, she scraped away the ink splashed across his face. “Take this off.” She ordered, signalling to his hanbok.

“W-what?” He stammered, his face heating red.

“Well you’ve got ink and dirt all over it. I can get a new one for you.”

“I can’t just return back to my quarters and change?”

“Well no because then my father will see you and he’ll know I stole his ink again.” An annoyed huff escaped from his lips as she handed him the rag to clean himself. “Here, I’ll go get you a spare set of clothes.” Jumping up from where she was kneeled, her foot slipped over a puddle of water his arms snapped out towards her waist. Gripping his shoulders for stability, a faint blush trickled over her face, their noses barely an inches distance.

"Be careful." Quickly unravelling her hands from his shoulders, Miss Yim ran out of the room towards his quarters. Slipping past the double doors, she rummaged through the drawers for his clothes-picking up a light green set.

"Mr Choi?" A maid's voice called out from behind the closed door. Discerning their shadow moving closer, she made a beeline through the open doors leading into the garden. Scuttling into her washroom, she practically launched the hanbok at him before hiding in her room.

A breath of relief had finally escaped from her when he left from her room, both of their faces burning red in the midst of this shameful meeting. Yet San seemed persistent to know her, feeling that there was still something beneath the stone-cold façade she had constructed; something emotional and raw that he had felt he had to know. And Miss Yim was too becoming more curious, by the day, as to what Choi San’s secret was and why his father perpetually hated him.

Ina had forced them to go on a walk together, she groaned, silently, as they left the home behind making their way down to the meadow. At first an odd tranquillity permeated the air, eventually she grew tired of the jarring dissonance of absolutely nothing.

“A penny for your thoughts?” She inquired.

“I’ll keep the penny. I almost feel you’d judge me for having thoughts.” San bemused, she rolled her eyes, a faint of a smile on her lips. Just the tiniest, but it was practically gone within the same second.

“I don’t judge you, Mr Choi. I do, however, envy you. You’ve taken the place I wanted in my father’s heart.” She confessed, he looked towards her sympathetically, with knowingness that she was indeed right and the Mr Yim, famous for being just as aloof as his daughter, had somehow softened a little upon his arrival. Perhaps it was a son that he had always wanted, not a daughter but the scholar was reserved; San being too terrified to pry.

“Your place is best occupied elsewhere. Somebody else has it, I’m sure. He keeps it safe with love that is too potent that even dreamers can’t feign.” Of course was reading her mother's poetry, she didn't think many could understand the abstract nature of her words; of course it was him out of all who admired her poetry as it was his own.

"I am not pretty enough for that." Miss Yim argued, looking down at her feet. After all, the marriage proposals were not because of her vague good looks, but mainly because Mr Yim claimed an abundance of wealth.

"I disagree with you on that." Her face heated with his affirmation.

"Well, I am no Jang Ok-Jeong."

"There are many beautiful women in Joseon, not all of them have ever been recorded."

"She caught the eye of the King, a man who has a kingdom at his feet, he is supposed to be too superior to even look at his subjects. And he looks at her? Is that not a beautiful woman?" They were both fuelled by this argument, the debate igniting a set of powerful emotions that roared within them. This, was what they both deeply felt conversations were supposed to be. Potent discourse about society, literature and art. Not idle chatter on the weather, marriage and the social laws that subdued them.

"A man is supposed to be ruled by his head, not emotions. I say if any man bestowed more than a single glance, on a woman, and his breath was taken away, then she is more gorgeous than Venus herself."

"Not that wretched painting. It's so...vulgar." San snickered, squeezing his eyes as he let out a melodious laughter. "It says so much about the male gaze." She spat out as they trudged through the fields back in the direction of her home.

“I wonder if you like any art, at all? Other than your own?” He questioned.

“Owon is good. Apart from the vulgarity of Renaissance paintings-,”

“Which I must say is the majority of the whole movement, pray, continue.” He teased, his pestering smirk seemed to stitch wings on her heart, for it fluttered at his amiability, his devoutness to mankind and all of its endearing qualities and his perseverance. Despite her uncompromising attitudes and distasteful demeanour, he seemed compliant with listening to her, talking to her, truly trying to understand her and not just turning a blind eye. Choi San truly wanted to know her, for her; and not follow some false allegation that she was devoid of a heart or soul. He commended she had both and they were wrought with an existentialist quality that he wanted nothing but to huddle in the corner of a library and read away his life until it dissolved under the cover of her persona.

"What about you?" She questioned, tucking a strand of loose hair behind her own ear. At once, San was drawn into the world of virtuosity describing each of his favourite pieces as if it could be encapsulated into a single globe. The sweet dissonance of his voice lugging her into a dreamscape as they gently glissaded through the empty hallways of the Yim estate. They sought their eyes over the panelled wall, following the intricate lines of carved wood. They could almost be called mad people loose from the dreaded ward. For their eyes did not see the same way a normal persons did. He saw the shimmer in the air, the light poring through the crevices, the faint blemishes on a skin unseen with a naked eye-too vague to be called a taint, a mark, a scar. And she would see what he saw, whether it was not there she could reach to the depths of her sanity and pour out the image before her eyes to satisfy him.

It became a wonder to her how they spent several nights, the light patter of her feet as she rushed to his quarters with fulfilling arguments over art pieces, sharing techniques, rifling through each other's sketchbooks. His style was a stark contrast to her own: luminous watercolours, velvety acrylic paints, oily crayons. His muses were full of life and wonder, the strokes brimming with fruition. It was if a single segment of his painting held more hope than what could exist in her whole being.

There was something about him, too. She could see it now, his compassion, his adoration. As the weeks spun by, she became less repulsed by his sincerity and opened up to it more, almost finding herself craving his attention. His affection was much welcomed; she often wondered what it would be like to be so loved by him.

In her mother's old drawing room, she found him again, his large hands drifting over the pages again. Peering over his shoulder, she softly blew into his ear; the warmth tickling him.

"What are you drawing?" Her eyes scanned over the cartridge sheet, its intimacy striking her. It looked like her. Every sketch line, every shade, every little detail, every little blemish on her face.

"You." He answered, he didn't dare tear his eyes away from her for her hair was falling down her face in perfect waves that lured him into uncharted depths.

"You drew me so pretty."

"I only drew what I saw." Her heart wavered in piety, his devotion provoking an arrangement of madness. He was going to drive her insane and she was content with it.

"I wonder, what was it that you were excommunicated for?" Her silence broke through the passionate airs, culminating the objectivity that fulfilled among them as his sins held heavy on his tongue.

"I am not a scholar, a farmer or a devout son. I am an artist, a man who sees the world despite all of its maliciousness. I see the world so raw, it almost disgusts me but I am not terrified by its honesty. I find it so beautiful, it belongs on a page: drawn." Her body swayed towards him, hypnotised by his delicate words drawn his intoxicating tenacity, filling her with such immitigable rage that within that severe moment all she wanted was him. "I was 'excommunicated' because I am not the man my father wants me to be. I return as soon as I am devoid of all the emotions he renders vile." Tentatively, her fingers curled through his hair his eyes fluttering shut under her gentle touch.

"What about you Miss Yim? Why are you so solitary?" He murmured, their quiet voices serenaded the room.

"I am not solitary by choice. It's been enforced upon me and I know nothing and no one else but myself." Her whispers, though full of hurt and pain, were seldom dulcet. He thrived himself upon her words alone, it was enough to send him into delirium but her whole unmatched beauty with her words? He was sure to be sent to the wretched institute.

With an envelope gripped in her hands, she made her way over to his quarters slipping into the warmth, his smile greeting her as she slumped onto the chair in front of him.

"Mrs Choi? Your mother?" She inquired, handing over the envelope. San snickered at her nosiness, rolling her eyes as he took the sheet from her grasp, ripping open the seal to reel his eyes down the page.

"Actually, it's my wife." He announced, sparing her a single glance as he continued to read the words sprawled across the page. A sharp pang penetrated through the barriers in her heart, she felt her feet slipping under the ground, the walls pulverising as they caved in on her. For some reason, the room felt much more smaller than it was. Her heart was beating faster than any poetic declaration he had bestowed upon her, any time he had made her feel as if she was truly a worthy soul of being loved. Her heart palpitated faster than when he made her feel she would not die from a cataclysmic loneliness.

"I didn't know you were married." She breathed out, gripping the sage green silk in hand; feeling almost disgusted with herself for fixating her whole being on a man who never belonged to her in the beginning.

"We'll be officially married when I return back home." With a teasing smile on his lips, he grabbed a clean sheet from his desk and began elegantly carving the characters onto the page. "I'll be sure to send you an invite, if you'll come?"

“Of course, I’ll come. You know, for the food.” She quipped, his dimpled smile shattering the months of pining she had set for this revered soul. “I’ll take your leave, San.”

She fled from the room her bare feet blessing the sweet earth, the velvety wisps of the wind taunting her as tears welled up in her eyes. With a breath hitched in her throat, she fell onto her bed; bottom lip quivering as pearl tears escaped from her eyes dribbling down her cheeks before splattering onto the bedsheets. Her painful howl terrorised the desolate quarters as she had done on several dispassionate nights, the skies mimicked her torment, the light patter of rain hit against the window as if it understood all her wretched emotions. As if it understood her anger, hatred and hurt. As if it understood how disgusting it felt be left vulnerable by a man who could never be hers.

Was it some false delusion that she had been seduced by? That he, who was carved from a sculpturers most wild emotions, by all of his tenacity and his violent rage that he wished to create a being made of light: could truly be hers? By his yearning and pent up sentiment, by his dying wish that this world was not at peace until some divine figure from a concealed land would touch her world? Her hands shook as she sought to remove the tears streaming endlessly down her face. After all it had now made sense to all of the sympathetic souls that had heard her be plunged through such pain, to read her tale and understand the reason for her aloof nature.

Up the walls went back up. Brick by brick.

Curse you, Choi San, for breaking them down in the first place.

San had not seen Miss Yim for the remainder of the week or the subsequent. Granted, he had been flooded with an overwhelming amount of work but such was to be expected with the incredible staff shortage and Mr Yim’s high expectations. Regardless, he missed the snarky comments and unrelenting stares from across the room. He missed her moodiness, how ever infuriating it was at times; he missed the sense of quietude she presented at his feet and its ability to render his mind numb. Overall, he missed her. Yet, she seemed to be nowhere in sight and in fact missing even under the cover of the night.

“Ina, do you know where I can find Miss Yim?” He questioned, the agony rupturing the sutures of his weak heart apart.

"In her room, Mr Choi. She's, specifically, requested not to see anyone." Oh. His mood deflated after that concession, wracking his mind for all the things he had said in their last engagement; anything potentially hurtful or offensive but he didn’t recall anything particularly endangering. His quest to venture into her quarters, despite her ruthless commands which had the servants petrified over her uncharacteristic (but not abnormal) behaviour, had been cut short by Mr Yim’s desire to keep a tightened hold on the apprentice. He thought about bringing it up as he ate dinner with his mentor.

“How is Miss Yim? I heard she’s isolated herself in her quarters?” He raised, tentatively, as Mr Yim’s eyes scoured down the reports. Her father was a little too quick to dismiss her actions.

“Never mind her, that’s not something new. I was surprised she was even roaming around the house when you arrived…” Mr Yim trailed off as a thought infiltrated his mind, shutting the book close, his furrowed brows silenced the questions in San’s mind.

The moonlight spilt in through the window, the luminous shadows dancing with the light breeze. With dried tear tracks staining her puffy cheeks, she circulated her finger around the cotton sheets pulling up the heavy duvet over her shoulders, a trail of heat comforted her. The door to her room, silently, slid open; oblivious to the soft bustling of footsteps she stretched her limbs sitting up in her bed.

“Miss Yim?” Her head snapped up at the deep voice, its familiarity sending an agonising wave of heartache through her being. There he was, the perpetrator himself, settling in front of her with a teacup in his palms as if nothing had happened in the first place. “Are you ok? I know you don’t like echinacea, so I got you lemon and ginger tea.” Placing the tea cup on her night stand, he rested his palm against her forehead.

“What are you doing here, San?” Huffing, she fisted up the hair in her palms before sticking a dry paint brush through it to create a tight knot.

“You’re burning u- were you crying?” His finger lightly smoothed her damp skin, shaking her head she pushed his hand away from her face. God, she felt awful for his wife who had to endure his infidelity. “What’s wrong, jagiya, speak to me?” Biting down on her lower lip, Miss Yim threw her gaze out of her window, she sought the light shimmering as her vision blurred.

“Just leave, please.” There was no more hostility left in her tone, a coarse throat lacerated with the phlegm that built up from endless nights of sobbing herself to sleep. Tiredness gnawed at her, she just wanted to dissolve back into the covers. Pleading, begging she’d do whatever she could to force him to leave because if he didn’t then she would tear down the path to the Angel of Death and beg him to take her dwindling heart. On her knees she would go, for the mere sight of her lover crumbled the steadfast walls she had tried so hard to rebuild.

“Are you upset because I’m going home next week? If that’s the case-,”

“San, are you dense?” She interrupted. He was subjugated to silence, a look of hurt flashing over his face. “Leave means leave.” Adjusting her body so she could slide under the covers, she stridently hauled the fabric over her head, gripping her lips tight shut, so no more pitiful sobs escaped her and she was no more a servant to his cruel love.

The Yim estate was left with a melancholic air as the venerated bachelor made his preparations to leave the home. The maids were forlorn as they’d no longer have the privilege of seeing his striking face to bless their monotone days. Miss Yim had finally mustered the courage to take a stroll through the garden, avoiding San's quarters at that. Lingering by the flowers, she wrapped her arms around herself to manifest a sense of warmth that failed to prevail with the awful weather. She didn't notice her lover tear down the garden to her, his heart leaping within his own chest.

"Miss Yim?" Her body whipped around upon his words, her hands balled up into fists the anger displaced by fear. "Do you know how painful it has been for me to go days without seeing you? I am leaving for Yangdong, today, and god knows if I didn't even so much as see your face I would have gone feral."

"I- why?" She stuttered, at a desperate attempt to collect together her words and form a sentence. How and when did he culminate such passionate feelings for her?

"Why? Isn't it obvious? I am in love with you." He declared, she shook her head, profusely, at him.

"How can you say that?" Her voice raised an octave, parrying against the harsh winds that blew at them.

“If being in love with you is a deadly sin, then I am the greatest sinner there is. I will walk up to the gates of hell and open them myself. Hand over my arms and ask them to bound me to its greatest depths.” His chest heaved up and down, tears brimming at the front of her eyes. “I cannot live without you. I would not even do so much as breathe unless you asked me to. If you asked me to stop breathing, I would!”

“You’re a married man, San. Do you know how god awful that sounds?”

“I’m barely married but engaged. When I go back home, I will once again beg to not be wed off to her. I don’t love her, how can my father expect me to marry her? How can you expect me to marry her?”

“I don’t think you understand, San. I can’t love you.” His arms outstretched for her waist, hauling her towards him, the rain beating down on them both. With the gentle flick of his finger, her head tipped up to peer into his eyes.

“Look into my eyes and tell me you don’t love me, or even feel as much as a small emotion for me. One word from you, would silence me forever.” She bit furiously down on her lip as his vehement fixation tore through the borders of her soul. When did she fall so vulnerable in his conquest for her being?

“I don’t love you the same way you love me. I am incapable of doing so.” His own brown eyes fulfilled with hot tears, pouring soundlessly down his cheeks. Her heart wavered with misery as he ripped away his grip, stumbling backwards upon her untruth.

“I understand. Thank you, Miss Yim. For the first time in my life, someone saw me for who I really am and not who I am meant to be.” Once again, the thunder cracked against the sky as San turned his back on her striding back into the home. The maids ran out to shut the doors, summoning their mistress back in but she sunk to the floor erupting into a fit of sobs; a wave of shock rattling through them. Her heart burned with such pain, even as Ina cooed lifting her up from the floor to guide her back into the home. Melting into the older woman's arms, her ears drowned out the distant sound of her lover ambling far, far away from her to a land in which even its notion would never grace the depths of her mind.

Her father's office was warm, but not the comforting kind as the biting airs of Joseon persisted. It was more suffocating as they sat across from each other in his office, discussing the state of her future now that he had managed to complete some of burdening tasks at work. He had several proposals lined in front of her, some prospects from his workplace, some from Mr Kang and even Ina had managed to find one or two seemingly agreeable men within their social class. A sigh fulfilled her, it would be a lie to say that she didn't look for the smallest hint of San within them all.

"I'm sorry Father, I don't like any of these men." He closed his eyes in indignation, rubbing his face before collecting the sheets from in front of her and throwing them into the fire. The embers cackled in a slow, seething ferocity as he leaned back in his chair.

"I honestly don't know what to do with you anymore. You won't marry, you won't leave your quarters. You've stopped helping around the house. All you want to do is sit in your room all day and stare into space." He scolded, she shook her head before raising from her seat. "You are becoming a burden to me."

"Well if I am such a burden to you, then just get rid of me." She taunted. An animosity truanted through him at her discourtesy.

“What do you think I have been trying to do since your mother left us? It should have not been your mother that had died! It should have been you! I would trade my soul to have your mother in place of you.” He blurted, before quickly slapping the palm of his hand to his mouth, cursing him for the spoiled words that left it.

“I would trade my soul too, to have my mother where you stand. You are a poor excuse of a man and to call you my father is an insult to me.” She hissed through gritted teeth, the shock reverberating at Mr Yim’s core; the severity of her words pulsating through his blood.

“You shouldn’t have been a father if all I was going to be to you was a pretty doll in a picture. The truth was she didn’t die because she was ill, it was the heartbreak of carrying a whole marriage on her back. It was the fact that you didn’t care about her wants, but your own.”

"You are in no position to say that to me. I loved your mother like it was breathing, I loved her as if she was the greatest blessing, as if God had granted me mercy for all the times I had done him wrong." His chest suspired, brittle hands shaking as a heavy tension remained suspended in the air between them; Ina loitering outside afraid to walk into the war zone.

"But you didn't love me! It was my mother who loved me, and I wasn't allowed to have her! I wasn't my mother's daughter, or my father's. I was a daughter of a servant with my name merely attached to you." At the end of the day, she was the figure in those paintings. Trapped within a frame, four equidistant lines on a piece of cartridge paper, bound by brushstrokes, sketch lines, constricted and held down by the artist. Subservient and stuck to a position in which she could not move.

Mr Yim deserved the brutal honesty of those words, no matter how harsh it was, and with a pounding headache, she ran out of his office ignoring her father’s calls for her to return to his side. This was it, there was nothing and no one by her side now and she was now the destitute figure that she had feared she would become.

“What’s wrong my dear? What’s hurt you so much?” Ina’s soft voice dilapidated at her mistress’ gloom, one she had seen prolong within her late madam too. Squeezing her eyes shut, she summoned the courage to spill her heart to her maid. She told her of how much she adored him, how deeply she wanted him and the ways in which he had made her fall in love with him. And how he had hurt her too.

“So call me heartless and apathetic all you want but I couldn’t take another woman’s man from her.”

“My love.” Ina’s weak fingers travelled through her hair. “You are far from heartless and apathetic. A man who you love is your whole life, you gave your life away to another woman.” She looked over to Ina, falling into her motherly embrace, breathing in her scent. There it was. The same scent that her mother had, the scent she was dreaming to come back to her in the midst of the night, and her a fool to dismiss that it was in front of her the whole time.

“What should I do now?” Her weak inquiry, breaking her heart, sinking deeper into the void than she already was.

“Go back to him and tell him you love him. He is a gentleman who accepts despondency like a soldier. So you, his general, must go back and tell him to return home to you.”

“Ina-,”

“Do not deny yourself of what you deserve. Your mother did, I won’t see you walk the same path.”

“I will let time run its cycle. Time will tell if he is meant to be mine.” She declared, to which the maid rested her palm on her cheek.

Mrs Kang’s baby boy, Kang Minho, was indeed a beauty. His bedazzling little eyes stared up at her in wonder, babbling as she lightly drew the tip of her finger over his chubby cheeks. It was astonishing for Mrs Kang to see that it was merely a little baby that would eruct a smile out of the secluded Miss Yim. It had been about four months since San had left the estate, and a while it took for her to leave the confines of her quarters. Once again, she took requests after requests painting and painting until her hands became stiff and sore. And so even more marriage prospects came, and her eyes lingered slightly over a potential husband. Both Ina and her father were pleased when she stayed a little longer at the doorway of their home talking to one of the young apprentice’s at the office. He was tall, handsome and kind; perhaps it was flickers of San she saw within him that had her thinking that spending the rest of her life with this man: wouldn’t be particularly gruesome. Regardless, she made no firm decision but still, for her father this was significant progress.

“He likes you.” Mrs Kang chimed, grinning down at her baby. She hummed carefully, softly tickling his smooth cheeks.

“Maybe I like him too.” Her gaze lightly flickered to the elated mother. “Where is Yeosang? I didn’t see him on my way in?”

“Oh he’s in his office with San.” Her head snapped up from the baby at the sound of his name. Goodness, how long had it been since she had heard that single syllable name, forever it seemed it would merely reverberate inside her head. “Did you not know he was in town? He came to see Minho.” Shaking her head, she got up from the bed consoling herself.

“I- I think I’ll leave now. I’ll come visit another time.” She announced, before awkwardly patting Mrs Kang’s head; a poor endeavour at affection but for Mrs Kang this affection was whole-heartedly appreciated. Her footsteps sped down the hallways, she came to an abrupt halt at the exist of the Kang estate.

There he was, stood there with Yeosang conversing if they were age-old best friends her heart palpitated with anxiety, knowing that she’d have to walk past him again. The sight of him almost triggered her, she gripped onto her deep purple skirts, his own yellow hanbok beaming like the sun.

“Miss Yim! I didn’t know you had arrived, leaving so soon?” Mr Kang chirped from the door. She shook at her head at him.

“I’ve been here for over an hour and a half. I’ll visit another time, especially since Minho is the only tolerable person in this household.”

“Just say you love him.” A grumble erupted from her lips, she rolled her eyes- with a delicate playfulness- before squeezing past the pair of men. A pounding of footsteps travelled after her as she trudged back through the fields in the direction of her home.

“Miss Yim, allow me to accompany you.” San professed, breathlessly. With a diligent nod, she transgressed forwards ignoring his burning gaze into her skin. “How have you been?”

“I’ve been fine. What about you?” He responded he was great all the same, reporting that the weather in Yangdong was a little warmer than in her hometown.

“When is your wedding date? I’m still awaiting on an invite.” It was a joke, nonetheless, but one that didn't hesitate to puncture holes in her heart.

“We broke off the engagement, it was mutual really. She was in love with someone else.” With a breath lodged in her throat, her stare tore away from the fields piercing straight into his eyes. It was then she had realised how burdened he truly was. Where was the San that always smiled and joked, and was so full of love it seemed inhumane to have so much of it? They didn't need to say anything to each other in that moment, they stopped walking subsided to a silent, paralysed position. "I think I'll just take your leave." His voice quivered, sending a jolt of agony through her.

Hadn't she made him suffer enough? After all he was the same man who loved her as if she was the vessel that kept the blood running through his veins, his heart beating and his feet walking.

Go back to him and tell him you love him.

Tell him to return back home to you.

His body almost disappeared behind the vast expanse of buildings, when she raced down the fields, as fast as her legs could carry her, ignoring the vicious ache gnawing at her muscles and the agitated pounding of her heart against her chest. Tearing down the path towards him, in the chance that if she didn't run any faster she was going to lose her lover to the wind.

"San!" Her shout echoed in the breeze, but reached to his ears anyway, a tug at the weak strings that had barely held down his soul. He turned, so desperate that she would come to him like she had done in the dead of the night. Feeling his lover crawl into his arms, pledging that she would never leave from his side.

"Miss Yim, what's wrong?"

“I lied to you, when I said I didn’t love you. I really, really do, I almost feel disgusted by it. I never thought, that someone as ruthless and as cold as me would be privileged enough to fall in love but when you entered my life I felt like my mother.” She sucked in a deep breath, her lover making gentle steps toward her as the wind whipped their hair. “I felt like her when she said: ‘If he was the muse in a painting, to be an object, a fleck of paint, or even dust on it would be my greatest honour.’” Warm tears forged in his eyes, biting down his bottom lip to prevent them from escaping. She wanted to outstretch her arms towards him but it was too soon.

“So, Choi San, it’s an honour to be loved by you. I came back, because I had to tell you that. I hurt you so much. I was scared that being vulnerable to love would only hurt me but the only person who gave me such torment was myself.” Her confession disturbed her, yet it was the unspoken truth that only he was entitled to. A tense silence suffused the air as she pended his response, but all he could do was try to convince himself that it was not a dream and she really had said all of the words he had spent countless nights praying that she would declare.

“I love you, Miss Yim. I loved you yesterday, I love you today and I will love you for eternity. There is simply nothing that one can do to tear my heart away from yours, not even you.”

"Do you mean that?" It was a stupid question, but she could not help the words be spilled from her mouth. He nodded violently.

"I do. With my whole entity." Choking back on her sobs, her arms reached out for him throwing them around his neck. Nuzzling her face in the crook of his neck, her grip tightened as he ensnared his hands around her waist; breathing in her scent as if it was oxygen. "Come home with me my dear, come home and be mine."

•••

DO NOT REPOST, TRANSLATE, REPURPOSE, OR PLAGISRISE ANY OF THE WORK HERE

'Yim' meaning light

A/N: the long awaited painter!san fic (with a twist 😏) that i've been waiting too long to put out. I hope you liked this one. :))

let me know if you’d like to be added to the tag list for any future fics I post!

tags: @n0v4t33z @potatos-on-clouds @jjongwho

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pbaz7 · 14 days ago

Text

It’ll Always Be Her Chapter 14

AN: Here’s a cutesy little chapter to offset all the anxiety and negativity anyone is feeling 🫶🏼. Let me know what you think! Also I want to start doing one shots and short stories so give me prompts if you have any!

Word Count: 3.8k

The next two weeks had been relentless. UConn’s schedule was a grueling one, with what felt like back-to-back games, long practices, and film sessions that drained every bit of energy from the team. The exhaustion was palpable in the gym, the locker rooms, and especially in the quiet moments between drills. They barely had time to breathe, let alone have fun. It wasn’t even March yet, but it felt like the postseason was already knocking at their door.

When they did get a rare break, the team found themselves sprawled out in each other’s rooms, barely able to keep their eyes open, let alone engage in conversation. It was in one of these rare moments of downtime after practice that Paige, sitting at the counter in the kitchen created for the athletic department, suddenly stood up and interrupted the idle chatter around her.

“I want to do something nice for Azzi today,” she said, her voice cutting through the noise of teammates munching on sandwiches and sipping from water bottles. “We have the rest of the day off, and I know she’s exhausted, but I feel like she deserves something special.”

The others paused, turning their attention toward her. There was a moment of silence as they processed what Paige had said.

“What, like a massage?” KK asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No, not like that,” Paige said with a small laugh. “I mean, sure, maybe later, but something more… personal. Lowkey, but private. Something just for her. We’ve been so busy lately, and I know she’s feeling it just as much as I am.”

“I get it,” Ice said, leaning back in his chair. “You wanna give her a little break from all the noise. But what are you thinking?”

Paige’s gaze shifted to the floor as she thought about it for a second. “It doesn’t need to be big. Just something small but meaningful. I want it to be a surprise, though. Nothing too public. I don’t want anyone ruining it.”

The team began to talk among themselves, exchanging ideas. After a few minutes, they finally agreed. They’d create a quiet, intimate evening for the two of them—something simple but personal that would give Paige and Azzi a chance to reconnect away from the madness of their schedules.

The team quickly got to work brainstorming, their collective energy shifting from exhaustion to excitement as they plotted out the details. After tossing around a few ideas, KK’s eyes lit up, and she shot a glance at the ceiling, clearly visualizing the perfect setup.

“What if we do something on the roof?” she suggested, her tone a bit more animated. “You know, like a little oasis up there. Away from everyone. We could make it super private, and no one would bother you two.”

The room went quiet for a moment as everyone thought it over.

“Wow KK that actually sounds nice,” Ice said, clearly impressed. “We could make it romantic, too. Some lights, candles, maybe even rose petals on the ground leading to a little space where you two can relax. Create a cozy, intimate vibe.”

Paige smiled, feeling a weight lift off her shoulders. The idea was simple, yet thoughtful—exactly what she had envisioned. “Yeah, something like that. I want it to be a surprise for Azzi, so it needs to feel special without being over the top.”

“Rose petals are a must,” KK said. “We’ll make a rose carpet. Maybe get some string lights to hang around the area, too. Something soft and cozy.”

The more they talked, the more the idea started to take shape. They’d gather blankets and pillows to go in an insulated pod—something that would shield them from the cold wind, making it feel like their own little private hideaway in the middle of the chaos. The whole space would be adorned with candles to create a soft, warm glow. Paige’s heart fluttered just thinking about it—this would be a perfect way to unwind, to share a quiet moment with Azzi away from everything.

“Okay, but we need to make sure no one else finds out about it,” Paige added, her voice serious but filled with a hint of excitement. “I don’t want anyone crashing our little escape.”

“Don’t worry,” Ice said with a wink. “We’ll make sure it stays a secret. It’s your night, and no one’s gonna ruin it.”

“Perfect,” Paige said, already feeling the anticipation building in her chest. “I’ll throw in some money for whatever we need, and we’ll get this done. I’ll text Azzi and let her know I’ll be up to her room soon, but I won’t say anything more.”

The team nodded in agreement, rallying together as they began to coordinate the setup. KK was already making phone calls to get the supplies, while Ice and the others gathered the blankets and candles. Paige pulled out her wallet and tossed three hundred dollars onto the table, watching as the team sprang into action.

With everything in motion, Paige quickly sent Azzi a text: “I’ll be up to your room soon.” She smiled to herself, the excitement building with every second. She was finally doing something just for them, something that would show Azzi how much she meant to her, how much she appreciated everything they had together.

…

Paige entered Azzi’s room quietly, the door creaking slightly as she pushed it open. She found Azzi sprawled out on the bed, looking completely drained, her hair fanned out across the pillows, eyes half-closed as she absentmindedly scrolled through her phone. A soft chuckle escaped Paige’s lips at the sight—Azzi looked as if she could fall asleep in the next moment.

Without saying a word, Paige crossed the room and crawled onto the bed, settling beside Azzi. She lay on her side, propping her head up with her hand as she looked at her girlfriend.

Azzi let out a small sigh, barely acknowledging Paige’s presence at first. “You’re here,” she murmured, her voice thick with exhaustion.

Paige smirked playfully. “I mean, where else would I be?”

Azzi shifted slightly, her fingers tracing the soft scar above Paige’s eyebrow, the one that still hadn’t completely faded from the Notre Dame game. “You’re always getting into trouble,” she said softly, her finger lingering on the scar as she gave Paige a half-smile. “But this one, it’s kinda cute. Like a battle wound.”

Paige smiled, the comment making her feel lighter, and she placed her hand over Azzi’s. “Guess I’ll just have to keep getting into trouble, huh?” She rolled onto her back, gazing up at the ceiling as they both relaxed for a moment in the silence of the room. The weight of their exhausting schedules hung heavy in the air, but this quiet moment together felt like a small escape.

Azzi yawned, stretching out her arms above her head before pulling her legs back under the covers. “I’m so tired,” she mumbled, her voice trailing off as she cuddled into the warmth of the bed. “We need a break from all this. I’m not even sure I have the energy for anything.”

Paige chuckled softly, rolling onto her side to face Azzi. “I know what you mean. But hey, we’ve got all day. We don’t need to do anything crazy. Just… relax for a little bit.”

Azzi's eyelids fluttered, and she gave Paige a tired smile. “I’m honestly happy just being here with you.”

Paige’s heart warmed at the words, and she leaned in to press a gentle kiss to Azzi’s forehead. They stayed like that for a few moments, just enjoying the quiet.

But then Paige’s phone buzzed on the bed beside her. She glanced at the screen to see a message from Ice: Everything’s ready.

She bit her lip, looking down at Azzi. As tempting as it was to stay in bed all day, Paige couldn’t let Azzi miss out on the surprise.

Gently, she nudged Azzi, her voice light. “Hey, I need you to get up,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Get dressed—cozy clothes. We’re going somewhere.”

Azzi groaned softly, not even bothering to open her eyes. “Do I have to?” she mumbled, her voice muffled by the pillow. “I’m so comfortable right here.”

Paige grinned, fully aware of how hard it was going to be to get Azzi out of bed. She leaned in closer, her lips brushing the top of Azzi’s head as she whispered, “Please, baby? I promise it’ll be worth it.”

Azzi peeked one eye open, giving her a tired but skeptical look. “What is it? Another ‘trust me, you’ll love it’ thing?”

Paige gave her the most exaggerated, pleading expression she could muster—her big, sad blue puppy-dog eyes. She knew Azzi could never resist those eyes.

Azzi blinked, clearly fighting the urge to give in. “You’re killing me,” she said, but the smile tugging at her lips was already softening her resistance. “I just want to sleep.”

Paige leaned in closer, placing a soft kiss on Azzi’s cheek. “Please, I’ll make it up to you later,” she promised, her voice playful yet sincere. “I need you to trust me.”

Azzi let out a long, exaggerated sigh, but Paige could see her resolve crumbling. She rubbed her eyes and groggily sat up. “Fine. But you owe me big time.”

Paige’s grin spread wider as she slid off the bed. “Deal.”

As Azzi sluggishly got out of bed, Paige couldn’t hide her excitement anymore. She pulled on her jacket and grabbed her keys, offering a final, teasing glance at Azzi, who was now fumbling with her clothes.

“You’ll see why soon enough,” Paige said with a grin, her heart racing with anticipation.

Azzi shot her a curious look but didn’t ask any more questions. “I’m trusting you,” she muttered under her breath as she started getting dressed.

Paige waited, trying to contain the excitement bubbling inside of her. After a few more moments, Azzi finished getting dressed in a cozy hoodie and sweatpants, and they were ready to leave. Paige took Azzi’s hand, leading her toward the door, unable to stop herself from feeling giddy about the surprise she had in store.

…

After stopping to grab some food at Azzi’s request—Paige giving in after a little bit of playful whining from Azzi about how starving she was—they drove towards the athletic department. The ride was quiet, with Azzi occasionally sneaking glances at Paige, still trying to figure out what was going on. Paige could sense the confusion, but she kept her grin tucked away, excited for the reveal.

As they approached the familiar building, Azzi let out an exasperated groan. "I really can't stand the sight of a basketball right now," she muttered, half-joking, as she stared out the window.

Paige chuckled, glancing over at her with a teasing smile. "Trust me, I promise it’s not what you think." She reached across the console, giving Azzi’s hand a quick squeeze. "Just follow me, okay?"

Azzi gave a halfhearted sigh but didn’t protest further, which Paige took as a win. She pulled into the parking lot and stopped in front of the entrance. Paige was already unbuckling her seatbelt, grinning ear to ear.

“I’ll open the door,” Paige said, pushing her door open before Azzi could even react.

Azzi eyed her, clearly puzzled. “You’re really dragging me into the lion’s den for something,” she remarked with a smirk but unbuckled her seatbelt anyway, getting out of the car with a reluctant sigh.

They walked towards the building, and Azzi’s confusion only deepened when Paige steered them away from the locker room and toward the elevator. "What’s going on?" Azzi asked, now seriously curious. "Where are we going?"

Paige didn’t answer, only flashed a playful grin as she pressed the button for the roof. The elevator doors closed, and Azzi's brow furrowed as she saw Paige press the “R” button. "The Roof?" Azzi asked, eyeing Paige.

"Just trust me," Paige said with a wink, leaning back against the elevator wall.

Azzi crossed her arms, clearly still unsure but unwilling to ask any more questions. When the elevator doors opened, she was met with a cool breeze and the soft light of the late afternoon sky as the sun was setting.

Azzi stepped out, her gaze sweeping the area. At first, she didn’t understand what she was seeing, but as her eyes locked onto the rose petal carpet that stretched across the roof, her breath caught in her throat. Candles flickered softly along the edges, and delicate lights hung from the railing, casting a warm glow over everything. In the center, there was a cozy-looking insulated pod, filled with plush pillows and blankets—an oasis in the middle of the chaotic campus.

Azzi's jaw dropped as she took in the scene. Her eyes welled up with tears as she slowly turned to look at Paige, a mixture of disbelief and happiness in her expression. "Paige... this is..." she trailed off, unable to find the words.

Paige stood there, watching Azzi, her heart swelling as she took in the sight of her girlfriend’s joy. Azzi’s teary eyes met hers, and Paige could see the overwhelming emotion in them. She had done it—created this perfect, peaceful moment for the two of them, just as Azzi deserved.

Azzi took a step closer to Paige, her voice barely above a whisper. “You did this for me?”

Paige smiled warmly, brushing a stray strand of hair behind Azzi’s ear. “I wanted to do something special for you. I know things have been crazy, and I just wanted to give us a moment to breathe.”

Azzi shook her head slightly, the tears now streaming down her cheeks. “I feel so... loved. This is... beyond anything I could have imagined.”

Paige reached out and gently cupped Azzi’s face, wiping the tears from her cheeks with her thumb. “You deserve this, and so much more,” she said softly, her voice full of affection.

Azzi nodded, trying to steady her breath as the tears continued to fall, though they were happy ones. She leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to Paige’s lips. “Thank you,” she whispered. “This... means everything.”

Paige smiled, her heart full as she pulled Azzi into a warm hug. “Anything for you.”

Azzi, still holding the take-out bag in her hand, finally glanced down at the food. “I’m not sure I can eat anything right now,” she said, holding it out. “But we can take this with us. I think this moment deserves to be savored a little longer.” She gave a soft laugh, though the tears hadn’t quite stopped.

“I’m all for that,” Paige agreed, grinning. “We have all the time in the world.”

They made their way to the pod, settling in with blankets and pillows surrounding them. It was their perfect little world, quiet and intimate. With the flickering candles casting soft shadows and the stars just beginning to appear above, they knew that, for tonight, nothing else mattered.

…

The soft glow of the lights around the roof and the comfort of the insulated pod had them nestled in a peaceful quiet, the world beyond feeling distant and unimportant. Paige and Azzi lay there together, tangled in blankets and pillows, lazily sharing their food as they continued to relax, their conversations light and comfortable.

Azzi finally finished her meal, letting out a satisfied sigh. "I didn’t realize how hungry I was,” she laughed, settling back into Paige’s embrace.

Paige smiled, brushing a loose strand of hair away from Azzi’s face. “Well, I’m glad you’re not too full to talk,” she teased, her fingers lightly tracing circles on Azzi’s arm. “I wasn’t sure how long I could just stare at the sky without saying something.”

Azzi rolled her eyes, though there was a soft smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “What, you don’t like quiet moments?” she asked playfully.

Paige shrugged. “I mean, I do. But it’s more fun when I’m with you. You make everything feel... better.”

Azzi’s smile softened, her gaze drifting to the sky before returning to Paige’s eyes. “Well, lucky for you, I’m here. Though, it’s hard to compete with the stars when you’re just so...”

“...irresistible?” Paige finished for her, raising an eyebrow and grinning mischievously.

Azzi chuckled. “Exactly.” Her fingers lightly brushed along Paige’s arm. “Though, I’ve got to admit, I didn’t expect the view up here to be this good.”

Paige looked around at the setting she had set up, the flowers and lights reflecting off the gentle glow of the candles. "Yeah, well, the view’s way better when I’m with you,” Paige said softly, gazing at Azzi.

Azzi's heart skipped a beat, her eyes softening. “You’re good at this. Really good at making me feel special.”

Paige smiled warmly, her hand resting on Azzi's. "You deserve it. I feel like we haven’t had enough time like this, just... together. No distractions."

Azzi let out a content sigh, her head resting on Paige’s shoulder as they both relaxed into the moment, the world outside their little bubble of calm fading into nothing. The night stretched out in silence for a while, and it was peaceful. But soon, Azzi broke it, her voice quiet and thoughtful.

“I’ve been thinking a lot, you know?” she started, her tone serious. “About this season, about what comes after it.”

Paige glanced at her, feeling a shift in the air. “What do you mean?” she asked softly.

Azzi took a deep breath, then turned her head to meet Paige’s eyes. “I’ve been talking to some people... the GM of the Golden State Valkyries, actually. With Geno’s help.”

Paige blinked, a little confused. “I thought you were staying here for another year because of your injuries? We talked about it earlier in the season.”

Azzi nodded, but her expression was more resolute now. “Yeah, I know we talked about it. But... I’ve been having a much better season than I expected. I don’t want to risk an injury again. I want to leave UConn on a high note and I think we can win it all this year.”

Paige stayed silent for a moment, trying to process the change. She hadn’t seen this coming. “So... you’re leaving…with me?” she asked softly, her voice quieter now, unsure how to feel about it.

Azzi smiled gently, her gaze unwavering. “Yes…It’s time for me. But there’s more. The GM told me that Golden State has been in talks with Dallas about getting the #1 pick in the draft. If they pull it off... they might take you at #1, and me at #5.”

Paige blinked, unable to fully grasp what she was hearing. "Wait... you think you’re going to go 5?" she asked skeptically, trying to keep her composure, though the excitement bubbling up inside her was hard to hide. “I don’t know, Azzi. I mean, I don’t think you’ll drop that far.”

Azzi nodded, her gaze unwavering. “None of the teams with picks 2, 3, or 4 need a shooting guard. They’d be crazy to draft me. Plus Golden State is really interested in you. They’re doing everything they can to get the #1 pick and you’re clearly their top choice.”

Paige sat up slightly, her heart pounding as the news sank in. “And you? You’d go #5 to Golden State?”

Azzi smiled, her eyes gleaming with excitement. “Yeah that’s the plan. The way they’ve been talking it feels... like it could actually happen. They mentioned something about giving Dallas their picks for the next two years.”

For a moment, Paige just stared at Azzi, her mind racing. Then, she couldn’t hold it in any longer. She leaned forward, kissing Azzi’s cheek, then her nose, then her forehead, her lips scattering over her face with pure excitement. “Oh my God, this is huge!” she said breathlessly. “Baby we could be playing together again! On the same team!”

Azzi laughed softly, her heart racing as Paige continued to shower her with kisses. “I know! It’s crazy to think about.”

Paige pulled back, grinning widely. “This could actually happen. We could be teammates again. I can’t even—this is everything. I can’t even imagine playing with anyone else.”

Azzi laughed again, pulling Paige closer, her voice low and full of promise. “Well, you might not have to imagine it for long.”

After the whirlwind of excitement, Paige and Azzi were both still processing the incredible news of the draft. The moment between them felt like time had slowed, their hearts in sync as they basked in the idea of playing together again. But before they could fully settle back into the peace of the rooftop, a sudden sound caught their attention.

From below, they heard raised voices and a bit of commotion filtering through the surroundings of the building. Paige furrowed her brow, sitting up and leaning toward the edge of the pod. Azzi, noticing the same thing, followed her gaze and squinted at the scene unfolding below.

Some of their teammates, dressed in all black, were standing at the entrance of the athletic department. They looked like they were ready for action—arms crossed, eyes narrowed, and clearly blocking someone from entering. The whole scene seemed like something out of a spy movie.

Paige snickered and leaned back, trying to stifle her laughter. "Are we sure we’re not watching a secret agent movie right now?" she whispered to Azzi, who was equally amused.

Azzi shook her head, a grin spreading across her face. "No kidding. Looks like top-flight security on a mission. Who the heck are they keeping out?"

They both watched as their teammates, clearly in full force, kept their position and made sure whoever it was didn’t cross the threshold. The scene was absurd in the best possible way, with the team going all in on their antics.

Then, they heard KK’s voice ring out clearly from below. “This is private property, sir!” she announced with authority, causing the rest of their teammates, who were playing along with the act, to burst into laughter.

Paige couldn’t help but chuckle, nudging Azzi playfully. "I swear, that’s KK being all serious, trying to put on a show like she’s a real security guard."

Azzi laughed, shaking her head. “That was definitely too dramatic. I can’t believe she’s pulling the ‘private property’ line.”

The sound of the team’s laughter echoed up to them, and even the mysterious person who’d apparently been trying to enter couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of the situation.

Paige rolled her eyes, still grinning. “Only here could something this ridiculous happen. I think we’re safe in our little pod for now.” She pulled the blankets around her tighter as she settled back down next to Azzi.

Azzi grinned, looking back at Paige. “Yeah, it’s nice to escape the chaos. But I have a feeling ‘security’ is still out there, keeping watch.”

With the laughter from downstairs still drifting up toward them, they both leaned back into the warmth of the pod. Their teammates might be handling their own version of "security," but for now, Paige and Azzi were perfectly content, tucked away in their private oasis, away from the madness.

#paige x azzi #pazzi #pazzi fics

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httpsdana · 2 months ago

Note

hi girlll, i just love ur gavi fics, if your not busy could you write one with him and the reader, where they have an argument because he’s been really distant and she thinks he doesn’t love her anymore, so she moves away and he tries to get her back?? sorry it’s so long and a lil specific 💘

Distant Hearts~Pablo Gavi

*Pictures are from Pinterest*

enjoy <3

request from here

master list -> part 2

players/drivers I write for

The evening was quiet, the air thick with tension as y/n sat across from Pablo in their shared apartment. He’d been distant for weeks — late nights, brief answers, a coldness she couldn’t ignore any longer.

Tonight, she decided to bring it up, to figure out where they stood, but his indifference to the conversation felt like a slap to the face.

y/n took a shaky breath, eyes fixed on the floor as she gathered her words. “Pablo… do you even want to be here anymore? Because lately, it feels like you don’t.”

His face stayed expressionless, a slight shrug his only response. “It’s… complicated.”

She looked up, anger rising at his detachment. “Complicated?” she laughed bitterly, the sound harsh in the quiet room. “That’s it? After everything, it’s just ‘complicated’?”

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to tell me what happened,” she said, frustration leaking into her voice. “You used to talk to me, Pablo. You used to be here, not just physically, but actually here. Now, it’s like I’m living with a stranger.”

Pablo’s gaze fell to the floor, his silence digging deeper into the wound. “Things have been… difficult for me. I’m just trying to figure it out.”

“Figure it out?” she echoed, feeling a lump form in her throat. “What about me? Did you ever think about how I feel, wondering if you still care at all?”

His face softened for a moment, guilt flashing across his eyes, but he looked away quickly. “I didn’t mean for you to feel that way.”

“Then why didn’t you just talk to me?” her voice broke, and she felt a tear slip down her cheek. “I would’ve understood, Pablo. I love you, and I would’ve done anything to help you. But instead, you just shut me out.”

“I didn’t want to burden you,” he murmured, barely audible.

“A burden?” y/n shook her head, the words feeling hollow. “Being with you isn’t a burden. But you’ve made me feel like I am one.”

The silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating. Pablo’s gaze was fixed on the ground, his fists clenched by his sides, but he said nothing, didn’t reach out, didn’t even try to bridge the gap between them.

Finally, y/n couldn’t take it anymore. She grabbed her coat and bag, her heart breaking with each step towards the door. “If you don’t want to fight for this, then I won’t stay and beg you to care.”

He looked up, surprise and something like regret flickering in his eyes, but still, he didn’t move. He stayed rooted in place as she opened the door and walked out, not stopping her, not even calling her name as the door clicked shut behind her.

•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•

The weeks that followed were painfully quiet. y/n moved in with a friend, spending her days trying to keep busy, but the empty spaces where Pablo used to be haunted her. At night, the memories of his touch, his laugh, his voice — they filled the silence, refusing to let her move on.

But Pablo wasn’t faring any better. At first, he convinced himself it was for the best, that maybe he needed this space to figure himself out. Yet as days passed, the loneliness grew unbearable, gnawing at him in a way he couldn’t ignore.

Late one night, he found himself scrolling through old photos on his phone — pictures of the two of them laughing, y/n's face illuminated by sunlight, his arms wrapped around her. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her until now, how hollow everything felt without her there.

That night, after wrestling with his thoughts, he finally caved. He grabbed his phone, dialing her number with shaking hands, his heart pounding as it rang.

When she picked up, her voice was guarded. “Pablo?”

“y/n…” He paused, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I know this is probably the last thing you want to hear, but I can’t… I can’t stop thinking about you. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry for everything.”

Her silence was deafening, and he braced himself for her to hang up, to finally cut him off for good. But then, she sighed, the sound weary. “It’s been weeks, Pablo. Why now?”

He closed his eyes, guilt twisting in his chest. “Because I was stupid. I thought pushing you away would make things easier, but it’s just made everything worse. I miss you. I miss us.”

“Missing me doesn’t change what happened,” y/n said, her voice softer but laced with hurt. “You chose to push me away, to shut me out when I needed you.”

“I know, and I can’t tell you how much I regret it,” he replied, his voice raw. “Please… can we talk? I need to see you, to explain everything.”

There was a long pause, and for a moment, he thought you might refuse. But then, she sighed before speaking. “Fine. Tomorrow, at the café near the apartment.”

•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•

The next day, he arrived at the café early, nerves clawing at him as he waited. When y/n finally walked in, looking hesitant and guarded, his heart broke all over again. She sat down, crossing her arms and fixing him with a steady gaze.

“Alright,” she said, her voice cold. “I’m here. Explain.”

He took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. “I’ve been dealing with a lot of pressure lately, with everything after my injury and playing again, and I… I felt like I was failing, like I wasn’t enough. And I thought that maybe you’d be better off without me.”

Her expression softened slightly, but her voice remained firm. “So, instead of talking to me, you just… shut me out? How was that supposed to make things better?”

He looked down, shame washing over him. “I thought I was protecting you from my problems, that maybe if I distanced myself, you wouldn’t have to deal with my mess."

y/n shook her head, disbelief and frustration mingling in jer eyes. “Pablo, don’t you get it? I wanted to be there for you. I was ready to go through anything with you, no matter how hard. But instead, you made that choice for me. You left me alone, wondering if I’d done something wrong.”

He felt the weight of her words settle in his chest, heavy and suffocating. “I know,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “I should have trusted you… I should’ve known that I could lean on you. But instead, I let my fears get the best of me. And I lost you because of it.”

Her gaze softened, though hurt was still etched in her features. “Do you even realize how much that hurt, Pablo? Watching you pull away, wondering if I meant anything to you anymore? I thought… I thought you stopped loving me.”

His head shot up, his eyes wide and filled with regret. “No. No, y/n, I never stopped loving you. Not for a second. I just… I got lost in my own head. I thought I was doing the right thing, giving you space to have a happier life, and I couldn’t see how wrong I was.”

She sighed, rubbing her temples as if the weight of the last few weeks was crashing down on her. “you don’t get to decide what’s best for me. That was never your choice to make. All I wanted was for us to be honest with each other, to face things together. But you shut me out, like I wasn’t enough for you to trust.”

He swallowed, feeling every word like a punch to his gut. “You’re right. I should’ve trusted you. I know I hurt you, and I don’t expect you to forgive me, but… I want to make things right. I want to be the person you deserve, if you’ll let me.”

For a moment, the silence between them was tense, stretching as they both processed the words left unsaid. y/n's fingers drummed nervously against the table, eyes cast downward, lost in thought.

“How do I know you won’t just shut me out again?” she asked quietly, her voice fragile, filled with the fear of being hurt once more.

Pablo reached across the table, his fingers brushing against hers. Sje didn’t pull away, but she didn’t lean into his touch either.

“Because losing you made me realize how much I need you. I’ve spent these weeks replaying everything in my head, realizing just how much I took you for granted. I promise, I’ll never shut you out again. I’ll fight for us, every single day. Just… give me a chance to prove it to you.”

She looked at him, the vulnerability in his eyes pulling at her heart. “Pablo… you have to understand. This wasn’t easy for me. I loved you, I still do, but I’m scared. You broke my trust, and I don’t know if it’s something I can just forget.”

He nodded, squeezing her hand gently. “I don’t expect you to forget. I’ll do whatever it takes to rebuild that trust, to show you that I’m serious. If it takes months, years, whatever… I’ll wait. I’ll do it right.”

A part of her wanted to believe him, to take his hand and go back to the way things were, but another part — the part still wounded and wary — held her back.

Her hand tightened slightly around his, and he took that as a sign, a glimmer of hope. “I miss you,” she whispered, almost too quietly. “I miss the way things used to be. But I’m scared, Pablo. Scared that I’ll come back and you’ll hurt me again.”

He shook his head, his voice firm but gentle. “You won’t lose me again. I’ll make sure of it. I’ll talk to you, be honest with you, even when things are hard. I won’t let my fears come between us anymore.”

Taking a deep breath, she nodded slowly. “I’ll think about it. I need time, and I need to see that you’re serious. If we’re going to try again, we need to take it slow.”

A faint smile broke through his serious expression, relief shining in his eyes. “I can do that. As slow as you need, I’m here for it.”

After a pause, she added softly, “And if we do this, we’re in it together. No more shutting each other out, no more making decisions alone. I need to know that you’re really here.”

“I promise,” he replied, his voice filled with sincerity. “I’m here, y/n. I’m not going anywhere.”

The conversation hung in the air, a fragile hope between the two of them. And though there was still a long way to go, a piece of her felt the weight lifting, knowing he was ready to fight for her— for both of them.

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oaksgrove · 7 days ago

Text

A Place to Call Home

pairing: Keegan Russ x Reader

synopsis: After months of deployment, Keegan finally returns to the apartment you’d both barely settled into before he left. What was once an empty, impersonal space is now a warm, inviting home filled with your touch. As the two of you reconnect over dinner, the love and comfort you’ve created together remind him of what he’s been fighting for.

warnings: None, just tender, heartwarming fluff.

a/n: is all about love in the little things. Hope you enjoy this cozy slice of domestic bliss!

The apartment was empty, save for a few boxes stacked haphazardly in the corner. The walls were bare, the hardwood floors scuffed, and the faint scent of paint still lingered in the air. You stood in the middle of the room, hands on your hips, surveying the space that would soon become your home.

“It’s a bit… sad, isn’t it?” you said, glancing over your shoulder at Keegan.

He was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, his sharp blue eyes scanning the room. “It’s a blank slate,” he said simply, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “We’ll make it ours.”

You grinned at his optimism, turning back to the room. “Ours,” you repeated softly, the word wrapping around you like a warm hug.

The two of you spent the next few hours unpacking, your voices mingling with the sound of tape ripping and boxes being shuffled around. Keegan insisted on doing the heavy lifting, even though you playfully argued that you were just as capable.

By the end of the day, the apartment still looked sparse, but there were signs of life—a cozy blanket draped over the couch, your favorite mugs lined up on the kitchen counter, a Polaroid of the two of you pinned to the fridge.

Keegan pulled you into his arms, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “It’s a start,” he murmured.

“It’s perfect,” you replied, leaning into him.

But perfection was fleeting. Just weeks later, Keegan was called back to duty.

The morning he left was quiet. Too quiet.

You stood at the door, your arms wrapped around yourself as you watched him lace up his boots. His duffel bag sat by the door, a stark reminder of the goodbye you were about to say.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” he said, his voice steady, though you could hear the tension beneath it.

“You better be,” you replied, forcing a smile. “I’m not finishing decorating this place without you.”

He stood, pulling you into his arms. His embrace was firm, grounding, and for a moment, you let yourself believe that time would fly by.

“Take care of yourself,” he said, his voice low, almost a whisper.

“You too,” you replied, your fingers clutching the fabric of his jacket.

When he pulled away, his lips brushed against your forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” you said, your voice trembling.

And then he was gone.

The days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months. The apartment felt cold without him, the silence oppressive. You threw yourself into work, into little projects to pass the time, but it was never quite enough.

Until one day, you decided to change things.

You started small—string lights hung above the windows, a tapestry on the wall to add some color. You printed out photos, memories of the two of you, and pinned them up in the hallway. You found an old record player at a thrift shop, and soon the soft crackle of vinyl filled the apartment, chasing away the silence.

Piece by piece, the space transformed. It wasn’t just an apartment anymore. It was a home.

The apartment smelled like garlic and rosemary, the faint crackle of something sizzling on the stovetop breaking the silence. Keegan stepped inside, duffel bag slung over his shoulder, his boots heavy against the polished wood floor. He froze just past the threshold, his breath catching at the sight in front of him.

You stood at the counter, your back to him, swaying slightly to the soft hum of music playing from the kitchen speaker. The oversized sweater you wore hung loosely off one shoulder, and your hair was messily tied back, strands framing your face.

It wasn’t just the sight of you that rooted him to the spot—it was the warmth of the apartment itself.

The last time he’d been here, the walls had been bare, the furniture sparse and impersonal. The place had felt like a waiting room, a temporary stop in the chaos of life. But now, it was something else entirely.

String lights curled along the edges of the ceiling, casting a soft, golden glow. Polaroids covered one wall—pictures of the two of you smiling, laughing, caught in quiet moments of joy. A tapestry hung behind the couch, its rich, earthy tones adding depth to the room. On the side tables, lamps with warm light bathed the corners, pushing away any lingering shadows.

It looked like home.

Keegan couldn’t stop watching you. The way your hands moved so naturally as you stirred the sauce, the way you hummed a tune softly under your breath—it all felt like a dream. Every movement, every little detail, reminded him of how much he’d missed you, of the pieces of himself that had been scattered while he was away.

He let his gaze wander again, taking in the transformation of the apartment. On the coffee table, he noticed a candle, its flame flickering gently, filling the air with the comforting scent of vanilla. A knit blanket was draped over the back of the couch, the kind you’d pull over yourself while reading or watching a movie. Small details like these made the space feel alive, vibrant in a way it hadn’t been before.

And you—his heart ached just looking at you. It had been months since he’d last seen you, months since he’d felt your arms around him or heard the way you whispered his name like it was the only word that mattered.

Keegan cleared his throat, his voice hoarse. "Hey."

You startled, spinning around with wide eyes, but the moment you saw him, the surprise melted into something radiant.

"Keegan!" you gasped, abandoning the knife on the cutting board as you rushed toward him.

He dropped his duffel just in time to catch you, his arms wrapping tightly around your waist as you leapt into his embrace. The familiar scent of you—lavender and something sweet—filled his senses, grounding him in a way nothing else could.

"You’re home," you murmured, your voice muffled against his chest.

He buried his face in your hair, inhaling deeply. "I’m home," he said softly, his voice thick with emotion.

You pulled back just enough to look at him, your hands framing his face. "You didn’t tell me you were coming. I would’ve—"

"Didn’t want you to wait on me," he interrupted, his thumb brushing against your cheek. "Wanted to surprise you."

You smiled, your eyes shimmering with unshed tears. "You’re a good kind of surprise, Keegan."

His gaze drifted around the apartment, taking in every detail—the photos, the lights, the small touches of you everywhere. "You did all this?" he asked, his voice soft with wonder.

You followed his gaze, a hint of shyness creeping into your smile. "Yeah. I wanted it to feel like… like us."

Keegan shook his head, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "It’s perfect," he said, pulling you close again. "You made it perfect."

The timer on the stove beeped, and you pulled back with a laugh. "Dinner’s going to burn if I don’t get back to it."

"Let it," he said, his hands refusing to let you go.

You rolled your eyes but kissed him gently. "I missed you too, but you’re not starving on my watch."

Reluctantly, he let you slip out of his arms, watching as you returned to the kitchen. He followed, leaning against the counter as you fussed over the meal.

"Can I help?" he asked, though the thought of doing anything other than watching you felt impossible.

"Just sit there and look pretty," you teased, glancing at him over your shoulder.

He chuckled, the sound low and warm, before grabbing a chair to sit by the kitchen island. His eyes never left you as you moved around, his chest full of a peace he hadn’t felt in months.

Your smile softened, and you stepped closer, holding out the spoon. “Taste this for me?”

He leaned down, letting you guide the spoon to his lips. The flavor was rich and comforting, a warmth spreading through him that had nothing to do with the food.

“Perfect,” he said, his voice rasping slightly.

You grinned, pleased, and turned back to the stove.

Keegan stepped closer, wrapping his arms around your waist from behind. You stilled for a moment, but then relaxed into his embrace, leaning back against him.

“I missed this,” he murmured into your hair.

“Me too,” you whispered. “I kept trying to imagine what it’d feel like when you finally came home. I don’t think I imagined it being this good.”

He tightened his arms around you, resting his chin on your shoulder. “This is better than I ever could’ve imagined. You’ve made this place… you’ve made it feel alive.”

You turned in his arms, your hands sliding up to cup his face. “It didn’t feel alive without you, Keegan. It didn’t feel like home.”

The weight of your words settled over him, his chest tightening. He pressed his forehead against yours, his hands cradling your back. “I’m sorry it took so long to come back,” he said, his voice heavy with regret.

“You’re here now,” you said softly, your thumb brushing against his cheek. “That’s all that matters.”

The oven timer went off, breaking the moment, and you laughed lightly as you pulled away. “Go sit down. Dinner’s ready.”

Keegan watched as you plated the food, every movement so familiar, so effortlessly you. The table was already set—another small detail that tugged at his heart. Candles flickered in the center, their warm glow adding to the cozy atmosphere.

“Do you like it?” you asked, breaking him from his thoughts.

“Like it?” he echoed, his voice quiet. He gestured to the room around him. “I love it, sweetheart. I love everything you’ve done here. It’s… it’s us.”

As you both sat down, Keegan reached across the table, taking your hand in his.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice low.

“For what?” you asked, tilting your head.

“For all of this,” he said, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. “For waiting for me. For turning this place into something I want to come back to. For being you.”

Your eyes shimmered, and you squeezed his hand. “You don’t have to thank me, Keegan. This is what we do. We’re a team.”

He nodded, his throat too tight to speak. For the first time in what felt like forever, he felt at peace. Sitting there with you, in the home you’d created together, he knew—this was where he belonged. This was everything he’d been fighting for. For the first time in a long time, Keegan felt like he could breathe. The apartment, the food, the warmth—it wasn’t just a place to return to.

It was home. And so were you

#call of duty #call of duty fanfic #call of duty modern warfare #cod modern warfare #cod mw2 #cod mwii #keegan p russ #cod keegan #call of duty keegan #keegan x reader #keegan russ x reader #keegan russ

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intheorangebedroom · 1 year ago

Text

Tonight you belong to me, prologue

Summary: He comes to you every Friday, in a shady motel on the outskirts of town.

This is the beginning of what you wished had no end.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x fem!Reader (OFC)

Rating: Explicit 🔞

A/N: Happy Frankie Friday, orange besties 🧡 See series masterlist for extensive a/n blurb and especially for trigger warnings. Tread carefully. Ily 🧡 Please be gentle, I'm terrified 🫣

Word count: 5.1k

[series masterlist] * [next]

Prologue: In The Beginning

He comes to you every Friday.

He gets in after dark. He is gone before dawn.

In this shady motel on the outskirts of town, where no one will recognise your car. The curtains are yellow, and the carpet is brown. There’s a dollar store painting of the Appalachian above the bed, and the tap runs either trickling and scalding or high pressure and cold.

You hated that in particular, in the beginning. Now you don’t care. You don’t wash him off your skin anymore. Not until you’ve got no other choice.

Because he can’t mark you, you’d been firm on that point, he likes to come on your skin.

When he’d finally spoke, that very first time, he’d told you he was Frankie, but you assume it’s not his real name. Which is fine, you didn’t give him your real name either.

“Frankie” had been far subtler than you, regretful, perhaps, you like to entertain the delusion, when he’d hinted that you couldn’t leave any trace on his body.

And, in the beginning, you couldn’t imagine that it would ever matter.

You were wrong.

You were wrong about a lot of things, in the beginning.

—

Friday night. Again.

The swinging door creaks on its hinges to let in the regulars at random intervals. Mostly men, mostly middle-aged, mostly unshaven. Mostly clad in the working-class uniform of jeans, boots and t-shirt. Few of them sit around the round wooden tables. The bar isn’t large, there’s only four of those.

When they come in small parties, the men favour the two pools on the right. They’re lined with blue felt. The casing is made of plywood. No one ever plays darts, no one ever feeds the jukebox. Its electric cord lays unplugged on the floor, coiled like a sad sagging tail.

If they walk in alone, they tend to sit at the bar. Head turned toward the giant television screen hung on the wall to their left, where younger men in more colourful uniforms fight, run, kick or throw balls in all shapes and sizes. Its noise is at the forefront, the middle-aged men’s conversations a low humming sound that falls into the background.

The long and angled bar itself takes up most of the rectangular room’s space. The counter is stripped-down to the bare minimum. Stainless steel, easy to clean, practical. Four beer taps and a gambling machine and beyond the counter, a large mirror with three rows of dusty liquor bottles.

Food is served, occasionally, as evidenced by the paper napkins dispensers and the two yellow and red plastic condiment bottles on each table.

The barman runs the place on his own. You drink here every Friday evening, and you’ve never seen more than six customers at once, you included. Admittedly, you might not be very observant.

Being observant requires endurance, far more than you possess and are willing to deploy and direct towards others. You’re not selfish, not in the least. But you’re tired. You’ve been tired for years. There’s no rational explanation for your exhaustion. No honourable, awe-inspiring, valid ground. You don’t even know what wears you out. It might be sadness, disappointment, or boredom. Or all three in equal parts. All you know is that, come Friday night, your head needs the support of the gray wall behind you.

The creaking noise on your left signals the arrival of another customer, stomping in with a sure gait. Your eyes stay shut. You don’t come to the very aptly named Hole in The Wall seeking the company of other people, whoever they may be.

You come here to hide for a few hours, between the styrofoam ceiling and the dusty carpeted floor. To drink your week away in peace, but not in nerve-racking silence. Alcohol, you found out at a young age, has interesting properties: it blurs out the sharp edges of your dark thoughts in just the right amount.

Back in spring, when you stepped in here for the very first time, you looked comically out of place in your corporate attire, and you did raise quite a few eyebrows from the other patrons. Five months later, they must have learned to see past the charade of your overpriced clothes, because none of them pays you any mind anymore. It’s better than anonymity: it’s casual indifference.

You loosen your grip around your tall cocktail glass and let the condensation drip down onto the cardboard coaster. Reluctantly, you lift your weary eyelids to locate the square napkin lying somewhere on the table and dry your fingertips on it.

That’s when you see him taking a seat at the counter, directly across from your small table.

Years from now, you will still remember the precise circumstances of your first, brief encounter, even though you’re not fully paying attention yet. Nothing indicates tonight will be any different. Nothing suggests you are about to live through a pivotal moment in your existence.

Details will stand out, however. Mostly visual, surprisingly, given the dim lighting of the place. The back of his trucker hat, midnight blue plastic mesh, flattening the dark curls on his nape. The washed out denim of his shirt, worked-in, greenish in the diffuse artificial light, pulled taut across his back, as he sits facing away from you.

The square shape of his shoulders is backlit against the bar’s mirror. Your empty gaze finds the solid slope of his broad silhouette, and you let it rest there, lazily following his movements whenever he picks up his glass. It’s the same comfort you find when you rest your empty head against the hard wall. It’s aimless, inconsequential.

Later, on different kinds of Friday nights, the sight of his muscles bunching as he tugs off his shirt will bring you back to this very moment. The thought will reshape into a sharp, wistful ache deep inside your heart. What would have happened, to you, to him, if he had chosen to stop for a drink at another bar, somewhere further down the road? What if you had done the same, back in April?

For now, your mind is blessedly blank.

Does he catch your reflection in the mirror? Does he feel your gaze on the back of his head?

After a while, how long, you cannot tell, he pivots slowly on his stool, grounded and dense. Slowly, like a mountain would if a mountain came to life and decided to walk into the ocean. He doesn’t turn around completely, just enough to look at you, one of his arms still propped on top of the counter.

The right side of his face is darkened by the shadow from the brim of his hat, but you can make out the pronounced crease in his brow. His eyes are black, and unfathomable, like the ocean at night, but alight with a bright glimmer. They find yours instantly.

Something shifts inside your rib cage, something close to the heart, close to pain.

You feel exposed, entirely bare. Your breathing subsides, you cannot move, trapped in a nightmare-like stretch of time as he glares down at you, immobile, impressive, gigantic. Dark eyes boring into yours. You’re drowning in them.

You don’t want it to end.

Inevitably, he breaks eye-contact, and swivels back toward the mirror. He sits still for a few seconds, before grabbing his glass to finish his beer in long gulps.

You watch him lift his hat and brush his hair to the side with a large hand, and he’s out the door less than a minute later, without so much as a glance in your direction, a conscious choice, given the minute proportions of the place.

He leaves you sitting there, with your brow pinched and your empty drink, struggling to understand the rippling effects of his massive presence on your body and your brain.

You bring your fingers to your chest and rub them over your sternum, where the shifting sensation continues to prickle.

Neither a second drink nor a third helps dull the feeling, but a fourth one is not an option if you want to get home without a DUI.

It follows you into the darkness of the deserted parking lot, on the drive home and into the glass prison of your clinically clean apartment. It’s there when you get into bed, when you lie wide awake at 3am next to your sleeping fiancé, and it’s still there when you wake up, hungover and sore, four hours later.

Nestled between your lungs. The memory of his cold hard stare. Of his soft sad eyes.

It bypasses your most foolproof diversions of painful pleasure and pleasurable pain. Your attempts at hard work and your compulsive distractions. It robs you of your appetite, of your lucidity, of your ability to rest. It corners you in the first floor toilet of your office building on a Thursday morning, on the verge of a panic attack, until you consider calling your sister for help.

Ava would figure it out. She’d get you out of that loop in which you’ve locked yourself up, she’d know what to say. With her crude words and her unforgiving formulations, she’d admonish your silly overreaction and dismissively rebuke your daydreams over a mundane interaction, probably throwing in something about your heteronormative fantasies.

Dude, you’re all worked up because of a staring contest with a rando in a dive bar? she’d say. She’d toss the rhetorical question at your face, you can hear her as if you’ve already sweated through the conversation.

She’s often harsh but she’s always right.

And normally, you’d be seeking that out. For your little sister to bully some good sense back into your nebulous brain.

But something has shifted.

Dark curls, thick fingers, flexing shoulders. Solid arms. Cold, hard stare.

He abraded something on the surface of your skin, and you don’t think you’re capable of withstanding Ava’s sarcasm in your current state.

By the following Friday, you feel so vulnerable you consider going to another place, or not going out at all.

Only, the alternative is worse.

You walk into The Hole in The Wall convinced that your unsteady gait is betraying your apprehension, squinting to adjust to the dim light of the place. The bar is nearly empty, as always, save for a couple of bearded graying men you vaguely recall having seen here before. They all look the same to you, anyway. Another thing you hate about yourself.

The barman tells you to sit while he prepares your drink. The gesture is kind but uncustomary, and it only serves to increase your uneasy feeling.

Within an hour of waiting, because that's what you've been doing, you register with an icy trickle of shame dripping down your sides, you realise he won’t be coming.

That man’s presence here last week is the very definition of sheer happenstance. Nothing more. Nothing else. If anything, you’ve been a nuisance to him, ogling him while he was simply trying to unwind with an afterwork drink.

You’ll never see him again.

And it’s fine. You’ll move on, drift back into drifting, avoiding at all costs to process what happened to you when you met his gaze. The tree hiding the forest.

When you walk up to the counter to order your second drink, the question slips away from you.

“Can I have the same thing the man in the trucker hat had last Friday, please?”

The barman looks up at you from the tray of clean dishes he's pulling out of the dishwasher and he huffs. He’s handsome, by most standards, you notice for the very first time. Very tall, and broad, green-eyed with a three-day stubble. He’s probably a couple of years above forty. His head is shaved bald. He’s manly in a burly, albeit fatherly way.

“Oh sweetheart, d’you know how many guys with a trucker hat I see here every day?”

It’s not meant to make you feel small, his tone is gentle. It’s a straightforward, factual answer.

“What do you wanna drink?” he asks when you don’t answer. “Tired of that G&T yet? Cos I got good beer. This is a beer place, you know? Wanna try a light blonde, to start? Something stronger? An IPA?”

What do you want. You’ve been drinking gin all your life because that’s what your mother always has. Starting at 5pm in the afternoon. Would you, indeed, like to try a light blonde? Something stronger? An IPA, to start?

It’s a brand-new world unfurling in front of you, a yellow brick road paved with what-do-you-wants.

“Sure,” you nod, “I can try an IPA.”

—

The barman goes by the name of Mark. He’s also the owner of The Hole in The Wall, you learn. Bought the place two years ago, after a painful divorce. A cliché, he adds, with a charming, self-deprecating smile.

The interaction’s short and altogether not unpleasant, and the beer, to your surprise, is fresh and enjoyable. It’s much tastier, in fact, than the cheap, tepid gin you’ve been sipping so far. It gets you drunk just as fast, but this time when you leave the bar, your mind is quiet, if not at ease.

The following week, a heatwave hits the Tampa Bay. The melting asphalt sticks to your leather soles, like your sweaty clothes to your clammy skin, like your brooding mood to your dampened dreams. In a couple of days eventually, August will draw to an end, but the summer won’t end with it. It never truly does. It taunts you all year round, a sweltering reminder of how much you hate living here.

And if it wasn’t for the humidity, you’d be jogging the short distance between your car and the cool haven of the air-conditioned bar.

You push the swinging door forward, eyes shut in anticipation of the blinding darkness and you stand in the entrance for a few seconds. The familiar and comforting smell of moldy dust mixed with beer yeast greets your senses as you take in the chill air grazing your naked arms.

And then you reopen your eyes.

He’s here.

Trucker hat, blue jeans, gray T-shirt. Different clothes, same silhouette. He’s sitting at your table, his position a magnified echo of yours two weeks ago, hand loosely wrapped around his pint, seemingly asleep with his head propped against the wall.

Mark looks at you and tilts his head in his direction, wiggling an eyebrow with a silent question of “Is this the guy you were asking about?”

Your breathing’s so loud you think everyone must hear it over the droning television. Mark’s brow furrows with incomprehension at the alarm widening your eyes, and you anchor yourself to his face, walking toward him in slow motion, climbing on the first high stool you reach.

“Hey. You ok?”

You stretch your lips in a wince of a smile.

“So? What will it be today? Wanna try a Free Dive? It’s local.”

You nod in silence, but then he grabs a large glass, and you ask tentatively, “Can I have only half a pint?”

Fuck, your mouth is so dry.

Behind you, to your right, you feel more than you hear the man shift in his chair.

Mark sighs, his left hand paused on the tap handle.

“I don’t have beer glasses this small, sweetheart. Get a pint, the first one’s on me, okay?”

You reiterate your silent nod. He places the beer in front of you, and you swallow the first swigs too quickly. The back of your throat throbs with the fast flowing intake of the cold liquid, or perhaps it’s because of the frantic beating of your heart.

He’s getting up now, you can tell by the friction sound of the chair dragging on the carpeted floor, and your frightened expression turns downright pleading as you hear him close the distance between you.

He’s at your back, sliding his thick naked arm past yours to return his empty glass to the counter. His movements are slow, deliberate. You get a whiff of his scent, a masculine musk, with a faint smell of laundry detergent, it’s wholesome, safety, comfort. You turn your head. He’s looking at you. Looking at you with intent.

He’s so tall you have to lift your chin to hold his gaze. Hard cold stare, soft sad eyes, it’s swirling violently inside your exhausted chest and he’s leaving again already, walking toward the door like nothing just happened.

He pulls it inward and you watch him exit the bar into the dusk light.

Did he come back for you? Are you going insane?

Sixty-seven seconds. Sixty-seven seconds is the time it takes you to decide your next move. The one that’s going to forever change your life. The one that could be everything or turn out meaningless.

“I’ll be right back,” you tell Mark, sliding your handbag on the counter and you stand up to follow him outside.

The sunset sky is a pink shade of orange. Shadows are stretching long onto the asphalt, drawing a distorted world upside-down.

He’s not here anymore, you waited too fucking long. You quickly scan the parked vehicles on the other side of the road to your right, and the parking lot in front of you, but it’s empty, save for your anthracite sedan, a black truck and what you assume must be Mark’s old SUV, because you see it every week.

“Fuck,” you breathe out, pressing your fingers to your sternum.

You look to your left, where the parking ends. There’s a white utility vehicle advertising a plumbing service and a dark blue city car. Beyond them, the lot extends into a narrow stretch of gravel behind the small rectangular building. There’s a pile of junk, and the tailgate of a red truck.

Your hand drops to your side and you start walking toward it, going around the white van.

He’s there. He’s waiting for you by the front of the red truck, behind the building. His hands propped on his waist, head down, hidden under his cap.

You keep walking toward him, the sound of your shoes on the dirty ground grating your ears, but you stop short when he raises his head, fuck he looks even taller at this distance, with his elbows spread.

It’s like he senses your apprehension, or perhaps he shares it, because he folds his arms over his chest, hugging himself.

For the very first time, you can fully make out his face. Strong features, a strong curvy nose, a patchy beard peppering a sharp jaw, and plush lips. Your gaze follows the solid column of his neck down to his suprasternal point peeking above the V-collar of his worn-out t-shirt, before it’s drawn back to his eyes.

He stands there perfectly still for you to detail.

Above you, the sky has turned a rusty blue. The humidity is stifling. It’s Friday the 30th, 2019, 8.17pm.

“What do you want?”

His voice is deep, and low, barely louder than a murmur yet intense, his words full and round.

The question, however legitimate, hits you square in the solar plexus, right under your aching sternum. You fear that if you don’t speak fast enough, he’ll leave you again, alone with the memory of his soft sad eyes and his hard cold stare.

“I don’t know,” you whisper, and god, if it’s true, what are you doing here?

He huffs, and it’s the very sound of disillusion. His eyes grow dimmer, you think you’re not the one darkening them. Unfolding his arms, he removes his hat and takes a step closer, then another. You could touch him, if you reached out with your arm stretched.

He looks at you like he’s already seen how your story ends.

You could back away. You don’t.

He moves slowly, thick body thrumming with undiluted strength and unreleased tension, eyes searching yours, giving you the time to leave, should leaving be what you choose, should you turn around and run before the hanging threat breaks like dark stormy clouds and drench you soaked.

He slowly moves forward until he’s towering over you, until his chest touches your breasts, until the pilled cotton of his t-shirt catches at the satin material of your blouse. His scent floods your senses, he leans down into the curve of your neck and inhales you there, long, deep, unhurried. You hold your breath, still, in turn, for his exploration, nails digging into your palms, heart tripping.

And then, he touches you. With his lips, a feather-like caress over the soft skin under your ear. Your eyes flutter shut, your thoughts are suspended.

“This what you want?” he murmurs.

His words sink under your skin, they harden your nipples, raise goosebumps on your nape in the muggy evening heat.

“Yes.”

The cap falls onto the gravel. His hands go to your hips. Clutching you there with a rough grip and he’s tugging you closer, flush to his chest. He licks up a broad stripe along the line of your throat, pivots with you in his arms and backs you into the side of the truck, you have to grab his forearms to keep your balance.

A guttural sound catches in his throat, like a grunt he tries to hold back, for your touch, for the taste of your skin, for your pliant docility.

Your head rolls back, you’ve gone weeks without a skin on skin contact, and now this man is hunched over you, his body swallowing yours, this stranger who’s infected your dreams with his cold hard stare and his soft sad eyes, his mouth roaming the expanse of your throat, short beard prickling your skin, and the shifting sensation inside your chest drops to your core where it catches fire.

His kisses are lips, teeth and tongue, rough and scraping at you raw in all the right ways, they trail up along your neck, under your jaw, and when they find your lips, he presses you harder into him. He tastes like beer, unfamiliar, you want to get used to it.

The seams of your blouse strain when he pulls it out of your skirt with an impatient tug. His hands slither under the hem and find the naked skin of your back. His palms are strong, rugged and scalding and his fingertips calloused, they make your skin sizzle underneath their pressing, crackle like snapping wood, like fireworks at a summer county fair, like sweet candy wrapping.

You're leaking hot and sticky between your hips, responding with your entire body, opening up for him, letting his tongue in past your lips with pathetic grateful little moans, winding your arms around his shoulders, over the cording muscles of his back, musky sweat dampening his t-shirt. The thick, solid shape of him, that got etched behind your eyelids.

You’re a want and a need and an empty flutter, entangled with him, whoever he may be, his tongue swirling inside your mouth, the scrape of his teeth on your lower lip, his splayed hands covering your back, his knee spreading your legs open.

He’s voracious, harsh in his own need, snatching from you what you’re already willing to give, angling your head with a sharp pull on your hair to deepen his kiss, grunting his approval when you moan at the sting.

Arousal keeps dripping down your fold where his thigh prods firm and brawny against the black material of your skirt that hinders the pressure.

He growls, frustration rumbling low and menacing inside his throat. He grabs your ass and squeezes, thick middle finger pushing against the fabric of your clothes into the cleft between your cheeks and you jolt, leaping forward further into him. His belt buckle bites into the soft flesh of your belly, right where you're burning empty and wanting and shameless for him. You feel him hot and hard against your hip, and he tightens his hold, cages you within him.

He’s big all over, larger than life proportions, you surrender to the fact with your lust-drunk mind, from the height of his frame to the girth of his sex, from his grip on your senses to the sorrow in his eyes.

It blooms inside you like pain, blossoms of mahogany red spreading along your limbs in relentless waves, the power he already wields over you and you don’t even know his name.

You buck between his arms, a first and very last attempt at freeing yourself, unconvincing with the scrap of your fingernails along the pebbled skin of his neck, and you press back into him again, squirming against his throbbing length, offering him some friction.

He pulls out all of sudden, breaking the kiss, and you're left panting, ankles swaying, you’d drop to the gravel without the support of the truck, still sun-warm in the early evening, yet colder than his feverish body.

He shakes his head with a silent no, his shoulders heaving, a wordless warning hissed through his clenched bared teeth. The simmering anger under the surface only makes you want him more, the unyielding restraint shining dark in his eyes.

But it’s over. You know it. He gave you this, and took it back. With shaky hands, you smooth down the wrinkles of your blouse where he’s bunched it in his fists. You lick his taste off your trembling lip. You will not cry.

He shakes his head again, you watch him through welling tears, confused, eyes flickering between his.

Behind him, the city car’s engine revs up to a start, aggressive headlights backlighting him. His throat bobs up and down in chiaroscuro as he swallows hard. You know what you must look like in the crude white light. Supplicant, dependent, awaiting. Disheveled by his hand. Tires grate on the gravel as the car reverses away from you into the night, and with it the headlights, leaving you standing in the brown city night, urban semi darkness, and you see him shut his eyes.

He smiles, a puzzling, sorrowful lift of his plush lips, and a new sort of ache washes over you. You raise forward on your tiptoes to peck a soft kiss at the corner of his mouth. His entire frame quivers for you. A muscle clenches in his jaw, the deepening crease in his brow redefines his traits in shadows.

He leans into you, like he wants you but he doesn’t want to want you, like he’s giving in but not entirely, because giving in would be the end of him, of you.

The flat of his palm to the swell of your breast, and he kneads your soft flesh, slowly at first, growing urgent. The back of your head hits the truck’s window when he pinches your nipple, hard, with two fingers, and you bite down a moan.

He’s engulfing you again, lips latched around your other nipple, tongue swirling and licking through your blouse and your thin bra and you hold on to him, you cling to his frame when he bunches up your skirt around your waist, leather boot nudging your foot to the side, cock throbbing on your hip, slick dripping down your walls.

“Stop me,” his mouth brushes the shell of your ear. It’s not a dare, it’s not a plea, it’s your last chance to back down before the free fall.

Your pulse stutters, you arch into him without hesitation, but he pins you back against the truck with his chest, cupping you through your underwear and he curses into your neck at the sticky leaking mess he finds there.

Your naked leg hitches up rigid and tense against his leg, curled fingers, curled toes, and he hooks his index into the cotton of your panties.

A brief stroke of his knuckles into the soft, smooth dip between your sex and your inner thigh, unexpectedly tender, before he parts your soaked lips with his two middle fingers, coating them in your sticky slick desire, and he sinks them inside your empty cunt.

You crumble around the intrusion, forehead hitting his collarbone, slack-mouthed, a short exhale of a silent “oh.” He brings his left hand to the crown of your head and cradles you there, while his fingers pump in and out of your heat fast and rough. His thumb glides through your folds and starts rubbing at your clit, deft and precise, and you shudder between his arms, you slump into his hold.

He keeps stroking your hair, gentle soothing sounds murmured into your ear as he fucks you raw with his hand, attuned to your moans and your every reaction, gauging what you can take before his fingers curl deeper inside your cunt, merciless, thumb pressing tight circles on your bud at an increasing pace.

Your breathing comes in ragged and short while his intensifies. It’s pouring into your ear hot and overwhelming and you’re dissolving. Sweat beading at your temples, heat raising from his exerted muscles.

You focus on the sensation of his flexing muscles under your clawing hands to stave off your building orgasm, it’s growing bright and blinding, searing and violent but it’s inevitable, and soon, too soon, your release flows hot and sticky into his hand. Your whines resound inside his chest but he keeps going, low husks of shhh, come on now, that’s it, until your trapped body trashes with the overstimulation.

It’s like he can’t let go, pressing his nose heavily to the side of your face, and you struggle to resurface, blood thrumming in your veins, his angry cock pulsating against your hip.

You let out a dry sob when he slides out of you and the rubber band of your panties slaps your sensitive skin. You don’t miss the flat drag of his tongue licking your taste off his palm, you furrow your fingers deeper into his arm with a short clench of your eyes.

“Fuck,” your hear him quietly groan, and his fingers disappear into his mouth.

You want to stay tucked up against him, curled up into his hold. You could live the rest of your life there, you think, between his hands and his scent, between his chest and his truck.

You lock your ankles and your knees, hoping they will not fail you and you stand, pushing away from him and into the side of the truck. You readjust your skirt, slide it down, palm it smooth. Brush the damp hair from your forehead with the back of your trembling hand.

In your peripheral, he’s leaning down, picking up his hat from the ground and combing his fingers through his hair before he sets the cap back on his head.

You look up dazed and heavy-lidded and you brace yourself before meeting his gaze, cold hard stare, soft sad eyes, and he says,

“I’m Frankie.”

****

Bonus (having déjà vu? that's normal 😝 Gonna use this gif at the end of every first chapter I manage to yank out of my crazy in love brain):

Taglist (thank you 🧡 if you don't wish to be tagged anymore, just drop me a DM 🧡): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @nicolethered @littleone65 @the-rambling-nerd @saintbedelia @pedrostories @trickstersp8 @deadmantis @hbc8 @princessdjarin @harriedandharassed @girlofchaos @gracie7209 @mrsparknuts @mylostloversbookmarks @its-nebuleuse @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine @all-the-way-down-here

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red-riding-wood · 11 months ago

Text

Lost in the Rhythm

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x F!Reader

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Summary: You convince Tommy to go swing dancing.

Warnings: brief mention of panties, Tommy being a little down bad, slightly suggestive content, other than that just fluff! Or at least my attempt at writing fluff!

WC: 1522

Written for @runnning-outof-time's Caught in 4k Follower Celebration. The idea came to me one night listening to some swing and I thought... shit, I am gonna need to write this. Sorry if it seems a little rushed, kind of smashed this one out when I wasn't feeling like I could write anything.

Tommy’s hand weighed heavy on yours, nearly pulling your arm from its socket as you dragged him onto the dance floor. But you were almost too hopped up on adrenaline to notice, still humming with barely-contained energy you were eager to release from your body, still drunk off his acceptance of your invitation that nothing else really seemed to matter other than that you were going to dance with Thomas Shelby.

Brilliant yellow-white lights seemed to bleed against the dark ceiling as you spun to face him, a cherry blush flushing your cheeks and the breath stripped from your lungs. He was watching you with the hint of a smile on his face, the glint of something warm – dare you say, affectionate – in his piercing blue eyes.

Tommy still couldn’t believe your boldness, the way you had shimmied over to his desk in that little sequined dress, how you’d made him set aside the paperwork and the bottle of whiskey and had more or less told him that you were going dancing. How he couldn’t help but have smiled at the time, only when you turned your back to go fix up your makeup, because God forbid you know he might enjoy the notion of such ridiculous things like dancing. He’d been able to hide the slight heat that had crept to his cheeks, in a way that you weren’t now that was so endearing to him, your whole being seeming to glow, skin shivering under his touch and your eyes gleaming brightly in the lights.

“You sure you don’t want to just go for drinks, eh?” he said, having to raise his voice slightly over the loud crash of cymbals and the yearning cries of the trombones. But you knew from the look in his eyes that he was already sold, if only to watch you all giddy and elated like this in a way he’d never seen of you at the betting shop or even the Garrison.

“C’mon, Tommy, you’ve danced before. Surely,” you said as you pulled him in, fingers lacing through his own and your arm drawing round his back. He began to lead naturally, though his pace was slower than the music and the mad tapping of shoes around you. He pulled you in real close, so close that you could smell the faint trace of the cologne he wore past his usual musk of whiskey and cigarettes and earth, your chest brushing his and your nose nearly pressed to the heat of his neck. Your heart pounded wildly against your ribs, and for a moment you caught your breath.

“Move your feet a little faster,” you instructed him, allowing more space between the two of you with a slight reluctance. You wondered only briefly if people were looking at you, the thought crawling its way beneath your skin like an insect, but such a cruel feeling was banished with a glimpse of those piercing blue eyes, always cold yet so warm for you whenever you caught him looking.

You guided Tommy into more appropriate steps, knocking a few shoulders with other couples that spun and twirled around one another. You noticed his gaze leave yours only to take notice of them for a few moments.

“Good, now just – “ A squeal burst from your lungs with your remaining breath as his hands dug firmly into your lower back, and he dipped you, blood rushing to your skull and lurid lights undulating across your vision. Your bare thigh came up to brush along his waist, attempting to ground yourself, the hem of your dress pooling over the lace of a garter that he couldn’t help but sneak a peek at.

When he brought you back up, his eyes were glittering with mischief.

“That works, too,” you breathed, and Tommy was nearly lost for a moment in the frizzy ringlets of hair that fell across your forehead, in the shock that passed through your bright eyes and the curve of your mouth before you grinned again, beaming.

Your fingers loosened from his as he brought your arm up, and the world spun as you twirled on your heel, nearly tripping over yourself in your own excitement but caught by a warm, sturdy hand against your spine.

“Show-off,” you teased, smacking him lightly against the chest. Of course he was trying to best you in this.

“I’m sorry, you were trying to tell me something?” he jested, a smugness laced thick into his tone and a quirk in his lip that made a competitiveness flare to life inside you.

“I was actually going to demonstrate.” You changed course, your nimble legs pirouetting across the floor to establish distance between the two of you, the crowd spilling around you like a tide peeling back from the shore. You became lost in the music, feeling every snarl of the drums and whinny of the trombones through the deepest fibres of yourself; you twirled and kicked your feet, swaying to the beat of the music and locking your eyes on your blue-eyed partner whenever you could.

You were an image of glorious, unabated joy, grinning so wide and moving with such energy that it was almost infectious. The sequins of your dress caught the light as they swished at your hips, begging for attention, and every so often, he was rewarded by a flash of your panties as you came into a graceful twirl, but the real show was how you moved, how you commanded each limb with such ease and intensity at the same time. Like you loved every second of this, like you were born to dance, and he was born to watch, that despite all the cruelties of this bleak and ruthless life, you were both made special for this moment of cheerful innocence and pure exultation.

And he accepted you, willing, into his arms, as you came tapping and spinning over to him, putting on your little show that he drank in with darkening eyes, hypnotised by every shake of your shoulders and sway of your hips. Almost unable to find his breath, he inhaled the scent of your sweet, honeysuckle perfume and the invigorating trace of your sweat.

And he had no choice but to fall into stride with you now, the two of you side-stepping across the floor as the music halted only to come crashing down around you, the crowd beginning to move as one uniform shape.

Your blood pounded in your veins like hot fire, burning brighter than the thrill of alcohol would ever do for you. Still not entirely believing that this was real, thinking that at one moment maybe you might wake to find it was all a dream, you tried to focus on Tommy; he struggled slightly with some of the footwork, but he made up for it with his usual, normally insufferable confidence that tonight you found endearing, and your careful, gentle guidance that you ensured wasn’t swallowed by your excitement. Each touch placed or pressure applied to his body was a signal to move one way or another, and once you’d fallen into a rhythm both of you could keep up with, it was like you had become one being, that you shared each limb and fervid breath and fierce beat of your heart.

Your body lost to the music but your mind lost to his eyes, the world seemed to melt around you, the lights glittering like stars in the background and the movements of the crowd becoming nothing but a rolling tide. A few wisps of dark brown hair had sprung awry from his usually-tailored cut, clinging to the sheen of his forehead. The baby blue of his eyes twinkled at you with equal parts adoration and joy and lust, and his smile…

You hadn’t seen him smile like that since France.

And you thought, maybe you’d be so privileged to see it again. That maybe this was the beginning to many more nights of unadulterated happiness, an escape from the blood and bullets and smoke and soot of your usual life.

You were unsure of who drew closer to who, but your nose ended up brushing against his shoulder, and as his fingers bunched the fabric of your dress at the base of your hip, you tried to hide your sudden blush by burying your face in the crook of his neck.

A giggle that put the most talented musicians in the room to shame chimed against his skin, and wild strands of your hair brushed his lips as he lowered his head to murmur against your ear,

“If you tell anyone about this, Y/N, I swear I’ll have you fired, yeah?”

Laughing again, you shook your head. “You’re enjoying this too much to make those kind of threats.”

His eyes widened slightly, and you smirked at him, leaning in to place a hastened kiss against a freckled cheek. A smear of red lipstick remained, and you giggled again, your glittering eyes mirroring the mischief of his, your voice lowering as if to whisper something scandalous,

“It’ll be our little secret. I promise.”

MASTERLIST • REQUEST

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#peaky blinders #tommy shelby x reader #tommy shelby #thomas shelby #thomas shelby x reader #cillian murphy #fluff #peaky blinders fanfiction #peaky blinders fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #oneshot #peaky blinders imagine #tommy shelby fluff #x reader #s: lost in the rhythm

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professorsnape394 · 2 months ago

Text

Day 3: Haunted Hijinks

Pairing: Severus Snape x OC

Rating: 🥰

Prompt: Haunt

Summary: Peeves has it out for the new Professor and only Severus Snape can help.

A/N: So I had initially intended for his to be a shorter story but it ended up being even bigger than my last. I apologise if there maybe isn't quite enough Snape for you, but good news is there will be a part 2!

Warnings: ghosts?

Word Count: 2518

Credits to Gif Creator

Week 1

The haunting started just as I had anticipated. Doors slamming, objects randomly disappearing and reappearing in different places, drawers sporadically flinging themselves open and emptying their entire contents onto the floor.

I wasn’t scared. I knew it was coming.

When I first joined the school Minerva was over the moon to have her favourite student joining the faculty. I received an overwhelmingly warm welcome by everyone… everyone, except two.

The first was to be expected. Severus Snape was never a man for comradery. Despite the fact we had both attended Hogwarts at the same time as teens, my presence here didn’t seem to faze him in the slightest. While I had been admittedly disappointed by his cold reception, I wasn’t surprised by it. Snape rarely acknowledged me, even when we had shared classes together. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he didn’t even know I existed.

The second, less then pleasant reception, came from a poltergeist.

As confirmed by Minerva, Peeves had a habit of making every new professor’s life at Hogwarts a living hell. Everyone had experienced the same treatment, all except one.

The torment was to last one month exactly, worsening as the weeks went on. This was his way of initiating you into the faculty apparently. The silver lining of it all though, was after the month was done, no professor would be pestered by the poltergeist thereafter.

The first week passed without issue. Yes, it was annoying to go to pick up your hairbrush only to have it vanish from plain sight. And constantly tidying up the contents of my desk was becoming a bit of a nuisance but nothing I couldn’t handle for the next few weeks.

Week 2

“Peeves!” I groaned, jumping from my chair, as my whole desk hit the floor. “I’m trying to work.”

The room echoed with deep belly laughter, an apparition of the ghost appearing as he zoomed from one side of the room to the other.

Books flew from their spot on the bookcase, smashing into the opposite wall before fluttering to the floor. One after the other the shelves emptied themselves, leaving only the bare bones of the old oak bookcase.

While trying to right my upturned desk, a loud creaking caught my attention.

“No!” I screamed, watching the shelves come crashing to the floor with a loud thud.

This had been the way of the week. Standing by, watching the poltergeist wreak havoc on my chambers, powerless to stop his antics. Within the short space of a week Peeves had turned my life upside down. Every day I awoke to each room in my quarters being completely trashed by the ghost. My clothes were piled high, the empty drawers dumped beside them, class assignments and student essays lay scattered across the floor, he had even taken to raiding my bathroom cupboards, squeezing out the contents of every bottle he came across, smearing it over the floor, walls and mirrors.

Despite my efforts to clean up after him, I soon realised it was a futile task. No matter how quickly I cleaned up one mess, Peeves had already created three more. It was halfway through the week when I realised it would be easier to live with the mess for the next two and a half weeks. Paying my dues turned out to be a lot messier than I had anticipated.

Week 3

The penultimate week took a different toll than the others. I saw Peeves a lot more than he had previously allowed; choosing to take to his physical form and follow me around the castle grounds.

He whispered nonsense in my ear, spoke over me while I taught, interrupted my conversations with my colleagues and worst of all he sang. Day and night, Peeves belted out a badly pitched tune, throwing in the occasional made-up limerick to just to taunt me.

Last night was a particularly difficult night. Somehow Peeves had gathered every radio, gramophone and record player from around the school and scattered them throughout my bedroom. Dozens of different melodies blasted through the speakers, all while Peeves sung along to songs that he never even knew the words to.

My three-day migraine turning into four, I was surviving purely off of caffeine and sheer will power at this point. I hadn’t had a minute of sleep since the week began, and I wasn’t sure I could cope with it any longer.

“Not long now, my dear.” McGonagall encouraged, gently patting my arm reassuringly.

Struggling to keep my eyes open, I took another large swig of my morning coffee. “How did you put up with it, Minerva. I don’t think I can last much longer; it’s beginning to affect my teaching.”

“I’m afraid it’s just one of those things we have all had to endure, my dear.”

“Not everybody.” I huffed, turning my narrowed gaze to the potions master at the far end of the table. “How did he get away with it? Why doesn’t Peeves make his life hell.”

“That would have to be a question you ask Severus.”

“Pft.” I grunted. “He’d never tell me. He hasn’t even spoke to me since I started here.”

“Have you spoken to him?”

“No but…” I didn’t have any excuse.

“Then maybe now is your chance. Severus had never been one to make the first step, but I know he’d appreciate it if you paid him a visit.”

“Do you think he even remembers me? I mean it’s been years since we were in school and even then we didn’t exactly run in the same circles.”

“I’m positive he’ll remember you, Y/N, maybe more than you’d expect.”

“What’s that supposed to mea- “

Before I had a chance to finish my sentence, my mug of coffee flew from my grasp, levitating in the air tauntingly, before finally tipping its entire contents onto my lap.

I jumped from the table with a gasp, thanking Merlin the beverage had time to cool before I was scolded.

My cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. Not only was my dress and robes stained dark with coffee but the entire school had been privy to my torment.

I immediately ran from the Great Hall, hoping to escape any further public teasing from the spectre.

By the time the school day had come to an end my head was pounding from the lack of sleep, Peeves had interrupted all six of my classes today, and I had heard students whispering about the coffee fiasco on more than one occasion.

This was my breaking point.

Putting aside my shame and anxiety, I stormed down to the Dungeons to find out how Snape escaped the poltergeist’s awful induction. I was willing to beg on my knees if that is what it took.

“Y/N?” Snape breathed, seemingly shocked at the sight of me on his doorstep.

“I need your help Severus. Please.”

“Come in.” He granted, clearing his throat as he returned to the room.

I took a seat by the fire, waiting for him to join me. Instead, the potions professor paced around the room, never quite settling on one spot.

“It’s nice to see you again.” I called over my shoulder to him, hoping to break the ice.

“Is it?” He stumbled. “I mean; yes, it is.”

“It’s been a long time; I don’t even think I remember the last time we saw each other.”

“Graduation.” He said without hesitating. “I saw you afterwards in the Hog’s Head with Potter and Black.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot about that.” I chuckled nervously, wondering how he possibly remembered that when I couldn’t.

“I remember Sirius got so drunk that night, he ended up sleeping at mine and-

“What do you want, Y/N.” Severus snapped, his entire demeanour changing as he made his way to stand in front of me.

“I need your help.” I repeated.

“With the Poltergeist I presume.”

I nodded simply in response, suddenly understanding why the students found him so intimidating.

He had changed a lot since school. He was no longer the scrawny little teenager whose clothes never quite fit. He was a man now, tall and built out. His clothes fit him perfectly, they even showcased the outline of a bicep on either arm. His voice was like velvet, deep and rich, and it hit my ear in exactly the right way. His face, while no longer youthful, suited the aged lines etched into his forehead. His eyes had always been my favourite though; dark as the night sky and just as mysterious. I never could bare the intensity of his gaze and experiencing it now made me feel just like that awkward 14-year-old again.

“Peeves is not one to be stopped. With exception of Dumbledore and the Bloody Baron he listens to nobody. A deal was struct with a previous headmaster to allow the spectre to have his fun for one month, after which he is not to intervene with the professors to ensure the sanctity of the school and the students education.”

“But he never tormented you.” I whispered, hoping to gain some more insight.

“I cannot help you.” Snape’s eyes saddened.

“Why not? Is it because we were never friends in school? I tried to talk to you Severus, I did, but you just never seemed interested, I- ”

“I cannot help you, Y/N, because I did nothing to deter the ghost.” I opened my mouth to object, but Snape never gave me a chance to speak. “Peeves never haunted me because he never wanted to. It is my understanding that before the castle was built, these dungeons were the grounds in which Peeves was brutally murdered, more specifically, this very room. The ghost refuses to enter my chambers at all. I cannot help you, Y/N, because the only place in this whole castle where you can escape the phantom is here.”

My shoulders drooped at the revelation.

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry.” He looked like he really meant.

“Don’t be, it’s not your fault.” I puffed, trying not to sound as disappointed as I was. “I guess I’ll just have to suck it up like everyone else, I guess.”

Realising Snape probably didn’t want me to stick around for some unnecessary small talk, I immediately tried to make myself scarce. However, while heading out the door I was forced to stop in my tracks.

“Y/N.” Severus called after me.

God, I loved the way he said my name.

“If you ever need a break from him. To do your marking or even just to read for a bit, you can come here. There door is always open.”

“Thank you, Severus. I really appreciate that.” Though it wasn’t likely I’d ever take him up on the offer. Being in such close quarters with a man like him was bound to set me nerves on edge.

Week 4

With 7 days to go until my living hell was no more, I was sure I could power through the fourth and final week.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Day one came in full force. I awoke to the deafening sound of fireworks; fizzing and sparkling at the end of my bed. My heart pounded in my chest; the combination of insomnia, my high caffeine intake and now this, heart palpitations had become a regular occurrence for me.

Nevertheless, I promised myself to power through the day, trudging out of bed to start my classes. I waded through piles of my belongings; the floor hadn’t been visible for a fortnight now and I was almost starting to get used to it. As I made my way to the bathroom, I flicked my wand turning off each blaring radio as I went, hoping it would earn me a moments peace before I was thrust into the chaos of Hogwarts.

True disaster stuck, however, as I approached the hall leading to the bathroom. A sharp shiver shot through up my spine as something squelched underneath my bare feet. I closed my eyes, praying it wasn’t what I thought had happened.

My favourite sweater lay sodden in the middle of the hall, amidst a pair of drenched leggings and a stack of soggy assignments. The hall had been completely flood, the source of course being; the bathroom.

“Please please please.” I repeated to myself as I gripped the door handle tight.

Giving me no time at all to mentally prepare myself for the inevitable state of the bathroom, Peeves appeared on the other side of the door, yanking it open forcefully, taking me with it. I was instantly flung into the deep end, finding myself standing in the middle of a domestic rain shower. The shower, the sink AND the toilet all had water spurting out of them, drowning the room until I was in an ankle-deep puddle. Even the bath was overflowing, given that Peeves had deliberately put the stopper in it before choosing to burst the pipes.

I let out a long and frustrated scream.

“This has gone too far, Peeves!”

A far away laugh echoed through the chambers, he clearly got his desired reaction out of me.

While tempted to succumb to the ghosts’ antics; ready to ball myself on the floor and cry it out. I remembered I did have one other option.

No longer possessing a sense of shame I trudged my way through the castle halls wearing only my saturated silk pyjama set and a pair of waterlogged fluffy bunny slippers. My hair clung to the side of my face in strands of tangled curls, the wet ends dripping onto the floor behind me as I walked.

“Please don’t say no to this.” Were the first words out my mouth when Snape opened his door to me.

“Alright.” He answered without question.

“Can I stay with you.”

“Okay.”

“It’ll just be for the week and I can sleep on the couch, or even on the floor but at least I’ll sleep. And I’ll have to use your shower too, as you can probably tell my bathroom is currently incapacitated. I’ll stay out of your way as much as possible, and I’ll literally owe you the biggest- Wait, what did you just say?”

“I said okay, Y/N.” It was clear the potions master was struggling not to roll his eyes at me forcing him to repeat himself.

“…But why?”

“I’m not quite as unaccommodating as people seem to assume. I’ve witnessed how much you have struggled these past three weeks. And I know, if you’ve shown up here begging for my help, it must be bad. So okay, you can stay for the week. But be warned, there will be some ground rules.”

“Oh My God, Severus I could kiss you right now. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

If he were anyone else, I’d have definitely thrown myself at them, crushing their torso to show my sheer gratitude. With Severus though, I knew he was not one for physical forms of affection, and given that I was soaked to the bone I realised it wouldn’t be wise to subject my saviour to my same fate.

“We’ll discuss my stipulations after dinner this evening. Now you best hurry up and take a shower if you want to make it in time for your first lesson of the day.”

As I sprinted to his bathroom, I could have sworn I spotted a small smirk tugging at the corner of Snape’s lips.

He really wasn’t as grouchy as he let on.

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ms--lobotomy · 8 months ago

Text

I started this when I couldn't sleep last night. Even more self-indulgent than normal. You can thank @moodymisty and @kit-williams for getting me into the funny blueberry. The fleas. The fleas. THE FLEAS-

Summary: Cato Sicarius hate fuckin'

Content Warnings: SMUT and rough smut at that, Heavy degradation kink (to the reader), Semi-public, could be seen as dubcon but it's consensual in my head, Armor kink, Unhealthy relationship (sorry to all my healthy relationship stans), blood, the use of the word "whore" to degrade, body worship (take a wild guess whose body), crying,

Image Credit: @squishyowl (I don't know whether to apologize or say you're welcome)

“Cato, where are we going?”

His response was as cold as his gauntlet on your skin. “It’s Captain Sicarius to you.”

His hand gripped your wrist, threatening to leave a nasty bruise, and you had to jog to keep up with him. Most of the Ultramarines and serfs around you seemed to mind their own business, but a few cast quick glances towards the two of you. After a while, one of the sons of Guilliman spoke up.

“Captain,” he began. “Is everything alright?”

“It is,” he replied. “Hurry along. You have better things to do.”

You watched ever so briefly as the marine absconded in the opposite direction. You had to crane your neck upwards to look at the man on your wrist. You opened your mouth to say something, but decided against it right before he stopped by a closet, one just big enough to fit a fully armored space marine.

“Is this…?”

“In,” he hissed.

He turned the doorknob and it made a click before he swung the door open, ushering you in with a hand on your back. He followed suit and swung the door shut before you could have a look around the room. Absentmindedly, he pushed a spare broom to the side.

“What—“

“Undress.”

“Did you just say—?”

“Undress.”

You sheepishly pulled your shirt over your head as you heard the hiss of him removing his helmet, the clang of it falling to the floor before the clang of another piece of armor dropping to the floor. Oh. As you pulled down your pants, a question arose.

“Captain? How am I going to find my clothes?”

You felt arms loop around you and a hand at your back unhooking your bra. Your heart skipped a beat. “We will deal with that when we deal with that.” His breath was warm against the top of your head.

Not a moment after your underwear hit the floor did you feel that familiar feeling of being pushed against the wall. You let out a slight “mmh” at the motion, your feet dangling above the ground. There was a little ledge under you, barely big enough for you to fit on with a little help. You could assume that you were at eye level with him, it was far too dark to tell. You grabbed for his armor and you could feel him recoil before he made his way back to you.

“Dirty cunt,” he spat before he pressed his lips on yours. You hadn’t time to gasp for air, air that left your lungs quickly when he grazed his teeth along your bottom lip. Your hands grasped for whatever they could find, eventually resting between his shoulders and neck.

When he finally pulled away you gasped for air, limp under him. “By the Throne, you’re pathetic,” he huffed, coming in for another kiss. Your legs squeezed together, trying to hide the mess already present between them. He pulled away soon enough, sliding a finger between your legs. Blood rushed to your face at the almost crackling sound that it made against his cold armor.

"Wet already?"

You pressed a hand to your chest, leaning forwards slightly. “Nngh… Cato…”

“Captain. Sicarius,” he commanded. “Spread your legs for me, you little whore.”

You spread them, as wide as you could. He stuck an armored finger into you and you gasped, grabbing onto his armor again. Your hands slipped on his armor, and you leaned into him.

“Quiet,” he hissed before he jammed his lips on yours again. You moaned into his mouth as his armored finger trailed along you, making you quiver underneath him. You felt your naked body press against his armor, rough against your skin. He bit down on your lower lip, drawing a little bit of blood. You felt your eyes start to wet. You tried to pull away but he grabbed you and kept you on him as you started to taste metal.

Finally, he pulled away. "You're going to leave such a mess," he grumbled as you wiped your lip. Faster than you could think, he pinned your wrists to your side and kissed your collarbone just like he'd kissed your lips--roughly and jaggedly. You felt his teeth hastily graze your skin, threatening to sink in before he sucked hard.

You pressed your lips together before you couldn't hold it in any longer. "A-ah..." you cried, his outline barely visible.

Sicarius pulled away. "Quiet down, or they'll all know how much of a whore you really are." He pressed himself lower, dangerously close to your nub. His hands moved away from your wrists towards your waist, and you ran your hands through his short, dark hair. You felt that same sucking and you cried out again before he stuffed two of his fingers in your mouth. You tasted ceramite, and the lids of your eyes lowered as you moaned into his fingers.

With his remaining hand, he took your nub between his fingers, squeezing it. "Are you going to be quiet for me?" he asked, slightly pulling on it.

You moaned into his ceramite again before he removed it with a wet pop. His hand grazed the side of your face before it trailed down to your shoulder, holding you down as you writhed underneath him. You could hear his armor shift briefly before he bit down on your nub, hard.

"C-Captain!" you exclaimed, your hands sinking into his hair. Before he could draw blood, he moved onto your other side. You pressed him into you, wrapping your legs around him.

He rose up, his form back to towering above you. "Took you long enough," he huffed before taking you off of the ledge. You took a few seconds to steady yourself, rubbing one of the spots that he bit.

"Now kneel."

"Captain...?"

"I told you to kneel."

You found yourself on your knees and you felt an armored hand on your head. Something brushed up against your face, something warm and hard. You had to turn up a little bit to reach mouth level with him.

"I want you to pleasure me."

"Okay..." you said quietly, taking him in your hand. You touched him gently, peppering kisses along him and fondling his balls. It wasn't long before you took the tip in your mouth. He grabbed the sides of your head as his hips began to gyrate, pressing himself deeper into you. Despite everything, you let out a high-pitched squeal, desperately gasping for air.

With a deep grunt, he shoved himself in deeper. You felt a tear streak down your cheek, and you wanted desperately to wipe it away but there were more pressing matters at hand. "I told you that I wanted you to pleasure me," he grunted, thrusting a few more times before he popped himself out of your mouth. You leaned over the ground, gasping for air.

"Captain..." you said between sharp breaths.

"Back on the ledge," he barked, kneeling in front of you. You felt a hand on the side of your face, his thumb barely entering your mouth.

You tried to speak, regardless. "Captain, I can barely see in here," you said, your breath evening out.

"You're too soft to be on this ship," he huffed, picking you up by your underarms and placing you back on that ledge. "It's a wonder your puny ass is still alive."

"Alright..." you said before he shifted you down a little bit. You felt him press at your entrance, holding you on him like you were nothing but a toy. You felt his breath hot on your skin, his armor cold against your legs.

"I still haven't came yet," he remarked. "I won't enter unless you beg for it."

You gulped and your wet, messy eyes widened. "...Beg?" you asked softly, your hands tracing the indents on his armor.

"You heard me."

"O-okay..." you said shakily. "I'm so desperate, Captain... I need you in me." Your hands reached out for the outline of his face, but you could barely reach him. "I need to be used. I need to be disrespected. I..." you paused, your face warm and wet. "I'm sorry, Captain. I'm just a little whore."

He chuckled. "You do realize people might hear you?" he asked as he finally pushed himself in. He didn't spend any time acclimating you to him, but that didn't stop you from going over the edge. Tears streamed down your face as you cried out, your hands balling up into fists.

"Captain!" you cried out, your eyes barely open. You cried out with every thrust, and before long, he was burying himself to the hilt before exiting again. You felt a sharp pain where he was, and you tried to speak again.

"It hurts..." you let out between moans.

"Good," he snarled, his hands enveloping your waist and slamming you onto him again and again. Your hands trailed towards his arms, the armor still cold against your skin. You came again on him, crying out as your eyes rolled back into your skull.

"Again?" he asked, keeping pace. "You're so pathetic. I can't believe I'm in a supply closet with such a... such a whore."

"I am," you said meekly. Almost as if on cue, he buried himself in you one last time and pumped you full of his seed. As he throbbed inside you, you felt his head between your shoulder and neck. The position must be at least a little uncomfortable, but you weren't going to say anything. A mix of blood and seed dripped down your leg, forming a small puddle on the floor of the closet.

"I can clean it--"

"No. I will," he huffed, setting you down. He ran a hand along your thigh, cleaning it off. You shivered under his touch again, leaning against his armor.

"Thank you," you said as he ran a hand through your hair.

"Stay here," he said. "You're going to get water."

#space marine x reader #warhammer 40k x reader #cato sicarius x reader #reader insert #cato sicarius #warhammer lobotomy #im not putting word counts up anymore but its like 1600 words because i have brain worms

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lifebeginsbyleaving · 2 months ago

Text

Pushing Up Daisies

A.N.

Hey! Hello, It is sterek week and for today's two prompts my bestie and I did a sort of mirror fic where we had different POVs and tone but did stories that went together. I think it is a wonderful idea and I hope we executed it in an exciting way for you to read! Please read both parts as they fit together like puzzle pieces. The first is mine and the second is @halevetica 's. Please enjoy!

Domestic Bliss

Stiles rolled over with a grumpy sigh. Without opening his eyes to the early morning light he reached over to feel an empty space and frowned. His head lifted topped with violent sleep tousled hair as he squinted trying to find his husband. "Derek?" Stiles yanked his foot back up from the cold wood floors and then slid into Derek's slippers. Stiles might've complained one too many times about how cold the floors were until Derek rolled his eyes and looked in boxes till he found his own slippers. He didn't know if he'd ever get sick of Derek's face with that cute fond look even as he tried to be upset with him.

He yawned gently and looked around the still bare room. There was nothing except their furniture and boxes waiting to be unpacked. In the three days previous they hadn't gotten to the bedroom much yet, but he still smiled when he walked past the box labelled Stiles' PJs. It was filled with all of Derek's old t-shirts and basketball shorts. He had filled the box and labelled it as Derek's, but Derek came over and crossed it out and rewrote it while teasing about how they were no longer his own as Stiles wore them more than he did now. Stiles felt a lightness in his chest as he reflected on how much of a dream moving into their new house had been. They were still in the idyllic honeymoon phase where every night was the best one yet. The happiest day of his life had happened, they went on their honeymoon, and now just a couple months later he was moving into his dream home with a man better than his wildest imagination. His life was perfect. He had his dad, their wonderful home, and Derek.

Stiles reached for his toothbrush right next to Derek's and there was that overwhelming sense of love and happiness again. No matter how much they bickered or even fought, being with Derek was like the moment you figure out that everything will actually be okay in the end. It was that sigh at the end of a hard day and the first smile after being so sad you think you can't breathe. Derek meant safety, love, and home and Stiles finally understood what his parents had. He always appreciated that they were amazing together and that's what made losing her so hard. It was such a privilege to find someone that you didn't have to tolerate living with, someone that instead you had to survive living in the moments without them.

He rinsed his mouth out and spit into the white sink. Looking up at the mirror he tried to tame his hair while calling out again, "What do you want for breakfast?"

His brow furrowed as he received no response. He made his way down the creaky steps with soft padding slippered feet. He called out to the house as he entered the empty kitchen, "Oh husband mine? It's rude to not give me morning snuggles and kisses." Stiles pulled some coffee grounds out of an otherwise barren cabinet. He saw a note on the coffee machine and plucked it off with a quick snatch.

"'Morning sweetheart, went for an early run. Hope you slept well. Coffee should be hot (just like you) See you shortly. -D' Hmm. I'd rather have a sleepy husband, but I will take coffee." Stiles rubbed over the corner of the note where there was a dirty brown finger print on the paper. He must've had to clean up some coffee grounds. Stiles smiled down at his husband's rushed sloppy writing.

He used the last two slices of bread to make toast and decided he'd run to the store quick so they could have a proper lunch. He was getting sick of quick sandwiches, they needed some real food in the house. He could probably get back right after Derek showered and as he was making a protein shake if he hurried.

He grabbed the notes Derek had left on the counter and scrawled a quick note back to him for when he got back from his run.

Stiles balanced a piece of toast on top of his mug of coffee and stuffed the one he was eating in his mouth so he could open his bedroom door to get ready.

*** Stiles always somehow got the cart with the psychotic wheel and it was driving him crazy. He'd already bumped into two other carts because his possessed one took turns like they were an option instead of the only unoccupied path in a crowded aisle. He tried kicking the wheel to no avail and then sighed in defeat. He almost grabbed a box of cocoa pebbles, but instead grabbed Derek's middle aged woman cereal. He urged the wire monster towards the peanut butter while thinking wistfully of his abandoned chocolatey goodness.

He had tried to stick to the list, but he had gotten carried away with all of the things he thought they could fill the pantry with. He had gotten two cans of condensed milk despite not having a recipe for it. It was just something always in the back of the cabinet growing up. Somehow placing them in the basket had made those little flutters in his chest tickle again as if they somehow made their house a home with their uselessness. He had also gotten a couple autumn themed candles. Derek would hate them. Stiles smiled even at the thought of Derek sneering at a sweet vanilla chai kisses candle.

Stiles looked up from his overflowing cart to look directly at Derek. "Derek!" His grin completely took over his face.

"Stiles...hey, what are you doing here?" Derek sounded confused and his whole body froze. Stiles hardly ever spooked Derek or caught him off guard like that, but he supposed it was probably pretty strange for them both to be there.

"Oh you know, I wanted to fill up the house. Get some groceries for my husband, even though he did leave me in an empty bed. There's a monster in our house that eats peanut butter like breathing." Stiles deadpanned.

"A monster in our... oh right," Derek chuckled sheepishly. "Sorry about that, I just wanted to get an early start. I made sure the coffee was ready though." Derek came around his cart and stood in front of Stiles to give him a quick kiss.

"Yeah thank you, that was really nice honey bun." Stiles shot out finger guns as he called him the overly sweet name.

Derek rolled his eyes fondly and then reached for the candle Stiles knew he would dislike the most. "Really?" He practically sneered at the name before putting it back into the cart.

"Hey say what you want, white girls got nothing on my fall game. I got the healthy cardboard cereal you pretend to enjoy as a compromise." Stiles sent him a saucy wink.

Derek's smile was small, but Stiles knew he loved the little things that showed how much they appreciated each other the most. "You take such good care of me." Derek praised and reached out to brush an appreciative thumb across Stiles' chin.

"I'm great at this marriage thing." Stiles mused. He finally looked away from his handsome husband's face to take in the state of his muddy joggers. "Hey, what are you doing here?" He peered around Derek's wide chest into his cart. "Did you sign us up for a HGTV show I don't know about? A rake and paint? What happened to you by the way? I thought I was the one with godlike grace and agility?" Stiles snarked self deprecatingly.

Derek turned his back to move some of the supplies around to show Stiles. "I was just trying to fix up that old building for you. I know you were excited about it, and the yard could use some tlc."

Stiles moved his cart to gently bump Derek's hip. "Look at you, not so bad at this yourself handsome. I will fight you for the husband of the year title though. I was thinking of making butternut squash soup and salad for lunch, how does that sound?" Stiles looked down at his cart to see if he forgot any ingredients.

"A home cooked meal? You win automatically. I'm headed out actually, so I'll see you at home?" Derek said briskly.

"Okay yeah. Before you head out you need me to get anything for you from the store?" Stiles joked.

"Maybe a less poisonous candle? Or are you gunning for my life insurance already?" Derek smirked before pressing a kiss to Stiles' forehead. "Be safe." He added.

"You have unscented ones. And I don't need the money nearly as much as I need someone to make me coffee in the morning." Stiles confessed over his shoulder as he walked away from him.

Derek headed to the counter to check out. "Oh, maybe some of that creamer with the picture of the dog dressed as a pumpkin? You know the one." He called back.

Stiles looked in his cart at the cat curled up in the pumpkin on the creamer bottle already in his cart. Damn did he love his husband.

***

The plastic bag rustled as Stiles pulled out the thyme and garlic. He was somewhat glad Derek was out in the yard raking the leaves still. He adored spending time with his husband, but Derek and him both had verydifferent ideas of what a kitchen should look like while cooking. Derek cleaned dishes as he used them. Stiles was happy if the oven wasn't on fire. He still had grocery bags that needed to be unpacked, all of the soup ingredients were piled near the paper towels, and he had a half chopped onion near the pot he'd need to use for the soup. He arranged the daisies he had picked up for Derek in a green vase with meticulous care. He knew how much Derek liked plants in the house and secretly loved the romantic gesture of receiving flowers. He smiled at the finished bouquet and then returned to the onion while humming "I'll make a man out of you."

Stiles continued unpacking groceries and prepping the vegetables while working his way through the Mulan soundtrack. It drove him crazy while cooking if he had a song stuck in his head.

Stiles brought the squash to his cutting board and pushed aside the bowl . He moved to the sink to wash off the bits of onion skin that clung to his fingertips and looked out the window. He saw Derek frenetically raking leaves. Just the sight of him made Stiles pause while the warm water cascaded down his hands to rapidly circle the drain. He must've felt the eyes on him because he looked up almost immediately and gave him a subtle wave. Stiles' lips pulled into a grin and he waved back.

Stiles turned back to the squash with that warm feeling still inside of him. He placed the wobbly vegetable on its side and attempted to chop it in half. His still damp hands slipped and in a split second the knife sliced through the air and was flung straight towards his bare foot.

Stiles' eyes widened and in a fraction of a moment he flung his hand towards the knife too late to catch it, but with a flash of his eyes the knife halted midair. He quickly gripped it before letting the glow leave his eyes. The same eyes that then frantically searched to see if Derek had somehow appeared in the kitchen to see him or was peering inside the kitchen through the window. After verifying Derek was still in the yard he let out a relieved sigh.

Two years ago Stiles had pictured his future life completely different. He was about to give up on small town life and forget about ever being able to settle down before he met Derek. Having magic was never easy on him. People brought him all sorts of issues to solve like he had all the answers. It made dating and keeping people close really difficult. He never knew what to say to people. 'Oh, sorry I had to leave our date early. Someone I've never met before needed my help killing kelpies that were drowning people!' Some how he thought that wouldn't be the best second date opener. He kept being dragged into mystical hijinks as he was the only druid anywhere near their town. It was almost as if he had a magical beacon on himself saying I'm magical and I will help you.

It all became too much. His dad was the only one close to him that knew who he really was, what he could do. It was tiring always lying to people. Then, one day he had helped a dryad from New York. He was so grateful to Stiles he had invited him to move to the city. Stiles had told him how lonely the small town supernatural life was. How it felt like you were always lying and there was no way out, no one to share it with. He had even tried to stay out of the supernatural world, but it kept dragging him back in. The man then told him how different the city was. There were entire communities he could join and Stiles finally had hope. As loathe as he was to leave his dad, he had decided to go.

The month before he would've left he met Derek. Suddenly it wasn't about what drug him back to the life, it was about what kept him in the one he wanted. So many times he had wanted to tell Derek, wanted to not be lying. He knew it was better this way, he would give up anything for Derek and their perfect life. He wanted to be normal for Derek. He gave up magic and turned away anyone who asked him for help. He'd never forgive himself if something happened to Derek because of him. He had his regular life now, and it was perfect. Derek was perfect. He was gorgeous and dorky, even if sometimes he could be a bit boring with his need to be obsessively domestic. Stiles loved it. He loved his boring normal life. He didn't care what he gave up for it or how much he had to lie about himself.

Stiles hadn't realized how long he'd been lost in thought. He looked down to the now soup filled pot he had made on autopilot. He would have to call Derek in soon now that lunch was ready, but he needed a few moments to collect himself. Derek always knew when he was feeling deeply, but he didn't want to sour the day.

He was about to go out the back door when he heard a knock at the front. Stiles hurried to the door, maybe it was his dad popping in.

It was a man with a charming smile and a smooth voice, "You must be Stiles."

Stiles was caught off guard. "Hi, and who are you? Do you know my husband? Do I know you?"

The man chuckled, "No, not yet. But I'm hoping to be good friends with you."

Stiles heard the back door crash open and slam shut. The harsh sound was on Derek's honey do list to fix.

"You and your husband. Of course. I just wanted to meet the new neighbors." Right on cue as he spoke Stiles heard Derek's heavy shoes clunking towards them.

There was something about this man's eyes Stiles didn't quite trust, but he wanted to be inviting. "Oh, do you live nearby?"

Derek shouldered in front of him pushing open the door even further. "This is private property, what do you want?"

Stiles' jaw was dropped about as wide as the man's shocked eyes. The man stammered out, "Uh, sorry, I was just..." He took a quick step back while his eyes never left Derek. "It was nice meeting you."

Stiles thrust a hand out after him, as he beckoned him back. "Oh don't go! No, I'm sorry. This caveman with no manners is my husband." Stiles shot Derek a withering glare. "Please don't mind him. We'd love your company. I just finished making lunch."

Derek snapped his head to look at Stiles and rudely replied, "I'm sure he can't stay."

The man started to decline, "Oh, no, I-"

Stiles gripped Derek's arm and dug his fingertips in. "I insist!"

The man and Derek stood in some sort of awkward stalemate. Stiles could not believe his husband. Derek was never like this he was so friendly and charming whenever they met new people normally. Sure he'd trash talk them and let him know later if he didn't really like them, but this is the first time Stiles had ever seen him so hostile and rude.

Stiles pointedly said, "Come in. What was your name?" Derek didn't budge till Stiles started to shoo him back into the house.

Stiles had no idea what had gotten into Derek his jaw was clenched, but he backed up.

"Ansel Williams." Ansel looked at them with a strangely intense gaze. "But you can call me Andy. I can see that your husband recognizes the name. It's very unique. It's odd that you don't th-"

Stiles looked at Derek completely lost. It made sense why Derek was acting hostile if he didn't get along with Ansel, but Stiles didn't know why then Ansel was acting like he wanted to be friends. He felt like he was missing something.

He just was about to say maybe they should have lunch some other time wanting to trust his husband when Derek interrupted the man. "My name is Derek, nice to see you again," Derek stuck out his hand which Ansel took hesitantly. "Stiles made soup. I hope you're hungry."

"Famished." The man regained some of his earlier confidence as he followed them into the dining area.

***

Stiles passed around the freshly baked rolls again hoping to cut the tension that had accumulated over the meal. "So what kind of special assets does your company acquire?"

Andy replied with his mouth full, "Well it depends though we really go after the more coveted and unique people."

"Oh, so you're a headhunter?" Stiles said interested, hoping to steer the conversation in a direction that wouldn't have his husband glaring and quiet.

"Something like that." The man smirked and Stiles wondered if he was being modest about what he actually did. "What do you guys do?" Andy asked while gesturing between them holding a half eaten roll.

"Well, I'm an online web designer so I work from home." Stiles looked at a completely silent Derek, who seemed like he was sitting on tacks, before turning back. "And my wonderful husband is a basketball coach at the high school. The kids absolutely love him. He's so good with them. So much better than he is with adults sometimes." Stiles gushed proudly.

He gave Derek a pointed look and gave his hand a few rough pats hoping to coax him into the conversation. Stiles didn't want their very first introduction to the neighborhood to be so stilted.

"How very domestic." Andy commented.

"It's a very rewarding job." Derek pushed out without an ounce of the pride and happiness Stiles knew his job brought him.

"He's really very good. He took the kids to state last year. Honey you should go show him the photo in the garage and your trophies! I have to go get dessert ready anyway." Stiles stood up to go to the kitchen. Before he left he pressed a kiss to Derek's temple and whispered into his ear, "Be nice and make friends." Stiles dug his fingers into Derek's shoulder firmly to try and convey how rude Derek was being.

He smiled at Andy and said, "Dessert will be just five minutes."

When he looked back at Derek he wore the same smile he gave Stiles whenever asked to take out the trash. It was begrudging and appeasing, but also he could never help the tiniest bit of adoration from sneaking in there whenever he smiled at Stiles. No matter how snarky.

Stiles pulled the pie he had warmed up out of the oven and placed the ice cream on the counter to thaw a bit.

As Stiles sliced the pie he thought about how rude Derek had been. It was so out of character for him. Sure Derek could be a bit gruff, but that was downright hostile at moments. Stiles was glad Andy hadn't stormed out or that he didn't take offense at any point. Stiles wanted this move to go well. He wanted to be settled and get along with the neighbors. He wanted the dream life for Derek and him. He didn't know how a grumpy Derek would fit in with his image of summer block barbeques and borrowing cups of sugar. Sure Stiles knew neither of them were the overly friendly or social type, but he just wanted them to have the white picket life. Stiles cleaned up the plates where the viscous cherry red pie filling had smeared while he thought deeply.

Maybe Derek didn't want that. Maybe he wanted it to be just the two of them, which Stiles certainly wouldn't object to. He was just so confused because up to this point Derek had been so kind to any friends Stiles introduced to him and meeting new people he always flashed his pearly bunny smile that melted him every time. Stiles licked the pie server clean before tossing it in the sink. He scooped the hard ice cream with great effort while sticking out his tongue in concentration so he didn't fling it across the kitchen.

Stiles wanted to immediately ask how they knew each other, but Derek had acted so coldly he figured it was not a good time. If they had bonded in the garage Stiles would mention it over dessert. The whole thing was so puzzling to Stiles.

The three forks clinked against the plates as he placed them. Just as he was about to bring the plates to the table he heard the garage door opening. That was strange. Stiles made his way to the garage to investigate the noise forgetting the pie for a moment.

He opened the garage door to see Derek standing under the big rolling door. He turned to Stiles and began to close the distance.

Stiles spoke as he moved, "The pie is ready. Where'd Andy go?" Stiles started to lean around Derek to look out the garage door. "You didn't murder him did you?" Stiles joked.

Derek let out a small laugh. "He had to go, wife called."

Derek swiped a thumb across Stiles' lower lip and licked it off. "Mmm, cherry?"

"Yeah. It is." Stiles replied with a question hidden in his tone. Stiles squinted at Derek puzzled, but for the moment willing to let it go.

Derek crowded into Stiles' space close enough he could smell his aftershave and forced him to take a step back as he reached past Stiles to close the garage door. "Shall we?" Derek straightened up and gestured to the door grandly with a sweet as pie smile.

Fuck the neighborhood, as long as he had that smile in his house he didn't care how many people Derek chased off.

***

Stiles let the plates clatter loudly after he scrubbed the water away much harsher than needed. If he kept it up the china nor their kitchen towels would survive their first year. He didn't like how evasive Derek had been while they ate pie. Stiles had always loved how honest they were in their relationship together.

Well, except for the one thing he'd always kept. In marrying Derek he made a lifelong commitment to leaving the supernatural world behind. It burned at something deep inside of him. This space and what seemed like secrets between them, they ignited all of his worry and fear. He left his past behind to find a future with his husband, but why did it seem like Derek was hiding in their present? When he thought about it Derek had been strange all day.

Usually he would wake him up before going for a run to let him know and give him a kiss. Usually, Derek wasn't as cold and rushed as he was when Stiles bumped into him at the store. Usually, he preferred to get into Stiles' way in the kitchen because of how much he loved to see Stiles move around the house. Usually, he asked Stiles to keep him company while they did yard work. Usually, he'd be right next to him putting away lunch or doing the dishes. Usually, Derek didn't make it seem like he had things to hide from Stiles.

Stiles pulled himself out of his pity party as he dried a spoon. His husband loved him. This could just be a misunderstanding or a bad day. He could've just been cranky at Andy for interrupting their lunch. Maybe they had history. The thought of maybe they were already growing apart popped just as fast as it appeared. It was laughable to the point Stiles couldn't even believe it had come from his own admittedly over active brain. They were so madly in love with each other it was frankly disgusting. Was he irritated with Derek? Absolutely. However, they were not the type of relationship to let one bad day ruin even the rest of their week. Unfortunately for Derek, Stiles was definitely not the type of husband to let this go though.

Stiles stormed into the unpacked living room. He stopped right where Derek was kneeling in front of the TV to unpack a ripped box of DVDs. "We're going to talk about how lunch went, and how you know Andy. Also, don't try to make me think it isn't a big deal. You don't normally act like that. And don't you dare try and tell me it's nothing or that you're okay. I know you Derek Hale- Stilinski and that lunch was not you and you shutting me out and not talking to me definitely isn't you...." Stiles drug a breath in desperately while waiting a second for Derek to reply. "Okay I'm done now you can speak." Stiles rested his hands that had been gesturing wildly onto his hips.

Derek sighed like he knew what was coming and put the DVDs on the shelf before facing Stiles. "I had an unpleasant run in with his brother."

Stiles squinted at Derek's genuine face. "How unpleasant? Do I need to go over there with the rest of the pie laced with laxatives, or poison?"

Derek huffed a laugh and then wrapped a coaxing arm around his waist. "No, I was being an ass, I shouldn't have acted like that. I'm sorry. I promise to behave in the future."

Stiles melted into him and sighed in relief. "I like when you misbehave. I don't like when I feel far from you. Next time just slam the door in his face and tell me why we don't like him now." Stiles snuggled into his chest.

"Deal." Derek sweetly kissed the top of his head. "I found the DVDs. Pick one while I shower."

*** Stiles was fighting to keep his eyes awake. No matter how much he loved seeing Bucky Barnes in uniform, the feeling of Derek's warmth radiating into his side where he was gently leaning on him was like no other. If that wasn't enough Derek was slowly dragging his thumb along his knee lulling him deeper. Stiles was so content he could live on this edge between his dreams and the dream forever.

Derek jolted and pulled him out of his fulfilled state. Stiles cocked his head to the side in question.

Derek replied, "We should make popcorn. I think the box with the popcorn maker got put upstairs. I'll grab it. You don't have to pause it." Derek stood and a cool rush of air met his side.

"I was just about to fall asleep, that's perfect. Popcorn will keep me awake. Do you want help?" Stiles offered noncommittally as he tucked himself into the blanket.

"No, I've got it. Keep the couch warm for me." Derek spoke already at the base of the stairs.

Stiles yawned, but he sat up to try and stay awake. He absentmindedly checked his phone for a couple moments before he heard the front door jingle.

That was odd. He hadn't heard Derek come down, nor did he know why he'd need to go outside. Stiles pulled the blanket off himself and stood up with a curious gaze towards the dark hallway. As he moved closer he slowly adjusted to the light and right as he wound around the corner a shape suddenly moved towards him out of the darkness. Stiles stumbled backwards in shock back into the living room. As the shape followed him the light spilled from the TV and lamp to illuminate his face and Stiles stopped in the middle of the room out of confusion.

"Andy?" Stiles asked.

"Stiles, hey sorry it's so late. I wa-" Andy wore a charming smile that Stiles didn't fall for one bit this time.

"The front door was locked. Why are you in my home?" Stiles demanded. He hoped Derek stayed upstairs long enough for him to deal with this. Whatever this was. Stiles crossed his arms and continued on, "Is this about your brother? If so, I doubt an argument is worth breaking into the sheriff's sons' home."

Andy took small leisurely steps closer. "This has nothing to do with Ansel. He was just an unfortunate loss along the way thanks to your dear husband."

Stiles tried to figure out what that meant while looking around the room for weapons. His options were limited to whipping DVDs at him like a knock off Gambit or running to the kitchen for knives. "What do you want with my husband?"

Andy laughed. "We don't want him. He is just in our way. You're quite special Stiles."

Stiles had heard enough. He looked to where the door was left ajar like Andy planned on it getting used again soon. Almost as if someone else would be coming in soon. He didn't know what was going on he just knew he had to deal with this fast especially if there were more coming.

"We just want to talk. We just want you to come with u-"

Stiles cut him off with a sudden uppercut and then immediately dashed for the kitchen. The punch hadn't had quite the effect he hoped because Andy was hot on his heels enraged. Stiles heard his steps too close. He wouldn't make it to the knife block.

Stiles went full speed into the stack of boxes on the other side of the kitchen and kicked out a leg behind himself blindly hoping to keep just enough distance between them. Thankfully he found what he was looking for as Andy gripped his calf tightly trying to wrench it to the side so he could grab Stiles. Stiles spun around and violently smashed the heavy wok into the side of Andy's skull. He used the second of dazed confusion to push against Andy's chest.

Stiles' eyes widened as Andy grew claws and fangs in front of him. The man before him growled as his eyes flashed blue.

"Oh fuck." Stiles swore.

"We just need you to come with us you little bastard. If you come easy we won't hurt your husband, but you're coming either way."

Stiles saw red at that threat, but he pushed it down. There was that "we" again. Stiles felt his stomach drop as he realized his mistake. The door was open so Andy could take him back through it, but if someone was going to follow they would've already. They didn't need to come in through the door because they were already inside.

It didn't take that long to get a popcorn maker.

With that realization Stiles heard a crash of glass shattering upstairs.

Stiles felt everything at once rage, despair, hopelessness, and finally determination. He held up his palms as they flashed with a blinding painful light. It was as if he had lit up their kitchen with a flash bang that could harness the sun itself.

As Andy groaned in pain and clutched at his face disoriented, Stiles pushed past him to sprint upstairs.

He must've been too loud because despite being temporarily blinded, Andy was able to grab onto his torso and sink his claws in before he had even made it through the living room. Stiles shouted in pain from the digits that dug deep into his flesh.

He needed to get to Derek. Andy was in his way.

Stiles gripped both of the werewolf's wrists and attempted something he knew would drop him instantly. Lightning crackled around Stiles' white knuckles that were now covered in his own blood from where they gripped Andy's splattered arms. Stiles could feel the man shaking behind him, but if anything it just drove his claws in deeper. Werewolves had a high tolerance for electrocution. However, it did make them susceptible to other forms of magic. Stiles' eyes started to glow pure white as all of the moisture from the man started to pull out of his eyes, his ears, and finally his mouth. First it was just little trickling strands and then pouring streams that mixed with the electricity as the moisture started to explode out of his skin like a wrung out sponge.

With a heavy thunk the dried out crisp husk of a man fell to the floor.

Stiles started towards the stairs again, but for the second time in less than a minute was dumbstruck with the fangs and claws in front of him. "You're a werewolf!?" Stiles shouted the question at his newlywed husband with wide eyes as he nearly ran into him.

Derek looked relieved, well as much as Stiles could tell through the sideburns his husband never had before.

The floor where Derek had just dropped down groaned in protest as another heavy snarling body thumped down right behind him.

Stiles saw the man's red eyes trained on his husband and reacted instinctively as Derek whipped around to face the threat.

Stiles' hand raised to their cherished house plant sitting on the table up against the stairs while a vibrant green glow emanated from his fingertips and eyes. The pothos had been with them since their first apartment. Lydia gave it to them as a housewarming present. Derek would be upset with how much care he had put into keeping it alive, but he couldn't think about that right now.

The thin vines whipped out and grew in both number and size. In the blink of an eye they wrapped around the alpha's arms and legs just as he was about to swipe his claws at Derek. The green ropes held him taut as even more sprouted thorns and wound around his neck. The alpha began to scream as the thorned vines pushed into his eyes and ears causing blood to gush out. His scream was choked off as vines burst out of his mouth. He fell lifeless to his knees and then finally slumped to the ground as the vines atrophied and turned brown.

Stiles breathed in and out to calm himself from the carnage that had happened in their previously peaceful house in but a few moments.

He lowered his hand slowly and the glow left his eyes, eyes that now met Derek's after they left the now non-existent threat.

He took in his husband's shocked face and didn't even know how to start the conversation, hell the multiple conversations, they now had to have. Like what was he supposed to say, 'Hey honey, why yes I've always been able to do this. Dear, how long have you been a werewolf? Love of my life, would you like to burn the bodies or should I start to look up pig farms?' Stiles felt a pit well in his stomach, for once he did not want to talk to his husband. He didn't want to ruin what they had. Maybe he could wipe Derek's memory. He was spiraling he knew, but he couldn't give up their perfect life. He never wanted to bring Derek into the supernatural life, but here they were.

"You have magic?!" Derek exclaimed.

Derek's eyes fell to Stiles' blood soaked torso. "You're hurt." Derek slowly reached out then paused, almost like he was expecting Stiles to lash out with a dandelion from the yard.

Stiles looked down at his stomach almost noticing the wounds finally through the shock of what had all happened. "I'll be fine really." Stiles looked at Derek's paused hand on his way to reach out. "It's actually helpful that you're a werewolf." Stiles chuckled weakly. "Can I touch you?" Stiles sounded so very unsure about it even he was surprised that he was talking to his husband. The one person that never made Stiles feel unsure.

Derek let out a desperate whispered, "Please."

Stiles' eyes started to water at the tender feelings and warring worries welling inside of him. He wouldn't have known what to do if Derek turned him away. He smiled as he reached out to grab Derek's arm. "This shouldn't hurt at all, I'm just borrowing your ability to heal." Stiles hesitantly gripped Derek's forearms and focused. Golden glowing veins spidered from Derek's arms to Stiles' waiting palms. His wounds gently glowed the same golden color as they closed.

"Take what you need." Out of the corner of his eye he could see Derek's head swiveling back and forth.

After his flesh had finished fusing back together Stiles released his arm somewhat regretfully, he liked the contact.

"Who hurt you?" Derek spoke with purpose as he pushed past Stiles toward the living room.

Stiles felt his body flush with panic again. He rushed past Derek and pulled the blanket from the couch with a gust of magic to quickly cover the Kentucky fried crispy man, but he was too late.

Derek was stock still looking at the blanket. "You did this?" He asked quietly.

A million explanations and excuses flooded through Stiles, but nothing more powerful than the shame. Would Derek think of him differently? He hadn't just killed this man, he had given him an agonizing death. Stiles didn't think about the consequences, he didn't think about the man's pain, and he certainly didn't think about mercy. All he thought about was the fastest way to get to Derek no matter how brutal.

"I-I um, yeah. He came up behind me and I- I just reacted." Stiles' voice was small and he started chewing his lip. Maybe he could wipe his memory of the last half hour. No popcorn, they just finished the movie. "I had to get to you." Stiles didn't like how pleading his voice sounded to his own ears and he definitely didn't know what he was asking of Derek. Please don't look at the body. Please don't be freaked out by how much I love you. Please don't be concerned with the lengths I'd go to for you. Please. Please just don't think I'm a monster.

And if he was really honest and let the most pitiful of them all have a voice, please don't love me any less for the dark things I'd do just to keep you safe.

"Oh." Derek sounded absent minded in a way he had hardly ever heard him.

His eyes were still on the blanket covered body.

"Wow." Derek spoke pushing out each letter of such a simple word in a way that made Stiles taste bile on his tongue. There were many ways in which Stiles wanted to amaze his husband, this was not one of them.

Stiles took several steps back towards the door creating space between them in case Derek didn't know how to tell him he didn't want him near anymore. "I'm sorry." Stiles held his arms against his torso knowing the warmth he'd leeched while holding onto Derek was still on his palms, and yet he felt only a chill up his spine.

Derek finally snapped back to the moment and turned to face him. "No, don't apologize. I just... all day I've been trying to keep you safe but... you never needed me." Derek sounded impressed.

The tears finally fell from Stiles' eyes. "I always need you." He confessed.

Derek stalked over and pulled him into a hug. Stiles buried himself into Derek's chest and let out a breath of relief.

"I think we have a lot to talk about." Derek said.

"Just give me a moment. I just need to hold you to know you're okay. I thought-" Stiles' words caught in his throat. "I thought they'd kill you because of me." Stiles still felt the guilt pulsing inside, but the waves lessened as he felt the warm body against him.

Derek gently carded his hands through his husband's hair to soothe him. "Who were they?"

Stiles shrugged while wrapped in Derek's arms. "I don't know. From what Andy said it seemed like they wanted me for my magic."

"How long have you..." Derek unwrapped their limbs to look into Stiles' eyes.

"Been a glowy magical young hot Gandalf? Technically since birth, but I didn't get any of the cool magic till after my mom died."

"So the whole time" Derek nodded with a huffed laugh.

"How long have you been... Craving Scooby snacks?" He cursed internally hoping this wasn't a sore subject for Derek.

Stiles loved the soft affection that leaked out of Derek whenever he tried to roll his eyes at his snark. Derek replied, "Also since birth."

"So the whole time." Stiles laughed. "Damn I missed an opportunity to give you a squeaky toy as a wedding gift. So you're an alpha? Where's your pack?" Stiles asked.

Derek gently pinched Stiles' chin and looked lovingly into his eyes. "Right here."

Stiles looked at Derek's fond smile ready to kiss it when he noticed a smear of blood just to the left of his mouth. He swiped it with a thumb. "I doubt this would taste like cherry." He wiped it off on his ruined shirt.

Derek's lips fully upturned into a grin before he crashed their lips together. He pulled back and rested his forehead against Stiles'.

Stiles pulled his head back to speak to him. "But no really, where's your pack? You can't be an alpha with just one puny human that didn't even know you were a werewolf."

"My alpha status wasn't planned. Wrong place, wrong time. I never wanted this." Derek gestured to the crispy dead body with an air of begrudging acceptance.

"How long have you been an alpha?" Stiles' tone turned mocking, "Since birth?"

Derek laughed. "Five or so years. I haven't really kept up with it. I never took a pack."

Stiles felt his stomach drop. There had been alphas that went insane without a pack in a matter of months. While Stiles would never experience it the thought made him shudder. To be so very alone only wanting someone to connect you to your life and your purpose had to have been torture. Actually, now that he thought about it maybe their experiences weren't all that different. Having power was nothing without someone to protect. Stiles rested his hand on Derek's chest above his heart. "Derek that's- that's awful. Being an alpha without a pack is a terrible way to live. You have nothing to draw from, nothing to hold you down. It would be like if I didn't have my magic. Pack is a part of being a werewolf as much as magic is a part of who I am."

Derek sighed, "Becoming an alpha was... the worst thing that could've happened to me. It took me from my family. They were my pack. I never wanted another one. But a pack can't have two alphas. It disrupts the balance." Derek spoke with such sadness.

"Then I met you. And I knew I'd never need anyone else." Derek had that look, the one that told Stiles he was genuinely happy and it made his heart flutter at the sweet words.

"You're all I need too, but Derek I don't want you to deny a part of who you are to be with me." Stiles hated that for the entire time he knew him, Derek had to hide from him. He didn't want that to be the future.

"What about you? Where's your coven?" A teasing smirk lit up Derek's face. "Am I gonna find a broomstick in one of these boxes?"

Stiles' mouth dropped open in a baldly offended look. "Do you think I'm a witch?!" Stiles pulled back from their embrace mildly upset. Druids and witches were very different things.

"Well, I don't know what you are." Derek once again gestured to Mr. McCrispy. "You're something."

Stiles had already decided to forgive him and only hold it against him occasionally. "If you ever call me a witch again I'm buying you a doghouse for out back. I'm a druid."

Derek’s expression dropped as he pulled from Stiles taking a stumbled step back. "Do-do you have an alpha?" Derek asked fear and horror blatant in his voice.

"Why would I? I already have one lug trying to tell me what to do." Stiles joked confused.

"You're an emissary though." Derek intently stared into his eyes and at his face like he was expecting a lie.

Stiles squinted at him. He had no idea what confused Derek so much. "I'm a druid... I didn't specifically say I was an emissary. Derek do you think all druids are emissaries? Because that's racist. I'm offended." This time his offended face was an act.

"All the druids I've ever met are emissaries. Only alphas really deal with them. Why aren't you an emissary?" Derek asked.

"Because it's rare for a druid not born into or raised alongside a pack to become an emissary. To be an emissary is to be trusted with the pack's lives at the highest level, most of the time equal to an alpha. It's a huge responsibility, but an even bigger trust is needed. My mom left her pack back in Poland when she came here. I know it was something that she missed and always wanted for me, but I knew it would be too difficult to find." Stiles got a bit sad anytime his mother was mentioned, but nothing made that hollow spot in his heart echo like remembering her last days when she barely remembered their names. If he was honest a bit of that echo was his magic calling out to him.

"I hope I didn't keep you from finding that. You're incredibly strong. You'd make an amazing emissary." Derek looked guilty.

"I gave all of that up when I met you. I had an opportunity out in New York. I almost left with a friend I had helped out. He's a dryad and they had just lost their druid emissary. I realized what I had with you made me happier than that ever would. Sometimes I do miss it, magic will always be a part of me-" Stiles looks down as little blue wisps whirled around his waving fingers. "But Derek, don't think for one second that I'm missing out on what's meant for me." Stiles looked at his husband and he knew every word he spoke was absolutely honest. The love he felt for Derek was like nothing else in the world to him.

"That's why he wanted you." Derek looked at the dead alpha in the hall. "You know, if you- if you wanted to be an emissary..." Derek threaded their fingers together and little blue strings began to swirl around both of their fingers.

Derek seemed nervous and it made Stiles wonder if it was from what he said or the magic still moving between them. He wondered if the chill was getting to Derek's bones yet, a normal human would've had to let go by now.

Stiles let the magic go once again and laughed. "Oh man, two seconds ago you thought all druids were emissaries. Absolutely not." Stiles squeezed his fingers hoping their warmth had returned. To his pleasure his husband's hands were as warm as they always were. How he had never realized Derek's ability to instantly warm a cold bed was supernatural Stiles would never know. "I won't say yes to that until you fully know what it means. If you get sick of me you can't just divorce an emissary. Parting from an emissary is like ripping half of your soul away."

Stiles felt that fading echo in his chest again. This time instead of thinking of the end he thought about the beginning, when the pain was loudest.

He thought about how he had gripped his bed sheets when his parents sat him down to tell him his mom was sick. Then he thought about a little bit later when she told him what he was, what they were. Memories started to resonate inside of his head. How scared she had looked when talking about her pack. How he had always wondered what they had done, done to her, and worst of all forced her to do to make her so very scared. He remembered their happy days and their sad days. He remembered overhearing her telling his dad she felt like they were being ripped from him, that her very soul was torn in two. He would never do that to Derek. He could never. She had fought off her own magic rebelling against leaving the pack as long as she could, but eventually it killed every part of her life in her that she loved. She had left her pack even though she knew what it would mean.

Just the thought of Derek leaving him and then losing himself because of it churned his stomach. He willed away the echo and banished the pain. He would always keep the memories though.

"I'd never get sick of you. Parting from you would already be like having half of my soul ripped away." Derek confessed.

"Well it's good you're stuck with me then." Stiles let go of Derek's right hand to thread their left hands together to kiss their wedding rings. "We can work towards it, but I have a feeling your emissary didn't tell you as much as they told your alp- Oh my god Derek! Oh my god!" Stiles spastically slapped Derek's chest. "Your mom is an alpha isn't she?!"

Derek looked startled. "Yes?"

"Oh my god! At Christmas? At Christmas they were all wolves?! How did I not know? This is insane! Your mom makes such a good green bean casserole and she's an alpha!"

Derek laughed. "You'll have lots to talk about next year."

"Next year? I'm getting brunch with her next week. I'm not waiting for Christmas. This is huge!"

"You're having brunch with my mom?" Derek looked offended at not being invited.

"Yes yes, they have bottomless mimosas downtown, we're going to go once a month. Not the point. Holy shit, I can't believe it! Wait, when Cora broke her leg in South America and your mom went to get her, was that werewolf shenanigans or did she really fall down a mountain hiking? Oh my god, I have got to call your mother! Actually, do you think she's still up? We could go visit."

Derek put his hands on his shoulders to ground him. "Stiles, we have two bodies we need to deal with. Let's surprise visit my mother tomorrow, yeah?" Derek spoke with a fond look.

"Oh yeah, totally. What do you think we should do with them?" Stiles looked between the bodies.

Derek looked over his shoulder towards the backdoor. "I actually have a spot already."

"What for bodies?" Stiles snorted.

"Well, I had to do something with the one from this morning." Derek replied seriously.

Stiles smile dropped and he flung out his arms only to rest them on his hips."What do you mean the one from this morning?!" Stiles couldn't believe this.

"Remember the brother I mentioned?" Derek nodded to Andy's body.

"You killed him?!" Stiles was replaying the day and all the moments he thought his husband had acted strange. Suddenly, Derek hadn't acted strange enough with that new context.

Derek slid his arms through Stiles' while he pulled him in. "Isn't it obvious? I'd kill anyone for you."

His heart shouldn't have melted at that. Stiles was blown away with the love he felt for his husband and how their relationship changed so much and yet not at all over the course of one day. They were going to be okay. They were still going to fall asleep in each other's arms. They were still going to watch movies on the couch. They were still going to always figure things out together. They would now hide bodies together. They would now talk about the supernatural. They would now have very different Christmases. They were still going to be okay, even if they would need to start buying a suspicious amount of bleach.

After all, what was a bit of occasional murder in the shadow of domestic bliss?

~~~

Love Is Murder

A distant thump snapped Derek's eyes open. The darkness of sleep faded into a muted gray room, the bare walls came into focus. The sun was still hiding behind the horizon. What time was it? Had he dreamt the sound? Another thump had him sitting up, his eyes scanning the mostly empty room. There was nothing but the dresser and a pile of still unpacked boxes stacked by the closet door. Had the sound come from downstairs? No. He was being paranoid. They'd barely owned the house for a week, nobody was out to get him. Yet.

Derek's eyes fell to the still-sleeping figure beside him. Soft snores escaped Stiles' full lips, his hair tousled by his pillow. He was beautiful, even like this.

Thump

That was definitely coming from downstairs. Throwing back the covers, his bare feet hit the cool wood floors.

He silently slipped on the jogging outfit he'd laid out on the top of a box labeled 'Stiles' PJs' the night before.

It was probably raccoons getting in the trash. The non-existent trash. Because they'd not even filled a single trash bag because they'd only been sleeping here for three days. He took in a breath and let it out slowly. He was being paranoid. Not everything was scary and dramatic. He had removed himself from that life. Chose not to go down that path. He chose a normal life. A quiet life. With Stiles.

Derek reached the bottom of the steps and froze. A shadow passed across the back door. Too large to be a raccoon.

Maybe it was a bear. Their property backed up to woods. It wasn't impossible. Despite his mind trying desperately to rationalize it, Derek couldn't push the fear away. What if it was hunters? What if they caught wind of him?

With a gentle click, he unlocked the back door. His heart hammering in his chest. Every muscle in his body froze as a cool breeze wafted over him, carrying with it the scent of a wolf. All apprehension melted from Derek's mind. This was no raccoon or bear, this was a threat. In his home. In his and Stiles' home.

Instinct flooded his veins. Fangs extended into his bottom lip. His fingernails lengthened into sharp claws. He would not let his old life threaten Stiles. They were happy and nothing was going to jeopardize that.

He followed the scent around the side of the house, where a figure was yanking on a closed window.

A low growl rumbled in his throat. The intruder paused, turning to face him.

Derek lunged.

A tangle of teeth and claws. This werewolf was no alpha, but he was strong. But Derek was stronger. He hooked an arm around the man's front. A sharp pain tore across Derek's forearm forcing him to release the intruder. The wolf took advantage of his freedom and bolted across the backyard. Derek gave chase. Close on his heels, he followed him to the dilapidated building at the back of their yard. With another lunge, Derek plowed into the man's back, sending them both rolling through the floor of fallen leaves.

The werewolf jumped to his feet and leapt at him. Derek grabbed an old nearby shovel that was propped against the paint-peeled wall of the shed. He swung, slamming the rusted spade into the side of the wolf's head.

A soft ping rang out into the early morning. The wolf's body hit the ground with a soft thump along with the shovel head, which was now no longer attached to the handle still in Derek's hand.

He panted, his breath fogging in short bursts. The wolf lay unmoving. His head cocked at an odd angle. The threat was gone. But now he had a body to deal with. The wound on his arm was already healing, but his blood had started to dry on his skin. He lifted the handle of the broken shovel. He couldn't bury the body with that.

Letting out a cloudy sigh, he tossed the broken handle aside. The sun peered through the treeline as it rose from its slumber. Birds greeted it in song. He had an hour or two max before Stiles would be awake.

He dragged the body around the back of the shed, out of sight. He'd have to make a run to town and get a new shovel. Following his footsteps back the way he came, a trail of his blood painted the fallen leaves. It lead to the side of the house, where a spattering of red decorated the side. He'd grab a rake too. He wiped at the blood and groaned when it smeared across the off-white, wood planks. And some paint.

Derek scanned for any other sounds or movement before heading inside to grab his keys. He paused in the kitchen. He'd wanted to finally have a real meal with Stiles. One that didn't involve cold cuts and drinks from a can. He was going to make Stiles breakfast. He'd have to settle on coffee. It was the first thing to get unpacked. He snatched a pack of sticky notes from a box labeled 'office' that hadn't made it into the other room yet.

He stared at the pad of paper. He felt bad lying to Stiles. But it was for his safety. Knowing about this world was dangerous. He scribbled a short note and turned the coffee maker on.

He turned on the sink and scrubbed away the dirt and blood from his arm. He made a list in his head of things he would need. A shovel, a rake, paint, a paintbrush, a sponge, a bucket. And peroxide. It was good for getting blood out.

He listened for any movement from upstairs. Nothing. He glanced back at the gurgling coffee maker where the note was stuck. He buried the guilt before heading out.

Derek pushed his cart full of supplies to the checkout. He scanned each item, mentally checking them off. Shovel, rake, paint, paintbrush—

"Derek!"

His head snapped up, his eyes meeting his husband's. His heart skipped. "Stiles...hey, what are you doing here?" he stepped around the cart, hoping to hide the basket of supplies to avoid any questions.

"Oh you know wanted to fill up the house, get some groceries for my husband. Even though he did leave me in an empty bed. There's a monster in our house that eats peanut butter-like breathing."

Derek's heart dropped. "A monster in our..." he shook his head. "Oh right." He gave a nervous laugh. Paranoid much? He thought to himself. There was no monster, Stiles was just being funny. "Sorry about that. I just wanted to get an early start. I made sure the coffee was ready though."

He stepped forward, pressing a kiss to Stiles' full lips.

"Yeah, thank you, that was really nice honey bun," Stiles said, holding his hands up in a finger guns motion.

Derek rolled his eyes fondly. They caught on a large glass candle. He plucked it from the pile of groceries in Stiles' cart. He sneered at the name. 'Sweet vanilla chai kisses'. "Really?" he shook his head, setting it back down.

"Hey, say what you want, white girls got nothing on my fall game. I got the healthy cardboard cereal you pretend to enjoy as a compromise." Stiles winked.

An affectionate smile tugged at Derek's lips. "You take such good care of me." He brushed a thumb gently along Stiles' chin. It was true, and Derek was thankful for Stiles every day.

"I'm great at this marriage thing. Hey, what are you doing here?" He glanced around Derek and into his cart. "Did you sign us up for a HGTV show I don't know about? A rake and paint? What happened to you by the way? I thought I was the one with godlike grace and agility."

Derek slid a hand into the cart, pushing the large sponge to cover the peroxide bottle, that one would be harder to explain. "I was just trying to fix up that old building for you, I know you were excited about it. And the yard could use some TLC." Derek shoved the guilt aside once again. He hated lying to Stiles, but how would he tell him he had a dead werewolf in the backyard?

Stiles moved forward, bumping the cart gently into Derek's hip. "Look at you, not so bad at this yourself, handsome. I will fight you for the Husband of the Year title, though. I was thinking of making butternut squash soup and salad for lunch, how does that sound?"

"A home-cooked meal? You win automatically. I'm headed out actually, so I'll see you at home?" Derek wanted to get rid of the body before Stiles got there.

"Okay, yeah. Before you head out, you need me to get anything for you from the store?" Stiles teased with a laugh.

Derek's eyes softened. He was so smitten. Stiles could ask him to murder everyone in the store and Derek wouldn't hesitate. "Maybe a less poisonous candle? Or are you gunning for my life insurance already?" he smirked, leaning forward to press a kiss to Stiles' forehead. "Be safe."

"You have unscented ones. And I don't need money nearly as much as I need someone to make me coffee in the morning," Stiles called over his shoulder as he turned to continue his shopping.

Derek pushed his own cart toward the counter to check out. "Oh, maybe some of that creamer with the picture of the dog dressed as a pumpkin. You know the one." Of course Stiles knew the one. Stiles knew everything about him. A nauseating tug at his stomach reminded him that he didn't know everything.

Hoisting the rake over one shoulder and the shovel over the other, Derek made his way toward the back of the building. He hoped the body hadn't magically disappeared in the time it took to fetch a proper shovel. He didn't know if someone would come looking for him. He didn't know anything about this guy. Why was he trying to break in? What was he after? Who sent him? These would have been good questions to ask, but Derek's mind was on one track that morning. Eliminate the threat. Now the threat was eliminated but he had no clue if more would be coming.

Stepping around the building, the body was still where he'd left it. He patted the body down, searching for some clue as to who this man was and what he wanted. There was nothing. With a grunt, Derek grabbed the ankles and drug him into the woods. The last thing he needed was a dead body buried directly on his property. His father-in-law was the sheriff after all.

It took far longer than Derek thought it would to dig the hole. He chucked the body into it and wiped at the gathering sweat on his brow. Despite the crisp autumn air, he was now drenched.

He shoveled the dirt over the body as the soft hum of Stiles' voice reached his ears. He smiled to himself. He must be cooking. His stomach rumbled in anticipation of lunch. He hadn't eaten yet. But he still had work to do. There was blood staining the side of the house. He'd need to clean that before Stiles noticed.

Swiping underbrush over the freshly turned ground, Derek listened to Stiles' humming. He followed the sound back toward the house and gathered the other supplies.

The sponge sloshed peroxide and water onto the side of the house. It only managed to smear the stain further. He would need direct peroxide. He poured it onto the sponge and scrubbed. Most of the blood wiped away but the once off-white paint was still tinted pink.

Painting over the stain was easy enough and didn't take nearly as long as burying a body. The last thing he needed to do was rake up the blood-soaked leaves.

He drug the rake over the ground, catching something black in the teeth. It was a wallet. He opened it to see his earlier attacker's face. 'Ansel Williams'. Well, now he had a name. Though not much else. Glancing up he saw Stiles in the window. He quickly dropped the wallet and drug a pile of leaves over it. He gave an awkward wave. Stiles waved back with a smile. Derek glanced down at the bloody leaves at his feet. He should throw the wallet away, but what if someone came looking for him? What if Sheriff Stilinski came by?

Derek ran a hand through his hair. He was being paranoid again. The Sheriff would have no reason to come here looking for Ansel. Raking the wallet into his pile of leaves he decided to just bury the wallet in the woods near the body. Nobody shy of a lucky coyote would find it there. He finished raking the leaves and hiding the wallet just in time to hear a voice from the house. Not a voice he recognized. Listening closely, his stomach dropped.

"You must be Stiles."

"Hi, and who are you? Do you know my husband? Do I know you?"

Derek dropped the paint can he was putting away and sprinted toward the house.

"No, not yet. But I'm hoping to be good friends with you," The man's voice said. Was that an underlying threat?

He shoved open the back door a little too hard. It knocked into a pile of unpacked boxes before slamming shut.

"You and your husband. Of course. I just wanted to meet the new neighbors."

Derek came up behind Stiles just as he responded. "Oh, do you live nearby?"

A lupine scent hit his nose, making his hackles rise.

Stepping in front of Stiles, Derek narrowed his eyes. "This is private property, what do you want?"

The man's dark brown eyes went wide. His nostrils flared. "Uh, sorry, I was just..." he took a couple steps back, his foot faltering on the top step. "It was nice meeting you."

Stiles thrust a hand out in greeting. "Oh, don't go. No, I'm sorry. This caveman with no manners is my husband." Stiles shot him a sharp glare. "Please don't mind him. We'd love to have your company. I just finished making lunch."

Derek snapped his head toward Stiles. He didn't know who this person was. He was inviting a threat in to eat with them. "I'm sure he can't stay." It was lousy as far as excuses went, but he didn't know how else to get rid of him without Stiles fussing at him for his lack of manners.

The man shook his head. "Oh, no, I—"

Stiles grabbed Derek's arm, giving it a hard squeeze. "I insist." Derek knew what that meant. He was gonna get fussed at for his lack of manners anyway.

An awkward silence hung in the air. How did he get rid of this man without telling Stiles that he was dangerous?

"Come in. What was your name?" Stiles stepped back to allow the threat inside. He made a shooing motion at Derek. Clenching his jaw, he obliged. His eyes watched the man's every move. If he was stupid enough to pull something, Derek would be ready.

"Ansel Williams," He answered, eyeing the pair carefully as he stepped inside.

Derek froze. His heart jolted. Shit. This man was looking for the dead wolf in the back.

"But you can call me Andy. I can see that your husband recognizes the name. It's very unique I know. It's odd that you don't th—"

"My name's Derek, nice to see you again." he stuck a hand out, pulling Andy's attention from Stiles. He gave a hard squeeze. "Stiles made soup. I hope you're hungry."

Andy gave him a curious look and smiled. "Famished." He followed Stiles with a newfound confidence.

The tension at the table was palpable as Stiles grabbed the plate of rolls and handed them to Andy. "So what kind of special assets does your company acquire?" he asked.

Andy took another roll, dipping it in the remains of his soup. "Well, it depends. Though we really go after the more coveted and unique people."

"Oh, so you're a headhunter?" Stiles sounded interested. It wasn't his fault he didn't know about the threat this man posed, but Derek hated how friendly he was.

Andy swallowed his bite of bread and smirked. "Something like that."

Derek continued to glare. He'd been glaring at this man through all of lunch. Everything out of this man's mouth was a lie. Other than the part about going after coveted and unique people. That was true. But what was it about Derek that was so coveted or unique? Nothing that he knew of. Unless it was because of his bloodline. The name Hale was well known, but to warrant a multi-attack? It didn't make sense.

"What do you guys do?" Andy asked, gesturing between the pair with his half-eaten roll.

"Well, I'm an online web designer so I work from home," Stiles answered.

Derek didn't respond. Why did he want to know what they did?

"And my wonderful husband is a basketball coach at the high school. The kids absolutely love him. He's so good with them. So much better than he is with adults sometimes." Stiles gave him a pointed look, patting his hand sternly. Derek could hear the reprimands that would come later.

"How very domestic." Andy smirked. His eyes were on Derek. He was taunting him. Derek wanted to rip this guy's throat out. But first, he wanted him out of his damn house and away from Stiles.

"It's a very rewarding job," he grumbled, hoping his response would appease Stiles enough.

"He's really very good. He took the kids to state last year. Honey, you should go show him the photo in the garage and your trophies. I have to go get dessert ready anyway." Stiles pushed away from the table. He leaned in, pressing a kiss to Derek's temple. "Be nice and make friends," he muttered.

Derek gave a forced smile as Stiles squeezed his shoulder firmly. "Dessert will be just five minutes."

Derek waited for Stiles to leave the dining room before narrowing his eyes and gesturing toward the garage door. "Follow me."

Andy silently did as he was told. Despite his confident posture, he smelled nervous. Good.

Derek shoved Andy through the garage door almost sending him into a pile of unpacked boxes labeled basketball trophies. With a hushed whisper, he demanded, "What do you want?"

Andy whirled, squaring up with a false sense of confidence. "I want to know where Ansel is."

"Not here."

"But he was."

Derek took a menacing step forward. "What. Do. You. Want?"

Andy gave a smug smirk. "Ya know, that husband of yours sure is something."

Derek's arm snapped out and grabbed him by the throat, claws extending into his flesh, making Andy wince. His eyes flared red.

All color drained from Andy's face. "You're an alpha."

Derek's brows furrowed. He didn't know he was an alpha? Then what did he want?

The moment of hesitation was enough for Andy to throw his elbow into the crook of Derek's arm, making his grip falter just enough for him to yank away.

He slammed his hand into the garage door opener.

Derek lunged but Andy was already rolling under the opening door.

"Damn it," he swore. He started after him, but the door to the house opened, halting him in place.

Stiles stood in the doorway, a confused look on his face. "The pie is ready. Where'd Andy go?" He craned his neck as if to spot their guest. "You didn't murder him did you?" he joked.

Derek walked over to him, stepping in his line of sight. He huffed a laugh. "He had to go, wife called," he lied, hoping Stiles believed him.

As he got closer he saw a smudge of red on his lower lip. He reached out, swiping his thumb across it. He licked at the sticky substance and hummed, "Mmm, cherry?"

"Yeah... It is..." Stiles answered, but his tone was hesitant, like he was trying to put the pieces of something together. Something he would never be able to piece together because he was missing vital parts of the puzzle. Once again a twist of guilt wrenched Derek's stomach, churning his lunch.

He reached past Stiles, sending the large garage door rattling back down and forcing Stiles to step back into the house. Giving a sweet smile he gestured inside,"Shall we?"

The pile of boxes in the living room was less scary when he needed them as a distraction to avoid the questions from his husband. Stiles was obviously upset about Derek's behavior at lunch, but he didn't have a good answer. What could he say? The man was a werewolf come to kill him? He didn't even know if that was true. Andy had been less than willing to explain what he wanted.

He yanked open a box, digging through cords and surge protectors. How was he supposed to enjoy watching a movie when a threat was looming in the distance? Surely Andy would be back. He hadn't gotten what he wanted. Had he? What if what he wanted was information? Stiles had been more than willing to tell him all about them.

Pushing the box away, he yanked open another one, tearing it in his frustration. He plucked the DVDs, setting them neatly in the new entertainment center he and Stiles had picked out last week. It gave him pause. It was new. The house was new. How had they found him here? They'd barely lived there three days.

Derek replayed the brief conversation he had with Andy in the garage. He had been surprised when he saw Derek's eyes. He hadn't expected him to be an alpha. But that wasn't new. He'd been an alpha for years. Well before he met Stiles.

He could hear the hostile clank of dishes in the sink. It rang through his ears like an alarm. He was in trouble. He needed a lie. One that Stiles would believe.

Derek was knelt in front of the entertainment center, dvd's in either hand when Stiles stormed into the living room. "We're going to talk about how lunch went, and how you know Andy. Also, don't try to make me think it isn't a big deal. You don't normally act like that. And don't you dare try and tell me it's nothing or that you're okay. I know you Derek Hale-Stilinski and that lunch was not you and you shutting me out and not talking to me definitely isn't you..." Stiles sucked in a breath and waited a moment before gesturing to Derek. "Okay, I'm done now you can speak."

Derek sighed, setting the DVD's in his hands on the entertainment center. He pushed to his feet. Lying to Stiles when he was already suspicious wouldn't help matters. So maybe he could just be vague. "I had an unpleasant run-in with his brother." Not technically a lie.

Squinting at Derek, with his hands on his hips, Stiles asked, "How unpleasant? Do I need to go over there with the rest of the pie laced with laxatives, or poison?"

Derek couldn't help the smile that tugged at his lips. He huffed a laugh, wrapping his arms around Stiles' waist to pull him in. "No, I was being an ass. I shouldn't have acted like that. I'm sorry. I promise to behave in the future."

Stiles melted into him and sighed in relief. "I like when you misbehave. I don't like when I feel far from you. Next time just slam the door in his face and tell me why we don't like them now." He nuzzled into Derek's chest.

Closing his eyes in a wince, Derek pushed away the guilt. How easy it was for Stiles to take him at his word. It made his chest clench. "Deal," he said, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. "I found the DVDs. Pick one while I shower."

Derek was tucked under Stiles' arm, his thumb rubbing absentmindedly along his knee. Captain America played on the TV across from them. It was one of Derek's favorite places to be. Curled up with Stiles. He only wished he could fully relax. Despite his comfortable state, his mind was anywhere but the scene on the screen in front of him. His ears were perked like a dog waiting on an intruder. Is that what he was reducing himself to? Stiles' guard dog? That wasn't what he wanted. He wanted a quiet life with his husband.

A gentle clunk made his heart leap. Was that upstairs? It couldn't have been the movie. This scene was too calm. Another softer thud had him sitting up suddenly. Stiles gave him a sleepy, confused look.

"We should make popcorn. I think the box with the popcorn maker got put upstairs. I'll grab it. You don't have to pause it." He said giving Stiles' knee a gentle squeeze before standing.

"I was just about to fall asleep, that's perfect. Popcorn will keep me awake. Do you want help?" Stiles offered, though Derek knew it was an empty offer, he always made the popcorn. Stiles got too comfortable and hated moving once the movie was going. Sure enough, he tucked himself further under the sherpa blanket as Derek rounded the couch. His keen hearing honed in on the obvious shuffling upstairs.

"No, I've got it. Keep the couch warm for me," he called over from the bottom of the stairs. Derek's patience for today was waning. He was going to rip apart whoever was stupid enough to break into his house. He hoped it was Andy.

The steps whined under his bare feet as he stalked to the top. His nostrils flared, searching for a foreign scent. He paused when a shadow crossed the floor of his bedroom. His claws extended. He expected the familiar smell of Andy to reach his nose, but it was someone new. Another wolf. A low growl escaped his throat. He was tired of people trying to break into his house. What did they want?

Derek stepped into the room to see a man by his, once locked, bedroom window. He stood tall, with dark hair, and olive skin. His arms were crossed over his chest.

"Took you long enough," The man said. His husky tone was almost bored as he leaned against the wall. He looked too comfortable.

"Let me guess, friend of Ansel?" Derek growled back.

"You know, I was disappointed when he didn't return. He was a good one. I'm guessing he's dead?"

"He wouldn't have been if he hadn't tried to break into my house." Derek glanced at the broken lock of the window.

"Right, about that. It was nothing personal, just business." The man smirked.

Derek's fangs dropped. "Nothing personal?" he scoffed. "What do you want?" he was going to get his answers before he killed this one, and he wasn't letting him get away.

"Well, not you." The man waved a disinterested hand as he pushed off the wall.

Derek's eyes narrowed.

"Surely you didn't think you were of interest? Frankly, I didn't even know he was married, much less to a werewolf."

Derek's blood ran cold. They were after Stiles. Before he could even register what he was doing, he had crossed the room. His eyes bled red as he closed the distance between them.

A brief expression of fear flitted across the man's face before his own eyes flared a dark crimson. So this was the alpha. Derek would be damned if he let anyone hurt Stiles.

Derek's claws dug into soft flesh. The lamp on their dresser shattered into pieces as the alpha's face smashed into it. Derek held his head against the top of the dresser, blood seeping onto the dark wood.

"If you even so much as think about hurting him—" Derek's words were cut off by a pair of claws raking across his gut. He stumbled back. Before he could regain himself, he was being tackled. He and the alpha tumbled into a pile of boxes, crushing them under their weight. Hastily folded clothes and blankets spilled out around them. Derek rolled to his feet and sank his claws into the man's ribcage, who snarled in pain. He was about to go in for a blow to the throat when he heard a cry of anguish from downstairs. Stiles.

Panic spiked through him. No. No. No. No. He should have known this was a distraction. Why else would they break in upstairs? He spun away from the alpha, his only goal now, to get to Stiles. A heavy thump had Derek scrambling down the steps in record timing. He almost didn't want to see what was waiting for him. Stiles' dead body? He couldn't bear it. He hopped the banister, not bothering with the last few steps. He needed to get to him. He landed in the foyer that opened to the living room, his claws and fangs still out on full display.

He barely got three steps forward before Stiles was skidding to a halt in front of him, his eyes wide.

"You're a werewolf?!" he exclaimed.

Relief and dread washed over Derek. Relief because Stiles was alive. Dread because Stiles now saw a side of him that he'd never wanted him to see.

A thud and snarl behind him had him spinning on his heels. There was still a threat. The alpha. He had to protect Stiles. Before he could strike, though, the small table that housed their one and only plant tipped. The vines of the Pothos Lydia had gifted them, whipped out and curled around the alpha's arms and legs. They climbed him, winding around his throat like a choke collar on a Doberman.

Blood poured from his ears and eyes as the vines punctured them. He let out a pained cry. It was choked off by green spilling from his open mouth. His face stretched like an Edvard Munch painting.

Derek took a stumbled step back as if he were afraid the vines would come for him next. The alpha dropped to his knees and crumpled to the floor. The green of the plant drained, leaving darkened vines and shriveled leaves draped over the now-dead alpha.

Derek's claws and fangs retracted as he spun back to Stiles, whose eyes faded from a vibrant glowing green. His hand was outstretched like Darth Vader. He lowered it, a panicked look on his face.

Derek blinked at his husband. His magical husband. "You have Magic?!" how had he not known? Before he could press further, his eyes fell to the spreading stain on Stiles' shredded blue shirt. The sharp smell of copper hit his nose. His stomach sank.

"You're hurt." He reached out, desperate to see how bad the injury was. But the look on Stiles' face made him unsure. God how he hated being unsure with Stiles. Was he afraid of him? Disgusted by him? He paused his outstretched hand.

Stiles looked down at himself as if inspecting the wound. "I'll be fine, really. It's actually helpful that you're a werewolf," he gave a weak laugh. His expression remained unsure, his eyes almost timid. "Can I touch you?"

Derek's heart cracked. Stiles never hesitated to reach out. Were things really so different now? Did this change how he felt about him? Fear crushed him. He wasn't ready to lose Stiles.

"Please," he whispered desperately. He needed to feel his husband.

Stiles gave a small smile, his eyes filling with tears. Despite the permission, he still acted as though he were afraid of Derek, slowly extending his hands and gently clasping his forearms.

"This shouldn't hurt at all. I'm just borrowing your ability to heal."

Derek didn't care if it killed him so long as Stiles was okay. Relief wafted from Stiles as golden light climbed through Derek's arms and to Stiles'.

"Take what you need." His eyes glanced passed Stiles toward the living room, where Stiles had been coming from before. What had happened? Someone had hurt Stiles. The scent of Ozone painted the air.

Stiles' grip on his arms loosened. Derek pushed past him, his eyes scanning for the other threat. "Who hurt you?" There was no evidence that anything had happened at all. Did they run away? Were they hiding? Waiting to pounce again?

He followed the scent into the living room. Stiles blew past him and yanked the blanket from the couch to cover a body. But it was too late. Derek saw the body lying three or four feet from the kitchen door. There was no way to tell who this figure was by the way the body was shriveled and fried. It resembled the plant that lay dead in their foyer. But the smell in the air gave away his identity. Andy.

Derek gaped at the blanket. He knew what magic could do, but this was beyond anything he'd ever seen. "You did this?" he asked, almost not believing that his sweet, adorable, spastic, husband was capable of such power.

"I-I um, yeah," Stiles answered sheepishly. "He came up behind me and I-I just reacted." He chewed on his bottom lip. "I had to get to you."

Pride swelled in Derek. His eyes didn't leave the blanket-covered body. "Oh. Wow," he breathed. Stiles was incredible. He'd always known it but this... this was unbelievable.

"I'm sorry." Stiles' quiet tone made Derek whirl around to where Stiles had retreated toward the door. His arms crossed over his chest in an anxious, protective manner.

"No, don't apologize. I just... all day I've been trying to keep you safe but... you never needed me." It was a painful realization just as much as it was a proud one.

A tear slipped from Stiles' eyes. "I always need you."

The sight of tears erased any reservation Derek had about touching Stiles. He crossed the room and wrapped him in a hug. Relief flooded him when Stiles didn't shy away, but instead nuzzled into him. He didn't think he could handle if he was afraid of him. It felt so good to hold him.

"I think we have a lot to talk about," he said.

"Just give me a moment. I just need to hold you to know you're okay. I thought—" The words caught in his throat. "I thought they'd kill you because of me."

Had Stiles known them? He pet the top of his head, hoping to comfort him. "Who were they?"

Stiles shrugged into the hug. "I don't know. From what Andy said it seemed like they wanted me for my magic."

"How long have you..." Derek pulled back to meet Stiles' eyes. Surely this wasn't a new thing. He was too powerful for it to be new.

"Been a glowy, magical, young, hot, Gandalf?" he teased. "Technically since birth, but I didn't get any of the cool magic till after my mom died."

"So the whole time." Derek nodded and huffed a laugh.

"How long have you been... craving Scooby snacks?"

Derek gave an affectionate eye roll. "Also since birth."

"So the whole time," Stiles laughed.

How much stress and guilt could have been avoided if they'd just been honest from the beginning?

"Damn, I missed an opportunity to give you a squeaky toy as a wedding gift." Stiles teased again. "So you're an alpha? Where's your pack?" he asked.

Derek's eyes softened. He pinched Stiles' chin gently between his thumb and index finger. "Right here."

Stiles reached up, swiping a thumb at the corner of Derek's mouth. "I doubt this would taste like cherry." There was a smear of blood. He wiped it on his already-stained shirt.

Derek smiled and surged forward. Their lips crashed together. Not ten minutes ago, he feared he'd never get to experience this feeling again.

When they pulled back, they pressed their foreheads together. Derek breathed in Stiles' scent. It was a comforting one. One that now that he knew, was layered with a certain arcane spice. How had he not noticed before? Perhaps, it was true what they said, ignorance was bliss.

The space between them doubled as Stiles pulled back. His eyes searched Derek's. "But no really, where's your pack? You can't be an alpha with just one puny human that didn't even know you were a werewolf."

Derek tried not to wince. He had wondered when Stiles would press about his werewolf status. It was a conversation he wasn't looking forward to. "My alpha status wasn't planned. Wrong place, wrong time. I never wanted this." He gestured to the dead body under the blanket. They would not be putting that back on the couch. Too bad, it was a nice blanket.

"How long have you been an alpha?" Stiles' tone shifted from curious to mocking. "Since birth?"

Derek huffed a laugh. "Five or so years. I haven't really kept up with it. I never took a pack." He'd considered it briefly. But the idea of not being part of his mother's pack had been too hard. He'd rejected the idea completely. It felt too much like a betrayal. A desperate attempt to save a young girl had turned into a police investigation and red eyes in the mirror.

Stiles' brows pinched into a sympathetic frown. He placed a hand on Derek's chest, like he was trying to guard his heart. "Derek that- that's awful. Being an alpha without a pack is a terrible way to live. You have nothing to draw from, nothing to hold you down. It would be like if I didn't have my magic. Pack is a part of being a werewolf as much as magic is a part of who I am."

Derek sighed. He had never imagined having this conversation with Stiles. He had hoped to never have to. But it seemed like this was the trajectory of his life. His mother had warned him that he couldn't escape it. He had thought he proved her wrong.

"Becoming an alpha was... the worst thing that could happen to me. It took me from my family. They were my pack. I never wanted another one. But a pack can't have two alphas. It disrupts the balance." He stared into Stiles' honey-colored eyes. "Then I met you. And I knew I'd never need anyone else."

"You're all I need too, but Derek I don't want you to deny a part of who you are to be with me."

Derek would deny any part of him if it let him be with Stiles. But he knew well enough not to say as much. Instead, he asked. "What about you? Where's your coven? Am I gonna find a broomstick in one of these boxes?" he gave a teasing smirk.

Stiles' mouth dropped open. "Do you think I'm a witch?!" he stepped back like Derek had struck him.

"Well, I don't know what you are." He gestured to the covered body again. "You're something."

"If you ever call me a witch again, I'm buying you a doghouse for out back. I'm a druid."

Those words struck Derek like a knife to the heart. A druid? No. He couldn't be. The room shifted around him. Or maybe it was just his entire life. His balance faltered, forcing him to take a stumbled step back. "Do-do you have an alpha?" Surely not. He would have smelled him. Unless he used his magic to hide him. The thought of smelling another alpha on Stiles was almost enough to make his wolf surface.

"Why would I? I already have one lug trying to tell me what to do." Stiles' tone was still light, teasing. But Derek's stomach was in knots as he listened for a lie. An emissary protected their alpha with their life. Stiles would be fully in his right to keep it from Derek. But he hoped he wouldn't. He hoped there was more respect and trust between them.

"You're an emissary though." His eyes continued to search Stiles' expression for any clue. If he had an alpha that would be almost as bad as finding out he had another husband.

Stiles squinted at him. A tell tale sign that he was being an idiot. "I'm a druid... I didn't specifically say I was an emissary. Derek, do you think all druids are emissaries? Because that's racist. I'm offended." He sneered in mock offense.

Derek blinked. "All the druids I've ever met are emissaries." Maybe Stiles didn't have an alpha after all. "Only alphas really deal with them. Why aren't you an emissary?" he tried to keep the hopefulness out of his tone.

The worry and fear drained from Derek. There was no one else. He almost felt guilty for being relieved. Poor Stiles had never known the love and safety of a pack. The alpha in him wanted to give that to Stiles more than anything. A sinking feeling dug into the pit of his stomach. "I hope I didn't keep you from finding that. You're incredibly strong. You'd make an amazing emissary."

"I gave all of that up when I met you. I had an opportunity out in New York. I almost left with a friend I had helped. He's a dryad and they had just lost their druid emissary. I realized what I had with you made me happier than that ever would. Sometimes I do miss it. Magic will always be a part of me." Stiles glanced down at his left hand and blue swirls of magic twisted between his fingers like a magician rolling a coin. "But Derek, don't think for one second that I'm missing out on what's meant for me."

"That's why he wanted you." Derek looked over at the dead alpha still in their hall. "You know, if you-if you wanted to be an emissary..." he trailed off. It was a scary thing to even consider, but he'd do anything for Stiles, even embracing this life. He stepped in, closing some of the distance between them, and threaded their fingers together. It was like sticking his hand into a frozen lake. Ice cold to the point it was almost painful. Almost. The blue swirled around their hands for just a moment before dispersing.

Stiles laughed. "Oh man, two seconds ago you thought all druids were emissaries. Absolutely not." Stiles squeezed his fingers.

Derek tried not to wince. It was hard not to take that rejection hard. But he understood. It wasn't something you did on a whim.

"I won't say yes to that until you fully know what it means. If you get sick of me you can't just divorce an emissary. Parting from an emissary is like ripping half of your soul away."

Derek fought to not scoff at Stiles' words. "I'd never get sick of you. Parting from you would already be like having half of my soul ripped away."

"Well, it's good you're stuck with me then." Stiles let go of Derek's right hand and threaded their left hands together before leaning in and pressing a kiss to where their wedding rings touched. "We can work towards it, but I have a feeling your emissary didn't tell you as much as they told your alp- Oh my god, Derek! Oh my god!" Stiles slapped at Derek's chest like he just realized something major. "Your mom is an alpha isn't she?!"

Derek was still reeling from his emotional whiplash of being rejected, before being told they'd work towards it to now being assaulted with questions about his mom. "Yes?" he frowned.

"Oh my god! At Christmas? At Christmas, they were all wolves?! How did I not know? This is insane! Your mom makes such a good green bean casserole and she's an alpha!"

Derek couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up in him. God, Stiles was so endearing. "You'll have lots to talk about next year."

"Next year? I'm getting brunch with her next week. I'm not waiting for Christmas. This is huge!"

Panic briefly gripped Derek as it always did whenever Stiles interacted with his family. But it didn't have time to settle. There was nothing to fear any longer. No huge, life-altering secret to scare Stiles off. It was out in the open now. Stiles could have brunch with his mother every day— wait. "You're having brunch with my mom?" why had he not been invited? Why didn't he even know about it?

"Yes, yes, they have bottomless mimosas downtown. We're going to go once a month. Not the point. Holy shit I can't believe it! Wait, when Cora broke her leg in South America and your mom went to get her was that werewolf shenanigans, or did she really fall down a mountain hiking? Oh my god, I have got to call your mother! Actually, do you think she's still up? We could go visit."

Derek put his hands on Stiles' shoulders. He loved that he was so eager to talk to his mother. It had always warmed his heart how much they loved him and how much he seemed to love them. But right now wasn't the time. "Stiles, we have two bodies we need to deal with. Let's surprise visit my mother tomorrow, yeah?" he couldn't help the fond look in his eyes as he met Stiles'.

"Oh, yeah, totally. What do you think we should do with them?" Stiles' eyes darted between the two dead wolves.

Derek glanced over his shoulder toward the back door. "I actually have a spot already."

"What for bodies?" Stiles snorted, like the notion was an absurd one. Never mind the fact that they had two dead bodies to contend with.

"Well, I had to do something with the one from this morning."

Stiles' smile dropped and his arms flung out before settling on his hips. "What do you mean the one from this morning?!"

"Remember the brother I mentioned?" He nodded toward Andy's body.

"You killed him!?"

Derek's brows rose. The shock on his face was just as much insulting as it was endearing. He stepped forward, sliding his arms through Stiles', and pulled him in so they were chest to chest. He had no idea the lengths Derek would go to to protect him. There was no one more important to him. He met Stiles' eyes. They danced like ice in a glass of whiskey. He smiled, "Isn't it obvious? I'd kill anyone for you."

#sterekweek2024 #sw24sun #sw24moon #sw24domesticbliss #sw24loveismurder #sterek fanfiction #sterek #stiles x derek #stiles and derek #teen wolf #werewolf #stiles stilinski #derek hale #sterekweek

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writeforfandoms · 10 months ago

Text

Waking Lions 22

Find the series masterlist

Here we are folks! Three more chapters after this. I will be posting one chapter a week until this is done.

Hopefully that's enough incentive to keep y'all from mobbing me. Hee hee.

Warnings: Canon typical violence, stressful situations, threats of violence, deceitful practices and language, swearing, injury.

Word count: 1.3k

John parked in front of the building, which looked as nondescript as ever. But it felt like it had been much longer since you’d last been here, longer than the hours that had actually passed.

Less than a day. Less than one full day you’d been gone, and your world had tipped sharply.

Thinking about it made you nauseous, so you shunted the thought aside. Kate. You were here for Kate. Everything else would wait.

“Stay behind us,” John insisted, handing you the gun again. He held your gaze, waiting until you nodded to release the gun to you.

You followed the two of them up the stairs, for once itching not to run away from something, but towards it. You needed to make sure Kate was okay, get her away from Gray and home safely to her wife.

Anything else, you could handle. But not losing Kate.

John slowed as the three of you approached the top floor. He shot you one single look, a very clear reminder to stay behind him.

You didn't need reminding. You had no intention of acquiring more bullet holes any time soon.

John and Roach went first, pushing open the door to the top floor and sweeping the space. You moved a little more slowly after them, swallowing hard.

Find Kate and leave. That's all you cared about.

The door to the conference room shattered with a gunshot from inside. John and Roach both moved, and you ended up being pushed into the wall by Roach. The second shot hit the wall harmlessly.

The fire alarm went off, likely pulled by someone on a lower floor. You grimaced at the loud siren, the extra noise doing nothing to help the situation. But Roach just motioned you to stay put.

What remained of the door opened with a crash. The mercenary had barely stepped out of the room before John shot him, the body falling in front of the door.

“I see you are still alive,” Gray called through the open door. “A pity my men did not do their job.”

“And they still won't.” John kept his fury leashed, voice cold. “Give up now and I might let you live.”

Gray laughed, sending goosebumps up your spine. “Such bravado! I am not surprised. But you see, you are outnumbered. I have something you want, whereas you… have nothing.”

Roach pushed you back harder into the wall, which was good because you had just opened your mouth to protest. Instead you made a tiny wheezing noise as half the air in your lungs was forced out by the soldier in front of you.

Fucking rude.

“That so?” John remained calm, staying out of sight of the open door.

“Price,” Kate said from inside the room.

You clenched your hands as tight as you could around the gun. Fuck. She sounded okay, but…

“Laswell.” John, somehow, was still not audibly responding.

“You see? Something you want.” Gray sounded far too smug.

John was silent for a few long moments, shifting his position just enough to be able to look at you and Roach. He lifted one finger to his lips, holding your gaze, and waited until you nodded to look away.

“I do have something you want,” John pointed out, calm but cold. He had a plan, clearly.

At least, you hoped he had a plan. If he didn't, he was faking it very well.

“You?” Gray laughed. “What could you have that I want?” Derision dripped from every word, his amusement clearly mocking.

John didn't seem to care. “Ace. And a way out of this building alive.”

“You think I won't kill you too?” Gray hissed, the still-screeching fire alarm only making him sound more unhinged.

“You're welcome to try,” John ground out, voice lowering to an absolutely threatening growl.

Silence from the meeting room for several long moments. If you had to guess, Gray was debating his options. Debating the best way forward to get what he wanted.

You fidgeted behind Roach, swallowing back nerves as best you could. It was not in your nature to stand by and listen to people haggling over your life.

Roach reached back and tapped you twice on the side. You weren't sure if that was supposed to be reassurance or a reminder to stay quiet. Either way, you drew in a deep breath.

“What is it you're proposing?” Gray asked finally.

John was quiet for a moment, and you could see his gaze flick to you. “An exchange,” he finally offered.

If you trusted him any less, you would have been outraged. As it was, Roach's tap to your side was unnecessary. You weren't going to jeopardize John.

“Intriguing,” Gray said, curious. “I do appreciate a man who can weigh the worth of two lives and choose one.”

Your jaw clenched tight at that, a memory slamming into you, of Gray standing before you father. Something about the weight of lives… But it was gone again, shoved back deep where you'd buried it. You needed to focus. Not fall apart.

“Then come out,” John goaded. “Get this over with before more people get involved.”

As if to emphasize his words, the fire alarm screeched once more and went quiet. The sudden silence was almost worse than the constant noise. Almost.

The silence stretched. Five seconds. Ten. Too long, much too long. Gray was planning something, he always was, John had to know–

Gunshots broke the silence, and Roach pushed you harder back into cover, obstructing your view as he did. But you could hear the gunfire continue, then a masculine shout. Two more shots, a little different sounding than the earlier ones. The sounds of a struggle - grunts and thuds.

Then three more shots, so close together you almost couldn't hear the difference.

“Do not shoot,” Kate barked.

You perked up, straining to try to see around Roach. He didn't move, keeping you covered for now.

There was a brief choking noise, spluttering, another thud. The steady beat of boots against the floor.

“Need help?” John asked, further away now. Glass crunched under boots.

“Move,” you hissed at Roach. “Let me see–” You pushed past him with a little bit of a struggle, half-running past the bodies on the floor without a second glance at them.

There were exactly two people you cared to see right now. The bodies weren't either of them.

You skidded to a halt outside the shattered glass door, peering into the room. Two more bodies on the floor, blood slowly seeping into the thin carpet. John, standing over Kate and Gray, where Kate had Gray pinned face-down in what looked like a truly agonizing hold.

Blood smeared from Kate's temple into her mussed hair and down her cheek.

The floor next to Gray's head caved in under the bullet, bits of carpeting flying away from the impact. Gray shouted something indistinguishable, thrashing a little under Kate.

“Ace,” John soothed, turning to face you. “We've got him. Give me the gun.”

You didn't give him the gun, gaze trained on Gray. On the man who'd haunted your nightmares for years.

“Ace,” John repeated. “Give me the gun.” One hand stretched out slowly towards you, careful not to spook you.

He needn't have worried. You would never shoot him.

Kate said your birth name softly, and your gaze snapped to her instead. She watched you, holding Gray down with little effort. The pain he was in likely helped with that. “I've got him,” she told you, steady and calm. “Steady.”

You blinked once, looking back down to Gray. He was no longer moving, breathing hard against the carpet. You hadn't seen him last time, when Kate had captured him that first time. You didn't know if this was quite the same.

But you did know that this time, you weren't a scared little girl.

“I'm sorry, Kate,” you said sincerely. “But you had him last time, too.”

You pulled the trigger.

#waking lions #john price x reader #john price x you #f!reader

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writingrock · 2 months ago

Text

the tale of two lovers [7]

pairing: barbarian! katsuki bakugou x reader (female) summary: a bard approaches a lone barbarian in search for a story to tell. Who could have known that the barbarian end up being such a romantic tale.

notes: fantasy au, fluff, strangers to lovers, slow burn, bakusquad, barbarian bakugou, violence, mentions of caves, mentions of spiders and goblins, descriptions of violence, mentions of cooked frog

word count: 8k

part list

part one: chapter list

a/n: I literally just finished writing this soooo ,,, not proofread :P

The cave’s darkness was stifling, pierced only by the faint glow of the floating light orbs you had conjured. Their soft light cast wavering shadows on the weathered rock walls as you and Bakugou moved forward. Your footsteps were barely audible against the oppressive silence of the cavern, the sound swallowed up by the vast emptiness around you. It had only been two hours since the both of you had risen from your uneasy rest, the air between you still heavy with the lingering cold.

Neither of you had exchanged much in the way of conversation since you both awakened. The only real interaction was when Bakugou had flicked your forehead to jolt you awake, grumbling something about how you’d been “grossly leaning on his shoulder” while you slept. You’d opened your eyes groggily, half annoyed and half embarrassed, but said nothing, pushing yourself upright and preparing to move.

Now, as the two of you pressed deeper into the cave, the silence continued to stretch between you. There was no need for words at the moment for the both of you knew to concentrate your efforts in finding your friends. The soft scrape of your boots against the uneven stone floor was oddly calming as you made your way through the tunnels, the subtle sound offering a welcome distraction in the eerie silence.

After what felt like hours of trudging through the labyrinth, the passage opened up into a small chamber, barely large enough to accommodate the two of you. The walls were etched with faded, ancient markings, some faintly familiar as forgotten languages. Symbols that hinted at the cave’s age and the lost civilizations that had once claimed it as sacred ground. Scattered relics lay broken and abandoned, remnants of a history that had long since turned to dust. The air was warmer here, a welcome change from the chill of the tunnels.

“What do you make of this place?” Bakugou’s voice piped up as he inspected the enclosed space. Squinting at the strewn about relics and eroded markings. He was curious, of course. He’d never been to a place like Niniel’s Veil, and now they were deep in the underground network of this cursed thicket. Besides, it gave him something else to look at after hours of staring at nothing but rocks and cobble.

You knelt, brushing your fingers over one of the carved symbols, feeling the worn grooves under your touch. “It’s ancient. They appear to be from a civilization that disappeared centuries ago. This cave might have been something sacred to them.”

Bakugou grunted, his focus more on your reaction than the history around the both of you. “So it’s just another empty room?”

“Maybe,” you said, standing and dusting off your hands. “But it’s more than that. It’s a reminder that we’re not the first to be here. They were here long before us, and now… all that’s left are echoes.”

Bakugou leaned against the wall, arms crossed as he studied you. “Do you always get this sentimental over old rocks?”

A chuckle escapes your lips as you push yourself up from your knees. “Not sentimental— just thoughtful. It’s easy to forget that we’re a small part of something bigger. What we do might be remembered, or it might not. But it matters to us now.”

For a moment, Bakugou was silent, his gaze shifting from the faded symbols to you. “You ever think about whether people will remember us? All the crap we’re going through?”

His question caught you off guard. In general, you weren’t even close to understanding how often Bakugou silently reflected on himself. Sure, you knew he was sharp and always thinking, but you hadn’t realised the full extent of it— the constant stream of thoughts and reflections he went through daily. What you saw was just the surface. Beneath it was a mind always analysing, evaluating, and recalculating, far more than he let on. Whether it was recent events or his own skillset. He was always analysing himself and others under a microscope. His mind never truly rested. Constantly pushing himself and others to be better, sharper, more prepared. He has a library of deep thoughts that he sifted through daily, though no one else could see it. It was a private, internal dialogue for only himself.

It wasn’t like him to be openly reflective, but perhaps your words had stirred something in him, forcing him to consider things he usually brushed aside. “Maybe,” you said, your voice quiet. “But even if they don’t, it’s enough that we know what we did.”

Bakugou shifted off the wall and walked over to you. “You’re a strange one, you know that?” There was no malice in his tone, it wasn’t meant to be an insult. It seemed you had surprised him more than he’d ever admit out loud.

You meet his gaze with the smallest smile. “Probably the closest thing to a compliment from you.”

He chuckled, focusing on you for just a brief moment. “Take it or leave it,” he said with a shrug. There was a pause as he considered his next words, sorting his thoughts out before he spoke again.

“You’ve got layers,” he added, his voice gruff, as if irritated by his own thoughts. “And that’s weird. I don’t have time to figure you out, but... I’m going to.” You’re not just part of the background.

His words hit harder than you expected, and for a moment, you paused, letting them sink in. There was weight in what he said, it was enough to make your heart beat just a little deeper, like a subtle warning that he was starting to see beyond the surface. You did have layers, more than you let on. A deeper part of you that you’d carefully kept hidden from most people. It was easier that way, safer. And yet, a part of you wanted him to try. There was something about the challenge of him figuring you out. Even if the truth might endanger you.

Those nights you spent talking about home, sharing fragments of your past, barely scratched the surface of who you both truly were. There was so much left unsaid, layers of history, pain, and vulnerability that remained hidden beneath carefully constructed defences. It was as if you were both dancing around the parts of yourselves that mattered most.

“I could say the same about you.” You sighed softly, maintaining eye contact with him. “Maybe we’re not so different. You just haven’t figured me out yet.” He, too, had his own mysteries, his own layers buried beneath that rough exterior. You found yourself wanting to dig into them, to see what lay beneath his grumbles and glares.

Bakugou’s gaze didn’t falter at your words. He didn’t say anything at first, just studied you with that sharp, calculating look he always had when sizing up an opponent or a situation. Except this wasn’t either. It was different. He let out a low grunt, his arms still crossed but the tension in his shoulders easing slightly. “You think you can figure me out?” he asked, his tone questioning your grit. “Good luck with that.”

“Save the luck for yourself, I just need time.” You dryly chuckle, letting it echo in the dark chamber.

There was a pause between you, thick with the silent secrets hanging in the air. You both had hidden depths that neither of you had fully explored. But the prospect of peeling those layers back and finding out what lay underneath, excited you more than you wanted to admit. It was dangerous, the kind of thing that could get messy, but maybe that’s what made it so enticing.

“You really think you can handle what’s underneath?” his voice toned down significantly, gauging your reaction with a furrow in his brow. A notion of a dare in his words.

You couldn’t help but laugh, the tension of the moment breaking slightly. “Oh my god, who knew you were the edgy, brooding type?” you teased, a smirk tugging at your lips.

Bakugou’s anger flared up at that moment, a vein popping out on his forehead. It was always jokes with you “Tch. Keep laughing,” he barked as he crossed his arms over his chest, snapping his head away from you. “Not everyone’s as simple as you think.”

You leaned in slightly, trying to look at him after you teased him and ruined the moment. “I know that. I just didn’t expect you to be so… dramatic about it.”

It wasn't long before he barked back. “Shut up. I ain't some dramatic, moody loser.” Sure, sure he wasn't. You can't help but laugh at him again, to which Bakugou responds with a sharp glare.

At some point, your laughter dies down and you take your time to think on his words. Looking at Bakugou with a softened expression as you truly considered his words. The challenge still hung over you both with a hint of humour. There was more to him, you knew that, but maybe uncovering it would take time— time you were more than willing to give. Was what he hid inside that bad for him to ask that question? You weren't sure but you were going to find out.

“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” you finally say. Seriously this time.

For a moment, you both just stood there, the air between you charged with the crackle of static, the palpable energy breathing life into that abandoned, ancient room. It wasn’t just about the journey anymore or the mission. It was about you and him, two people with walls built so high that the idea of breaking them down felt both terrifying and thrilling.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Bakugou finally muttered as he turned away slightly, the weight of his words lingering in the space between you.

You let out a small laugh, more to break the tension than anything. “Same goes for you, Bakugou.”

He glanced back at you. The mystery of figuring each other out— was it just going to be a game? No, it was real, and you were both in it now. “I guess we’ll see who figures out who first,” he spoke in an undertone, sounding serious yet there was a flash of warmer, something deeper.

“Guess we will,” you echoed softly.

The light orbs highlighted the sharpness of his features and the intensity in his eyes. Despite the rough edges, there was definitely something else there, something you couldn’t quite place. But you would be intent on discovering the man behind those hardened crimson eyes.

The tavern is a far cry from the caves. The warm, golden light from the hearth is one that the group wished they had when they were navigating those cavernous tunnels. Bakugou sits at the edge of the light, half-hidden in the flickering glow, his posture relaxed but his eyes distant, lost somewhere far from the safety of the room.

The bard’s fingers idly pluck the strings of his lute— a soft, absent tune that fills the lulls between words. Leaning forwards with widened eyes, not with fear but with the kind of fascination only a storyteller could have, he is eager to pull every detail into his next song.

“Oh, how treacherous!” he breathes, gasping softly whilst his legs swing with excitement. “To face such dangers and live to tell the tale— it’s no wonder you’ve got the scars to prove it. But tell me, how did you escape those dire straits? Surely, there must have been a twist, a desperate gamble?”

Bakugou stares into the depths of his mug. The memories linger, flashes of battle, of chaos, and the relentless push to survive. His fingers tighten slightly around the mug, the only outward sign of the turmoil beneath his calm exterior. “It was hard,” he says finally, his voice rough, almost distant. The simplicity of his words carries a weight that silence cannot. He doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t offer more than what is needed. There’s a quiet strength in his restraint, the kind that doesn’t need to explain itself.

You were tired of being stuck in this godforsaken cave. The faint, eerie glow of phosphorescent fungi barely pierced the darkness around you both. The cold stone pressed in from all sides, the silence almost deafening. Every second felt like an eternity as you moved forward, hoping to find your companions. A knot of worry began to form in the pit of your stomach, but soon you realised there was no time for that. You no longer had the luxury to worry.

The silence shattered. A sudden clamour echoed through the cavern as goblins burst from the shadows, their guttural cries filling the air. The sound of metal scraping stone and their footsteps growing louder sent adrenaline surging through you. Without hesitation, you and Bakugou shifted into position, instinctively falling back to back.

“On your right!” you called out, slashing at a goblin that lunged toward you with a snarl.

Bakugou reacted instantly, spinning around and slicing through the goblin with a swift, deadly swing of his scimitar. The creature let out a final shriek before crumpling to the ground. “I’ve got this side. You take the left!” he barked, his fist sparking up a ball of flame.

With a nod, you shifted your focus to the left, where a trio of goblins was attempting to flank you. You dodged under a wild swing of a crude club, driving your dagger into the side of one goblin before spinning and kicking another squarely in the chest, sending it crashing into the jagged rocks. Behind you, the metallic clang of Bakugou’s scimitar echoed as he made short work of the remaining attackers. His blasts filled the air with heat and light, the force of each explosion sending goblins flying.

A goblin tried to sneak up on Bakugou, creeping through the shadows with a dagger raised, but you spotted it just in time. “Behind you!” you shouted.

Bakugou whirled around, eyes blazing with fierce intensity as he swung his scimitar in a powerful arc, sending the goblin flying into the cave wall, where it slumped lifelessly to the ground. “These bastards just don’t quit,” he growled, slightly winded but still standing.

You wiped a smear of blood from your cheek, catching your breath as you scanned the dimly lit chamber. “Tell me about it.”

As if on cue, the last goblin fell, and an unsettling silence settled over the cave. You exchanged a tense look with Bakugou. There was no need for words; you both knew you had to press on. The cave grew darker as you ventured deeper, so much so you had to conjure up the light orbs again. You were trying to conserve your magic but it couldn’t be helped. Every step echoed softly through the twisting tunnels. After what felt like hours, faint voices echoed ahead, their familiarity felt like a lifeline. Those voices… could it be? There was no time to freeze or discuss, you and Bakugou quickened your pace. Rounding a final corner, you were met with the sight of Denki and Mina, bruised and exhausted but alive. Relief flooded through you as you stepped forward, ready to bring your scattered team back together.

“Denki! Mina!” you called out, relief flooding your voice.

Mina looked up, her face lighting despite the tiredness. Her genuine smile shining through. “Took you long enough!”

Denki, leaning against the wall to catch his breath, managed a weak grin. “You guys wouldn’t believe the crap we’ve been through.”

Bakugou scanned the area for threats before giving a curt nod. Huffing at his mates and masking his concern for them. “Save it for later. We need to get the hell out of here.” But he couldn’t hide it fully. All of you saw a trace of relief in his voice, a small sign that despite everything, he was glad to see them alive. The four of you regrouped, the exhaustion of the battle weighing heavily on your shoulders, but the simple fact that you were together again strengthened you to push forward.

Now, all that was left was to find Sero and Kirishima, but it wasn’t going to be easy. After all, it had taken you and Bakugou countless hours just to track down Mina and Denki. The cave felt endless, a sprawling labyrinth of shadowed tunnels and jagged rock formations that seemed to twist and turn in every direction. Each step only added to your growing frustration, as if the darkness itself were mocking your efforts.

You, Bakugou, Denki, and Mina moved cautiously through the cavern, your steps slow and deliberate. The only sounds were the crunch of gravel underfoot and the occasional drip of water echoing through the cavern, a constant reminder of how far you were from the world above. It was a haunting reminder of how easy it would be to lose yourselves down here. Every new tunnel looked the same, each shadow concealing untold dangers, and the simple existence of the unknown pressed heavily on your mind. No map, no compass. Just you and lady luck. Still, you pressed forward, knowing that somewhere in this underground network, Sero and Kirishima were waiting to be found.

The light orbs flickered, casting shifting shadows on the cave walls. You eyed them carefully, silently willing your magic to hold steady. The last thing you needed was for the light to fail you in this dark cavern. Now and then, the orb lights would catch on something unsettling— skeletal remains of a long-forgotten traveller, a grim warning of the cave’s dangers. A grim reminder of the cave’s dangers. But you refused to let that be your fate. It wouldn’t be the group’s fate either. You wouldn’t allow it. With each step, your resolve hardened. No matter how lost you all were, you knew you could get them out of here.

“How long have we been down here?” Denki muttered, his voice hushed as if speaking too loudly might stir something unseen. “Feels like days.”

Mina, walking beside him, kept her eyes focused straight ahead. Trying her best to mask her fatigue. “Too long. We’ve got to find the others and get out of this place.”

Bakugou said nothing, he stared intently on the path ahead. His eyes scanned every shadow, every crevice, diligently for signs of danger or a potential exit. You could sense the tension radiating off him— the way his shoulders were set, the iron grip he kept on his weapon. He was on high alert, and it was clear that every nerve in his body was wired for a fight. But it was impossible to miss how exhausted he really was. The slight sag in his body, the drag in his step. It all betrayed the weariness he was trying to hide.

The cave had taken its toll on all of you, sapping your strength and gnawing at your resolve. The bleak air, the identical rocks that made it feel like you were running in circles, the darkness you struggled to fend off with your dwindling magic, and the constant uncertainty were wearing everyone thin. Even after a brief rest, the weight of the journey bore heavily on your shoulders, each step forward a battle against exhaustion and doubt.

Yet, amidst the peril and gloom, there were fleeting moments of warmth—small gestures, shared glances, and quiet reassurances that broke through the darkness. It was these brief moments that kept you moving, fueling the determination to keep going, no matter how endless the cave seemed.

The group paused at a small cavern where a natural spring trickled down the rock face, creating a soothing, melodic sound that contrasted sharply with the eerie silence that had followed you for hours. Bakugou stood at the edge of the pool, his reflection rippling in the water as he bent down to refill his canteen. You approached, your footsteps light on the uneven ground, and knelt beside him to do the same.

“Think the gods are tossing us a small blessing?” you quipped, a wry smile tugging at your lips. It was a bitter irony, considering you were all still trapped in these twisted, unforgiving caves. How long have you had fresh water like this?

Bakugou snorted, glancing at you out of the corner of his eye. “Better than nothing,” he muttered, his tone dry but carrying a morsel of gratitude. Even in a place as bleak as this, the brief respite felt like a small victory.

Mina and Denki also bent down to refill their canteens, drinking quietly as they went in for seconds. You and Bakugou sat there for a moment, the quiet splash of water the only sound between you. The cave’s cold, oppressive atmosphere seemed to lift just a little, offering a rare moment of calm amid the chaos. As you finished filling your canteen, you found yourself lingering, your gaze drifting toward Bakugou. For once, the tension between you had faded, replaced by an alien quietude.

“You know,” you began, your voice softer than usual, hesitant but sincere, “for someone who’s barking all the time, you’ve got a decent side.”

Bakugou looked up, one eyebrow arching at your words. He paused halfway, the canteen hovering just before his lips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

You shrugged, a faint smile on your lips as you raised the canteen to take a sip. “Just that… I’ve seen how you are with the others. How you’ve been looking out for everyone. It’s not something I initially expected from you.” The cool water hit your parched throat, and relief washed over you. Finally water. It soothed the dryness, quenching a thirst you hadn’t noticed was that bad until now.

“Tch. Who else is going to take care of you idiots? You guys are hopeless without me.” His words are snappy but there isn't a bite to them. Bakugou's gaze drifted back to the water, the faint glow reflecting in his eyes. After a pause, his voice softened, almost as if he was speaking more to himself than to you. “But… thanks, I guess.”

You nodded, the silence settling comfortably between you, unpressured and strangely comforting. You’d both been through hell in this journey, and in those moments of survival, something had changed— a strange bond that neither of you wanted had formed somewhat. It was half-baked at best but it was still developing. You had known for a while now that Bakugou was softer than he let on, but you never voiced it. You never gave him a compliment or offered any kind of audible acknowledgment that he wasn’t as bad as he seemed. It was something you kept to yourself. But you figured it was time to take that step: to actually say it out loud. To acknowledge him, even if it felt awkward.

After a few more minutes of quiet, Bakugou broke the silence, his voice gruff but sincere. “You’re not half-bad yourself,” he admitted, still staring at the rippling water as if embarrassed by his own words.

You chuckled softly, caught off guard by his attempt at returning the compliment. Looks like he also had his thoughts on you. “Woah, that's high praise coming from you.”

He rolled his eyes, but a faint smirk slithers onto his face. Hiding it as he takes a gulp of his water. “Shut up or I’ll take it back.”

“Oh no,” you replied with mock drama, dragging the ‘no’ out a few seconds too long. “Taking it back? How horrible.” You feigned shock, placing a hand over your heart to which earns an eye roll from Bakugou. He manages to find a stray rock to throw at you but you dodge it which only makes him grumble. His reaction only made your grin widen as you capped your canteen and stood up. You extended a hand toward him, and after a moment's hesitation, he took it, allowing you to pull him to his feet. As soon as he was standing though, he quickly swatted your hand away, as if regretting the brief show of trust. Classic Bakugou. You couldn’t help but chuckle as the two of you turned to rejoin the others.

“Let’s keep moving,” he said, his voice slipping back into its usual hardness as he took the lead once more. And Bakugou’s quest was barely halfway done. There were still more artefacts to find, more trials ahead. It wasn’t over, not by a long shot. And right now, the biggest obstacle to overcome was getting his group together and getting out of the caves.

The four of you tread carefully through the cave, each step echoes off the damp stone walls, the sound unnervingly loud in the suffocating silence. The stench itself felt like a warning, a natural deterrent, urging you to turn back. But even if you wanted to, there wasn’t an option to do so. Kirishima and Sero could be in the very area where the foul smell was emanating. So despite your intuition warning you of the potential danger ahead, you keep your legs moving through the winding tunnels.

Rounding a corner, you stumble upon a chilling sight. Kirishima and Sero, cocooned in thick, white spider silk, hang suspended from the ceiling like grotesque, motionless marionettes. Their faces are slightly obscured beneath layers of webbing, their bodies disturbingly still. Even through the tangled threads, you knew it was them.

“Shit,” Bakugou mutters, his fists clenching as he glares at the eerie spectacle.

“We need to get them down,” you say, already stepping forward, but Bakugou grabs your shoulder, stopping you in your tracks.

“Wait,” his warning comes heavy with caution. Bakugou’s eyes quietly scan the shadows above, and you follow his gaze. Your heart skips a beat as you spot them. The glint of countless eyes reflecting the dim light. Cavern spiders— massive, grotesque creatures— are perched above, watching, waiting. Their fangs were pulled back, hissing at the group, poised to strike.

“It just had to be spiders,” Denki breathes, unsheathing his rapier, the blade trembling slightly in his grip. Goosebumps rippled across his arms. His quivering yellow ochre eyes darted from one spider to the next, anxiously counting their numbers as his breathing grew shallow.

Mina flexes her fingers, acid magic crackling at her fingertips. “Looks like an ambush.” The translucent acid pooled into a hovering ball above her fingertips as she concentrated, her eyes skirting through the horde of spiders to lock onto a target.

Before anyone can react, the spiders descend, skittering down the walls with unsettling speed. Their hairy legs moving in a frenzied blur, their beady eyes filled with hunger. How long has it been since they got fresh meat? They swarm from every direction, fangs glistening with venom as they charge.

Bakugou moves first, his scimitar cutting through the first wave of spiders with brutal efficiency. “Don’t let them get close!” he barks, his voice ringing with command as he slashes through the horde. His other hand summoned a fireball, and with a swift motion, he hurled it toward the approaching row of spiders, the flames crackling through the air as they closed in on him.

You draw your dagger and hack away at the thick webbing, slicing a path toward Kirishima and Sero while fending off the advancing spiders. One lunges at you but just before it reaches you, a sizzling splash of acid hits its body. Mina’s acid spell melts the creature into a twitching heap, its dying screech filling the cavern.

Denki fights alongside you, his rapier flashing in the dim light, cutting down arachnids with deadly precision. “Keep them off me!” he shouts, swinging his blade in a wide arc, severing several spiders at once as they try to overwhelm him. Bakugou stands at the front, holding the line with relentless force. His explosions light up the cave, launching fiery blasts at the swarming creatures, while Mina’s acid spells keep the creatures at bay, their sizzling hisses filling the air. The spiders shriek and screech, but their numbers seem endless as they press forward in a relentless assault.

Finally, you and Denki reach your restrained comrades. Kirishima is bound tightly in webbing, his normally powerful form limp and lifeless, hanging from the ceiling. Swiftly, you slice through the silk, and his body drops heavily to the ground. You check him quickly— unconscious, but breathing. Relief washes over you, but there's no time to rest. No time to waste.

“Sero, hold on,” you whisper, turning to your other friend. He’s also bound tightly in webs. You manage to cut the silk over his face and you get a view of how pale and clammy he is. As you free him further, you get a peek at a nasty wound on his leg seeping blood. You work frantically to cut him free, your hands moving with urgency. He falls into your arms as you slice through the last of the silk, his body weak and heavy against you.

“He’s hurt,” Denki says, his voice tight with worry as he fends off another spider, keeping the creatures from closing in on you. His rapier moves in swift, desperate strikes, but you can hear the strain in his breathing.

You don’t hesitate. Drawing on the last reserves of your mana, you press your hands to Sero’s wound, channelling healing magic into him. Warmth spreads under your palms, and the light of your spell begins to knit the torn flesh back together. Sero stirs, a weak groan escaping his lips as some colour returns to his cheeks. Silently thankful you had enough magic in you to heal his wounds. His breathing steadies, though his face remains pale. You glance up, catching Bakugou’s eye as he hurls another explosive blast at the advancing spiders. He’s holding them off, but for how much longer, you can’t tell.

As the healing spell takes hold, Sero’s eyes flutter open, just barely. His voice is weak, but he’s alive. “Thanks,” he croaks, managing a pained smile.

“You’re okay,” you murmur, more for your own reassurance than his.

With Sero stabilised, you and Denki quickly move to help him to his feet. His weight is heavy against you, but with the two of you supporting him, he manages to stay upright. Meanwhile, Bakugou and Mina are persistent with their attacks, dispatching the last of the spiders with brutal efficiency. Acid and fire scorch the cavern, and the remaining creatures screech as they retreat, fleeing into the shadows. The cave falls into an uneasy silence, the sound of retreating legs and dying hisses fading into the distance. Though the spiders had been driven back, the threat of them returning was still large.

Bakugou wipes sweat from his brow and turns toward the group, his eyes scanning the dark corners of the cave. “We need to move,” he says, his voice low and urgent. “No telling how many more of those things are lurking around.”

Kirishima, now on his feet but clearly shaken, gives a slow nod. Bakugou automatically moves to his side, helping him keep steady as they prepare to leave. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Kirishima mutters, his voice weary, still recovering from being bound in the suffocating spider silk. Who knows how long they’d been trapped there? If you all hadn’t found them, they would have been dinner for those spiders.

Now reunited, the six of you press on, relieved to have found each other alive. There had always been a gnawing fear that one of you might not make it, but the reality was far kinder than your anxieties. The fact that you were all together, ready to face the next challenge: getting out. The air grew colder, more suffocating, but it no longer bothered you as much. With everyone by your side, it was easier to ignore the elements.

The cave walls seemed to close in on all sides, the air cool and damp as you and Bakugou navigated the twisting tunnels. The flickering light orb in his hand that you taught him to cast, radiated light against the stone. You had exhausted your magic, so the task of supporting Kirishima had been passed to Mina, allowing Bakugou to provide the much-needed light. You walked side by side, the distance between you shrinking with each step. The only sounds were the soft scuff of your boots against the rocky floor and the faint murmur of conversation from behind.

“Hey,” Bakugou’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts. He sounds oddly softer in the confined space. “You holding up?”

Your head turns to peak at him, surprised by the unexpected concern in his tone. You couldn’t quite remember if you managed to keep a straight face or if your shock slipped through, but it didn’t matter— Bakugou did not react to your expressions that time anyway. You knew he cared about his team and always made sure everyone was alright, but he rarely voiced it, especially with you. “I’m fine,” you replied, a faint smile tugging at your lips. “Didn’t know you cared, Bakugou.”

He shifted his sights ahead from your words, grumbling lowly. His general intensity toned down due to the fatigue. You don’t blame him really, everyone is exhausted. “Just don’t feel like dragging your sorry ass out of here.”

“You ought to worry about yourself, you look like you’d be the first one to drop,” you teased, a playful glint in your eyes. It seemed you found a bit of energy to jest. It was hard to resist teasing Bakugou, even when every nerve in your body screamed for rest. There was something about pushing his buttons that made the weariness easier to bear.

Bakugou glanced at you sideways, his eyes narrowing slightly before he let out a begrudging huff. Even at a time like this, you could make jokes? “You think you’re real funny, huh?”

“On occasion,” you said, your smile widening as you continued forward. You can practically hear him rolling his eyes at you as the two of you walk through the caverns.

It felt like another few hours passed before any real progress was made in your journey, the endless stretch of dark, narrow tunnels becoming a blur. Every step seemed to blend into the next, and the crushing atmosphere of the cave weighed heavily on everyone's mental. Just when frustration threatened to bubble over, Bakugou’s sharp gaze caught something. A small glimmer of hope that might help the group finally find the exit.

“Look,” he said abruptly, nodding toward a small opening in the rock wall. “There’s a ledge up there. Might give us a better view of where we are.”

Without waiting for your response, Bakugou strode over and eyed the wall. He grabbed onto the rocky outcrop and pulled himself up with the ease and strength you expected to see from him. You watched for a second, then followed. Though your climb was less graceful, your foot slipped and sent a spray of loose pebbles clattering down the rocks below.

Before you could react or brace for impact, Bakugou’s hand shot out, gripping your arm firmly. “Watch it,” he muttered as he anchored you with his steady hold. “Be more careful, dumbass.” His touch was strong, grounding, as he carefully pulled you up to the ledge beside him. For a brief second, you could feel his heartbeat through the contact. The solid and reassuring drumming of beats on his wrist as he adjusted you onto the ledge.

“Thanks,” you murmured as you steadied yourself, making sure your footing was secure on the ledge. You took a deep breath, your heart still racing from the near slip, and gave Bakugou an appreciative look. That was close.

“Don’t mention it.” He released your arm but gave you a quick, assessing look, making sure you were really okay. Once satisfied, he turned his attention back to the task at hand. “Come on, let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

Crouching on the ledge, you both peered at the stretch of the cavern stretching out below. The vast expanse of the underground world seemed to pulse with an eerie life of its own, shadows shifting and swirling in the dim light. From this vantage point, the labyrinth of tunnels and chambers unfurled beneath you like a forgotten world carved into the earth. Twisting passages snaked off in every direction, each one looking as though it could lead to either salvation or a dead end. The weight of the unknown pressed down on you, but for the first time in hours, there was also a glimmer of hope.

“Impressive,” you said quietly, absorbing the sight. Your eyes tracing the paths below. "Looks like we’ve got options,"

“Yeah, but no telling which one's gonna get us out of here. We’ll just have to choose and keep moving." Bakugou grunted in agreement, his eyes scanning the network of passages as though he was calculating which would be the best path to take.

But when he glanced back at you, his expression softened. “You… uh...” He hesitated, clearly uncomfortable, his eyes darting away before settling back on you. “Fuck…” he muttered under his breath, as if forcing the words out. “You did good back there, with Sero and Kirishima,” he finally said, the roughness of his voice still present but laced with sincerity. “Could’ve been a little faster, but... you did good.”

You blinked as you processed his words. Was he… complimenting you? It seemed like the compliment you’d given him earlier had sparked an attempt to return the favour. It wasn’t often that Bakugou handed out praise, and you could tell he wasn’t used to it. Still, it felt like both of you were trying to ease up on each other, making an effort to bridge the gap. But you couldn’t resist teasing him for it. Letting it slide wasn’t your style.

“That’s the third compliment you’ve given me,” you said, raising an eyebrow with a playful grin. “Are the caves making you lose it?”

Bakugou rolled his eyes, but there was a faint smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Really? Figures I’d regret being nice to a moron like you.” His tone was sarcastic, but it was lighter than usual. “Just… you’re not bad for a mapmaker.”

“Thanks.” you murmured softly, “And you’re not bad for a barbarian,” you shot back, smirking as the familiar banter eased the weight on your shoulders.

The two of you lingered on the ledge a moment longer, the silence now lighter after the small back and forth between the two of you. Atop the ledge, overlooking the vast cavern, something had shifted, a small but significant change in how you saw each other.

“I think we’re finally figuring out how to work together,” you said, the realisation settling in as you spoke.

“Maybe,” Bakugou replied, his tone thoughtful, almost contemplative. “Doesn’t mean I’m gonna go easy on you.”

“Wouldn’t expect anything less,” you grinned, knowing that Bakugou would still be the same old him even if he liked you. Perhaps a little softer but still all the same. But for the first time, there was a certainty that whatever came next, you knew you could rely on him.

The two of you inspected the area from above for any promising paths. You sketched potential routes in your notebook, you and Bakugou quietly discussed which options seemed the most viable. The sound of the quill scratching against the paper fills the gaps in the conversation. There was little to no argument due to the high stakes of the situation. The group needed to get out, and there was no time for the usual bickering or careless mistakes. After some careful deliberation, you identified several potential routes that could lead to an exit. Each option came with its risks, but you wouldn’t stop until you found the way out.

“Come on,” Bakugou said after a moment, standing and extending his hand. “Let’s head back before the others think we’ve gotten ourselves killed.”

You took his hand, giving a nod of agreement. His grip was firm as he helped you up, and together, you climbed down from the ledge. This time being extra careful when getting down. Making sure your foot stepped onto the bigger chunks of rock. The path ahead felt a little less daunting now with the makeshift map sketched in your notebook, offering a glimmer of hope for the escape. The air still hung heavy with the weight of the unknown, but at least now, you had a plan.

As you both returned to the group, their anxious expressions softened slightly upon seeing you. “We’ve got a few paths,” you said, holding up the notebook as you shared your findings with them. Bakugou nodded in agreement, and for a brief moment, the usual tension between you all eased as you explained the routes. There was a sense of renewed determination as you all began to follow the new path, the glow of the light orbs casting a hopeful glow against the cave walls.

Every breath felt harder, every sound echoed unnervingly off the stone walls, and the constant feeling of being watched gnawed at the edges of your nerves. The only thing that kept you all moving was the sliver of hope from the newly chosen path. The air grew cooler as you descended deeper into the twisting tunnels, the damp scent of the cave clinging to your skin. But then, just as the weight of fatigue seemed unbearable, you noticed a subtle shift in the atmosphere. You paused, inhaling deeply. The air—it was different. Cooler, yes, but fresher too, like it carried something beyond the endless stone.

“Wait,” you murmured, lifting a hand to still the group. Everyone stopped, their breathing quieting as they tuned in.

Kirishima furrowed his brow, sniffing the air. “You smell that?”

You nodded, your pulse quickening. There it was—a faint scent of damp earth, almost like fresh rain on soil. And... pine? The scent of trees, distant but unmistakable, filtered through the air.

The rest of the group perked up, their exhaustion momentarily forgotten as hope surged through the ranks. Mina took a deep breath and smiled faintly. “That’s the smell of the surface.”

Excitement rippled through the group, an unspoken understanding passing between all of you. If the air was changing, if you could smell the world above, then you were getting closer. “There’s an exit nearby,” you said, hope threading into your voice.

With renewed energy, you pressed forward, following the path with a sharper focus. The narrow tunnels slowly widened, the jagged rock formations giving way to smoother, more natural stone. The air continued to shift, growing cooler and fresher the further you went, and the oppressive feeling that had weighed on you for hours began to lift.

The sound of trickling water reached your ears, and you soon came upon a small underground stream, its clear waters reflecting the faint light from your orbs. It was another sign— water that likely flowed from the surface. The tunnel sloped upward now, a slow but promising incline, and the scent of pine grew stronger with every step.

You exchanged glances with Bakugou, the unspoken hope mirrored in his intense gaze. “We’re close,” he muttered, his voice rough but full of determination.

The group quickened their pace, moving toward the promise of freedom. And then you saw it, a faint sliver of light piercing through the darkness ahead. The cave walls widened, the rough stone gradually giving way to a natural opening, and the soft rustle of leaves reached your ears, a distant yet welcoming sound. The light grew brighter with each step, guiding you forward until, at last, you emerged into the open air. The cave had spat you out at the edge of a dense forest, towering trees stretching overhead, their leaves whispering in the gentle breeze.

You all stood still for a moment, drinking in the sight of the forest and the cool, fresh air, the collective relief palpable as the tension from the cave slowly ebbed away. The sky was beginning to lighten, dawn creeping over the horizon, painting the landscape in soft shades of pink and orange.

“Finally,” Kirishima breathed, running a hand through his hair. “Thought we’d never make it out.”

Sero, still leaning on Denki for support, managed a weary grin. “I never doubted us… well, almost never.”

Bakugou exhaled, scanning the surroundings for any immediate danger. Satisfied for the moment, he turned back to the group, his voice softened by a hint of relief. “We’re not out of the woods yet, but we’re out of that damn cave. Let’s keep moving.”

The group nodded, spirits lifted by the sight of the open sky. Though the journey was far from over, the world felt a little brighter, and the weight of the cave was now just another challenge left behind. And with that, you all began to make your way out of the cave.

As much as the rest of you wanted to push on, the cave had drained every ounce of energy from your bodies. Your mana supply was dangerously low, and Sero’s injury, though healed, had taken a toll on him. Everyone was exhausted, the weight of being lost in the labyrinth pressing down on your spirits. So there was a discussion made on recovery. Eventually, it was agreed that the team needed at least a full day of rest. The rest was necessary, even if it meant delaying your journey. Bakugou wasn’t happy about it— his scowl deepened with each passing minute— but he begrudgingly accepted that rest was needed.

It was already the evening so it only felt appropriate to set camp up. The group settled into a familiar rhythm, the forest around you offering a temporary sanctuary from the harrowing journey through the caves. Denki had managed to catch a few frogs in a nearby stream, and though they weren’t the most appetising option, they were food. The fire crackled softly as Bakugou expertly roasted the frogs over the flames, discreetly examining the group to ensure everyone was holding up.

You sat apart from the others, leaning against a sturdy tree, the rough bark pressing into your back as you tried to gather your thoughts. The remnants of the cave still clung to you— the bleak darkness, the fear of being separated, and the close call with the spiders. The forest’s night sounds barely registered in your mind, overshadowed by the fatigue that gnawed at your bones. Despite the relative safety of the forest, the exhaustion and tension of the journey refused to leave your body. Even in the fresh air, it was hard to shake the feeling of being trapped.

“Oi.”

The sudden sound of Bakugou’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts. You looked up to see him standing over you, a roasted frog speared on a stick in his hand. The firelight cast flickering shadows across his face, softening the sharp lines of his usual scowl.

“You gonna sit there all night, or you gonna eat?” He asked, holding the speared frog closer to you. The musky scent wafted up from the roasted frog, and you hesitated for a moment. You’d never eaten frogs before.

You raised an eyebrow, inspecting the roasted frog meat before returning your attention to Bakugou. “I’m surprised you didn’t eat them all yourself.” You managed a tease as you slowly felt hunger creep up on you.

“Tch. Just take it,” he huffed, thrusting the stick toward you.

You accepted the offering, the heat of the roasted frog warming your cold fingers. For a moment, your hands brushed against his, the brief contact sending a surprising jolt of warmth through you. He lingered for a second longer than necessary, his gaze flickering to your face as if searching for something, but then he turned away, stomping back to the fire with a grumble.

“Hope it doesn’t taste like leather,” you called after him, taking a tentative bite.

He shot a look over his shoulder, watching you take a bite as he grunts. “Better than starving.”

The frog wasn’t exactly a gourmet meal, but it was surprisingly tender, the meat slightly smoky from the fire. You found yourself appreciating the effort, though you’d never admit it out loud. Bakugou returned to his place by the fire, his back to you as he resumed tending to the rest of the frogs. The night pressed on, the fire burning low as the group settled into a more comfortable silence. The exhaustion from the cave still lingered, but now that you were all together and resting, there was a sense of comfort. The weariness remained, but the shared peace made it easier to bear.

The forest was alive with the familiar sounds of night-loving creatures, the cool breeze rustling through the leaves, carrying with it the scent of earth and smoke. You leaned your head back against the tree, closing your eyes as the warmth of the fire and the food lulled you into a state of near-relaxation. Bakugou’s gruff kindness lingered in your thoughts, the gesture from earlier and the subtle moments back in the cave. It all confirmed what you’d begun to suspect: there was more to him than you initially believed. Your first impression hadn’t captured the full picture. He wasn’t just a hotheaded loudmouth with zero patience (though that still rang true); beneath all that intensity was someone far more complex. That there was someone gentler beneath all that, someone who, despite everything, still made sure everyone was being taken care of.

There was definitely more to him than you had initially thought.

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a/n: i hope this was alright,, I had such a busy week beforehand. @chocogoldie @devils-adversary @l0kisbitch @miikii0 @onlyisaa @sleepisfortheweakpooh @helena-way07 @enzstr

border credits: @/enchanthings & @/adornedwithlight

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