#the list of injuries I could list is long.

[russo-woso]

Giving it away || Jessie Fleming x Putellas!reader

Request | Masterlist | Prompt list

Warning Injury

Summary You and Jessie have hid your relationship for a while, but will it all get revealed when your sister and Jessie get in a heated tackle?

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It had been a nightmare from hell.

Spain were playing Canada in a friendly.

To most people and players, it wasn’t a big deal. After all, it was just a friendly.

But for you, you were playing your girlfriend for the first time.

You and Jessie had been together for a few months, seven months officially.

You both met when you went to Chelsea for two seasons.

You wanted a break from Spain, always being in the shadows of your older sister, Alexia.

So, you decided to go to England. You quickly signed your contract with Chelsea, shifting your whole life to the WSL.

Your sister understood your reasons for leaving Barcelona, having you promise you’d come back.

You knew you would so you happily promised. You’d miss your homeland and your sister and go back.

But you met Jessie, and made the whole situation so much harder for you.

Over the course of the two years, you fell hard for each other, quickly becoming inseparable before realising your both liked each other.

When the two years were up, you made the decision to fly back to Barcelona and sign a year contract.

You’d made a name for yourself in the football community and you weren’t just alexia putellas’ sister, you were Y/N Putellas.

Jessie also made the decision to leave Chelsea, however, she didn’t follow you to Spain.

Jessie flew to America instead, signing for Portland thorns.

You spoke about it and agreed you could do long distance, the love between you so strong that you could make it work.

And maybe the idea of one of you leaving your respectable clubs to play in one country to be closer to each other.

You spoke to each other everyday on the phone. It was difficult, both of you could admit it, but it was working and that’s what mattered.

There was one downfall to it though, You had to do it secret.

Growing up, whenever you brought a girl round, Alexia scared them away, sometimes even with just a glare.

You didn’t want that to happen with Jessie, so you kept her a secret from Alexia.

You’ll tell her at some point, right?

Wrong

You didn’t and that’s what brings you to now, your girlfriend and your sister in the middle of a heated tackle.

It happened so suddenly.

Alexia had slid into Jessie, clipping her ankles sending Jessie hurling to the floor.

“Alexia!” You shouted, worry on your face as you focused on Jessie, her face scrunched up in pain. “Bebé, are you okay?”

It slipped out of you mouth, after all, it was natural for you to call her it.

“Bebé? What?” Alexia said, confusion written on her face. “You two? Are you… qué mierda.”

“Alexia, I was gonna tell you.” You muttered to her in Spanish, looking up to her as you crouched down, rubbing Jessie’s shoulder. “I was, I promise. It just hadn’t come up.”

“How long?”

“Seven months.” You replied, watching alexia nod with a sad expression.

“You didn’t tell me…”

“I couldn’t. I couldn’t because you always push the people I love away from me. You scare them, Ale.” You explained. “I love Jessie, I don’t want to lose her.”

Alexia looked at Jessie, medics surrounding her looking at her ankle, and back at you.

“I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, well it wasn’t you heartbroken when they all left.” You muttered

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know about the others.” Alexia apologised

“You didn’t know. But, Ale, I really love Jessie. Please give her a chance.”

“Does she make you happy?” Alexia asked, you nodding in response. “Then I guess I could give her a chance.

“Thank you, Ale.” You let out a sigh of relief, hugging alexia tightly.

“I just want to protect you. You’re my baby sister. I have to protect you.”

“You still can, but not when it comes to my love life.” You said, Alexia nodding in agreement.

You watched as alexia walked over to Jessie, extending her hand to help Jessie up.

“You love her?” Alexia questioned

“With my whole heart.” Jessie replied

“Good, because if you break her heart, I will—” Alexia began but you quickly cut her off.

“—Alexia! What did we just talk about?”

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Nice to meet you, Jessie. better?”

You nodded in approval, sending Alexis a grateful smile.

Alexia walked away, leaving you and Jessie.

“She approves!” Jessie exclaimed, punching the air in celebration.

“I haven’t officially approved yet.” Alexia added

“She’ll love you when she gets to know you, I promise.” You told Jessie

“Good because I never wanna lose you.”

“It’s a good job you won’t then.”

[some-ghoul]

I'm gonna ramble for a minute for something that's been eating at me ever since this dropped. I find it wild the amount of flak and hate this video is getting and from chuds who are now going to videos a decade old and saying "they've always been bad/jello fell off".

I should preface saying; I fucking love one piece. It's one of my favorite pieces of media and I have tattoos to show my love for it. I've grown up with this, I've watched the entirety of it and read it to its current release, I've done so for the past 20 years. So I really mean it whenever I say this series is important to me!

This video AIN'T fucking wrong about the points it makes and it's criticisms it has!

Luffy's last heartfelt interaction with a crew member of his was Whole Cake (before that was probably pre-time skip at Sabaody)

Anyone who isn't the big 3 don't get nearly as much screentime whenever things are happening or having a bigger role besides exposition/needs to be rescued

Don't fuckin lie to yourself about women having shit rep in OP

The sexualization of characters is a real fucking issue that so many people have with the series.

The 2 types of women in one piece boob and butt or shaped like a wide bowling pin.

Oda who has multiple times stated, "We could really learn a thing or two from Shojo writers" WHILE REFUSING TO EVEN TOUCH ON WHY PEOPLE WHO ENJOY SHOJO WOULDN'T EVEN GIVE OP A CHANCE

The series is really over-bloated with so many side characters where injuries/death means as little as it would in dragon ball I'm listing more just watch the fucking video

I had an interaction with someone who doesn't even stay up with it, watched the video, and then went, "yea I dunno he was a little mean to Oda I think that's fucked up". Brother, if this was any other random manga author you wouldn't even bat a fuckin eye about the jokes made at them. You just got a take from the comments and decided that's the one you're going with it.

Fuck, then there's the group bringing up the whole dubbing thing and like. I'll just be honest. If you're trying to spin a story to me about someone who got a dream job position, hired to do a show they hated and has pretty queerphobic rep, and instead they say tuck that and do it their way? I dunno man, that's pretty fuckin cool of someone who wouldn't compromise for their morals.

Someone tried saying one of the characters in the cut section was a trans character so it's just virtue signaling more than anything and I'm like, "ok. What pronouns do you use for Yamato then?? You apparently really care about the representation of queer folk so, OBVIOUSLY, we're not gonna have a bad discussion about this yea?"

This isn't even me trying to be like, oh I gotta defend my favoritest widdle guy who I have loved since forever. I'd do this shit on some randy who just dropped this with no other previous content!! Just because someone finally laid it all out there and took shots at the guy who's never really been criticized harshly for the bad stuff in their long running series of 25+ years and the mistakes they've made throughout it doesn't instantly invalidate the genuine issues the series has!

Also the Franky joke is funny! I sure would love more stuff to be done with that character IF ODA DECIDED HE WOULD WANT TO DO SOMETHING WITH THE CREW THAT WASN'T JUST FROM THE EAST BLUE!!

The first So This is Basically in many a moon.

CAST & CREW

WRITER/ANIMATOR/NARRATOR - Me! ARTIST - Bo Hello MUSIC - PLASTERBRAIN

MACHVISE - William T. Sopp PRINCE GRUS - John Van Doran MORLEY/CARROT/SHITTEN☆FARTER - Zack Maher DON KRIEG - Jason Marnocha ZORO - Cyrus Rodas VIZ USING TWO HYPHENS INSTEAD OF AN EM DASH - Oz Ryan ADDITIONAL VOICES - Ryan Palmer

[uconnwbbcrashout]

last winter break

chapter i: “this is the love that we won’t get right”

paige x azzi

word count: 3.1k

content: mentions of underage drinking (of which i do not condone), swearing, even more angst

chapter list: here

author’s notes: back with some more angst (as requested)! a couple things: for the sake of this fic, they get longer than just a few days off for winter break before they have to start playing again. also, reminder again that azzi’s high school is in minnesota (like 15 minutes away from paige’s).

oh, and things will get worse before they get better :) enjoy!

Winter 2020-2021

Azzi is no stranger to pain.

It’s more or less the price you pay when you decide to dedicate your life to basketball—physical injuries are basically a given. Granted, you never know what the extent of those injuries might be, but it’s essentially a guarantee that there will be something.

And Azzi has dealt with her fair share of physical injuries over the years—bloody cuts, bruised legs, shin splints, pulled muscles, sprained ankles. They’re annoying, for sure, but Azzi has mostly learned to deal with them, doesn’t see them as excuses for having an off game. She’s learned to fight through them.

Then, of course, there was her ACL and MCL tear last year.

That had been a different beast entirely. One that she was wholly unprepared for.

A sharp, stinging sensation radiating through her knee, unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.

Perhaps the hardest part of it all, though, was the mental toll it took on her.

Azzi’s learned that basketball is as much of a mind game as it is a physical sport. It takes resilience, an steady mental fortitude to endure all the challenges it throws at you—blocked shots, missed game-winning buckets, losses in a championship game. Azzi was used to that, had been building up her mental toughness since the first time someone stole the ball from her at recess in first grade.

Going through a major injury like that, though, left her in a prolonged state of turmoil. It took away basketball, one of the greatest constants in her life, and turned it into an impossibility. It kept her glued to a seat, to the bench, helpless to be at her teammates’ sides when they needed her most. It fabricated nightmares late at night, making her wonder if she’d ever get to play the game she loved again.

It was almost too much to bear.

So, yeah, Azzi’s been through it all—all sorts of physical injuries and all sorts of emotional anguish. Anything you can think of, really.

At least, that’s what she had thought.

The way Paige had shattered her heart, though? Had left her alone to try to stitch the pieces back together?

Well, that was certainly up there among the worst of it.

It’s the heaviest ache, the deepest sorrow permeating throughout her entire being. The type of feeling that leaves a person completely hollow, numb to the world around them.

It’s not something you move on from.

Not for a long time.

If ever.

And how could she, really, when Paige was everywhere around her?

Over a thousand miles away yet still fucking finding a way to sneak into everything she could see, everything she could hear, everything she could feel.

Paige was in the creaking park swings across the street. She was in the lingering scent of cologne on Azzi’s pillows. She was in the warmth of a late August sunset. She was in the drip of a melting ice cream cone at the state fair. She was in the rustle of the leaves in the fall. She was in the bounce of a basketball on hardwood. In the soft fabric of a well-worn tournament hoodie. In the unwrapped birthday presents shoved into her closet. In the laughter ringing out across the neighborhood. In the music thumping in her car. In the first snowfall cascading down from above. In the sparkle of lights on a Christmas tree. In the burning of her lungs against the frozen winter. In the empty space beside her, in the ground she walked, in the air she breathed.

In everything.

Azzi has tried to forget her. Honestly, she has.

But Paige hasn’t made it easy on her. Always so damn talkative and blowing up her phone with message after message, even though she was the one who ended things between them. Never seeming to understand that every text, every word reopens the stitches holding her wounded heart together.

Even basketball is hardly an escape, not something she can throw herself into now. Game after game being postponed or cancelled. Practices with her teammates few and far between, cloth masks and distance between them. And the ever-present reminder of Paige that comes with anything even remotely basketball-related.

Needless to say, these last few months have been literal hell.

In hindsight, she should’ve known that this was only just the beginning.

*****

Azzi steps back from the bathroom counter, screwing the cap to her mascara back on and giving herself a once-over in the mirror. It’s just a New Year’s Eve party, so her outfit isn’t anything too crazy—her St. John’s varsity letterman jacket, a pair of tighter-fitting jeans, and some new Air Force 1s that she got from her parents for Christmas. Hoop earrings and a simple chain around her neck. She pulls at the twin curls framing either side of her face before tightening the hair tie holding up the rest of her hair.

It'll have to do, she relents, slipping out of the bathroom and grabbing her lanyard before making a beeline for the front door. Her hand is on the doorknob, just about to rush out—

“Azzi Fudd, where is your winter coat?”

Azzi drops her forehead against the doorframe, sighing dramatically.

So close.

“Mom, it’s, like, a five-minute walk. I’ll be fine.”

She catches her mother throwing her arms up in exasperation in her periphery. “It’s 15 degrees outside, Azzi. Just put on a coat.”

“No, I said it’s fine,” she protests. “I don’t need—”

But her mom is already in front of her, pushing her puffer coat into her hands.

Azzi opens her mouth to respond, but she sees the challenging look in her mom’s eye and decides not to test her tonight. She quickly shrugs the coat on and rolls her eyes. “Fine. Whatever. Can I go now?”

Her mom smiles and steps backwards into the living room, lifting her hands in the air. “You’re free to go.”

Azzi nods and reaches for the doorknob a second time.

“Oh, actually, I forgot to tell you something,” her mom says from the couch.

“Oh my god,” Azzi mumbles, pivoting to face her mom again. There’s a suspicious glint in her eye that’s making Azzi feel uneasy. “What is it? I’m already supposed to be at Taylor’s house by now.”

Her mom smiles and takes a sip from her coffee mug. “Okay, one, it’s not my fault you’re late. And, two, I just wanted to let you know that I saw her the other day.” At Azzi’s blank expression, she continues, “Paige, I mean.”

Fuck.

Azzi hates the way her heart rate quickens, the way her mouth feels dry, the way her throat tightens. She tries to mask her initial shock with disinterest, pretending to pick at something on her fingernail. “Oh, really? That’s cool.”

The grin on her mother’s face tells her that she’s failing miserably.

“Yeah, we were both in line at the grocery store. She asked me about you.”

Azzi’s eyes widen and she pulls at the collar of her coat, suddenly feeling like she’s suffocating underneath all these layers of clothing. “Yeah?” she asks quietly. “What’d she say?”

Her mom gestures with the coffee mug in her hands, a wide smile still adorning her face. “Oh, you know. Just wondering how you are and where you’ve been.” She shrugs. “Said she missed you and was hoping that maybe she could see you over break.”

None of this is news to Azzi—she’s heard this all before in the endless string of texts she’s gotten from Paige since July.

Even still, her breath catches in her throat at her words.

She wants to see me.

God, but what does it matter, really? Paige made it very clear that this wasn’t going to work between them. And Azzi made it very clear that she couldn’t go back to just being friends with her.

That should be the end of it.

So why isn’t it?

Why do I still care that she thinks about me? Why do I care that she misses me?

Why can’t I just let it go?

“Azzi?”

Azzi blinks hard a few times and glances back up at her mom, flashing her a smile that doesn’t quite meet her eyes. “Oh, yeah. That’s um—that’s great. Thanks for letting me know that.” She hooks her thumb over her shoulder towards the door. “I’m gonna go. For real now.”

“Be safe!” She hears her mom call before she slams the door shut behind her.

Azzi inhales raggedly, feels the sting of the cold night in her lungs, then releases her breath into a cloud in front of her.

I’m so fucked.

*****

It’s not the usual celebration this year. Normally, she’d be hanging out with her family, or perhaps Paige’s family, playing games and sharing smiles well into the night. Paige by her side, the warm press of her hand on her lower back, her laughter echoing off the walls of Azzi’s mind.

Obviously, nothing has gone to plan this year.

That’s why she finds herself here—in the basement of her friend Taylor’s house, sitting in a circle with the rest of her teammates. Half empty beer bottles are strewn across the floor and the midnight countdown sits abandoned on the TV.

With a warm buzz dulling her racing thoughts and the giggling of her teammates flowing through her ears, she thinks she likes this alternative, too.

It’s a welcome distraction from the chaos that her senior year has devolved into. Social distancing, cancelled basketball games, college decisions. Lost friends, new future teammates, empty spaces.

The breakup. The constant fight between anger and longing, between trying to move on and fantasizing about a life where everything just worked out.

She doesn’t have to think about any of it.

She’s hardly thought about Paige at all, actually. She hasn’t wondered what it would've been like to spend tonight with Paige instead. Hasn’t counted how many steps it would take her to get to Paige’s front door from here. Hasn’t even thought about the last time she counted down to midnight, the hungry look in Paige’s eyes, the way she pulled their bodies together and kissed her senseless, her breath caught in her throat and her hands wandering—

Okay, fine.

Maybe Paige crossed her mind once or twice.

Maybe she misses her. Just a little.

She’s still pissed at her for breaking her heart, though. And no amount of alcohol can make her completely forget that feeling.

*****

It’s well past midnight by the time Azzi finally makes her way home, probably at least 2 A.M. if she had to guess. Her parents are not going to be happy.

She’s sobered up a bit now, thoughts finally feeling a bit clearer in her head. The wind has picked up considerably, forcing Azzi to duck her head down into her coat and shove her hands into her pockets. She's suddenly glad that her mom had forced her to wear something warmer.

Just a few more blocks to go.

As Azzi approaches the corner ahead, her ears pick up on the sounds of distant chatter over the howling wind. Curious, she lifts her head up and settles her gaze upon the group ahead of her. A rambunctious bunch of people, probably around her own age.

She stops dead in her tracks.

Even with just the dim orange streetlight, Azzi doesn’t need to move closer to be sure—that lanky 5'11 frame is unmistakable.

Paige.

Azzi is frozen in time, completely entranced with the figure before her. She can barely see anything—can just make out blonde hair settled around broad shoulders and the strong line of a jaw—but it’s enough to capture all of her attention.

She isn’t sure how long she’s standing there, her mouth agape, before she realizes that the figure is moving towards her now, is calling out to her.

“Azzi? That you?”

Azzi snaps out of it then, the reality of the situation starting to unfold, and she’s spinning away and striding in the opposite direction before she can even think twice about it.

There are footsteps now, quickening, thumping louder in her ears.

“Azzi! Hey, slow down!”

The sound of snow crunching under sneakered feet.

“Yo, wait up!”

Azzi speeds up her pace.

“Azzi?”

The voice is clear now, merely a few feet behind her.

“Hey!”

Azzi steels herself for impact, tries to remind herself to keep her resolve.

A hand curls itself around her forearm and Azzi half expects to see a hole burned through her jacket when she looks down at it.

The hand is turning her now, spinning her to a stop right in front of icy blue eyes.

“Azzi,” Paige exhales, her breath rapidly coming out in puffs that disappear into the air. Her eyes are bright, her smile is wide, and Azzi’s heart aches. “Hey.”

She doesn’t look all that different from the last time Azzi saw her—it’s only been a few months, after all. Hair down, in a UConn sweatshirt, some sweatpants, and old basketball sneakers. That same stupid grin on her face, the one she reserves just for Azzi.

Against her will, Azzi’s body reacts instinctually, urging her to move closer into Paige’s space, and she has to use all of the strength she can muster to hold herself back.

“Hi,” Azzi whispers, biting her lip to stop herself from saying anything less than coherent.

“Hey,” Paige says again, her gaze still locked onto Azzi’s.

They stay like that, unmoving, for several long seconds.

Paige is still grasping onto her forearm, and Azzi clears her throat to get her attention.

Paige blinks and releases her hold on her arm, sheepishly glancing away. Maybe it’s just the cold, but Azzi swears she sees a pink tint spread its way across Paige’s face. “Sorry ‘bout that,” she mumbles. “It’s good to see you, Az.”

Azzi feels her resolve crack ever so slightly at the nickname, the ease at which it falls from Paige’s lips. She straightens her shoulders out and crosses her arms. “How you been, P?”

“Good. Real good.” Paige grins. “Love it at UConn. You watch any of our games?”

Azzi shrugs, aiming for indifference. Maybe she’s seen one or two.

Paige doesn’t need to know that.

Paige nods her head, shifting her balance from one foot to the other. She ducks her head a bit to catch Azzi’s eye. “You doin’ okay, too?”

“I’m fine,” she lies, rubbing her hands against her arms to try to keep herself warm.

Paige gives her a disbelieving look, her eyebrows furrowing in that familiar way. “You sure?”

“I’m fine, okay, P? I’m fine.” It comes out harsher than she means it to, and Paige brings her hands up in front of her.

“Okay, okay. I believe you.” She focuses her attention on the ground, cracking ice beneath the heel of her shoe.

A quiet moment. And then—

“I miss you.”

“Paige,” Azzi sighs.

“Listen, I know you decided on Maryland and all that, but you’d be so good at UConn, Az.”

“Paige, I don’t—”

“You were made to be there. You—you’re just perfect for the team, you know that? Just—"

“Paige—”

“—exactly what we need. I talked to Nika 'bout it. You could be that last piece, for real. And I’on wanna be the reason you turned it down—"

“Just stop! Okay?” Azzi brings up a hand in front of her, effectively silencing her. “I can’t fucking do this right now, Paige. I can’t.”

Paige takes a small step back, a canyon forming between them. Her voice is quiet when she says, “Just want what’s best for you, Azzi.”

A dam breaks open inside Azzi then, sending white-hot blood pumping through her veins.

“You think I can’t decide that for myself, P? First the breakup and now this. You think I don’t know what’s good for me?”

Paige’s eyes widen and she steps forward, waving her hands in front of her. “No, no. Didn’t mean it like that. I swear, I just—”

“Hey, P, you comin’?”

Azzi peers past Paige’s shoulder, squinting into the night to find the source of the voice—a smaller figure standing on the same corner Paige was just a few minutes ago.

“Hol’ up!” Paige yells back, but Azzi hardly hears her.

There’s something about the figure that looks so familiar, so much like something she’s seen before. Azzi’s wracking her brain, rewinding time, desperately searching for an answer as to who this could possibly be.

All she has to do is replay the last few minutes before it clicks.

It comes back to her in flashes then.

How could she have missed it? So caught up in a trance of Paige, Paige, Paige that she didn’t even recognize the scene that was in front of her—Paige, under the streetlight, standing tall. A woman, next to her, leaning into her space. Whispering in her ear. Laughing at one of her jokes. Grabbing onto her bicep. Trailing her fingers down her arm.

Azzi tastes bile rising in her throat. She nods her head toward the woman, eyes cold. “Who’s that?”

Paige looks between Azzi and the woman, her expression faltering. “Oh, she’s just someone I went to Hopkins with. I swear it’s not—I swear, it's nothin', Az.”

“It’s fine, Paige.”

“Nah, I’on even really know her that well. She’s the one comin’ onto me.”

Azzi scoffs. “You weren’t exactly pushing her away.”

“Azzi, look,” Paige pleads. “I know, I know, it looks bad. Like, so bad—"

“You know what?” Azzi cuts her off. “It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing here anymore. There’s no us, remember?” She backs up, putting some much-needed space between them.

“Azzi, please, come on. I promise there's nothin' there.”

But Azzi is already backing up, already knowing how this will end, already on her way out. “Do whatever you want, Paige. You’re free from me now.”

“Az—"

“Goodbye, P,” she calls over her shoulder, trudging back towards home.

Her mind is swirling now, distorting reality to the point that she can’t be sure of what she saw. Was Paige leaning in towards that woman, too? Was she laughing along with her? Was she brushing up against her side? Was she looking at her lips? Was she reaching out? Was she ghosting her fingers over her skin?

A thought occurs to her then: Paige is already moving on.

Or at least she’s thought about it.

And here I am, thinking she still cares about me.

She doesn’t let the tears fall, doesn’t let everything tumble out until she finally turns back onto her street.

And then it all floods in.

God, how could I be so stupid?

[quinloki]

Hi! How are you? Sorry if i made you upset with my comments about you wrists🥺 i just hate knowing that someone is in pain

O_O What?

No no no I wasn't upset at all \lol/ I promise. (I don't even remember what I wrote right now ^^; but I swear I wasn't upset I know that much!)

Nah, nah I just - right - I'm accident prone - my dear friend, I just meant I'm used to things randomly hurting XD not that I was upset about your concern.

Sadly, there's little to be done about, and sometime I get frustrated that it happens, but my hand and heart to the gods, I am not frustrated by people's concern about it ❤️ I promise.

I always wish I could do more for my friends aches and pains too, no matter how long they've been dealing with them, so the sentiment is always appreciated. And my apologies if I came off snippy at all, I can assure you that was not my vibe or my intent.

/hugs/

[papa-evershed]

RJC + blood || requested by: anonymous

[fayriequeene]

🍃 2024 Goals Update 🍃

🌿 I certainly read a lot more books but this is probably because my reading list for university was so very long

🌿 I got back on stage and my injury has mostly healed

🌿 I learned the variation I have always wanted to perform (prelude from Les Sylphides)

🌿 I studied I can’t really say what I originally meant with this goal… Although I could probably study with more focus if I wasn’t dancing as well

🌿 I did get back into making costumes and started making props as well!

🌿 I think I managed this. I certainly feel much better than when I wrote it. I definitely found my motivation but self worth is still a work in progress

🍃Goals for the New Year🍃

🌿Read more books

🌿Get back on stage/performing despite my injury

🌿(Which kind of goes along with) Learn a variation i've always wanted to perform but never got the chance to

🌿Focus on my studies

🌿Get back into costuming and sewing

🌿Improve my motivation and self worth (because its currently non-existent)

[isaacathom]

Just finished reading Master and Commander, which I overall enjoyed but found a bit difficult to read (O'Brian is clearly very knowledgeable about nautical matters, and unfortunately I am not, and so my mind glazes over). I mostly enjoyed being able to compare it with my memory of having read the Hornblower books, and how similar events are handled very differently by the narrative. which was cool!

[blackkatdraws2]

[Toon x Mobster] Chapter 2: A Toon's Aid

Previously // Next - (chapter list)

[contains: BLOOD / INJURY]

The small bathroom was quiet except for the occasional droplets of water from the leaky faucet. The Grim man sat on the closed toilet lid, tense, yet worn down from his nasty injuries.

Jack sat on a stool in front with a needle and thread in hand, his face taut with stress and concentration as beads of sweat slid down his forehead, trying his best to sew the wound as cleanly as he could.

He interrogates the Toon with a list of short, yet straightforward questions. They've been at it for a while now, the scarred man's cold eyes staying locked on Jack for any suspicious movements as he spoke.

“Who are you?”

"Jack Desmond, sir." He winces as the needle pierces through the edge of the wound. "I'm an office worker at-"

"Where am I?"

"C-Cel City. It's one of the- ow." Jack tugs on the strings and closes a part of the wound, cringing in sympathy at how painful it looked. "Sorry…" He habitually apologizes, feeling bad for any discomfort he might've caused the other, before continuing his sentence. "It's one of the biggest cities here, only second to Doodleheart Center."

As Jack continues to trail off giving the man some background information, the Grim man's stare slowly starts to gravitate towards the Toon’s hands. His eyes followed the way they would pause mid-air, trying to steady them from shaking, before going back to sewing carefully.

His brows furrow at this. It was unclear whether it was out of displeasure or something else, his expression as unreadable as ever, even during this painful procedure.

"What do you hope to gain from this?"

Jack blinked, looking up at the man's eyes with a startled look on his face. Then he furrows his brows, tilting his head slightly to the side. "Nothing..?" He answers, sounding just as questioning about his own decision as the other was. Then he sighs, pausing his task to think of a proper answer.

"To be honest, I... didn't want to bring you here at first." He angled his gaze downwards, feeling heavy with guilt at admitting to his real feelings and scared of how the other man might react. "I mean, you were scary and obviously not from around here," he fidgets with the needle in his fingers as he recounts his terrifying first encounter with the man, "so I meant to just call the authorities on you or something' n' leave..."

"But." Jack lifts his head up to look back at the other. Mixed within the nervousness in his eyes was genuine care. "You just looked like you needed help, so..."

The Grim man's gaze narrowed. Cold sweat continued to creep down the side of Jack's face as he swallowed his saliva, but he didn't look away, fearful that his true intentions may get deemed disingenuous by the other as he stared at him.

...

....

After a while, the Grim man heaves a deep sigh and looks away, seemingly done with his interrogation. Jack's tense frame relaxed the moment the man's eyes were off of him, inhaling in relief before quickly huffing the air back out in disgust as the smell of blood assaulted his nose. Right: the wound.

He went back into stitching, and the room was quiet after that.

Trying not to pay any mind to the silence, Jack's attention eventually began to zone in on the task at hand.

While working on the nasty wound, Jack internally thanked the stars for still being able to remember the important stuff that got taught to him years ago in school.

For a Genre with healing properties as ridiculous as theirs, all Toon citizens must have knowledge on basic medical care. Or at the very least, they must be able to aid wounded individuals in case of emergencies. It's mandatory to be taught in schools, some teaching it as early as Elementary.

Jack's memory on this is vague by this point since it's been such a long time ago. Apparently, a lot of the practices being tested and mastered back then were cultivated mostly to care for the people outside of their own Genre.

Aside from a few mixed-Genres here and there, Jack had grown up in a largely Toon-populated area with little to no contact to the other Genres outside his own. He briefly learned about non-Toon people being far more vulnerable to injuries than they were. Not having met one his entire life, he hadn’t quite grasped the severity of it all until he saw this man dying in that alleyway. It horrified him to see how much a person can be hurt to such an extreme degree.

He didn’t know what happened to the other man in order for him to end up in such a situation, and he didn’t have enough courage to ask him to be honest. But the thought that he may have gotten injured in a city of Toons of all places - and in an area near where he lived at that - made his heart brew with fear.

What happened? Was it an accident? Did he do this to himself? Did somebody injure him? Were there other victims? Is this place still safe?

It was an unending waterfall of thoughts and the uncertainty of it all made him feel a tad bit too afraid. He didn’t want to think about it. Not for now at least.

Honestly, if Jack had been any less reassured in his ability to at least be able to stop the heavy bleeding, he wouldn't have even thought of taking the wounded man into his apartment.

Jack did his best to finish it up as quickly as he could, though not hastily as his nerves might do more unneeded damage, imagining how much in pain the man was probably in right now.

Snip.

The thread gets cut off with a small scissor. And with that, they were done!

"Phew." Jack stretches, popping a few joints that had become tense from having to keep them steady in the air for so long. He gives the newly stitched wound a hard look, examining it.

...Still red and angry, but no more bleeding. He knows he's largely inexperienced, but he hopes this is good enough.

With that out of the way, he now had to deal with the man himself who had returned to staring at him again a while ago. The side of Jack's mouth curved up into a smile without his control, looking more like a grimace at being observed so intently by such a scary individual.

"So, uh..." His voice wobbled. He clears his throat and stands up, walking to the sink and turning on the faulty faucet to wash off the stain on his hands, struggling to appear more casual. "May I ask for your name, sir?" Jack tries to start a conversation to lessen the tension that's been building between them since the man woke up.

The other's expression doesn't shift. After a beat of silence that stretched on for a bit too long, he spoke.

“No.”

'Yep, I figured as much.' He thought to himself. "Right," Jack chuckles, drained of the usual humor he carried.

To be honest, he felt a bit tired after all of that. He could really use a quick nap right now… Jack could only hope that this (probably a) criminal guy is at least nice enough to not murder him before he falls asleep.

Turning off the stream of water, he flicks the water off his hands and turns to leave. "Well,” he notes, “feel free to help yourself here. I'll go and get you something clean to wear." He then exits the bathroom, now done with the conversation he was attempting to have.

Pushing aside how he probably hadn't been following a lot of medical rules and regulations taught to (and forgotten by) him years ago, with all the scars on that guy, he's assuming that it's probably fine to just leave him be for now, right? Surely a violence-prone-looking man like that would already know how to take care of himself when he's hurt, right? He sure hopes so. He doesn’t wanna come back to a dead body.

With that thought, Jack goes off to retrieve the clothes he had left for him by the nightstand.

"..."

Gavriel sat in silence in the bathroom, the soft hum of the distant city and the ambience of the Toon’s neighbors filtering through the walls. He was now left on his own, leaving him to reflect on the situation.

Shifting slightly, he grimaced as pain flared through his side and throughout the rest of his body. The stitches pulled, a stark reminder that he wasn’t in any shape to defend himself if something went wrong. Not that it mattered. If the Toon wanted him dead, he’d already had the chance to let him bleed out.

Why hadn’t he?

That thought didn’t bring comfort to him, only deepening his unease. The Toon’s actions were naively kind, something which he understood yet hesitated to accept.

So far, the other hadn’t given him any suspicious answers. Every question Gavriel had asked were met with genuine - albeit bumbling - honesty. The nervous man stuttered more often than not, but he hadn’t hesitated, nor had he tried to deflect or go off topic. The only weird thing happening right now was the fact that the Toon was helping him.

This behavior didn’t seem to come from a place of deception and ulterior motives. Or perhaps it did, and Gavriel just couldn’t see it yet.

In the bathroom, Gavriel could hear the other’s voice phasing through the thin apartment walls. Though his words were muffled, he sounded mournful with phrases like, "I spent money on that..." and "Tsk, tsk. What a waste." followed by a heavy sigh.

Gavriel pressed his lips into a thin line. Despite himself, the lament struck a chord.

Money and food. Those were two of the main things a person must never waste in their life. This lesson had been deeply ingrained deep into his very bones even as a child, who had the misfortune of growing up facing the struggles of being in the slums. Food was scarce, money even scarcer. People fought and killed over it, and so did he.

For him, life wasn’t for living back then, it was survival. Then, he grunts, feeling the insistent throbbing on his freshly sewn side, spreading throughout his entire torso. Well, he supposed some things haven’t exactly changed that much.

Gavriel hears the gentle pitter patter of the Toon’s feet. He appears a moment after, quietly stepping into the bathroom with the clothes in hand. He glanced at Gavriel, who was still seated on the toilet, and carefully placed the clothes on the dry part of the sink’s edge, not having much space to put them anywhere else. His movements were quick but not rushed, clearly trying to avoid intruding too much on the other man’s space.

"Here," the Toon said softly. "The clothes I left for you. I can get you something else if these aren’t... comfortable,” he offers, looking at how much smaller the size of his own t-shirt was compared to Gavriel’s body.

He glances at Gavriel briefly before looking down at the floor, the tension in the room thick, but Jack manages a kind, almost awkward smile.

"I’ll… leave you to it then." Without waiting for a response, the Toon does a polite little head bow before turning on his heel and leaving the bathroom. He even made sure to gently close the door behind him, leaving Gavriel to change in peace.

Gavriel turned his attention to the clothes Jack had left neatly folded on the edge of the sink. Standing up, he walks over to inspect the clothes given to him. They looked cheap and would probably be a bit too tight for him to wear but it was better than staying cold and bare.

He glanced back toward the door, his brows furrowing. The Toon hadn’t lingered, hadn’t said anything besides the brief statement that the clothes were for him, nor were there any lectures, insistence, or attempts to force a conversation. Just a quiet exit. Probably to clean up the mess Gavriel had left in the other room, he guessed.

Gavriel shifted uncomfortably. He wasn’t used to people like that Toon. People who gave generously without any strings attached or wanting something back, people who respected him, not like the wariness of his enemies or the reverence of his underlings, but simply out of basic human decency - albeit with reasonable fear. The Toon… Jack Desmond was painfully normal, perhaps a touch too kind for his own good.

His mind wandered to Desmond’s face earlier. The nervous and awkward glances, the apologetic grimaces when the needle went through his flesh, and the reluctance to meet his eyes, yet his determination to keep helping despite the tension. It had been... odd. Gavriel couldn’t pinpoint what irritated him more. Desmond’s clumsy kindness or the fact that it seemed genuine.

Gavriel sighed, his breath heavy with the weight of his thoughts. His fingers tightened around the clothes.

Special thanks to @demonicrhythms for proofreading this chapter.

For now, staying here and recuperating wasn’t the worst plan.

_

Previously // Next - (chapter list)

[sundrop-writes]

The Way You Miss Me

Fred Weasley x Fem!Reader

I’m not trying to say I don’t wanna stay, I just know how this story ends.

Use my body against me - and all of our history.

I hate the way you miss me. 

Summary:

Fred broke up with you. He made it clear that he was going to have a new life when he opened his shop, and he didn't need you to be a part of it. You being stuck on him was just another joke in a long line of pranks that he pulled.

And life kept on laughing at you when your fear of crippling heights was triggered by a potentially life ending mission the Order put together that had you dangling hundreds of feet over London, held up only by Fred's strength and determination.

So what does it mean when the two of you land, and he's the only thing that can stop your shaking panic? What does it mean when he's looking at you with nothing but love in his eyes, holding you tight like a lover would?

Fred Weasley x Fem!Reader. Exes to Lovers. Emotional Angst and Smut. Set during Deathly Hallows.

Word Count: 18,500

Harry Potter Masterlist | AO3 Link

Full warnings list and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: this is equal parts angst fic and smut fic; the reader is a cis woman - uses she/her pronouns and has a vagina; there is no mention of the reader's looks, race, hair colour, etc. in any way; this fic does use Y/N (and L/N as in Last Name); this takes place mostly during the beginning of Deathly Hallows, so there are mentions of dark topics, like death, and the cult-like following that Voldemort has developed; this is Exes to Lovers - Fred and the reader dated for a while during their time at Hogwarts and then broke up; (there is flashbacks in this fic to times during Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix); the reader is half-blood - she has one parent who is a muggle and lives in a muggle city and the other parent who is loyal to death eaters (and there is a later mention of the reader's mother being killed due to anti-muggle sentiment as Voldemort becomes more powerful); there is no mention of what Hogwarts house the reader is in; the reader has a crippling fear of heights (which is a large part of the plot for this fic); mentions of nausea and vomiting (as a fear response) (no one actually throws up during the course of the fic); the reader experiences actual life-threatening danger while on a broom - she nearly falls to her death, but Fred catches her; Fred does struggle to hold the reader's body weight, so it doesn't imply that he has super-human strength or that the reader is particularly petite (I wanted his reaction to be realistic for someone of any body weight); for part of the fic, Fred is disguised as Harry using Polyjuice Potion (but there's no confusion about his identity because the reader knows he took the potion); the reader experiences a panic attack due to the life threatening fall, and Fred helps her calm down; mentions of blood and semi-graphic descriptions of George's canon injury (his ear being blasted off); there is general emotional angst from the characters being in close proximity to danger, death, and life threatening situations; Fred calls the reader 'darling' and 'love' and 'sweets' and 'pretty girl' (in sexual and non-sexual contexts).

For the actual smut section: this is not their first time together as a couple and neither of the characters are meant to be virgins; there is undertones of sub/dom dynamics - Fred is a teasing soft dom and the reader is submissive to him (and there is mentions of the reader experiencing what could be considered subspace) (but there isn't any specifically laid out roles - it's more so one person enjoying taking care of the other, especially after experiencing the emotional turmoil of a near death experience together); there is Daddy kink in this (not until a bit later into the smut section, but it just came to me and I realized it suited Fred so well) Fred calls himself Daddy and the reader is way into it; praise kink - Fred calls the reader 'good girl' specifically because he knows she likes it; lots of dirty talk (Fred has a filthy mouth); oral sex - Fred receiving (she blows him as a thank you for saving her life) (also slight ball worship); mentions of the reader 'choking' on his cock (but there is no major breathplay or breath restriction); slight spit kink (it's a messy blowjob and he loves it); teasing and brief orgasm denial (toward both parties); hair pulling (toward both parties) - not with the intention of causing pain, but to direction someone's attention and to show appreciation and affection to the person; thigh riding - she humps herself on Fred's thigh while she is still wearing clothes; penis in vagina sex; creampie kink (I'm not gonna say breeding kink, because there's no mention of procreation or getting someone pregnant, even in theory, but they are both very turned on by the idea of him cumming inside of her); this could be protected sex OR unprotected sex - he cums inside of her raw but we can all pretend that they used a magical pregnancy prevention method if you want even though it's not mentioned in the fic; cockwarming (reader doesn't let Fred pull out for a while after he cums); I think that is finally it for this fic.

A/N: This fic is titled after a song by All Time Low, which I highly recommend listening to paired with this fic. This is actually part of an idea I had for a much longer multi-chaptered Fred x Reader fic, but I kept thinking about this one moment in the fic and how much I wanted to write it - so I did. And I decided that it would make a good oneshot. And I am actually insanely proud of myself for managing to capture the same emotions in under 20k that I originally thought would take me like 50k or 100k to properly communicate. I think this is fantastic, and it's one of the best things I have written in a while - and I really hope you guys enjoy it! Especially if you like angsty, emotional, exes to lovers fics.

...

Very often, you wondered when life had become so complicated. 

It seemed that just yesterday, you were a bright-eyed young girl, dancing around a beautifully magical winter ball with the love of your life on your arm - and now, you were a confused woman who was terrified of how your life would end up because of a dark wizard and his cultist followers trying to overtake your world. 

These days you didn’t even have that lover to comfort you through all of the confusion and dread that clouded the world around you. 

You and Fred used to be perfect. That’s what a lot of people would have called the two of you - the ‘perfect’ couple. 

Your story was something straight from a romance novel - the two of you were best friends when you were young, and that friendship quickly blossomed into affection. That affection naturally led into a sweet romance. When you were with him, your life was full of moments where you felt like a beautiful, flowery, desirable protagonist because of how he treated you. Your life used to be full of laughter, full of smiles, full of romantic gestures. 

You and Fred were in the same year at Hogwarts, so naturally you knew each other. You weren’t really friends - at least not at first. You knew of each other, especially because you had some classes together. 

But you didn’t truly meet Fred Weasley until more than halfway into your first year of classes together. You had the misfortune of accidentally running into a prank that was meant for a Slytherin Prefect - someone who had taken one too many house points off Gryffindor for the twins’ liking. And after being doused with red and gold paint and tripping over a toy rubber snake that had been charmed to hiss realistically when you got near it - you were reasonably frightened and crying, and it left you the laughing stalk of the courtyard - someone to be pointed at and mocked by everyone. 

Fred hadn’t meant for it to be you. With the way he looked at you after the incident - full of guilt while everyone else pointed at you and laughed, imitating your frightening screams and attempts to jump away from the fake snake - it didn’t take you long to figure out the culprits behind it. And it didn’t take you much longer after that to plan your revenge. (Especially because, as much as Fred looked guilty, he didn’t simply come forward and apologise. Too afraid to look like a weak moron in the eyes of his brother and his other Gryffindor friends. So - on with your revenge, it was.) 

You figured that all good pranksters should be due to be a victim sometimes, too. If the twins couldn’t laugh when they were on the receiving end, then they should stop playing pranks. 

So you came up with something that you considered masterful. During your trip home for Christmas, back to Muggle London where your mother lived, you asked her to take you to a shop to buy a couple of greeting cards for your classmates. The ones that sing Christmas carols loudly when the hinge of the card is opened. Something clever, and not needing any magic at all. 

And when you returned to Hogwarts after the break, you found a moment where the twins were distracted, and you stole their book bags in order to pull off your epic, amazing prank. You taped those singing greeters into the back of their Potions textbooks - a class that you shared with them, of course, so that you could enjoy the show. And then you waited. 

You had trouble containing your laughter when Professor Snape escalated from annoyed to downright scalding angry as his class was filled with the quiet robotic hum of ‘Jingle Bells’, occasionally overlapped by ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’. It was made even better by the fact that both of the twins clearly knew that the music was coming from somewhere in their surrounding area, but they had no clue what the exact source was or how to stop it. And with every snivelled demand of ‘just open your books and get to work’ - the music only started up again. 

By the time they had been sentenced to detention for disturbing the class, you were nearly breathless and your ribs were aching from trying to hold back your laughter. Which, of course, meant that Fred easily spotted you out of everyone else - who looked equally confused or annoyed with the low hum of the music. And as soon as the class ended, he brought his textbook to you, thanked you for the worthy prank, and asked you how to stop it. He looked entirely amused and impressed when you pulled the tiny device out of the back, and proceeded to ask you a million questions about it. 

You weren’t surprised when the next week, the annoying singing greeter ended up inside the teacher’s copy of the textbook on McGonagall’s desk. 

From that moment on, his crush on you steeped inside of him like a fine tea, developing from an innocent adolescent attraction to full-blown, ‘drive you crazy’, ‘I would do anything for you’, love. It was lucky for him that you easily felt the same way. 

Through the years of being by his side, becoming his best friend, pulling pranks together and trying desperately to get him to study - it was difficult not to fall for Fred Weasley. 

You had been overjoyed when Fred invited you to the Quidditch World Cup. Even though you weren’t the biggest fan of Quidditch (and Fred knew that). The only reason you had started attending the games at Hogwarts was because he joined the team. And you only bothered to attend the games he played in, so your bias could be spotted from a mile away. But in his letter, with the ticket to the World Cup slotted into the envelope, he told you that it was ‘the game of the century’ and you ‘simply couldn’t miss it’. 

You wouldn’t miss out on spending time with him, so you eagerly agreed to go. 

This left you with only one glaring problem. 

You had a crippling fear of heights. 

It was one of the reasons that you never really gotten into Quidditch in the first place. You had absolutely no interest in playing, and even less interest in watching if Fred wasn’t involved. The idea of even flying on a broom being something that made you nauseated and shaky just from thinking about it. 

The mandatory first year flying lesson was the only class at Hogwarts that you ever failed, but Madame Hooch took pity on you when she saw you crying and fisting the grass after only getting your broom about five inches off the ground. So she passed you anyway - just barely. 

When you set out to watch Fred’s games at Hogwarts, you usually had to take some kind of anti-nausea tonic beforehand to make sure that you didn’t puke all over everyone else in the stands. And you usually couldn’t even make it up to your seat to watch unless one of your good friends held your hand. But you were alright once the actual game started, because watching Fred doing something he loved was a good distraction from just how high up you were. 

Telling Fred about your intense fear had been one of the most honest, vulnerable moments that you ever had with him. Your friendship was usually all pranks and laughter, which you loved. 

But one summer day, when you were hanging out with the Weasleys, they wouldn’t stop nagging you to join one of their family Quidditch matches because they needed an extra player to make the teams even. And after the twins’ endless teasing, saying that you were ‘afraid to lose’ or that you would be ‘too distracted by their daring good looks’ in order to play properly, you broke down crying and stormed off into the woods, because you were too anxious to admit the real reason that you couldn’t play.  

Fred was the one who found you off in the trees behind the Burrow, tears still streaming down your face, and asked you what he had done to so greatly upset you. He had been terrified at the idea of making you upset, so hurt that he had been the one to make you cry. And after he found out about your fear, he didn’t laugh or mock you for it or play it off as something stupid like you thought would be so typical of him. No - instead, he wrapped a comforting arm around your shoulders and he told you that he was genuinely sorry. And he promised that he would never invite you to play Quidditch again. 

When you had accepted the invitation to The World Cup, you had forgotten how much your fear of heights played into watching Quidditch as well. The giant, impossibly tall temporary Quidditch stadium that had been set up for the event had been looming over you all day, but you didn’t want to quit and go home because of some silly little fear. 

You wanted to spend the time with your friends. You wanted to enjoy the event because the people you loved most were having fun there. So you pressed on, ignoring the inevitable, letting yourself get caught up in the pregame revelry. You walked around the seemingly endless campgrounds with Fred and George, in awe of all the decorations and the different wizards from all over the world, showing off things from their homes. You chatted and charmed along with them as they collected bets before the game. You let Fred paint your face with large, ugly shamrocks because even though you didn’t entirely care about the teams or fully know them, you were rooting for Ireland to win simply because he was. 

But the unavoidable nature of your problem became very apparent as Arthur guided everyone to your seats, and you climbed up more stairs, and more stairs, and more stairs - and the higher up you got, the more you found yourself shaking, especially when you looked down to the ground and saw that the people down there looked like little more than bugs. You hated it when your mind, naturally, went to what would happen to you if you stumbled over the railing and fell down all that way. You would splat on the ground, squashed like a bug. You would die within seconds. 

You held on tighter to Fred’s hand - he would have said that he had grabbed your hand in the first place so that he wouldn’t lose you among the bustling crowd, and not simply as an excuse to be closer to you. You didn’t even realise how badly you were trembling in his touch as you looked over the railing (still a few flights down from your final seats) with intense apprehension. 

“You alright?” Fred asked you simply. 

“‘m fine.” You mumbled out the lie, giving him a large, forced smile - hoping that he would believe it. 

You knew that if you told him how you were feeling, he would insist on escorting you back to the tent. Perhaps he would even insist on staying with you so that you wouldn’t have to be alone. So he might miss out on a once in a lifetime Quidditch game all because you had a bit of petty anxiety from being so high up. 

So you tried your best to push down all your feelings and ignore them, even if it was making you shake and making your stomach churn. When you got to the top, peering over the edge of the railing of the very, very high up seats that Arthur had gotten as a thanks for his work on helping to organise the whole thing (apparently, the higher up the better to actually see the game), you felt an incredible sense of dizziness, and began swaying on your feet. 

This was so much higher up than the Quidditch stands at Hogwarts. 

Naturally, Fred noticed. It wasn’t something he would easily admit, or even something he did consciously, but he always kept an eye on you. Partially due to a knack for admiring your beauty, that adolescent love-struck feeling always making him more prone to staring at you. But it was also partially due to the fact that he felt a need to watch over you. Whether it be as a friend or as something else, he always wanted you to be safe, and happy. 

And right now, your sickly, terrified face stood out like a sore thumb among the crowd of excited, cheering fans.  

“Y/N,” 

He called out your name in a serious tone that was so uncharacteristic of Fred, something that snapped your attention from staring anxiously at the ground toward him immediately. He cemented your attention on him when he put a hand on top of your tight, tense knuckles on the railing. His touch was warm, as always, and oddly grounding, removing even just a slight bit of that dizzying anxiety that you were feeling. 

“Do you wanna go back down? I can bring you back to the tent,” 

Of course. Just as you had predicted. 

“No.” You easily answered, shaking your head furiously, biting your lip. “I-” 

You didn’t want him missing out on such an important event because of you, but more importantly: 

“I - I don’t want to be afraid.” You heaved out, your chest tight with anxiety. “It’s stupid - people do stuff like this all the time, right? I shouldn’t be afraid-” 

“It’s not stupid.” He said firmly, quickly squashing down any self-belittling that you might be tempted to do. “You can’t control how you feel.” 

Coming from him, it sounded like the most firm truth ever. 

“If you want to stay, I’ll be right here with you.” Fred added on, giving you a warm, reassuring grin. “But just let me know if you want to go back down, and I’ll walk with you, alright?” 

You nodded, hating that even though his words gave you that nip of courage you needed, you were still pulsing with a dull panic. The undeniable reaction that fear caused in your body. 

Fred hated seeing you shaking, hated the deep frown that cut through your beautiful features - so what he did next was instinctive. He took his hand off yours and reached that arm, the one closest to you, around your back, planting his hand firmly on the railing at the other side of your waist. This trapped you in a close-knit hold beside him, something that made you feel instantly more secure - even if it was just from the warmth of him at your side. 

“I’m not gonna let you fall, yeah?” He said quietly, leaning closer into your ear to be heard - the warmth of the reassurance causing gentle tingles down your spine. “I would never let anything happen to you, darling.” 

Between the intense loving safety that he words wrapped you in with the sweet nickname he added on, and the firm cradle of his arm around your back, you knew that you would have no problem sticking it out for the game. But your brain was still trying to cope, your anxiety so incredibly nagging, and you couldn’t help it when your eyes drifted back to focus on the ant-like people on the ground, becoming shaking and nauseous all too soon from staring downward. 

“Down look down.” Fred scolded you gently, using his other hand to grab your chin, forcing your gaze back up - it ended with your eyes locked with his, admiring the way the breeze blew his too-long ginger hair into his eyes. “Just look at me, alright? It’s gonna be far worse if you keep starin’ down there. Just look at me, love.” 

“Just look at you.” You repeated in a quiet mumble, already so utterly locked in the powerful orbit of his gaze, feeling like it was near impossible to look away from him. 

You felt his forehead brush against yours before you realised just how close he had gotten. But you couldn’t bring yourself to mind. 

And ultimately, feeling the stands shaking beneath your feet as a particularly hard gust of wind came through and having another swell of anxiety rush through you was what drove you to closing the gap, sealing your lips on his in your first kiss. Fred made you brave, almost stupidly so, and you hoped that you had finally used that bravery for something good in capturing his lips. (Rather than the stupid mischief that the two of you usually got up to.) 

Fred smiled into the kiss and George cheered loudly behind him - you thought it was due to the game starting, and when you pulled back sharply to look around for the players, you were met with nearly all eyes in the group on you, clearly gawking at the fact that you and Fred had kissed. 

This included Ginny smirking almost evilly before she said: 

“Finally. I thought the two of you were never gonna get on with it.” 

This left you squirming with a mild embarrassment, and definitely not thinking about how high up you were anymore. 

Looking back, the memory was painful - not sweet or fond as it had once been to you. 

But it wasn’t nearly as painful as the memory of the day you and Fred had broken up. 

He had asked you to be his girlfriend officially only a few days after the World Cup. He wanted you to know what that kiss meant to him, and he wanted the privilege of more kisses from you, on top of the ‘honour’ (his exact wording) of going back to Hogwarts with you on his arm as his girlfriend, making all the other boys in your year ‘pathetically jealous’. Of course, it was everything you wanted, he was everything you wanted, so you said yes. 

The two of you dated for nearly two full happy years - right through your sixth year and into your seventh, until in April of your seventh year, shortly after Fred’s birthday, when everything came crashing down around you. 

It wasn’t unusual of Fred to pull you away after a class - his hand in yours, igniting fluttery giggles from your lungs as he pulled you down the corridors to whatever secret little spot he had picked out. Even with Umbridge at Hogwarts, implementing more rules and cracking down on ‘fraternisation’ between students, you and Fred still found ways to sneak off to have your private little moments together. 

So when Fred took you off to one of those private corners on chilly spring afternoon, you assumed that this was no different. You fell into the natural rhythm of pinning him against a wall, sealing your lips firmly to his in a kiss and waiting for his hand to sneak up your skirt while his tongue ventured into your mouth. You were shocked when this time, he didn’t kiss you back. He was limp and unreceptive against you, and that was when you realised that you had read the tone of the interaction very wrong - even if him dragging you away by the hand always led to making out in a quiet corner, and more than a bit of groping. 

You pulled back, looking at him with confusion and disappointment plainly across your face. 

“What’s wrong, Freddie?” You asked, well in the habit of using the nickname for him. 

Fred’s expression was filled with sullen dread, and it made your stomach twist. It truly made you fearful of whatever he was going to say next, and you took a step back from him, widening the gap between the two of you in the dusty, draughty old stairwell. You suddenly felt too cold, even with your uniform sweater and thick robes on, and wrapped your arms around yourself to compensate. 

“There’s something I have to tell you.” He announced quietly, continuing to lean on the wall that you had pressed him up against, staring at the floor, his eyes unwilling to meet you. 

What? Had he cheated on you? Did he want to break up? 

What terrible thing could possibly make this bright, funny joker so damn sad and serious? 

“What is it?” You asked, filling with dread, your throat tightening up more by the second. 

“George and I have decided that it’s about time we take our leave.” Fred announced, his eyes only flickering to you for a moment, looking for some kind of reaction. You were only further confused, and waited for him to explain. “The lease for the shop in Diagon Alley finally came through, and-” 

“Well that’s great news, Fred.” You said, trying to sound happy and upbeat beyond the tension that was still tight in your chest. You had no clue why he was so downtrodden - the joke shop was his dream, and now that they had secured a location for it, that dream was coming true. 

He heaved a sigh, his eyes turning to gaze out a nearby window for a moment before he turned back to you. 

“It means we have to leave, darling.” He said sharply. 

Your insides became heavy. 

You knew it was a very Fred and George thing - so intent on not doing their exams, desperate to escape any further academics. You wanted to ask why they wouldn’t stay until the end of the school year, but you knew that you would get answers about how they didn’t need marks from exams that they were likely going to fail anyway to run a shop that they now owned. 

It was something founded on their own talents and ideas, and they didn’t need the approval of professors marking them wrong or right in order to do it. 

It was the life they had always dreamed of. And you were intensely proud of them for it. 

So why did you still have that overwhelming feeling of dread? 

“So - when are we leaving?” You asked, trying to sound confident and firm in your words even though you knew what was likely coming next. 

You felt intensely disappointed when the all too predictable outcome smashed you in the face. 

“You’re not coming with us.” Fred said quietly. 

“Why not?” You argued gently. 

You would drop everything and go with them - you felt far more emotional attachment to being with Fred than you did to finishing your year at Hogwarts. You knew that you could be a useful hand around the shop. Any venture helping Fred would be a worthy one to you. But staring you down were the calculating eyes of someone who had been telling you over the past years how much he didn’t want to disrupt your studies with his antics, because he thought you had a ‘brilliant mind’, and you were ‘so much smarter’ than him and George. 

He thought that you could actually pull some decent - no, brilliant grades on your NEWTs and truly make something of yourself. The shop was a big dream of his and George’s, but Fred knew that you were destined for something so much greater that truly challenged and fully utilised your brilliance. So he wasn’t going to let you be dragged down to mediocrity by him. 

Realising this, part of you still ached. Why was he so intent on leaving if it meant leaving you behind? 

“Please don’t be stupid-” Fred sighed, rolling his eyes. 

“Oh, so I’m stupid now?” You scoffed. 

He hadn’t meant to let the harsh word leave his lips - at least, he hadn’t meant it in such a harsh way. 

“Y/N-” Fred used your actual name, something he rarely did, but you barreled right over whatever he was going to say with your next words. 

You were hurting now, and you didn’t entirely care what he had to say. 

“If I’m so stupid, then why should I even bother to stay here and take my NEWTs?” You hissed, twisting around his accidental slip into something he had never meant. “Or am I too stupid to even work at a silly little joke shop with you?” 

Fred scowled deeply. It didn’t suit him. 

“Y/N, this ‘silly little joke shop’ has been my dream since I was five years old!” He barked, now taking your heat of the moment words and running away with them. “You don’t-” 

“I guess I was stupid enough to believe that I was part of that dream!” You cried out in return, cutting off his words once again. 

‘You are.’ He choked down the words. ‘But I can’t bear to bring you down just because I want to be with you. I could never be so selfish.’ 

“I-” He choked on whatever he was going to say, swallowing it down. “I can’t do this right now.” 

He moved to storm off completely, hoping to speak with you later when you both had calmed down, hoping to have a proper, happy goodbye with you before he and George actually left. 

But your next words made him freeze on the spot, and wiped away all of those hopes within him. 

“Fred Weasley, if you walk away, we’re done.” You said, now choking on tears. 

You were utterly insulted that he wouldn’t even fight for you - that he wouldn’t even promise that his heart would be waiting for you after you graduated. To you, it was a sure sign that he was saying that his shop was more important to him than you were. That you were just some stupid schoolgirl fling to him; that along with the shop, he wanted to move on to other women, to find someone that he actually wanted to marry. 

You had never been a part of the dream he had for his life - you had just been a passing fancy in his eye. 

For Fred, it was all too painful. This was the conversation he had been utterly dreading since he and George had decided to take their leave, and it was going far worse than he had planned in his head. He couldn’t face the pain - he couldn’t face hurting you. He couldn’t face missing you, even during a few short months apart before you did graduate. 

So he then did something so terribly stupid, looking to bomb the relationship wide open - hoping to end all of the pain before it even started. 

“Good.” He said, barely turning his head to even look over his shoulder at you. “Would’ve been a waste of parchment writing to you, anyway.” 

With those final, painful words, he stomped off down the stairs, leaving you to collapse against one of the nearby walls in a puddle of tears - for the first time in a long time, without Fred to muffle your sobs in a comforting hug. 

You hadn’t been there to watch him and George ride off on their brooms when they finally gave Umbridge everything she deserved - you had been locked in your dorm, sobbing into your pillow because of that horrible, relationship ending fight. You had only heard from other people later that they had left Hogwarts in a blaze of glory, and you were the only person who knew for certain where they had gone and what their plans were now. 

You hated to admit it - but you missed Fred Weasley. 

You tried your hardest to get over him. You threw yourself into your studies, and you did pass your NEWTs with some of the highest marks in your class. But then, any thought of what potential career you might take on was tossed aside when the world went into upheaval at the hands of Death Eaters. And unintentionally, you were right back at Fred’s side again. 

It was a dreadful thing - being forced to see your ex on such a frequent basis. 

The last time being just a few short days ago when he had come into the Apothecary that you worked at in Diagon Alley, looking for some ingredients for a new WWW product that he wanted to make a test batch of. You had still spent last Christmas with his family, at the nagging insistence of Molly. After your mother had turned up dead and your father was missing, and you had to face the fact that he had likely defected to the Death Eaters out of fear (and the stupidity of his ingrained ‘old ways’), you didn’t really have any other family to turn to, aside from the Weasleys. 

You saw Fred a lot more often than you should - more often than you wanted to, in fact. Because the more often you had to see him walk into your shop with a grin on his face and bear the small talk he would force you into before he finally put in his order, the more you ached. You wanted nothing more than to be able to get away - to go someplace far away that Fred would never find you, so that you could finally heal, could finally get over the way he had broken your heart. 

But the country, and likely the state of all Wizardkind, was in upheaval. So many lives were at risk, and you had your part to play. You had signed on to become a member of the Order the minute you turned seventeen, and you weren’t prepared to shirk that commitment now, just because of a bit of girlish heartbreak. 

It was the reason that you were standing in the now empty residence of Number Four, Privet Drive. You had been called upon last minute to replace Tonks on this particular mission, for reasons that everyone seemed tight lipped about. But you weren’t going to question it - you were just going to step up and do your duty so that Harry could be transported safely, and hopefully go on to defeat the Dark Lord once and for all. 

According to Mad-Eye Moody, it was all very straight forward. Six of the fourteen members of the group would take Polyjuice Potion to turn themselves into decoy versions of Harry, making for seven Harrys in total, and the other half of the group would pair off with a Harry each to be their escort. 

You weren’t a huge fan of the idea of Fred disguising himself as Harry, essentially putting a huge target on his back - but the plan had already been set in place. He had already agreed to it. There was no room for you to protest now. 

“We’re not a big fan of the idea either, mate.” George spoke up when Harry protested against the idea of people risking their lives by being disguised as him. 

“Yeah, imagine something went wrong, then we’d be stuck as a scrawny, specky git forever.” Fred added on with his usual humorous tone. 

You held back a laugh at this comment, and everyone in the room eyed you harshly as you choked on your own breath. Fred smirked, proud that after all this time, he could still draw a laugh out of you. 

Your sense of humour about the whole situation was soon stamped out when Mad-Eye mentioned brooms. The group would have to be flying because Harry couldn’t apparate or use any other common form of transport without the Ministry knowing. 

“Brooms?” You questioned, knowing that your tone sounded far too panicked. “We - we’re flying?” 

“Yes.” Mad-Eye snipped curtly in return. “What exactly about my explanation was unclear, Ms. L/N?” 

His sharp tone and his glare in your direction, along with his use of your surname, instantly transported you back you Defense Against the Darks Arts classes in your sixth year, when you had been intimidated by the man - even if, strangely enough, you hadn’t been taught by the same man who now stood before you. 

You swallowed tightly, a large lump forming in your throat already - an involuntary, wicked reaction overtaking your body because of your fear of heights. Fred looked at you with sad knowing in his eyes, and you didn’t notice when he clenched his fists tightly at his sides, resisting the urge to swaddle you in a comforting hold. 

“Nothing was unclear, just-” You stuttered, breathing in deeply, trying to calm yourself. “I don’t have much experience with flying, and-” 

“Weasley - er - Fred, has already informed me of that.” Mad-Eye said, correcting himself when he realised just how many ‘Weasleys’ were on this mission and how utterly confusing that would get. “He’s insisted on taking you due to your lack of experience. Is that all?” 

Obviously, you didn’t want to publicly admit to your fear. You couldn’t reveal it as the terrible weakness that it was, especially not when there were so many other worries at play. 

“Yes, it’s fine.” You said, nodding, trying to keep the conversation short and keep the attention off you. 

“Good. Now if we’re all done dawdling, we need to get to work.” 

It was downright strange seeing Fred transformed into Harry. 

Even complete with the dorky clothes and the glasses, you still easily spotted him out of the crowd of ‘specky gits’. Maybe it was the years of practice that you had telling him apart from George that made it so easy for you, but he was still so irritably Fred. The fact that he slid his wand into his back pocket - something you had warned him dozens of times would likely result in the wand crunching in half and breaking when he sat down (and annoyed you to the point of you snatching it out of his back pocket to save it, especially before he sat down). The way he reached up to scratch his nose, the smirk on his face when he kept glancing over at the other Harry you were sure had to be George. Especially with the way they were steadily side-eyeing each other, speaking volumes with their looks and having a silent conversation that nobody else knew of. 

The fact that his eyes kept flickering to you every few moments definitely helped you to pick him out of the crowd. Even though you were used to a gentle hazel gazing at you rather than that piercing blue, there was still a unique concern behind his eyes when he looked at you from beyond those spectacles - the same kind of gentle seriousness that you hadn’t really seen from him since he had held your shaking hand on the stairs of the stands on the day of The World Cup. 

Stupidly, it only really occurred to you how close you would have to be with Fred, tightly riding behind him on the back of his broom, when you went outside and he ushered you to climb onto the back of his broom behind him. It had been a little over a year since you had broken up with Fred, and since then, you had not touched him. 

Every greeting had been friendly, but from a distance. Even when he came into the Apothecary and laid his hand on the counter, you snaked out of the way in time to avoid his fingers so much as brushing by yours. You always laid his order on the counter for him to pick it up himself, so that his fingers wouldn’t accidentally brush against yours. You made sure never to have contact with him. And now, you were being forced to climb onto the back of his broom, to hold him tight. 

But you couldn’t protest. You couldn’t demand to switch partners now because of some petty angst you were harbouring about a break-up that had happened so long ago. (Would you call it angst, or stupid, longing, painful heartbreak?) You couldn’t complain - not when this was about transporting Harry safely. This was about something so much bigger. 

Sure, it wouldn’t be exactly the same as holding onto your Fred (not that he was yours anymore - you had to remember that). He was Harry-Fred right now, so he was much shorter and thinner, and you could easily pretend that he wasn’t Fred at all. Which is what you forced yourself to think about as you swung a shaking leg over the broom and climbed on, wrapping your arms around his waist, preparing for take-off. 

It was a bit harder to pretend that this wasn’t Fred when you caught the faintest whiff of his expensive cologne (something he had only started wearing once the shop took off, something you noticed on him for the first time when he came to visit you at the Apothecary). It was definitely still lingering on his skin, something that was so painfully Fred even while you stared at the back of Harry’s wild black hair. 

It pierced your heart a little bit more when he peered over his shoulder at you, striking you as so Fred with those somehow warm, caring blue eyes and gently asking: 

“Good?” 

To which you replied: 

“m fine.” 

The most terrible lie you had ever conjured - something that was soon covered up by Mad-Eye shouting some last minute instructions and waving everyone off. 

When Fred kicked off the ground, you were immediately met with the most sickening wave of nausea that you had ever experienced in your life. You got way too high up for your liking within seconds, the houses on the ground growing far too small in your view, and you couldn’t fight the urge to shut your eyes. 

Unfortunately, it only made you dizzier, but it calmed your nerves a slight bit. You didn’t even realise how tightly you were clutching onto Fred, an utter death grip around his waist, until you heard him let out a grunt of pain from his stomach muscles being strangled by your arms with your fingers digging into him like claws, holding on for dear life. 

“S-sorry.” You stuttered out, shivering from the pure fear of it all, rather than the cool breeze that was whipping at your face. “Sorry, sorry!” 

“I’m sorry!” Fred replied - it was still strange hearing him speak in Harry’s voice, and you were glad that it was temporary. “I should have told them you weren’t up to this mission, I-” 

“I’m fine!” You barked back, hating the idea that your fear would make you unfit for a mission. But in a sense, you knew it was true. You would have spit in the face of any Death Eater, but your fear of heights was so utterly crippling. “Fred, don’t you dare for a moment suggest-” 

“We’ve been breached!” You heard someone - Arthur’s voice, shouting from up ahead. 

Your eyes whipped open and suddenly, you were filled with an entirely different kind of fear. Smoky black clouds of Death Eaters whipped through the sky around you - somehow, they had discovered the plan. And now, they were targeting all of the fake Harrys, firing off curses in every direction, looking for the real one. 

They were targeting Fred. 

That was the only thing at the forefront of your mind - they were going to hurt Fred. 

“Y/N-?” 

“Just get us out of here!” You told him. “I’ll cover you!” 

You knew that you couldn’t close your eyes now. Of course you would step up to protect him. No matter if the two of you were lovers, friends, or something estranged - you still loved him in your heart, and you would protect him no matter what. 

You grabbed your wand out of your jacket and gripped it stiffly, firing a stunning curse at the first silver mask you saw, still tightly gripping onto Fred’s jacket with your other hand. He used both his hands on the broom, gripping tighter with his legs to steer better, years of Quidditch honed skill coming in handy. His ability to be calm and fly mindfully while Bludgers were flying at his head made him a lot calmer with multiple Death Eaters firing potentially deadly curses all around him. In the back of his mind, he thought that Wood would be proud. 

You were still shaking horribly, and a few of your spells didn’t land on the first try, but you kept trying. You centred yourself, remembering what you were doing, who you were here for. In your mind, it wasn’t about Harry, it was never about Harry - it was about Fred. It was because Fred had approached you about the last minute replacement, it was because Fred was the one on the broom in front of you, the one you would have died to protect. 

You didn’t see when someone Apparated in a thick cloud of black smoke behind you, and raised their wand in your direction, hitting you squarely in the back with a heavy jinx. It was the force of a brick wall smacking you, something that sent you and Fred tumbling end over end through the sky and sent you flying cleanly off the broom because you didn’t have the instinct to grip the wood with your thighs like he did. 

You let out a shrill scream as you felt yourself falling, your worst fear coming to life. 

Thankfully, Fred was quicker than gravity - quicker than death. 

He laser focused on you, and suddenly, everyone else was gone. All the supposed danger, all the Death Eaters - even other members of the Order who might have needed his help - they all vanished in his eyes. 

It was only you. 

He turned the broom into a deadly nose dive, racing down toward you, reaching with his hand out, and in seconds, while you were still hundreds of feet off the ground - he snatched you. He had your wrist gripped so tightly in his hand - slightly sweaty, already slipping. But he wouldn’t have let go of you if Lord Voldemort himself commanded it.  

He likely would have died with that tight grip still around your wrist in those moments if someone had hit him with the killing curse. 

He slowed the broom down, turning up out of the dive, intent to get you away from the fight, driving forward. Scarily, his arm muscles were already shaking from holding up all of your body weight. 

You stared up at him with tears of pure terror dancing in your eyes, and though he was wearing the mask of The Chosen One - in those moments, the terrified, caring, loving eyes of your Fred were staring right back at you. 

As much as you trusted him, you felt yourself slipping out of his grip, and more fear swelled inside of you. 

“Freddie, help me!” You screamed, shaking, flailing under his grip, trying to reach your other arm up to help as he struggled to hold onto you. “Freddie, please, I don’t wanna die!” 

“I’m not gonna let you die!” He replied, desperation gripping his throat. “Just - look at me. Don’t look down.” 

Of course, you were distinctly reminded of that day at The World Cup. And somehow, you felt the same sense of safety with him now that you did then - even if you didn’t have the railing or even the gravity of something under your feet. 

His muscles shook harder, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold onto you for much longer. 

He had to pull you up. 

“I’ve got you.” Fred huffed, straining with the effort. “I’ve got you-” 

He tried pulling you up, but his muscles shook harder in protest, and he let out a harsh, murderous scream of frustration. And then he did the only thing that he could think to do. He gripped onto you tighter, and he used his legs and his other hand to do a sickeningly sharp barrel roll, twisting the broom completely around by leaning with his right shoulder. He flipped the entire broom with the hopes that you would get the chance to be flipped back onto it safely. 

Luckily, even though you let out another terrified scream, you got the hint and hooked your leg around the wood mid-air, holstering your shaking body back behind him. You gripped onto Fred even tighter then, and one glance around told you that luckily, or unluckily, the fight had cleared off from around the two of you. 

Perhaps they had heard you call this imposter Harry by the name ‘Fred’, perhaps you had given the real Harry away and ruined the whole plan. As you squeezed your eyes shut again and shoved your now tearful face into Fred’s back, selfishly, you couldn’t bring yourself to truly care. 

The rest of the trip went on too long for your liking - you were still crawling with anxiety and eager to have your feet back on the ground. 

Toward the end of it, you felt Harry-Fred’s body shift back into the tall, more muscular form that you were familiar with (somehow a bit more muscular than you remembered, but you tried not to get caught up on that detail). You were more than relieved when you felt your feet brushing against the ground with the landing. Distantly, you heard the familiar, comfortingly worried baulking of Molly’s voice, and you opened your eyes to see that Fred’s head was much higher up than it had been before, and his hair was thankfully returned back to its bright red state. 

Molly rushed over to Fred, and there was some conversation, but you couldn’t make it out - blood was thumping in your ears, your body still overtaken by all the horrible symptoms of your fear. The moment that Fred dropped the broom in order to step away from it, you stumbled off into the grass on weak legs. 

You hardly realised that you were hyperventilating - you simply felt dizzy, felt your chest aching from the lack of breath; you noticed that your vision was blurred with tears, and you knew that you weren’t getting enough oxygen. You pressed now muddy hands to your face in desperation, trying to usher more air past your lips, and it was then that a streak of orange fell into your view as Fred dropped to his knees in front of you. He had heard you gasping, and of course, rushed to you with nothing more than concern flooding his system once again. 

“Hey, hey, look at me.” He murmured, trying his best not to panic himself at seeing you like this - he gently took a hold of your face, guiding your vision toward him. “Look at me. You’re alright now. You’re safe.” 

Of course you knew that. You knew that you would always be safe with Fred. 

But your body hadn’t even registered the fact that you had landed yet - the panic only now fully setting in, bringing with it the most cruel, shocking symptoms you had ever experienced. You did the only thing you could think of - the only thing that would truly make you feel safe. Something you knew would truly ground you after experiencing such chaos so high up in the air. 

You launched yourself toward Fred, pressing your face into his chest, wrapping your arms tightly around his waist in a firm hug as you tried to stifle down sobs. He easily accepted this, his thick arms coming to cradle your back, selfishly thankful to have you back in his arms. He gently rocked you back and forth as he peppered more soothing words beside your ear. 

“You’re alright now, darling.” He said, letting the pet name slip so easily that it frightened him. He rubbed a hand up and down your back, feeling your gasping panic all too quickly soothe away under the firm warmth of his touch. “You’re alright.” 

Almost instinctively, he laid a kiss on your temple, not entirely realising that this wasn’t necessarily something an ex-boyfriend would do - he was so ripe with the urge to comfort you, the need to make your pain go away. He couldn’t help but take a little something selfish as the empathetic waves of your panic echoed over to him. 

“I was never gonna let you fall.” He whispered, almost speaking these words to himself - a sacred promise. 

He had regretted every day since the break-up, and even if he couldn’t be your lover, he was never going to let you get hurt. 

You gripped him tighter, your breathing almost back to normal now, and you pushed your face tighter into his chest, relishing in the firm warmth of his body against you. This was something you hadn’t felt in far too long. Fred placed another kiss on the top of your head. He was about to say something entirely dangerous when another bit of chaos came tumbling through the garden, distracting him away from you and causing the words to die off in his throat. 

Remus, hauling George across the grass - and George, slumped over, a massive amount of blood dripping down the side of his head. 

“Georgie.” Fred gasped quietly. 

Your head whipped around at this, and in sync, you and Fred scrambled to your feet, rushing to see what had happened to him. Fred lifted George’s other arm to help get him inside and safely rested him on the couch. 

It was a horror show. 

The flesh of George’s ear had been blown to bits, blood smearing down across his face and spilling down the side of his neck; he was sickly pale and barely conscious. His eyes only flickered, giving you some sense of life in him when Fred called out his name after making sure he was resting comfortably on the couch. 

“Georgie?” 

There was a rare quiver in Fred’s voice that made your stomach quake. Fear. You were not accustomed to hearing Fred fearful, not of anything. Even when he had abandoned Hogwarts and dove into a career as a shop owner without a single clue if he would find success, he did so without a single bit of fear in his heart. 

But of course - seeing his dear brother like this, knowing that someone he loved had been so close to danger - it made him terrified. 

“Hey, Fred.” George croaked back weakly. 

At least he was conscious enough to speak. That gave you quite a bit of relief. 

“How’re ya feeling?” Fred asked. 

“Saint-like.” George replied, a tired smirk gracing his lips that told you he was forming a joke - something that was utterly hilarious in his mind that would only make sense to others when he delivered the punch line. 

You wanted to sob, you wanted to laugh, you wanted to scream. Of course he would be making jokes only moments after nearly being killed. 

“Come again?” Fred said quietly, tentatively. 

Perhaps it sounded partially dangerous to him like it did to you. Perhaps George felt Saint-like because he was too close to death. 

Both of you and Fred held your breath as you waited for the reply. 

“Saint-like.” George grinned. And then he lifted a tired hand and gestured toward the bloody hole on the side of his head before he delivered his glowing punchline. “I’m holy. I’m holy, Fred. Get it?” 

Fred grinned, and you let out a gasping chuckle that you knew was mostly tears. Behind you, Molly inhaled sharply through her teeth, running a hand over her forehead with the stress, and Ginny shook her head as she exhaled an exhausted sigh. 

“The whole wide world of ear related humour, and you go for ‘I’m holy’?” Fred replied, unable to resist humouring George. “That’s pathetic.” 

You knew that if either of them knew anything about the story of the Muggle painter Van Gogh, then they would have been making jokes in that lane. 

“Reckon I’m still better looking than you.” George added on tiredly. 

“You were always better looking than him.” You said, your voice throttled by tears, unable to resist. 

When you turned around to retreat, you saw Ginny clutching onto Molly, clearly hiding tears in her mother’s shoulder, Molly’s face dancing with a kind of sadness you had never seen before. You knew you couldn’t run from your pain. You had known the Weasleys for so long, loved them too much. You had a distinct kind of duty here. 

“Molly, do you have a cauldron around?” You asked, hating how choked with tears your voice was. “I can whip-up something for his pain. I do it at the shop all the time. And a Sleeping Draught, so he can get some rest.” 

It was true - one of your many duties working at the Apothecary was making and bottling simple, common potions to sell (pregnancy test potions, simple multi-use pain potions, Dreamless Sleep Draughts, cures for warts and other common rashes) - many people liked the convenience of coming in and buying a potion for everyday uses rather than having to make it themselves. 

“There’s no need-” George began to protest, but Fred easily cut him off. 

“Come off it.” Fred hissed toward his brother, not taking kindly to ‘selfless’ idea of George not accepting something for the pain he was clearly in. Then, Fred rose up from his place beside George and turned to you with a look of intense concern on his features. “Whatever you need.” 

… 

You had barely begun to set up everything you needed for the brewing when the others finally came in, bringing more chaos with them. Remus accused Harry of being an imposter, which was quickly proven false. Apparently the Order had been betrayed, which explained the presence of Death Eaters on the mission so easily. They had used inside information to know when Harry was being transported - it was only luck that they had been thrown off by the Polyjuice Potion, having to chase down multiple Harrys and not knowing which one was real (even if George got gravely injured in the process). 

Mad-Eye had been killed. 

You weren’t sure if what you felt was mourning for the man. You hadn’t known him all that well. Not the true version of him, anyway. You continued to weep quietly as you worked on the potions, but you knew it wasn’t specifically for him. His death only served to remind you how truly dangerous the mission had been - how close you, Fred, and George, and the others had all come to death. How lucky it was that nobody else had been killed. 

You tried not to let the suffocating gloom that had overtaken the Burrow due to the near failure of the entire mission disrupt the process of making the potions needed for George. When Molly didn’t have some of the ingredients that you needed, you gave Fred your spare key to the Apothecary and he popped over to get them for you. Mr. Michaelchuk, who ran the place, had always told you to ‘take what you needed’, and this was the one time you had actually taken him up on the offer. 

When Fred returned, he fussed at George’s side, helping him change into pyjamas (when everyone else had cleared out) and tucking him in comfortably to a makeshift bed on the couch, with lots of pillows and extra cosy blankets, to the point where he got annoyed with Fred coddling him. You always knew that the two were good friends in addition to being brothers, as close as two people can be, but you had never seen so much abundant affection between them. It was sweet. 

Molly came back downstairs wearing a plaid dressing gown, with a pair of tiny reading glasses balanced on her nose, her slippers scuffing along the floor. She mentioned that Arthur was already ‘snoring away’ - but of course, she had no intentions of going to bed herself. Because of course, if George was down here on the couch, it was so that she could watch over him while she busied herself with knitting - much like she had when Arthur had been on the ward at St. Mungo’s after he had been attacked by the snake. You had gotten a particularly nice jumper for Christmas that year, one that you still wore often when it got particularly cold outside. 

Fred had settled to sit on the couch by George’s feet, and the two had fallen into a hushed conversation, though you didn’t hear most of it. And of course, it wasn’t long before Molly rushed Fred off to bed, just like she had done with everyone else, wanting to give George the space to rest without distractions from visitors. 

“-just get her back, you idiot.” You hear George hiss in a whisper before Molly pushed Fred toward the stairs. 

He couldn’t possibly be talking about…? 

No. 

No, he wasn’t. 

You didn’t think about it. Instead, you let yourself get lost in the meditative process of brewing, making sure that the potions were perfect. You made sure that George was pain-free and lost to a deep, restful, healing sleep (with a few pre-brewed bottles of the potions to spare that would keep his pain at bay for the next few days) before you finally went upstairs, ready to collapse with exhaustion. 

You passed by Fred and George’s room on your way to your final destination, Ginny’s room, where you would be staying with her and Hermione, from now up until Bill and Fleur’s wedding. After which, you would return to your apartment above the Apothecary and try to resume your best sense of ‘normal’ life. All of your things were already unpacked in Ginny’s room, and you had a sleeping bag set up on the floor there. 

But of course, you naturally came to a stop at the mouth of Fred’s open bedroom doorway, letting an instinctive caring overtake you and participating in the need to check on him. 

The sight you saw made your heart ache. 

Fred was sitting on the edge of his twin bed, his posture slumped with pure exhaustion. He hadn’t even changed out of the now ill-fitting Harry clothes that he had to wear for the mission: jeans, a tee shirt, and a grey sport jacket that were now coated in dirt and traces of George’s blood, all oddly short in the limbs and emphasising his tallness, his hands still stained bright red in a way that couldn’t be washed off. 

His face was marked with tear tracks, and his tired, dead gaze was fixated on George’s still neatly made matching twin bed. A space that was hauntingly empty across from his - a sign that his brother was missing. A sign of just how easily someone precious could have been taken from him that night. 

“Freddie?” 

You croaked out, the nickname slipping out in a way you couldn’t control once again, causing him to snap out of whatever distant, depressing thoughts he was caught in. His head jolted toward you, only now realising that you had been standing in the doorway for so long. 

“Y/N,” He responded, his voice choked by tiredness, sadness. 

It was so alarmingly strange to see someone who was usually the pinnacle of laughter reduced down to this. You had never seen Fred Weasley so sad before. 

You had seen him angry, on occasion - like when someone insulted you, or when he had been banned from Quidditch for getting into a fistfight with Malfoy. You had seen him annoyed - like when he found out that the age to enter the TriWizard Tournament was seventeen, and he was only a few months away from being eligible. (You were thankful for that one, and secretly thankful when his Ageing Potion had failed). 

You had seen Fred go through a lot - but you genuinely believed that was the first time you had seen him so deflated in the face of the world. 

He rose to his feet, turned his back to you, almost as if trying to hide. He raised a hand to his face, and your heart ached more when you realised that he was trying to wipe away tears. 

“Come on, let’s get you ready for bed.” You said, moving forward, gently putting a hand on his shoulder, moving up to peel the sport jacket off him. 

You knew that the sadness, something he so rarely felt, had paralyzed him. You knew that sleep was what all of you needed right now - some rest to get your heads on straight. And you wanted to help him in any way that you could. 

“I can’t-” Fred huffed, stepping away from you, putting some distance between the two of you in the small room. “I can’t do this right now.” 

Your stomach curled into a horrible knot as he echoed the words he had spoken to you on that horrible day, when he had broken up with you and relinquished himself from your presence without a second thought. 

It truly hit you then - he didn’t want your help. He didn’t want to be near you now. He had only held you close a few hours ago because it had been a matter of life and death. He had helped to calm you down because it was the friendly thing to do. He didn’t want you here now. 

“Okay.” You choked out, nodding, taking a step toward the door. “O-okay.” 

A hot tear rolled down your face, and you moved to make your way toward Ginny’s room. You were harshly whipped across the emotional spectrum again when Fred stopped you. 

“Y/N, no.” He said, reaching out and grabbing onto your elbow. “Wait.” 

“What, Fred?” You wheezed, your body breathless and exhausted from the horrible roller coaster that you had been on that night. You knew that you glared at him horribly, but you couldn’t help it. “What is it that you want from me?” 

Fred took a step back, as though you had burned him, running stiff hands through his hair. You could have easily run off, turned your back on him and never spoken to him again. Just like he had done to you on that day so long ago. But you waited with your chest tight, waiting for him to finally give you an answer. Did he want to be friends? Did he want you to disappear from his life completely? Did he want-? 

“I can’t-” He choked out, clearly struggling for breath. “I can’t…” 

He swallowed around a fat tongue, and after a heavy moment, he finally got the words out. 

“I can’t lose you.” 

The words spooked you more than the sight of George’s bloodied, blown-apart ear. 

You stared Fred down with a ghost in your eyes, somehow more terrified than you had been when you had been dangling hundreds of feet above London. He was frantic, rapidly searching for more words to explain himself. 

“I - I almost…” He gasped, his throat tightly constricting again. “You almost slipped out of my hands.” 

He spoke the words as though they were a horrible curse, raising his hands in front of him as if to demonstrate the point, as if to demonise his own limbs for not having enough strength to hold you up. His hands shook with undistilled anxiety, with anger towards himself. 

His declaration gave you that sickly sense of nausea, as though you were back up in the air again. You realised that maybe he hadn’t been sitting on the edge of the bed, mourning about potentially losing George - but instead, he had been thinking about you. 

“I didn’t. I didn’t slip.” You replied, the words choked off in your throat, rushing to assure him of the good he had done. 

You were unable to resist the urge to reach out and take his hands in yours, steadying his grip with a firm anger of your own. You were unsure how he could be so cruel toward himself when he had saved your life only hours before. 

“You held me up, Fred. You didn’t let me fall.” 

He let out a huff, shaking his head negatively. 

You knew there was something more troubling him - something deeper that he had yet to speak of, or perhaps wouldn’t tell you at all. He grinded his jaw tightly and slipped his hands away from yours. You stood there, looking at him tensely, wondering if he was going to clue you in, or if he would simply say goodnight and let himself stew with whatever horrible emotions he was feeling. 

“I can’t live like this.” He declared harshly, his throat raw. “I can’t live with you at arm’s length.” 

So what? Was he saying that… he was upset about the break-up? 

Was he saying that he hadn’t actually wanted to be apart from you? 

A look of pure confusion knit across your features, and in the murky silence, Fred moved on to explaining. 

“I let you go once before.” 

He whispered, the words so quiet on his lips, a crazed type of regret dancing in his eyes - in an instant, you knew he wasn’t talking about the mission or flying. He was talking about how easily he let you go from his life - the break-up. 

“I let you slip away from me far too easily. And it was the stupidest thing I have ever done.” 

“Freddie-?” You choked out, more chaotic emotions rocketing through your body now. Anticipation, anxiety - that love for him that you had bottled away slowly creeping back in. But you couldn’t bear to let it flow through you, not yet, not until you knew. 

“If one of us were to die tomorrow, I couldn’t live my last day knowing that I wasted it not being yours.” He declared, the pure passion in his words causing every small hair on your body to stand up on end, making you dizzy. “I know that I’m the biggest git on earth for what I did to you, and for not apologising sooner, but please, please, please, darling-” 

You couldn’t take it anymore. 

You grabbed both sides of the sport jacket and used it to haul him down toward you, planting your mouth firmly onto his, moaning into a kiss that you had longed for, having so sorely missed the touch of his lips on yours. 

You had missed him so damn much. 

Fred was quick to keep up, letting out a delighted sigh of his own, his stomach doing flips in delight, almost in disbelief of just how lucky he was that you hadn’t slapped him across the face and stormed out. 

When your hands ventured down, smoothing across his body - he became even more delighted that you seemed to want more than a kiss out of him. And he was quick to prepare. 

He reached to his back pocket for his wand and pointed it at the still open bedroom door, performing a quick spell that slammed it shut and locked it. In the back of his mind, he was thankful that his bedroom had some silencing wards around it from the days when Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes had been in its infancy, operating their prototype experiments out of this room in the darkest hours of the morning. (Percy got sick of being woken up by the twins’ excited voices and the sound of sputtering cauldrons, and put the silencing wards around their room for his own sake, not knowing how much more it let the twins get away with.) 

Fred was surprised when you took another fitful grip on the front of his shirt, using it to direct him back toward his bed and shoving him down onto it with a strength that he barely knew you had. He fell sideways across the small twin bed, his knees crumbling along the side of the mattress, leaving him sitting with his feet on the floor and his body half collapsed against the tightly tucked-in covers that his mother had prepared before everyone’s arrival. 

He was utterly weak to your whims, anyway, and would have gone wherever you put him. 

He was expecting you to climb on top of him, something needy inside of him yearning for the feeling of your body on top of his after missing it for so long. And he found himself further surprised when you dropped to your knees in front of him, settling your shoulders between his spread thighs, forcing him to spread his legs wider apart to accommodate you. The action spiking a sharp breath out of his lips when you shoved up the hem of the shirt that technically wasn’t his and reached for the button on the jeans that fit him even worse as his cock grew to life underneath them. 

“Y/N, darling-” He choked out, breathy and sharp through his teeth, an intense wave of lust hitting him all at once. 

All night, both of you had been through the emotional ringer - calm determination, fear, possessiveness, mild relief, grief. All while trying to hold back your emotions for each other, balancing right on the edge. Trying desperately to hold each other at arm’s length. 

And now he had you right where he wanted you, where he had been dreaming of you being for months since the break-up; and for some stupid reason, some part of him still felt that it was wrong. That part of him screaming that he should be the one on his knees serving you, that he needed to better apologise-

He reached for your shoulder, clearly trying to coax you back up onto the bed with him, and you swatted the touch away. 

“Don’t-” You choked in return, continuing on your determined path, ripping his zipper down and tugging at the waistband of his jeans. “Freddie, please. Let me do this.” 

You looked up at him with a glassy heat in your eyes that he had never seen before. All the times he had pinned you against walls in quiet corners at Hogwarts, with his hand up your skirt - he had never seen you so wild, so desperate. 

Something utterly possessive rippled through you - something that screamed that you needed to have him weak and moaning for you, that you needed to worship him, to thank him for doing the impossible and saving your life. He was a strong, wonderful man and you needed to taste that strength. You needed to know that you were the only thing that could have him weak, quivering, begging. 

“Fuck-” Fred hissed out when you reached past the band of his underwear and grabbed his cock - your warm touch wrapped around his shaft felt like a deadly awakening, especially when it had been so long since anything but his own had had touched his cock. 

All too soon, he surrendered to you entirely and lifted his hips, slipping the fabric of his jeans and his underwear down completely past his thighs, letting you have whatever you wanted from him. He supposed that’s how it always went with the two of you - he would let you have whatever you wanted, even before you asked. (That’s why the break-up had gone down the way it had - it had been the one time he had been stubborn on something, not simply letting you have your own way.) 

You took him in your hand, slowly pumping his length as you admired him, gently re-familiarising yourself with his body, feeling like it had been far too long. 

“Did you miss it, darling?” He asked, looking down the length of his body at you with a cocky smile stretched across his soft lips. 

You rolled your eyes, hating the possibility of making his ego any larger. 

“Oh yes, your wonderful big cock was the thing I missed most about you,” You griped in return, hoping that your sarcastic tone was more than apparent. 

“I knew you only wanted me for my body.” Fred chuckled. 

As much as you wanted to deny it - Fred Weasley’s cock was a marvel that you couldn’t have forgotten if you had tried. 

During your time apart, it haunted your heated dreams, turning them into nightmares of pure want, your mind dangling something in front of you that you couldn’t have. It made things even worse when he would come into the Apothecary, flirting with you and flashing you a smile, showing off his broad shoulders in those fine tailored suit jackets and making your eyes flicker to his zipper in an utterly whorish way. 

Now, you felt spoiled to have it in front of you again - the perfect beastly eight inches, lean and tall just like he was, curved off slightly to the side, sticking off from a sparse patch of ginger hair. 

Your pussy clenched as you thought about having him inside of you again for the first time in so long, giving you that perfectly full feeling that your fingers never could - but you craved his taste first. You wanted him under your control - you knew part of it was driven by all the fear you had experienced that night, all the chaos that had made you feel so powerless. You needed to feel alive, needed to wield power over someone, something. 

You got your mouth on his cock with a downright feral hunger. 

Fred let out a deep moan and threw his head back, collapsing onto his elbows as the heat and wetness of your mouth enveloped the heat of his cock - it sent another wave of lust zipping through him, reminding him just how throbbing hard he was, just how much he needed you. This was made even worse when you moaned around him - you couldn’t help but to enjoy the feeling of his cock in your mouth, perfectly full, making you choke in such a beautiful way when you dropped down to take more of him. 

“Fuck, darling, shite-” 

You quickly became drunk on the feeling. 

Your eyes fell closed and you simply let yourself enjoy it, loving the fullness of his big, beautiful cock filling up your mouth. With a hand loosely wrapped around the base of his cock, your jaw wide as you began bobbing your head. Your tongue flat against the base, tasting as much of him as you could while you enjoyed the feeling of him so fat and thick in your mouth, gagging you slightly whenever the round tip hit against the back of your throat. It was a perfect, slow rhythm that agonised him and delighted you, and soon had spit pooling around your knuckles. 

The wetness drove him even more insane, especially when it allowed for your soft lips to move slicker against his shaft. 

“Goddammit, please, please, oh-” 

You could feel his thighs begin to quake and quiver beside you, and you wondered if he was close already. 

You couldn’t resist the urge to pull off - wanting to tease him a little. Part of you wanted that bit of revenge, wanting to get him back for the pain he had caused you when he had turned his back on you that day. Though you weren’t entirely cruel, and you didn’t leave him hanging out to dry completely. 

You kept your hand pumping on his now spit-slicked cock (it was that slow, agonising rhythm that caused him to pant like a needy dog), and you moved your mouth downward, giving in to the personal urge to lick and suck on his heavy balls. You did want to drive him a bit more insane, and give into your personal curiosity about what the heavy sac would feel like against your tongue. 

“Fucking - oh - darling, what are you doing to me-? That fucking mouth-” 

Fred wasn’t sure if this was heaven or hell. 

It left him stuck in some sick purgatory where the woman he loved had turned into a sex-crazed vixen, but wouldn’t let him touch you everywhere he wanted to most. Instead, he was sentenced to stare at you as your gorgeous mouth teased his aching cock, making him harder, driving him madder with every stroke of your little devilish tongue. He couldn’t take it anymore - not when your pretty fingers gripped around the base of his cock just right and your lips suctioned so perfectly around one of his bullocks. 

He wouldn’t waste the night cumming over your fist without getting his hands on you properly first. 

He weaved his fingers into your hair and yanked you back, caused you to let out a small yelp - not one of pain, but a bitter sound of complaint as you were pulled off his cock too early for your liking. The sharp tingle of him pulling on your hair caused your tongue to lull out, trailing a filthy bit of spit back to his balls that had him growling. 

Before any words could form, he leaned down and used this grip on your hair to guide you to his lips, shoving his tongue into your open, waiting mouth - something that had you moaning once again, and easily following his lead as he guided you up to sit on his thigh. 

“Don’t expect that I’m gonna waste it all over your hand, darling.” He murmured against your lips between heated kisses. “When I cum tonight, it’s gonna be deep inside your sweet cunt, yeah?” 

You moaned loudly at this. 

You had devolved past the point of words now - having his cock so thick and heavy in your mouth only making you fuzzy-headed and more needy for him. You unconsciously canted your hips against his thigh, grinding your pussy against him through the fabric of your jeans, needing more. You panted against his cheek as he moved deft fingers to undo the button and zipper of your pants while he continued to speak. 

“I need you, pretty girl.” 

He growled lowly in your ear, the pure passion of the declaration causing such intense waves of lust through you that you would have collapsed - if not for the brick wall of his muscled body holding you up. (Hold you up for the dozenth time that night, only for a drastically different reason this time). 

“I need to see you cum on my cock. Missed this pretty cunt so much, can’t wait-” 

He trailed off in his crazed lustful ramblings when he shoved his fingers past the now open fly of your jeans and into your underwear, quickly finding a distinct wetness and landing on your clit with a firm touch like a magnet. 

“Freddie!” You wept into his neck, bucking into the touch as you tumbled into a madness of your own. 

He began circling quickly on your clit, enjoying your gasps and other sounds, enjoying the feeling of you bucking so wildly on his thigh. All too soon, he was overtaken by a little pinch of mischief that always crept up on him. The urge to get you back for your earlier teasing. He quickly removed his hand and felt a smirk spread across his lips at the deflated little whimper you made, your eyes snapping open just in time to catch him licking your wetness off his fingers. 

“Fred-” You began to protest, sharp demanding in your tone. 

“Come on, get these clothes off,” He said, giving you a firm pat on the ass that made you far too weak to his whims. 

“Freddie-” You whined this time - and rather than giving into you, he brought up a fantastic point. 

“The faster you get your clothes off, the faster I can get my cock in you.” He whispered hotly against your ear, making you shiver. 

You hated that he was right. 

You stood up, moving to strip your shirt off over your head, glaring at him the whole time while he also began to strip himself. 

“Go on, good girl.” 

You hated how those words made you even wetter. You hated how easily he manipulated you based on weaknesses he knew so well. 

“I hate you.” You mumbled quietly, absolutely no heat in the words as you reached to unclip your bra. 

“Oh darling, if only that were true.” 

He said pointedly, mourning peeking through that bit of mischief in his eyes. Something you didn’t have too much time to decode as stood to his full height to untangle his jeans from his legs, knowing that you would quake in his shadow and become even more turned on from this. 

Once you were both naked, he ushered you down onto the bed, making sure that you were comfortable with your head on the pillow as he captured your mouth in another needy kiss. You moaned against his lips, easily sucking his tongue in as you tangled your fingers into that fiery red hair and gave an appreciative tug. You then tucked your knee up over his hip, opening yourself up to him - this caused his heavy cock to brush against your wetness, making you gasp into his mouth as the two of you made contact for the first time in far too long. 

“Freddie-” You gasped, unconsciously bucking your hips up, causing your pussy to wetly slide against his cock in a way that forced a deep groan out of him. “Oh, fuck, oh-” 

“Shh, darling, Daddy’s got you,” Fred replied, palming across your forehead and your hair in an almost gentle way while he further parted your thighs with a firm knee. 

His words caused you to choke on another moan. 

You had heard Fred refer to himself as ‘Daddy’ before - but much like everything else in his life, it was always a joke. He would be buying his favourite sweets and mumble ‘come to Daddy’ before tearing open the package and devouring them. He would say that his codename was ‘Big Daddy’ when setting up a particularly epic prank. (George was ‘Big Red’ and you were usually ‘Darling’ or ‘Garden Flower’. They were not the most useful or top secret codenames.) You had heard him jokingly shout ‘Daddy’s home’ when returning to the Gryffindor common room, only to have the expected laughs and jokes in return. 

You had never expected that the name would turn you on so much. But you had never, ever expected to hear it in this context. You had also never expected that it would sound so natural in this context. But it suited him so well. It seemed to only compliment the gentle kind of caring he gave you - how protective he was over you, how safe he made you feel. 

“Daddy,” You moaned in return - Fred gripped your hip with a deadly, bruising grip and looked at you with a fierce heat in his eyes. 

Hearing that word from your lips turned him on in a way he couldn’t explain. And in that moment, it took every bit of his personal will not to slam his cock into you and hammer his hips forward until you said it again, and again, and again. Until you screamed it. 

He took a hold of his cock with the other hand, and you expected him to slide into you, finally giving you both what you truly needed - but instead, he began rubbing the round head of his cock against your clit, further teasing you. You let out a gasp and looked at him with pleading in your eyes. 

“Freddie,” You whined, attempting to angle your hips up, fruitlessly trying to trick him to slip his cock inside of you. You knew him too well, knowing that once he got the tip in, he wouldn’t be able to resist fucking you senseless. But he held you down with the hand on your hip, making you barely able to move at all against his muscular hold and the awkward angle he had you pinned with. 

“Come on, sweets,” He purred, laying a kiss on your forehead, and then your cheek, trailing kisses down your neck as he murmured against your skin. “Tell Daddy what you need. Say the word and I’ll give you anything you want.” 

He began roughly smacking his cockhead against your clit, making you jolt and gasp sharper, making your pussy leak furiously against the bed. You cried out and gripped his hair tightly, almost meanly, desperate for the teasing to end. You didn’t see the way he was staring at your cunt, mesmerised by the sight of your swollen pearl kissing against his cock, glistening, wet and needy. Something that he would burn into his brain forever and most definitely revisit on lonely nights. 

“Please, Daddy!” You moaned, hoping the name alone would goad him into giving in. But you knew what he truly wanted, and you couldn’t wait any longer. “Please - fuck - I need your cock. I need you to fuck me, I need-” 

Perhaps he was truly satisfied by this, or perhaps he couldn’t take the teasing anymore himself - either way, he finally guided his cock down to your pulsing entrance and pushed in, swearing hotly under his breath when the tight, wet, perfect heat of your cunt began sucking him in for the first time in over a year. 

“Oh, oh fuck, Freddie,” You moaned, tugging on his hair. “Oh-” 

“Fucking perfect,” He swore into your ear. “Dammit, I’ve missed this pussy so much.” He choked on a groan as he continued slowly inching his hips forward, splitting you open with his massive length, making your pussy ache and burn in the most perfect way. “Good girl. So good for me. So good for Daddy,” 

You both moaned loudly once he was fully seated inside of you - you, feeling that deep satisfaction of feeling so perfectly full once again, and Fred so deeply enjoying the wet warmth of your pussy around him that was so irreplaceable because it was you. 

Sensing your need, especially after all his teasing, and after spending so long without him - he didn’t make you wait any longer. 

Fred began rocking his hips into yours at a gentle, even pace, not wanting to hurt you. From the sound of your gentle whines and the feeling of you squirming beneath him, he could tell that you needed more. He could tell that now wasn’t the time for holding back. 

He let out a gentle grunt and you became even more heated and curious as he began shifting around, some clear intent on his mind. You let out a sharp gasp when he raised himself up on his knees, poising himself in the perfect position to fuck you hard, deep, and powerful. Then, he made it even more deadly when he grabbed you by the backs of your thighs, making more air hiss out through your lips when he pressed your body practically in half, pressing your knees up toward your chest before he hooked his arms under your legs to keep them there and planted his hands firmly on either side of your chest. 

The two of you were even closer, even more intimate, and you felt him so much deeper inside of you. 

“Freddie,” 

You croaked out darkly, already feeling him so much deeper as he settled in above you. Your pussy was leaking furiously around him now, clenching tightly and waiting for him to move as a ghost of dark mischief danced through his eyes that promised you were in for the sweetest kind of hell. 

“Good?” He asked, smirking at you. 

“Yes, but what about-?” 

You wanted to warn him not to make too much noise, not to break the bed, which was already creaking in protest underneath the two of you - but he didn’t entirely care. Fred never truly cared about the consequences of his actions once he got an idea in his head - to him, the thrill was more than worth whatever pain may befall him. 

The only time that hadn’t been true was when he had made the foolish, heat-of-the-moment mistake of breaking up with you. And now, he had to make up for it. 

He put all the power into his muscled thighs (the same muscled thighs that had saved you just a few hours ago by gripping onto his broom and steadying the flight) - and ploughed forward with intense power. This began an unforgiving, hard rhythm of pounding into your cunt in hard, deep, fast strokes. 

In seconds, you were putty beneath him - he had you perfectly pinned in place so that you couldn’t have moved an inch if you wanted to, all you could do was lay there and take it. You were weak against the savage movements of his long cock fucking into your swollen pussy over and over again, filling you up in the best way you could have imagined, becoming everything you needed in the world. 

As the room filled with the harsh, wet slaps of his skin against yours and your weak moans, followed by his increasingly animalistic grunts - all there was in the world was you and Fred, the space where the two of you met, the place where he had your thighs pinned open so that his cock could absolutely ruin your pussy.  

“Good girl, such a good girl for me,” He growled against your lips - you moaned pathetically in return, flooding even more wetness around his cock, making the sound of him fucking into you embarrassingly slicker. “Never should have let you go. Should have kept you right here, right where you belong,” 

You wanted to tell him that perhaps the fight was both of your faults, that you should have reached out to him sooner and told him that you wanted him back. That the time apart had been so dreadfully tender for you too. 

But your brain was soup, only further stirred up by the tip of his cock poking around in your guts. So any words you could have said chased out of your lungs with every passionate thrust of his hips up into your wet pussy, and all you managed in return was: 

“Daddy! Fuck, oh-!” 

“Shh, darling, I know.” Fred mumbled into your neck, taking a sloppy, greedy lick of your skin. “I know, sweets. Daddy’s gonna give you what you need. Gonna keep you fucked n’ full. Never gonna let you go again. Never gonna let anyone else touch you-” 

Fred’s hips stuttered and you tightly squeezed around his cock at the words. 

Perhaps it was a wink of his personal insecurity peeking through. The horrifying idea that because he had broken up with you, you might find somebody else. When in fact, you had been so caught up on him, only thinking about him, waiting for him. (The whole time, thinking that he had broken up with you because he no longer had any favour in his heart for you.) 

“Just you, Freddie.” You breathed out, desperately trying to get air past your now very chapped lips. “Always yours-” 

“Yes, mine.” He replied, that crazed desperation returning to his voice. “Mine, my girl.” 

He sealed his lips against yours, grinding his hips tightly against your pelvis rather than fucking you with any kind of rhythm now - showing you just how deep he was inside of you, just how much he owned you, truly, from the inside out. It was something that made your stomach clench, made your body buzz with electricity, and made you whine around his tongue. 

You were close. 

Fred knew this - he knew you too well. He moved a hand down to your clit, letting one of your legs drop slightly, and had two determined fingers on your throbbing clit while he picked up the pace again, pulling his lips back from yours. 

“You gonna cum for me? Gonna cum for Daddy like a good girl?” 

His words, his velvet voice speaking to you so commanding yet so sweet, were what truly brought your orgasm to life in your belly. His voice made the fullness of his cock and the sharpness of his fingers on your clit all the more electric. You likely could have cum just from his words alone if he kept speaking to you that way. 

“Yes, Daddy.” You moaned in response. 

“Good girl. Come on,” 

He breathed hotly against your chin, his eyes now eagerly dancing from your face to the space where your cunt hugged his dick, leaking around him in such a wonderfully filthy way. Clearly, he wasn’t sure where he wanted to look, what part of the show he was more eager to witness after missing out on you for too long. 

“Come on, cum on my cock. Cum for me, love, good girl-” 

His heated words trailed off as your head snapped back and your eyes squeezed shut, your fingers digging sharply into his bicep as your orgasm rocked your body. Fred grunted as he continued to fuck you through it, his eyes glued to you, taking in every single inch of the sexy beauty that was you, the love of his life, as you thrashed and moaned and came on his cock. It was the most perfect sight he could have imagined, and he easily ingrained into his mind forever, praying that he would never have to miss out on it - to miss out on you - ever again. 

“Yes, yes darling, so good for me, so good-” He practically choked on his own words, his voice so thick with lust that it barbed the insides of his throat. 

As he felt the last weak spasms of your pussy around his cock, he stopped rubbing your sore clit and became possessed with a new need, becoming slightly selfish now. He fucked his hips forward even harder, determined to find his own pleasure inside the sweet, soft walls of your cunt. 

“Fucking hell-” He choked out a groan, dropping his head into your neck again as you petted through his hair, encouraging him through it while he unintentionally sent sharp zaps of overstimulation through your pussy with every needy, sharp push of his hips. 

“Freddie,” You breathed out. “Come on, Daddy, cum for me. You’ve been so good to me, come on-” 

He let you another loud growl and pounded into you harder, dropping his hold on your other knee and letting your legs rest to cradle around his waist as he blindly chased his own end inside your soft, wet cunt. 

“Gonna fill you up, gonna fill you up so good,” He whispered into your neck, chanting like a man possessed, sending another unexpected wave of heat through you that made you moan weakly. “All mine, all mine, darling, all mine, gonna give you what you need, fuck-” 

He tried to silence his moans into your neck as he stiffened his back and finally came - his own orgasm hitting him like a firework. He shoved his hips forward stiffly one last time, seating his cock deeply inside of you, stuffing you full, just like he had promised. He gentled grinded his hips against yours in mindless, stuttering strokes while he pumped spurts of hot cum deep inside of you - something that made your body buzz with even more heat and made you moan in return, clutching onto him tightly with your legs around his waist and your arms around his shoulders. 

“Oh darling, oh-” He muttered quietly against your neck as the last waves of his orgasm washed over him. 

It was so perfect, and made you feel so utterly connected to him. It was a distinct reminder of everything you had missed - his warmth, his caring, the thrill he gave you while at the same time making you feel so damn safe. 

When Fred moved to pull away from you, moving to break that connection, every instinct in your body screamed that it was wrong. You clenched your legs around him, digging a heel into his lower back to keep him close, and he let out a grunt - still dizzy from his orgasm and unsure what you were doing. But he settled back into place, creating a filthy ‘squish’ between the two of you. 

“Just hold me.” You said, having no clue when the tears had returned to your eyes, making your voice so clearly wet. “I missed you. I can’t lose you.” 

“Hey, hey shh.” He said, leaning up to kiss along your cheek, rushing to kiss away those tears. “I’m right here with you, darling. I’m not going anywhere. You’re not going to lose me.” 

He wrapped his arms around you, wiggling his grip between your back and the mattress to do so. This created the most stunning cocoon, forcing your two bodies even closer together - it wasn’t long before he became soft inside of you, but he stayed there for as long as he reasonably could, kissing along your forehead, your cheeks, your neck, uttering quiet reassurances that you weren’t going to lose him, that you wouldn’t have to miss him any longer. 

It made you incredibly content and warm. At least while it lasted. 

When Fred finally pulled out of you, you felt a deep sense of dissatisfaction and loneliness, which you tried to ignore. Especially because you weren’t sure if he would want you to sleep in his bed - which was something that you wanted very much, especially after the long day you had. But you weren’t sure if he wanted to be left alone to contemplate all of it, to be sure of his decision to take you back. 

You jumped to get out of the bed as though it were on fire, and when you looked to your rumpled clothes on the floor - your jeans still stained with dirt from when you had collapsed in the garden, your shirt likely reeking of sweat from the nerves of everything that had happened - the idea of putting those clothes back on wasn’t exactly appealing. 

Then, something else came to mind. 

“My things are in Ginny’s room…” 

You sighed, realising that if you wanted a pair of pyjamas for the night, or even a fresh pair of underwear, then you would have to waltz in and wake her up - and likely be interrogated about where you had been. She was all too knowing anyway, and any excuses you gave about spending the time caring for George or simply having a ‘talk’ with Fred would be seen right through by her. 

Fred hummed, and stood, and you were surprised when he comfortably went over to the chest of drawers against the wall at the end of his bed, going right to the top drawer. The drawer where you used to keep some of your things when you stayed with the Weasleys on holidays - and surely enough, a small collection of your things were still in there. 

Things that he had never returned to you after the break-up that you had never thought to ask for. You had no idea that he often came to this drawer, sneaking mournful whiffs of your scent - even used your shirts as a pillow case if he was feeling particularly lonely. 

He pulled out a pair of your comfortable sleep shorts and a large, soft, worn green tee shirt with a large shamrock on the front and a ‘94 on the back that he had bought for you as a souvenir from The World Cup. It had been your all time favourite sleep shirt, and you had wondered where it had disappeared to when you moved into your apartment above the Apothecary once you started the job. 

“I hope these still fit.” He said, handing you the clothes. 

“They should.” You said - quiet, careful not to acknowledge the elephant in the room. The fact that he had kept your things all this time. 

“Unfortunately I don’t have any panties for you, so…” He trailed off, a filthy grin plucking up over his cheeks once again when the implication hit the air - the fact that you would be commando underneath your clothing. 

“Yeah, very unfortunate in your eyes, I’m sure, Fred.” You huffed, turning toward the door. “I should go get cleaned up.” 

You let out a small squeak when two strong arms encircled your waist, pulling you sharply back, causing you to collide with the wonderful, bare, muscled, now slightly sweaty body. You couldn’t help but to melt into the touch, and you let out a quiet moan as he began kissing your neck - not in a particularly lustful way, but in a way that was purely loving and affectionate. 

“Don’t think you’re getting away from me that easy, darling.” He whispered in your ear. “Please, do come back afterwards. You know I like to cuddle,” 

You didn’t think that you had ever heard Fred Weasley say ‘please’ for anything so plainly in his life. But, as usual when it came to him, you wanted exactly what he wanted. 

“Only if you insist.” You joked lightly, smoothing a hand over his arm that was still tightly encircled around your middle. “I suppose I can clear some time in my very busy schedule for cuddling,” 

Fred quietly let out a ‘yes’ in celebration, and hesitantly let you go. He then collapsed back onto the bed, relaxing spread eagle, still confidently naked against the covers with his hands behind his head against the pillow. You couldn’t help it when your eyes did a once-over of his body, admiring the soft planes of his muscles that had come from hard work rather than a distinct workout routine and the beautiful bit of fat on his lower belly that made him so warm and nice to cuddle. Of course, when your eyes met his, he was smirking at you. 

“I’ll be waiting, love.” He told you with a wink. 

You rolled your eyes at this, biting your lip to suppress a smile at his somewhat deserved cockiness. 

You moved to leave the room with your newly acquired clothes, wanting to freshen up in the bathroom a bit before going to sleep (the bathroom was right across the hall, so you would have to sneak across the way naked and hope that nobody would catch you, but it should be fine at this time of night). But when your hand twisted the knob and it didn’t budge, you remembered that Fred had locked it earlier. 

He moved to grab his wand from the pocket of his pants, splayed out in the middle of the floor, but you reached for the jeans first. Your wand was still downstairs beside the cauldron that had brewed the potions for George, but often, you found that Fred’s wand worked fine for you. 

Ollivander and other wand experts said that a wizard couldn’t find the same kind of success using a wand that wasn’t their own, but you found using Fred’s to be just as natural, like an extension of your own arm. Perhaps it was because his core was a Dragon Heart’s String, and that heart beat for you just as fondly as his own did. Either way, it was a fine substitution. You unlocked the door easily and tossed the wand back to him where he was sitting on the bed, and then you snuck across the hall to clean up and get dressed. 

When you came back, Fred had crawled under the covers and was starting to fall asleep. When you crawled in alongside him, you found that he hadn’t bothered to get dressed, so you locked the door again, just in case. It was a basic charm that anybody could get through, but it would give the two of you a few minutes of warning to make yourselves decent if somebody did come knocking. 

It felt like the most wonderfully natural thing in the world to settle beside him, wrapping an arm around his waist while he slept on his back, putting your head on his chest and feeling his sleepy fingers brush across your head from behind. 

“Goodnight, love.” He whispered, so quiet as though he was afraid to break apart a beautiful daydream. 

“Goodnight, Freddie.” 

… 

You wondered if all of it had been a dream. 

Fred apologising to you, begging for your forgiveness, the two of you having amazing sex - it was something you had dreamt about many times before. It was something you had wished would come true, only to find yourself waking up alone in a cold bed. So waking up next to Fred, with his large, warm body coiled up against your back like a koala was one of the best ways you could have come into a new day. 

It wasn’t long before the smell of Molly’s cooking reached your nose - the wonderful fatty sizzle of sausages and the bready warmth of toast that told you she was frying up a full English (likely because she had been having trouble sleeping after the events of the night before). Your stomach gave a painful pang, making you want to get out of bed to eat just as much as you wanted to stay cuddled up with Fred. 

You gently petted a touch along Fred’s heavy arm that was wrapped possessively around your waist, and soon, he sucked in a sharp breath as he too began to stir. 

“Merlin, I missed this.” He said, leaning in to smother you with more of his perfect warmth as he somehow crowded tighter against your back, kissing along your clothed shoulder and up your neck once again. 

Your heart fluttered with the sweetness, the fondness of it all, and you wondered how such a hellish night had made way to such a perfect morning. 

“I wish we could stay in bed forever, Freddie, but I think your Mum is making breakfast.” You remarked, finding yourself more aware of your hunger as you woke up more, and more drawn to the delicious smells. 

“We can stay here for a bit longer.” He hummed into your neck. 

Just then - his stomach let out a loud groan of protest, and you giggled. 

“Come on, Big Daddy needs to eat too.” You said, using the nickname in a more playful, joking manner as you patted his thigh, untangling yourself from his arms as you got out of bed. 

You were surprised, and slightly victorious when you saw a slight blush tinging his pale cheeks because of the teasing, the way you had used the nickname. It was amazing to see someone like Fred go from so powerful and confident to fluttering with shyness. 

“I have to find some trousers,” He remarked, suddenly remembering that he was naked. 

“I’ll meet you downstairs,” You grinned, walking across to the bathroom, lucky to beat anybody else there before the others started waking up. 

When you hit the bottom stair, Fred was standing at the back of the couch with his back to you, now fully dressed in a pair of comfortable plaid sleep pants and an old Chudley Cannons shirt that must have belonged to Ron. (It was only because of many winding discussions about Quidditch among the boys that you hadn’t even wanted to hear that you knew the Cannons were Ron’s team and the twins hated them.) 

Fred was leaning over, clearly talking to George, who was still laying where the two of you had left him the night before. You hated that your instinct was to stand back where neither of them had seen you and listen in on their conversation - but you had only learned such matters from Mr. and Mr. Extentenable Ear themselves. 

“...well, yes, I would say that it did go well, but I would still have to classify the nature of the relationship as dubious. Or friendly at best.” Fred said in a rushed whisper. 

Your stomach gave a twist. This time you had to assume that the twins were talking about you. Talking about what had happened between the two of you the night before. 

“Dubious?” George’s voice baulked, clearly trying to stay hushed himself, but having a hard time restraining his volume due to frustration - frustration at not being able to get a better answer out of his brother. “The two of you had sex and you’re classifying the nature of the relationship as dubious? Are you an idiot or was the sex that horrible?” 

You choked down a laugh at this, not wanting to be caught just yet, and resisting the urge to speak up and clarify that the sex was, in fact, great. 

“No, she seemed perfectly satisfied, thank you very much.” Fred hissed back, full of sass. You would have said more than ‘satisfied’ - for once, Fred was actually being humble. “But I just didn’t think to stop and ask: oh, by the way, does this mean that we’re back together and you still love me? Or were just scared and lonely after almost dying and wanted a decent lay? Can you fill out a post-orgasm survey to clarify, please, and make sure to-” 

An arm came up from the couch with a pillow, smacking Fred clear in the chest - hard enough to force a small grunt out of him. George was certainly feeling better. You were glad to know that your potions had done him some good. 

“You should have just asked, you numpty!” George scolded him. “You’ve been mooning over losing her for-” 

“Y/N,” Fred cut off his twin’s words by saying your name, announcing your presence as that smack with the pillow had caused him to finally turn his head and spot you there. 

“Fred.” You grinned, not at all ashamed that you had been caught. 

You walked over to the couch, leaning over to find George grinning at you in a way that said he was holding back a barrage of stomach shaking laughter because of the conversation you had caught the two of them in. 

“For the record, I would call the sex more than satisfactory.” You said, a mischievous grin coming over your lips. “And I do still love you.” You announced, turning toward Fred. “I was lonely and scared last night, but that’s why I came to you. You’re the only person I want to go to when I feel that way. I missed you. And I want you back if you’ll have me.” 

“Merlin, of course I’ll have you.” Fred breathed out a sigh of relief, now grinning as well. “I love you more than anything, darling. You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.” 

“I have some idea, and it was bloody annoying.” George muttered out, only to be ignored. 

You leaned in for a kiss, naturally, but just as Fred’s lips brushed yours, George let out a loud, fake gagging sound - one that had Molly running into the room, clearly fretting and worried that George was actually ill. 

“I’m fine, Mum.” George groaned as Molly began patting down his head with a wet cloth - clearly, his night had been filled by the annoying, but loving fuss of his mother watching over him. 

“Yes, yes of course.” Molly nodded, hesitantly putting the cloth down. “It’s time for breakfast anyway - do you feel up for sitting at the table, dear?” 

“I would love to get off this bloody couch.” George groaned. 

Fred rushed around to help him up, and after a moment of struggle to his feet, you grabbed his other arm to help him along into the kitchen. 

“I suppose it all worked out for the better.” George said, smiling at you. “Even if you did end up with the less attractive twin.” 

You rolled your eyes, biting back a smile at this.

...

A/N: This fic is a oneshot, and there will not be a continuation or a 'Part 2'. This is a capsule story meant to be read independently, and in terms of the narrative, there will not be a continuation. If you are going to leave a comment, please comment about the body of work that has been written here, do not comment asking for more. If you would like to read more of my fics, please take a look at my Harry Potter Masterlist, more specifically, my other Fred Weasley fic - Kisses Like Fire Whiskey. Thank you if you have gotten this far, and happy reading!

[2tarbell]

more trailer park!rafe drabbles i beg

maybe something with crybaby!reader too, like he comes home from a long ass day and she’s crying over the silliest thing ever.

but of course he makes her feel better.

love ur writing smm !!

he knew he was in for it when he came home and she wasn’t waiting patiently for him. if he didn’t know any better, rafe would assume the quaint trailer was empty — but the call you shared earlier on his lunch break detailed your plans around the house for the day, so there was no fuckin’ reason for it be as quiet as it was.

his confusion turned to concern when he heard little sniffles and sobs coming from the bathroom. rafe dropped his keys in the bowl and hurried off further into the trailer, in search of his girl.

pushing the bathroom door open with a rough hand, his mind went to the worst places when he saw her crumpled up on the floor. instantly he scooped her up onto the counter. his voice was a flurry of sounds she couldn’t decipher through her tears. the warm cadence she’s become so familiar with instantly providing some relief.

“hey, hey, baby — look at me, you hurt?” his hands are moving fast, holding her cheeks and checking for any injuries to that beautiful face.

she could only shake her head, hiccuping and trying to speak between sobs.

“rafe— dad— daddy—“

he hums and looks over her body. blue eyes checking off a list of what’s ‘normal’. when he finds nothing bleeding or falling off — that intense gaze finds hers, urging her to calm down.

his voice cooed, low and rumbly in a way that always soothes her, “shh, dad’s here, what happened? hm? someone — someone do somethin’ t’you or—“

“muh — my nails!” she interrupted, voice a petulant mumble.

rafe froze, mouth agape and eyes blinking in confusion. he looked down and took her smaller hands in his. turning them over and feeling the smooth skin. no cuts, no bruises—

the fact that he didn’t immediately know what she was talking about sends her into another spiral. yanking her hands from his and covering her eyes as sobs shook her shoulders.

“okay, okay, can’t help if you’re cryin’. talk t’me— what about your nails, honey?”

she sniffs and thrusts them in his face, rafe now seeing something out of the ordinary — chipped baby blue polish.

“wanted— wanted to paint them f’you. ‘cuz— ‘cuz s’the same color as your eyes but forgot they weren’t dry yet so i tried to make dinner and— and i ruined them!”

everyday the universe was testing his patience.

a sharp sigh out of his nose and rafe let his head fall forward. relief and disbelief pooled in his chest. she was this worked up over nail polish?

a low grumble of her name ceased her tears until they were just little sniffles of sadness. any other person and rafe would’ve been out the door with a specific finger showing his annoyance. but this was his person, his precious girl, and if she was this worked up over nail polish — he was going to indulge her. he picked up his head, eyes tired from a long days work but soft in a way meant just for her. he spoke in that way that makes her all fuzzy for him.

“jesus christ, that’s— yeah, okay. baby, ‘m— ‘m sorry. y’just wanted t’do somethin’ sweet f’dad, yeah?”

hook, line, and sinker. reader huffed and nodded as she leaned forward into his chest. her little gasps punctuated his cooing. within minutes, she was putty in his arms, nuzzling closer and closer. rafe littered kisses over her hair, gently rocking her until her head lifted off his chest. wet cheeks and a red nose greeted him and he couldn’t stop the adoring coo from falling out as he wiped her face.

“thereee you are— my sweet girl… better now?”

she nodded at his words, almost hypnotized by the gentle tone of his voice. a little hiccup fell out when she caught sight of her messy nails, but rafe quickly shushed her.

“shh, no more cryin’. y’gotta be a big girl, a’ight? c’mon, whaddaya need?”

she wished she had a picture of this big man patiently painting and blowing on her nails — that matched his eyes.

[sourcherryandsprinkles]

Hi! I would love to request something for Aemond x fem or gn reader. I was thinking reader saying prompt. 15 from your general list “I fell in love with you. Not for how you look, just for who you are. Although you look pretty great too."

Maybe one day he wakes up with bad pain in the eye and he doesn’t feel like calling the maester so they help him, they remove his eyepatch and apply his ointment for him. And he feels extremely insecure because it’s the first they saw him without the eyepatch but they reassure him. I need that man to cry in my arms as I tell him he’s beautiful (I know it may sound ooc but he’s my babygirl)

15. ''I fell in love with you. Not for how you look, just for who you are. Although you look pretty great too.''

The gif from the trailer fits perfectly this request

Warnings: mention of past injuries (eye)

my taglists are here + you can send requests here at any time

—

You returned to your chambers after spending the morning embroidering with Helaena to find Aemond still in bed. A frown drew between your eyebrows. At this hour, he was either training with Ser Criston or attending the small council meeting.

‘’Aemond?’’ Your soft voice cut through the silence of the room, waking your husband’s attention.

He shifted under the covers, his single eye fluttering open. ‘’Could you tell Cole I will not be training with him today?’’

You walked over to the bed, taking a closer look at him. ‘’Are you well?’’ You touched his forehead with the back of your hand, checking for a fever.

‘’It’s just…my eye. It gets irritated sometimes.’’ Aemond avoided your gaze, not wanting to see the familiar look of pity that he had grown all too used to seeing in the eyes of others. ‘’Would you want me to fetch the maester? He should have something to sooth your pain,’’ you offered, concern etched on your face.

‘’No need for the maester.’’ He gently caught your hand in his own, stopping you from rising. ‘’I already have a salve Maester Orwyle gave to me. It’s on the table, over there.’’

Aemond let go of your hand, allowing you to stand and retrieve the salve for his eye. You returned to the bed. ‘’I’ll do it for you.’’

You had offered your help out of pure kindness, but Aemond did not want it.

‘’No! I do not wish that.’’ His voice was firm, causing your hands to crisp around the jar. ‘’You won’t like what you see under,’’ he added with a gentler tone.

He knew what lay beneath the eyepatch — the grotesque, scarred skin that he had lived with for years now. It was a sight he preferred to keep hidden from everyone, even you. Especially you. Since you’ve known each other, you’ve only seen his good looks, and Aemond wanted to keep it that way.

Aemond let out a soft hiss of pain as he sat up, his body tense with discomfort. It had not been this bad in a long time.

Seeing him in pain made your heart ache, but you tried to hide it.

You sat down close to him and guided him back against the pillows. He clenched his jaw, trying to bear the pain.

‘’Let me,’’ you insisted, only wanting to help him, to relieve his pain.

His good eye was fixed on yours with a mixture of resignation and reluctance. He knew there was no arguing with you when you were like this.

With a resigned sigh, he slowly removed the eyepatch, revealing the scarred skin beneath. The sight was a stark contrast to his usual handsome features, with its puckered and uneven texture. He averted his gaze, unable to look at you directly.

Aemond waited for your response, his body tense, and braced for your reaction. He expected disgust, pity, perhaps even revulsion. After all, his scarred eye had left other people speechless in the past. He glanced up at you under his lashes, searching your face for any hint of how you were feeling.

You remained silent as you applied the salve on the reddish-pink skin with the more careful and gentle touch. Causing him more pain was the last thing you wanted.

Aemond couldn't help but watch you intently, studying the focused expression on your face. Your eyes were fixed on his scar, but there was no repugnance in your gaze, just a mixture of concern and tenderness.

Once you were finished, you put the lid back on the jar and cupped your husband’s face with one hand. ‘’Aemond,’’ you began, looking at him with the most loving eyes. ‘’I fell in love with you. Not for how you look, just for who you are.’’ You glanced down at his naked chest, seeing the softly defined muscles he acquired from training, and back to his face. ‘’Although you look pretty great too.’’

Aemond's heart squeezed at your words and the tenderness in your gaze. He had expected a lot of things from you, but not this. Not such unconditional acceptance and love.

"You're the only person who's ever looked at me like this," he murmured, his voice hoarse with emotion.

‘’Come here.’’ You shifted back on the bed and guided him to your lap.

Aemond didn’t protest, curling up to you, seeking comfort and closeness. You began to stroke his hair gently, running your fingers through the soft silver strands. The sensation was soothing and intimate, making him feel safe and entirely loved for the first time.

—

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[whumpcember]

Welcome to the 3rd annual Whumpcember!

Once again, it is just me running the event, so please be aware of any human error. I am grateful for all the participation with choosing the blog theme as well as picking this year's prompts! I hope everyone has a good Whumpcember, and now, here are the rules:

Prompts should be answered with whump as the main focus

Fanfic! Gif! Text post! Fanart! Fan video! Any piece of media that you can possibly make that has whump counts!

You can use the prompts any time! Don't feel the need to rush

Though, prompts answered during December will most likely be reblogged

Post anywhere! AO3, Wattapad, Tumblr, or even Fanfic.Net! So as long as you make a Tumblr post with a link to the answered prompt it may be reblogged.

When posting onto Tumblr you can either @ the blog or tag with #whumpcember24 and the day's tag, such as #whumpcember24 day1

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If you have any more questions, send me an ask, but please read the FAQ first!

Written Prompt list below:

Day 1: Broken Bones

Day 2: "This Is Your Fault"

Day 3: Begging

Day 4: "This Isn't My Blood"

Day 5: Concussion

Day 6: "Please Stop"

Day 7: Kidnapped

Day 8: "No. Not Like This"

Day 9: Shaking

Day 10: "Let Me Help You"

Day 11: Manipulation

Day 12: "I Have Nowhere Else To Go"

Day 13: Trauma

Day 14: "I Never Wanted This"

Day 15: Broken Glass

Day 16: Amnesia

Day 17: Greatest Fear

Day 18: Poisoned

Day 19: Panic Attack

Day 20: "Please Leave"

Day 21: Bruises

Day 22: Hallucinations

Day 23: Overwhelmed

Day 24: Walking On Injuries

Day 25: Healed Wrong

Day 26: Falling

Day 27: Hypothermia

Day 28: Whipped

Day 29: Choked

Day 30: Saying Goodbye

Day 31: Hearing Voices

Alt. 1: Sore Throat

Alt. 2: Memory

Alt. 3: Fire

Alt. 4: Lies

Alt. 5: "You're Allowed To Fall Apart"

Alt. 6: "Could You Stay A Little Longer?"

Alt. 7: Motion Sickness

Alt. 8: Running Away

Alt. 9: Alternative Bandages

Alt. 10: "Tell Me I'm Wrong"

[makelemonade]

Things they do when they're in love but haven't realized it yet

Characters; Aether, Albedo, Alhaitham, Ayato, Childe, Cyno, Diluc, Dottore, Itto, Neuvillete, Thoma, Pantalone.

Warnings; GN!Reader, mentions of pretty/handsome, cologne/perfume, the notebook (that movie killed me It's a warning I can't), mentions of crying, mentions of past injuries, annoying kids, lowk stalking in childe's part LOOL

under the cut!

Aether- Notices every physical and mental detail about you more than the average person.

He notices the way there’s a slight limp in your walk due to a past injury, and he can notice when you also try to hide it.

He notices how each day you always try a new hairstyle because you thrive for praise and compliments. Of course because you’re so loved, everyone compliments you, and he notices the way that when he does too, you’re more flustered than usual.

He knows you start to tap your finger down on any platform whenever you’re feeling nervous or even zoning out. He also notices that when you get annoyed, you bite your lip to hold back anything.

He knows that whenever you’re lectured at or given a talking-down to, you try to hide your tears, but the side of your lip trembles. He knows that once your alone within your own privacy, you let the tears fall. He’s literally seen you catch them with your mouth once.

He notices that whenever he gives you some sort of gift, you’re at a loss for words and you don’t know whether you want to make the first move after months of pining.

He notices, so now maybe he can act on it.

Alhaitham- Starts to read books or watch movies/shows he’s heard you talk about.

He spends most of his time in libraries, looking around for anything that piques his interest. He notices the title of a book, something you’ve mentioned before.

You both have complete opposite tastes, but maybe romance books could do him some good.

Since then, he’s been looking around libraries for every book he’s heard you mention. He even starts to write down a list.

Shows and movies as well. On a rainy day that he stays in his home and his roommate isn’t being annoying, he likes to lounge on his couch and watch something.

He notices once again another title you’ve mentioned; The Notebook.

No hesitation, he decides to watch it, and by the end, he’s nearly crying.

“Are you crying?” His roommate asks. 
“Shut up!”

At some point he brings up that he’s watched almost all the movies and read all the books you’ve mentioned and you don’t know if he was genuinely bored and did so or because he really was interested in you.

Your thoughts are answered when he asks if you want to go see a romance movie coming out.

Albedo- Starts to become mesmerized when he watches you study or work

He loves the way you look so focused- the way your nose scrunches up when you get confused at a question or really anything, or how when you feel lost, your hand moves up to your cheek as you just stare down at the question.

You’re so focused to the point that sometimes you forget he’s even there but in fully honesty- he doesn’t care. As long as he can stare at you without you noticing, he’s fine with it.

Sometimes, he forgets about his own work. You just look so pretty when you’re focused- he wishes it was on him.

At some point, the staring becomes too obvious and you look up ti find him just staring at you, and his face comes of one of surprise when he sees he’s been caught.

“W-would you like some help?” He asked, nothing your nose had scrunched up just seconds ago.

You smiled. “Yes, please.”

Ayato- Seeing you with kids makes him feel something.

He sees how you treat kids with such kindness and adoration- as if you’ve met your favourite hero. Whenever you take strolls, you love to stop by the park and push some kids on the swings; It’s to the point all the parents know you and the kids love you.

Whenever you hear a child cry, you get sad. Whenever you hear a child laugh, it makes you smile- It makes him smile too, being honest.

He loves how you’re so attentive to them, that one day when one of the kids falls and scrapes his knee and starts to cry, you’re immediately there comforting them, putting a bandaid on their knee and telling them it’ll be all better.

You pretend to play “shop” with the kids to the point even he is dragged in by one of them.

“Are you two married?” One of the children ask one day, which then causes a bombard of questions from the rest while they all say things like

“Is he nice?”

“Does he treat you well?”

“You two are sooo perfect!”

“Can he play with us more?”

Ayato only smiles at you and you smile back.

Childe- He always looks for you in a public setting

Whenever he goes out, whether it to be to run errands, go somewhere with his brother or just something for work, he always wondering if you’ll be there.

Most of the time you aren’t- it’s a small chance you’d be at a random toy shop that his brother was non-stop talking about, but he’s always on the lookout.

Parties that friends invite him too, he always asks if you’ll be there or he’ll just look for you the moment he arrives, praying and hoping to God that you’ll be there.

Maybeeee it’s stalking, but he starts to go to places he’s heard you mention in hope of seeing you. Even if it’s a place he has no reason to be at, he’ll still go.

For the first time one day, instead of him noticing you and going up to you, you’re the first to notice him and go up to him, starting a conversation.

Cyno- He always wants to make you laugh

He sucks at making jokes- he knows this, everyone knows this, but it always makes him feel warm inside whenever you let out a giggle or a loud cackle at his jokes- even If they were horrible or made sense, something about it always lightened you up.

So, even though everyone else hates it, he continues to go with them, just in hopes of hearing you giggle- it’s so cute!

He’ll even start to think of new jokes, new types of humour just for you, and he’ll always go with the ones that make you laugh the most.

He may update his whole humour for you, but who cares!

Then, he notices that you started using his own jokes, which makes him cackle just as loud as you.

Diluc- Nicknames

If anyone were to ever call Diluc something other than his name, he’d lost his shit. EVERYONE knew this, and not even Kaeya would test him- the closest he’s ever used a nickname was “Luc” and Diluc was ready to fight him.

But you, well, he just doesn’t seem to care. Whether it be Luc, Didi, Lulu, and even pookie, he’s completely fine with it.

Everyone knows he has to has something for you, but he doesn’t even realize it himself. It just brings a warm feeling to his face when he hears a nickname come out of your mouth.

Then one day, he randomly starts to call you nicknames, and you feel the same warmth he does.

Dottore- Drops anything for you

Dottore is a hard-working man. He hardly takes breaks, and he’s always up to something. So, it’s hard to speak to him on most days, that it even makes you upset as his friend.

His coworker mentions something about you being upset and he immediately puts down any work he’s holding and asks where you are. He would never do that for anyone, but you? He didn’t know why, but he just felt the need to be at your side.

He tells you to text him whenever you need something, and he’ll answer. He just won’t answer the other 100 texts from other people and continue to leave them on delivered.

You’re bored? Come work with him. You’re hungry? Go get some food together. It’s to the point that work is no longer his main priority.

You ask him one day if he’d like to go to dinner, and before you could finish your sentence about knowing he was a hard working man and was never free, he immediately says yes.

Itto- Anything that smells like you reminds him of you

Itto has a good nose- it’s a blessing and a curse.

When it comes to smelling something similar to you, whether it be your shampoo, conditioner, body wash, cologne, perfume or mist, he considers it to be a blessing.

He could be anywhere really; In a random shop, and if someone walks by and has the SLIGHTEST smell smilier to yours, he’ll almost think its you and now all he can think about is you.

It’s to the point it becomes his favourite smell, and he finds himself buying items similar.

You notice his efforts, and give him a gift one day. It was full of everything you used to smell the way you do.

He’ll use it everyday.

Neuvillete- The way you act doesn’t bother him

The Iudex was not a patient man. Anyone who acted immaturely, whether it be like a child or an insolent teenager, he’ll became so annoyed.

But you? Act however you want, he does not care. Instead, he’ll just laugh, enjoying your antics.

You’re acting like a child? Okay, not his problem, he’s fine with it. But if Furina came in here acting like a child he’d kick her out in and instant. Even if a literal child came in he’d kick them out in an instant.

He finds himself finding comfort in the way you act sometimes. He doesn’t know how to explain it, but he thinks it’s the fact he knows you’re comfortable enough near him to act the way you do.

Then one day, you decide to be calm for a day, and sit and talk with him normally, and even if it’s a change, he’s still happy nonetheless.

Thoma- Everything reminds him of you.

The flowers? They’re as pretty/handsome as you.

The window? Sometimes he imagines you’re outside.

The floor? He’ll remember both of you hiding out at parties and sitting on floors.

Money? He’ll remember the time you bought him lunch because he forgot his wallet and you refused to let him pay you back.

The sky? It brings him comfort to know you both see the same sky.

The stars? As bright as you.

He gets a gift from you one day, telling him that It reminded you of him, and he could only give a heartfelt laugh.

Pantalone- Whatever you look at, you’ll find it within your belongings in the next week.

He’s a perceptive, rich man. You may only be friends but he loves to spoil you.

He sees you staring at a necklace for over 2 seconds? Bought immediately, and of course he’ll place it around your neck.

Trinkets you think look cool? The next time you both hang out at your hose, you’ll mysteriously find it within your home.

If you have an event coming up and he hears you describe what you’d like to wear, he’ll be looking through every store and buying whatever is similar to the description.

He stares at flowers, wondering if he should give them to you or if it was weird. He’s heard you talk about wanting flowers once, but maybe not now

Yet he is met with you holding out the same flowers to him 2 days later, stating you saw him staring at them for quite a while.

[p0orbaby]

if you’re still doing blurbs could you do one with alexia where she’s dating a doctor who has a very busy schedule, and alexia has a concussion in the training and gors to the hospital, and alexia sends a message to reader telling about it but r doesn’t see and when shes going to take care of the next patient it’s alexia? lmao or maybe alexia and r have a daughter and her daughter gets injured and shes the next patient and r goes feral about it idk

i changed the injury but i hope you still like it !

-

The shift is hell, as usual. You’re striding through corridors, flicking through paperwork and half-listening to one of the interns ramble about a patient they’re struggling to diagnose. Something about abdominal pain and “maybe a foreign object ingestion?” You nod distractedly, mentally filing it under deal with later.

“Just send them for imaging,” you say, not breaking your stride. “And next time, don’t say ‘foreign object’ like you’re narrating a true crime documentary. It’s unsettling”

The intern stammers out a response, but you’re already waving them off. “You’ll be fine. Go. Be great or something.” Another day, another long list of problems, it seems. You let yourself drift into autopilot, the professional rhythm of your job taking over as you stride towards the cubicle and pull back the curtain.

“Hi, I’m Dr Putellas,” you begin, still not looking up. “What seems to be—”

“¿Estás bromeando?”

You freeze. Your grip on the clipboard tightens, and your heart drops into your stomach because that voice, that exasperated, honey-warm, decidedly unimpressed voice, belongs to your wife.

Your injured wife, apparently.

“Alexia?” you blurt, snapping your head up to find her sitting on the exam table, her left leg stretched out in front of her, an ice pack balanced precariously on her knee.

She doesn’t look happy.

“Hola, cariño,” she says, dry as dust. “Fancy seeing you here”

For a moment, all you can do is stare, caught between disbelief and irritation. “What—what happened? Why didn’t you call me?”

“I did call you,” she replies, gesturing to her phone sitting next to her on the table. “Several times. Apparently, you’re very busy and important”

Your stomach twists with guilt as you instinctively check your phone. Sure enough, three missed calls from Alexia. You curse under your breath, shoving it back into your pocket and stepping closer.

“Are you okay?” you ask, switching instantly from doctor mode to wife mode. “What happened? Is it bad? Why didn’t someone—”

“Relax, doctor,” Alexia interrupts, lifting her free hand to stop your avalanche of questions. “It’s not that bad. Just a tackle gone wrong at training”

You glance at the ice pack, then at her knee, which looks swollen but not grotesque. “Define ‘not that bad.’ Can you move it?”

Alexia sighs like you’re overreacting and flexes her leg a little, wincing but managing. “See? It’s fine. Probably just a sprain”

“Sprains don’t feel fine,” you mutter, already pulling on gloves and grabbing your supplies. You kneel down, gently pressing around her knee, watching her face for any reaction.

“Your hands are cold,” she says, the corner of her mouth twitching like she’s trying not to smile.

“Your knee is swollen,” you counter.

“Touché”

You’re quiet for a moment, focused on the task. The swelling isn’t as bad as you feared, but it’s enough to set off every alarm in your mind. You sit back on your heels, exhaling slowly.

“You need imaging,” you say firmly. “Just to be safe”

“Of course I do,” she replies, her tone light but her eyes softening. “Because I’m married to the most thorough doctor in this hospital”

“Don’t flirt with me right now,” you say, though your lips twitch in a betrayed smile. “You scared me”

Her expression softens further, and she reaches out, brushing her fingers against your cheek. “Lo siento, mi amor. I didn’t mean to”

You close your eyes briefly, leaning into her touch. Then, with a deep breath, you stand up, trying to refocus.

“Alright,” you say briskly, grabbing the chart again. “Let’s get you x-rayed and figure out what’s going on. And after that, you’re resting. No arguing.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Alexia says, her smile turning mischievous. “But I might need some help resting”

You narrow your eyes at her. “Careful, Putellas. I can still make you wait for a nurse”

“Please.” She gestures around dramatically. “You’d never leave me at the mercy of hospital food”

“Not unless you keep up that attitude,” you mutter, but your heart is already lighter.

You press a quick kiss to her temple before heading for the door. “I’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere”

“Where would I go?” she calls after you, gesturing to her knee.

[jasntodds]

Scars [J.T.]

Pairing: Jason Todd x Fem!Reader

Summary: Jason lets you trace over his y scar

Warnings: Swearing, fluff, scars, mentions of death, bruises, cuts, general minor injuries, hurt/comfort

Words: 1,765

A/n: I just wanted something a little soft for once. If you wanna be tagged in my fics, you can click the link below, send me an ask/comment, or follow my library blog @jasntoddslibrary and turn on notifications if you prefer that!!

masterlist | request info | tag list

Jason carries the weight of every horrible, traumatic, and agonizing event that’s ever happened to him across his body, etched in pale and raised lines across him like a used roadmap. He wears them as cruel reminders that this life is unfair and unjust, even when he tries his hardest to make it so. There are some he pays no mind to, and doesn’t even really notice most days because they are there. That’s that. But, there are others…there are others he looks at as a punishment for everything he’s ever done and everything he never was and could never be. They’re reminders, laughing back at him every day, a sinister echo of his mistakes.

Most days, he tries to pay them no mind, either.

You’re sitting on your knees right beside Jason, his side pressed against the bare skin of your calf. Your eyes are trained on his exposed abdomen, showcasing the scars and cuts and bruises he’s collected over the last few years.

It wasn’t that seeing his body covered in new and old injuries was jarring. That was mostly fine. After the first few weeks of being friends, it stopped being jarring because that's just how it is with Jason. He gets hurt sometimes. It comes with the job and you accept that part of him. The bruises and cuts were very rarely ever jarring. The other scars were never really jarring because of course he has them. That always made sense to you. It's the autopsy scar that is jarring.

With the others, he'd told you it comes with the job and then he'd watch your face contort into a scrunch of worry and paranoia over his well-being, something he doesn't think he deserves most days. When the comment didn't ease your worry, he'd kiss you and give his signature cocky grin, a silent promise that he's fine and the conversation would end. The autopsy scar conversation is never so simple.

You knew he died because he told you not long before you made things official. You knew the story about the Joker and his mom. He told you of the horrid night and bits of pieces of the after. But this is your first time seeing the physical damage of the night that still wakes him up in the middle of the night. Your chest aches for him and it's jarring because he did die and he has to carry that kind of weight forever, something you'll swear until the day you die he doesn't deserve.

With delicate fingers, you trace over the long line of the autopsy scar, Jason’s eyes glancing from your hand to your face. His stomach tenses with the movement and you can’t tell if it’s because your hands are cold, it tickles, or he’s uncomfortable. If you know Jason, you’re kind of figuring it’s the third option. So, you glance back to him, chewing the inside of your cheek.

“This okay?” You ask softly.

“It’s fine.” Jason answers, his thumb lightly brushing over your thigh furthest away from him. “Bother you?”

Jason has been cautious not to show you because he knows how he feels about it. He knows that you worry. Seeing some sort of proof of death seems like it might send you spiraling into some sort of tornado of worry until you spin too far away from him. He's been cautious because he adores you and he doesn't want to lose you and he doesn't want it scare you.

You look back to the scar, tracing over it again. “No.” You answer quietly. It hurts your chest because it happened to him. It happened to him and nothing in this world could ever justify the torture and pain he's been through. It doesn't bother you because it is a part of him and you adore him with every beat your heart drums. “Bothers you though.”

Jason’s brows pull together. “How’d you figure?” There’s the slightest bit of a bite in his words like a scared puppy, a default reaction to being seen.

“Why wouldn’t it?” The question leaves your lips freely with unfiltered candor.

Seeing it for the first time, yeah it bothered him. It bothered him because what was the point? It wasn’t some mystery how he died. Maybe it was just legal reasons bullshit that Jason doesn’t care about. Though, he does fully understand that maybe if he hadn’t come back, he wouldn’t care. Or if it had healed, he wouldn’t care. So, that’s something he can’t really blame Bruce for. Instead, it’s that it’s there. Looking back at him in the mirror. Staring up at him when he looks down. It’s always there. It’s as if he was cut open and the weight of death and punishment and regret scattered over his organs and bones, making sure he understands the weight of his own consequences. He just can’t quite shake it and the scar is the reminder.

"I guess." Jason lets out this shaky breath as his stomach tenses below your fingertips.

"It's okay if it bothers you, Jay." You assure him. "I'd bother me if I were you but..." You pause for just a second, pressing an open palm over some of the raised edges of the scar as your eyes are locked on his. "I hope it doesn't bother you too much because you got to live and I don't care what the other bats thought about it at first because I'm glad you got to come back. And you deserve to let the weight off your shoulders for once." Your eyes go back to the scar and trace up the line from the center of his stomach up to the right side of his chest.

Jason's thumb is rubbing lightly against your skin and he wonders why you make it seem so simple. No part of him thinks you believe it's simple but there's something in the way that you say it that almost gives Jason some sort of faith in the idea of it. That maybe there is a day where it won't feel like he's carrying the weight of the world. Maybe there is a day someday where he won't feel the aching and longing of his bones. You offer him tenderness and kindness when the majority of his life has been nothing but skinned knees and broken hearts.

That feels terrifying, too but...maybe he's tired of running away from things because they're good for him. And good to him.

Seeing the autopsy scar for the first time bothered him. Seeing it yesterday bothered him. But, at this exact point in time with your fingers running along the tattered edges, it doesn’t bother him so much.

“Thank you.” Jason holds his words steady with a sort of caution at the edges. "It's not bothering me now." His voice is quiet as his eyes glance to you and then back to your fingers on his skin.

He is entirely exposed to you now. There’s no going back even if that is absolutely terrifying. Jason keeps himself guarded to protect himself and protect everyone else around him. But, you make letting the guard down a little bit easier. You’re tender and delicate with him, two things no one ever is. At no point have you ever thought less of him for the things he’s done and things he’s seen, or the things that rip his body to shreds. You take him as he is and offer him understanding and kindness, two things Jason has been desperate to get from anyone. And he is so thankful for you.

“Good.” Your voice is quiet before your stare goes back to the scar. “I hope it never bothers you again.”

Jason sits up, closing some of the distance between you while you rest your hands in your lap. His eyes run over your face slowly while the corner of his mouth is pinched barely upwards. He looks content. He looks comfortable. His heart is beating a mile a minute as it’s about to run through his ribs. There’s something fluttering against it, something that feels warm and welcoming in the beating of his heart. There’s something that makes his breathing unsteady without ever sucking the air from his lungs. There is something that feels comfortable and like a home he didn’t think he’d ever find.

Jason leans forward, resting his forehead against yours and your entire body relaxes in that instant. He pulls away, pressing a kiss to your nose and then to your cheek before he rests his head in the crook of your neck. You turn your head and press a kiss to his temple before your hands come to his cheeks to pick his head up.

His eyes lock on your eyes and you adore him. You adore him for all that he is today. The scars never really bothered you because they hold him together. All of them have a story that has led Jason Todd to who he is today. They are proof that he is alive. They are proof that even when he was hurt, even when he was murdered, he is alive. The air can be pulled into his lungs and oxygen will circulate through his cells again. He is alive. The autopsy scar is just further proof to you because he shouldn’t have been brought back but he was. And that was for a reason. That scar is just another piece of proof he is meant to be here. It is another mark of how he got here today and you, for one, are eternally thankful that he is here today.

Your thumbs are running over his cheeks and Jason swears he has never felt so wanted by anyone. And he doesn’t feel so damn alone in the world anymore. He feels important and he only hopes he makes you feel the same way. He can only hope you understand how much you mean to him and that he is just as important to you.

Your lips come to his and he melts into your touch as he kisses you back. His hand comes up to the back of your head to pull you in closer. And he thinks he might do everything in his power to have more moments like these with you. You can trace his scars and he can tell you about them and you can exist in the bubble where it is only the two of you. You can trace his scars and he can run his fingers along your thigh and you both can feel wanted and important. And loved.

Tag List: @jasontoddsmentaldisorders // @purplerose291 // @lovelessamai  // @makaelaseresin // @lenidaslenchen // @mayfieldss // @ghostkingblake // @dgraysonss // @im-done-with-this-im-out // @velvetskies // @vivian-555 // @kebonita // @deyja-the-duck // @jasontoddslover // @captainmarvels-blog // @totallynotkaibiased // @scarlovesyou // @whydoyoucare866 // @littlemeowmeow1000 // @septixtrash // @kplatzman // @killxz // @achromaticerebus // @lovefks // @kolpvii

[blueteller]

Halour, I'm kinda curious... What crimes have Cale done, exactly? I see a number of "crime list" videos about him but the wiki don't really confirm anything💀

— 🌄

...The Time Has Come. 😌

I have long promised this list, so perfect timing! Thank you very much for this question! Allow me to introduce you to:

Cale Henituse's Crime List

(Just for the fun of it, I tried to give a different example for every single one of these. Some events repeat, but not the crimes!)

1) Accessibility of Records for Tax Department

Cale looted significant amounts of money from the Magic Tower and many other places, without leaving any legal trace.

2) Affray

Multiple occasions, like pretty much everything that happened in the Molden Kingdom.

3) Aggravated Assault

Cale rarely gets physically involved in a fight, but I think suddenly strangling Prince Adin qualifies.

4) Aggravated Burglary

Every single time "Real Arm" is in business.

5) Allowing Dog or Cat To Be a Nuisance

How else would you call encouraging your animal shape-shifting kids to be involved in criminal activity? Also Fluffy the Puppy was under Cale's command even if he technically belonged to Princess Jopis, I say it totally counts.

6) Ammunition – Possessing, Acquiring or Carrying

Cale intentionally pocketed magic bombs from the Plaza Terror Incident and used them later on.

7) Animal Cruelty

...Does Cale subjecting On to his "nice act" in front of Litana counts? Oh it definitely counts. That poor child.

8) Armed Robbery

That time Cale & co. robbed the Mercenary Guilds in Leeb-An City, for instance.

9) Arson

Setting the Wind Island on fire.

10) Assaulting or Resisting Police

That time Cale & co. went to Sez Kingdom. Pretty sure the knights trying to stop them from kidnapping the king counts as "resisting law enforcement".

11) Being Disguised With Unlawful Intent

Priest Cale in a nutshell.

12) Blackmail

That time Cale talked to Antonio Gyerre.

13) Breaking and Entering

Cale coming to the Sekka Estate.

14) Careless Driving

Debatable since a fantasy world doesn't own cars – but. I count Cale breaking through walls of a maze on a mother-effing Stone Imugi as "irresponsible driving". Just think of what kind of example you're setting for the kids, Cale!

15) Carrying a Loaded Firearm in Public

Cale has Raon following him everywhere, so.....?

16) Carrying Out Plumbing Work Without License or Registration

Cale has an underground villa in the Forest of Darkness. I'm pretty sure whatever construction work they did there would count as illegal.

17) Carrying Out Work Without a Building Permit

Cale had Dragons teleport an entire castle into the Forest of Darkness. Yet again, involves a building with no legal paperwork.

18) Causing Injury Intentionally

Obviously. Like making fiery lightning bolt strike in the middle of an Elf Village attack. Or hitting a radish with a rock.

19) Collecting or Making Documents Likely to Facilitate Terrorist Acts

Everything involving Knight Rex after he became a terrorist.

20) Conspiracy

Cale and Alberu talking about anything.

21) Control of Body Armor

After reading it up, I decided that mana disruption device ABSOLUTELY falls into this category.

22) Control and Use of Dangerous Articles

Cale adopting pretty much everyone on his team.

23) Corrupting Benefits Received By Commonwealth Public Official

Cale using Alberu's golden plaque to trap the White Star with Embrace. I mean, if being infected with that clown doesn't count as corruption, I don't know what does.

24) Cultivation of Narcotic Plants

Cale letting Hong eat plants in the Forest of Darkness. It IS, in his own words, his own backyard.

25) Dangerous Non-Guard Dog Attacks or Bites a Person or Animal with Person in Control

Cale letting Choi Han beat up Adin. ...Well, Choi Han COULD be counted as a Guard Dog, but. They never formalized the paperwork? I say it counts since Choi Han isn't legally registered!

26) Dealing With Property Suspected of Being Proceeds of Crime

Cale renting a house from Odeus Flynn.

27) Dealing With Property Which Subsequently Becomes an Instrument of Crime

Cale buying the Magic Tower before he proceeds to kidnap Mueller.

28) Delaying the Entry of Police

Cale not letting the law enforcement know about the Plaza Terror Incident beforehand. Also, activating the mana disruption device, knowing it would hinder their efforts to stop terrorism. ...Yes Cale & co. prevented said terrorism better on their own but it still counts.

29) Deliberately Omitting Information

Cale making an Vow of Death to Choi Han claiming that he can't tell him anything.

30) Destroying, Damaging and/or Interfering with Any Works of a Water Corporation

Setting the Lake of God's Tears on fire.

31) Destroying or Damaging Property

Cale destroying houses in the Gyerre territory.

32) Destruction of Evidence

Cale and Raon blowing up Hais Island 5 to cover up Ron's infiltration.

33) Directing the Activities of a Terrorist Organization

Cale's entire career in a nutshell, really.

34) Discharge Missile to Endanger Person or Property

Cale blowing up the whirlpools in the Ubarr territory.

35) Dishonestly Cause a Loss

Cale tricking the White Star into the abandoned underground city.

36) Disturbing Religious Worship

Cale messing with the Sun God's Church for being mean to Mary.

37) Driving an Unregistered Vehicle

Cale & co. using Mary's bone Dragon.

38) Drunkards Behaving in Riotous or Disorderly Manner

Cale pretending to be drunk in the Gyerre territory.

39) Endangering Safety of Aircraft

Cale letting his allies abroad an airship during the Jungle battle.

40) Entering a Place Without Authority or Lawful Excuse

Cale rescuing Raon.

41) Extortion With Threats to Destroy Property

Cale threatening the slave traffickers in the Gyerre territory.

42) Failure to Notify the Authorities of Criminal Activity

Cale doesn't notify Alberu of crap, unless it's to make him clean-up the aftermath.

43) Failure to Register a Pet

Pretty sure Cale registered exactly none of his allies. ...Except maybe the Tiger Tribe that one time they moved into Harris Village with Deruth's permission. Everyone else? Not a chance.

44) Falsifying or Concealing Identity

Cale acting as Naru von Ejellan in Endable Kingdom.

45) Forgery of Documents

Cale and Taylor faking an ancient document to fool the White Star.

46) Fraud

Cale promising Plavin Singten benefits for siding with the new Sun Church.

47) Getting Funds To, From, or For a Terrorist Organization

Cale sponsoring his allies, like giving Rosalyn magic stones.

48) Going Equipped for Stealing

Cale making Real Arm uniform.

49) Handling Stolen Goods

Cale using Divine Items.

50) Identity Theft

Cale introducing himself as Bob.

51) Indecent Assault

Cale telling Choi Han to strip that one time. (Yes, it actually happened. ...Not the way shippers wished for, obviously.)

52) Inducement to Be Appointed Liquidator

Cale helping Princess Jopis overthrow her sister on the condition of benefits for the Roan Kingdom.

53) Insider Trading

Cale selling Alberu dead mana from a Dragon.

54) Intentionally or Recklessly Causing a Bushfire

Cale setting that bush monster on fire in Xiaolen.

55) Introduction of a Drug of Dependence Into the Body of Another Person

Cale letting Rosalyn drink coffee on Earth 3.

56) Kidnapping

Cale & co. capturing Venion Stan.

57) Leaving Children Without Supervision

Cale letting the kids look for Mueller.

58) Lighting of Fires in the Open Air

Cale using Fire of Destruction against Sky Attribute.

59) Loitering Near Schools

Cale & the kittens in the Sez Kingdom.

60) Loitering With Intent to Commit an Indictable Offence

Cale letting Clopeh Sekka spot him that first time.

61) Manslaughter

Cale letting Choi Han, Rosalyn and Lock go and destroy the Archduke's Estate.

62) Membership of a Terrorist Organization

Cale making up Real Arm.

63) Murder

Cale killing the White Star.

64) Negligent Manslaughter

Cale letting Ron go on a vacation.

65) Non-dangerous Dog Attacks

Cale letting Choi Han spar with Hilsman.

66) Obtaining Property By Deception

Litana giving Cale free stuff.

67) Offences Connected With Explosive Substances

Cale commissioning Eruhaben to create Dragon's Rage.

68) Other Acts Done in Preparation for, or Planning, Terrorist Acts

Every morning Cale drinks lemon tea.

69) Possessing More Fish Than the Catch Limit

Cale dealing with Whales. ...Whales are fish, what are you talking about?

70) Possessing Controlled Weapon, Housebreaking Implements, and Things Connected With Terrorist Attacks

Everything Cale owns in the Super Rock Villa.

71) Possession of Precursor Chemicals

Cale making Billos buy alchemy ingredients.

72) Prohibited Weapons

Cale utilizing the Dragon Bones in battle.

73) Providing or Receiving Training Connected With Terrorist Acts

Cale letting his people train in his backyard.

74) Public Nuisance

Cale letting Choi Han act.

75) Reckless Conduct Endangering Life and/or Endangering Serious Injury

Cale every time he uses his Ancient Powers.

76) Recruiting for a Terrorist Organization

Cale adopting the Tiger Tribe.

77) Robbery

Stealing magic stones from the Alchemy Towers.

78) Sabotage

Cale going behind the Empire's back while he helps out the Whipper Kingdom.

79) Setting Traps to Kill

Cale Ghost Operation during the sea battle against the Indomitable Alliance.

80) Smuggling

Cale helping Cage and Taylor into capital.

81) Stalking

Cale entering Alberu's bedroom whenever he wants.

82) Stating False Name When Requested

Cale never letting anyone know about the transmigration and calling himself Cale Henituse.

83) Tax Evasion

Willful tax evasion for sudden wealth increase.

84) Terrorist Acts

Cale & co. detonating a bomb at Maple Castle.

85) Theft

Cale obtaining the blood drinking crown.

86) Threats to Inflict Serious Injury

Cale & co. threatening King Bakehe.

87) Threats to Kill

Cale cheerfully informing Adin he's going to personally kill him.

88) Torture and Interrogation

Cale ordering Beacrox to deal with the Magic Spearman.

89) Unauthorized Access to Restricted Data

Cale & co. coming to the Directory. ...Yes Bud was the Mercenary King so technically it was legal, except from the Mercenary Guild's perspective, it was break and entering.

80) Unlawful Assembly

Cale hanging out with Dragons.

81) Unlawful Oaths to Commit Treason

Cale promising to destroy the Alchemy Belltower to Rei Stecker.

82) Unlicensed Driving

Cale riding Dark Tiger Alberu.

83) Willful Damage

Cale employing Archie to destroy Duke Sekka's statues.

Any other crimes I forgot to list? Let me know!

***

BONUS CONTENT

With the help of others, we've expanded the original list of Cale's crimes!

84) Aiding and Hiding Fugitives

Cale helping out Hannah and Jack.

85) Aircraft Hijacking

Cale & co. taking over the Empire's airships.

86) Being an Accessory to Crimes

All Cale's deals with Billos in a nutshell.

87) Child Labor Law Violation

Cale making children work for their meals. Even if he's actually just adopting strays under the guise of formal work, said formal work is still illegal. Just admit you care, you weirdo.

88) Defamation

Cale spreading recordings of Adin being evil acros the Empire.

89) Deliberate Damage and/or Destruction of Currency

Cale happily throwing coins into lava.

90) Ecoterrorism

Wiping whole islands off the map counts as severe destruction of the environment.

91) Fly-tipping/Littering

Cale casually defenestrating Adin. Watch where you throw garbage, Cale. There are trash bins for a reason!

92) Harassment

Cale ordering Beacrox to beat up mountain bandits.

93) Illegal Detention/Imprisonment

Capturing prisoners of war, like the Dragon Half-Blood or the Flame Dwarves.

94) Illegal Goods Trade

Cale selling and buying items at the Caro Kingdom Auction.

95) Impersonation

Cale pretending to be different people in the Indignity Test.

96) Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage

Cale setting the Lake of God's Tears on Fire. Also, blowing up the Magic Tower.

97) Plunder of Public Property

Cale & co. destroying the walls of the capital of the Empire.

98) Trafficking Endangered Plants Accross Borders

Cale transporting the Fake World Tree in his badge.

99) Treason of the Crown

Cale treating his Hyung-nim with utter disrespect, such as comparing the Shining Sun of the Kingdom to a squirrel.

100) Trespassing

Cale in Endable Kingdom.

BONUS BONUS CONTENT

Not technically illegal, but:

101) Crime Against One's Well-Being

Cale abusing his health in such horrific ways even a regeneration power cannot keep up with him.

102) Crime Against Fashion

Cale preferring only black and plain clothes when he could look good in anything.

103) Crime of Self-Delusion

Cale thinking he still has a chance at slacker life.

104) Spreading Misinformation

Cale's track record of causing misunderstandings everywhere he goes is frankly terrifying.

105) THAT FACE

Cale's fabulous looks are a crime in of itself. It deserves a spot on the list.