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alluringjae · 3 years

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until dawn; pt. II - ljn

part I | part II

⤑ summary: basic number one rule of the museum is not to touch the art. but no one told jeno that falling for one of them isn’t allowed either.

⤑ pairing: jeno x female reader

⤑ word count: 12.2k

⤑ genre: ANGST, fluff, romance, smut (f receiving, dom!jeno waow, dirty talk, wrap it everyone) | broke architecture major!jeno, historical figure!reader, enemies to lovers!au, college!au, night at the museum-inspired!au

⤑ warnings: references to actual historical figures, explicit language, graphic details, major heartbreak caused by another party, expect time jumps too

⤑ author’s note: happy jeno day!! i’ve been so excited to post this part, and i’m happy we’re here!! perhaps, this is the last long fic i’ll write for a while so i can rest, but i’ll still be posting short stories within the weeks to come! i’m excited for may to say the least hehe

btw, for the smut scene (indicated with **), i highly recommend you listen to strange (feat. hillary smith) by kris bowers!! this song is from the bridgerton soundtrack, and oh man, the feels!!

with that, enjoy!

italicized text either means they are personal notes or flashbacks.

this was meant to be more angsty, but either way, i screamed every time i wrote something gut-wrenching.

⤑ taglist: @renjunniehome

⤑ ctto above!!

⤑ leave me some feedback, constructive criticism, or hellos!

“You ready to get your butt beaten by me, Lee?”

“Prepare your final words when I win instead, (Y/L/N).”

Mischievous banter exchanged between you two became a new norm. Almost every night, someone within the art pieces established a contest over anything and it released the competitive sides of you two. So far, Jeno has been winning. Not like it hurt your pride, but maybe just once, you could conquer one game to feel better. Not only that, there’s a mini penalty for the loser. So far, you’ve cleaned up the lobby yourself and acted cutely to everyone the entire evening (or aegyo as Jeno called it).

Tonight, a game of archery was held by the Greek gods. They pushed away any extra pieces away, leaving the whole room vacant with two boards right beside Zeus’ throne. Numerous arrows were produced and sharpened, Zeus in the center announced to everyone participating.

“It’ll be 1 on 1 games. First to go are Jeno vs (Y/N), followed by Athena vs. Hermes, Cleopatra vs. Freddie, and last would be Hades vs Aphrodite.”

Cutting the chase, you didn’t expect Jeno to be that good at archery. Sure, he told you that he took classes with his friends for fun when he was younger, though it showed that he’s a fast learner and even hit one bullseye in the middle of the game.

Not slightly threatened until the last rounds, you fixed your aim and lessened your overthinking when preparing to shoot. Thus, you scored 2 bullseyes shot. It was a close fight, having the audience on the edge on their feet again because it’s the two of you. Your dynamic with the night guard always elevated the mood, shifting their bets over and over again.

By 1 point, you received your first victory against Jeno. Unlike you, he showcased his sportsmanship sweetly without any comments of disbelief. He’s never bragged about anything big in his life, not unless it’s a high grade for his plate. Normally, he celebrated wins in a laid-back manner. But don’t be fooled: he loves giving penalties.

“This is why I don’t make bets with my friends because I really go for their weak spots.”

“You’re cynical, Lee Jeno.”

“Only if you’re close to me, (Y/N) (Y/L/N).”

“Aren’t we already past that stage?”

Almost halfway through his job, he sustained a meaningful friendship with you. Out of everyone, you were his default person to hang out within the nights he had a shift. If he wasn’t present, he made sure to give you small treats or gifts as much as possible. An innocent friendship, it was that the world would’ve never believed in.

Or was it?

“To celebrate your win, what do you want me to do?”

“You’re too kind for me to play around with, even if you’re the complete opposite of me.”

“I’ll make it simple and worthwhile since I don’t know when I’ll win a game again.” As your finger tapped your temple as you pondered deeply, a smart idea came through. “Grant me 3 wishes.”

He chuckled, lowering himself to view you better. “Am I like some genie now to you?”

“No room to complain, I won, didn’t I?” You grinned, raising one brow to show your dominance.

“You’re petty in your own way, aren’t you?”

“Perhaps. Now come on, I want to use my first wish.” You shrugged it off like no big deal, loving the high feeling of triumph. You lead him to the center of the lobby, where a beautiful grand piano only selected people get to play during exhibits. “Open the museum piano.”

Ever since you were brought to life, you never used it. Tempting but because people from the outside might here, maybe it’s time to try something new. A new challenge, and besides, you missed entertaining people through it. The last time you touched the delicate piano keys was to your family before you ran away.

It’s a good thing that in the shackle of keys Jeno held, the needed key was there. Unlocking the lustrous black instrument, you sat by the matching black bench. Crackling your fingers, you tested by pressing a few keys to get the hang of it again.

“What are you planning to play, (Y/N)?” Jeno leaned against the side, his arms crossed.

Humming the first notes of your piece, the nostalgia ran through your veins. “Nocturne No. 2 in E flat by Chopin.”

Your fingers took off and played each chord slowly and calmly. This piece reminded you the most of your mother, who sat by the couch in front of your old piano with your father while guests from the party they hosted crowded around you. Being the youngest, they often requested you to perform as entertainment so you always put your best foot forward. Or so you tried.

Nevertheless, no one else in your family was capable to play this piece as perfectly as you. By the way your eyes closed and your body swayed to the mellow tune, Jeno observed how you memorized this piece by heart. A passionate flame you were, outshining every pianist out there.

He wasn’t surprised at how multi-talented you were, though there’s a different kind of aura you present when you played the instrument. From your hard and tough front, you could be soft and sweet to the right people.

In a way, you showed your comfort toward the boy by serenading him with the piano. Sketching him with him in the past was one thing, but this was another. You’d sketch with people you’ve grown used to, but you play piano to people you want to cherish in your life. As dangerous as it seems, Jeno was someone special to you, only wanting to have good moments with him.

Junmyeon will always have a huge part in your museum life, but Jeno filled the emptiness that he left behind. This loneliness for a human friend vanquished thanks to Jeno, and you didn’t want to jeopardize it at all. Sure, whenever he acted like a gentleman around you, let you inside the Foreign Art Room, or brought you food sometimes, you couldn’t help feel honored.

Though lately, every time he showed off his strength when he defeated Zeus and Hades during an arm wrestle game the god held again. You seriously had to catch a breath at every flex his arms made, like the goddesses. Maybe how he pushed his black hair back when he’s drawing another plate, you’d give yourself a few extra seconds to see his long fingers skim through them. He’d bit his lower lip when he’s in too deep with his creativity, wondering if he’d bite the lower lip of the girl he’d ki-

All right, (Y/N), relax. Maybe you’re thinking this way because it’s been decades since your last relationship. You wouldn’t want to fall for another possible trap and hurt yourself again, right?

Ever since this job, Jeno’s university life drastically changed. Yes, he still hung out with his friends and performed extremely well in his classes, though he prioritized anything related to the museum wherever he was. If they were drinking out, he’d buy an extra bottle of soju for you on his way back to the dorm. Rarely does he get shitfaced anyways.

If he and Renjun visited the bookstore to purchase pens or any art-related materials, he always bought either an extra sketchpad or set of pens. Even if you were simply a figure to everyone else, he appreciated the bond you both developed.

Every night, he’d tell you about his day from the start. Normally, it consisted of a lot of schoolwork and coffee, some stories about his roommates too. Speaking of them, he’d insert a lot of humorous words about his entire group of friends, whom you learned their names too.

Mark, Jaemin, Renjun, Jisung, Chenle, and Donghyuck, each of them presented a different color in their group. Jeno, who’d admitted to being shy and quiet, grew out of his shell because of them. A friend of Jeno’s would automatically be a friend of yours, if only you were allowed to leave the museum or become a human.

Jeno learned more about your past explorations that never got documented because you no longer had an interest in jotting them down. They were adventures you’d kept to yourself, memories only close to you then would know. Except now, Jeno was another addition. You’re not the type to instantly open to people, though again, a sense of relief surrounded him every time you encounter each other. It grew gradually like a warm hug, softening your heart and breaking your walls.

The more he spent time with you, nothing feared Jeno the slightest. He’s always maintained himself intact, avoiding lines to be crossed and giving respect to those who deserve it. However, he began to question himself where exactly his feelings lie with you after Jaemin tried to set him up on a blind double date just so the best friend of his date wouldn’t feel left out.

He’s rarely one to get crushes on people, even when other girls in his college openly showed their affection towards him. Valentine’s Day or his birthday, several girls sent him chocolate or flowers. Jaemin and Renjun got sick of girls reaching out to them first so they could reach him. It’s not because he’s not the dating type, but because he’s so goal-oriented that unlike his roommates, he doesn’t have a slight clue about dating.

Though one-night stands while at a party and dating were completely different, he’d still say he had experience with girls. Plus having an older sister, he never took advantage of them. He’d rather tell them in person that the feelings weren’t mutual than ghosting them. He’s not like Jaemin anyways.

With that, he’s so lost when his heart beats twice as fast the second you’ve woken up from your posing slumber. He doesn’t comprehend how flustered he’d be when you highly insist to help him with his plate or how cute he finds it when you’re playing fetch with Mochi. On top of it, when you chose to sketch each other for one of your sketching sessions, he’d take a longer stare at your visage before he drew some strokes.

A lot of historical accounts mentioned how your beauty was the standard of the Victorian era, wherein you were the jewel of your neighborhood and numerous men wanted your hand. Women envied you, especially having high intelligence skills that were equivalent to a man. That time, that felt like a threat to most men. Though surprisingly, it turns out there were men who liked intelligent girls.

Jeno knew he liked you as a friend, though liking you past that he didn’t intend. Nor was it allowed because it’ll break one of the golden rules. Before he’d go beyond contemplating, he had to stop himself. This was so unlike him. The feelings will fleet away, he’d repeat to himself. Don’t waste a great friendship because of your silly emotions.

Individually, both of you swallowed these harboring feelings down your guts and simply kept your friendship status safe. Doing your typical activities or whatever else you could think of, none of you minded to change it whatsoever.

Unknown to you though, it was obvious to the other art pieces ones that you two practically passed off as young lovers. Although they know that pushing one towards the other went against the rules, Aphrodite begged to differ.

“Holding them back from expressing what they really feel just because of the law here is a tragedy. They should at least try, you know?”

On another typical night, Jeno invited you to the Theater Room for a movie marathon. After finding out that you’ve never seen any moving pictures, he wanted to be there to introduce it. Luck was on his side to not have plates or requirements due for the week and everyone was behaving themselves, so he started with rolling out short films from the 88mm projector. Having premade popcorn and drinks, the two of you shared roars of laughter and emotional tears.

Switching to the cd player for longer and clearer films, you’d opt to believe that you were born at the wrong time. With all these advancements, it came with a lot of new beliefs. One of them was allowing women to study and work. Then again, she was a pioneer according to historians. Without her, it wouldn’t help shape society as it is today.

Nonetheless, this movie Jeno played on the big screen was what he defined as “one of the classics”, 10 Things I Hate About You.

This outspoken character named Kat was presenting a poem to her class, trying to hold in her raw emotions towards Patrick, the boy who broke her heart. Too engaged, you didn’t notice how Jeno stretched his arms out so he could wrap one around your shoulder. Not that you were complaining, his warmth reassuring you safety.

“I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you drive my car. I hate it when you stare. I hate your big dumb combat boots and the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme. I hate it, I hate the way you're always right. I hate it when you lie.” The way she attempted to keep her strong ground only reminded you of where you were weeks ago, especially once she excruciatingly broke down.

“I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry. I hate it when you're not around, and the fact that you didn't call. But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.” Only when you leaned back to the chair, you felt his arm. His thumb caressing your covered shoulder, you peeked him a little bit. His eyes fixated on the screen, absorbed in the acting and how Kat’s tears weren’t scripted as she stormed out of the classroom.

Not that you were her, but it sparked the past memory of how you merely disliked him because of his job. But as a person, not even close, not even once did you hate him. How blessed that he never judged you for it, staying patient all this time.

Right before he could look back at you, you moved your face back to resume your watching. Jeno definitely noticed what you did, though not sure as to why. Whatever it was, it wasn’t harmful.

Once the film ended, Jeno checked his watch for the time. 4 am, he wanted to do something else now instead of film viewing. You were on par with it, wanting to walk it out after being seated for hours. As you both cleaned up and bid the posters outside goodbye, the doors to the museum were locked unexpectedly. Impossible on Jeno’s half because he had the keys for every room, but he double-checked his bunch.

Alas, the keys for these doors specifically were missing. But there was no other way anyone could’ve gotten it, plus it’s not like the last person he talked to, which was Aphrodite, would need it.

Or did she?

Rather than putting any blame on each other, your only wish now was to return to your section before sunrise. You and he could just relax momentarily before yelling for help.

“Maybe we should watch another film first?”

“Alright, you choose while I return the rest.”

As Jeno inserted the cd of Cinema Paradiso inside, the background music of the opening played. He hummed the first notes, already feeling the love from this film. Another must-see classic as recommended by Renjun, he wanted to rewatch it with you.

Slowly returning each cd and film roll to their respective drawers, the melodious theme had you waltzing in the small space. Even beyond your life, classical music never gets old. Aging like fine wine, sounding spectacular as time passes because of people’s creativity.

Jeno gazed over your sudden movements, smiling uncontrollably at how immersed you were as you multi-tasked. However, you took a wrong turn by the desk and almost dropped a priceless film roll. But before you fully slipped and fell, a pair of strong arms caught you at the right time. Panting from the nerves, mostly when he was inches from your face. Never has he pressed his body this close to you to protect you, and never have you seen his captivating eyes this up close.

As enchanting as the background music of Ennio Morricone was, it only became noise once Jeno took ahold of the film roll on your hand and placing down on the desk. Taking another step closer, you were backed up by the edge. Not to mention how his height dignified his impact on you, your arms were still situated by your side with nowhere else to go.

That was until his finger elevated your chin so he could meet you on eye-to-eye level. His other hand gripping your waist, you became brave enough to place your hands by his broad shoulders. Licking your lips, you glanced at his lips quickly. But he noticed it, and as risky as this was, it was a leap of faith to take.

“May I kiss you?”

Always such a gentleman, even when he already knew how much you desired him through your returning affections. Calming your breath patterns by the speed of everything occurring, you came back to your senses. He’s the one who constantly told you not to forget your roots, so you were going to take this one.

You trust him, and he does too.

“Yes.”

Since the first film, some kind of tension increased the closer he moved or intimate his actions were towards you. You kept pushing it back in hopes not to ruin what you both have. But it only turned out to be mutual, especially how none of you held back as soon as his lips passionately clashed yours.

Tangling your arms around his neck, you stood on your tiptoes to press even closer to him. Feeling his lively heart pumping against your hollow chest, you bit his lower lip. Something you’ve secretly craved to do, he growled from the pleasure. He hoisted your waist to the desk, his impatient hands earnestly traveling all over your body. While your legs locked around his torso, your feisty nature leaned back so your entire body lied on the small desk.

Jeno was on top, placing one hand down to hold himself while the other squeezed your waist firmly. Even if you’re made of wax, you’re like an actual living woman at night. Everything about you becomes real until dawn. You emitted vulgar moans, giving him more access to your neck. Peppering a mix of soft to hard kisses, your hand teasingly snaked under his shirt. He really wasn’t joking when he bragged that he was quite ripped since he enjoyed sports and going to the gym, cupping a part of his toned abdomen.

“If you want something, all you have to do is ask.” He sluggishly sucked the area between your ear and neck, one of your weakest spots. “What’s on your mind, baby?”

The growing moistness in between your legs left a stain in your panties, trying to close your legs out of embarrassment. It’s been decades since you’ve been stimulated like this. However, Jeno beat you to it as he trailed the hand that was on your waist and lowering it right above your covered sex. He cupped it agonizingly slow, making you folding your leg from the pleasure. For a man who doesn’t date around, he knew exactly what he’s doing.

“I just kissed you, and you’re already this soaked. Can you handle me, baby?”

As the strong woman that you present yourself to be, it would selfishly take the right touch from the right man to weaken you. With his savage lips back on yours while your hands clutched on his shirt, he was simply waiting for a verbal answer, yet driving you completely mad. Everything was happening so fast, and here he was to please you in anywhere you seem fit.

You were deprived, and oh, you needed it more than ever.

However, seconds before you replied, there was loud rumbling from the main doors which stopped your devilish antics. As Jeno moved back from you to see the ruckus, you lifted yourself back up, pulling back your dress sleeves and flattening out the creases. The last thing you wanted was a trail of familiar red marks from the aggressive male, finding any reflective surfaces to check.

“I wouldn’t be that dumb to leave you hickies now, would I?” Jeno ended your worries as he placed his hands by your side again. His face leaned towards yours again, reliving the warmth in your cheeks. His lips were plumper, catching traces of your coral lipstick smudged there down to his jaw. He slotted himself again between your legs, grazing a hand on your waist and the other to your warm cheek. “The door’s unlocked now, and it’s 5 am. Do you want to clean up now?”

You playfully scoffed, aware that neither of you had plans to do that yet. Such a player while in the heat of the moment.

“Spare me 15 more minutes with you first.”

Hiding the romance you’ve both built failed without trying. Aphrodite spotted all the signs from your open physical affection and words of admiration, calling you two out in front of everyone without shame. She is the goddess of love, after all. You couldn’t fool her even if you tried.

Plus, she’s the one who locked the two of you up in the Theater Room that night. But neither of you know that.

“Sketch my ideal home?” Jeno bent down to the table, testing out his newly bought pens so they wouldn’t spill.

“Isn’t that why you decided to pursue Architecture in the first place? Come on now!” You pestered across him, opening your new sketchpad since your last one ran out of pages. As expected, Jeno bought you one when he went to the bookstore. As much as you insisted not to because he should use the money somewhere else, he did it anyway. He loved your works, encouraging you in any way he could.

When he was reminded of his humble beginnings of his passion for architecture by you, never had he envisioned exactly how his perfect home would be like. Settling down was so far beyond his mind, only focusing to graduate university then study for the licensure exams. However, he did miss drawing something for fun, not as a requirement. He also was the one who took charge of designing his dorm.

“Fine, only if you draw what your ideal home would’ve been if you never left London.”

Now as lovers, the only addition to your relationship were the public and private exchanges of affection. Deep conversations, film viewing, back and forth banter, you’re both still the same competitive duo everyone expected to be together. In public, the two of you held hands, hugged, kissed each other cheeks too when it felt right. Cleopatra’s face of fake nausea was priceless every time, while Princess Diana, Anne, and Katherine enjoyed it. It’s been years since they’ve seen this glow of adoration in you. Bit by bit, you’re going back to the old you. Except now, you’re a lot stronger.

Perhaps, this version of you proved wrong for the need for romance. Even if you made the choice not to settle down then, it would’ve been different if Jeno was in your universe then.

“Are you done there?” Jeno asked while you were finishing up your masterpiece. Life in London sounded fun when you were younger, having all these ideas on interior design and the like. An innocent time.

Instead of replying, you strode to his side and compared your pieces together. He pictured a two-story home, with a backyard and rooftop area. He definitely wanted to stay in the city as his whole life was based there. Although you preferred living in the countryside more for more freedom, you gave it a shot by pinpointing every detail of a wealthy typical Victorian-era home you liked. You desired a spacious lobby with a grand staircase in the middle, a crystal chandelier there too. The living room would have a small library and a grand piano, where wide doors leading to the grasslands were beside it.

Considering you two lived from different times, in a way your ideal homes were similar. Somewhere private, surrounded by nature and minimal furniture, you’re curious as to how it would look if the two of you fused them together. A mix of old and new, will it look pretty?

“What will look pretty?” Jeno questioned your random thought, looking back and forth at your sketches. “You know who’s pretty though?”

“If you say what I think you’re going to say, I’m lea-”

“You.”

Jeno has gotten flirtier since that night, always finding the right opportunity to flatter you. Although you denied them out of embarrassment, the butterflies in your stomach can’t lie to you.

You’re so smitten, and so was he.

Jeno’s always one to follow the rules, but so far, he’s been breaking some of them already.

Just last night, he gave Renjun access to the lively museum because he needed more research regarding you. Initially, he practically interviewed Jeno for every piece of information he gathered because he used to be so deep in the books to study everything about you. Now in the past, Renjun still couldn’t forget how Jeno drunkenly admitted how crazy he was going to be over you and your coldness whilst sobering up in the dorm.

He didn’t understand one bit by that, especially when you’re technically dead. But by the sight of the first piece Renjun saw alive, which was Zeus, he almost passed out. Piece by piece, he viewed these artworks come to life from his fresh eyes. Right before he could’ve screamed when Athena shot a lightbulb in their exhibit, you happily called out Jeno’s name.

Renjun froze on the spot upon seeing your wax figure come to life. He’s browsed through this museum numerously due to the new exhibits, but lately, he checked your section out to find any tiny details that were linked to your life. Aside from the sketchpad, compass, and hairpins, he wanted to know if there was more to your life as an explorer.

As human interactions except the night guard weren’t allowed, Renjun needed help for his project in Women Studies. Just like Jeno’s assignment, you aided him. Fruitfully answering every question he gave you, Athena popped out of nowhere to inspect Jeno.

“I see you’re breaking another rule.”

“I’m sorry, Athena. He was desperate, and it would be selfish of me to let him fail.”

“This is the last one I’ll let slide, alright?” Athena huffed, not impressed by the reckless behavior Jeno acquired over time. She saw this coming, but for a change, she couldn’t punish him. He was a young adult, still learning more about life. Only will she step in if things turn for the worst. “I can’t believe I’ve gained a soft spot for you.”

Jeno laughed, hugging the figure like his older sister. “You love me though!”

Glad to say, Renjun aced his project and kept his word of not telling anyone about the happenings in Jeno’s job. Jeno even made a makeshift non-disclosure contract so Renjun wouldn’t spill the slightest details.

Lately, so much has been happening in the museum that having alone time with each other was rare. And when you did, the two of you made sure to maximize it and make every intimate moment count. From each touch, each longing kiss, each moan, and groan, never were you left hanging whether you’re at the Theater Room, Jeno’s office, or the Foreign Art Room.

The only time the two of you went beyond the boundaries was at the indoor garden. Jeno managed to get the key to it, lighting up some candles before you invited you inside. Thanks to the magic of the Greek gods, the cameras were bewitched to display fake imageries when security checks in the morning after.

Upon your deep conversations, you’ve mentioned once or twice about the indoor garden. It was the latest addition of the museum, opening in the early 2000s. Because it was a sacred place, no art piece was ever allowed inside.

Yet again, Jeno challenged the rules again when he invited you inside. A few minutes before, he set up some lights along the hallway of the garden, where he placed a blanket, a picnic basket, and his laptop right at the end of it. The best place to view everything, he just knew you’d love it.

He was undoubtedly right once you gasped at such a pretty sight. Seeing the silhouettes of various flowers and plants together with the night sky with all the stars sparkling, it was like you’re attending another ball with your sisters, who were looking for suitors then.

Once Jeno leisurely led you until the end, he brought out all the delicacies from the basket. One of them was this Italian savory dish of dough with toppings such as cheese and pepperoni, or pizza as they named it. The next ones were fresh strawberries and melted chocolate, followed by grape juice.

“I’d drink actual alcohol with you again, only if I didn’t get shitfaced and do my job properly.”

“Point taken. Besides, this is close enough. So pour me a drink please.”

Perhaps this was the closest to a date Jeno could ever ask you out to. With the restrictions and being constrained with time, he brainstormed all sorts of ways to bring the outside world to you. From simply letting you wander around this fascinating room, he unleashed the inner romantic in him. None of his friends would’ve thought since they never asked him about it, so he kept it to himself only. Finally, he’s satisfied with what he prepared. After eating, the two of you would watch more films before the sun rose again.

You’re just the right person for him at the moment he can act that way.

After your quiet stroll and sitting back down, Jeno surprisingly handed you a tiny box.

“A gift?”

“Open it.” He sipped on his juice, paying attention to your actions. Gently untying the box, the amazement in your eyes couldn’t fathom such a lovely present. No words were required to verify that Jeno outdid himself again, just your facial expression alone is enough.

When Jeno said that he pays attention to the tiny details, he doesn’t bluff. Throughout your growing relationship, you’ve cited how you wanted another special flower in your life. Just because you couldn’t view lavender roses the same way ever again, it didn’t mean you wanted to kick them out of your life. Flowers were one of nature’s beautiful creations, so you’re wishing to find the love you once had for lavender roses in other ones.

Thus, you came across what you thought held the highest form of meaning: red roses. Despite its thorns, it’s still a marvelous flower. Innocently, you told him that just because of the memory of your father giving them to your mother on her birthday yearly.

Red roses represented true love and romance, a discreet message only those eager would know.

Jeno was one of them, which was why he reserved this gift for this very moment. It was a necklace he found through a college fair recently, a subtle red rose pendant in the center. Since he couldn’t give you huge gifts, he settled for something light. Something none of the guards or the director wouldn’t pinpoint out when they do their inspections.

“Do you like it?”

Not one utter from your mouth since you’re so hypnotized, your lips quirked up in a charming smile. “Is that even a question? This is astonishing, Jeno.”

After you attempted to put it around your neck, Jeno sighed and stepped in to help you out. “Turn around, (Y/N). Let me.”

The tension gradually heightened once you held your hair up so Jeno accessibly viewed your clean neck. Clasping the lock, it took all his might to hold himself back from you. Even from behind, your silhouette was attractive to him. The lights he set up weren’t helping the slightest of what he’s thinking to do with you.

“Done.” He breathily whispered in your ear.

If he thought he was the only one feeling something powerful, he’d be more than wrong. The lingering sensation of his slim fingers gracing your décolletage area unhinged another kind of want, the one you’ve only imagined in your mind when you were needy and alone. It shouldn’t be a sin unless you’re with the person you’ve fallen for, right?

Facing him again, the eye contact didn’t last long when you were the first one to strike a move. Jeno kissed back right away, his hands pulling you closer by your waist. Whatever sultry music Jeno played, it gave you the perfect momentum to grind on his lap. He groaned against kisses, adding his tongue. His thumbs sensually rubbed your hipbones, one of your hands toying around with his hair while the other one balled up his shirt by the chest. None of you cared if anyone caught you.

The last time you’ve been this aggressive was at the Theater Room, which eventually increased the hidden lust you’ve had towards each other. Taking things slowly at first, it’s about time to delve in for more. The mood was already set from the start, even if Jeno didn’t plan this to happen here. But being the prepared man he is, he did have a condom in his back pocket.

Your fingers trailed from his neck until his crotch. He was hard, sensing how suffocated he must be. But he kept himself in control. Locking eye contact, you sweetly spoke.

“Grant my second wish, Jeno.” That same hand of yours held one of his, planting it in your breast. “Make love to me.”

Giving the go-signal, he crashed his lips on yours while stripping you off your dress. Carefully, he turned you around to untie your tight corset. Once it fell, your neck leaned sideways as his lips attacked it madly. Your breaths were tremulous, placing both his hands on your freed breasts to knead with. His touch felt like fire on your skin, yet you couldn’t stop.

“Jeno,” Obscene moans from your lips choked out. You desired more, shifting back to face him again to attack his lips. Slowly feeling one of his hands laying you down, you spread your legs with ease just for him. He parted after your head landed on the cushion to unbutton himself. The way your mouth dropped to selfishly stare at his bare body, flexing them before getting back into position. He was fit and toned just as Cleopatra predicted.

As much as Jeno knew how wild your thoughts were getting, he was more taken aback by your perky chest.

“Fuck, you are divine.” He sucked one nipple as his fingers ventured to slip your panties down. So much was going on, you didn’t know which stimulated you more. You tried to close your legs around his hand, but he slapped your inner thigh to stop you.

The cool breeze shivered you, especially from your core. Jeno’s fingers adventurously grazed from your hip area to your lower lips. He teasingly rubbed it up and down in your essence, his index finger settling it right at your needy clit. Another moan escaped your lips, an opportunity for Jeno to slide his tongue in your mouth. Enjoying the moment, his fingers dipped inside you. A gasp broke your kiss, making him giggle in your ear.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

“Oh, angel. The things I want to do with you.”

Sliding them back and forth, curling it even, you squirmed for more. Dropping himself to meet your core, Jeno placed your legs on his shoulder. Pushing you closer, his steamy breath felt like friction. Your hips grinded against it, so he gripped on them so you stay put.

“Angel,” He chuckled darkly, his crotch tightening at how powerless you looked. “You’re so pretty.”

You were drenched from arousal. But to Jeno, you were glowing under the lights. He wanted to take his time to admire what he had done to you. His independent girl, only weak for him.

His fingers unfolded in your lower lips, diving in to your orbit. You could hardly speak from his skilled mouth, especially his tongue savagely lapping your clit in numerous paces. You’ve only daydreamed about what it could do aside from kissing, and it exceeded your expectations. By the heated sensation that had the heels of your feet digging his back deeply, you affirmed to have seen more stars than the night sky above you.

Your back arched uncontrollably while his hands grasped your hips to stay in place, the tears in your eyes formulating while tugging on his hair. Your thighs clenched around his face, but his broad shoulders widened it to taste more of you. No use of pulling away when his grip on you was tight, so you could only cry out from the pleasure.

“Fuck!”

The ringing sounds in your off were going off, your throat drying up from moaning once another orgasm was about to hit. Once the knot in you snapped, nothing could hold back your screams of pleasure whilst panting for air. Sensitive as he licked every remaining essence he caused, he smirked as he got up to unbuckle his jeans.

Oh, boy. He got quite a package behind his boxers.

Even while you were overly sensitive, you had to grasp it in your hands. He was yours, and you were his.

The way you clenched around his protected length, pausing to readjust yourself to the feeling. The foreplay deemed helpful, though the girth of him overwhelmed you. He stretched you out so good.

“Are you okay, (Y/N)?” The stunned face you made was expected, still feeling worried that it may be too much.

Biting your lip, you moaned once everything felt bearable. “You can move, Jeno.”

None of you could track exactly how many rounds you went through. Even in the semi-public area, it didn’t hinder either of you. There’s that thrill, and surprisingly enough, you both shared the liking of it. Always switching the positions, you decided to call it quits after another sloppy round in missionary. Something seeing Jeno on top, fully submitting yourself to him, made you feel calm to be vulnerable. It’s really the trust you’ve established from the start, making you rely on humans again once you’ve let the past be.

Jeno brought out another blanket, initially meant for cuddling. It was still applicable though, curling your body into a spoon towards his racing chest. Music was no longer noise, the intimacy creeping back instead of lust this time. The afterglow of Jeno, sweaty and knackered as his legs sprawled under the sheet, was a sight for sore eyes. He’s always been handsome while on duty, but post-sex gave him an extra boost.

Plus there’s pride from the red marks courtesy of you on his chest, grazing over it softly.

Jeno chuckled softly at your smooth fingers, lifting them up to kiss them tenderly before kissing your lips again. Only humans were capable of and to love, but you’re some kind of an exception. Regardless of the magic from the plate, you’d be able to love too if it weren’t for your background.

There’s so much love Jeno wanted to offer you, even if he hasn’t said it out loud yet.

Perhaps one reason was because time was beginning to tick. Finals were a few weeks away, then the one-month long semestral break until a new semester kicks off. Time really flew by, and his bank account and heart expanded too. Enjoying the now was all he could think of doing, but those uncertainties bothered him.

The biggest would be where you and he would stand when his job ended.

Jeno was too absorbed in his internal debate, as portrayed by his eyes staring off in space and running his hand in his hair repeatedly. Something was disturbing him, and you’re concerned as to what it was.

“Jeno,” Around his arm, you tapped his chest to get him out of it. “What’s going on in your head?”

Jeno approached every obstacle he faces straightforwardly, not wanting to let him hold back. Rarely did he keep secrets, especially from you. Instead of hiding away, he voiced it out.

“(Y/N), will we work out?”

“What do you mean, Jeno?”

You’re so occupied in the present that thinking of the future was never in your field. Like him, you’re just enjoying being in the moment. Though after tonight, it’s making you wonder if there’s a future.

“Well,” He placed his hand on top of yours, affectionately observing you. “Times flies faster when you’re having fun, and well, the semester is ending.”

His last words crushed a part of your heart, remembering his initial plan. None of you expected your friendship to bloom into what it is now, but life was just full of surprises without a schedule. At the same time, none of you wouldn’t have it any other way.

It may have been a few months since you two committed to each other, but the spark was still strong. It wasn’t like a summer romance kind of feeling. Time was not a determinant of love either, which you were certain of it with Jeno. A lot more than Junmyeon.

It should’ve frightened you when you realized your love for Jeno, but it didn’t. Even if you didn’t age physically, your mindset did. You’ve learned to forgive your younger self, and through Jeno, you let your guard down completely. From that, you let love in. Platonic to your fellow art pieces, and all of the above to Jeno.

Throughout your relationship, you regained all confidence in yourself and everything you set your mind to.

“I wouldn’t want to worry too much about it if I were you.” Your body flipped to lie on your stomach, resting your head on your palm.

“Why shouldn’t I, angel?”

Gazing back at him, you left a velvety kiss on his lips to rest his thoughts. His hand wrapped your neck, deepening it. But you pulled away with a giggle, all too knowing of his secret intentions as his cock began to harden again. His eyes narrowed down and his lower lip stuck out at your attempt of being a tease.

But enough about sex, you wanted to address a point.

Lee Jeno was going to be the biggest risk you wanted to take and fight for, and no one should try to stop you.

“I’ll ask Circe for a potion. For me, for you, for us.”

If it weren’t for insistent questioning towards every art piece, who kept their mouths shut, only Circe herself banished him from his suffering. Her series of potions varied, and the one you requested years ago which you threw out was capable of turning any art piece into a living human. No potion of Circe ever failed, so you entrusted your life for the day you do drink it.

“Are you sure, angel?”

Jeno knew about that one specifically, and as great to hear that you never threw it out, he never put pressure on you. He wanted you to do whatever felt right, even if deep down, he wished you’d use it. He was only worried about how the flow of the entire museum would be disrupted.

Typical Jeno always looking out for you, but you saw right through his concern. Here you were, caressing his check as reassurance. With an honest smile,

“I’ve never been more certain with anything in my life here until you came, Lee Jeno.”

Jeno opened up more to his life outside the museum, telling all sorts of experiences not just his days as a university student. From his childhood, his family, his travels, heck you even want to meet his friends at this point!

Newly, he shared with you how the sunrise and sunset looked like in Seoul with much vivacity. It’s a luxury as a human to witness as day breaks and ends, so you could imagine by yourself how it would look like. Sure, you had drawings and all, but that was from the real (Y/N) (Y/L/N).

This version of you wanted to live more; that’s your greed now.

“You’ve never touched snow too, right?” Jeno, who had his arm wrapped around you, silently watched the first batch of snow from inside.

“Yup, that’s the thing when you’re imprisoned in this place.” You sulked by his side, earning a chuckle from him who pulled you in closer.

“Don’t tell me now that you despise this place.”

“I don’t, but it hinders me to experience new things. The whole pattern of being awake at night by a plate gets tiring, Jeno.”

All Jeno would do when you’re frustrated was placing your head on his shoulder, listening as you talk.

“I know, angel. But it won’t be long until you leave this place with me, right?”

“You know it!” You interlocked your hands with him, eyes trained at every falling snowflake.

Sometimes, moments in silence with Jeno were all you needed for the night. Being within each other’s presence, focusing or admiring something from afar, it was all the peace you’ve needed from the bustling art pieces.

This week was the last of the semester, and Jeno’s off duty for tonight to focus on his exams. You’ll see him tomorrow night, which was his last shift ever, and also yours too.

Perhaps the biggest milestone you’re committing to without any regrets.

However, it took an unnecessary conversation you accidentally eavesdropped on to rock your decision.

You needed more ink after running out mid-way of sketching the sculptures as a secret parting gift. Before you could take a single step inside your exhibit room, a series of voices were full-on arguing. Booming back and forth, you peeped your ear out whilst hiding against the door.

“Athena, how dare you did to her?! She’s done so well from moving on from it, falling in love even! And now you’re telling me this?!” The distinct voice of Princess Diana, who spoke sweetly most of the time, boomed towards the Greek god. “You’re heartless.”

“I did what I had to do for the sake of this place, Diana!” Athena raised her voice, the lightning in her hands holding back from lashing out. She hated it when anyone argued with her, especially when she does things according to what she believed was necessary. Out of everyone, she had more leadership. “She had to know that her place is here as a wax figure, not outside. Talking Junmyeon out of it was for the best, plus it’s ideal when he drank the potion of memory loss from Circe.”

“But it tore her apart when he left her, and it’s going to tear her again if you do the same with Jeno.”

“How else are you going to approach the situation then, Diana? Those two have broken the highest golden rule, so they need to wake up.”

Right when she celebrated within herself for healing, hearing the unbearable revelation behind the past devastated you. This whole time, she internally blamed herself for being ageless and lashed out at others. The scary past barged back in, and you couldn’t handle it anymore.

Somewhere in the corner, you wept without a trace. You could care less about Athena’s opinions, but you found yourself agreeing to some of her words. You had a role to fulfill, and leaving that behind would be selfish and it could make the museum go topsy-turvy. As painful for Junmyeon to leave you, it was because the truth hurts. Nothing could change it, even if Circe could be your solution because it’ll leave a lot of questions. You didn’t want Jeno to be seen as a suspect.

Oh, Jeno.

There’s nothing wrong with falling in love either, you didn’t intend it to happen. But it becomes unfair when it compromises with your purpose, and that’s not how you are. You’ll always remember Jeno as your biggest risk, though it’s time to end things. Treacherous as it was to accept for you, risk-takers have boundaries too.

Fast forward, on the night of Jeno’s last shift, you’ve cherished every second with him. Playing around, chatting with other art pieces, kissing in private, you made it count. Before dawn broke, that’s where you chose to come clean by the garden, your sacred place. Not even your self-reassurance could prepare you to witness the hurt and confusion Jeno felt.

“You’re a mortal, and you still get to choose your path. Mine is already predetermined here as a wax copy of a historical figure.” You advised as you held both his hands, your voice shaking at the reality.

A few days ago, you were beaming with exhilaration at a new journey but now you’ve permanently backed out. Jeno couldn’t comprehend, and as much as he tried, he couldn’t. A life without you by his side would be empty and dull. “Even so, there are things about you that the original person didn’t have.”

Arguing with him wasn’t your favorite, and it’ll leave the two of you in a bad mood. But there is no way to negotiate this; you’ve already made up your mind. “We must end this, Jeno. You need someone who can grow old with you, and I can’t be that person for you.”

“But we can make it work!” His hands gripped on your slumped shoulders, whilst your face avoiding his to spare yourself from the heartache. “There’s still Circe.”

“I know, but recently, I found out that she’s an indirect cause of my misery.” Pulling away from his touch, you belted with frustration. “I cannot do this anymore, Jeno.”

You’ve always fought for whatever you wanted in life, and Jeno knew he was one of them if it weren’t for you telling him that. So he did the same, thinking of ways to make you feel whole. Now, he couldn’t tolerate the sudden crumbling of his heart from your outburst, and all he wanted to know was why you felt this way. How could he help you?

You don’t keep secrets from Jeno, but the truth behind your harsh actions cannot be revealed for the sake of the museum. Plus, you didn’t want him to despise this place he admired. Causing him pain wasn’t on your list, but keeping him safe was. It may be shown differently and he may not understand it now, but over time, he will.

“Jeno, you’ll find someone better out there. Someone with their whole life ahead of them, who’ll love you for everything that makes you who you are.” Repetitive punches in your guts urged you to barf at your half-lie, but you held it in.

“Why are you pushing me away? What happened to taking risks, (Y/N)?” Jeno interrogated, taking your hands in his hands again. They unconventionally quivered, like his lips. Jeno has never cried in front of anyone, not even when he was younger. Though for you, he just might. “Am I not worth it for you?”

Dear heavens, he was wrong. You internally screamed that, but you can’t let your selfishness seize the night. As Athena said, you had to wake up from your dream. “Committing to you was my biggest risk of them all, Jeno. Everything else that went along with it, I don’t regret it one bit. But time’s really up for us, and we must resume our normal duties.”

“I can’t lose you, (Y/N).”

“You never will, Jeno.”

He crouched lower to meet your height, his finger moving your head so you’d look at him back. Weakly enough, you did. “I want you to be a part of my normal life, angel.”

“I’ll always be here, you know. I’ll be standing in my usual spot upstairs, and you can drop by whenever you can.” You pressed your lips, lifting your head to avoid incoming tears. Meanwhile, he began shedding a few. You’ve hurt him big time, and you’ll never forgive yourself for this. “I still have one wish, right?”

Jeno’s sorrow was beyond his capacity, leaning his forehead against yours to kiss it. No matter what he could say or do, he already knew it won’t be effective. You’re affirmative in your choices, yet he still wanted to challenge it. All he wanted to know was why you’re doing this.

“Let me walk you one last time to your section.”

The black night sky had remnants of blue, motioning that dawn was approaching. Other figures gave their goodbyes to Jeno earlier, cleaning up their areas before they pose. Though none of them anticipated such a cold atmosphere between you two, they could only spy on what was bound to happen.

“My last wish is for you to let me go, Jeno.” You avowed, blinking your eyes with faux positivity. Your hands patted his blazer so it wouldn’t crease. “I already have a role to fulfill here, and you’re on the way to yours, future architect.”

“I love you, (Y/N) (Y/L/N).” Only tonight did he muster his courage to finally admit it to you after giving himself more time to analyze it. Timing was always crucial, and the badness of it showed.

Deep in your heart, you resonated the feeling. But it’ll make things more complicated, and it was the final thing you’ve wanted to occur. Someone had to be the strong one, and now, it should be you. With one more compassionate kiss on his lips, you stepped inside your section and readied your position.

“Goodbye, Lee Jeno.”

The sunshine brightened the room, and you’ve frozen to slumber again.

All Jeno could do was drop on his knees, sobbing over your rash actions. Unknown to him, a single tear left your eye as you posed.

Regardless of what status you were in, the pain of it all remained.

Jeno spent most of his semestral break with his friends to travel or whatnot, trying to forget it all. Even if he aced all his finals, his efforts felt like nothing if he never had you by his side to celebrate.

The sting over his short-lived romance with you never diminished the slightest, no one whom he could express his pain about it to especially when Renjun drank the memory wipe potion that Athena initially left for Jeno by his desk.

Forget it all, and live a peaceful life. You have so much potential, my mentee.

- Athena

Perhaps this was the same thing Junmyeon drank all those years ago, but unlike him, he didn’t have the guts to. He still wanted another chance.

So every day since the new semester began, he spent every afternoon break at your section. He’ll be seated by the bench, doing his assignments and talking about his day while sometimes stealing a glance of your figure. Some habits don’t change.

He never got sick of the same smile you exemplified, falling even more for you. He’ll often wonder what you’ve been up to.

What are your new sketches?

Are you taking care of Mochi well?

Have you apologized to Sanghoon yet?

Speaking of him, he surprisingly scooted over to Jeno’s side. This was the first time Jeno met the man, and politely enough greeted him. Sanghoon interviewed the boy, asking all sorts of questions that Jeno had every answer to. The biggest change that Sanghoon noticed since he left was your personality. You no longer bite, but treat everyone kindly without bias. You’re always active to help him out in cleaning the lobby, and you don’t go easily defensive.

Once he found out that Jeno was the reason for that, he was overjoyed at the start and wanted to meet him some way. You were a tough cookie, but now you relaxed. That was all that mattered to him, hoping to know more about him from you. That was until Diana stepped in and told him everything that happened. Mostly, the bad.

Playfulness eventually bore love. The last time you fell in love was in the 80s and Junmyeon pushed you away, he recalled. This time, you’re pushing Jeno away because you simply agreed with Athena’s points.

This wasn’t right, but it wasn’t his place to interfere.

But then again, he finally caught Jeno for the first time today and this time, he was open to hearing his side of the story. Lessen his misery too.

“No matter how stubborn she is, she loves you.” He advised him, bringing out one of your full sketchbooks. As Jeno opened it, the majority of the portraits were him. Sleeping, smiling, laughing, you drew him from every minor detail you could spot like the mole near his eye and his crescent eyes.

A handsome face I would never get sick until the end of time. Someone I want to wake up to every day in the morning if it weren’t for that plate.

- (Y/N)

Towards the end, a sketch of a house unfolded. The interior was a fusion of modernity and old royal design due to its white walls, wide space, and the placing of less furniture, plus an open backyard. There’s another tiny comment on the side from you.

I was right. Joining our varying designs together is pretty. Maybe Jeno and I could live in a house like this one day.

- (Y/N)

If you loved him so much, why did you let him go then when you had all these plans with him? Even if he tried to understand, he just didn’t.

“Don’t give up just yet when she told you to.”

“Are you just saying this or something?”

“Well, Princess Diana passed this message on but after everything, I believe that she’s right.” Sanghoon gave his opinion, but Jeno was reluctant to accept it.

“I never got a proper explanation why she suddenly changed her mind, Sanghoon.” He ranted, raking his hand through his hair from puzzlement. “Did I do something wrong?”

Sanghoon pitied him, having the upper hand and questioning himself whether to reveal the truth. However, since this boy took the job, he’s succumbed to secrecy. Without any transparency, it could drive someone mad. He’s too young for that, so Sanghoon breathed in defeat and placed his hand on Jeno’s shoulder.

“Promise me you won’t be mad when I tell you because I was when I found out; almost screamed even.”

Jeno nodded, listening to whatever Sanghoon had to say.

Of all people, he never would’ve expected Athena to do such a brash thing. Someone he respected and trusted, only to betray him by doing something she believed was good for all. Except it wasn’t, and it ended up hurting you all these years. The woman he loved, now he’s a clearer understanding of why you did what you did. Yet, it can’t fix his excruciation.

Heartbroken was an understatement; he had no one to rely on. With Sanghoon, he finally had a proper breakdown. The older man could only comfort his quietly, picturing him like one of his sons going through a hard time in school. But if it involves the heart, it’ll take more time to recover.

“You’re always the one adjusting, Jeno. But I think this time, you’re the one who needs space.”

A Year and a Half Later

“Jeno Lee!!!” Jaemin roughly wallowed his best friend in a hug when he arrived in their dorm room for the first time in a long time. “You dyed your hair blonde again!”

Renjun, who was behind the two of them, only rolled his eyes as he helped carry Jeno’s bags. “God damn it, Jaemin! You’re supposed to be helping me first!”

“I know, but give me a few seconds! I’m just happy our group is back together!”

Jeno laughed at his friends’ annoying yet silly dynamics, giddy to be back home. For a year, Jeno spent his 3rd year of university in Rome, Italy after one of his professors brought up to him about a scholarship program there for his course. At the time where he needed a change of scenery, he sent his application form and got interviewed.

Acing it, he had the opportunity to fly across the world to study and travel. His English skills surely improved, even picking up Italian words along the way due to a required class for it. He studied the history of different locations and how they were built.

He also went on field trips almost every day if it weren’t for the Italian students assigned to tour him around, academic and non-academic. Nights he spent on drinking wine on the rooftop of his dorm with them, screaming his complaints in the world with them.

It didn’t hit him that his stay was reaching its end until he submitted his final plate. His goodbye party didn’t even feel like one, but a see you later in the next few years after he becomes a licensed architect with money. His goal of it felt more realistic, motivating him to excel in his remaining years in university.

After unpacking half of his things, he was reminded of an email from one of the head professors, who requested another copy of his confidential documents from the Italian university he went to as soon as he’s back on campus.

He raced to the department with a folder of them and luckily encountered the said professor. Handing it to him, this professor questioned how he was and what experiences he gained from the trip. With excitement, Jeno spoke all sorts of tales from his adventures, highlighting how determined he was now to be an architect.

“That’s great to hear, Jeno!” He celebrated, checking on his watch, and widened his eyes. Frantic at his colliding schedules, he asked Jeno for a favor. It turned out that at the same time as his emergency meeting, he’s supposed to tour the new transferee student around campus.

“Only if you have time, Jeno! I could always ask another student, plus you just came back and need rest.”

“It’s not like I left for a decade, sir. No worries, I’ll do it.”

“Oh, bless your soul.” He put his hands together in prayer position, bowing back and forth with gratitude. “Wait, she’s right outside! Go ahead and introduce yourself.”

Jeno nodded, exiting right through the department doors. This girl had her back turned, inspecting her surroundings. She wore a black and white tweed blazer that matched with her skirt, black high heeled boots, and a black handbag. She must be a foreigner, Jeno thought.

“Excuse me, are you the transferee in the department of Architecture?”

Jeno didn’t brace himself for the surprise he’d face once this girl reacted to him calling her out. Her face was one he could never forget, no matter how many times he told himself to. The same face he convinced his heart to stop beating for, yet it lied.

This radiant face was none other than yours.

Jeno almost dropped his phone. He tried his best to hold on to your promise, but he failed. It was the main reason he studied abroad; to forget and focus on his career path. So the least thing he could’ve done was to study hard for his dream career.

Just a glimpse of you projected back every single memory you’ve had together. Beautiful yet heart-wrenching, he kept his emotions to himself.

You even wore the rose necklace he got you. Could it be?

“It’s been a while, Lee Jeno.” You took the metaphorical scissors to cut the tension, trying to contain the crushing feelings. The faculty center was a public place, yet it’s like the two of you were on the main stage.

“Do you remember me?” Astounded, you nodded. Every single detail.

Jeno could’ve ran away, but didn’t. He could’ve left you hanging, but didn’t. He can no longer count how many times you’ve appeared in his dreams, only to be disappointed when morning comes to not have you in his arms. He took one step closer, taking his time.

“How do you know me?”

“You’re the boy whom I helped with his assignment, argued with me over Romeo and Juliet,” You mimicked his move, making you one step nearer to him. “And most of all, the boy I once gave my entire heart to.”

Another step, leaving a few inches between the two of you. His heart palpitated without caffeine. What if he was napping in his dorm again? It was all surreal. “Is it really you, (Y/N)?”

Hearing your name from his lips lowered your guard, you pleased him with a hopeful grin. “I’d be dust by now if I didn’t drink Circe’s potion, right?”

That’s where Jeno unchained himself from his emotions. He engulfed in a warm hug, one that has no plans to let go when his chin planted on your shoulder. You returned the gesture, dropping all your worries away along with your bag and papers as your arms snaked through his neck.

You knew you had to part ways for a while after everything, though you were unsure how he’d feel about it. You recalled every time he visited you after his job ended up until his intense chat with Sanghoon, where he bawled his heart out. You couldn’t take it anymore after trying to stay strong, crying as soon as you woke up that night.

All your fellow figures could do was soothe you down like before to the best of their abilities, yet this time, it was unsuccessful. You’re filled with misery, realizing later how much of a big mistake you’ve made.

You’ve isolated yourself again for a while, but less rudeness and more silence. It was until Circe visited you. She doesn’t like getting involved with drama, though now was different. She, alongside Hera and Aphrodite, couldn’t withstand you tolerating the heartbreak again. So they went behind Athena’s back on this one time and created a potion together just for you. But with a compromise.

“This potion can turn you into a human. However, there’s only a 10% chance you’ll regain all your memories from this place.”

“So I’ll forget everyone and him?”

“Yes, unfortunately.” You’re about to shoo her away, not in the mood to do something drastic as that. But Circe grabbed your arm again. “I strongly believe that if you and he meant to be, then there will come a time these past memories will suddenly surge at you.”

“Must I need to forget to live properly?”

You’re stubborn, and Circe expected it. “You’ve broken so many golden rules, (Y/N), so it must be done. I’ve gone against Athena for this potion, and rarely have I done that. So rather than wallowing up in misery, you should focus on yourself. Do what makes you happy because this place is trapping you from every great thing out there.”

Those were the word that the actual (Y/N) (Y/L/N) lived by, nevertheless, you’re unique from her. You built a separate identity from her. “But Jeno-”

“At the right time, (Y/N). Pull yourself together and do all the things you’ve dreamt of before he came into the picture. I just know he loves you that much, and that he will wait for you.”

That same night, you gathered all your senses and drank it. The transition was fast as lightning speed, and behold, you were like a new person. You’re back in London, with a family that closely resembled your former one; only 3 older siblings, making you the youngest. You also had a new set of memories, from childhood until your adult years.

From (Y/N) (Y/L/N), you became (Y/N) Edwards.

It took one drunken night out with your university friends for the unlikely surge of old memories to speedily hit through your intoxicated state. Way beyond a dream, you’ve dropped your shot glass and broke down in the bathroom of your dorm room. You left something unaccomplished, and you had to do something before it’s too late.

Thus, you rushed to Seoul thanks to your parents’ support as they agreed that exploring outside your home country was a great experience. The only excuse you gave to your friends for the sudden transfer was you finding a new calling.

Sure, studying abroad was an exciting thing but you’re more determined to reunite with him. Even if this encounter was unforeseen, it was bound to happen one day. It so turned out that you had the same major in your former university and this new one.

Head to toe, you remembered everything.

“I’m so sorry I took so long.” You cradled your head on his chest, unaware of how your new life left Jeno so troubled.

“That doesn’t matter anymore.” Jeno tightened his grip, scared of releasing you again. Those two years felt like a breath of fresh air and a punch in the gut. “I tried to live up to your last wish, but I really can’t.”

“I want to take that wish back, Jeno. I wasn’t thinking right and only ended putting you through so much.”

“Oh, angel. I slowly understood why you did it.” Before he got too fragile, he softened his grip on you and showed his face again to you. He wanted a better look at his pretty girl, his fingers brushing strands of your hair behind your ear. Heart-fluttering, you bit your bottom lip. “What would you want to wish for instead?”

“Instead of you letting me go, I wish you could take me back and love me again. I can’t undo the past, but I’d still like to think I’ve tried my best.” That was the only wish you could ever think of. As huge as it was, it was something he may not accept. Yet you gave it a go, risking it all. “I don’t deserve you at all, Jeno.”

“Don’t say that, (Y/N).” One of his hands grabbed yours, putting it on his cheek. Cupping it, “I’ve never stopped loving you, you know.”

Oh, love. An all-too familiar emotion that either makes or breaks you. Of all the times you could’ve said those words, you held back, especially that wretched night you two broke it off. Although you showed it, being able to say it to someone felt more empowering.

This was finally the chance you’ve unconsciously waited for.

“I’m stupid for not saying this sooner.”

“What is it?”

With intimate eye contact, you drowned in the comfort of his brown orbs. You trusted him then, and you trusted him now. “I love you, Lee Jeno.”

Secretly, Jeno anticipated for the day you’d say those meaningful 3 words. Just like you, he showed more affection through actions than words. He only admitted when he lost you, and never would he do the same mistake again. If he felt that the love was strongly present, he will say it aloud.

“I love you still, (Y/N).” His arm around your waist tugged you in further. “I loved you as (Y/N) (Y/L/N) and I will continue to love you as (Y/N) Edwards.”

He peeked on your ID earlier, but regardless, he stood by his truth. You’re still the same (Y/N).

Finally, he closed the limited space between your lips. The memories of your past romance replayed in sync of every touching kiss, popping one leg up like in the movies. The Princess Diaries, specifically. Like in the museum from your unbearable parting, one warm tear freed itself down your cheek.

The sweetness of being reunited with you again beat the torturous wait of Jeno. Time really made your hearts grow fonder. As everyone said, if the love between two people is real, then it’ll find its way back to each other.

The world must be on your side too because no professor called you two out on your public display of affection. Jeno pecked your lips one time before stepping away, picking up the things you dropped.

“Now come on, I have to tour you around as instructed.”

You stomped on your feet, rolling your eyes from being left hanging. He’s still the same tease from before. “After that kiss though, I would’ve thought we could reschedule it.”

“No can do, Edwards.” Passing over your things, he wrapped one arm around you as he escorted you out of the building. The university was huge, with more buildings and green fields surrounded everywhere. “Left or right? There are a lot of places you missed out on all those years.”

“Point taken. Then you lead the way, my love.”

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soramei · 3 years

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Intentional - Part 4

Pairing: Bang Chan x Reader (she/her)

Summary: Landing your first real job at JYPE was something short of a miracle. You were prepared to face the new struggles of this elusive career whilst moving to a new country, however, nothing could have prepared you for him. Will stolen glances, secret touches, and hushed nights spent in the recording room ever be enough for the both of you?

Genre: idol!bang chan au, forbidden relationship, coworkers to eventual lovers, slow burn

Warnings: none right now, eventual smut

Word Count: 3.4k

Masterlist

A/N: DOUBLE UPLOAD! So i decided to split this part in two since i didn't want it to drag on for too long... next part will be uploaded tomorrow!

Taglist (reply to be tagged!): @planetdemon @hvunvely @fluffybitch0325 @fashi0nablee @juststop88

You picked up the lanyard, looking between your burnt jacket in one hand and the vandalized piece of plastic in the other. The burnt polyester felt rough against your fingers. It was littered with black holes, almost to the point where it was unrecognizable as your jacket.

The lanyard, on the other hand, was almost untouched — save for the black marker that was sketched on the plastic. In the picture, on the part where your upper body was showing, there was only the black marker. The black blob stretched across your torso, the shape depicting a hoodie. Your eyes landed on the eyes in your picture. Thick lines drawn in the shape of an X covered both of them.

You quickly entered your apartment, hoping nobody saw you. You then stood completely still, listening to the silence, trying to find if anybody had broken into your home. After a minute, when it seemed as if you were the only person in there, you decided to lay the two vandalized items on your desk to further analyze them.

Your brain immediately tried to play this down by assuming that these were just kids who did this to your stuff, after all, it was something very immature. Children were the only people who had the time to play with fire and draw on other people’s pictures.

However, your gut told you something different. Why was your jacket along with your lanyard placed right in front of your apartment? Why was the marker outline specifically in the shape of a hoodie? Who could have known you were in the parking lot at that time of day?

Your mind drifted to one specific person. Manager Kim. He not only saw that you were in the parking lot that day with that jacket on, but also he knew your face from the lanyard. But why would he do something this childish? And how did he know where you lived?

The parking lot security guard had also been there when you wore that jacket, but he didn’t even look at you. And he would have no motive to do this sort of thing.

You rubbed your chin in thought, still not understanding everything. Was there somebody else that knew you were there?

Still feeling anxious, you began to prepare a cup of tea. You were reminded of Bang Chan. The tea. The smell of his hoodie.

His hoodie. The black hoodie.

Realization hit you like a truck as your eyes widened in disbelief. Was it maybe… Bang Chan?

Your heart was beating out of your chest. Hands shaking, you picked up your phone to call him, silently begging for the mysterious person to not be him.

He picked up.

“Hello? Y/n?”

You stayed silent.

“Is there something wrong?” He asked.

“I… I lost my jacket and it had my lanyard in it,” you tried to be careful with your words, not wanting to rouse suspicion from him, “have you seen it anywhere?”

“No,” you could almost see Bang Chan furrowing his eyebrows, “I’m still in the building though. I could look for it?”

“That’s alright,” you sighed in relief. He genuinely sounded confused, and plus, he was always so nice — there was no way he would ever do this kind of thing to you. You felt guilty for even suspecting him. “Thanks for offering though.”

“Y/n.”

“Hmm?”

“I know I said this before, but,” he paused, “if you need help with anything I’ll be there. I mean it.”

A chill ran down your spine at the seriousness of his voice. “I know. Thanks.”

You hung up, uneasy. The problem was unsolved, and to be honest, you were a little scared. There was somebody that knew who you were and where you lived. It was probably a good idea to change the passcode to your lock.

The kettle started to whistle. You turned off the flame of your stove and poured yourself a cup of tea, hoping that it would calm you down. Although it did a little, you still felt apprehensive about the whole thing. Your mood stayed the same the whole night, even when you tried to scroll through your phone or go to sleep.

The next day, you woke up with your mind cleared. No longer were you still feeling the aftershocks of the creepy jacket burner, and with your mood lifted more, you felt like you could think more objectively.

And that’s exactly what you did.

Throughout your whole week, this incident stuck in the back of your mind. Although your memory was getting fuzzier and fuzzier with the passing days, you still tried to work out who the culprit was in your free time.

Your mind was also filled with something else. Or was it someone else?

It seemed like, during the whole week, you couldn’t stop thinking of Bang Chan. You had to put part of the blame on him, though. Everytime he had a free moment in his busy schedule — granted it was rare that he did — he wanted to see you.

From secretly bringing you snacks from the vending machine to summoning you to his recording room in order to show his newest creation, he always seemed to stay busy even in his free time. You weren’t complaining, though. It was nice to have a friend who was so different from what you were used to.

You also spent a lot of time with Na-eun too. However, the time you spent with her felt different. Not in any good or bad way, just different. With her, it was mainly in the cafeteria, raving over the food after finally finding a free table. It was also trying to talk over everybody in the crowded streets as you two went shopping after work.

You liked it, sure. But with Bang Chan, every moment felt more intimate. Every smile, every laugh or brush of the hand. Was this what becoming friends felt like?

Other than these intrusive thoughts, the rest of your time was taken up by work. Although you were starting to get the hang of your tasks, there were still many mistakes made. Mistakes in which you had to profusely apologize to Manager Chen for, that you had to stay late nights to fix, mistakes which made you almost lose your mind. You hoped that Manager Chen could see your dedication to not only this project, but your job as a whole.

In the duration of this week, you managed to check in with every department involved with the project and partake in the finalization of the Mid-Autumn Festival content idea. It was decided that the group would do three activities: make lanterns, bake mooncakes, and share a fire while watching the moon. All while in the mountains.

You were surprised when Manager Chen asked you to come along to the shooting despite your inexperience. However, it wasn’t a chance you were going to pass up.

The week was hectic. So hectic, that you didn’t even realize it was almost over until Na-eun brought it up.

“Ugh, I wish I could just steal a whole tray of this food home,” you rolled your eyes. The two of you were raving once again at the cafeteria food. You wished you actually knew how to cook.

“Can you not cook?” She asked.

“I can fry an egg,” you said, stuffing more rice in your mouth.

“My six year old niece can do that,” she laughed. Her eyes widened. “What if I come over tonight and teach you? We’ll make fried rice, even you can’t screw that up.”

“Ha,” you said dryly. “I would, but I have literally nothing in my fridge.”

Na-eun gave you a deadpan look.

“How were you able to stay alive for the past couple weeks? At least you got skinner.” She sneered. “We’ll stop by the grocery store after work, I’ll teach you the bare minimum of living alone.”

And that was exactly what the two of you did. Right after you clocked out of work, you met up with Na-eun to go shopping. You decided to take out some cash to pay for your groceries, an action that Na-eun found hilarious. She was almost crying as she explained that a few groceries didn’t cost as much as you thought.

Your trip was successful. The two of you made it all the way back to your apartment and didn’t waste a second to get started. Halfway through setting things up, Na-eun got a text.

“Hey, is it okay if Yoojin comes? I guess she got jealous that I was here with you and she wasn’t.” She chuckled.

“Of course,” you eagerly nodded. “But, wouldn’t it be hard to get here with her injury?”

“What injury?”

“You know,” you continued, “her ankle.”

“She seemed fine to me.” Na-eun said as she started on the rice.

“Maybe she healed fast.” You shrugged.

“Maybe,” she shrugged back and returned to her task.

You texted Yoojin your address, and it wasn’t long before she was knocking at your door. You opened your door, and she immediately leaped at you for a hug.

“Oh, Y/n! I’m still so sorry for that day, I honestly feel horrible.” She pouted, her big eyes staring at you for a response.

“It’s really nothing, Yoojin.” You tried to sound casual. You let her in your apartment. “But, doesn’t your ankle hurt? There’s a lot of stairs coming up.”

“Oh, uhm, the doctor said it was only a minor injury.” She paused. “And I heal fast.”

“That’s good,” you smiled, patting her shoulder.

“But I still feel so bad, Y/n.” She whined. “Lemme make it up to you. I’ll set you up with this really hot guy I know. He’s a law student. You don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”

“Kim Yoojin!” Na-eun yelled.

“How about it? You’re free tomorrow, right?” Yoojin looked at you, ignoring Na-eun.

“I guess so,” you hesitantly agreed, “since it’s the weekend tomorrow.”

“Great!” Yoojin wrapped her arms around you, jumping up and down. “I’ll text you everything tonight.”

Yoojin kept up with her promise. After the three of you stuffed yourselves with good food, your two friends decided to leave before it got too dark. It was just a bit later when Yoojin’s text came through. You were to have dinner with this man called Kang Taehyun at an Italian restaurant tomorrow. Although you weren’t too thrilled with the idea of eating pasta, you figured you could withstand it for one night on the basis of trying something new.

You didn’t know how you felt about going on this date. Although you were excited to meet somebody new, something just felt off. Plus, you’ve never been on a blind date before. Who knows how good Yoojin’s judge of character was, or if this guy was like anything that Yoojin described.

You sighed, putting those thoughts aside. It was just a one time thing anyways, and who knows? Maybe this could lead to something. You looked over at Bang Chan’s hoodie. His warm hoodie that smelled so much like him. You should return it soon.

It was almost like he read your mind. As soon as you looked away, your phone rang with a call from Bang Chan.

“Hello?” You picked up.

“Hey, did you find your jacket?” He asked. You were surprised he still remembered.

“No… not yet.” You drifted off.

“Oh. We’ll keep looking for it, yeah? I’ll just buy you a new one if you can’t find it.”

You giggled. A couple seconds of silence passed.

“My shoot ends at six tomorrow. Wanna go to that barbecue place I was talking about?” He asked.

That’s right. Bang Chan couldn’t stop raving about that barbecue restaurant the whole week. He was really excited as his diet would end when he was done with his photoshoot, and he was apparently craving meat the whole time. All his praise made you very eager to see what the hype was all about.

You were about to eagerly accept, but then you remembered the date you had just planned not even a moment earlier. “Can we go another time? I… kinda have a blind date tomorrow.”

A few more seconds passed before you heard Bang Chan’s voice again.

“Blind date?”

“Yeah, my friend set it up. We’re going to this Italian place. Apparently he’s a really nice and handsome guy. He’s a law student, too.”

“Wha- law student? Y/n, are you sure you should be going on a blind date now? I mean, you just got here. You don’t know the city that well and you don’t even like pasta. What if he’s dangerous?” Bang Chan scoffed, his words got faster with each sentence.

“Chan, it’s okay. You don’t need to worry, I’ll be safe. Plus, I trust my friend.”

“You mean your friend you only just met?”

Silence.

“I only just met you as well.” You spat, slightly insulted that he would speak like that about Yoojin.

There was more silence that lingered.

“Whatever. Have fun on your date.” Bang Chan spat back, his harsh tone matching yours. Right after he said that, he hung up.

You looked angrily at your phone. Frowning, you threw your phone on your bed. Who was he to get angry at you for having a blind date? You recognized the dangers of meeting somebody new, but you trusted Yoojin. You were confident that Yoojin was honest about Taehyun.

A boyfriend would be nice too. Ever since your last relationship early in your university career, you haven’t had the best luck with men. It could have been because of how closed off your old friend group was. Your friends stayed consistent ever since you were young, and it was way too awkward to date a friend. You also found yourself way too closed off to go out and meet any new people.

Yes, tomorrow would be a good experience, you told yourself.

The next day, the hours leading up to your date felt like they had passed way too fast. The call with Bang Chan from last night still lingered on your tongue like sour candy, but you were determined to push past that in order to get ready on your date. After all, you didn’t want any frown lines to show.

You were excited to get ready. The amount of time it took to do both your hair and makeup was embarrassingly long, as you wanted everything to look just right for tonight. You didn’t want a hair to be out of place. You also took your sweet time to pick an outfit. Although the skirt you picked out probably wasn’t fit for the fall weather, you stuck with it anyways, choosing to layer a jacket over your outfit. One of your non-burnt jackets.

Double checking yourself in the mirror one last time, you locked the door and headed out. The streets were busy tonight. They were filled with people of all ages trying to relax from their tiring week.

Finding the restaurant wasn’t a hassle as the place was conveniently located at one of the busiest streets for weekend night-life. Dim yellow lights illuminated the tall glass windows just enough for you to see just the shadows of people enjoying their Saturday night. Green vines wrapped around the building, twirling and twisting their way around every crevice available. You tried not to fiddle with your thumbs as you nervously entered the lavish looking Italian restaurant.

“Hello, table for Kang Taehyun?” You asked the hostess. She showed you to a little table right beside a window. It was illuminated by a single candle, and already had two glasses of wine placed on it. And sitting at the table, hands crossed in front of him, was a hideously gorgeous man.

He looked like something out of a drama, really. With his tall nose and his sharp jaw, you struggled to convince yourself that this was a real man. His hands looked twice the size of yours.

“Hi, Y/n?” He asked. “I’m Kang Taehyun.”

He smiled and gestured for you to sit in the empty chair in front of him. You politely greeted him back and sat down. The two of you made some small talk before ordering. He made some suggestions on what to order, but you didn’t really care. You knew you wouldn’t like any of the pastas anyway. Plus, you swore to yourself you wouldn’t be drinking alcohol in front of strangers again.

“I’m surprised you agreed to this date.” You said, awkwardly laughing. “Isn’t a law student supposed to be really busy, especially around this time?”

“Well, I’m mainly doing this as a favour for Yoojin. She helped me with one of my classes.” He took a swig of his wine. “That girl is crazy smart. Or should I say crazy, but smart?”

“Oh?” You didn't want to admit that you were a bit disappointed he only agreed because of a favour. But he was being honest, so that was fair. What he said about Yoojin, though, took you by surprise.

“I’ve only heard rumors,” he tilted his head, “but some say that once in first year she went crazy over a guy. Started stalking him and everything. Apparently she even burned all his textbooks just because he started talking to another girl. They weren’t even dating.”

Your eyes widened at the allegations. There was no way any of that was true. You couldn’t imagine Yoojin — sweet, sweet Yoojin — to be capable of anything like that. There was no way her big puppy dog eyes and her fluffy hair could hurt a soul.

“Are you sure that’s what happened?” You asked.

“I mean, the guy was put into a mental hospital shortly after everything happened,” he shrugged, “so who knows? Maybe he made everything up in his head.”

“Yeah, maybe.” You nodded your head in agreement. Some of your hair fell on your pasta. You blushed, quickly trying to dab the sauce away using a napkin.

“You know Y/n,” Taehyun chuckled, “you’re cute. You’re not my type. I mean, I’ve only ever dated models before, but maybe it’s time to start settling down since I’ll be working at the firm soon.”

Thanks, I guess? You thought. You honestly didn’t know if that was a compliment or a jab, but either way you felt slightly insulted. You didn’t know how to reply to that, but it didn’t take long before Taehyun started again.

“I mean, look at my ex,” he said as he pulled up a picture of his ex-girlfriend on Instagram. She looked flawless in her bikini. “There’s no way I could actually marry somebody like that, right?”

If he says ‘I mean’ one more time… You thought to yourself. This date was turning south fast. This man was extremely handsome — almost god-like — but every word that left his mouth was poison infused arrogance. You didn’t know which was worse: listening to the man in front of you talk about his ex, or eating the pasta that was ordered by him.

You tried your best to stay polite with him for the rest of the evening. It was hard, though, as his cocky personality kept poking you down the whole time. It wasn’t until you finally separated that you had space to breathe. Great, you were left both hungry and annoyed.

Turning the lights on in your home, you sat at the kitchen table, still annoyed over your bad night. You took out your phone, wanting to scroll through the food delivery apps to find something to eat. Your thumbs began drifting.

No, stop. You silently begged yourself. Please, not tonight.

Your body didn’t seem to listen to your mind, however, as your thumb stayed hovering over Bang Chan’s contact. You pleaded to yourself to not press it, but your fingers seemed to have an agenda of their own. You pressed his contact. The phone call started.

One ring. Two rings.

“Hello, Y/n?”

You were shocked. He wasn’t supposed to pick up. Not after how poorly your last conversation went. You didn’t know what to say.

“Chan, how was the photoshoot?” You didn’t know what to say. You didn’t expect him to even pick up.

“It went great — feels good that it’s over, though.” He chuckled.

You wanted to tell him about your date: how arrogant Taehyun was, how fancy the restaurant was, how nasty the pasta was. You wanted to say all that, but tonight it seemed like your body just wouldn’t cooperate with your mind. And sure enough, you caught your mouth running before your mind. But this time, you couldn’t stop yourself.

“Chan,” you took a deep breath, “wanna come over?”

#stray kids #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #stray kids smut #bang chan smut #stray kids x reader #stray kids fanfic #stray kids fluff #bang chan scenarios #bang chan imagines #stray kids angst #bang chan angst #skz imagines #skz scenarios

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 4 years

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(Accidental 150 Follower Special) IOTA’s Top 10 Best (and By That, I Mean Personal Favorite) Episodes of Miraculous Ladybug

Alright, I already covered what I considered to be the worst Miraculous Ladybug episodes in two parts, and now it’s time to talk about the what I consider to be the best Miraculous Ladybug episodes before I talk about... him...

I’m only putting one rule in place for this list. I'm going to try and list episodes with good qualities other than “cool-looking Akuma and awesome fight scenes”, and focus on other details like character moments and story.

Other than that, let’s get started.

These are the Top 10 Best Episodes of Miraculous Ladybug (in my personal opinion because your opinion is also valid)

#10: Mr. Pigeon

While Marinette works on sketching a design for a hat for a fashion contest where the winning design will be worn by Adrien (a rare example where the “Marinette does a thing to impress Adrien” plot actually works), a birdwatcher who loves feeding pigeons in the park is told off by the only police officer in Paris, causing him to get akumatized into the titular Mr. Pigeon, who has control over all of the pigeons in the city.

And by God, does this episode have fun with the concept.

In addition to constantly mimicking pigeon cries, Mr. Pigeon's movements are just so entertaining to watch, only aided by the creative ways he controls the flocks of pigeons.

I'm not kidding when at one point, Mr. Pigeon traps Ladybug and Cat Noir in a cage, and threatens to have his pigeons crap on them unless they hand over their Miraculous. Yeah.

This is one of the episodes that really set the standards for how outlandish the Akumas in Miraculous Ladybug could get. It kind of reminds me of an episode of the original Ultraman, where the SSSP has to find a way to move an incredibly heavy monster using increasingly abnormal strategies, like inflating it with air so it'll float like a balloon. It's clear it isn't taking itself too seriously, so the audience shouldn't either.

Admittedly, Cat Noir's feather allergy feels shoehorned in, and is only included to increase conflict, and you would think it would come up when Mayura, a bird-themed supervillain appears in the third season. But then again, that's just a minor nitpick.

It's just a really fun episode, and I wish we could see Ladybug and Cat Noir fight Mr. Pigeon again that isn't used for a cheap gag.

#9: The Puppeteer

After being told by her mom that she can't have a Ladybug doll made by Marinette, young Manon is Akumatized into the Puppeteer. But obviously, you can't have our heroes beating up a five-year-old, so instead, the Puppeteer has the power to exact control over past Akuma victims as long as she has the doll made by Marinette. So Ladybug and Cat Noir have to face off against Lady Wifi, the Evillustrator, and Rogercop, before the Puppeteer gets her hands on the dolls Marinette made of the two heroes and take control of them as well.

It's still kind of funny to think about the fact that of all the Akumas to become a huge threat to Ladybug and Cat Noir, it's a little girl throwing a temper tantrum. And like with “Mr. Pigeon”, the episode has a lot of fun with the concept, best reflected in the voice acting. You can tell that Carrie Keranen is having so much fun this episode with the stuff she says as Lady Wifi.

The fact that someone who was actually a major threat to the heroes with how she was able to easily outsmart them and also came really close to getting their Miraculous is now acting like a little kid using phrases like “super duper sorry” is even more hilarious.

I'm still a little confused as why of all the past villains, it's Evillustrator and Rogercop that get to come back, and I wish they had gotten more to say, but it's still a treat to see Ladybug and Cat Noir fighting four villains at once, especially since this was before “Heroes Day”.

#8: Sapotis

Hawkmoth akumatizes Alya's little sisters into Sapotis (supposedly based off a folktale, but I can't find anything about it online), who have the power to multiply and easily overwhelm Ladybug and Cat Noir, forcing Ladybug to recruit Alya to become a third hero, Rena Rouge.

I've been a little negative about Alya in the past, but this episode gives her some major character growth. One of the biggest problems I had with her character in Season 1 is how often she tried to figure out Ladybug's identity... despite claiming to be a huge superhero fan, who should know why superheroes keep their identities a secret. Thankfully, this episode mostly puts an end to this idea.

The episode opens with Marinette giving Alya some reasons why Ladybug would keep her identity a secret, and it actually plays into the episode.

Putting aside the stupid Rent-A-Miraculous system introduced in this episode, the idea of keeping secrets and how necessary they can be sometimes is reflected after the battle where Alya is hesitant at first to give up her Miraculous, but eventually concedes and keeps her identity a secret from Marinette (who ironically knows, but that's not important).

Even without that, this episode still has a lot of action with the three heroes fighting their way through an army of Sapotis, with plenty of banter during said action. Hell, at one point, Cat Noir says “gotta catch 'em all”. I don't have a joke here, that's just brilliant.

Out of all the introductory hero episodes, this one easily sticks out among most of them.

(Don’t worry, I’m going to talk about Rena Rouge’s character design in a later post.)

#7: Guitar Villain

I said before in an earlier post that Jagged Stone is one of my favorite characters in Miraculous Ladybug, so it's obvious that the episode where he gets akumatized would be on this list.

After a disagreement with his manager about trying to mimic the popular singer XY (who ironically lacks a Y chromosome), Jagged is akumatized into Guitar Villain, a rock star with a pet dragon who forces everyone to listen to his Awesome Solo (yes, he names his attacks too) to dance uncontrollably.

Honestly, there's not much I can really say about this episode. It's Ladybug and Cat Noir fighting a rock star who flies around on a goddamn dragon. That's one of the coolest things I've ever seen! Even the way they defeat him (which I won’t give away) is a fun jab at rock stars.

Admittedly, the episode does border on grouchy old man territory sometimes by complaining about how bad today's music is with the way they portray XY as a whiny and egotistical coward, but after watching “Silencer”, you'll be glad everyone hates him.

Overall, it's a rockingly awesome episode.

#6: The Dark Owl

Mr. Damocles, the principal of Marinette and Adrien's school, is akumatized into the Dark Owl, a corrupted version of his favorite comic book superhero (who would later turn out to be real in the New York special, but I don't want to acknowledge that), who uses his high-tech gadgets to trap Ladybug and Cat Noir, putting them in one of their toughest binds yet.

I'm a huge fan of the Adam West Batman show, so you could probably guess why it's on this list. This episode really feels like an episode of that show with how goofy and over the top everything is. Obviously, this episode has a few Batman references thrown in (even an Incredibles reference at one point), and they're all hilarious.

I just love how complex Dark Owl's traps for Ladybug and Cat Noir are, and the fact that he actually manages to outsmart them at one point. Like seriously, have you ever heard of a death trap that involves drowning someone in whipped cream? That’s totally something you’d see the Joker setting up.

I don't really want to give away the ending (which is why this part is so short), because I think it's a really clever resolution that you should check out for yourself.

#5: Gorizilla

Hawkmoth akumatizes Adrien's bodyguard into Gorizilla, whose sole purpose is to protect Adrien. His motivation? To see if Adrien is actually Cat Noir or not. So Adrien has to avoid this gigantic gorilla's wrath with Marinette, all while trying to catch a movie his late mother was in.

See this? This is Adrienette done right. This is the kind of interaction I like when it comes to romance. Marinette and Adrien spend a few scenes with each other avoiding Adrien's crazy fanbase, and Marinette doesn't stammer half of her words. Even when she interacts with Adrien as Ladybug, she still remains confident, and Adrien trusts her judgment when it looks like he might fall. I don't just want Marinette and Adrien to cuddle with each other or declare their love for each other when they get their memories wiped. I want them to interact like human beings before they actually start a relationship, and this episode is a good example of it.

Adrien also gets some good focus with the way he views his relationship with his parents, as does Gabriel with his relationship with his son. Granted, he's taking a pretty huge gamble trying to kill Adrien to see if he's Cat Noir or not as opposed to just... taking off his ring while he sleeps. Can we at least admit he's trying?

I feel they could have done more with the King Kong homage (guess who I'm talking about?), but I can understand there wasn't enough time to focus on that. It's still an important episode to watch for plot and character growth that will barely be acknowledged in later episodes.

#4: Sandboy

tHe SaNdBoY hAs ChEcKeD iN. nOw NiGhTmArEs CaN bEgIn.

Now that we got that obvious joke out of the way, let's talk about one of the most creative episodes of the show.

Tikki and Plagg, Marinette and Adrien's Kwamis (the magical beings that power their Miraculous) take part in a ritual with the other Kwamis inside Master Fu's Miracle Box to contact Nooroo, Hawkmoth's Kwami, on his birthday and get an idea of where he is. Unfortunately, Hawkmoth chooses to akumatize someone during the ritual, leaving Marinette and Adrien helpless to fight back against Sandboy, an Akuma with the power to make their worst fears come true.

I said before in my worst list when talking about “Ladybug” that there was too much going on for one episode, what with Marinette's expulsion, the attempted Scarletmoth attack, and the fake Ladybug plotlines generally being rushed through. This episode is basically the opposite of that (ironically, they're both the penultimate episodes of their respective seasons).

The Kwami ritual and the Akuma attack are perfectly staged together so one affects the other. Not only do the Kwamis have to risk aborting their ritual to reach Nooroo in order to fight the Akuma, but Marinette and Adrien have to deal without fighting off Sandboy's nightmares on their own. Both plots balance each other out into a well-crafted story.

This is also one of the only episodes in the show where the Akuma of the week isn't the man focus. Here, we don't even see what happens to get the kid akumatized into Sandboy, and instead, Gabriel senses someone with negative emotions and akumatizes the kid offscreen. This works, because it doesn't distract from the main plot too much.

Even Marinette and Adrien's worst fears beautifully contrast each other, with both managing to be unsettling in different ways, even if they both have different tones. While Adrien's worst fear is being imprisoned in his own room (the fear only made worse with Plagg's absence), Marinette's worst fear is... the real star of the episode. Ladies and Gentlemen, I think you all know who I'm talking about.

You can tell the animators had a field day with animating Nightmare Adrien. Just look at the way he moves around and the faces he makes. It manages to be terrifying and hilarious at the same time. Bryce Papenbrook's performance only makes it better, cementing this as the highlight of the episode.

This episode also does a good job at foreshadowing the main plot for Season 3 with Hawkmoth finding out about the other Kwamis and by extension, more Miraculous.

It's got plot, comedy, good action, and Nightmare Adrien, so how can you turn this episode down?

And no, I'm not talking about Nightmare Ladybug, mainly because I'm tired of all the evil doppelgangers from the worst list.

#3: Startrain

Yes, believe it or not, I managed to find a Season 3 episode that wasn't complete garbage, and spoiler alert, this isn't the only one.

Marinette and Adrien's class goes on a field trip to London by taking the train, until the driver is akumatized into Startrain, who wants to escape to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism... SPACE! So Ladybug and Cat Noir have to defeat Startrain while also finding a way to bring everyone on the train back home.

I like how this episode plays with the usual Akuma of the week formula. Unlike every other Akuma they've fought, Cat Noir points out that if they beat Startrain, everyone will die, so they have to be more strategic in their approach. They don't even fight Startrain for most of the episode, as they have to make their way to the front of the train to confront the Akuma. The action in this episode is very creative and really takes advantage of zero gravity, only aided by the design of the futuristic train the episode takes place in.

The new hero introduced, Pegasus (AKA Max, another student in Marinette and Adrien's class), is also really cool, being very intelligent and helping out the heroes progress through the train even before he gets the Horse Miraculous. It makes sense that his intelligence would be used rather than just his powers in this situation.

There are even some good character moments too. For once, Master Fu does something smart and loans the Horse Miraculous (which has the power of teleportation) to Marinette so she can still go on the class trip, trusting her and actually letting her have a life. It was also nice to see Alya stick up for Marinette by keeping Lila from interrupting her nap with Adrien.

This episode is basically like a refreshing glass of water to enjoy during the garbage fire that was Season 3.

(I’m going to talk about Pegasus’ character design later on too, don’t worry)

#2: Silencer

Lukanette shippers, ASSEMBLE!

Music producer Bob Roth and his son XY hold a contest for young artists to show off their skills, and Kitty Section, a band composed of several recurring characters, decides to enter, with Marinette helping to design their costumes. But as soon as they submit their video, they find out that XY copied their style, naturally pissing the band off.

Marinette and the lead guitarist of Kitty Section, Luka, confront Bob Roth and XY, who threaten to ruin their careers by claiming that they ripped off XY. Seeing Marinette getting threatened is more than enough for Hawkmoth to akumatize Luka into Silencer, who naturally has the power to silence and mimic the voices of others.

I talked about Luka and his relationship with Marinette in an earlier post (specifically the one where Astruc claimed that the fandom growing to like Luka counted as character development), and I said that this was one of the few good episodes this season because of their interactions. This episode basically made me realize how much Luka cares for Marinette, and the episode gives plenty of time to show the two spending time together and growing closer. It's basically everything “Oni-Chan” should have been about, giving some depth to Luka and not portraying him as a crazy person like they did with Kagami in that episode.

Silencer is also one of the more creatively designed villains this season, and has a really creative approach to achieving his goals. While the ability to steal and imitate someone's voice seems mundane compared to control over the weather, or making nightmares come to life, it's used very effectively. Silencer basically tricks the police into arresting Bob Roth while imitating the mayor's voice, and he threatens to make his life a living hell by using the connections to the voices he's stolen. Even with the hand puppet gesture, it's still unsettling to have Silencer speak in all these voices, and it would make for a really interesting horror movie.

Even Ladybug and Cat Noir's interactions are back to their Season 1 levels of enjoyment. Even though Silencer took her voice, Ladybug just makes so many expressions that do a great job at describing her feelings, which naturally plays off Cat Noir's motormouth tendencies. Whenever Cat Noir jokes about Ladybug's condition, he is rightfully called out on it and is reprimanded in some way, my favorite being when Ladybug uses her yo-yo to hit Cat Noir on the head to shut him up. Even putting aside that, they still work well together this episode and really feel like equals. I also love their silent fist bump when Bob Roth is exposed.

Again, the episode still takes the time to go on about how unoriginal today's musicians are, and how they lack artistic creativity and all that crap. Look, given how ham-fisted the writing in this show can get, are you surprised the commentary isn't subtle?

Even putting aside how much this episode made me appreciate Lukanette, it still has a lot of great moments that aren't even related to the ship itself, which is a real testament to how this show can perfectly balance romance and story when it's done right. Now if only the show could try this much with Adrienette, then people wouldn't hate the main pairing of the show this much.

#1: The Collector

Taking place immediately after the Season 1 finale, Marinette meets Master Fu and discusses the book she found depicting past Miraculous users. Marinette theorizes that since the book was in the Agreste mansion, Gabriel could be Hawkmoth. And to the surprise of absolutely no one, she's right, and in order to draw off suspicion, Gabriel akumatizes himself into the Collector.

This episode has several good writing decisions for both sides, and the choices the characters make feel natural. Gabriel akumatizing himself is such a smart move, and so is what Marinette and Master Fu do with the book at the end. This episode does a great job setting up future plot threads and establishes Master Fu's character and the mystery associated with him.

The Collector is a visually stunning villain, and his powers are really creative, leading to a great fight with Ladybug and Cat Noir, who use a great strategy to outsmart him. I also love how over the top he is in order to make the heroes believe that he's working for Hawkmoth, all with a devious smile on his face.

This was also the episode that really got me into Miraculous Ladybug as a whole. I checked out the first season on a whim after it was mentioned in a Pan Pizza video, but it was during the hiatus between seasons, and I hadn't really started using Tumblr yet, so it mostly stayed off my radar. When Season 2 started however, I really got invested in the story, and the way this episode turned out was a big reason why. I wondered what it would be like when Adrien finds out his own father is Hawkmoth, and how the story would play out after the reveal.

Despite what it led up to, I still consider “The Collector” to be my favorite episode of Miraculous Ladybug.

Well, now that I talked about that, not it's time to talk about what I consider to be the worst episode of Miraculous Ladybug, “Felix”. God help me...

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artificialqueens · 3 years

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A Series Of Mutual Feelings, 1/3 (Scarjah) - Pazinae

chapter 1: i hate u (and the feelings mutual)

Chapter Summary: Ra'jah is determined to have a fresh start and be a better person, now enrolled as a first year fashion school student- but Scarlet has a way of always making her newfound plans falter. With a rocky high school history, the (not so) fortuitous pair endure some mutual hatred

A/N: enemies 2 luvers scarjah everyone xoxo meant to be a oneshot, but got a little carried away n my doc for this is currently 19 pages long ahaha so to be more palatable it will be a 4 chapter story (its says 3, but you'll see). this one is mainly the intro for the story to understand where they're at emotionally in the present, and is mostly ra'jah centric on her growth + kylie friendship fluff bc theyre the cutest, and a bit of scarlet pov. feedback super super welcome, enjoy !!!

***

Scarlet strode down the hall with a sway in her hips, her heels clacking on the laminate floor. What kind of tacky ass bitch wears heels to school anyways? Ra'jah scoffed internally, watched the girl saunter like she's on a tightrope, each tantalizing step brought her foot exactly in front of the other. Her body fell into a rhythm, stomping the fucking campus like a lion stalking the jungle for the sheer fun of watching it’s prey scamper. Scarlet's bouncing skirt, her signature grin and luscious ginger curls sprouting out her scalp made her gag. And not in the stunning way. Just as quickly as she came she was gone, and, to be fair, she was just another girl sandwiched in the masses just getting to where she’s going. But she could pluck that arrogant little redhead bitch out of any crowd. Not a conscious choice of course, hell, being reminded of her sheer presence causes a battle of trying not to roll her eyes behind her skull. She can't help that she sees her. Not when Scarlet's lips are painted the same shade of bold crimson as the tight, sleeveless top she's wearing, like a fresh drop of blood in a sea of grey clad bodies swimming around in their hoodies.

This isn't high school anymore Ra'jah. A repetitive reminder that needs to be said evermore until it's understood at her core. Because It's different now, she knows that- it has to be. No fucking way are her dreams going to get caught up in everything again, they're too big to be put at stake. She can't live just to be like that again, and this time she's too grown to waste her time on useless people. High school was a bubble, a 4 year trance that she's left and is more than ready to forget about.

"Hey, Ra'jah!" That southern, velvety voice could only belong to one stunning woman. She turned around to spot her speed walking to catch up.

"Aye! Kylie!" Ra'jah stopped and gave a little wave as Kylie approached, her highlight shining even in the shitty indoor light. The two moved over to the side of the hall, and leaned against the wall. "If it isn't Miss Kylie Sonique Love," With such a pleasing name, Ra'jah doesn't think she will, or, really can ever get tired of saying the other girl's name. "What's up?"

"Nothin', just tired as fuck," It's kinda cute, the way her accent gets stronger when she's grumpy. "I'mma pass out at some point, I did not get enough sleep." Even as a grumble her voice is so soft and angelic, Ra'jah could probably fall asleep to the blonde reading true crime murder stories.

"Goddamn, it sure as hell doesn't show!" Which is true, Kylie was as effervescent as always, any visible messy hair from under her beanie looked intentional. Even in her oversized t-shirt and shorts, there was an undeniable, captivating charm about her that made it impossible for her to look bad "You look gorgeous girl"

"Awh, thanks honey," She smiles a soft, hazy smile. "You don't look too bad yourself." She hums, eyeing her up with a grin. Before she could even argue a response, the country girl quickly perks up and slaps her hand on Ra'jah's shoulder in excitement. "Oh also! I want your opinion- I'm thinking about dying my hair pink." She can see the visible sparkle in the pair of eyes looking at hers. "Thoughts?" She asks, voice becoming giddy "Oooh bitch! You better, that'd be so fierce!" The (mostly) purple haired girl exclaimed, delight evident in her voice "For real, you'd look so good. And you know, ba-BY" she claps her hands together just for added emphasis, "I support ALL the impulsive hair decisions".

"Yess, obviously I want input only from bad bitches with the best hair"

"I told you I did these myself right?" she asked, running her shoulder length hair through her twirling fingers. "I've been really into doing hair recently"

"Wait, really? It looks so pretty, the fade to purple is so good"

"What'd you mean 'wait really' hoe, what you implying 'bout my hair skills?"

"Just that a talented woman like you should share your expertise!" Even when she was loud her voice was just as comforting, the tone reminiscent of a silk blanket on her skin

"All it took for me was bleach, a bottle of violet Arctic Fox dye, and the holy spirit of Brad Mondo"

"First of all I'm not trusting no mans named Brad," Ra'jah cackled a little because, yeah that's fair. "And secondly, if you're free, come an' help a girl out then!

"You're inviting me over? Wow we're moving kinda fast Kylie"

"Oh shut up bitch" but the undying twinkle in her eye confirmed the unsaid agreement that Ra'jah would be doing Kylie's hair, at some point.

"I'm free on Thursday, can I visit then?"

"Yea that works" She smiled, and the closeness between the two wasn't something the taller girl ever planned, or really felt before. But she had it now, a friend she really cares about, and she never wanted to lose it.

"Shit what time is it?" Even in her Shitty Human era she was still a timely gal, her mother didn't raise no late hoe. "Don't stress it Raj, we have like 15 minutes. Introduction to drafting and sewing, right?"

"Yes ma'am. Wanna start going?" "Sure thing" This year is for a new start, making new friends, and getting a chance to create new first impressions. Rebrand herself y'know, and the hindrance that is Scarlet's existence, wrapped in all the ancient things she'd rather not think about, won't stop her.

The walk to class was a pleasant blur. With Kylie yawning and walking essentially shoulder to shoulder with Ra'jah had they been the same height, they slipped into both comfortable conversation, and silence. With all the noise around them, their presence brought an ease without any awkwardness.

A trek opted through the outdoor route that was albeit a tad longer, provided some well needed greenery and fresh air.

"You excited for class?" Ra'jah asked, only half aware of where she was walking to. Her body was on autopilot, and Kylie knows the way, probably.

"You're amazing if you can get excited by class"

"It's fun!"

"Only 'cause you're good at it"

"You're good at it"

"You know what I mean. Isn't this one your favorite?"

"It's not my favorite"

"Uh huh"

"I just like it a lot. Maybee essentially jus' cause I don't hafta try" It was a mandatory course, but Ra'jah's not complaining. Perhaps it's a little vain to enjoy something just to remind everyone you can do it, but it was an easy break from the rest of the courses. And a nice little egoboost.

"So I'm right!"

"C'mon it's October and we're still on basic techniques"

"It's called introductory," She remarked. "Do you even pay attention half the time?"

"No but bitch neither do you"

"True" Kylie grinned in agreement.

"The way you're coming for me but it's easy for you too!" She hasn't been sewing as long as Ra'jah, but she has great taste so it really balanced out. "And let it be known that I use that class time to think about incredibly productive things"

"Oh that's her name?"

"What?" She didn't mean for her tone to drop. Didn't mean for her legs to stop walking, planting themselves into the cement. Didn't mean for the smile on her face to plummet at the implication. Her visceral reaction was louder than the cluelessness she gave off.

"Calm down" She giggled, as if Ra'jah's reaction woke her up from her grogginess, her breathlessness equivalent to a shot of espresso for Kylie. "You just seem really occupied sometimes is what I meant"

"Me? No I'm not" She couldn't convince herself.

"Okay babe. The models of your fashion sketches just look a little reminiscent"

"You know Scarlet isn't the only person with ginger hair right?" Ra'jah bites back, the condescending tone not her intention, but not exactly unwanted in the moment. Scarlet is insufferable, she doesn't want her own name slandered is all, being associated with the arrogant shit.

"Baby, I ain't mention Scarlet. That's all you.'' She had a shit eating smirk and maybe Ra'jah takes everything back about how nice friends are. IF there was inspiration, Scarlet is objectively nice looking so it's not a big deal there might be similarities if you squint.

"She was implied"

"If you want her to be"

They get inside and take a seat at one of the large tables, divided into stations with a sewing machine and some material at each one. Ra'jah takes a spot at the edge, with Kylie seated to her right.

On paper, it's all been planned out for Ra'jah; during her strolls between classes she'll take in all her surroundings and actively look for inspiration, pondering all the natural shapes and patterns of the world in a way she can manipulate into clothing. On paper, she'll make the most out of the introductory class, sketching designs between the minimal notes and sewing practices. On paper, she'll finish the mornings class with ease and have extra time to practice some new things.

In reality? Paper is flimsy, especially when its accountability is held by a fleeting mind. It's hard to bask in the world when unwanted questions plague her head. Mostly revolving around a certain redhead. God, fuck her. Fuck her pretty eyes and fuck her sculpted face and fuck her euphonious voice. Does everyone who sees Ra'jah see her patheticness? How she allowed some cunt to infiltrate her mind, set up home in her head and take up all the space? Let her infect every cell in the brain like a parasite until her skull is nothing but an infiltrated shell for an infestation caught up with infatuation?

"Ra'jah, you good?" The girl sat across from her, Trinity, piped up, and Ra'jah had to bite back a smile. The icy, timid girl she met just a few weeks ago was starting the conversation.

"Yeah, I'm fine, why?"

"You just looked a little spaced out"

"Nah, it's just that this class is a breeze an' I'm just thinking about a project for another class"

"Mmm"

"Plus it's hard to just think of designs when there's no inspiration"

"I mean, we're supposed to practice gathering and making ruffles right now"

"Oh shit! We are?"

"Yeah girl!" Ra'jah, shaking her head at herself, finally picked up some of the fabric around her and got to work. "You'll be alright?"

"Oh don't worry about me! I'm all good"

"Okayyy if you need anything just yell" Ra'jah replied with a hum and a nod. Watching the girl running the fabric under the machine, memories of the first time they'd talked flashed, days of the nearly silent girl feeling so distant.

"I really like your earrings" The girl raised her head, looking left and right a little as if making sure it was directed at her.

"Thanks." She mumbled, vaguely looking at Ra'jah's direction.

"If you don't mind, where'd you get them?"

"Uh, I thrifted it."

"Oh, cool" Ra'jah smiled, before quickly adding "Thanks". The raven haired girl didn't reply. The start of the intriguing game of 'does she hate me, is she shy, or both?'

After all the awkward attempts made for the quiet girl to be comfortable and maybe make a friend, a sense of pride rang through her. She met Kylie and Trinity here a mere month ago, and yeah, maybe she could be nice. She could walk the fineline of warm socialization without being annoying. The new Ra'jah doesn't do unnecessary mean quips just for the sake of a little power rush. She can be authentically her while being polite. New Ra'jah makes friends- not enemies.

"Oh by the way" Ra'jah snapped her head up at Trinity's voice

"Yeah, what's up?"

"I know it's a little random but do you know what you're gonna be for Halloween?"

"Huh. Well, I haven't really thought about it" Ra'jah remarked, "I just don't care for Halloween and all that"

"Really? Girl, you're not gonna do anything, dress up, go out, nothing?"

"Baby all that work and money for some costume I'll wear once? No ma'am- and the fuck will I do, I barely have ideas for school!"

"Hey, you could wear anything and it's a costume. Wear a black dress, you're a cat"

"You think I'm that basic?"

"Yeah?"

"Fuck you" She snorted, and Trinity had a goofy smile, looking at Ra'jah with a sense of familiar fondness. "And thanks, really, but I don't care for all that spooky shit anyways"

"Damn, alright!" Teeth out and all, she laughed. The blonde on the right leaned in a little, a pleasant opposition of Trinity's hesitation is Kylie's eagerness

"Jesus Ra'jah, what did Halloween do to you?" The southern girl butts in. "You could dress as the grinch of Halloween, steal children's candy"

"You know what, yeah, I'll be a sluttified grinch"

"You're kinda built the same already" Trinity joins with a grin

"Hey!"

"Sluttified? Are you implying the grinch isn't sexy enough?" Ra'jah choked a little at that, found herself smiling with some dopey content, at what exactly she's not sure.

"Do ya'll think being the grinch would count as like, being a furry?" Trinity asked, voice dripping in an odd amount of seriousness.

"What? Baby no" Kylie jumped in. "Yes! absolutely, how would it NOT?" Trinity argues, and maybe it's the easiness of everything. Of how nice it is to just fall into banter when you let people in. Bouncing off the two girls, she doesn't need to think of how to be funny, how to one up herself, remind everyone of why she's worthy. She can just, be. And that warrants a smile.

With Ra'jah's elbow propped on the table, she rested her cheek against her palm to face forward, before turning a little to face Trinity

"But why do ya ask Trin? About Halloween"

"Oh, kinda last minute but I just want some ideas to figure mine out" She shrugs, and Kylie leans over once more. It's a little heartwarming, how physically close she always instinctively wants to be.

"Oh! Are you going to the Halloween party this weekend?"

"Nah parties aren't really my thing"

"Awh, but it'll be fun!"

"Yeah standing in a mass of people I won't talk to will be so fun"

"Fine- Ra'jah, are you goin'?" Rajah turns her head to follow the voices like a cat keeping up with a beam of light.

"Uh..."

"RIGHT, forgot, Halloween's not your thing". A party where she can have a disguise, let loose and have fun. It feels almost embarrassing to admit to her newfound friends that she's never been to a party, and the thought of a Halloween party didn't even cross her mind. Maybe Halloween isn't not her thing, it's just not something she'd indulge in. For reasons. Like, schoolwork.

"Welllllll…" Ra'jah hummed, dragging on with a small grin

"OH the prospect of partying changes things huh?"

"You know, me an' Halloween, we complicated okay!" They laugh, but Ra'jah's left thinking. New or old Ra'jah both, spends a little too much time in the internal realm of the brain.

The class falls silent except the murmurs of the buzzing machines, and the three chatter in whispers. Although usually it's mostly her and Kylie with occasional injections of confirmation from Trinity

"You're insane if you think spaghettini is better than fettuccine" Kylie protested "Spaghettini is literally the objective worst"

"Says who?!" Ra'jah paused sewing to look up at Kylie in defiance

"Me!"

"Trinity which is better"

"Huh? Ya'll It's too early for this." Trinity complained.

"Oh, says the bitch who asked if the grinch was a furry" Ra'jah retorted, but Trinity brushed her off to look at Kylie "Oh wait! Also, Kylie, what're you gonna be for Halloween?" She gave a little snicker before answering

"Don't come for me but honestly? Was thinking about being a cat"

"AAAAAH!" Ra'jah and Trinity erupted laughing.

"But like, a hot one okay!" Ra'jah quickly tried to redeem herself.

"You'll be the hottest ass cat around" Plus, worse comes to worst, Ra'jah will be a witch or something, and they can be hot and basic together.

When the class ended, they packed their things, and exchanged their goodbyes

"I'll see y'all around!"

"See you! Good luck on your textile project Trin"

"Thanks!" She waved, yelling a final "Bye!"

"Bye!" The three part, and Ra'jah makes her way to her second class. History of costume and design was next, and quickly weighing it out, she decided to take a quicker path through the halls. Suddenly, the weight of a body knocked at her side, the two stumbling around for a few seconds. A gust of papers had fallen from both parties' arms, and landed on the floor.

"Oh shit! I'm so-" Scarlet cuts herself off when she looks up at whom she's bumped into.

"Maybe watch where you're going" Ra'jah snorts out of sheer instinct, squatting down to gather her papers where Scarlet follows suit, just a little too close. The vague, sweet scent of strawberries she gives off is suffocating.

"Maybe if you weren't such a stuck up cunt taking up half the hallway I wouldn't hit you" The attention sends a masochistic jolt down her spine

"Uh oh someone's in a bad mood. Stuck up cunt that's a new one! Love the creativity. You should drop out of this school and be a writer" As much as she screamed internally to just shut the fuck up and get your things, it was so easy to slip back to this.

"Thanks but I'm good! When you fail out this year you can give it a try"

"Baby, me? Fail out?" Please don't imply that. Please don't make me doubt that I can and deserve to be here. I don't want to seek approval from others, but I can't help but be hurt at disapproval. Of course, her thoughts don't verbalize as the words that come out of her mouth. "That's a lot of talk for a girl who probably spends more hours getting fucked than studying" Before she can think it through, process the flash of hurt on her face and the way her fingers tense around the last piece of paper, before Ra'jah can really understand the weight of her own words she continues. "But I guess that's how you get yo' A's right?"

Their exchanges were in aggressive whispers, hushed to anyone above them. To most people, they'd find a sight of two girls muttering to one another while they pick up some things they've dropped.

"You're so much prettier when you're quiet" Scarlet huffed, standing up in one swift motion. Those words aren't a compliment. Like, at all. So why does Ra'jah's dumb, twisted heart stop for a second? The implied connection of herself and 'pretty' slows her body and slurs her mind until she's pushing herself up off the ground in slow motion. It's been so many months of mundanity, the small interaction felt all so familiar and foreign and exciting at the same time.But the haziness of her words and their little games makes her forget for a second of what the fuck just happened, and a wave of patheticness washed over her as she started to walk, eyes focused at the cream walls. For all her hemming and hawing, Ra'jah hasn't. Fucking. Changed.

A rush of everything dives into her guts, a sick adrenaline coated in dread, self loathing and the slight urge to cry, nestling in her stomach like a bird claiming a branch as it's home. Her skin was electric, and she hated to admit she loved it, the thrill of interacting with her, cattiness and all. Imagine feeling this much from fucking bumping into someone? Fingers clenched, nails digging in her own palms at how much she hates her. Intense emotions are a high of their own, and Ra'jah can't help but indulge. The piercing sting of her flesh being pressed in with her nails is intensified as she listens for the faint voice of that lanky girl always accompanying Scarlet.

"You good Scarlet?"

"Yeah, thanks" She can't look back, but she can't help but wonder- are they hugging? Holding hands? It doesn't- it shouldn't matter to her. The fun amusement pales in comparison to the misery settling in. The realization that she's fighting with Scarlet like they're 16 at the back of English class.

Of all the schools, why'd that girl have to come here? Of all the things to pursue, why the same as herself? Of all the people, why'd it have to be her? Ra'jah didn't have the audacity to explore the last question. What she means, she's not too sure. The only thing in the world she's sure of is that she can't be both New Ra'jah™ and Old Ra'jah™ to different people. The line between the two existences isn't so bold anymore, and painting over the bumps isn't as effective as she'd hoped.

***

Truth be told, watching herself move around in skirts was one of her favorite things- just about tied with watching others watch her. Maybe that's why she joined cheer in highschool. Especially with the support from (or, lack of thereof) a certain grimacing purple haired girl, a runaway model from a fashion show who wound up wandering this school. She never needed to turn and look, didn't need sight to know there's a burn at her back, nor who it's radiating from. Scarlet always walked with just a bit of a straighter back, just a bit more purpose, and just a bit more stride in her step when her favorite pair of wandering eyes were around. A small part of her always wants to turn around, catch her gaze and watch her frantically look away and pretend she's talking to someone. Or maybe she'll hold it, stare back with just as much intensity. But her wistful attention is enough of an ego boost. The scowl ridden bitch, smile washed away just for her, and yet that's where her attention lied. It made her bite back a smile.

Scarlet is a pretty thing, and she didn't need constant confirmation to remind her that she's beautiful. She's hot, she knows it, Ra'jah knows it, and Scarlet knows that's all she is to her. A pretty thing. Whatever. She's not important.

In fear of her brain melting, and/or being fried to a crisp, Scarlet doesn't bother having two classes back to back. Her mental capacity is full, and a nice salad will probably help with that. She's on her way to meet with Yvie for lunch, thinking about their weekend plans, when she takes a misstep and stumbles, all her weight focused in her shoulder which slams against someone else's side.

"Oh shit! I'm so-" the universe is an asshole. May the odds never be in my favor.

"Maybe watch where you're going" Her sneer is venomous, and the universe has suddenly become just the second biggest asshole.

"Maybe if you weren't such a stuck up cunt taking up half the hallway I wouldn't hit you" Ra'jah didn't do anything, a rational voice lectures, but she ignores it the way she's ignoring the taller girls face. Scarlet's grabbing at her papers, avoiding eye contact because that selfish pile of shit on her right takes up enough space as is, and if she looks into her eyes, sees that stupid fucking face this close she might do something bad. Like, in the sense of, punching her. Yeah, she can't look at her or she'll beat her up. Because that's a fight she'd win.

"Uh oh someone's in a bad mood. Stuck up cunt that's a new one! Love the creativity. You should drop out of this school and be a writer" Ra'jah snides, and she needs to drop out before Scarlet gets grey hair from her.

"Thanks but I'm good! When you fail out this year you can give it a try" Her words are about as empty as her own stomach, because she hasn't eaten since last night, and Ra'jah will quit fashion school and become a science engineer before she fails out.

"Baby, me? Fail out?" Yeah, with the flawless outfit you're wearing that you sure as hell made just because you were bored one night. Your pants could literally be sold as a luxury brand. The girl who started sewing when she a embryo in the womb, you'll fucking fail out. "That's a lot of talk for a girl who probably spends more hours getting fucked than studying- But I guess that's how you get yo' A's right?" Scarlet looks up, not at Ra'jah but away from the ground, and the urge to yell, hit her, and cry come up at the same time. She wants to scream, get everyone in hearing range to know that Ra'jah is a loser who will amount to nothing. She wants to reach out and choke her. But articulating her anger into words is too much, and she ends up just whispering whatever words are willing to come out as she gets up, not caring if she left any papers behind.

"You're so much prettier when you're quiet" And that's the closest thing to honest Scarlet's said all day.

In the distance, she sees Yvie walking towards her, so she waits until the freshly dyed green haired girl is caught up beside her.

"You good Scarlet?"

"Yeah, thanks" The two walk together, side by side, and Scarlet loops her arm through Yvie's, linking the pair.

"You know, Scarlie, you should stop wearing heels before you break your ankles"

"Hey!" She giggled, slapping the taller girl's arm in response. "I never fall, people just get in my way" Yvie scoffs, unable to stop the corners of her lips turning up and giving her away, forever endeared by the shorter girl. Scarlet's affection makes her forget that they've only known each other for a month. They reach a set of blue doors, and Yvie opens it, holding it for Scarlet to come through. Her face seems puzzled

"Are you down to go to Mika's Cafe? I want to get some coffee"

"Sure, they have nice breakfast sandwiches and omelettes, I'm down" It's only a few minutes away from campus

"What's on your mind"

"Just like, school stuff. I have to make a dress for creative fashion design, and I'm just thinking about it, and what I wanna do" Would it be tmi to blurt that Ra'jah is insufferable?

"Cool," Yvie hummed, and spiteful words cycled through Scarlet's head, deciding on what exactly to say, before Yvie beats her to it, whipping her head in some seeming urgency

"OH by the way, I know you're busy with your project and you're determined on getting in the top 5 and all,"

"Uh huh"

"Buuuuut, there's a Halloween party this weekend, and I was gonna go with Brooke and her friends but they're not going anymore," Scarlet knows how Yvie feels about Brooke, and to be fair she's only met her a few times in passing, but how someone like Yvie could fall for someone as uptight as the boring blonde is beyond her. She doesn't dare bring up another possibility of why her dorm mate would be avoiding the stoic girl, a possibility involving a particularly hot headed latina glued to the Canadians side. "They decided clubbing downtown would be more fun or whatever," They're outside on the pavement now, and the afternoon breeze graces their skin. It's a welcome environment, and Scarlet slows down her pace to enjoy the air, with Yvie quickly matching her pace.

"Wouldn't you rather go clubbing though? Like not with Brooke and them but with others," Scarlet is friendly and all, but she swears Yvie is somehow friends with half the school. She sure as hell can find a group to go with.

"I guess, but I want to go to the party," she quiets a little as she continues, "There are some people I want to see there, for fun and stuff"

"Mmmm!" Scarlet widens her eyes, looking at the taller girl with a knowing glare, sprinkled with a teeny bit of judgement.

"It's kinda lame to go there alone!"

"No it's not!"

"Scarls, yeah it is"

"Why do you even care? Wanna impress some girls?" In response, Yvie rolled her eyes so hard Scarlet could practically feel it.

"'Cause you want me to go to a fun Halloween party by myself?

"Yes! You could walk up to anyone and there's like an 80% chance you already know them, and a 100% chance you'll become friends anyways" The quirky girl's charm is undeniable, she'll be fine without Scarlet. Yvie gives a defeated sigh

"Seems kinda homophobic"

"Ugh you know what's actually homophobic? The fact that more people aren't madly in love with me. I'm LITERALLY perfect" The prospect of love feels like it's been dangled infront of her, her whole life. Imagine looking like Scarlet, and never dated before?

"You're right girl, you are" Yvie laughed her deep, hearty cackle and Scarlet wanted to melt a little.

"Thank you, finally someone with taste" Looking at her outfit, she remembers that the tall girl's taste is kind of debatable, and Scarlet almost wants to say she takes it back

"You think Ra'jah has good taste then?"

"What?"

"Also a party seems like the best way to meet more people y'know?" She brushes over her last question, and it's much better that way.

"You know what, whatever 'll go with you" Scarlet agrees so she'll shut up. If she hears her roommate bring up she-who-shall-not-be-named-because-shes-a-stick-in-the-ass anymore she might lose her mind. And, she really doesn't have any other plans for the night so might as well.

***

AN: going to be a while for the next chapter bc im busy so here's a lil thing lol xo

***

They weren't supposed to meet here. Weren't supposed to see each other. At least, that's what Scarlet tries to tell herself.

"You are such a fucking pain, oh my god" Scarlet seethed because everything is hazy except the impassive girl standing before her and she can't think straight. Her cold eyes are apathetic and Scarlet wants to implode, like a glass thermostat engulfed in a burning heat where it's not a question of if, but an inevitable when? "Maybe I am arrogant" Her voice was coated in a sickly sweet frustration. She pushed further into Ra'jah's space, the taller girl stiffening at the ever decreasing space between the two. How can she be so still, so unreactive? This is all so amusing to her? Is she having fun, so fucking detached from everything and watching Scarlet crumble? Pretending like she cares about Scarlet past her pretty face? Enjoying her sadistic game? Fuck her, fuck her, fuck her.

"Maybe I am narcissistic" Their faces were inches apart, and Ra'jah could feel the angry womans hot breathe on her cheek, the pungent smell of alcohol intruding her nose.

"But I'd rather be a confident, arrogant narcissist than whatever kind of sad fuck you are"

Scarlet growled, and she wanted to breathe fire, burn Ra'jah's existence out of her mind and scream at everything she felt because of her. Except that she sees her, and wants her, wants to hurt her and touch her and without thinking her hands are digging around Ra'jah's waist.

"You are such-" Scarlet was interrupted as the other girl leaned in, framed the shorter girl's face with both her hands, and pressed her lips against Scarlets. Any thoughts or mental functionality she had were put to an abrupt stop. This wasn't supposed to happen. It's been so long, but no time has passed since they were last like this. The plug to her brain was pulled, and it's all static and her bodys done a full 180. Ra'jah's piercing lips are numbing, and her overheated body feels like it's been dunked in ice where all her nerves are all in shock. They weren't supposed to do this anymore, it's the only thing they've ever been able to agree on. She was frozen, unable to move, or think, far too busy being hyper focused on the familiar sugary lips on hers, sending waves of nostalgia through her body. Time has only heighted the intoxication. She gains some composure and surges forward, but Ra'jah's pulling away, opening her mouth to finally say something.

"You're so much prettier when you're quiet"

#rpdr fanfiction #as6 #ra'jah o'hara #scarlet envy #trinity k bonet #kylie sonique love #yvie oddly #ra'jah x scarlet #enemies to lovers #lesbian au #fashion school au #a series of mutual feelings #pazinae #concrit welcome

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thealwriteytrashdump · 3 years

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Coincidence (a Jeff the killer short story)

The feeling of waking up in the middle of the night is a strange one. The heaviness in your limbs and in your soul. It seems like time has stopped and the world has gone still. Until you hear the faintest wail of a siren in the distance and suddenly the nightly sounds of your city arise. The sudden hum of the AC kicks in and every so often, a helicopter flies to the nearby hospital. Someone speeds by on a motorcycle, revving to their heart’s content as they drive. You looked at the clock, 3 am; not yet time for you to begin your morning but ultimately too late to go back to sleep. The old apartment building creaks with age, and you hear the faint jingle of your recently acquired kitten. She has decided to keep you company as you both lay in a comfortable pile in your sheets. Truth be told, you’ve adopted out of sheer loneliness, the empty silence of your small apartment has driven you slowly mad over the months.

Sure, you had friends and loved ones, but you’ve since isolated yourself in an attempt to be independent. Before you had moved out, you lived with your sister, and while the company was nice, she had bullied you into doing household chores on top of paying a fairly decent size of the rent. Your parents assumed she paid for everything herself and you were living scot-free but that wasn’t the case. Both you and your sister worked very hard to keep your respective lives afloat, she worked hard for her children and was rarely home, hoping you’d be there for her kids when they needed it.. You, however, worked full time as well as went to the local community college to build up credits. After a couple of years of constantly fighting and losing, you had enough and moved away to a different part of town, burning the closest bridge you had for support. Now living in a smaller rundown apartment, working several jobs, and trying to make it through the semester, you lived paycheck to paycheck; making ends meet but not by much. At first, you’ve felt free, you’ve been living like how you wanted to and no one could stop you. For several months, it was your dream come true, you did whatever you want when you wanted. However, slowly but surely, you felt the loneliness creep in; working hard no longer filled you with a sense of purpose, and college work drained you of your motivation. Living the bare minimum began to take its toll on your mental health and your sheer iron will, or perhaps stubbornness, began to tire out.

You hear the soft jingle again and feel the comforting hum of your kitten’s purr. The madness you experienced in the past months drove you to make a rash decision on your part to adopt a kitten from your brother and his spouse. As rash as it was, it was also a decision you’ve yet to regret. As this tiny grey tabby proved, just a small amount of company did wonders for your sanity. Your kitten took some time to adjust to you but has come to love you as her caretaker and companion, and you’ve come to love her as your baby and loved one. Her eyes were a bit bulgy and her head just a tad too small but she was a beautiful kitten with a feisty spirit. Her name was a bit strange, and your family didn’t hesitate to let you know, but she was yours and you had thought her name was perfect. Now that little kitten slept soundly near your inner thigh, purring loudly and kneading your left calf.

You laid very still, looking up at the ceiling and listening to the world around you. The silence simultaneously existed with the noise. The quiet hum of the AC, the excitement of the world beyond but also the barely audible sound of your breathing and your heartbeat. The soft noises of your kitten and the settling of the walls. Noisy and yet not so.

Eventually, the sharp call of your alarm tells you four am has rolled around, and it is time for you to begin the day. You get up slowly so as to not disturb your cat, stretching, and yawning. You walked through the bathroom to the kitchen to turn on the lights and to boil some water for coffee. As the water began to heat and the kettle slowly whistled to life, you decided to take a quick shower. Your first job starts in two hours, with plenty of time to get ready and have a quick bite of breakfast, however, you preferred to be early rather than late. As the sun starts to peek out, you brew yourself a cup of caffeine and gather your backpack. It’s time to set out for the day, you leave extra food out for your little babe, and make your way to the bus.

The day usually passed by uneventfully, the coffee shop you worked at opened at six in the morning and stayed busy until 11 am. You stayed until noon, then caught the metro to your classes. It was just a couple of hours before heading back home to your little kitten to check up and prepare for your second job. As you walked onto the large campus, fellow students came and went as you headed up towards your classes. You heard bits of chatter and gossip,

“Did you hear-”

“-vered with blood-”

“That’s party was si-”

“There were so-”

“-arely slept las-”

“So what-”

Unable to hear full conversations or even full sentences, you passed by absentmindedly. There was something going on about a string of break-ins and robberies, but you paid no mind to it. Of course, you always needed to be careful, even in the safer neighborhoods. Gunshots were always heard every now and then, and there were lots of police around but nothing really happened in your immediate vicinity so you didn’t feel the need to keep your guard up. Still, you were very careful to keep to yourself and to check for any suspicious behavior regarding your person. You head to your first class as the crowds thicken, walking up the stairs to the central courtyard. As you approached the large area, you see in the distance a rather tall building with very large windows. These classrooms were for the English and History classes with some other misc. classes and a fairly large library. Unfortunately, the building was across campus from the Metro station, and mostly out of the way. The large courtyard is filled with hundreds if not thousands of students, you opted to take a roundabout through the large parking garage, most likely full of cars and other modes of transportation. As you round the corner, you bump into someone moving fast and land heavily on the concrete. You yelped in surprise and almost immediately excused yourself. Instead of a response, you hear the sounds of skates or rather a skateboard and look up just in time to see the man, with a dingy white jacket, already on his way without a second thought. Picking yourself up, you huff in annoyance and begin rushing away, muttering obscenities under your breath.

Jogging away, you dusted yourself off and started gathering your homework to turn in as you entered the building, you spotted off in the distance, your professor speaking to some of your classmates. She was delightfully wonderful to students, especially the younger ones who just started college for the very first time. The older woman was tall and very beautiful, she had a powerful presence that intimidated most. She was not afraid to speak her mind, and she was very much sassy to both students and professors alike. Her class was still boring and most of the troubled students disliked her for a number of reasons. While she was kind to the students, she didn’t believe that excused them for slacking off or failing her class. She was open and willing to help those who were failing but there were no favorites in her class. Slipping into the classroom, you sit in an empty spot around the middle area where there were a couple of seats open. Everyone liked to sit up front or near the back, and usually, you’re able to snag a glorious three seats of space in the middle area. Today wasn’t that spacious, but you aren’t complaining as you are seated next to the large nearly spotless window that looked out onto the small park nearby. The very last of the class files in and you begin your first lesson of the day, taking out your notes and doodling little figures.

As the class began, your professor walked in and greeted the class. The first order of business was to remind the class that assignments were due tomorrow and if the paperwork wasn’t in her inbox by the end of the day, she was giving out failing grades and speaking to the offenders personally. You continued doodling little figures and half-listening for important information. Fortunately, you had finished your assignments for your classes a few days ago. You were currently working on assignments due in a week’s time. It was better to be ahead to buffer workload and make it easier for yourself in the long run. Luckily, most of your professors allow you to be proactive in your learning so long as you still took notes and listened to the lectures. It was a great opportunity for you to keep yourself and some of your professors sane for the most part.

Some other students groaned quietly, but you continued to sketch out a face in the corner of your notebook. Your professor finished her speech and turned to start the lesson for the day. An hour dragged by, and a yawn escaped your lips involuntarily. You stare out the window, bored, the trees sway silently as clouds pass overhead. You tap your pencil against your notebook, you have already written down notes and important timestamps and pages for your books. You were confident you would pass the open notes exam next week, and you’ve made it so you had a light schedule that day as well. The day was almost perfect, you thought about getting takeout and treating yourself to some video games. Your jobs had you take a day off so you could focus on your schoolwork, and you were grateful for it. You smiled to yourself and yawned again; it would be a nice time to catch up on sleep as well. Another hour passed by uneventfully, and as class ended, you half jogged to the professor’s desk to turn in some work and to ask for the homework for the week after next week. She squinted at you and sharply said, she only had a rough idea of what the week entailed but she was more than happy to email you some copies when she wrote out the assignments. You nodded and thanked her, wishing her a good day and heading out to the hallway.

The two other classes you have for that day go by slowly as you fight to keep your eyes open. After the last hour of history was over, the plan was to head home for your “second job,” as you call it to your parents. In truth, it was a glorified online data entry job you did for a friend who started a business a while back. It was steady tedious work, but as a friend, you were called into action. It was your first job and the only reason why you were able to move out and start college. The pay was good and your buddy gave you great “benefits” as they were. He just needed some paperwork and bookkeeping done for his clients. While it looked legitimate for tax purposes, he mostly dealt with some particulars who preferred to keep their business and their lives private. It was a decent job, and most of the time, you never dealt with the clients themselves thankfully. It was just simple work done in the safety and privacy of your apartment. As a lower-tier worker bee, you were relatively safe, however, you never really knew if it was ever a guarantee. You never minded, you hadn’t died yet, right?

As the day ended, you spent the five-hour shift working and listening to the news. A tiny cat jingled around at the speed of light; she’d nipped at your toes before speeding off to tackle a chew toy. Working until you hit a wall in terms of motivation, you get up to make some tea, watching some of the news that you played for background noise.

“-Tonight at 11; In other news, a horrific breaking and entering at McCorrick and Washing Dr tonight as security cameras catch the nightmare unfolding. Police say two adults: one male, and one female, were found with three stab wounds in the chest and fatal cuts on their faces and throats. They were pronounced dead on arrival. One survivor, a young girl, escaped with heavy injuries and extreme loss of blood. EMTs rushed her to the hospital where she remains in critical condition. The footage shows the brave girl jumping from her second-story balcony and making her way to the local gas station where the cameras were located. The suspect seems to be a man in his late 20s, wearing what seems to be a white jacket and a face mask; although later eyewitnesses account that he, himself, was brutally mutilated.

This seems to be another case in a string of homicides by who authorities call the Glasgow killer, named so because of what he does to his victims and what he has apparently done to himself. Although, there’s nothing connecting the murders in terms of age, gender, or race, and there is no apparent pattern to each home hit, the suspect does cut a Cheshire smile cut into each unfortunate victim. If spotted-”

The whistling of the kettle catches your attention and you finish making hot tea with milk and honey. You had a light supper of leftovers and now you were drinking some tea to wake up a bit, You still had a few hours left before you could clock out and get some sleep. Sipping and holding your mug close to your body, you sit back down and stare at your computer screen. You knew what the underbelly of your city was capable of, the things people were uncomfortable talking about. Your city wasn’t the safest nor was it the place to go start a long and prosperous life, but it was a city of opportunity for those willing to cross that line. It was a hellscape sanctuary in the desert where the old and the rich come to vacation for the winter, only to leave when the summer heat arrives to cook the denizens unfortunate to live here. Only people with nowhere else to go were desperate enough to live in this scorching concrete jungle. Your city, the city of hope and of ruined pasts, was also the city of new beginnings for the rotten. Rated one of the highest for crime and deaths by murder. The land of opportunity was often paved in blood and sacrifice. You were no different, you came here for the promise of a better life just like the rest of the people. You turn back to the tv where the news showed a picture of the survivor and what looked to be a professionally drawn picture of a zombie with an unnaturally large smile. His sunken eyes seemed to be too large for his thin face and his nose seemed to have rotted away. Eyewitnesses described him as a moderately tall man with a sturdy build, wearing a tattered dirty white hoodie. His drawn picture bored into your soul and you were grateful when they decided to go into more detail about the victim instead, as you stretched again and continued working.

A young woman in her late teens, not much younger than yourself but definitely still a minor by law. You watch as the newscaster shows a picture of her from her social media, happy and smiling in a sea of blurry faces. She was very pretty and had a nice smile. You take a sip of tea, ready to get back to work when the stoic newsman claims police say they have security footage from a store nearby the incident. Pausing once more when you hear the name of said store, you focus on the tv as it cuts to the grainy video. It showed the gas station lot but in the background, there seemed to be something else going on. You see the distant apartments’ second-story homes. A small figure jumped from one of the balconies onto a brick wall and frantically crawled over: the young survivor barely covered and clutching her shoulder, struggling to make it over the brick wall. She landed heavily but crawled to her feet and limps to the gas station. A larger figure, suspected to be the killer, emerges from the balcony and follows her albeit with more grace akin to a cat. He leaped onto the balcony railing and used the brick wall as a stepping stone. He landed running and looked to be ready to grab the poor girl, but she was fortunate enough to make it inside the gas station and out of his reach. He skidded to a stop, looking through the glass before making his way away from the building and into the darkness.

Something is knocked into the camera and it abruptly ends cutting back to the newsman explaining the poor girl’s fate. She was carted away to the nearby hospital but as she had lost a lot of blood, she was still unconscious. She had stab wounds on her right shoulder, right thigh, and both in her hands. She was beaten to near death with bruises on her throat and face. Her family wasn’t so fortunate, having similar stab wounds, but a fatal cut on their throats and mutilated faces. Whoever has done this likes to cut joker smiles into his victims, leaving them to bleed out to steal anything of value from the residents. The news cuts to another story but not before showing the professional drawing of the killer again and cautioning viewers to be safe.

You let out a shallow breath you didn’t know you were holding, your hands trembled slightly. Closing your eyes, you knew that this was the very same gas station you visited the night prior. You had recognized the hospital to be the very same hospital you lived near. According to the timestamps, this seemed to take place right before you woke up. You had heard the very ambulance that took her. Small world. You steadied your breath and continued working, feeling much more alone and vulnerable than ever. The jingle of tiny bells rings out and your little kitten runs into the bedroom, chasing invisible prey into the night.

#Short story #Chapter1 #Jeff the killer #Creepypasta #lol #I wish to be a lame cringey teen again #I'm still lame and cringey #but I want to be young again #Plz read #Reader x Jeff the killer #Kind of #Murder Soulmates #Could be a longer story :3

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suffering-and-happy-about-it · 4 years

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The Lonely Man (Ghost of Tsushima one-shot, Part 2.)

The first one-shot which leaded to the other one: H E R E

One-shot description: Tsushima had found its peace again - Kotun Khan and his men had left the island, the Mongolian invasion had ended. Yet its remnants were sure to last in your home for a long time.

A/N: The warning from the first one-shot still stands. No matter how hard I will be trying, there will be some cultural mistakes, because I am still an European. But just like before, I will do my best to make it as accurate as it will be in my strenght to write the best continuation to the first part I’ve posted like two weeks ago.

Word count: 5.5 K

Pairing: Jin Sakai x female reader (He HAS a strong chaotic-bi energy, but he's talking about girls in the hot springs, so... 👀)

Warnings: xx

It was a few weeks since the spring finally started and since the peace had finally stumbled into your homeland again. It was true - after a long winter, the sun rays finally felt like gentle tickling on your skin. The beaming sunlight was warming you up, making you feel relaxed anytime you had the time to sit in the garden. Just like you hoped previously, the garden next to the farmhouse has bloomed beautifully. The trees had bloomed to be colorful - there was a few Sakuras, which were planted as already grown trees, were pink, so it was putting a smile on your face when the smile leaves flought by.

Yet there also were small trees with red leaves that barely reached your waist. You didn't know what kind of trees it was, but it was making the gardens a wonderful place. And the flowers were making you even more wonderstruck as you inspected and sketched every one of them when you had a while to do so.

A lot of people expected that as soon as the Mongolian invasion comes to an end, which came true ever since it was rumored that Kotun Khan's head was exhibited in the Shikamura castle, the geisha households will come to an end with it as the women will move to bigger cities to have bigger money and better clientele. But it soon became apparent that this wasn't the case. It seemed that the geisha ladies decided to live in the household even if the invasion ended and there was no need to gather in one place.

Although it was a big, former farmhouse back in the day, the mistress was planning on expanding it. The girls could travel to meet their clients from the household, but they would finally take in other trainees and appreciates as well, which would surely be amazing. If this plan would work well the geishas on Tsushima island wouldn't have to worry that their craft would end. This way, they could pass their knowledge on. While you were still living at the household, during the ordinary mundane jobs. You were still going for rice and other kinds of food, but at least, now you had a smart cart and a horse. You were still cleaning up the floors, doing the laundry, and cleaning the dishes.

This was your work. This was what you were doing every day, so you weren't even complaining. Yet even if you sometimes didn't even stop during the day, even if you sometimes took a bath at the hot springs and sometimes, you joined the geisha classes to learn new things, the man sometimes still crept to the back of your head.

It was a long time since you've seen him. It could be many weeks, it could be months. The timelapse from his departure was just running by. Ever since the morning Jin had left, you've heard a lot of stories talking about the legendary Ghost. His progress with repressing the Mongols was publically known and heard about. Your personal favorites stories about the Ghost was the ones talking about him searching for the legendary gear of the old samurai masters, finding bows, and the rumored sets of armors scattered and hidden across the whole island. He still was talking to foxes, following them around to learn all the secrets of Inari.

Yet sometimes, worse news got to your ears. Jin was holding the Mongolian invasion back, almost singlehandedly, yes, but his methods were scary and almost brutal. From the intensity of said stories, it could be heard that Jin was probably falling deeper and deeper into this dark situation around him, which was quite saddening you. But how could you help him? You couldn't just travel through the whole island and tell him to stop.

But when you were thinking about him, you were wondering... Was he thinking about you? Or was it exactly how you thought it will be? Did Jin forget about you as soon as he left the farmhouse on the back of his horse? Yet those were the question you knew you will never have your answers for. Life was just the way it was.

You were a girl who was in the right age to find her a husband, to settle down, and to start a family on her own. Yet it was hard for you to like the boys of your social status ever since you've met Jin. There were nights when the warm breeze reminded you of Jin's touch, there were moments when water or sake reminded you of the man's kiss. Shadows creeping on the curtains and shoji reminded you of his moves. But over time, you knew that you'll forgive Jin. All it was to took was time.

As the spring progressed, there was a young fisherman walking around the house more and more often. First, everyone thought he's just walking around, dreaming about the girls he can never have - but soon enough, you realized that it's not the case. In fact, he was trying to gather the courage to speak a woman of his social status. One morning, he came over to you when you were doing the laundry by the river and introduced himself. It was a nice guy, you had to say. His goal was obvious.

The boy's name was Eiji and his intention with you was to court to you, making you fall in love with him. It was very noticeable he liked you a lot - he was nervous whenever he came around to talk to you. When you tried to joke around, Eiji got shy and he almost didn't know how to respond. Which made you think about Jin even more. When you joked around with Jin, he carefully joked back. And his carefulness wasn't originating from being into you with his whole being - it originated from your social statuses being too different to go at each other with open and offhand jokes just like that.

Yet Eiji was completely clueless at times. You thought it's sweet and slowly, your relationship started to deepen. It was just a natural conclusion that he wanted to get married to you after some time. But... Were you ready for such a big step? Marriage wasn't consisting of engagement of any sorts at the time - it wasn't even legally documented that man had married a woman. All it took was you to move into Eiji's household and to stay there to legitimize your marriage. But there was where the hitch with this whole relationship took the first hitch.

You weren't sure enough to take the next big step. Right at the time, you've been doing pretty well. There was this place you've been the happiest in possibly the longest time. The girls were taking good care of you and you were free to leave whenever you wanted. But... Submitting yourself to a man, bonding with him to create a family.

Or... Was it just your uncertainty about leaving your freedom behind? Couldn't it be something else? When you were refusing Jin's offer, you've told him the following: if you'd meet again sometimes in the future, you'd know that it was the destiny leading you on the same road once again.

Since your family was very keen on honoring the spirits, you've always believed that something like a destiny exists somewhere out there, provided by the almighty universe and spirits watching over you.

Maybe you were hoping that destiny will lead the man back to you, now everything was solved. Jin could be the samurai once again who would soon get married to someone of the same social status, continuing his life for all you could know.

There was no certain and reliable information to trust, regarding Jin Sakai. Some said that he killed lord Shimura. Some were saying Jin didn't kill his uncle, but walked away from the whole Bushido codex since he had violated it so many times. There were people who were saying that Jin Sakai felt so ashamed, that he left for Japan on a small boat, as he got killed by the sea.

His spirit was everywhere, everyone was talking about the man. Yes, he surely turned into the rumored Ghost. A Ghost which followed you on every step and the Ghost, who was ways lingering on the back of your head.

Yet after some time passing by, the marriage seemed like the best solution. The girls had their suspicion about what happened that one night when the samurai asked for your companion, but falling for a man after one night seemed to be dangerous.

Eiji was there for you for long months. The boy brought multiple flowers and small gifts, like new materials to make new clothes out of. He was extremely sweet and noticed the small things you liked, always focusing on them.

After long weeks of the girls talking you down to marry the guy, you agreed to his proposal. But to keep at least some kind of remnants of your freedom and pride, you wanted to have some ceremony. You wanted to have a ceremony in the geisha house, since the mistress was the closest person you had to a family member, just like the other girls.

And everyone seemed to be very excited about this event. It all could be easily explained - this was the first real, happy moment since the Mongolian invasion had ended. It was natural that everyone was going over the top with the preparations. The girls helped you with sewing the nicest shiromuku you could make yourself.

They also managed to get you some top tier fish meat to make food from, and the biggest present was sake brought from a man named Kenji. It was the best sake you had ever tasted.

Yet as all the preparations were coming to an end, another rumor started to go around the place where you lived. A strange man entered the valley where the farmhouse was located - and people were getting a strange feeling from the man.

He was, without a doubt, a ronin. But what was making him strange was his straw hat, the remnants of a group of soldiers, who joined the Khan. But... Why was the person even alive? It was rumored that every Strawhat was killed by Jin Sakai.

Naturally, out of fear and respect, people didn't stop the stranger on his way through the farms and villages. And for a reason, you were worried that somehow, the man will crash your happy day. Which, for a reason, seemed to be a real option.

It was even the biggest thing you were nervous on the morning of the ceremony. The man was on your mind the whole time - when you were dressing up, at the time when the Shinto ceremony was prepared, even throughout the time you were walking through the house, feeling the last remnants of your freedom slipping through your fingers. And that was surely a thing you didn't like. It was just moments from when the ceremony was about to start - soon, someone would come for you to lead you there, as you'd start to conceive Eiji as your rightful husband, living with him until the end of your days, doing everything with him.

Honoring the spirits, taking care of the home, take care of children, cook the food, and... There was so much thing you were about to do on a daily basis. Yet it was like a cycle that would be repeating itself every single day. It was the one thing over and over again which was making you freak out. Until you heard some excitement going around in front of the very house you were waiting in.

Someone was trying to stop someone from talking to you, but the other person seemed to be unstoppable. Soon, the shoji flew open and at the same moment, you sprang up on your feet. A feeling of uneasiness and fear struck you as you looked at the masked ronin standing in front of you while Kohaku was trying to make him leave the room so he wouldn't make you too nervous or distressed before the ceremony.

The man appeared exactly as the rumors described him to look like. Which, on one hand, was the first time you've seen a rumor coming true for the first time. He, indeed, was wearing a straw hat covering his whole face and a worn-out yukata along with airy, comfortable trousers. For a reason, his inner palm was resting on one of his swords as he turned his face at you. A thought flew over your head.

Was this person here to kill you? Could someone hear about your connection to Jin Sakai? Could he be looking for revenge? If that was so, which was highly doubtable, the person was surely seeking revenge at a bad place. Jin didn't care for you ever since he left your settlement. The man won't likely even know that you would be killed. Which, in fact, was very sad... But true. Yet instead of that, the man just fell down on his knee, showing you his humility and respect. With scared expression, you looked back at Kohaku standing outside, wanting to oust the man out.

"I just wish to speak to you, lady." - The man barely spoke out, having you nervously spinning your fingers around as you didn't know what to do. Well, if he'd like to kill you, you'd be already dead, right? He had quite some time, about a minute, to slice your throat or to murder you in any other way. So, there was a possibility that he maybe doesn't want you dead. After a minute, you nodded at Kohaku, closing shoji to have at least a hint of intimacy.

"If you wish to speak of Jin Sakai, I don't know where he is or what is he doing now. I don't know any other reason why would you visit me on the day of my wedding." - Was all you told him as you lounged around the room to take a sip of water to hide the nervousness that was hugging your whole brain. But the man was still on his knees, having his head lowered in front of you to prove to you, how vulnerable he was. And, in that moment, you heard the words which you were thinking so much about.

"You promised that if we'd ever meet again, you will admit that this was all destiny's doing." - The man spoke out a bit cleared than before. With these words, you turned back at him. Your heart almost jumped right into your neck when you realized what he was indicating with the statement. Hoping it's him under the hat, you walked in front of the man, unmasking him with shaky hands. As soon as you saw the black hair, your fingers wanted to do only one thing - to dip into it, to caress it, and to tug on it, just as you did before. - "I'm just staying true to my word, Y/N." - Jin whispered and put your palm on his cheek to feel the caress of your skin again. He was still beautiful as if he hadn't aged a day since the day you've seen him for the last time. The only change from the man you've seen such a long time ago was that this Jin had a scar on the left side of his face, yet in your eyes, he still was almost breathtaking.

With a happy sigh, you got on your knees as well, putting even your other palm on his cheek. A smile lightened up your face as you absorbed every small part of his face with your eyes and your fingers - just moments before he kissed you. On his journey, ever since he left your farmhouse, he was honoring every shrine he had met, hoping he'll meet you at the end of his journey. And there he was, after a long time of traveling the mainland in the shadows, hidden from the eyes of his own people. Yet nothing seemed to change in the way you embraced him or the feeling your kiss had woken inside of him.

"I was... I was worried that you had died, Jin. I was horrified." - A mumble left your mouth when the kiss had ended. Jin, until that moment, didn't notice you were crying the whole time he was stealing the kiss from your lips.

"It's very complicated, my dearest." - He answered, slowly leading his palms on the beautiful clothing you were dressed in. It was special to see normal people evoke a Shinto ceremony. Usually, the wife you moved in with the husband, starting a family. Yet the dress was suiting you - making you look innocent, even if the man had to smirk when he realized he already stole your innocence. At that moment, Kohaku stormed into the room again - yet when she realized who was the man leading his palms over your body, she bowed with the deepest meekness. - "Lord Sakai." - Was the only thing she got out. Jin didn't answer, yet he got on his feet and stopped the lady from bowing even lower.

"I am no lord now, lady Kohaku. You must've heard of it by now." - He smiled shyly, stepping away from Kohaku once again. With deep sadness, your mistress nodded, sighing. - "I did hear about what happened, yes. But apart from your uncle and the shogun, you were the only one who fought for the ordinary people, so in my eyes, you will forever be the lord I know you as." - Kohaku explained simply, backing to the door again. - "I will tell the others about your presence, my lord, to make them understand why the ceremony will be delayed." - Kohaku addressed and left you both in the empty house.

There was something else she was saying with her words. She won't only tell them that the ceremony will be late - she was about to tell Eiji, that no wedding will happen that day. Women were very sensitive to picking up the words and signals that weren't said out loud. And the day Jin left the house on his horse, she immediately picked up what happened the other night, although the never spoke of the issue out loud. Why should she? It was a private matter. You, without realizing, never were the same once lord Sakai left the farmhouse.

"If it's complicated, sit down with me and tell me what happened to you, please," - You asked and invited him to another room, which had opened shoji leading right to the garden, so you both had a nice view. Without asking, you poured the man some sake to make him more relaxed, even if your presence was already doing enough. You checked your privacy three times to know it was safe when you walked behind the man to massage his shoulder, bringing the yukata off his shoulders enough for you to plant a kiss on the nape of his neck.

Jin slowly started opening up, starting exactly on the day he had left you on the farmhouse. He spoke of his friends, Yuna and Taka, of the sensei Ishikawa and even told you rather intimate information about lady Masako, the only survivor of clan Adachi. He spoke of the fight against the Mongols... Until the first beats of his uncle being disappointed in him started to hint on how the story will end. At that moment, his back was leaned into your chest as you held your arms entwined on his chest.

"It was obvious that nothing will be as it was before, I could feel it. His gazes, words, and behavior started to shift heavily. It was breaking my heart apart, yet at that moment, I couldn't take anything back. It was all done, I've already stepped from the journey of honor to save what was remaining after the Mongols stormed through my homeland." - Jin sighed, putting his palm over your forearm to smooth it without paying attention to it. - "Shogun marked me as a traitor and sent my uncle... My own family and blood... He sent my father to kill me as a punishment for both of us."

"While you're sitting here with me now and he isn't, did you kill him, Jin?" - You whispered, gently pushing your fingers under the yukata on his chest, putting the center of your palm on his heart to feel it beating. Yet the man shook his head, watching the sakura in front of you. - "No. While I may have no honor, I wouldn't ever kill my own family. I left him there because I couldn't do it. Yet now I have no family, no honor, and no-one else left. I am a wayfaring ronin on his way to... Somewhere."

This wasn't true and he knew it. He still had Yuna to accompany him. - "You have me." - You whispered after a small while. - "I promised that if our paths ever cross again, I'll admit that this was all evoked by destiny. And here you are." - Your arms around his body tightened. Jin smiled at those words, holding your forearm tightly than before. - "You have a life here, Y/N. I have no right to take it away from you. I came late." - Jin squeezed your arm one more time before sitting up to look you in the eyes. His lips gave you a saddened smile as he rose his palm to smooth your jaw.

"What are you going to do now, Jin? Where are you going?" - You asked, catching his palm in yours as you pressed a peck into the small valley on his palm. - "Well, now I visited you, I will most likely hide somewhere in the mountains to wait for another chance to protect my country, leading a lonely life aside from everyone." - Jin described openly to which you stood up, taking the upper layer of the dress off, standing in front of him in a black yukata and pants similar to his. - "Stop, this is not what you want." - Jin tried to plead you, catching your palms in his.

"I always dreamed of a small house aside from everyone and a peaceful, quiet life. I wanted to marry this man because you weren't coming and I was horrified you might never come." - You answered before kissing Jin to shut him up for a moment. - "Go for your horse, I will wait at the other end of the garden." - Was the last thing you've told him before you left.

The man did exactly what you wanted him to do - he, again, put his straw hat on to cover hid identity, walking out of the house where Kohaku was already waiting for him. - "Lady Y/N is very distraught, please, let her take a moment before starting the ceremony." - Jin bowed to the lady and she repeated his actions, pushing some food she packed for both of you while she told everyone that you had some oppressing matter to attend to.

"Take good care of my girl, lord Sakai. Keep her safe and happy, may the spirits look after both of your souls." - She smiled before turning on heels, walking into the house you were at just minutes ago. And she found exactly what she thought she'll find - the upper part of your wedding dress was laying on the ground next to a half-drank sake. And in the distance, she heard a horse riding off, presumably with both of you on its back.

Presumably, it was Jin's choice to come back for you, yet he'd never meet you if there wasn't for destiny. Your choice of complying with it was one of the best you've made. Life in the mountains granted you both with a great deal of privacy, so you could bond deeper, getting to know each other more close. So close you had started a family after some time, which was the best thing that ever happened to Jin.

Clan Sakai had its successors. He had children of his own to which he could pass his knowledge, knowing that when he leaves the Earth one day, the destiny of the Sakai family will be secured.

Sometime later:

The coffee shop was literally brewing with life. You adored having a shift on days like these - the sun was shining, so people were in a good mood, they were snickering, giggling at laughing and most and foremost, they left you some good, generous tips. Every buck could help you pay off the college loan you were currently fighting with. Sure, having a degree sounded nice, but it was actually expansive to study it when you had no-one to help you with it. And no-one would tell you this beforehand.

With a small smile, you leaned your elbows to the wooden desk behind you, as you started to play with your small notebook and pen, which you used to write down the orders of your customers. That day, you had quite a lot of people coming in to have your delicious sundae with hot raspberries and strawberries. Your workplace sure as hell wasn't the biggest in the town, but you liked it a lot. It had a nice, family-like atmosphere and most of the workers were nice people to work with, which was the reason why you didn't have even the smallest problem with coming to work.

On the other hand, a man was running late on his family lunch. But the craving for a cup of coffee was stronger than he was, so when he spotted the first coffee shop next to the road, he stopped there, leaving his sister in the car. - "Jin! Come on! Uncle is going to kill us" - She cried out of him and it almost seemed that Jin was really coming back to the vehicle - just to get his wallet from there.

This man was unbelievable - dressed up in his leather jacket and with a man bun, he was looking quite ridiculous in the eyes of his older sister. - "Wanna something too?" - Jin leaned his elbows to the opened window on his side of the car, having his sis rolling her eyes monumentally at it. - "Then watch the car and don't drive away with it, yea?" - The man patted the hood before running inside the coffee shop. As soon as he spotted a waitress standing by the countertop, he headed straight to her, not looking at her in the first moments.

"Hey, hey." - He got out with heavy breathing. - "Do you make take away coffee? Please, tell me you're making take away coffee." - A man spoke at you, barely looking at you, seemingly being in a time press. Your eyebrows arched at the question. You hadn't got someone like that every day if you had to be honest.

"Sure, I can make you a cup of our take away coffee, if you want to call it like that. Chill out, are you fine?" - You asked the man with worried, watching him being dressed up in a leather jacket on a day like this one was. It was too hot to have such clothes on. But in the between, you moved behind the cash register to have access to the coffee brewing machines. - "Yea, I was just without caffeine for too long and I'm... Really... Craving... One."

At this moment, the man noticed you for the first time. Yeah, he kinda knew that he's talking to someone the whole time, but at that moment, JIn looked directly to your face for the first time. And the first thing that struck him was that he knew you already. Your face was almost awkwardly familiar to him. But Jin was fully aware of never seeing you before. You were beautiful, eyecatching and something totally out-of-the-world for the man so much, that he forgot how to speak or listen to what you were saying.

"Excuse me?" - He asked you back, jumping in the middle of your monologue. Your eyes widened as the man interrupted you in the middle of naming your offer, having you completely forgetting what you were speaking about. - "I was asking you about what would you like to order." - You mumbled, looking at the man back.

Something was telling you that you've seen him somewhere. These lips were hard to forget about - and you've memorized them from somewhere. Almost as if you already had kissed them one day. The eyes and the entirety of his face... Where the hell did you meet this guy? - "It wasn't this sort of excuse me. I wanted to ask..." - "If we had already met somewhere?" - You finished with anticipation. This conversation could go two ways - either, he'd think you're a total creep or he would be thinking about the same thing as you were.

"Yea. Exactly. Do you have that feeling too or am I going nuts?" - The man's face lit up with a huge smile, which obviously had you smiling in a second too. Quickly, you shook your head and confirmed the weird feeling inside his head. - "Good. Now, for the coffee, I would like a latté with double milk, please." - He finally placed his order and you, since you got through the stranger phase pretty quick, pointed your fingers at him, wiggling your eyebrows. - "I'm on it, chief." - You winked, having the man's eyes watching every move you made.

You moved with such grace that it was hard to take his eyes off of you - it was so hard that Jin had to lean his arms next to the cash register since he wasn't able to turn around from you. There was this force that was simply making the man gravitate toward you, even if he hadn't ever felt like that before. Any girl he had previously dated or slept with never had him gravitating towards them. It didn't matter if they were somehow considered prettier, had better jobs, or whatever, any of them didn't for these reactions out of him. Again, he got lost while you were obviously talking to him.

"Excuse me?" - He woke up from his small trance again, still leaning his upper body the countertop. - "I was asking if you're alright. But now, I almost want to ask you if you're staring at my lovely bottom." - You repeated yourself, finally finishing his order. With a small smile, you took the cup to your palms, searching for a black marker.

"Isn't this against the company policy or something?" - "What is?" - "Flirting with a hot costumer." - The man smiled at you daringly, shoving a strand of his hair behind his ear. As you finally found the marker, your cheeks started to go on fire as you shook your head unbelievably.

"As long as the hot costumers don't mind it, it's not taken as a sexual assault. Come on, what's your name?" - You pushed the cap on the stranger's cup. The man straightened again, putting both his hands on the countertop. You watched as he childishly bit his lower lip, tapping some sort of a melody into the wood. - "Wouldn't you wanna know?" - His playful voice teased you, but just moments after that, you put the cup in front of him, naming the amount of money you wanted from him. Without any word, he paid and even gave you a pretty generous tip, But when you gave him the receipt, the man took the marker and wrote his name and his number on the back of it, giving it back to you.

"And what should I do with this... Jin?" - A victorious smile lighted your whole face up as Jin was already walking back to his car, where his pretty nervous sister was sitting. - "I think youre smart enough to figure it out. My offer is today at eight p.m., so give me the deeds as soon as you decide." - He winked before he turned at his heels, walking straight to the car.

The whole exchange was definitely that once-in-a-lifetime one because you rarely met someone who would make you feel like you knew them from the very first moment you laid your eyes on them. Who knew? Maybe it was destiny showing himself even centuries after the moment you've met someone for the first time. Well, that was pretty crazy to start with, but... Who could really know?

#jin sakai #jin sakai ghost of tsushima #jin sakai one-shot #jin sakai imagine #jin sakai x reader #lord shimura #the tale of the ghost #well here you have it

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perpetuelledaydreaming · 4 years

Text

BACK TO YOU (CHAPTER VIII)

Summary: Y/N Stark and Peter Parker are unconditionally and irrevocably in love with each other, being friends for years was just the step before making it official. BUT, just the weekend they did, Thanos and the snap happened, leaving Y/N broken: without friends, avengers family or Peter Parker. So, she has to move on, at least that’s what everyone’s telling her and she really tries to do it and who better to help her than Harry Osborn. But, has she really let Peter go? What if Tony Stark -genius, billionaire, playboy, and philanthropist- knows how to bring Peter back? And what happens when he does? Is Y/N going to avenge again? Who’s going to lead the avengers now? Who is she going to choose? Harry or Peter? and who the hell is mysterio? *He doesn’t even go here

word count: 14k (sooooo long, i’m so sorry)

author’s note: It has been a while but I love this chapter so much and i’m so happyyyy how it turned out. It took a while but this helped me so much for my mood the past few weeks. My birthday wasn’t nice so ugh okay, this helped me.

SERIES MASTERLIST

“So, are we not going to talk about this Mysterio guy?”, Harley asked as you watched the combat between Lila and Cassie.

It had been over a week from the attack and you had met with Mysterio and Fury a few of times, basically him explaining ways to attack the probable new appearances of an Elemental; apparently you were still missing two.

Peter and Quentin had been hitting it off just fine, a possible mentorship blossoming by the way Quentin placed his hand on Peter’s shoulders, patting him as if he was a puppy when Peter said anything mildly right. While you, you remained quiet a lot of the time, intervening when you thought it was necessary, trying to work with Beck -which now had been named Mysterio, making you want to gag at the sound of it- who didn’t seemed to like you either.

Instead for Peter, it had been a breath of fresh air.

Quentin Beck seemed like a Tony-like-figure for him, he was as enthusiast as Tony was with Peter once he had warmed up to him, but it seemed to be easier with Beck. He had a similar personality to Tony’s, a suave-like mood that could make you believe in yourself just by him saying it.

The only thing that was different from Tony, was the underlying twitchy and unstable look on his blue electric eyes. Peter imagined it could be because of the trauma of his planet being destroyed by the Elementals, he felt kind of bad for him and somehow related to. Peter knew that, although he had gotten a bit better since you guys came back to speaking terms, he still was struggling with his anxiety and the nightmares from the snap. And now you, who could usually ground him with your hands on his curls, your laugh or by simply holding his hand, didn’t do it anymore.

“What about him?” Peter asked as his gaze was still focused on Lila and Cassie, realizing that Lila clearly had the upper hand.

You didn’t really answer to Peter or Harley, simply glaring at Harley as you turned back and focused on the combat that would be over soon, you realized as Cassie’s back hit the mat.

It had been a long weekend of training with the new recruits, Sam and Bucky were the ones that would be usually directing these trainings but since they were on a mission in Europe, it fell on your hands, with the help of Wanda and Peter backing you up.

Wanda was excited by the prospect of being a teacher but you had asked her to just be a bit down since he usually trained with the hardcore ones that were Nat and Steve or Bucky, because of the advantage of magic. She huffed at your request but she was still useful as she helped Harley learned the basics, while you later helped him with some of the new suit’s tricks. Peter, although you hadn’t talked a bunch, was really helping you with Cassie and Lila, mostly Lila who already had experience thanks to Clint.

Nonetheless, it was still nerve-wracking thinking that you were responsible for this new generation of Avengers and if they didn’t really learn everything that you could teach them, they could be in great danger.

“I win!”, Lila screamed as she breathed heavily with a smirk on her face, shouting a victory cry while Cassie rolled his eyes and lay down in the mat.

You smiled lightly and walked over to Cassie, helping her stand up as Lila was still gloating on her victory. Lila and Cassie reminded you a bit of Peter and you when you would train together, always riling each other up but at the end still enjoying the other’s company. These were the trainings where you began learning how to be in sync with each other.

“It’s not fair! You have been trained by spies since you were born”, Cassie taunted as she stretched her back while glaring at Lila.

Lila turned around and smirked, “You know I’m going easy on you, right?”, she said as she bounced towards Cassie, while she smiled devilish.

Cassie simply gulped for a second but then she rolled her eyes and motion on her hand for Lila to keep going, while turning around to sit in the mat next to Wanda who was reading a book silently while she waited for them to finish.

“Don’t worry Cassie”, Wanda offered with a slight smirk. “Y/N felt the same way when Peter won their combats”, she laughed as you watched her with bulging eyes, extremely offended at what she said.

“Hey!”

Peter smirked as he heard Wanda, folding his arms over his chest remembering the times -not when he won- but when you wouldn’t complete a task because of your banter; which ended with Steve and Nat furious at you two.

“It’s true”, Peter muttered, while you turned around with a gaping jaw.

If this was back then, you would have totally made a move on Peter. You would’ve probably tripped him over and then climbed over him, ordering him to take it back before he would overpower you and then stamp a kiss in any part of your face.

But this was now and it didn’t work like that anymore.

“It’s totally not”, you cried as you held your head high “I’ve kicked your ass as well”, you bickered.

Peter laughed at your answer and you couldn’t avoid but to let go either, laughing at past memories who could feel like as if they had happened yesterday but at the same time, as if they had happened in another life. To a distant you who didn’t exist or fit anymore, still it didn’t change that your heart jumped as you heard Peter’s laugh.

It soon died down, your gazed linked together with a little glimpse of feelings of the past; and god, how you wanted for that glimpse to last a little longer but Peter quickly walked away towards Harley.

“It’s now you and me”, Peter said to Harley, lips a bit pressed together.

Although Peter understood that Harley was part of the Avengers, it didn’t mean that he simply liked it. Harley, as the lovely asshole he was, liked to rile Peter up and Peter for any reason whatsoever always gave Harley that power over him. It was so stupid for you but you thought that the root of the problem which was you and your dad didn’t exist anymore so there wouldn’t be any more trouble.

You were wrong.

“What!?”, Harley cried to you as he completely disregard Peter who was in front of him,

You rolled your eyes, thinking Harley was being a baby. “Now Harley, go ahead with Peter”

“He has superpowers!”, Harley complained once more as if he was a toddler, which made you give him a look while raising your eyebrows.

“I can take him and I don’t have superpowers”, you replied seriously.

“No, you can’t”, Wanda said quickly.

You simply huffed while Peter smiled softly and so did Lila and Cassie, completely entrance by the situation in front of them.

“You should prove it”, Harley chuckled, raising his eyebrows as he crossed his arms.

“I can’t believe you are in MIT, you are not as smart as you think you are”, you shrugged. “Plus, can’t you just shut up for a second?”

Harley and Wanda giggled at the same time as they heard you, Harley’s eyes quickly connecting to Wanda’s who gave Harley a toothy smile. Harley and Wanda had actually been getting along through the weekend, on your dinners and while you trained. It seemed as if Harley was constantly chasing Wanda like a lost puppy, but in the cool and suave way that only Harley had.

“Whatever, if this irritates you more than talking about Mysterio…”

You quickly snapped your neck towards Harley as your jaw clenched. You huffed, annoyed by Harley bringing up Mysterio once again who was your least favorite topic at the moment.

“Oh! I saw that he was trending this week on Twitter”, Cassie exclaimed as she quickly ran to her bag and grabbed her phone while you rolled your eyes as she tapped furiously on her phone.

You couldn’t believe that everyone seemed so blindsided by a man who was clearly a sketch ball and that was sure that he, only him, could save the earth. While you and Peter, seemed to be a collateral from this own personal mission to avenge his planet. It really did seem like a comic book that had been pulled from someone’s as-

“Yeah, I saw that everyone was talking about him. Like how did he do that?”, Lila screech, making you lose track of your thoughts as Wanda and Harley walked towards them to watch the video that Cassie had playing on her phone.

Peter simply smiled, as if some old friend was being recognized. “We don’t really know but he was really helpful. He also said we were great”

“Did you got to know him?”, Cassie yelled as she watched Peter with puppy-like eyes.

“Well yeah…”, he hesitated. “We have been working with him, me and Y/N”

Cassie almost dropped her phone as she nipped over to where you and Peter were standing, “You should get a picture with him! Everyone saying his like a new avenger”

You could feel your eye twitching at Cassie’s comment.

“He isn’t”, you stated coldly.

It became really clear to you that you needed to get this over with regarding Beck, because by the way everyone was talking about him, he would believe he was an actual avenger. It simply didn’t feel right with you, the gut feeling you had simply intensified as you spend more time watching the guy. Being very quiet on the meetings gave you a chance to really analyzed him and he was clearly unhinged.

“Yeah, I’m not buying it”, Harley agreed with you which made you snap back to reality “He seems like an asshole the way he was flaunting himself in that green cloud”, he mocked.

You smiled at Harley, mentally thanking him for not following the crowd. But Peter? Peter felt offended as he glared at Harley.

“He wasn’t flaunting”, Peter replied as he walked towards the mat and gestured to Harley to come.

Harley sighed, as he seemed to accept his destiny but also a sudden and devilish smiled formed on his lips as he saw Peter’s attitude.

“Oh, come on, is so obvious he has a praise kink”, Harley continue as he quickly threw a right hook towards Peter who barely duck it, as he was a bit thrown off by Harley’s sudden move.

“I’m with Harley in that one”, you whispered to Wanda, but Peter was still able to hear you.

Peter huffed, quickly he threw a lower punch at Harley’s ribs making him hiss. Peter knew he had thrown it with a bit more strength that he usually used when fighting with ‘normal’ people, a flinch of guilt ran through his back of his mind; but Harley quickly recovered -which was new for a scrawny boy like him- and he blocked Peter’s uppercut.

“What happened Parker?”, Harley teased as he blocked Peter’s punch.

It seemed to be actually a good fight, Harley was really putting in the effort but Peter, on the other hand, was losing its patience. Soon, Peter threw another lower punch at Harley’s rib which this time released a small crack along with a howl from Harley’s part and soon Peter knocked him flat with one swing of his feet.

You gasped at the sound of Harley’s body on the floor, it made you stop breathing for a second. Harley groaned while Peter simply gaped at the sight of Harley on the mat. He knew he had maybe gotten a bit carried it away, Harley could rile him up without much but now he felt guilty. You soon came into the picture glaring at Peter, he winced at the thought of you being angry at him. But you didn’t give him more than two seconds as you kneeled down next to Harley whose eyes were closed, Cassie and Lila followed, Wanda was a bit behind but with an uneasy look on her face.

“Are you okay?”, you asked as you lifted his shirt and checked for any major injuries by touching the area, the only thing you could see was a bruise that was starting to form on Harley’s abdomen.

“I’m okay”, Harley let out slowly, finally opening his eyes. “You are still so in love with me that you want to undress me?”, Harley muttered smugly. “Jeez, lady”

You sighed in relieve as you stood up. “He’s okay, he’s still making jokes”, you said as all of the others could finally let out a breath.

Peter quickly walked towards Harley and helped him stood up, shame colored his face as he watched down at Harley, touching the back of his neck, quickly muttering an ‘m sorry’ to Harley, who simply gave him a light smile.

“This was a stupid discussion”, you said as you stood up from your knees and glared at both boys, who had already fixed it apparently. “Nonetheless, I have a Cap moment here”

“You don’t say”, Wanda muttered which made Harley snickered.

You shook your head as you directed yourself to the others.

“Harley and Peter are a good example on how not to have a good relationship with your partners.”, you explained as you pointed at them, making Peter look down and Harley blush.

“You have to be sure about the person that is next to you on that field or in a moment of need”, your eyes connected with Peter’s and it made your heart twist inside of you. “There’s no way this can work if there’s not a minimum of trust, I have to know that my partner will understand my choices and if he doesn’t, he will be there to catch me in case that I mess up”

Your voice died down as you finished, everyone remained silent and it seemed like they were actually trying to digest what you just had said because it was way too real. Especially if you thought about the job you were doing but you… you were thinking about your relationship with Peter, not as the superhero duo that people on the outside saw you as but the real way that you saw him and he saw you.

“Dismissed”, you then proceeded to say. “We are done for the weekend, you did a great job for your first training”, you sang proudly as you watched their faces light up with a smile.

“Thank you!”, Cassie giggled as she and Lila hugged each other.

It didn’t take long for everyone to start packing up their things from the gym and you giving calls for the Quinjet to take them to their respective homes. Cassie and Lila quickly said goodbye as they ran together to their respective room to grab their bags and then fly home, since they had school the next day. You could hear Lila saying to Cassie that she was going to help her and show her all her moves as they exited the gym.

On the other hand, Harley had decided he wanted to stay a few more days on Stark Tower to work on his suit, that it didn’t matter that he skipped a few classes if he mentioned his new position on Stark Industries but you silently saw how he was waiting for Wanda to finish stretching.

Just like clockwork, he threw his shot.

“Hey Wanda, do you maybe want to go for a snack?”, Harley asked her a bit timidly as Wanda picked up her book with a swift hand motion and placed it on her other hand, the red energy that emerged and surrounded her hands almost left Harley in awe.

Wanda blinked a few times as it dawned to her what Harley was actually saying, it was clearly that she wasn’t expecting it. Maybe it was too intrusive from your part to be watching them from a far, crossing your fingers and hoping for Wanda to actually say yes; you were also so sure that Harley was in the verge of his heart stopping by the way he was gazing at her.

“Only if you are buying”

Wanda gave Harley a light smile and it seemed like the tension had been popped, Harley seemed like he could breathe once again, he was trying so hard not to smile as brightly as he wanted.

“It was implied”, he said with cockiness dripping from his voice as they exited the gym without even saying goodbye.

“I’m glad”, Wanda simply said as she walked out, a little bit ahead of Harley who followed her swiftly without looking back.

You shook your head while you picked up your own stuff. You couldn’t even avoid smiling at the memories of Peter asking you for the first time to go get something to eat, just days after your first encounter in the lab where Tony was showing him around while you were working on your own suit. It felt like your stomach twisted at the thought of those first few moments of getting to know each other, just maybe if you closed your eyes you could remember the cold wind on those days.

“Hey, you did a great job today”, the voice of Peter startled you, as you turned around wide-eyed, you had almost assumed that he had left since he had been leaving trainings rather fast the last few days.

But there he was, the boy you were in love with for what you think was forever. The more you thought about it, it was simply stupid to assume and be upset that your love for Peter hadn’t faded away, it was stupid because you knew you would never feel the same way about anyone else and although it might have brought you more than one headache since he came back, you were somehow grateful.

Yes, you were grateful for Peter Parker, even though you weren’t really on talking terms, even though if he hated you even a little for your actions, even though he made you question every decision you ever made, even though it hurt to see him because you connected him with moments with your father who you had lost.

But how could you not be grateful when he was standing right there in his dark blue t-shirt that he used for training that framed his muscles perfectly and those grey sweatpants that hanged a bit low sometimes. How could you not be grateful for the caramel curls that fell on his forehead, pink lips that had a similar shade to the a small blush from the workout on his face, along with his freckles that seemed like a galaxy that decorated his cheeks and those chocolate milk eyes with gold specks that lingered a bit longer to yours and dripped adoration.

“Oh- uhm”, you stuttered as you stood up and looked down, wishing he didn’t see you blushing. He did. “Thank you”

Peter gave you a tight smile, his eyes still lingering on your colored rosy pink cheeks that were accompanied by your heartbeat that was stammering non-stop. It made him shake his head, as he felt like he could punch the air in success by your reaction.

“Yeah, well I got to get going”, Peter muttered as he walked backwards while you finally filled yourself with enough courage to look back at him.

“You got something?”, you stated. You couldn’t deny that you were a bit disappointed as you saw him leaving but also glad that this was his first approach to you, some compliments here and there that could maybe strengthen your relationship of partners in the future.

But Peter stopped abruptly and he blushed too. “No, not really”

The way he answered, his voice stretching at the end and you caught it right away. This was your chance to finally have a real talk that didn’t involve The Avengers, this time you could really discuss what was left unsaid at the funeral.

“Do you mind if we talk?”

It simply rolled out of your tongue but not as an unwelcoming guest but more as a shy guest. Peter knew it was coming, he did open the door for this and he knew you understood how his mind work -just like he knew yours too-.

It had been a couple of days where he had been entranced by your leadership skills, by your determination and resilience but also, just spending that much time with you made him recall past days where you guys spend every hour together without stopping. He saw everything that you once were but now in such a new light that it made him want to know you more. It was almost like a magnetic effect, he needed you close and by the way you were acting at the moment, you needed him too.

“No, it’s okay”, Peter answered with a tight smile.

Your wide eyes and a light smile gave you away. “Okay, then we could go to my room”, you said as you grabbed your things and got closer to Peter, who raised his brows. “Oh no, but not in that way, I…”

The words crashed against one another in your mouth and you wished your brain would just get it over with but being so close to Peter that you could feel the heat of his body, it made you dizzy.

“It’s okay, we can go”, Peter finally stated and it made you wince at the thought of how stupid you must have sound as you simply nodded and began walking out of the gym.

But Peter only thought it was cute.

The ride on the elevator to the penthouse was silent with some smiles being exchange but nothing more, Peter could hear your heart stammering and somehow, he even became worried about it because it sounded so loud, but then he realized his was beating as hard as yours.

Peter wasn’t really surprise to see the penthouse as he had already visit it when he talked to Pepper, but your room… everything had changed. The once blue paint that decorated your walls was gone to find a white and beige paint, the little traces of your childhood that hadn’t been burned by The Mandarin attack were nowhere to be seen, now your walls were decorated with elegant paintings and even a neon text from Tracey Emin. It was more elegant and grown up but it still had your essence. The pictures in the wall next to your bed hadn’t changed one bit, they were better organized and there he was in most of them but then next to him he saw Morgan and Tony, and there was a picture of Harry and you.

He tried not to think about the voice in the back of his mind telling him he was displeased with the picture.

“You want to sit down?”

Peter sighed and he nodded, his eyes studied you as you sat on your large bed and patted softly a spot next to you. He sat down without saying much while you simply hugged your knees to your chest. As if you were somehow protecting yourself from the possible damages that could come from this conversation.

You felt Peter’s weight on your bed and you looked down, your heart was stammering on your chest and there was an awkward shift in the air. You had never been alone with Peter since that faithful conversation -unless you took into account the fight with the water elemental- but this would be the most important conversation that you had to have. Your eye lifted and met Peter’s first. Peter was staring at you in trepidation, you felt your cheeks flush and tears dangerously close to your eyes.

It came out as word vomit.

“I- I just wanted to say that… I don’t even know how to begin this but I’m so sorry”, you weren’t sure if it was even your voice, too brittle for just such a small piece of what you wanted to say. “I truly am sorry and I just-”, again your mind trying to fit the words into this small moment that Peter had gave you.

You didn’t know if it was right to say what you truly felt because of the situation you were in but looking at his chocolate eyes and there was this warmth for him that blossom from your chest as you watched him gazing at you. What was the worst thing that could actually happened if you were honest? If you weren’t it would be buried on your chest like a sharp glass and every time you spend time with Peter, it would hurt and, as you studied Peter, it would hurt him too.

“Peter I never forgot you”, you breathe out. “You were always in my mind and it was just so hard to get out of these walls without you and I truly believed I was never going to be the same and I’m truly not but… I just want to say that with everything that has happened, I love you”

Peter’s eyes opened like plates as he heard the words, tears threatening to run from your eyes and rosy cheeks; your appearance being as soft as it was, it was in complete juxtaposition to such a strong confession.

“Y/N…”

Peter wasn’t sure if you were in your right mind but if he was being completely honest, there was nothing more he had wanted to hear since he came back.

“Listen to me”, you intervened, because you had to say it before he could shut you down again. “I love you but I also found someone who made me feel alive again when I thought you were completely gone. You were my everything and then Thanos erased you from my life, I didn’t even care to continue Peter and…”, you threaded slowly from the words, because as you close your eyes and the tears finally fell from your eyes, you remembered how cold and lonely those days were. How you felt like you were drowning and no one could help you.

“It was like… as if something had completely turned off inside of me. It was feeling numb or not even, just feeling nothing”

The word rang on Peter’s ears and caused a shiver to travel through his spine, it was so strong that he closed his eyes a bit, as if he had been taken back again when he was being taken apart piece by piece. But it went away quickly when he, out of instinct, grabbed your hand and you squeezed it in response. He opened his eyes and he watched you staring at him, tears and everything, He remembered Pepper’s words, how broken she told him that you were but he was still somehow apprehensive about everything, but staring at you with completely transparency… he knew that he could trust.

“I felt that too”, he whispered.

“What?”, you asked as you brushed tears from your own eyes that were still falling without any control.

“Yes, when I was being…”, Peter didn’t know how to exactly phrase what happened to him correctly, because not a word could describe how he felt, “Turn into dust? It felt like someone had been breaking me apart into nothingness”, he closed his eyes at the memory of the feeling, shuddering. “I just…” Peter wanted to cry as he began to shake. The memories of the torturing feeling of being turned into nothing began to fill his memory. “It was terrifying and overwhelming and…”

“As if you couldn’t breathe?”, you asked silently as you squeezed his hand harder and got closer to him.

Peter opened his eyes to see you studying him, a worry expression drawn on your face and he simply nodded, with a slight smile, just because you knew.

You remained silent for a few seconds, to let Peter digest your statement. You knew that it maybe wasn’t fair because he had been literally killed and brought back to live while you, you simply lost him. But deep down, you knew it really felt like you had been dragged to hell after he had left.

Peter simply, held your hand tighter, a part of him was glad that you could understand that feeling and it felt as a confirmation that you were together through everything -through thin and thick- like since you first met each other. But on the other hand, he knew it wasn’t true because Harry had been there when he wasn’t, because you had moved on and the more he thought about it, he was glad that Harry had helped you through the pain; the same way he would’ve helped you if he was there.

“So, Harry made you breathe again?”, Peter asked, sniffling a bit.

He stared at you and it seemed as if the air lightened up a bit as you shook your head.

“My dad”, you muttered with a smile as you remember Tony in silence. “He just told me that you wouldn’t want me to waste my life”

Peter stayed silent for a second as he stared at New York through your windows because if he really thought about it, if he really never came back, he would’ve wished exactly that: for you to live.

“He was right”

“He was mostly always right”, you answered back as you thought of Tony.

You giggled together.

“And then came Harry, he just…”, it was weird to not know how to really put into words what Harry made for you without making it sound so simple. But at the end, it really was that, your relationship with Harry was easy and it was great. “He was just there for me and made me laugh. I just didn’t need more, he made me feel some things that I had only experience with you but in a different way”

Peter winced at the thought of Harry and you, but he didn’t allow himself to dwell on the thought as you scooted towards him and continued.

“I need you to know that I still love you and that hasn’t change in the time that pass but now…this”, you said as you pointed to both you and him and towards Harry’s photo on your wall, “It’s not fair to any of us what happened but we have to deal and I just can’t throw away the last two years of my life and go back”

Peter nodded, although it hurt.

It hurt so much to know that you were right, it hurt so much to know that he couldn’t protest, that he couldn’t move when all he wanted to do is kiss you and pull you towards your bed, he wanted to touch you and spend the day lazily kissing each other as he drew lines on your skin. He wanted to laugh with you, he wanted to train with you and then pepper your face with kisses, he wanted to go back.

But he couldn’t and he couldn’t blame you or anyone really for it.

It just happened.

“I get it”, Peter turned towards you, so he could see you watching him, “It’s hard but I understand, Y/N”

“Thank you”, you breathed as you threw yourself towards him.

Peter thanks to his reflexes caught you, just like he always did. It was the first time you hugged like this since your final battle with Thanos and you couldn’t help to recall how you thought at one point during your relationship that you fitted perfectly into his arms. You were over Peter, straddling him while your arms were tightly wrapped over his shoulders, your face hidden on his neck while his arms were wrapped around your torso.

You weren’t sure how long you stayed holding each other.

You felt the tears escaping your eyes once again, but they were the first happy tears that you had dropped in a while. Peter felt your small whimpers as you cried and he couldn’t help but to hold you tightly. He wanted to take you all in, he didn’t want to let go and he felt that you didn’t either.

“And with everything that’s happening with the avengers, I truly need you to be the Steve to my Tony”, you muttered while you held him a little bit tighter.

Peter laughed as he remembered Steve and Tony together. “So, friends?”

You laughed with him but it soon died down as you began to let go and Peter’s hands fell onto your hips. It was an involuntary move that was born many years ago, you simply didn’t let go so fast and your forehead simply fell against his as you closed your eyes. If this was another time, if this was another reality, your lips would’ve naturally chase each other’s, as hummingbirds chasing flowers. Peter closed his eyes as well, taking you in as one of his hands itched for cupping your face and pull you into a kiss.

But deep down, both of you knew that you couldn’t. You sighed and smoothly stood up from Peter’s legs as you watched him with a disappointed smile.

“The gang misses you too”, he finally muttered after a few moments.

You had thought about the gang a lot the past few weeks, you had wanted to see them more than anything in the world. The thing was, when you didn’t grow with many friends and then found those soulmates that you never thought you would find, you learned to really appreciate them. It had been so long, you missed Ned’s engulfing hugs, Betty’s sweetness and determination, Flash’s comments (when he wasn’t bullying anyone) and MJ’s calm and support. Your mind had wondered to the past in school so many times when they were gone and since they came back you really did want to see them, but the uneasy thought of everything changing scared you.

“I miss them too”.

Peter nodded as he watched you closely, he knew you well enough to notice how you were fiddling like you did whenever you were stressed. He was glad he could still pick-up on mannerisms from years ago. By the way you were pulling your sleeves over your hands, he knew that you had decided to stay away because you were scared. He just wasn’t sure what you were scared about, if these were the people you had called family at one point but he was determined to not let it fall.

“We are hanging out today, later we are going for pizza”, Peter commented, nonchalant. He stood up and walked closer to you, causing you to breath him in. “Wanna come?”

The offer made you blink a couple of times. Your eyes opened as if you were about to tear up and you couldn’t help but to let out a smile. Deep inside you, you knew you might have not been ready to see the other’s, if you hadn’t made up with Peter.

“Yes, please”, you breathe out as a small smile etched its way to Peter’s face.

Peter right then and there realized how starved he was from you, from your presence, from your kind and loving nature. He was going through withdraw the last few weeks, having you again felt as if he could breathe. Even though, he couldn’t really have you.

“So, do you want me to pick you up or…”

You shook your head, “No, just text me the address and I’ll be there.”

Peter smiled as he got closer to you, he nudged you jokingly on your shoulders, causing you to laugh.

“I’ll see you there”, Peter sang as he left your room, with a smile that didn’t go away for him.

You, on the other hand, remained frozen for a few minutes in your room. In completely awe that Peter had actually invited you to go out with him and the others. You didn’t want to admit that the thought of Peter hating you forever had been eating you alive for the past month or so, you could still recall Peter’s glare when you had confessed at the funeral that you were with someone.

But now, it seemed as if you and him fell back together, as you usually did.

You spent the rest of the day on your lab, with a smile plastered on your face and with no distractions while you still tried to decode the USB that Tony had left for you. Most of the time that you had spent working on it, it had been festering resentful and angry feelings about Tony’s death but that day, it was the first day where you actually came to enjoy working on it. It was still frustrating that you hadn’t managed to crack it, but you were comforted by the feeling that Tony had actually thought about leaving something meaningful to you, something that was so meaningful that you had spent weeks trying to decipher it.

It was about 7:00pm when you realized you were late, HAPPY had the instruction to only bother you when Peter sent the address for the new pizza place that they were planning to go to. Otherwise, you were busy for anyone asking for you, unless it was an avenger emergency.

You hadn’t seen anyone since training and since you had silenced your phone, it was a surprise to see Wanda laying on your bed while you got out of the shower.

“So, how was your afternoon with Harley?”, you asked Wanda with a smile as she was watching the roof of your room. It was clear that she had spent the whole afternoon with the scrawny boy, she was still on her gym clothes.

“Yeah”, she muttered as she sat up while you began changing. “We went to some places he knew; he took me to this amazing bookstore that also had vinyl’s? I mean, we listen to a few records together”

You turned around and watched Wanda’s worried gaze, you picked up right away that this wasn’t a normal conversation. This wasn’t that Wanda had just wandered to your room by casualty, she needed to talk. In past times, it was natural for you to find your way to each other’s room, including Nat’s. There would be small places where you could talk about anything and everything, where you could laugh and cry. You hadn’t had that in a while, with Nat after the snap there had been a few conversations but nothing like before, it seemed like it was too painful to perform the ritual without Wanda.

“What’s wrong?”, you asked as you quickly put on the tennis skirt that you wanted to wear and ran towards Wanda that was begging to shake as sobs escaped her mouth.

“I just…”, Wanda struggled to form words as you wrapped your arms around her. “Vis and I used to spend so much time together and it came to the point that I realized that I don’t know where he began and I ended”

You sighed, because you had been in the same place for a while, you understood Wanda’s mistrust about her own feelings, about her own self. It was the exact same way you felt when you lost Peter, when the caramel curls disappear along with those chocolate milk eyes that you came to adore. You experience withdraw and it had taken months and a pep talk from Tony to get you back on your feet.

“And I don’t know how to be me anymore, it seemed like I gave it all my authenticity and my essence to what we had and then he died which is completely ridiculous because he wasn’t supposed to die!”, Wanda cried as she rolled her eyes with exasperation.

“Wanda…”

“I- I just was somehow happy that I died with him?”

The last sentence shock you and Wanda remained silent as well as she heard her own words slipping out of her lips. Your gazes linked together once again and it didn’t take long for Wanda to continue to spill tears on your shoulders as you tried to support her on the best way you could. The simple statement had touched a nerve, as you remember the nights that the thought of dying with Peter as he turned to ash seemed to be a relieve. A dream.

It lasted for a few minutes and you patiently waited for her tears to stop streaming from her eyes. When she finally stopped shaking, you continue to caress her hair, as you knew she had always liked Vis to do when she was feeling upset.

“It gets better”, you whispered.

Wanda sniffed, “I hope you are right”, she said and you could hear the smile on her face. “He has a crush on me, doesn’t he?”

You smiled and sighed. You wouldn’t lie to her, even if you loved Harley like a brother too and you knew he wanted to be as smooth as he could about this, you knew he cared for her and he understood the situation that Wanda was in. It had been all over the papers at some point, Wanda and Vis together in some part of Europe, even rumors about marriage -which people didn’t liked since she was so young and he was… well-.

“I don’t even read minds like you and I can see it”

Wanda giggled as she finally stood up from the bed, it seemed like she needed the crying session and now she felt better. She watched you on your tennis skirt, bra on and towel wrapping your hair. “So, you are going out with Peter?”

You shook your head with a smile that apparently no one seemed to be able to wipe from your face. “Well, with The Midtown gang”

Wanda gave you a knowing look as you began to look for the polo shirt that you wanted to wear under an oversize dark blue sweater you had already set apart. It was a spring day and you had decided that you would look cute and good, something less stressing that what you had been wearing through the last few years, which most of them were formal outfits.

“That comes with Peter”, Wanda said as she wiggled her eyebrows.

“Yes, it does, but today we finally had the talk and I think that we are actually going to be fine”, you replied with a smile as you finished dressing up and checked yourself in the mirror.

Wanda quickly gave a few steps and wrapped her arms around you, giving you one of those strong hugs that Wanda rarely gave. You smiled as you looked at her on the mirror and tighten your hand that was over her arm. It was comforting, having her again and you thanked Tony on your mind for getting her back.

“I’m glad that you are doing okay”, Wanda whispered as she let go and walked towards the door. “By the way, I saw your boyfriend this week on paparazzi photos when he came to wait for you and he really is nice to look at”

You laughed as you began to brush and dry your short hair, you shook your head as Wanda exited your room while you replied, “He is nice to look at, isn’t?”

Soon after Wanda left and you finished with your hair, Peter sent you another text telling you that they had already arrived as HAPPY told you while you placed some blush and mascara. You thought that you would get on time by car or by metro, but the more you thought about it, the idea became even more annoying to you. You gazed at your windows and gave a look at the bright city; it was quite a view from your room.

Deep down, you knew you wanted to fly everywhere you went. It was something that Pepper didn’t really approve but it was more like Tony to do stuff like that, it was like when he sometimes went to Parent-Teacher conferences on his suit. The more you thought about it, you concluded who were you to not do it like your father did? Without any lingering doubt on your body, you simply tapped your necklace and the nanobots began to surround your body and you smiled.

It didn’t take long for you to get there, basically only 4 minutes if you were counting but you weren’t. Your mind was way too busy thinking about how everyone would react about you. You stood outside the restaurant, mind grinding as you thought how your encounter would actually go. You wanted to somehow be prepared for possible comments or interactions you may had, but if you were completely honest, you didn’t really know what would come your way.

“You realize that you are not in a mission, right?”

MJ was the kind of person that made your entire day without doing much. When you turned around, she looked exactly like you remembered hair, she was lean and tall. Her brown curly hair fell perfectly on her shoulders, framing her face. You remembered how you envied her hair and how she wouldn’t have to work too much on it for it to look beautiful. She seemed like a piece of art, and you were sure she was made for modelling but she had decided she would focus more on physics than any other possibility of a different career.

“MJ!”

You know she wasn’t a hugger but you still threw yourself towards her without any thought. It seemed like it had been forever since you had seen your friend but at the same time, as if nothing had happened. It was as if you could still give each other certain looks and the other would know what they meant, that you could spend hours in silence studying or watching movies. Nothing had really happened and you could feel the relieve washing over you as you hugged her.

“You didn’t forget me!”, MJ exclaimed as she hugged you back.

“How could I ever forget you”, you whispered with a smile as you finally let go.

MJ was smiling as well but her face quickly became plain, she looked down and cleared her throat. You knew what was coming, MJ was not one for being sentimental but the heaviness of her moves made you realize what she wanted to say, you winced.

“I’m really sorry about your dad”

You looked away from her for a second, you thought about how your dad actually liked MJ and that you had finally had a girl friend who wasn’t an avenger. “Thank you”

She held her hand for you and you didn’t even think as you gave yours and squeezed hers as a small gratitude gesture. This was one of the things you loved about MJ, she was transparent and kind. She didn’t walk around eggshells and she always had the empathy that many lacked. MJ had become one of your best friends as soon as you met her, which made Peter crazy because it had taken years for her to warm up to him and Ned. But there you were, you understood the other so well that it didn’t required any time.

“We have to go in, you know?”, she said as both of you watched the Pizza Place from outside.

You could feel your heart on your chest, hammering away and you took a little breath. “Yeah, sure”, you whispered as MJ guided you to the door.

Ned, Betty and Flash were sitting on a table while Peter was grabbing a couple of more seats for MJ and you. The Pizza Place had a couple of people, but nothing out of the ordinary. They hadn’t notice that you arrived until MJ cleared her throat and then sat down, giving the others space to greet you as they wished.

“Y/N!”, Ned’s screamed rumbled through the whole place, making the few people on the place to turn around, worried about what could possibly be so important. But you couldn’t care a lot as Ned threw himself towards you and engulfed you into a big hug.

Ned had been a handful for you at the begging of your friendship, since you were rather on the silent type while Ned was anything but that, always leaving little crumbles of knowledge or ideas that were running around through his head, even if no one had asked. But as time passed, you warmed up to him until you became as loud as he was when around him sometimes and he came to understand your silence. Enjoying building things with you, tinker in some tech that you had showed to him and even do your homework together.

You had missed him even more that you thought.

“Ned!”, you replied as you wrapped your arms tightly around him as well.

“Babe, it’s my turn!”, you could hear Betty’s harmonious voice as Ned finally let go.

You smiled widely as you wrapped your arms around Betty as well. She was now even shorter than you, but she still smelled like a brand-new book. Betty and you had always gotten along nicely, you had been partners in a couple of classes and you had similar styles for working, when she and Ned began to date it simply brought you closer. Betty was the kind of person that was always busy, but you loved that about her. She always had something to do, or somewhere to go, the determination that she had was admirable.

“I can’t believe it’s you”, Betty gushed as she let go. “I’ve missed you so much”

You smiled back. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’ve missed you, guys”

“Even me?” Flash asked as he came from behind Betty.

You shook your head; Flash was clearly still trying to grow a mustache and you couldn’t help to laugh as you quickly gave him a small hug.

“Even you”, you said as he let go, but his hand still lingered on your shoulder.

“Let’s seat”, Peter’s suggestion startled you, you could still he was still annoyed with Flash constant flirting with you. But you shook it off and walked towards him, quickly giving him a peck on his cheek.

“Thank you”, you whispered with a smile.

Peter was unsettled by your sudden kiss but he couldn’t lie about how much he had loved it. His heart was melting as he watched you closely. Peter felt a lingered sensation of your relationship, he loved your kisses and how you used to pepper his face with them. You never missed a chance to gave Peter a kiss, even tame ones like on his cheek -who at the end of the day, ended up being the majority of them-. Peter felt his cheeks get warmer, he simply tried to hide them as he took a seat.

Peter didn’t reply anything but you saw how bright and pink his cheeks turned, it made you smile as you sat down and began to chat. The conversation went smoothly without any hiccup and it seemed like your fear of them was now so stupid, but you tried to still dodge as many questions as you could, mostly focusing on school and work. It seemed like everyone except Peter had their plan laid out for the next stage of their lives, Ned was definitely going to MIT while Betty would go to Yale and MJ to Columbia, Flash still was deciding if he was going to go UCLA or stay close by in any university on the East Coast.

Nonetheless, Peter was surprised when he heard you saying that you had also applied to Harvard and Columbia and you were wishing for Columbia to accept you. Peter really though that you would go to MIT, as you had planned with Tony but he sensed that the same feeling of responsibility for New York that he felt, was also weighing on you.

But the conversation faded quickly on how Ned and Betty were planning their long-not that long- distance relationship for next fall.

“You two are so cute!”, you said as Betty leaned on Ned with a smile.

You had always had a weak spot for Betty’s and Ned’s relationship, it seemed so fragile but strong at the same time. Two people that you never thought would work out, where there making it.

But Flash’s laugh distracted you, “You know who would be cuter? Us”, he said as he wiggled his eyebrows and got closer to the table.

You rolled your eyes so back to your head that it seemed like they would get lost on your skull.

“Oh god Flash, just stop”, MJ rolls her eyes while you couldn’t help to burst into laugh as you watched everyone’s reaction. Everyone soon joined in on the laugh, even Peter with a small giggle.

“What?” Flash exclaimed annoyed as he tried to be heard over everyone’s laughter. “I’m serious”

Everyone began to laugh louder, except for Peter who deep down wanted to smack Flash across his face; even if you two weren’t together anymore, it still annoyed him.

“Not gonna happen”, you muttered as everyone’s laugh began to die down. Some giggles still escaped your lips as you saw Flash’s brows bumped together, clearly upset. “Sorry Flash”, you muttered sweetly, as you drink a bit of water.

“Parker here told us you two broke up”, Flash grumbled as he glared at Peter, who glared right back at him. “Thought we had a chance”

You choke a bit on the water as you heard Flash, you quickly gazed back at Peter who was looking down. Peter really didn’t want to touch on the topic, he had in fact told them about what was going on with you but he thought that it was a silent understanding that no one should bring that up. Peter now really wanted to punch Flash on the face. You turn back to see Flash again, with a quizzical smile.

You didn’t know if Flash was kidding or if he was throwing his real shot.

But you knew that if you didn’t bring it up, they would know. Harry had already been caught near the tower the last week, it was only a matter of time until people knew that you were together.

“I’m actually with someone else…”, you muttered as you then pressed your lips into a thin line waiting for everyone to react.

“WHAT!?”, you were sure everyone through New York had heard the shriek of MJ, Flash and Betty. You watched carefully how Ned hadn’t actually screamed along, you figured that Peter had already told him about Harry.

“Peter!” MJ growled.

“Why didn’t you tell us!?” Flash replied again while Peter sighed.

Peter felt the intense gaze of everyone looking at him, when he lifted his head his eyes met with yours, a glimpse of exhaustion and disappointment flashed on his eyes. He felt his stomach turning right away, he knew deep down he didn’t want anyone to know that you guys broke up because you were with someone else. If it was just a breakup, he guessed that people thought that you would get back together but if you were with someone it meant that his chances were lower, and although he knew that… he felt like it would feel so final if everyone knew.

The sting on his chest was bothering him more at the moment, his ears were drumming and he decided he needed a break.

“Well…”, Peter began but he quickly stood up from his seat. “I’m going to pay the bill”

All of you watched as he stood up and watched him going to the register. You examined him close by, you knew that look on his face and you were worried this was one thing that could worsen his mood. Deep down, you knew you were really worried that you would hurt him again, that bringing this up again would hurt the few steps that you had taken that very same day.

“Are you going to tell us who is it?”, Betty mumbled as you snapped out of your trance.

“Yeah, it’s -uhm- Harry Osborn?”, you answer startled as you began to play with the sleeves of your sweater.

“From Oscorp”, Ned stated.

You simply nodded, “Yeah, he was running it while his father snapped…”, you muttered as you remember the first time you saw Harry. “And for my non-profit I just contacted him and we started dating”

It was the simplest way you could put it, you looked around the table as everyone was somehow digesting the fact that you were with someone that wasn’t Peter Parker. You bite your lips as you watched them carefully, you knew that this was an adjustment and this was a topic you wanted to avoid, but as you saw them… you knew you couldn’t. This was a family you had made outside of the Avengers and you were so happy that they were again in your life.

“You should meet him someti-”

“Already paid for the bill”, Peter cut you as he arrived to the table with the bill. Peter spoke as if nothing had happened and he guessed it was the best thing he could do; he had heard how your heart was hammering and he watched your grimaced as he was returning.

This was a safe, and you knew it.

“Great!”, you exclaimed as you raised from the table, more than ready for this conversation to be over.

Everyone felt startled by your statement but no one doubt for a second to follow the lead of you and Peter. Soon, Betty began chatting about something regarding a homework and MJ and Peter followed the conversation as you exited the pizza place.

“Yeah, well this was nice”, MJ muttered as she felt the spring wind on her face as she put on her coat.

“It was great to see you Y/N, we’ve missed you”, Betty said as she gave you another hug and Ned followed.

Flash nodded as he placed a quick peck on your cheek, “We have to do this again, the pizza was great”

You smiled as MJ hugged you one last time.

“Don’t go MIA again, please”

“I won’t, I promise”, you whispered back.

You felt a warm on your chest, spreading across your body as you watched your friends say goodbye, it had been such a while since you had felt like this. Everyone left slowly, Flash gave MJ a ride since his driver was already waiting for him on a black car. MJ rolled her eyes but at the end she accepted the ride with a smile, while Ned and Betty decided to walk home since it wasn’t too far away from Betty’s place and Ned like to always leave her at her own door.

And soon, two were left.

Peter didn’t want to admit it, but he was still lingering at the front of the pizza place for you. And you, you were doing the exact same thing. It was silent, the noise of the street felt like a lullaby as the wind blew your shorter hair, while Peter fidget with his light blue sweater and played with his own feet.

You were the first one to break the silence.

“Are you doing something right now?”, you asked silently as you leaned against the building, watching Peter carefully. The way his eyes flashed as he looked at you with a broad grin.

“Not really, what about you?”, as he walked closer to you.

You smiled, maintaining eye contact as you gave another step closer towards Peter. A sneaky grin grew on your face and Peter felt like he wanted to melt right then and there, as he watched you watching him like that.

“What do you have underneath that sweater?”

Peter almost choke. He awkwardly looked at you but as he saw your eyes and how your brows raised, he understood what you really meant.

He looked around for the moment, so the people passing by didn’t saw as lowered the neck of his sweater so you could see the red fabric. He was wearing his first spider-man suit and it gave you a shiver as you recall old times when you began to Avenge together.

“You want to go… patrolling?”, you whispered as you remembered a soft kiss on one of those nights.

“Are you sure?”

There was something in the back of your mind telling you that there actually was something that you had to do instead of go patrolling. But watching the moon lighting Peter’s skin, his chocolate eyes with golden specks, the little freckles that adorned his face and your mind couldn’t avoid going back to the nights you spent on roofs.

The memory felt like cold wind on your cheeks.

“Do you think your dad knows about us?”, Peter asked you as he swung through Manhattan from the tallest buildings you could think of while you flew besides him on your suit.

But you didn’t answer as you thought about how Tony was looking at both of you as you ate dinner. The memory of your father being cut and sharp was a new thing, he didn’t talk much through dinner but what he did do, was glare non-stop at Peter. He didn’t ask about school or training, which were always a must when you were at dinner. He didn’t even talk much to anyone at the table, Pepper called him out for not paying attention and he mumbled a “m’ sorry” that you could feel wasn’t very transparent.

On Peter’s part, he knew exactly that something was up. Tony was never cold towards him, he always called him a nickname or he could say his name but in a certain familiar way but the way that he had said his name tonight, it seemed as if he had spit poison. Moreover, he could feel Tony’s lingering glare on him, which caused Peter to look down all the time through dinner.

But what really tipped Peter off was when you guys were leaving, he usually didn’t ask where you were going or that your bedroom was out of limits, even after you told him that you were going patrolling he had establish a curfew with the excuse that you guys had to be ready for school tomorrow, big day or something like that -which wasn’t true at all-.

“Should we tell him now? Or is it too late?”

Peter’s words sounded distant as you continue to navigate New York, your mind was going 3000 miles per hour.

You had been dating Peter for over five months, it was after your first kiss on the medical wing after The Scorpion attacked. It was like all your feelings that had been held down for so long, exploded and now Peter couldn’t keep his hands off you. He couldn’t believe you kissed him back, he couldn’t believe you had said yes as he had asked you if you wanted to be with him, he couldn’t even believe when you had begged for him to take you, to make you scream his name, on a late October night when everyone else was away for a mission.

As time had passed, you believed everyone actually knew about it but it seemed to be an unspoken thing to not tell Tony. You had only officially told Wanda, Nat and Pepper at different times, Peter hadn’t really told anyone but Aunt May officially but then May forgot to discuss about it when Happy was around -she made him promise not to tell anything to Tony-.

Then, Sam and Bucky had caught you kissing Peter on the medical wing after he got hurt on a petty crime, the day had ended up with threats to both of them if they told anyone about what they saw and a threat from them to Peter to never hurt you. Then there was Vis, who just passed through the wall of your room in a bad time, Wanda had bothered you non-stop about it. And that last week, Steve had asked you while he picked you two from school, he didn’t like the idea about not telling Tony but he had agreed reluctantly.

“¡Y/N!”, you heard Peter’s scream, which made you dodge the building one second before you would’ve crashed against it.

“Sorry”, you mumbled as you waved your hand to the couple of people working on it who were startled by your presence -or near crash experience-. “Jeez, HAPPY you are supposed to let me now before I crash against anything!”

“I did Miss Stark, apparently you were too busy inside your own head”

You rolled your eyes as you decided to stop at the top of one of the buildings around. Your own head was eating you alive thinking how could you even tell Tony about you and Peter.

“Babe, are you okay?”, Peter’s soft voice and the thump of his landing in the roof next to you made you turn around.

The nanobots of your suit fell from your body, they crawled back into your necklace, you were trying to breathe deeply and figuring out what you should do next. It felt as if there was a pressure on your chest while you thought about what Tony could possibly said about it, not because you hated the idea that he knew but because you knew how protective Tony was about you and your safety, as well as Peter’s.

What if Tony disapproved of your choices?

“What we are doing something wrong?”, you asked. Your voice sounded wobbly and tears began to blur your vision.

You knew it was a stupid statement and that as soon as the words got out of your mouth, they made Peter went cold. He quickly took of his mask without any thought so you could see his chocolate eyes as he grabbed your face softly.

“Hey, hey- we are not doing anything wrong, okay?”, Peter said with a strong tone, his brows furrowed as he watched you.

It was one of those times when Peter’s natural born leader and confidence showed up. You knew that as he came to himself, as he grew, he could be a great leader and it made you smile just looking at his serious face.

“But-”

“Do you love me?”, Peter asked, pressing his lips together as he watched you closely.

“Obviously I do”, you answered right away, a slight tone of offense and you turn your whole body towards him. “I just I have the feeling that if my dad disapproves of this, he must have a good reason because there’s no other way he wouldn’t love the idea of us together”

Peter nodded as he took in your answer, his brows still together as he watched you. “Are you happy with me?”

You rolled your eyes as you took a hold of his hand, “Are you going to keep asking me obvious questions or are you going to help your girlfriend feel better?”,

Peter huffed with a smile as he pulled you to the edge of the building so you could seat there, facing the city. You obliged happily as you lean against his shoulder.

“Y/N, Tony loves you with his whole life and I believe that if this, what we have, makes you happy then I swear that there won’t be a problem”

You stayed silent as you ingested Peter’s words, the pressure on your chest dissipating as each moment pass while you imagine Peter and Tony together. They were so close, Tony even becoming like a father to Peter and it made you happy to have both of them, you loved them both. Now you imagine them talking about you and Tony sending you off to a very official first date or maybe even to Prom, then in a really long future dancing with both of you at a small wedding.

“He loves you too, you know?”, you stated as you watched Peter closely with a smile.

“What?”, Peter asked with a smile.

“He won’t have a problem because he cares about your happiness too”, you replied with a smile as bright as the one Peter had.

Peter simply swooped one arm around your waist, pulling you over him as you straddle his waist and wrapped your arms around his neck. He cupped your face and took a hold of your long hair, it made you whimper. He tasted like honey and the chamomile tea that you had before going out, his nose was cold as it bumped on your cheek and you smiled into the kiss as your lips played together. It was a sweet and tender kiss, it always surprised you how much love Peter could squeeze into a single kiss, a single touch; after every kiss it felt as if you were drunk on him and you loved it.

“Okay!”, you stated after a few minutes of kissing, you heard Peter’s whimper as you placed your hands against his chest so you could breath. “I’m done having a meltdown, are we patrolling or not?”

Peter huffed. “I was in the middle of kissing you”, he replied as he saw you stand up from his lap and walk on the roof of the building.

“We are on duty; we can’t be kissing”, you stated seriously, with a glimpse of malice on your eyes as Peter chased you on the roof.

“Oh okay, no more kissing then, ever”, he replied with a frown as he crossed his arm arounds his chest.

You gasped, “I was kidding!”, you said as you went towards him and place your hand on his arms, shaking him a bit like a little girl having a tantrum.

Peter laughed as he grabbed you by the waist and pulled you in, “I know”, he whispered to your lips and he chased your mouth.

He barely touched your lips before you stepped away from him, another whimper left his lips as you laughed.

“No, no, it isn’t that easy”, you beamed as you got closer to the edge.

Peter began to feel a bit eager as he saw you without your suit and near the edge, he loved how playful you were with him and only with him. You could be so mellow around people and introverted but with him you were just… you.

“What do you mean?”, he replied as he walked towards the edge in front of you, he watched in wonder as he saw you standing right in the edge.

“You have to earn it”, you whispered with a wink.

“Y/N?”

“Catch me if you can”, you giggled as you gave another step back and fell from the edge.

You yelled as you fell from the skyscraper laughing, with your eyes closed. You trusted Peter so deeply, that the gut-feeling of falling didn’t make you want to cry like it once did when you had begun to play with your suit.

Peter, as you very well knew he would, followed you without any doubt. He quickly placed his mask over his head and jumped from the building. He saw you free falling and he corrected his position so he could catch you quicker, and soon he had you in his arms with your nanobots beginning to appear on your body. Without any warning, you quickly lifted his mask and placed a kiss, playfully laughing before the suit covered your mouth.

Before you knew it, you were already flying while Peter threw a web towards a building and begun swinging by your side.

“Catch me if you can?”, you muttered as you watched Peter carefully, his eyes widened as he heard the phrase and was taken back to the same memory.

You smiled as you backed into the alley, being sure that no of the people passing by saw and pressed your necklace, the suit began hugging your body and soon you were in the air.

Peter blinked a couple of times as he saw you disappear into the dark and then he heard the very characteristic clicking sounds from your suit. For a moment, Peter didn’t know if this was right but his heart was dying to follow you. Was this in the deal for being friends? Partners? And clearly not a couple? He didn’t know, you hadn’t set limits and although you were the queen of limits it seemed like right now there weren’t any as you discovered this new territory.

Peter quickly followed you into the alley, he quickly took off his clothes as he packed them in his bag which he quickly webbed on the wall. Maybe it was right, there weren’t any limits and he was going to be thankful and take advantage of that grey zones in your new relationship.

Soon he was jumping to find you waiting for him on the roof.

You were waiting for him, sitting on the small building roof as you watched Queens, you heard the familiar twhip! sound and smiled as you turned around, the nanobots disappearing from your face, “Thought you would never come”

Peter smiled with a giggle and soon you were off.

The rest of the night passed right through your eyes, it felt like an eternity but you felt like you still needed more time to be with Peter, you felt like the day was missing more hours and minutes. Going patrolling with him felt even better that what you already remembered and you were sure your cheeks were going to be sore because of your smile. Peter, on the other hand, hadn’t stopped laughing and for one second he managed to forget that you weren’t together as you flew through New York. Both of you realizing how your lives didn’t really felt complete without the other.

It was like both of you had been starving and savoring these moments, that once had been something from every day, gave your life.

And you weren’t the only ones mesmerized with your return. People didn’t stop taking photos as they saw you and Spiderman together again, through the different neighborhoods of New York, from the tallest skyscrapers to the smaller buildings. It ended up being a very productive night, you managed to stop a crime in a supermarket and had carried the guys to the police station even, and old lady from the supermarket gifted you some cashews for your help. Also, you help a couple of young girls who were waiting for a bus late at night. Peter carried one and you carried the other so they could get home safe and sound.

But also, you had the quiet moments of quality you missed the most with Peter, you had come to forget how good those nights out felt and how good it was to be side by side with Peter. In the quiet moments of the night, you talked about past memories on Midtown and also with the avengers, you laughed and even cried a bit with them.

Harry’s name didn’t come up once.

And it felt the same, it clearly felt as if you could tell Peter anything. So, you didn’t really give a second thought about telling Peter about the USB.

“What do you mean?”, Peter replied and felt somber as he looked at you while sitting on the edge of a building in Williamsburg.

“He left me something and I don’t”, you breathe out in order to not panic or cry as you remembered Strange giving you the USB, “I think that I’m figuring it out but it’s taking a lot of time and…”

“What did he leave?”, Peter grumbled as you turned around, his eyes move as such speed. You knew he was thinking already how could he help.

“A USB?”, you replied with the same confusion Peter had drawn on his face when he turned around to face you.

Peter stood up rather quickly and he placed his mask over his head. He already made up his mind and he was more than convinced that you could manage to decipher whatever Tony had left for you, and in a weird way he felt deep in his heart that it was something for him too.

“We should be working on it right now”, Peter stated, already placing his mask.

“Peter it’s literally 2:00 am”, you replied as you stood up next to him.

Peter was startled by your answer as he lowered his glove and confirmed the hour with his watch.

“oH”, he grumbled still looking at the watch, a hand scratching the back of his neck awkwardly, “I have school tomorrow”

You suddenly felt the weight of coming back to reality, it was dawning on you that this wasn’t your normal life like it had once been.

Fuck, you thought to yourself as you began to feel the urgency of something that you had forgotten. It had been pushed back so hard because of your night with Peter that you couldn’t really put a pin on it.

“I have to go to Boston tomorrow, fuck”, you grumbled as you took a hold of your phone and deactivated the “no disturb” setting you had placed it in all day.

“Boston?”

“Yeah, you know MIT and all”

“oH”, Peter said again as he cleared his throat.

“Yeah, I have to go with…”, you stopped dead on your tracks as your phone began beeping around, all the notifications coming in at once and the sudden realization of what you had forgotten. “FUCK”

“Y/N?”

You felt out of breath as you ran towards Peter, quickly giving him a quick kiss on his cheek over his mask as your suit began to appear. “I have to go, but thank you for a great night”, you said sincerely. Your touch lingering a bit more than it should on his body.

“Hey what about the USB?”

“I’ll text you soon”, you said as you jumped from the building and flew as fast as you could to Stark Tower.

It felt like forever to arrive and the more you thought about it, the more you knew Harry was going to kill you. He had left over a million calls on your phones, texts, everything as you checked them while you arrived. There were also a couple of calls from Pepper and even there were Instagram notifications of people you didn’t even know. More messages from Pepper and Wanda, even Harley.

You cursed to yourself as you quickly landed on the terrace of the penthouse, the suit quickly dematerialized as you entered the living room where Harry was clearly waiting for you.

The whole place was dark, it was clear that everyone had gone to sleep except for him. You felt your stomach turning as you saw him sitting on the large sofa, the only light in the room was the one on his computer as he typed angrily. His bags were around him and you cringe at the thought of Pepper telling him to wait for you there and him being respectful and not going to your room right when he noticed that you weren’t answering.

He raised his head as soon as he heard your steps. His brows bumped together and you could see his sharp glare as you walked towards him.

“I’m so sorry”, you muttered as you sat in the sofa next to him.

“I’ve been waiting for you since 9:00 pm, Y/N”, he snarled as he watched you cautiously.

“I know, I know. I messed up but I was…”, you groaned as you placed your hands over your face in an effort to explain but he quickly cut you off.

“Avenging?”, he asked sharply. “Heard all about it from twitter”, he said as he took out his phone from his pocket.

You could see the irritation on him, with his frown and downturned lips. You had seen Harry like this a few times, but never to this level and you realized that you hadn’t had a real fight during your relationship. This was going to be a first and oh boy, you weren’t prepared.

“Harry…”

“It seemed as if you were on a date with Spiderman”, he spat as he passed you the phone.

You had never told Harry about Peter being Spiderman, you had kept his secret well even after he snapped but by the gleam of jealousy in Harry’s eyes, it seemed like he knew more than what he was letting on. You watched the phone as you saw the various articles and pictures of you and Peter flying through New York, your heart thumped on your chest as you remember the last few moments of your night.

You stood up as you watched away from the phone, “I was working”, you hissed.

Harry huffed as he rolled his eyes, which your served to make you give you a pinch of annoyance as you saw his behavior.

“Patrolling is part of my work as head avenger and I will not stand here as you question me regarding a job that you clearly don’t have any idea about because you don’t even care to ask about it”

You felt like your whole body was on fire as you tried to defend yourself to your boyfriend. There was a time when both of you passed a lot of time together, working on the same thing and there was nothing to disagree about, but this was different.

“I was worried for you! You never did this to me and then I go on twitter and see these he said as he showed a photo of you and Spider-man through Manhattan”, he growled as he stood up, “You can’t even call me and let me know so I can at least book a hotel?”

You exhale in annoyance at his statement. “I know I messed up but Harry, these things will keep happening because I don’t know if any threat will come and I don’t have a schedule for that. I’ll have to go on missions and maybe not even say goodbye”

“That’s not you”, Harry barked as he maintained your eye contact.

It startled you, “What?”

“I’m your boyfriend, I know you and I know that Y/N would not just runaway and leave everything for…”, he refrained himself from continuing and you watched him closely, a part of you thankful that he didn’t finish the phrase. “It’s … you are just being selfish”

“Selfish? Are you kidding me?”, you snapped as a satiric smile was drawn on your face.

You could feel the blood boiling on your veins and you felt like your body had been covered in flames. There were a few things that would make you feel like that, pure rage, it was hard. The few times you had felt them… it hadn’t been good for anyone involve. You didn’t even want to think about how you and Harry would end up after this. But selfish? After everything that Tony had taught you… it was more than an insult. It felt like someone had pinch your heart with a needle and the pain was amplified as each second passed.

“You have to think about me too”, he explained.

You felt your cheeks getting hotter and hotter as you watched the tall boy with dark hair and almond eyes. You watched him closely as you somehow expect him to take it back, but he didn’t. And you weren’t going to stay quiet, the pangs of physical hurt on your chest getting stronger as the seconds passed.

“I told you that I know and I’m sorry but don’t ever call me selfish for following my father’s legacy”, you yelled like you had never yelled at Harry before, your cheeks bright red and your face was pinched. “And if you don’t want a girlfriend that avenges, then go ahead. Be my guest to find someone new”

It was so final that Harry seemed startled, a hurt expression drawn on his face.

“Y/N that’s not what I meant”, he mumbled slowly, tiredly. “I just want my girlfriend”

You almost didn’t give him time to finish the sentence.

“I am your girlfriend Harry, I just decided to do something that I have the responsibility to do and I need someone that can support my choice”, you spat as you gave a step back. “If you don’t want to then we can finish this right here”

Harry remained silent as he watched you closely, tears were definitely building up on your eyes. You hated it, you hated that it seemed like these days’ tears would be so easily drawn from your eyes but your heart stung by what he had said.

You watched him closely, but with a disapproving gleamed and frown. It seemed like you didn’t recognize him anymore, this wasn’t someone that you would be with.

You quickly began walking away from him, into the terrace, not really thinking where to go next but surely you knew you didn’t want to be there. As you exited the living room, you pressed your necklace and your suit began to surround your body.

But quickly Harry grabbed your hand as the suit finished it’s placing on your body. You turned around startled as he was holding your wrist, the touch -even being over your suit- made you feel like he was burning you.

“I’m sorry, I love you”, he promised as he looked at you, tears of remorse flooding his eyes.

You watched him carefully. Your felt your heart being squeezed as you watched him, as you remember all your moments together and how he made you laugh, you were so thankful for him. Harry wasn’t the enemy, he wasn’t bad at all and you hated it even more. If he was really bad, you could’ve been able to simply leave but nothing was that simple. Harry was still the kind and elegant, smooth and intelligent boy you had met before, this was simply a new time in an already established and loving relationship.

But in the back of your brain, you knew that what had just happened, was bad. It was really bad, but you didn’t want to acknowledge it just yet, you weren’t ready to be wrong just yet.

“I know, it’s okay”, you replied as your suit began to contract again as Harry pushed you into a hug.

But it didn’t sit well to say I love you, so you stayed quiet.

______

TAGLIST: @SPIDEYLOVIN @ERINDANUS @SPIDEYLOVIN @ZLAMANESERCA @BETHANYSTAN @CEDRICISNOTONFIRE @ERIDANUSWAVE @LYZALOVEALK @BABEBENHARDY

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wissbby · 4 years

Text

Stolen Camellias and the taste of bitter sorrow - Sugawara Kōshi

Summary: Kōshi never expected the mysterious figure to leave such a bitter taste behind on his tongue. Genre: fluff & angst Warnings: mentions of a dead person Word count: 1751 Author’s note: it’s been a while for me to be this inspired. It took me some time to put this together since I wanted to pick the best words to tell the story. I think this is one of my favourite works at this very moment. I highly recommend playing the song “moonlit night” from Death Parade throughout the whole story.

He knew the black hood all too well by now.

The first time you ever appeared, he was drinking his double espresso in the early hours of the morning like he usually would. The bitter aroma of the white roasted coffee beans infiltrated his taste buds, the flavour all too intense and familiar.

He watched how his flowers danced in the morning breeze, the leaves wriggling more freely than their hosts.

His sunflowers had grown much taller than he expected them to. The bright yellow appeared to be a more golden-like colour in the early rays of the sun. Among all of the beautiful golden petals that faced the East, was one stubborn perennial.

Moon, had he called it.

It didn’t grow towards the sun, letting its green leaves greet the sun each and every day. In Kōshi’s eyes, he wasn’t an outcast. In his eyes, it was a front-runner. Nothing less than any of his fellow brothers and sisters. As a matter of fact, its strange behaviour made the sunflower even more beautiful than its relatives.

Suddenly, his attention was taken away from the sunflowers, now entirely focused on a black hood that was sheltering behind the tall flowers he was admiring just seconds ago.

The figure seemed to have an average height, one hundred and sixty-five centimetres at best. His eyes traced along the curves that indicated that it had to be a female. Your eyes were hidden behind the hood, your lips just barely peeking out from underneath it.

Your lips were a bright red that reminded him of the roses he had planted in the beginning days of spring. The top lip was thinner, but not absent. The bottom one was more extensive, much plusher. He stared at them when he noticed how your body turned from left to right, looking around as if to look for any bypassing people.

He narrowed his eyes, suspiciousness now circulating at the top of his head.

He watched as a pale hand reached out to the purple coneflowers that surrounded the sunflowers. With pain in his eyes, he followed the purple flower that was now pulled out of its habitat, leaving its comrades behind to withdraw with the stranger.

Later that afternoon, he returned to his garden. His focus was on consoling the other coneflowers by giving them his full attention and bathe them in some extra water.

Anything to soothe their loss.

The next morning, the same events repeated themselves. Kōshi stood in front of his kitchen counter, double espresso freshly brewed and sunflowers already basking into the warmth of the upcoming sun.

You appeared once again, the same hood covering your frame. This time, he scanned over your figure rather than following the movement of your hand that was clearly trying to harvest yet another flower.

Your legs were wrapped in a black, thick panty. You had secured combat boots around your feet and a black dress hugging your curves perfectly.

And just like that, you disappeared again, This time, white Daucus Carota accompanying you.

Kōshi let you evade seventeen more mornings before he had enough, the bitter taste of the coffee no longer soothing him, the pain in his heart too big to witness another flower be plucked from out of his garden.

The next morning, he pulled a grey sweater over his head on top of the white button-up he had already put on. He matched the grey cashmere with mere beige vinyl pants. Sliding his sock-covered feet into his brown leather shoes, he skipped his way downstairs.

He slipped his arms into his black trench coat, all buttons fastened except for the upper two. Draping a dark red scarf was the last layer of clothing he wrapped himself in before setting foot outside.

He waited in the morning breeze for your appearance. The previous night’s cold hadn’t been flushed away by the awakening sun, yet.

His nose turned into a rosy colour, an indication of his body regulating his internal body and brain temperature. He watched as his hands turned into a comparative colour, a tad bit more of a blue tint mixed in them.

He put his hands together, mouth in between the two limps, hot air exiting his lungs in an attempt to warm them.

It was then that his ears finally picked up on the sound of boots crushing leaves underneath their soles. As fast as light, he hid behind the opposite fence, eyes still lingering on your crouching figure.

He watched as you plucked his favourite flower, the pink camellia.

You were fast, feet already moving forward while your hand was still between the two wooden planks of his fence.

“Those are my favourite flowers,” a voice enunciated behind you. The voice in your head instructed you to keep your feet moving, neglecting the sugar-like voice.

“You’ve been plundering my flowers and still try to remain unknown? That’s quite rude, don’t you think?” He continued, a hint of amusement draping underneath his tone.

It was the lack of movement coming from your figure for him to continue pushing you.

“You know,” he sang. “If you show me what you do with those flowers, I might let you off the hook.”

“I mean, after all,” he paused, feet steps coming closer. “I do work hard to let them bloom into their beautiful forms.”

You clenched your jaw, tension rapidly growing in each cell of your body, spreading like wildfire.

There were no people around, and yet you could feel the burn of a hundred gazes upon you. You wanted to go, wanted to run away and never return to those beautiful flowers.

They had lured you to them, whispering in your ear that they were meant to be taken away from the soil their roots were grown into. Their beautiful colours and diversity had your head spinning, accepting the sweet taste of their invite that tasted like a fine-aged glass of red wine on the tip of your tongue.

Nevertheless, there was no way of leaving the man behind after your barbaric demeanour. He had been kind enough to let you go on multiple occasions with his hand-planted flowers. Never once had he complained about the nineteen times where you abducted one of his beauties.

Not until now.

“My sincerest apologies,” you uttered underneath your shaking breath. Kōshi had picked onto your shaking voice. Not to mention, the way your body seemed to crumble apart right in front of him.

He wanted to tell you it was okay, that he was playing with you just a tiny bit. In fact, ever since your appearance, he seemed rather looking forward to your visit instead of despising you for it. You brought him something new in life, something to look forward to.

“Show me, miss Mystical. Show me where all of my beautiful creations were brought to.”

So you did, baffling the unknown man along the way.

“I apologise once again,” you sincerely declared. “I never meant to cause any harm.”

Your eyes began to be overshadowed by a thick layer of salty tears. After all those days of hiding behind your walls, the walls that took ages to build, you saw how they collapsed right in front of your eyes, right at this very moment. Second by second passing by, they toppled down. Salty drops trickle down your chin, falling on the green grass underneath your feet. Perhaps, these tears would help you wash away the pain you had been keeping to yourself for so long. Perhaps, these tears were only there to show you how utterly weak you were for finally letting loose.

Kōshi’s eyes remained attached on the engraved name in stone, “Tadashi Yamaguchi”. When he had told you to show him the end destination of his flowers, he had imagined a vase in front of the kitchen window inside of your apartment. There was even a possibility of meeting a person who you’d introduce him to as your partner.

He never thought he would be standing in front of a graveyard.

“I just,” you softly sobbed out. “We would always walk past your garden. The way to our destinations would have been shorter if we hadn’t passed your house. But Tadashi insisted on walking past your house every day.” Without noticing, a small smile sailed into your lips, the memory of his hands engulfing yours during every walk all too fresh.

“He always took minutes long to stare at your garden. He looked so happy to see the flowers bloom again after a harsh winter.” Kōshi appeared struck by your words. The feeling that was brewing in between his rib-cages was indescribable.

“The one flower he always looked forward to seeing alive again, was the Gladiolus.” You let your hand grave over the ice-cold stone, fingertips caressing his name. “I never knew why until he passed away, and his mom gave me his sketchbook full of his admiration towards the creations.”

“He was a huge flower nerd. He named all of your flowers at least once a week, sometimes even sitting from a distance to sketch them down on paper.” He had indeed noticed a brown sketchbook in your righthand on the weekdays. There were little sketches over the front page, most of them flowers, other mindlessly drawn leaves.

“While I was reading about the different flowers, I stumbled upon one that caught my eye because of its meaning.” You were kneeling in front of his grave, a weak smile growing into your face with a single tear running down your cheek. Brushing the tear away, you continued.

“The pink camellia,” you breathed out, losing control over your emotions.

“Apparently they symbolise-”

“a longing for someone and are given to someone who is missed,” Kōshi had finished the sentence with you, guilt and anguish eating him away.

He was scared to say the wrong thing, to push your even more to the point you’d crumble in front of his very eyes. He never meant to cause any harm, he never wanted you to open up about something you weren’t ready for.

So he tried to comfort you in his own way.

“Would you maybe like some camellia tea? I’ll make you a warm cup of tea out of the freshly harvested camellias from my very own backyard.”

That night you left with a lingering taste of sweet camellia tea roaming on your tongue and a freshly plucked pink camellia with a note.

“To long for and to miss.”

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starlightsearches · 4 years

Text

A New Life Pt. 4

Whoops, I said that there would be no more of the Kylo Ren soulmate AU but apparently I lied! This came to me earlier today and I had to write it. Hope you like it!

(Here’s the first part, second part, and third part if you missed them)

Requests are closed for now ✨

Kylo Ren X female reader soulmate! AU Pt. 4

AN: Some language, and it’s vaguely NSFW towards the end!

Ren never touched you first. Not in private, and certainly not in public. It was a compromise of some kind, you assumed, that he had made with himself. You knew he worried about it, even now—the ridiculous notion that he would somehow scare you off, that he would hurt you. So you initiated all contact, and you were gentle, and you let him be gentle. You weren’t too bothered by it. After all, there were exceptions to every rule.

When the general was around, Ren was always touching you. Holding you by the waist, resting a hand on your shoulder, at the back of your neck: if General Hux was in the room, you were never out of Ren’s reach. This was true now, too, his hand solidly on your back at your waist as you board the transport, headed to Ryyn with Phasma and the general.

It’s exciting, to finally go somewhere, to have the opportunity to be somewhere besides the Finalizer. Ren left the ship fairly often and the time you spent by yourself—sometimes for weeks on end—was . . . boring. Lonely. When he had mentioned that he would be going off base again after only returning a few days ago, you had been crushed, a feeling that had been immediately replaced with joy when he had asked if you would like to join him.

The general had grumbled, of course, when he saw that you would also be coming but you paid him no mind. He was always complaining about something, making snide remarks when you were there, and even though it drove Ren crazy, you could see through the act; the man was very obviously lonely. He tried to hide it, and did hide it successfully, from Ren and the captain. But not from you.

Against your better judgement, you liked the general, or at least, you found him interesting. He may have been rude and judgemental, but it was hard for you to take him seriously. He reminded you sometimes of the zeefas your family had kept for milk and meat back home—grumpy old animals, but harmless enough. You had a knack for working with livestock like that; it never took long before even the most stubborn of them were eating out of the palm of your hand. Apparently your charms were limited to farm life; despite the concerted effort you had put into being as inoffensive as possible, the general showed no signs of warming up to you in the slightest. Which was too bad, because part of you believed that—if he gave you a chance—you might be friends. And you’d really like to have a friend.

You take your seat on the transport, strapping in, and Ren sits beside you, only letting go of you for a moment to secure his own restraints before replacing his hand on your knee. Hux rolls his eyes, finding a seat on the other side and Phasma joins him. The anticipation in your chest only grows more potent as the pilot prepares for launch, and you can hardly wait for what was in store. You were going to Ryyn—a place you had only heard about in wild stories—to the capital city Cearrau; you would be staying in the palace there. You would meet the queen and attend the ball she would hold in honor of the First Order guests. You would wear the dress you had picked out especially for the event, blood-red and beautiful, and you would be on Ren’s arm the entire night. It was sure to be incredible.

“I still don’t see why you’re coming,” Hux says, leveling a glare in your direction, and Ren’s grip tightens on your knee. He’s ready to spit out some retort, you can tell, but you stop him with a hand gently rested on his arm.

“It’s fine,” you say quietly, and he relaxes minutely before you address the general, “I’m actually very excited for the trip, General. I think it will be interesting.” Hux scoffs in response and opens up his data pad, choosing to ignore you.

Everyone settles into their seats as the ship launches and you decide to distract yourself, pulling out your sketchpad and a stylus, tapping the end of it against your mouth, deep in thought. You could draw Ren, of course, but you had plenty of drawings of him, stacks and stacks of them—enough to cover the walls of your quarters if you wanted. You didn’t even need a reference anymore, the exact shape of his nose and the planes of his cheeks appearing easily to you from memory. You need something new, some kind of a challenge.

The general was obviously out of the question, for a number of reasons. For one, he isn’t sitting still enough for you to complete a proper sketch, shifting from one position to the next every few minutes, engrossed in something on his data pad. Plus, you’re afraid of what would happen if he caught you, what insult he would come up with that would send Ren into a rage. Not worth the risk. The captain, on the other hand, might work.

She is lounging, her helmet resting on the wall behind her, maybe sleeping—it’s difficult to tell with the mask on, but her pose is dynamic and the reflection of the lights in her chromium armor adds depth and shadows where there are none. Your hand begins to move across the flimsi without your direction, working to capture the cool authority she always seems to emanate.

Ren dozes next to you, occasionally rolling his head to the side to check your progress, drumming his fingers lightly against your thigh in approval. The likeness is pretty good, although it’s lacking something in your opinion. You wish that you had brought your paints with you; maybe you’d have better luck communicating the shine of her armor in a different medium.

“What are you doing?” General Hux says, and you can feel the pressure of his gaze on you, although you don’t return it, still focused on the captain.

“Sketching,” you respond, adding a little depth in the background, “but I can stop if it’s bothering you.”

“Sketching?” he asks, and for the first time since you’d met him, there is no trace of disdain in his voice. In fact, he sounds intrigued. You place the stylus behind your ear, passing him the sketchbook, and he reaches for it skeptically. You watch him closely as he studies the drawing, waiting anxiously to see how he’d react.

“Hmm,” Hux says after a long moment, returning the book to you and studying you with his eyes narrowed, like he’s trying to read something from a distance, “Where did you learn to do that?”

“Home,” you say, trying your hardest not to seem too eager now that he had initiated a conversation, “my father was an artist.”

“I thought both of your parents were farmers,” the disdain is back, but cracking a little, a glimmer of genuine interest showing through, and you laugh gently to show that you’re not offended.

“We’re all farmers where I’m from, but he spends his free time drawing. Painting, too. I usually prefer paints, but they’re difficult to transport.” You stop yourself, looking at your drawing again, afraid that you’re rambling, and the general sits in silence for a moment, his eyes still on your sketchbook.

“I could paint you,” you venture, not wanting to lose the tenuous connection you had created,” if you want, when we get back to the Finalizer? You have such striking features; I think they’d translate well to the page.” You’re laying on the praise very thick, you know, and you’re worried it will come off as too much, but the general flushes pink, and you smile, the thrill of victory sharp in your veins. Was this all it would take to endear the general to you? To make him stop hating you? You wish you had known that weeks ago.

“That would be fine,” Hux responds, with a small cough, guarding his expression against your obvious cheer, but your spirits cannot be dampened by his apparent indifference. Pleased, you go back to sketching, another one of Ren this time, happy with the progress you’ve made with Hux. Happy, that is, until you notice that Ren had pulled away from you, releasing his grip on your leg.

The ship drops out of light speed and begins to make its approach, but you take no notice, a coldness settling beneath your skin. You nudge him gently with your knee, but there’s no response. He’s motionless, quiet, staring forward with an obstinate amount of determination, and he stays this way, avoiding you as the four of you make your way out of the transport. You can’t help but notice that Ryyn is beautiful, the warmth and the wind greeting you as you step out onto the palace grounds, but the heat the sun offers refuses to clear away any the chill you feel.

After parting with Hux and Phasma, you and Ren are led by a servant to your guest quarters, and you prattle nonsensically as you walk hoping to put the man at ease—and hoping to release some of your own nerves as well. Ren says nothing, silent as a shadow, and you watch as the palace’s other inhabitants steal glances from around corners as you pass, eager to get a glimpse of the infamous Jedi Killer.

The room is lovely—and enormous—with large, open windows and an even larger balcony, overlooking the valley below. You move tentatively towards the view, but Ren doesn’t join you, choosing instead to stand ominously in the center of the room.

“What’s wrong?” you ask, sitting on the bed and running your hand over the covers. There’s distance between you, not only physical, and you want to address it now before it grows. Was he really so mad that you had spoken to Hux?

“It’s nothing,” he says, but he’s still wearing the mask, and you assume it’s to keep you out. This is the first time you’ve seen him like this, and it’s beginning to scare you. This was how he acted with other people, not with you.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” you say, standing from the bed but moving no closer, “please? I know you’re angry with me. I want to make it right.” He faces away from you, his powerful shoulders rolling as he moves to lift the helmet from his head, discarding it on the floor with a thud. The sound makes you jump, and you watch him perceptively, hoping to read the answer to your question in his expression, but he still guards his face from you. “Why don’t you go find the general?” he says harshly, and you catch the barest glimpse of his profile as he looks over his shoulder, “since you find him so interesting.” Your jaw drops in shock.

“Are you jealous?” you ask, and he doesn’t respond, but you can tell that you’re right. Despite the tension, a smile threatens its way onto your face and you smother it with your hand.

“It’s not funny,” he says, picking up thoughts but still avoiding your eyes.

“I know it’s not,” you respond, back in control of your mind and your expression, “I’m just surprised.” He laughs, but there’s no joy in it, a short, angry sound that bounces back at you off of the polished walls.

“I just don’t want him to hate me, that’s all,” you say, quietly. You’ve seen Ren angry before, but never like this. Never at you. But there’s something else besides anger, and that’s what scares you more. You can feel it roll off of him, see it clearly in his posture; he’s doubting your love for him.

“You know you have nothing to worry about, right? I could never want someone else the way I want you.” His shoulders relax slightly, and you’re able to breathe again, now that he’s listening to you. It’s difficult to see him this way, catching brief glimpses of his fears. He thinks you’ll leave him, but that would never happen. You repeat yourself once again, hoping that this time he’ll finally believe what you’re saying. “I only want you.”

Those words work like magic, or maybe it’s the feeling behind them, but either way the doubt is gone, and he’s facing you with a look in his eyes like pure sin, his anger transformed into something else. You hold his gaze and the intensity of it goes straight to the space between your legs, weakening you at the knees.

“How?” he asks, stalking towards you, impossibly large and your heart beats loudly in your chest. You feel for a moment in some wild part of you that you should run, but you're frozen in place, and you like it. A lot. Now this is a side of him you’ve never seen before.

“How what?” you ask; your voice shakes when you speak. He laughs, low and deep and through his teeth as he bites one glove off and then the other, a warm hand finding its way to your waist and gripping the fabric of your dress tightly, pulling you closer. The first point of contact.

“Tell me how you want me,” he whispers, staring you down with his unfathomable eyes, his tongue darting out over full, pink lips. There are no thoughts in your head now, your mind is completely empty and for a moment you try to remember how you landed yourself in this particular situation. Maybe, if you remember, you’ll be able to work him up like this again.

He steps closer, his body like a brick wall against yours and you stumble backwards, falling onto the bed with a light bounce, propped up on your elbows, still in shock that he’s acting this way, and that you don’t want him to stop. He smirks, gripping both of your knees with burning fingers, sliding his hands under the hem of your dress and climbing up your thighs, leaning in close over you to whisper in your ear.

“Tell me what you want,” he says again, and the feeling of his mouth on your ear sends vibrations through your whole body; your eyes roll back with anticipation.

“Fuck,” it’s the only word that you can think of right now, your mind wholy preoccupied by the feeling of his thumb as it traces small circles over the skin your inner thigh, inching ever higher.

“That’s what I thought,” he kisses you hard, hard enough to bruise and you moan, open-mouthed, a deep, desperate sound you had never made before.

“Shit,” you mumble, and he doesn’t give you a chance to catch your breath before he’s moving, his mouth working down your jaw and to your chest with hot, harsh kisses. You try to relax into it, into the work of his hands, still below your skirt, but he draws a yelp from you when you least expect it, biting at the skin just above your breast. He looks up at you, anger from before gone and replaced with a strident need, daring you to beg for more.

“Someone might hear,” you say quietly, your voice hitching slightly with the movement of his fingers. The windows are open after all, and with the way he’s acting, you know you won’t be able to stay quiet.

“I hope they do,” he says, nudging a space between your knees with his shoulders, finding a place between your legs. “I hope they all hear you begging for me, and I hope that by the end of it everyone on this damn planet knows that you’re mine.”

#kylo ren x you #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren fanfic #kylo ren au #soulmate au #my writing #long post

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misssunflowersandsangria · 4 years

Photo

Work in Progress Wednesday

Creators: work on or post something from your WIP. This is your weekly reminder to get something down on paper (real or virtual). It’s also a chance to share your progress with your followers and give them a sneak peek of what’s to come!

Fans: leave a comment on an unfinished fic and let the writer know how much you love it. Reblog an artist’s sketch and let them know you can’t wait to see the final product. Send someone an ask cheering them on!

Feel free to repost this image!

Hello all! I’ve been feeling...well I’m not too sure honestly. Writing has been a little weird these last few months weeks so I wanted to use this just as a way to motivate myself a little with what I’ve already come up with and hopefully, it will push me to write/finish some of those WIPs. Be gentle these are still really rough ... and if I do get around to writing them I might change some stuff around...

There are so many different stories that I’ve started that I might never finish so I wanted them to live somewhere.

There’s a few ShikaTema, SaiIno and one ChoKarui (also some starts to my Lemonade Series so be aware of titles/notes)

**I’ll update this as new ideas come about. They will appear first in the post.

Previews after the cut.

Knots (Part 3 of “Ties that Bind Series”- ShikaTema, Suna Sibs)

“I’m worried, she’s really sick.”

“Maybe it's like ya know. That time of the month.” Kankuro’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“You idiot. You absolute moron.” Temari's voice shot back through the layers of blankets.

“I think she's okay.”

“Temari, are you okay?” Gaara asked carefully.

She nodded her head. “I’m fine. Everything is just fine. Why do you ask?”

“Well you’ve been locked in your room for days now. You haven’t snapped at anyone or called me stupid. We’re getting concerned.”

She sighed, taking a deep breath seeing the worry clear in their eyes.

“Shikamaru proposed.”

Their expressions brightened. “Temari! That’s great, congratulations!”

“We should be celebrating.” Kankurou stared at his sister curiously. Gaara was right. Something was wrong. “Why isn’t Nara here?”

“I couldn’t say yes.”

Their eyes shot wide open. “Temari?”

“Shikamaru needs to be in Konoha and I couldn’t leave you two and Suna. Who am I if i’m not Temari of the Desert?” She knew that she made the right decision. She couldn’t just leave her brothers and Suna because of something as trivial as love right? This was the right thing to do. She assured herself but then why did her heart feel like it was tied up in knots?

Candles (SaiIno-One Shot)

The concept of birthdays had always been foreign to Sai. He’d never learned the actual date of his birth and never realized that such days were cause for celebration. So much of his past and the circumstances by which he’d become part of the Root were shrouded in darkness. The one person that could tell him when his actual birthday was, was dead.

There were little events that were celebrated in the Foundation. Completion of missions, not dying on said missions were the two events in which he could remember “celebrating.” Other than that there was little else that would be cause for celebration.

Once he started becoming more a part of the village he learned early on that birthdays were actually important milestones. Whether they were small, intimate gatherings of close family and friends or large, elaborate events, birthdays were something to celebrate. They were time markers and allowed the celebrant to reflect on all their past experiences and look forward to all the wonderful experiences that lie ahead. Perhaps that was why birthdays were never celebrated. No one in the Root had a clear memory of their past. Each mission could be life or death so it was foolish to believe that there was a future to look forward to.

Still, as he began to settle actual roots, and the path in which he wanted to walk a birthday seemed like an important element to have. Everyone had a birthday, he deserved one too. The actual date though was to be determined. There were few actual dates that held any value so selecting a random one out of the year was difficult. It also seemed strange to arbitrarily pick a date as well.

“Ino? I have a request.”

“Of course Sai, anything.”

“Would you mind sharing your birthday with me?”

“What?”

“I don’t know when my actual birthday is. Such things weren’t considered important. One day I’d like to find out but for now if you don’t mind I’d like to share my birthday with you. It’s not something that we need to announce or even really recognize but I’d like to have a date, a number that I can put down. I feel like the day I met you I was reborn in a sense. That my real life started. I can understand if you don’t-”

Stolen (Multi Chap AU ShikaTema ):

Shikamaru watched her closely and saw the shift in her eyes. Where she’d been terrified initially he noticed a kind of calm and peace. He released the shadow binds around her wrists but sent more to surround her creating a maze of shadows and lines.

“Don’t fear the shadows Temari. Learn to dance amongst them.”

Temari with focused eyes and a determined spirit moved gracefully between the lines. She landed in pockets of light and moved swiftly before she could become trapped. He watched on enchanted as she leaped and moved effortlessly avoiding what he threw at her. It was as though she was floating, gliding in the wind above the darkness.

Runways (Model AU ShikaTema):

Unrestrained raged swirled in Shikamaru’s normally soft brown eyes as he held Temari’s shaking body. His glare was heavy on the cowering figure trembling on the floor.

“My family will bury you. I will make sure that you never work in this industry again.”

Temari was taken aback by the ice in his voice and all she wanted was for this night to be over and for life to return to normal. “Shikamaru...” Temari’s voice quivered in a frighteningly unfamiliar way and his protective hold tightened.

“I’m sorry-”

In spite of himself, Shikamaru laughed off the worthless attempt to quell his anger. “It’s far too late for apologies. I suggest that you leave now. That you make it so that no one remembers your name or face because by the time that I’m done you will wish that you never crossed a Nara.”

Stalemate (Mafia AU, ShikaTema)

Shikamaru’s midnight eyes surveyed the crash of sweaty bodies moving and pulsating to a heavy beat. He took a long drag of his cigarette overwhelmed by the sheer number of people and heavy bass. It wasn’t often that he made the trek out here often depending on his associates to check on their businesses. His father told him though that it was important for the king to be seen by his people.

For a while, his family had to operate in the shadows. That was no longer the case. The Naras, Akimichis, and Yamanaka’s ruled this area. Government officials, police officers anyone who had “power” were all on their payroll. Very few things happened in this city without them knowing. Everyone knew who they were and they no longer tried to hide it.

When he was younger he’d complained constantly that this was a drag. He never wanted to become the head of the Nara crime family. It wasn’t his choice, it was his destiny. Still, he grew into the role and had accomplished more than they’d ever dreamed.

He didn’t delight in the benefits of being an infamous crime boss. The club was far too loud. The women who threw themselves at him were too troublesome.

His eyes continued to scan the room before they fell upon one person his heart began to beat wildly. From where he stood he could tell she was a striking blonde but there was something different. Something was drawing him towards her. He studied her for a while. Becoming increasingly frustrated as she flirted and smiled at the club patrons. His hands clutched painfully around the balcony railing as he tried to keep his anger in check.

He called his security detail over.

“The blonde bartender, bring her to my office.”

“Yes sir.”

Protective Instincts (Mafia AU, SaiIno, Mafia Princess Ino, Bodyguard Sai *same universe as “Stalemate” ^)

The tension in the back of the SUV was suffocating. The air heavy, anger rolling off of the man sitting next to her.

“Sai...I-” Ino began before being cut off.

“Don’t, I’m barely holding it together right now. I just need a minute.”

A beat of silence passed. “Are you mad at me?” She pouted and despite how angry and upset he was Sai shook his head.

“No, I could never be mad at you. I’m mad at your actions and the stupid risks you take but no, never at you.”

Satisfied with his response and sensing that he was calmer Ino crawled into his lap settling her head against his chest.

He knew that he should push her away. It wasn’t necessarily appropriate for her to be this familiar with him but she melted so perfectly against him. He felt whole when she was in his arms.

“I’m sorry Sai, I should have told you. I just wanted a regular fun, night out.”

“But you’re not a regular person. You put yourself at risk.”

“Sai, it’s one of our clubs, nothing was going to happen.”

“I can’t take that chance, Princess. I knew that I shouldn't have taken the night off. The person on your guard tonight is fucking dead.”

Her eyes widened feeling guilt crash over her. She still had to learn that her decisions had very real consequences. “Sai, no. Please, it’s not his fault. I snuck out. I manipulated and orchestrated the whole thing. Please don’t take it out on him.”

“Ino.”

She forced his gaze to meet hers. “I’ll deal with my dad if it gets to him. Please.”

“Fuck, fine. He and I are going to have a talk for sure but that will be all. I promise.”

Ino sighed in relief knowing that he’d keep his promise. “Thank you.”

“Why did you take tonight off? It’s not like you.”

He took a deep breath his fingers pushing back stray hairs away from her eyes. “I just needed a break, Beautiful. Clearly, it didn’t last long. I can’t take my eyes off of you for a second.”

She relaxed into his chest. “I like your eyes on me.”

Obscura (NSFW SaiIno- Lemonade Series) -Idea courtesy of @ promptmaker

Sai grinned as Ino moved into the next pose. She was a natural in front of the camera and seeing that smile always made him happy.

He’d purchased the camera recently as an attempt to explore a new artistic medium. Especially now that he had memories worth capturing. Ino happily volunteered to be his subject. He was thankful that after this he’d have a whole set of photos of his Light.

“Great job Beautiful these look incredible.” He complimented her drawing her into a kiss.

“Thank you, Sai.” She paused for a minute before her eyes lifted back to his a playful look in those baby blues.

“I have an idea for a for pictures if you don’t mind.”

He nodded excitedly about the prospect. He enjoyed any time that they shared together. “Of course not Beautiful, whatever you’d like. Let me just adjust these lights.”

When he turned back around he was surprised to see that she’d removed her top and was now leaning forward her breasts heavy and exposed. A mischievous smile across her lips.

“Fuck.” He breathed. So she wanted those kinds of pictures.

Main Course (NSFW ChoKarui- Lemonade Series -Idea courtesy of @ promptmaker

“I made you all your favorite food and this is what you want to do instead.” Karui teased Chouji her honey eyes glowing with anticipation.

Chouji grinned as his mouth descended over her delicate neck. “I think that you’re mistaken Sweetheart. You are by far my favorite thing to eat.” She could feel his grin against her skin.

“Besides, if you didn’t want this to happen you would know better than to make yourself look so appetizing.” He countered his hands grazing over the skin that the apron left exposed.

Goosebumps erupted over her skin her breathing coming out in short pants. “Well, perhaps we should have dessert first.”

So that’s what we’ve got folks. Actually even just making this post is inspiring me to finish/write! Are there any that you’re interested in reading? thank you for getting this far and for supporting me.

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redassassin · 4 years

Text

a beautiful nightmare

part seven-> part eight

Adrian had never been more confused in his life. As he listened to Nova’s retreating footsteps he mulled over the events of that night. Pros: Nova had accepted his invitation. She had agreed to dance with him, even saying that he was the only one she wanted to dance with. Cons: She had run away. Run away.

He shook it off. Nova was a very private person. It took a lot for her to trust anyone. But, maybe, if he showed her that he trusted her wholeheartedly, with their biggest secret, maybe she would trust him.

He made his way back to his bedroom and pulled out his sketchbook, doodling as he attempted to clear his mind. After about a half an hour his eyes started to droop and he closed it, lying back on his bed, drifting off into sleep.

He set out at the same time the next night, following the same path he had the night before, hoping to run into Nova. He paced through the halls, covering the same ground, one, two, three times. But Nova didn’t show. Finally, he made his way to the guards quarters, knocking on the door to Nova’s room. A loud sound echoed through the room, as if something had been knocked off the bed. He heard a muffled curse, followed by the frantic shuffling of papers and the clinking of metal. Footsteps padded towards the door, and it squeaked open, a flustered Nova standing on the threshold. She started when she realised that it was him, opening her mouth as if to speak.

“I want to show you something.” He said, holding out his hand to her. He froze, remembering how she had pulled away last night, and drew his hand back, clearing his throat. “Sorry. Uh, would you come with me? There’s something I think you would be interested in.” She nodded, stepping out of her room and closing the door. Adrian led her through the castle, down towards the basement. He heard Nova pause, and he turned back to see an odd expression on her face. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought that it was fear. He shook it off, offering her a small smile.

“You okay?”

She nodded, speeding up so that she was standing beside him. “So, where are we going?”

“Where are we going?”

He stopped beside a torch, pressing the red R that decorated the base. The sound of grinding stone filled the air and a passage opened up. It was dark, and Adrian sketched a torch and held it out to her.

She stared, open-mouthed at the passage as she grabbed the torch, stepping hesitantly into the tunnel.

“To see a friend.”

They made their way along the tunnel, and Adrian could hear Nova’s shallow breathing beside him. He tried to focus on anything else, the sound of their footsteps, how much longer it would take to get to Max, or the flickering of the torch in her hand. It illuminated her face, casting shadows over it. It took too much restraint for Adrian to not grab her hand and press another gentle kiss against her knuckles. Her shallow breathing reminded him of how much he wanted to press her up against the wall and kiss her until they were both gasping for air. But he couldn’t, and never would. He would wait for her, no matter how long it took.

Nova paused as they reached the end of the corridor. She glanced up at him, a question behind her eyes. He pushed open the door, revealing a spiraling staircase and a ceiling made of glass. She stared up in awe, following him as he made his way up the staircase.

“What is this place?” She asked as she took in the sight.

“You’ll see in just a second. He’s through here.” He led her up the staircase and through a trapdoor in the ceiling to reveal a small room separated by a glass wall from the rest of the tower. Adrian pulled a small cord hanging near them and a bell rang through the tower. A small figure appeared from a trapdoor in the ceiling. Adrian smiled, calling out through the glass.

“Max! Come meet Nova. She’s the one I’ve been telling you about.” Nova stiffened beside him, looking up at him in apprehension. “Insomnia, meet the Bandit. Max, this is Nova! She joined us a little over a month ago.”

Nova was examining the tower. “Are you trapped in here?”

“Nova-”

Max interrupted him. “It’s fine. It’s not safe for me to be around other people, and I can see everything from here. Plus, I get visitors all the time. It’s not so bad.”

She still looked skeptical, but he assured her that Max had a want for nothing and had company throughout the day, as well as a view of the courtyard and access to the library and anything else he could want to stay busy. He watched her as she nodded slowly, her brow still furrowed.

“Why isn’t it safe for you to be around other people?”

“It’s- uh… classified?”

Nova raised her eyebrows. “Right, I guess I forgot who I was talking to.” The bitterness in her voice was evident, and Adrian stared at the floor, partly embarrassed, and partly to hide his own bitterness.

“Can I show her the model?”

Adrian waved his question away. “It’s your model, Max. I don’t care what you do with it.”

Max squeezed his eyes shut, concentrating hard as a blanket rose from the ground, revealing a glittering glass model of the city. He heard Nova draw in a sharp breath next to him, walking closer to the model and squatting down next to the glass partition, her hand against it for balance.

“That stall is in the wrong place. It should be next to the blacksmith, over there, and the one behind it should take its place.”

She looked up to see Max and Adrian staring at her in confusion.

“What? I spend a lot of time in the city. There’s only so much I can do to keep entertained when I’m awake 24/7.”

The glass buildings rose, moving to their corrected places.

“Any more corrections, Insomnia?” Adrian laughed, but she gave him a stern look and pointed back at the glass city.

“I’m guessing you had a big part in this?” She smirked when he nodded. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m here. That row is all wrong. It should be there,” She pointed to a spot nearby, and those over there should be here.” Max began to move the objects, grinning at Adrian’s expression.

He watched as Nova continued to correct the city. She was so sure of herself, pointing out his mistakes without a second glance, even naming the names of buildings and businesses and streets, as she directed him.

“Listen, Nova. You can’t tell anyone that I brought you here. The only people who know are Ruby, Danna, and Oscar, and the Council of course, and the people who care for him. We would both get in so much trouble if they knew that I brought you here.” She raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth to respond, but then closed it and simply nodded. She finished her corrections to the city and stood up, brushing her hands off on her pants.

“I should go, there was something I wanted to finish working on tonight.” She offered him a small smile, her hand brushing against his arm as she passed him. “Thank you for this.”

“Want me to walk you back?” He said, hope in every tone of his voice, but she shook her head, and he deflated.

“I’ll be okay. Spend some more time with Max. I have a feeling he might have a few requests for new figurines.”

She exited through the trapdoor, and the second it closed Max started to laugh, and Adrian flinched at the loud echo.

“Dude, could you be any more obvious? Your face lights up when she just barely looks at you.” Max shook his head, grinning at the panic on Adrian’s face.

“You couldn’t wait until she was at least out of the tower? She might hear you,” He hissed.

“She knows, Adrian. You have nothing left to hide, except maybe how the hell you gave yourself more powers.”

Adrian gaped at him, his brain momentarily blank. “What- I- How- That’s. . . not me?’

Max scoffed. “I’m not stupid, Adrian. So, tattoos? Is that how you did it?”

“What- How?” Max pointed at his sleeve, which had ridden up and revealed the bottom of the flame tattoo. Glaring, he yanked his sleeve back over the tattoo.

“So you haven’t told anyone?” Max asked.

Adrian shook his head. “Danna got hurt, and you know the Council would never allow it. Who knows what they’d do to stop me from becoming the Sentinel, especially after everything that happened with Nightmare. I was stuck on that rooftop for hours. You have no idea the kind of lecture I got when I finally got back.”

“Actually, I do. The Captain was here right after, complaining about how unprofessional you were, and how you didn’t even look like you were listening. Distracted by thoughts of your giiiiirlfriend?” He drew out the word, a mocking tone prevalent.

“She’s not my girlfriend, and no. I was actually thinking about how I could have killed Danna, and I was worried about Nova. She disappeared at the beginning of the fight, and didn’t return for hours. But she’s fine, and they say that Danna will be too.”

“I watched the battle, you know.” He pointed out the window in the general direction of the rooftop where the fight had been. The Dread Warden brought me binoculars so I could watch the city. It was awful, watching the fight, and I didn’t even know it was you. Watching the flame jump between the butterflies, I thought it would take them all.” Adrian shuddered.

Below them, the trapdoor opened again, and Nova poked her head through.

Adrian bristled. How much had she heard? He examined her expression, but if she had heard anything, it didn’t show.

“Hey again,” He said, smiling at her. She smiled back, somewhat hesitantly.

“Hey. Uh, can we talk?” She was staring down at her feet, refusing to look at him. He turned to look at Max, who just grinned, giving him a thumbs up as he began to levitate over his glass city.

“Yeah. Do you want to take a walk?” She nodded, turning away from Max and the quarantine, shuffling her feet a little as she walked towards the steps. She had grabbed her toolbelt from her room, and it hung loosely around her waist. She wore a light jacket over a tank top, and as she walked, her jacket slipped off her shoulder, revealing a long red cut on her arm. It looked fresh, and she grimaced as it was exposed to the cold air. She shrugged it back on to her shoulder, shaking her head at his confused expression. Max, however gasped from behind them, followed by the distinct sound of shattering glass and a cry of pain. Nova spun around next to him, running towards the doors to the quarantine before he could stop her. She threw open the doors and ran towards him, pulling something out of her toolbelt.

“Nova! You need to get out of there, it’s not safe!” He yelled, but Nova ignored him. She picked her way towards Max. She was almost there when she gasped, her brow furrowing. She stumbled, falling to one knee, as she shook her head, rubbing her forehead and yawning. She tried to stand, but the pull of Max’s power was too much. She slumped to the ground, fast asleep.

Adrian only paused for a second, before tearing open the door and following Nova into the quarantine. He scooped her up, carrying her out of the quarantine, jumping with the springs on his feet. 10 steps. 9. 6. His fingers started to ache, as if all his strength was being drained. He wondered how much of his power Max would have. How much of Nova’s? Would she have to sleep now?

2 steps. 1. He threw himself over the threshold, slamming the door behind him, before collapsing to the ground. Nova lay beside him, her breathing shallow as her eyelids twitched. He watched her as she dreamt, but turned away a second later. He wouldn’t like to have someone watching him as he slept, so he waited patiently beside her as medics rushed in to the quarantine after he had run the emergency bell that was just inside the door. He waved them away, signaling that he was fine, and that Nova was only asleep, and neither of them had been in there long enough to do any serious damage.

He leaned over Nova, shaking her shoulder in an attempt to wake her. No response. He tried again, and a few seconds later, she awoke. She awoke not as one generally did, with yawns and sleepy eyes, but with a small shriek. She was shaking, her eyes filling with tears. She scrambled away from, leaning against the wall, her head buried in her knees. Her breathing was fast, and a small sob escaped her mouth. He offered her his hand, and she took it, lacing their fingers together. He sat next to her, and she leaned her head on his shoulder. He squeezed her hand, offering her what comfort he could.

“I’m okay.”

“What happened?”

She paused, and shook her head slowly. “I-”

“You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s okay. You showed me Max, you deserve to know.” Nova took a shaky breath. “When I was six, I stopped sleeping. But it wasn’t by choice. My father was famous among the villain gangs during the age of anarchy, for his weapon-making. They went to him, threatened him with his life. He complied, for our sake as well as his own. He always hated what he did for them, and after a while he couldn’t take it anymore, seeing his creations used to hurt people like that. So he went to the Council, begged for help. And they promised their help, as long as he stopped. And he did. And when he stopped, they sent someone after us. I watched my mother fall right in front of me> Her blood splattered on my face. My father was shot before he could even scream. With his last words he told me to run. And so I did. I ran and hid in my closet. Too late I remembered my sister. I prayed that she wouldn’t wake up, that she would stay asleep, but she woke up and began to cry and there was another gunshot and she was dead. I hid in my closet, trying not to breath, hoping that someone would save me before he found me too. But he did find me. And so I-” She paused, taking a deep breath. “My uncle showed up, killed the man, saving me. After that, every time I closed my eyes, I heard the gunshots blasting through my head and the echoes of my sisters last cry.”

“Nova, I’m-”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

He nodded, and she leaned her head on his shoulder again, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Can we go now?” They stood, letting go of each other’s hands as they walked down the stairs and out of the tower.

“I’m sorry for yesterday,” He said. “I’d still like to dance with you, but only if you want to. Please don’t feel pressured because of who I am.”

“I’ll be there.” She gave him a small smile, and Adrian flushed.

“See you later?” She nodded, and he brushed another kiss against her knuckles.

tag list: @obsessedwithliterallyeverything @red-eyes88 @onecannotbebrave @renegadesmarissameyer @somanyfandomsonly1username @everhartartino @allyendergirl @thepurpledragon4444 @theworst-pirate

#Marissa Meyer #marswriting #nightmare #Renegades #renegades fanfic #adrian everhart #nova artino #archenemies #nodrian #danna bell #a beautiful nightmare

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jackarychaoti · 4 years

Text

Two Knights, Tonight. (Pt. 2)

Weeks had gone by when Jackary had turned to Darnath in the Emerald Dream and confessed that he needed to wake up and go see the real Darnath, that he had felt as if he had missed something and needed to check on him. It was in that moment of waking up that Jack realized just how awful it all was. Two years, no link, no feeling, no sensation. His comm was dead and even when he got it working, the system didn’t register - he had even slipped into headquarters but nothing was the same... Darnath’s trackers, his old ones before the updates, of course didn’t register, leaving Jackary stranded. That was then.

This was now.

Dicenne had somehow convinced Jack to get some sleep, swearing up and down he would wake Jackary up within a few hours and after a bit of reluctance, the dragon finally agreed. Within the Dream, his eyes opened slowly, going from a world of darkness and terror to the softest morning ray of sunlight caressing through his fluttering lashes. Like awakening from a nightmare only to find the warmth and security of your bed. Such a sensation brought a small exhale of relief and yet it was still disturbing. He knew he hadn’t found what he was looking for. Yet.

Herah and Alin where busily working in other parts of the forest, Mavas was working in the glade, and Rick was cleaning up the house. They had all done really well, getting as much of the nightmare that had rushed through their home cleaned and purified again. They were all growing bigger now. Stronger, like mini aspects inside the dream world Jack had forged and Darnath worked to ever expand into somewhere worth staying. At least that's what he had been doing.

Now he had more leisure... well 'time' didn't exist, but hobbies did. It could almost have been one of the early days. The warmth of sunlight filling the gentle calm of the room. This time Dar had picked up sketching, sitting not far from the dragon's resting form as he drew up a picture of each little scale and muscle that made up the sleeping dragon's curled cat like lounge. Belly up, legs akimbo, totally relaxed. Though that may not be the way he was laying just now... "Morning sleepy head... Or welcome back?" He shifted over to the bed to be closer and smiled. "Not going to complain about you waking up early... but you know you're welcome to nap as long as you like, right?"

The peridot hues shifted slowly and the moment he saw Darnath's faces be it dream or not, a pang of hurt swelled in his chest. The tears that again threatened were blinked away and a hand cupped his own mouth, silencing any noise of discomfort. He'd really messed up and what had been heaven felt like some sort of cruel joke.

"I can't find you." Jack finally admitted, muffled into his palm before both hands raised to rub at his eyes firmly and in frustration. "I can't feel the link, the comms aren't functional, I can't fucking find you... I just keep looking and it's just like when I lost--..." he paused, wracking his brain for the name. It had already begun, the slow erasure. "... Karasu." Scourge attacks, missing mate in Icecrown, it was the same hellish nightmare repeating itself. He was so confused, hurt and unsure of himself anymore. "I feel like... there, you don't want to be found. I would be mad at me, too... for being gone so long."

Darnath furrowed his brow at the sudden explosion of emotions and quickly put his sketches down. He trilled his tongue, the soft coo of a comforting parental dragon to help Jack relax. "Baby... Karasu was very precious to you. A phoenix, no? There's a book here with a few memories of him in it..." He started there, because that seemed most likely to be lost in the upset. "Are you mad at yourself?" He reached over, combing fingers through his hair and remaining calm, collected, everything Jack was assuming the real Darnath wasn't. "You wouldn't be pushing yourself into riskier and riskier situations in desperate hope your knight in shining armor will do as he always does and magically just know that you're in trouble would you? Even if you are, I know you're definitely not, accepting that as punishment when he doesn't show up."

"I'm furious at myself." Admitting it was difficult but Jack sniffled, trying his best to remain calm and quiet so as not to let the borders of the little grove shrink and let the nightmare back in. "I have been so careful in not getting into trouble as best I can, I have been working with others but it's hell, Moonlight. The Scourge are everywhere and..." Jack trailed off slightly, for Darnath had a point. What if he just... set off one of the trackers in his body? Would Dar have come searching the way Jack had been for weeks? Combing Azeroth and making deals with demons while trying his best to remain out of trouble... it was enough to push his palms to his eyes firmly.

"Maybe it is just punishment. I deserve it, I left him hanging because I was scared. I tried to focus on guarding something I thought he loved and I..." Trailing off, Jack's tongue pushed outward to lick his lips slowly. "I can't even feel the bond anymore. Like he simply got rid of it. Even if I was in trouble, he wouldn't know."

Darnath’s chest swelled with a deep breath in and out. Not quite a sigh, but definitely a bit upset for his dragon's sake. "I warned him this would happen. Baby..." He turned to show his Dragonsworn mark towards him, glowing now for how hard the dragon must have been calling to his mate. "I'm holding your bond for now. That's why you cannot sense each other. It was the only way to keep your grove stable enough for you to stay here so long. It keeps me stable, even if you're awake."

The knight thought for a moment before he gently pulled Jack's head and shoulders into his lap to better pet and cuddle him. Soon. Very soon. He'd have to give up the bond that was keeping his strength. "More importantly, I think punishing yourself when you don't know how he feels is... at least a bit premature. Perhaps I have a harder time grasping. I'm right here. I'm always here for you. I can't imagine not being... but you need him."

Eyes peered over to the mark, the glow left a small igniting glow in his own eyes from the resonating power of seeing just where his calling went. Furrowing, Jackary allowed himself to be moved, finding comfort in the connection and touch. The news was something that slightly alarmed the dragon, the fact that the dream version of his partner seemed to know what was going on but he didn’t.

“What?” Confusion remained in his voice but he frowned, ears raised in curiosity. “What do you mean you warned him this would happen? Why do you have the bond?” Had Darnath come into the dream while Jack was unaware? If so, then... When? Why didn’t he stay? Why didn’t he come speak to him? “I do need him, but... I’m confused.”

"I'm still me. Still, him. You asked him to stay once, long ago and so... I never left and helped you build a life in here... Maybe too well. He... I think he came to take you back, but he saw us together, the whelps playing, and felt you were happier here. He may have also felt a bit inadequate. Or had too many memories of seeing you hurting to take you from a place that made you smile."

The comments and facts that Darnath were giving him caused the dragon to close his eyes slowly. “Did he really always think that he didn’t make me happy?” No, it was beyond that, it was the fact that Darnath did what he thought would keep Jack happy and safe, a place where there was constant smiles. Jack should have been more clear, more up front with Dar and that was starting to show. “Can you feel him at all, or no?” It was a long shot but something that he needed to know.

"I have always worried about trying to make you happy. And safe. ...but I do remember feeling like you were never quite happy with me back... then." He was stalling. "Yes, I can feel him. ...He doesn't feel like himself though. Some kind of fractured rage stands in the way of really getting a feel for him. But I felt him strongest just before the nightmare wave washed through here. So whatever you were doing then, you were on the right path." And then, he knew better.. he really did. He knew the answers now, same as he knew Dar's answer when he asked him to stay too, "You know, nothing is stopping you from staying... I know a dream isn't perfect, but as long as I'm here that's proof he loves you. That I love you."

Being told he had been on the right path, Jack’s eyes closed again thoughtfully. He was somehow on the right track and thus meant he needed to return to Icecrown as soon as he woke up. But then the Dream Darnath spoke words that twisted something inside of him and it felt like a pang of guilt that flooded over him. He could have stayed here with this version, cozy and adored, and yet...

“People are dying out there right now, Moonlight. I am trying to help them as we speak and I... I need to apologize to him... To you.” Those eyes opened again to look up at Darnath, his hands raised just enough to grasp onto the Knight’s in order to squeeze them. “He deserves it, he deserves to hear it and know how I feel...” His head titled then, nuzzling at the other’s lap gently. “You both deserve that.”

"Yeeeah, I figured. You've been pretty hung up on that guy since he first went looking for you when you were in danger." He laced their fingers together and loomed over him with a sweet smile. "Carried you all the way from Shattrath to Eversong. ...And then never really let go. Even when you tried to push him away. Or locked away your thoughts so much, your jaw might as well have been tense and shut." Now he was teasing him. Much more like their usual banter, but this time it had a point. Trying to remind him without words what Dar might be feeling. "Be careful. I don't know where it comes from, but he's holding on to some heavy nose punching energy. Make sure to dodge."

"He broke it once before and in truth I deserve it. But I love him, and my life without him in something I don't want to imagine. I never tell him but he makes everything better and I feel safe when he is close to me. I clung hard that day because I realized it and I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life, or as long as he would allow me with him." Lips tugged into a small smile and without even realizing it, the tears fell from the corners of his eyes. "Did you know I still carry my vows to him in my pocket? Words I never said, in the same envelope as a love letter I wrote to him years ago that I've always been too shy to give. Words he deserved and deserves to know." Drawing in a deep inhale, a breathless laughter puffed out. "I'm such a fool."

"Maybe. But you're my foolish dragon, Baby. You've always held your words hidden against your chest." He smirked at him. "Are you planning on changing that? More than deserves and shoulds..." he paused to think over his words and purred a moment to keep them both calm. He would disappear again soon. Jack would wake up. "You're always so focused on the past. The last two years. The people you left behind, but even before that. You first came in here comparing this to Karasu. ...Yet your dreams are always striving for the future. Apologize for the past, but while you're looking, maybe think over what you want the future to look like too. Dare to dream my emerald."

“Now you’re sounding like dad...” Jack whispered, but Darnath had a point. He was always so caught up in the past that he hadn’t even looked towards the future or thought about what he wanted outside of apologizing for something he couldn’t change. He needed to change, starting with moving forward. His fangs hooked his lower lip, biting and chewing in thought and yet when those bright peridots looked back up at Darnath, he seemed unsure, almost frightened to admit what he wanted.

“I want a life with him in it, I want to make up for what I did wrong and open up... As you say, more then deserves and shoulds and if that’s not in my cards for the future, then... I don’t know. Move forward.” His ear flicked slightly the moment a faint chime was heard in the distance of a familiar bell but he chose to ignore it a moment, clinging harder to Dar’s hands to keep himself steady. “I have to find you first.”

Jack...

Dar curled up close, shielding him from the sound. He knew he shouldn't cling, but he wasn't done... they were still talking... don't go... "Shoulds and Deserves are an improvement over what if's and never knows at least, but maybe there's more? A life... a future... maybe." Though he had to wonder if the dragon moved on, what was left for a forgotten dream? "Go find him. Go find the real thing, Baby. Whatever that ends up being."

Jackary...

The jingle again rang out but all Jack could do was ignore it in favour of reaching up to cling to Darnath, pulling him down slightly in the odd angle. Claws latched on, clinging to this version, almost scared to face the uncertainty that faced him in the real world. Here he was loved, he was safe and warm and out there, he was unsure. Here, Darnath still loved him and he had already done the apologizing but that was what made it so much harder to let go. "I will try my hardest..."

Wake up. It’s time to go.

Eyes snapped open as the soft colours of the dream were replaced with the cold darkness of early dawn, the pain returned to his body as a reminder of the hell he was living in. Looking up to see who was talking to him, Dicenne greeted him with a small smile, glad to see the dragon pull through from the slumber he had been in. The warmth of the Dream was gone, replaced with the cold harness of the ground he’d fallen onto, having rolled off Dice at some point in the night.

“I told you, I’d wake you up.”

A promise kept and after a lingering moment, Jack exhaled slowly and began to stretch his limbs, the tension really just his shedding scales that almost instantly peeled like sleeves, in full sheets of hardening green. The beautiful, bright and new scales below shimmered, even if some were already damaged by the Scourge. He knew where he had to go.

“I have to go back to Icecrown... Something is happening.”

| - @darnath - |

Mentions: | - @dicenne - |

#Return to Icecrown Arc #RP snippet #darnath #jack and dar #dicenne #Captain and Cap

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spacesnail3000 · 5 years

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Brooklyn’s Sweetheart Chapter 5: I Can Teach You Everything I Know

Pairing: Stucky x Reader

Chapter Summary: Turns out abstinence-only sex education from a private Catholic school doesn’t prepare you for the real world as well as conservatives think it does. Shocking.

Word Count: 4,940

Warnings: Language, dubcon smut (fingering, thigh riding), manipulation

(This story is starting to get much darker now so please pay attention to the warnings!!! It doesn’t get better from here!!)

Masterlist / AO3

The rain didn’t clear up for a couple more days, but they didn’t mind.

She and Steve spent the mornings together at the kitchen table, Y/N writing and drawing in her journal, and Steve sketching in his notebook.

He mentioned offhandedly one day that he missed painting, and then she asked him if he would teach her how. So they went out to a little art store and bought a bunch of watercolor supplies and he taught her everything he knew. How to control the saturation of pigment with the amount of water on the brush, how to bloom the color across the page, how to layer the shades to add more depth to the picture.

She ate up every little tip he told her. It reminded him of when his mother taught him how to paint. He hadn’t had much time lately for hobbies, so he was enjoying the opportunity to indulge his artistic side. He enjoyed spending the uninterrupted time with her just as much.

In the afternoons, Steve had business to do. He’d spend hours on the phone with Tony, planning big things for the coming weeks. Not even Bucky was allowed on these calls—which annoyed him at first, but it gave him more time to spent with their girl, so he took it in stride.

It was the morning after the long night Steve and Bucky spent together, and Steve was making breakfast for them. While Y/N was setting the table, Bucky snuck up on Steve in the kitchen, pressing a chaste kiss to his neck. Steve jumped and pulled him aside into the laundry room.

“What happened yesterday,” Steve said, voice low so Y/N wouldn’t hear. He rubbed a hand over his face. “We can’t do it again.”

“What?” Bucky frowned, “Why?”

“Peggy, of course,” Steve said it like it was the most obvious thing. Steve couldn’t serial-cheat on his girlfriend. That would be unacceptable. “She doesn’t deserve that. It was a one-time-thing. Keep it between us, got it?”

Bucky smiled tightly. “Of course, Stevie. Whatever you want.”

Afterwards, he went for a long run along the beach to clear his head, and for the following days, he tried to stay clear of Steve. Truthfully, it hurt a little. He and Steve had always been on and off, but Bucky liked it best when they were on. If it were up to him, they would be on all the time.

Bucky didn’t really see the reason for Steve to date Peggy, but Steve seemed to be happy—sometimes, at least. He seemed less and less happy the past few months as Peggy expected more and more out of their relationship. Every time Steve complained about Peggy suffocating him or not understanding his obligations to the mob, Bucky wanted to yell at him—shout out, that if Steve chose Bucky, it would be better. If Steve chose Bucky, they would be happy.

Bucky didn’t know what to do about it, though. Steve didn’t want him now—he wanted Peggy, apparently.

So while Steve holed himself up in the cottage’s office in the afternoons, Bucky would seek out Y/N to distract him. Their time together was peaceful, spent cuddling together on the back porch with a thick blanket and watching the rain. They would reminisce over their childhood memories, show each other books and music they liked, and talk about almost anything that came to mind.

She tended to be more vulnerable with Bucky when it was the two of them alone, snuggled up together, and Bucky couldn’t help but go even softer for her. He loved the way she felt pressed up against him, the way she would look up at him for validation or reassurance, the way her eyes would light up whenever she spoke about herself.

Since Steve had rebuffed him, he couldn’t help but feel a little spiteful, a little dejected. His deep-seated yearning for Y/N was only growing now that he and Steve were on stricter terms.

Sometimes when Steve took her in his arms at night when they watched movies, Bucky would feel a little unwelcome spark of jealousy popping off in his chest. He wasn’t sure who he was jealous of. Certainly he wanted Steve to show that kind of affection to him, but he also wanted her in his arms almost all the time.

Seeing them curled up together so closely, he had to admit that they looked good together. Steve was the strong protector type, and she needed something like that.

He wondered if he could be that for her, but he knew he couldn’t. It wasn’t in him. Still, despite that, he couldn’t help the way he felt towards her. She was sunshine personified—how could he not love her just a little bit?

In the back of his mind, he hoped he would get the chance to get closer to her again, that the moment would come for him to take her in his arms like he had the night of her birthday.

But it was too far-fetched. He knew that.

The moment happened to present itself in the middle of the week.

They were all on the couch watching a thriller movie, and she was curled up into Bucky’s side. Bucky wasn’t even paying attention to the television. His mind lingered on how she felt against him, the feeling of her soft skin as he stroked her arm, the way her hair tickled against his chin where he rested it on her head.

He thought the movie was probably just getting intense, because Steve’s phone rang, and both Y/N and Steve jumped in their seats at the shrill tone. Her head jolted against his jaw and made his teeth click.

Steve’s brief shock disappeared when he checked the caller ID. “It’s Peggy!” he said excitedly, jumping up. “I’m going to bed, goodnight!” He ran up the stairs, and they hear him answer before he shut himself in his room.

Bucky huffed, “About damn time…”

“Why has Peggy been ignoring him all week?” the girl in his arms asked, stretching out more on the couch.

“She didn’t like that he had to come here,” Bucky answered.

They went silent once more, watching the movie—or in Bucky’s case, pretending.

“Is it my fault?”

Bucky kissed the top of her head. “No, doll. It’s not your fault,” he lied. She believed him though, and his words seemed to reassure her enough that she relaxed into him. “Let me lay down, doll. I’m getting stiff here.”

“Hmph…” Grumbling, she allowed him to maneuver them so he was laying behind her, her back pressed against his front. Bucky didn’t hesitate before wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her close, spooning her. She was soft and warm against him, and he relished it for the remaining hour and a half of the movie, lost in the way she felt against him.

He hadn’t even realized when the credits started rolling until Y/N turned her head a little bit. “Steve’s asleep,” she whispered. It was only then that he heard the faint sound of snoring upstairs.

“You wanna go to sleep?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

She shook her head. “Not tired.”

She took the remote and played another movie, then settled back against him again. He was glad she had elected not to go to bed yet. He wanted more time with her in his arms.

Burying his face into her hair, he smelled the salon shampoo she used, and something sweet like vanilla. He stayed there, arms anchoring her against him.

His grown-out stubble scratched at the back of her scalp and at her neck and she squirmed against him. Bucky only realized the effects of her squirming when it was too late, and then the bulge in his pants was pressing against her ass.

She turned in his arms to face him. She hadn’t been paying much attention to the movie anyways. “You’re tickling me,” she pouted.

“What?” he asked, oblivious. “How?”

Her hands came up and cupped his jaw, her fingers running along his stubbly cheeks. “Your beard,” she answered, eyes fixated on his strong jawline.

She was so close to him now. He could smell her perfume, floral and fresh. Her sun kissed skin glowed in the faint light of the television.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered. “I’ll shave it.”

“No!” she said, too quickly. Thoughts of his scruff chafing against her lips and chin when he kissed her flickered through her mind, and she blushed.

Bucky smirked at her reaction. “No, you don’t want me to?” he teased.

She shook her head, fingers still playing at his beard. He wrapped his arms tighter around her, hands splayed across her lower back, stroking lightly there. She was sensitive there, he learned from the daily applications of sunscreen. He dug his fingers in to tickle her, and she squirmed against him again, trying to move away from his fingers but only pressing herself up more against his hard body. If she noticed—well, he wanted to see what she would do. It thrilled him a little that she would experience this for the first time with him.

She had noticed the hardness in his shorts, but she ignored it—not really knowing what she was supposed to do about it. She knew it happened when a man was aroused, but Bucky—he couldn’t be…

Well, he did try and kiss her. But that had been weeks ago, she reasoned, and he hadn’t made another move since. Not that she really knew how their relationship was supposed to progress from there. He had just gone back to acting like her best friend.

At least he hadn’t ignored her like Steve had, but she and Steve were back to normal, too.

Still, Bucky had to have kissed her for a reason, and the way his eyes kept flickering down to her lips confirmed as much.

“Bucky?”

“Hmm?”

“Why’d you kiss me on my birthday?”

Bucky stiffened, not anticipating that question. She hadn’t brought it up yet, but he didn’t expect her to ignore it forever.

“I…” he didn’t know how to answer. “I wanted to,” he said simply.

“But why?”

He thought about it, how he had been tempted. “You just looked so pretty that night, I couldn’t help myself.”

She mulled this over. “So you’ve been able to help yourself since? Or have you not wanted to kiss me again?”

He knew what she was doing—trying to see if he had lost interest in her. “I liked the kiss, darling. I just haven’t had the chance to kiss you again.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks were flushed now, pink and pretty. “So you want to?”

Well, she was basically inviting him to kiss her now. What else was he supposed to do?

He leaned forward and kissed her—softer than he had before, just a gentle press of his lips against hers. Then he pulled back all too soon and licked his lips. Her lip balm tasted like candy.

“There. Happy?” he asked, unable to repress the smirk on his lips.

She was pouting. “No,” she answered.

“No?” He raised his eyebrows, playing innocent. “Why not? Not a good kiss?”

“Bucky,” she whined. “C’mon.”

“What? I don’t know what you want unless you tell me.”

She huffed, then said, “I liked how you kissed me on my birthday.”

That was what he wanted her to say, and now she had fallen right into his hands. He brought one hand up to cup the back of her head, pulling her into him for the same kind of bruising kiss he had given her before.

This time, she didn’t freeze up. Instead, she worked her lips against his and matched his vigor, allowing his tongue to enter her mouth and tangle with her own. She tasted like cherries, and he groaned into her mouth, unable to help himself. She was everything he ever hoped—so receptive and willing.

He was rock hard by now, and he couldn’t help the slight press of his hips against hers. It caused her to gasp into his mouth, which pleased him. He groaned low in response, and she could feel the vibrations all throughout her body. That paired with the feeling of his stubble scratching at her skin, the feeling of his arms compressing her body around the middle—it was overwhelming, too much sensation for her inexperienced body to process at once.

She turned her head, breaking the kiss, but Bucky didn’t stop, lowering his head and kissing down her jaw and neck. As he sucked and licked at the sensitive skin, she let out the sweetest little sounds—gasps and whimpers, one hand grabbing at his shoulder and the other one in his hair. One of his hands came up to roam her body, brushing along her side, rubbing over her back, drifting down to caress her hip—he just wanted to feel her, every part of her.

When his hand skimmed over her ass, she started pushing at his shoulders. “Bucky,” she gasped as he bit at her clavicle, “Bucky, wait—"

“Quiet,” he shushed her, hoping she wasn’t loud enough for Steve to wake. He didn’t want to stop, and he certainly didn’t want Steve to catch them, so he brought his lips back up and kissed her hard, silencing her. Maneuvering their bodies just so, he shoved one of his thick thighs between her own, effectively pinning her body down with his leg and his arms tight around her torso.

She squeaked into his mouth when his thigh ground up against the space between her legs—nobody had ever touched her there before, not even herself. Her heart was racing, not sure what was supposed to come next, not sure how far he was going to go with her. It was all too much too soon, and while her body was tingling with his touch, skin burning, her mind told her it was wrong.

At the feeling of his hand groping her ass, squeezing tight, she yanked especially hard on his hair. Their lips detached at his pained gasp, which gave her the opportunity to turn her mouth away from him again.

“Bucky,” she panted, “Stop!”

It confused her when he chuckled, his laugh rumbling through both their bodies. He dipped his head, running his nose along her throat, ending with a press of his lips under her earlobe. “Why do you want me to stop, baby?” he asked, voice gravelly with lust. “You asked for me to kiss you, remember?”

“I know, but—”

“This is how I kissed you at your birthday. This is how it would’ve gone if Sam hadn’t interrupted us. You know that?”

She shook her head, mind swimming with arousal and panic. “But Bucky,” she pleaded, “I don’t know—I’m not sure—”

“Hey,” he stopped her, gripping her chin and forcing her to look into his eyes. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I won’t do nothin’ you ain’t ready for.”

“I don’t know what I’m ready for,” she whispered, eyes dropping.

“Look at me,” he growled, voice firmer. She did, eyes shimmering with uncertainty. “Do you trust me?” She nodded, and his grip on her tightened. “Need to hear you say it, doll.”

“I trust you,” she whispered.

“Then let me take the lead.” The words sounded like a request, but his voice left no room for argument. “Quiet your mind. Listen to your body. Your body knows what to do,” he said, running his fingers gently along her side. She shivered. “You were made for me, baby.” His thumb ran along her lower lip, and her eyes fluttered closed at the sensation of his hands mixed with his words.

He truly believed it—the more he touched her body, the more he realized it. She was perfect. All of her sounds, the way she clung to him; she was so receptive to his touch, her body so responsive. The goosebumps on her skin, the way she shuddered, the unconscious clench of her thighs on his—they betrayed her pleasure, even if she didn’t realize it yet.

Plus, he had already had a taste of her—he would never be able to let her go, now.

“I don’t know what to do, though,” she murmured, lips brushing deliciously against his thumb.

“I’m gonna teach you, sweetheart.” With that, he kissed her again. He would try not to overwhelm her tonight—there was always next time.

And there would be a next time, if he had anything to do with it.

For now, he just enjoyed kissing her, touching her body. Her lips were plushy and slippery wet, swollen from the scratch of his beard. She kissed him eagerly, tongue curling with his, only pulling back when she began to run out of breath.

As he kissed her, his hands roamed her body over the fabric of her dress at her waist and hips. The material was so thin he could feel the heat of her body through it, the way her flesh yielded to his grip.

His hand slowly inched down to the hem of her dress. The skirt was very short, and their position caused it to hike up more than was appropriate so it ended just under her ass. He bypassed the hem at first, hand running down her thigh, feeling her soft skin. Then he traced up the back of her thigh and dipped underneath the hem, gripping her ass beneath the fabric.

Her ass cheek was half bare, covered only by a pair of skimpy panties. He wanted to see them, so he swiftly flipped up her skirt over her hips to bare her ass.

“Bucky!” she gasped, breaking the kiss. They both looked down at her bared bottom, her gaze was panicked while his was lustful. The panties weren’t quite a thong, but they weren’t covering much of her ass; rosy pink lace dipped down between her cheeks, lost between her thighs.

“Look at you, baby doll,” he groaned, palming at the swell of her ass. “Lookin’ so sweet for me.” He ran a finger along the waistband, tracing the top hem and then down where it clung to the round flesh of her ass, ending with a soft press to the crotch of her panties.

She was soaking wet.

“What’re you—”

He cut her off, “Quiet, baby. Let me show you what your body wants.” His finger ran across her clothed pussy. “You’re wet for me. You know what that means?” She shook her head. “It means you like it. Your sweet little pussy gets wet when it likes what I’m doing to your body. Understand?”

She furrowed her eyebrows. Did she understand? Sure, she had had sex education, but she had gone to a private Catholic school in Brooklyn that only taught abstinence. Her health class had barely covered human anatomy, and the nuns had discouraged any questions about sex or pleasure, stating that sex was solely for procreation.

Her body was telling her different, though. She didn’t quite understand why her body was reacting so much to his touch.

She knew she liked it, though. Every brush of his fingers on her skin had her lighting aflame, and now he was touching along her panties and it felt like her pelvis was getting tighter. Everything just felt so good, and she had no idea how it could get any better.

“Sweetie,” Bucky’s hand stilled. “Have you ever touched yourself here before?” He asked, punctuating the question with a press against her pussy. She gasped at the feeling and then shook her head. His index finger found her clit through the fabric and rubbed light circles over it. “When I touch here, and I rub it or press against it, it feels good, doesn’t it, honey?”

“Yeah,” she gasped, hands clutching to his shoulders. She was breathing heavier again, and the blush on her cheeks had sunk down to the skin of her breasts, making her look like she had spent a little too much time in the sun. As he kept rubbing, her head tilted back, eyes fluttering closed. He pressed down a little harder and she keened, hips jumping against his hand. “S-sorry,” she gasped, trying to still her hips.

“No, sweetheart, don’t apologize,” his voice was low in her ear. “Don’t hold back. Move your hips if it feels good. I just want you to feel good—and there’s a lot of different ways for you to do that.”

At his words, her hips twitched again. He continued to rub against her, occasionally pressing harder, occasionally pinching her clit lightly. With each new sensation, her thighs tightened on him, her hips grinding against his hand, hands fisting his hair.

Bucky kissed her lightly on the mouth, skimming his lips along her cheek and down her jaw. He nipped lightly at her pulse point and brought his lips down further to her shoulder. He nudged the strap of her dress off, pressing his mouth against the skin there and sucking.

She jolted against him, gasping loudly, “Oh!” The spot he was kissing on her shoulder felt so good, like a direct line to her groin. “That’s—”

“Shh,” he hushed her, murmuring against her skin, “Gotta be quiet. Wouldn’t want Steve to wake up, right?” However, he kept sucking at the spot, noting how it made her squirm and grind down harder on his hand.

She thought that the idea of Steve catching them might dampen her arousal, quell the burning throughout her body, but she felt no panic at the prospect. Instead, the feeling in her tightened even more, making her body tense in the best way.

She felt hot all over, her skin moist with sweat, and she felt so, so slick between her legs. Her panties were completely soaked and they slid against her lips with each movement and shift of her hips, sending more jolts through her body.

“I said quiet, baby,” he admonished her when she whined more. He gave a sharp pinch to her clit to warn her, but it had the opposite effect.

She buried her face against his neck and bit into his skin there, knowing if she didn’t, she would make more noise. She couldn’t help it, though—that pinch had her flying into some depth of pleasure she hadn’t known about before. Wave after wave of ecstasy washed over her, surging through her body. Every nerve was flaring, her skin tingling, mind going fuzzy in her frenzy.

Bucky rubbed her through her orgasm, relishing the way her whole body shook, her thighs clamping down hard on him. When she bit into his neck, it only fed his own arousal, his cock painfully hard in his sweatpants, pressed up against her writhing body.

Finally, the pleasure ebbed away like the surf during low tide, the boiling in her blood lowering to a simmer. She breathed hard against his neck, catching her breath. She vaguely registered that he was rubbing her back, his hand having retreated from her panties.

“Such a good girl,” he whispered into her hair. He pulled her back and kissed her lips gently, sweetly. “That was beautiful, doll.”

She would have blushed more if she could have. “What—”

“You had an orgasm, sweetheart.”

The nuns said that an orgasm happened during sex when a man came, but apparently women had orgasms, too. She never expected it to be so… wonderful.

It was the best thing she’d ever experienced. And she wanted more.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” he teased. He knew full well that she did.

She didn’t catch the teasing in his voice or the smirk on his face, so she nodded vigorously. “That was—that… Bucky,” she sighed, a wide smile coming over her face. She giggled, high on the endorphins from her pleasure. “That was amazing!”

He chuckled and kissed her forehead. “I’m glad you liked it, but you gotta keep your voice down. Steve’s asleep, remember?”

She nodded. “Sorry,” she whispered. She was silent for a moment, pensive, and he allowed her a moment to collect her thoughts. Finally, she asked, “Bucky?”

“Yeah, doll?”

“You… you said… that there were a lot of different ways… for me to feel good… like that…” she looked away from him as she spoke, embarrassed still. “What are the other ways?”

He smirked, smug that she wanted more from him and was going as far as to ask him for it. “I can show you everything I know, baby,” he offered, “You want that?”

She nodded quickly again. “Yes, please.”

“I’ll show you everything I can, but it’s not all gonna happen tonight. Alright?”

“Okay… Thank you, Bucky.”

He smiled, kissing her head again. “Good manners, sweetheart. I like to hear your manners.” It turned him on, in fact. His cock couldn’t possibly get any harder.

“Bucky?”

“Hmm?”

“…Is that all you’re going to show me tonight?”

He thought for a second, wondering what else he could ease her into. Something not too far off from what they just did, and maybe something that could get him off, too.

“No, honey, not if you want more. Do you?”

“Yes, please.”

He looked down at her, the lust taking over his eyes again. Slowly, he moved his thigh back between hers, pressing up tightly against her pussy. She let out a breath at the sensation, the more intense pleasure that came from the constant pressure.

“How’s that feel?”

“Good,” she sighed, moving her hips against him of her own volition, just to see how it felt—and it felt wonderful.

“Good, sweetheart, just like that,” he praised her, one hand falling to her hip to help guide her movements. The other arm wrapped around her waist, pressing her tightly against him so he could get some friction of his own as his clothed cock pressed against her hip.

Her dress had been rucked up to her waist now, so she felt him against her bare skin through the thin material of his sweats. He was hard, unyielding, and it felt so hot against her. Something wet was soaked through the fabric and she could feel the large damp spot.

They ground their hips against each other, creating a sensual rhythm as the feeling in her belly built, grew taut once again. Bucky staved off his own orgasm for as long as he could, instead focusing on getting her to her own.

He kissed her deeply, licking into her mouth and swallowing all of her little whimpers. His hands both slid to her ass, gripping her flesh tight and pushing and pulling her hips against his. Rutting his hips into her, he bounced his thigh a little bit and she broke off their kiss, panting against his mouth with a pained whimper.

Bringing his lips to her shoulder, he scraped his teeth against the delicate skin, making her keen and whine. Her hands ran from her shoulders to his back, finding the bottom of his shirt and shoving her hands below the hem, wanting to feel more of his skin on hers.

When her fingernails scraped down his back, he groaned into her neck, the pain bringing him ever closer to his finish.

“Bucky,” she gasped, her hips stuttering in their rhythm, thighs clenching together around him. She could feel it building up again, the same as last time.

“That’s right,” he rasped in her ear, “Come for me.” His words seems to spur her on, and he continued, “Look so pretty when you come. C’mon, so sweet for me, just like that.”

“Oh!” she moaned, and he pressed his lips to her again to keep her quiet. He felt her body shaking again, signaling her orgasm, and he ground his hips further into her, his body going tense as he came. His hips rutted against her sharply, and they gasped the last of their orgasms into each other’s mouths, foreheads pressed together, hips twitching, bodies slowly going slack against the other.

Finally, Bucky pulled back first, looking at her. She was blissed out again, and Bucky wished he could see her like this all the time. He kissed her gently, dominating the kiss, all resistance she had previously harbored gone.

When they pulled back from the kiss, she looked down. “Your pants are wet,” she said, voice soft and sleepy.

He chuckled, “I’ll bet your panties aren’t too well off, either, honey.” He was glad he could still get her to blush furiously, and he kissed her swollen red lips to distract her. “C’mon,” he said when she yawned into the kiss. “Gotta get you to bed.”

Separating their bodies, Bucky took stock. His sweatpants were ruined, and her pussy had even soaked through a spot on his thigh. She was in a state of disarray, so he pulled up the strap of her dress and straightened the hem before scooping her up and standing.

By the time he made it to her room, she was already falling asleep in his arms, her body worn out from two consecutive orgasms. He tucked her in, brushed a hand over her hair to tidy a few errant strands.

“Goodnight, sweetheart,” he murmured, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead.

“Goodnight, Bucky,” she said softly, sleep already taking her.

He slipped out of her bedroom and into his own. Steve was still snoring, which was a good sign, and as Bucky took off his dirty clothes and slipped into the shower, he realized he felt better now than he had in a long time.

#steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers fic #dark!steve rogers #dark!bucky barnes #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fic #mcu #stucky #stucky x reader #brooklyn’s sweetheart

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creativelyderangedme · 5 years

Text

Breaking Point Chapter 3

Finding himself in Marinette’s care, Adrien tells her the truth.

Want to read the rest of the story? AO3 is updated up to Chapter 7

Chapter 3: The Confession

It had been some time since Adrien had found himself in the comfort of Marinette’s bedroom. He couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d been over, or why, but he clearly recalled the warmth the Dupain-Cheng home had always brought to him.

There was always so much love here. You could feel it practically radiate from every surface. Like the place was somehow imbued with the kind of homeyness you'd only find on the Hallmark channel.

And it felt lived-in, compared to the nearly clinical cleanliness the Agreste mansion always seemed to have. Even his own bedroom felt more like a sterilized lab than a teen-aged boy’s living quarters.

Those who got a chance to see his room joked and swooned over all the things he had.

But none of that mattered to him. Those possessions meant nothing when he had no one to share them with. He’d gladly trade everything he had for a single night in a room like the one he was about to enter.

Climbing up through the trap door, he glanced around and smiled at how much it screamed Marinette. The bright pink walls, the half-finished designs cluttering the floor and the multitude of sketches still in progress and design aesthetics pinned to the walls around her desk. The room was, in a word; organized chaos. Okay, two words. Everything having a proper home in piles and stuffed in overflowing organizational bins and drawers. Things that could not fit or had no propper place found refuge on hooks or dangling from the support beam that stretched from floor to high-vaulted ceiling.

This was a place of creativity and unabashed pride and passion, and Adrien couldn’t help but allow himself a moment to breathe it in, noting the undercurrent of vanilla and sugar that always seemed to make up Marinette’s natural smell.

One of the perks of being the baker’s daughter, he supposed.

“This place smells like the inside of a sugar cookie,” a small voice complained, interrupting Adrien’s thoughts, quickly reminding him of the ever-present being resting in his pocket.

Plagg hadn’t said anything the entire morning, so he’d nearly forgotten he was in his shirt until then, “Some of us might actually prefer that over smelling like cheese all the time,” Adrien mumbled, keeping his voice low to keep from alerting Marinette to the extra presence she’d unknowingly invited into her home.

The little black kwami peaked out, looking around sleepily like he’d just woken from a long nap. Probably had, with how unusually quiet he'd been. “Too sweet for me,” He groaned, but the scenery change must have finally caught his attention as he turned a curious look on his chosen, “My, my, Casanova, finding yourself in a young lady’s bedroom in the middle of a school day?”

Okay, sure, to anyone who wasn’t in the know, this definitely looked bad. But it wasn’t like that. Not that it kept the heat from his face at the insinuations Plagg was making to the contrary. “Sh-shut-up Plagg. It’s not like - I-I didn’t know where else to go.” He sputtering, before meandering to the chaise, allowing himself to drop into its plush cushion and take in not only the room but his thoughts.

Because, again, he was reminded of the lingering question: why was this the place he'd run to in a moment of crisis? But he just didn't have the mental capacity to explore those thoughts in full right now.

Especially not under the watchful gaze of Plagg. No way in hell he’d give him any more ammunition to tease him with.

His shirt shifted slightly as the black cat Kwami released himself from the model's pocket and came flying up to hover in his face, and for a moment it almost looked like he was concerned as he took in the blonde’s features. “You know I’m only kidding, Adrien. Frankly, I’d hide from that liar too. Maybe even much more,” he muttered that last part, and Adrien would have missed it if the room wasn’t so quiet.

It brought a small grin to his face, despite the implications of such a statement, “Thanks Plagg, but I don’t think Ladybug would take too kindly to us using cataclysm on another living being.”

No matter how much said living being might deserve it.

And yes, the thought had occurred to him. Not that he’d ever admit it out loud.

“Offer’s still on the table.” There was a slight shift in his tone that honestly made Adrien believe he was serious.

A scary prospect.

But duly noted.

Adrien chuckled, rolling his eyes, trying not to linger on the idea too long lest he gives in to temptation, “Yeah, yeah. Make yourself scarce. Marinette will be back any second.”

Plagg hesitated only a moment, zooming up to head but him softly on the cheek in a rare show of affection before whizzing off somewhere Adrien hadn’t been able to track.

Despite his insistence otherwise, the Kwami of destruction had been rather soft on him the last couple of weeks. The teasing lacked its usual dig. He'd complain less when Adrien needed to transform - hell, he practically encouraged it. And regardless of Plagg's distaste for getting too emotional, he'd been rather talkative as of late. Coaxing Adrien into talking to him; even if Plagg could only handle 'talking' about that sort of thing for a short period of time. Honestly, his Kwami was probably keeping him saner than he'd given the creature credit for. Left to his own devices and thoughts, there was no telling where Adrien would be right now.

Mentally, the model made a note to himself to pick up some extra cheese for the little glutton. He just hoped the little ball of mischief would stay out of trouble while they were here.

It was quiet again, then. Leaving the blonde to look around the room once more and all the things and feelings it represented that he longed for on a constant basis. The ability to be messy and creative. To be able to stretch out and just be himself. Not having to worry about who would see or judge him or his Father’s business if he messed up or stepped out of line.

No strict rules or diet.

No fashion shows or photoshoots.

No handsy stalker admirers to ward off.

In the process of getting cozy, he found he’d snagged a small decorative pillow that he cradled close to his chest as that last thought hit him.

Everyone just assumed that because he was a model, it was fine to hang all over him. Like he was just another piece of his father’s fashion line someone could try on.

Like he wasn’t even a person.

And of course, he was a guy. What guy wouldn’t want every eligible lady fawning all over him, right? Wrong . Sure, over the years, he’d grown almost numb to it, but that didn’t mean it didn’t bother him. Just cause he was a guy didn’t mean he wanted everyone's hands on him all the time.

It felt like no part of him was sacred. He belonged to his father, and the masses, and more recently; Lila - and the memory of her trying to worm her way into his lap that morning had his stomach twisting uncomfortably.

"So..."

T he blonde startled as he realized his host had appeared while he was lost in thought, tray in hand with a number of croissants and a couple of glasses of juice, sitting it carefully between them on the chaise as she joined him. She didn't look right at him, preferring to stare at the floor as her eyes darted slightly, seemingly trying to find the right words.

Adrien squeezed the pillow he'd been holding a bit tighter, clearing his throat of a lump he hadn't realized had formed, "So..." he mimicked awkwardly, not quite able to look at her either, except in quick glances.

One said glance made him pause as he watched her wrestle with something internally before taking a deep breath and looking back at him with resolution. A kind of steely look that reminded him of a certain spotted heroine and the thought made him pink a bit.

"Adrien... you asked if you could hide here for a bit, and I want you to be able to work through whatever is bothering you. But..." she swallowed, having to reaffirm something in her own head before continuing.

"We're friends... right?" She asked suddenly, changing the direction of the conversation and making Adrien's brow shoot up questioningly. It was such a soft inquiry and he was suddenly frantic trying to recall if he'd given her any indication that she wasn't one of the most important people in his life.

Maybe he was right that he'd done more damage than good stepping up to Lila. Or not stepping up sooner. Those photoshoots and the attention Lila demanded of him didn't exactly make him out in the best light.

"Of course, Mari! Why would you even ask that? You're one of my best friends!"

That earned him wide bluebell eyes, softly accentuated by a rosy tint warming her cheeks before Marinette smiled at him again. The same smile she'd given before she'd shooed him up the stairs, "Then, as one of your best friends, I'm not going to just let you hide."

The confusion was more than evident on his face as Adrien regarded her now.

Did this mean she was going to make him leave?

She must have read his thoughts because she backtracked quickly, "W-what I mean is - over the last month... I've been really worried about you. I see the looks you give when you think no one is watching." That steely soft expression dissolved slightly as she bit her lip at that last part, "no offense... but you look like a caged animal some days."

He had to sputter a chuckle at that. She wasn't wrong.

And the fact that he moonlighted as a cat-themed superhero made it comical if not a bit ironic.

But it wasn't a moment after those first chuckles left him that he felt his vision blur on him and something slipping down his cheeks without his permission.

Tears? Seriously?

He was crying! Like a goddamn child.

"Sorry-" Adrien mumbled, quickly wiping away the offending moisture from his face.

Because of course, he'd choose now of all times to breakdown. In front of the one person who managed to see right through him and see him for what he was. The only person who seemed to look past the fake smiles and the carefully crafted emotions to the guy drowning beneath.

And of course, it would be the very same person he was trying so hard to protect.

At seeing those wayward tears, Marinette's soft features turned concerned, and she brought a tender hand up to wipe the remaining streaks from his skin, "Please don't apologize. You need to talk to someone, Adrien. Even if there wasn't a psycho maniac out there who can take advantage of your emotions, holding things in like this... it's not healthy.” She gave a wry smile that was anything if not a little self-deprecating, “Trust me on this."

God, how did she do that?

How could she be so right all the time?

How could she see right through him and cut straight to the point like that? Like he hadn't spent the last month trying to convince himself of that very same thing. Knowing he was a liability at best and a ticking time bomb at worst.

How was one person allowed to be so amazing?

They sat there a moment in silence, both staring. He stunned and captivated, she searching and careful.

"Do you trust me?"

He wanted to reply so badly. He wanted to confirm for her in the same resolve she seemed to radiate when she got that look of determination in her eyes, but could only find himself nodding in her presence.

"Then, talk to me.” She encouraged softly, tentatively. As if she were afraid the very notion was going to be taken as an insult on his person. She reached out, placing a hesitant hand on his as it perched on his own knee. “Nothing you say leaves this room. I promise. Not even to Nino and Alya. Not even to my parents."

His lips parted, his mouth dry as he was suddenly forced to come to a decision, all while trying to ignore the sudden warmth that blossomed under his skin where her hand met his.

He'd done all of this with the intention of making Lila leave Marinette alone.

Though, if he were being honest, he was also paying penance for his involvement. For basically having told Marinette to leave well enough alone until Lila walked herself into a corner she couldn't lie herself out of.

Was he really protecting her if he told her the truth?

Was it really a punishment?

And if he did tell her-

Adrien's heart plummeted to his stomach as he was bombarded with the what-ifs and worst-case scenarios.

How would she react? Would she hate him? Would she see it for what it was? His attempts to help her in the only way he knew how?

He found himself too afraid to speak. What if he messed this up too? What if by telling her the truth it only made things worse? Marinette was such a strong person. Would she hate that he'd imposed like this? Assuming she couldn't handle all of this on her own? Was that what he'd assumed?

Wouldn't it be better to just keep his mouth shut?

All of that fear came to a startling halt when Marinette wound her fingers with his and grasped them tightly like a lifeline. Gentle. Encouraging. Like she could sense his quick and violent spiral - and for all he knew, she could. She'd proven herself to be extremely observant in the last couple of minutes. Scary observant. Almost Ludybug level observant, which was an even scarier prospect.

Frankly, if she told him right then that she knew he was Chat Noir, he'd be less than surprised.

"I have... a confession..." he muttered before he could stop the words from falling from his mouth. And given his last train of thought, he mentally sorted which confession he meant.

You know, preferably not the one that meant he’d have to give up his miraculous.

Her expression never changed as she willed him to continue.

"The-the reason you were able to come back to school after being expelled. The reason Lila changed her story. I was the one who told her to do that." He chanced, watching her the entire time.

The shift was so subtle. Starting with a couple of fluttering blinks that cued her shock and surprise at this news, like maybe she hadn't heard him correctly and needed a moment to process what he'd said. Then she seemed more confused and concerned with every passing second in the silence that stretched after his confession.

"W-what?" She muttered finally, her voice softer than he'd heard all morning.

He swallowed hard. He'd come this far already. He couldn’t back out now even if he wanted to - and he definitely wanted to. "I told Lila to come up with something to prove your innocence. I made a deal with her so that you could come back."

With each word, there entered a bit of panic in Marinette's eyes and face as she suddenly brought a hand to her mouth.

Here it was. She was upset.

Of course she was upset.

He'd spoken up for her without asking what she wanted. Again. He'd stepped in her way, and now he was going to lose the only person who could see him.

And that knowledge ached painfully deep in his chest.

But that didn't matter right now. He'd take anything Marinette threw at him. It was the least he deserved.

"Adrien... why? Why would you do that?"

His mouth dried as he watched the glistening of tears well up in her bluebell eyes, trying to find the right words, "she was going to destroy you. I-I couldn't just stand by and let that happen. Not again."

He expected a lot of things to happen after that. A slap. A stern glare and talking to. Maybe even a swift banishment from her room before being permanently banned from the bakery for life for his assumptions and actions.

He hadn't expected for the girl who was oddly strong for her size to practically tackle him as she lunged across the chaise and wrapped her arms around him in a crushing hug.

His eyes blew wide at the sudden contact, taking a sharp breath through his nose and finding his mind fogging slightly and warmth flooding his chest and face as he was enveloped with her scent and a sense of... safety. That's the only thing he could call it. Safe.

It was nothing like what he felt when Chloe or Lila or any of his other fans touched him.

He shouldn't have enjoyed it as much as he did. But if this were his punishment, he'd gladly take it.

It was an oddly satisfying sensation that seeped through him; made him relax into her without much thought or effort. His eyes fluttering closed as any semblance of will melted like putty in the girl’s embrace. Tentatively, almost shyly, he wrapped his arms around her smaller frame. Enjoying the feeling of someone he cared for neatly tucked against him.

He’d always known Marinette gave some of the best hugs. But this - this was something else. Something meant only for him.

It was a feeling someone could get addicted to. This feeling of completeness.

So of course, it jarred him when it ended too soon and felt too cold when the girl squeaked before pushing herself back. Staring wide-eyed at him like he'd grown horns or something.

He was suddenly wondering if hugging her back had been a bad idea.

Maybe he’d overstepped his bounds.

Why was this whole situation so confusing?

He was opening his mouth to start apologizing when Marinette scrambled back to where she’d sat previously and began smacking her own cheeks, “Stupid! Stupid!”

No, not just the situation. Why were girls so confusing?

Confusing or not, if there was one thing Marinette Dupain-Cheng was not , it was stupid. And he wouldn't stand to hear her talk about herself that way. “Hey! Stop that!” He grabbed her wrists to keep her from smacking her cheeks again, “Why are you hitting yourself?”

“B-because… you came here looking for someone to help and I wanted to be there for you and then I just throw myself at you!” She groaned loudly, throwing her head back dramatically. Like this was the worst thing she could have possibly done.

And Adrien could only stare.

And then he had to purse his lips together tightly.

Because it was downright comical.

He wanted to laugh out loud in relief and elation.

After everything...

He shook his head at the girl still in his grasp, “You don’t have to worry about that Mari!” He chuckled despite himself, unable to keep it back anymore. Because he couldn’t help but find her antics endearing in the best of ways; even when she assaulted herself. Though, he kept a gentle hold of her writs in case she decided to start slapping again. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve always really enjoyed your hugs.”

She peeked at him from under her lashes and a pout on her lips as she slowly righted herself. Unsure of something. And for the life of him, he couldn’t make heads or tails of what could possibly be going through her mind to make her look at him like that. But he couldn't deny how adorable she made it look.

But he had another more pressing question on his mind.

“Not to embarrass you or anything, but why - why did you hug me? I thought you’d be angry.” He asked, finally releasing her wrists when he was sure her face was safe from their wrath.

“Angry?” She sputtered, then thinking for a moment she continued, “I mean… I might be a little angry, but not because you did it.” She paused after emphasizing the words, rolling her eyes at her own train of thought, her brain working just as quickly as the words forming on her lips, “Okay, yes, fine, maybe I am a little mad because you did. But mostly I’m just upset you did it alone . If you’d told me from the start, you wouldn’t have had to suffer that witch by yourself this last month. I could have been there to back you up.” She sighed, glancing back at him with a darker shade of pink splashing her cheeks, “But… I could never be angry at you, Adrien. Not for long, anyway. Not when you did it to protect me.”

He noted that she’d managed to sid-step his first question, not really answering him. But given the way her body seemed to buzz with anxiety, he left it alone. “Well, I’m glad for that, at least. The last thing I would ever want is for you to be mad at me,” he mumbled, finding more truth in those words than he expected as he rubbed the back of his neck in nervous habit. “As long as you’re not disappointed too. Because every teenager knows that’s much worse.”

There was a second before Marinette all but fell off the chaise in a fit of giggles that sounded like music and Adrien couldn’t help but chuckle with her.

“God, you’re such a dork!”

At least she wasn’t a ball of anxiety anymore. He liked being able to talk to her like this - openly, honestly, or at least as honest as possible given the number of secrets he had to keep. It made him hopeful that nothing would change between them. Or, at least, if things did change, they’d change for the better. It made him hopeful that they’d be able to grow closer as friends.

"You mean it though?" even with the joking, he couldn't help but try and confirm. He wanted no room for misinterpretation. "You're really not angry?

Marinette’s giggles slowly died and she was left side glancing him with a decisive nod from where she sat, “Of course, I mean it. Adrien, you're one of my best friends too. I wouldn't lie about something like that."

And it was like she'd given him his birthday and Christmas all on the same day.

He knew - or at least, he'd always hoped. But hearing it out loud like that was probably the best thing he'd experienced in a very long time. And it was not wasted on him how sad that was as a concept, but he'd address that another time.

Marinette giggled at what must have been the dopiest grin he'd ever given her, "But seriously. I just… I can’t believe you’d do something like that for me. I mean, it all makes sense now - why she’s been so attached to you the last couple weeks.”

Adrien blanched at the reminder, swapping grins for grimaces at Lila’s advances. She sure as hell wasn’t being subtle about it. He’d actually questioned whether the definition of ‘friends’ had changed without his knowledge as she’d taken the concept as an invitation to invade nearly every aspect of his life and personal space. But he shook that thought away. He’d put up with it for a reason. “I just couldn’t believe she actually got you expelled. And after I basically told you to leave it alone, I just couldn’t bear not doing something.”

Marinette’s eyes widened slightly before glancing away, a strange mixture of emotions entering her gaze, almost making her look... guilty, “A-actually… I-I have a confession too.”

A blonde brow rose curiously at her sudden shift, at the nervous tension that overwhelmed her posture again.

“I-I actually,” she cleared her throat, “That is to say, I feared she’d do something like that eventually. I just… hadn’t expected the lengths she’d go to.”

“What do you mean? Why would you assume she’d try something like that?”

The girl bit her lip nervously, watching him, gauging how much she wanted to share. He could see her mentally weighing her words before coming to a decision with a heavy relenting sigh.

“Adrien, Lila threatened me.”

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