#there are endless possibilities and my brain half wants to run off with them | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lisatelramor · 6 years ago

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Ok, this wants to be something longer and if I manage to write more and finish what it wants to be, I’ll post it on AO3. In the meantime, this is for Natsume Yuujinchou week’s Youkai and humans/ species swap. So basically I took characters and Nyanko-sensei’s our protagonist as human along with Takashi as ayakashi. Not proof read, I just wanted to post SOMETHING for Natsuyuu week and this was as much as I could get done by today ^_^;;

Madara groaned as the train came to a stop at the station. Despite napping most of the way there, his hangover was just as strong as it had been that morning, leaving him with a pounding head and a vague nausea upsetting his gut. It had been a hell of a way to get kicked out of an apartment, but that’s why he’d been drinking in the first place. He told himself he wasn’t going to come back to this middle of nowhere town, but here he was, a decade and a half after leaving.

He left with just a suitcase full of clothes and a couple hundred yen in his pocket. He was coming back with even less, so what did that say about his life?

There was an ayakashi in the train station, lurking in the corner. The people coming and going avoided the spot on instinct leaving a meter of space around it in all directions. Madara avoided looking directly at it. Wasn’t his problem. Hell, it could start throwing the trash can and it still wouldn’t be his problem. He didn’t give a damn so long as it wasn’t trying to eat him.

Humid summer air hit like a brick after the air conditioned rail car. With it came the smell of green things and the stink of too many sweaty bodies crowded onto a train platform. He hadn’t missed this. Well, he corrected once he’d dragged his suitcase with him in a shortcut through the woods, he hadn’t missed it too much. There was a great big wide world out there and Madara had gone out and experienced it. There was so much more than a rural town full of backwards hicks that threw sticks and stones with their hurtful words.

He’d only stayed as long as he had back then because, well, he’d stayed that long because of reasons and those reasons hadn’t been there anymore.

He’d forgotten how many ayakashi were in the country though. Floating amid the tree branches. Hiding in underbrush. Lurking with teeth in the dark crevice of a rotted out tree trunk. When he was younger, it had been a problem. Now? Now Madara couldn’t give two shits. So long as he didn’t look and he kept a firm grasp on his powers, nothing would notice him and he could pretend he didn’t notice them, just like how it was supposed to be.

“Years,” Madara muttered, climbing out of a bush back onto a main road. “Years and this place looks exactly the same.” There was the post office. There was the road to the school. There was the house of that older lady that used to chase him off her lawn for picking persimmons she’d let rot on the tree. The green fruit were a long way off from being ripe right now, but Madara was willing to bet they’d still be rotting on the tree come November.

And speaking of things that hadn’t changed, the bar at the end of the street looked exactly how he remembered it, down to the hairline crack in one of the windowpanes and Hinoe’s precise handwriting on the signboard showing the daily specials.

Madara headed for the bar. He was making terrible life choices these days, why not make another?

It was dim inside, even though it was the middle of the damn day, because Hinoe’s bar had the atmosphere of a noir film with half the class. There were a couple people scattered in the corners of the room drinking their sad, pathetic lives away with whatever swill Hinoe served to the day-drinkers and perpetually drunk. Or maybe she’d changed that policy over the years. He kind of doubted that.

Hinoe was at the bar, idly flipping through a magazine and smoking a cigarette. The smoking was new. The magazine full of attractive women was not. Madara sat down at the bar, suitcase thumping against his legs, like it was a normal Tuesday afternoon and it hadn’t been over a decade since he’d stepped into her business. “Hey.”

Ash fell from the tip of the cigarette into an overloaded ashtray as Hinoe looked up. “Huh, well look what last night’s storm drug in. Madara. Long time no see. You look like hell.”

“You look the same as ever.” The same long hair tied up in a bun. The same too-dark makeup. The same bastardized kimono-style top with the sleeves tied back by some brightly patterned strip of cloth. If there weren’t deeper crow’s feet around her eyes, he could almost pretend he’d never left at all.

“I’m immortal, didn’t you know?” Hinoe said, grinning. “I thought you were never coming back. It’s been, what, ten years?”

“Fifteen,” Madara grunted.

“Right, right. I remember you saying something about leaving us losers all behind and finding your true greatness or some shit. Or was it that you’d prove that greatness to the world? How’d that go for you?” By her sly smile, she knew exactly how it went. He wouldn’t be here if his plans went the way they were supposed to and they both knew that.

“I went, I saw the world, the world witnessed me,” Madara said haughtily. “It couldn’t take my greatness so I magnanimously decided to return to share my glory with all of you again.”

“Uh huh. What’s the real story?”

“I went out into the world. The world wasn’t ready for my amazing person. So the world kicked my ass and now I’m living out of a suitcase.”

Hinoe blew a smoke ring. “Wow. Sucks to be you like usual.”

Madara sneered at her. She grinned back. She was a sad excuse for an almost friend and he definitely hadn’t missed her at all. “Speaking of living; my family home still there?”

“That piece of crap?” Hinoe raised an eyebrow. “The roof of that place collapsed two years back and the neighborhood health and safety group decided to tear it down. Since no one had lived there in over a decade anyway. Which, by the way, means the city reclaimed the land since no one was paying taxes for it.”

“They can do that?” Well shit, there went the last place he had to go. “Guess I really am living out of a suitcase now.” And he still had a hangover. Maybe he could get a pity drink from Hinoe. Hair of dog and all that. “Don’t suppose you’d lend a man a couch?”

“I don’t invite men over,” Hinoe said in the tone of voice that said she’d rather scrape gum off the bottom of all her tables than let Madara stay in her living room.

Harsh. “Right, you only invite pretty girls over,” Madara said, a cheap shot. Hinoe, being impervious to that sort of thing, flipped another page of her magazine. Madara scowled at the scuffed up bar top for a few conflicted moments. Thinking of Hinoe and pretty girls made him think of one thing. He didn’t want to ask, but he needed to know if he was going to be in this town for a while. (Okay, he did want to know. He’d thought about it a lot over the years.) “And speaking of pretty girls,” he ground out, “how’s Reiko doing?”

Hinoe gave him a long, hard look before stabbing her burnt-out cigarette into the ashtray. “I don’t know, Madara. Haven’t seen her longer than I haven’t seen you. Not since you two got into a fight.”

“Not at all?” he asked. The semi-permanent scowl he’d had on his face since he got off the train turned to an expression of surprise. Reiko had run off on him after their fight, but Madara figured she was just mad at him. And when a month went by without her popping back up, he figured he’d finally run her off like everyone else, and left her in the dust with the whole shitty town. Reiko’d been the only reason to stick around and without her why keep trying in a place that hated you?

“Nope. No one’s seen her since then. Not even the poor souls she used to terrorize. I was pretty damn mad about it back then too. You somehow managed to scare the most perfect beauty out of town, you inconsiderate ass. She was a shining brightness on humanity!” Hinoe glared at him. Apparently she still was infatuated with Reiko even after all the years.

On humanity, Madara thought wryly. If Hinoe only knew. “I didn’t know she left for good. I thought she was just mad at me and ran off.” A mix of old anger and sadness filled him, along with a newer mix of relief and disappointment. Part of him hoped that he’d see her again. Part of him was terrified of if he did. Part of him still missed her terribly, but he would never admit that out loud, let alone to Hinoe.

“Well she ran off just as much as you it seems since no one has seen hide or hair of her since.”

“Huh.” This town had been her place for years. Why would she leave permanently? But then again, who knew what went on in the minds of spirits? She probably left on purpose just to mess with all of them one more time. The thought was a bitter one and his scowl came back even deeper than before. “Probably better that way.”

“For you or everyone else?” Hinoe asked.

Madara ignored the question. “Hey, Hinoe, you wouldn’t happen to have anything I could drink, would you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. What could I possibly have to drink at a bar?” Hinoe said with heavy sarcasm. “I don’t give out free booze, Madara so either cough up some money or you can have a glass of water.”

“Not even for old times? I’m broke and homeless.”

“Then wanting to get drunk is the least of your problems.” She set a glass of tap water in front of him.

Madara gave her sad eyes. She slid the glass a few centimeters forward. He took it and drank some because at least it would help some with the hangover. “You’re heartless, Hinoe.”

“Uh huh. Sure am. So heartless that I’ll even tell you old man Misuzu’s looking for help at the shrine. Since you’ll be needing a job.”

“I’d starve before I work for a priest,” Madara said, knocking back the water. “If you know of anyone else needing a hand, let me know, but you know Misuzu and I don’t get along.”

“That’s all on you.”

“Tell that to Misuzu.” No home, no Reiko, and no booze. There was no reason to keep hanging around here either. “Thanks for the news and water, Hinoe. I’ll be around.”

“Don’t die in a ditch.”

Madara waved and left. He’d have to find a job but Misuzu couldn’t be the only one in town looking for another set of hands. He could look for something tomorrow. Today, he’d swing by his old home and see if there was anything left at all he could salvage or make into a shelter. If not, he’d figure something out. He always got by somehow. He ignored the tiny niggling voice in his head that said his luck had been a lot better back when Reiko was still around. That voice was lies because clearly he’d managed to live almost half his life just fine without her.

It seemed there were more changes than he initially thought because when he went to take his old route home, there were buildings that didn’t used to be there and a construction site pulling up trees that used to stretch for almost a kilometer, right up to the back of his house. The buildings he could deal with, but the construction site meant he had to either go into deep woods—with all the spirits therein—or circle around town.

Madara dreaded running into someone that might remember him, so he chose the woods. Ten minutes in and he was regretting it.

There had been a kind of trail, like someone’s grandparent came all the time to collect herbs or firewood or something along this tiny, threading path. That path had gotten overgrown quickly, and then the underbrush kept getting caught on his suitcase and the humidity levels kept spiraling upward with oppressive July heat.

“This is hell,” he grumbled to the trees, definitely not to the tiny woods-spirit ducking away from him tromping through the undergrowth. “Sweaty, dehydrating hell.” The last time he went through woods like this had been years ago and he’d been running for his life at the time because he had slipped up and some power hungry ayakashi noticed his spirit energy and thought they’d use him as a tasty ticket to the top of the dung heap. He was better now at hiding so nothing was looking twice at him. Well, no more than anything with eyes would look at something disturbing their home. “I’ll find the house, find a stream, and hope the water doesn’t kill me with parasites.”

Up ahead was a bit of a clearing, a path to somewhere worn into the earth. He made toward it. He was almost halfway down a slope when the suitcase caught something and jerked his arm back. Trying to tug it free was enough to unbalance him, and next thing Madara knew he was tumbling and stumbling to an abrupt stop as he hit something with his shin, hard.

“Ow, shit!” He curled around his leg, achey all over, but only that a hot flare of pain. “No house, no money, no job, and now a broken leg!” He prodded it. It wasn’t actually broken but it was going to have one hell of a bruise later. Could the day get any...worse... There was a straw rope with white sealing charms ripped in half on the ground next to him. Either it had been half rotted through already, or he’d ripped through it when he fell. That didn’t really matter though. If that had been sealing something and he broke it...

There was a stirring of energy and Madara turned, realizing that what had stopped him was a small, run-down shrine, just big enough that he could have sat in the bottom of the structure with his knees tucked up against his chest.

“Shit.” He started hobbling away quickly. He didn’t have anything to seal it again on hand, and recently unsealed spirits tended to be angry as hell and not too picky about who or what they took it out on. “Shit shit shit.” Terrible luck was going strong for him today.

Behind him the tiny shrine door burst off its hinges, flying off somewhere into the woods and breaking a lot of underbrush in the process from the sound of it. Madara hobbled faster only to pause as he realized that the growing spirit power felt familiar. Too familiar.

He glanced over his shoulder in time to see a silver-haired body fall out of the cramped space like someone’s discarded rag doll. The color of the hair matched what his spirit senses were already saying. “Rei...ko?” he said into the sudden silence. No birds, no animals moving, just the building presence of spirit energy and a fragile-looking body sprawled on the ground. Who could have had the power to seal Reiko of all ayakashi?

Madara turned back toward her, drawn like metal to a magnet. “Reiko?” he said again. He reached out to touch and only years of ingrained fighting for his life kept him from losing an arm when the figure on the ground lashed out.

Raw spirit energy crackled between them, hot-bright, and his own rose to meet it on instinct, making what could have left a nasty burn fizzle and die in the air between them. “Reiko, it’s me! Madara!” Surely even after who the hell knew how long sealed in there she’d still recognize him. He left a bit more of his energy out into the air around them, hoping she’d recognize how he felt like he recognized her, but that was apparently the exact wrong thing to do as wild, green eyes snapped up in his direction and the unstable energy in the air doubled.

It was like a hand trying to squash him flat.

“Stay away!” she yelled. Only the voice was male. Young, pitched high with tension, but definitely male. If Madara didn’t know Reiko could shape shift...

��Look, I know we parted on bad terms, but I’m kind of concerned here.” Madara ignored the air pressure and moved closer. “How did you get sealed in there?”

Another bolt of energy almost took off his head, aimed just shy of his ear, or maybe not aimed at all. The concern turned to full blown worry. “Shit, Reiko, that could kill someone. I mean, I’m strong, but tone it down, would ya?”

“I’m not Reiko!” the silver haired—boy? Being?—yelled, arm back and ready to let loose another bolt of energy. “Get away or I’ll... or I’ll hurt you!”

“Real funny,” Madara said, gut twisting. “Good act, Reiko, almost fooled me. You can beat the shit out of me later in a proper spar, just...calm down okay?”

Madara stepped forward, reaching out and the ayakashi flinched back, green eyes going wide with fear.

Madara froze.

Reiko had the pride of ten men and would rather die than let someone see her afraid. “What the hell...?”

“I’m not...I’m not Reiko. I don’t know any Reiko. Please go away!”

“I’m not trying to hurt you.” Hands up, look defenseless. “I just unsealed you. I wouldn’t do that if I was going to hurt you right?”

There was a flicker of conflict in those green eyes before some kind of backbone showed through that fear. “I’m not going to make a contract.”

“I...don’t want one? I’m not an exorcist.” The boy relaxed slightly, but not enough, not so much that the air returned to normal. It felt so familiar... “Are you sure you’re not Reiko? Because you feel like her and this is just the sick kind of joke she’d play to get back at me for running off.” It had to be her. The longing ache in him that had never really gone away over the years rose up and Madara couldn’t help but reach out again. “Please tell me it’s a joke...” He touched a wisp of silvery hair and green eyes went impossibly wide, torn between fighting and getting as far away as possible. “Please.”

A snarl somewhere off in the near distance broke them from staring each other down. The boy flinched back and Madara’s hand was left touching open air. His hand closed on a fist as he realized he’d been projecting his energy for the last half a minute with the futile hope that the person in front of him would respond to it. Between the two of them, they were a beacon for any ayakashi wanting to test its power or grab a spiritually gifted human as a tasty snack. He snapped his control back down so fast that it hurt.

The boy looked dazed.

“We need to get out of here,” Madara said. “Either the local exorcist is going to wonder what the hell is going on or something’s going to come looking for a snack.”

“I’m not going with you. I don’t even know you.”

“Look, I was a friend of Reiko’s and I don’t know why you feel like her, but like hell am I letting some ayakashi or exorcist get you. So just trust me ok?” Madara held out a hand, palm up in offer.

The boy looked at it and looked at him, then gave a neutral smile that was so fake it was pathetic. “I think I’ll be fine.”

It would be less insulting if he’d slapped Madara’s hand away. “Suit yourself then. But you might want to calm down before everything from here to Tokyo knows where you are.”

The boy frowned and the pressure decreased to normal. Madara could still feel the ayakashi, but he wasn’t broadcasting his powers to the world anymore at least. That would have to be good enough. Madara made a show of looking around the area before stepping onto the trail.

“I’m going to take this back toward town; most people would expect a strong Ayakashi to run toward the mountains.” He turned and started walking, his limping gate evening out as he got used to the bruised leg. The suitcase was overturned at the base of the hill, but nothing had fallen out of it. Madara walked and didn’t look to see what the ayakashi did. Didn’t really have to because half a minute along the trail, he felt the boy start to follow.

Halfway down the trail the presence vanished. Either the boy left or he’d figured out how to mask himself properly, which was a good thing since Madara saw more than one ayakashi making its way toward where they’d been. He didn’t hear any fights though. He’d turn back in a heartbeat if it sounded like the boy was being eaten.

At least when he stumbled back out into the outskirts of town he was closer to his old home. Close enough that he just stayed on the side streets to get there. Well. Where home used to be. There wasn’t much left of what had once been the house his grandfather built. It hadn’t ever been a very nice house when Madara lived in it, all a bit falling apart even back then with Gramps either too drunk or too aching to fix things, and Madara either too young or too busy trying not to die from his own powers and unwanted spirit attention back then. But it had been home in its own way, familiar in its peeling paint and rickety steps. Now it was just a foundation left bare, all the rest of the building taken away.

“Shit.” His shoulders slumped. Part of him had really thought that there would be something. Something he could use, or at least something that matched what he remembered. Even the overgrown flower gardens had been torn up and overtaken by weeds. “Bet they sold Granny’s old rose bushes too.” Or maybe that weird guy that used to go by and pointedly say how they used to be so much nicer finally went and dug them up in some weird plant rescue operation. Who knew.

He didn’t really have human friends. Didn’t have many friends in general really, never had, and probably never would. Ordinarily that didn’t bother him, but it was frustrating not to have anyone to turn to. The only thing left were the few ayakashi he knew... Who might not even be in the area anymore either. Reiko had been the main one, and without her...

Well, there was one final avenue to pursue before he gave into despair and found a bush to sleep under until things sorted out. He didn’t really want to, but she did owe him.

“I’m too old for this.”

Any hydrating benefits of that water from the bar were long gone by the time he trudged back deep in the woods again. Here, at least, it didn’t change in any way except the way that nature does, trees growing higher, bushes coming and going, streams shifting minutely as the earth eroded with time. But the big white birch tree with its peeling bark still stuck out as an anomaly among the rest of this area of the forest. Here, he felt like he was twelve again and sneaking off in some childish act of rebellion.

There wasn’t anyone immediately visible at the base of the tree but that didn’t mean they weren’t nearby. Madara tossed down his suitcase and sat back on the familiar, moss covered roots. There was an ayakashi nearby. Maybe more than one if they were close together. He sighed. “Hey. Touru. I know you’re there.”

There was a pause. Then Madara had to flinch at the sudden spike in spirit energy right before an ayakashi all but fell into his lap.

“Fluffy-kun!” Touru shrieked, catching him in a crushing hug. His spine protested the action and he wheezed, unable to fend her off with his arms pinned. So, pretty much as usual with her. “You got old! Older!” She leaned back and tugged at Madara’s unkempt hair. “And less fluffy and more shaggy. It feels like it’s been a long time since I saw you. You’re not as cute as you used to be.”

“I would hope not!” Madara pushed her off his lap and she went willingly, smiling like it was a big game. Her cat ears didn’t even twitch at his volume. “I’m not a child anymore.”

“Aww, but you’re still cute,” she said. “Just a grumpy kind of cute. Though I guess you were kind of a grumpy kid too. Ah, yep, you’re scowling again! I’m so glad to see it. You’re still you. How long has it been?”

“Fifteen years.”

“Eh? That long? And you didn’t visit once? No wonder it felt like forever.”

He couldn’t tell, not with Touru and not with many other ayakashi, how sincere the enthusiasm or the sadness were. Ayakashi didn’t work the same way as humans. Time didn’t mean the same thing to them either. “Isn’t that amount of time like blink of an eye to you?”

“It could be,” Touru said. “But I’m not that old yet. I’m barely past a hundred; decades still mean something you know.”

But they would mean less and less. How little did time mean for spirits that were old, spirits like Reiko had been?

“I’ll take your word for it.” Right. He came here for a reason. “Touru, I know I am amazingly self-sufficient, but I am going to have to cash on one of those favors you owe me.”

“Ah, so not a social visit.” She looked a little sad and it made tendrils of guilt ping at him, but living was a bit more important than wondering how much he could or couldn’t hurt her feelings. The cheerful smile shifted to something more serious.

“No. Another time it will be. You still remember the sort of things humans need in a shelter, right?”

“Yes.” She tipped her head to one side. “I do still pay attention to humans, Fluffy-kun.”

“Right.” And she had a collection of human things somewhere, started by her grandfather who had studied them. Right up until his curiosity had been the death of him via an exorcist. Still, that curiosity had stuck with Touru and it had once gotten her into a lot of trouble too. She was an ayakashi that spent time with humans over the years so she should, theoretically, know what sort of thing to look for in finding Madara a place to stay. “Despite taking on the world with all my talents in the years since I left, at the moment everything I own is in that suitcase and I’m down a house. You know of anywhere I can make a home in until I earn enough money to get a proper roof over my head?”

“Hmm...” Touru tapped a finger alongside her chin. Behind her, her split tail tapped the ground in double-time. “Actually I’m pretty sure there’s an empty shrine in the woods right now you could use. It’s a little run down, but it has a roof and walls and enough space to sleep in. The one near the offshoot of the creek where that big willow tree is.”

“Touru, you’re amazing,” Madara said with conviction. “How empty are we talking?”

“The minor god that lived in it died a few months ago when his last follower passed away, and no one has moved in yet. I doubt anyone would object to you living in it.” Touru smiled.

Madara grinned back. Finally a bit of luck! To be expected from a maneki-neko. “I can think of a few humans who’d object but I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Touru mimed locking her lips like a child with a secret, not an action she’d learned from him. She must still watch humans when she wasn’t here at her tree. She glanced past Madara, into the woods, and on reflex he glanced with her, just catching a glint of silvery hair before its owner managed to hide again. Huh. So the boy had followed him after all. Whatever he was doing to stay hidden still made him impossible to sense.

“Is he with you?” she asked, curious.

“Not exactly. Feels like Reiko but says he’s not.”

“He feels human from here.”

A startling implication; only the strongest ayakashi could convincingly take human form. That was yet another thing the boy shared with Reiko. “Well he’s not human. I accidentally unsealed him earlier today.”

Touru gave him a worried, sideways look. Most ayakashi got sealed because they were a danger to humans, and ayakashi that were dangerous to humans had a funny way of attacking Madara a lot as a child.

“I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me, I just fell down a hill and got bruised up. As if some ayakashi could hurt me,” he said, arrogant smile on his face that he didn’t feel in his heart. “I told you, I’m not some little kid anymore.”

“You’ll always be that angry, fluffy little kid in my head, Madara,” Touru said, ruffing his hair like he was still twelve instead of almost forty. She used his name so rarely that it was surprising enough for him to forget to duck.

“Whatever,” Madara said, swatting her hands away as she giggled. “Thanks for the heads up on where to sleep; I’m going to go pass out there now. It’s been a long day. If you need a drinking buddy anytime in the future, I’m your guy.”

“This from the person who said sake tasted like shoe polish smelled?”

“Hey, a lot changes in fifteen years!”

Touru laughed and waved as he left. This time he was more aware of his light-haired shadow. Madara had been so conscious of ayakashi in the area he hadn’t been paying attention to more mundane sounds. So long as the ayakashi was pretending to be completely human, he was just as noisy as any other human teenager walking through the woods. Madara was still louder, but Madara was hauling a suitcase and felt like his arm was going to get torn off heaving it around, so he at least had an excuse for it.

***

The shrine was nothing much to look at. Flat paving stones surrounding it were overgrown with weeds, the door was crooked and coming off its track and there were signs that something had started building a nest inside of it. But it had a roof—overgrown with moss, but intact—and four walls, and the inside was dry. Madara couldn’t stand or lay fully stretched out in it, but it was big enough that he could curl into a comfortable position and there was a little well with water meant for purifications. There wasn’t a bit of spirit energy lingering in the shrine. The god that inhabited it must have been all but dead for a long time before it bit the dust.

Madara swept out the mess of leaves and fur and twigs that had accumulated, shooed off centipedes and beetles, and claimed that space for himself. He had a pillow and a couple blankets, and if he gathered up leaves or grass or something he could make it a bit more comfortable to sleep in. Probably. Provided that didn’t bring in fleas or ants or something. Beggars couldn’t be choosers and he didn’t have anywhere else to go. It was only until he had a job and enough cash to afford a few months’ rent for an apartment. It was summer; until then he’d manage and eat what he could scrounge up or beg off Hinoe.

The sun was sinking down and Madara’s stomach grumbled; it was a long time since that glass of water and longer still since he last had anything to eat. He was too tired to get up from the shrine floor and do something about it though. He’d just have to suck it up. There was still fat to burn from when life was still going pretty okay. He’d manage.

The world went dark. Out in the woods, fireflies lit up. Real or ayakashi, he couldn’t say. The pale green lights were pretty. You didn’t get fireflies in the city. Couldn’t see the stars either. Focus on the positives... Somewhere in the dark a fox yowled, eerie and hair-raising. A twig snapped in the woods to the right and for a second he could see the green reflection of eyes. Tapeta lucida, some far off portion of his brain that had looked it up once upon a time informed him. Reflecting moonlight. Madara tensed, senses reaching out for ayakashi, animals, anything. Nothing...no, something that felt human but—ah.

“You can come out,” Madara said to the dark woods. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Five...twelve...twenty, Madara counted firefly blinks, waiting.

Bushes rustled and parted. The boy that looked like Reiko stepped out of them. He looked like he would run at any second. He looked like he was lost. Madara felt very tired. “You can come closer. It’s not like I’m going to do anything. I just want to sleep.”

The boy crept closer. “She said you helped her,” he said, standing all hunched over and wary right outside the shrine steps. “From exorcists.”

Touru. Madara closed his eyes against the intent gaze picking him apart. “Yeah, I did. I was a child and idealistic and angry enough to do things for spite back then.”

“She called you caring but blunt.” The boy shuffled closer.

Madara’s eyes slit open, met his bright green stare.

“She said you don’t hurt ayakashi unless they hurt you first.”

Madara gave him a humorless smile. “Yeah. Most of the time. Touru thinks too well of me considering how I almost ended up being an exorcist.” The boy flinched back a little. Bad memories of exorcists, or a healthy fear of their threat. “I’m not nice. I’ve sealed ayakashi for hurting people before and I’d do it again, but mostly I just want to be left the hell alone, eat good food, and drink nice sake.” The boy didn’t look away. He didn’t run. “You look a hell of a lot like Reiko.”

“I’m not her,” the boy snapped. “Everyone is always Reiko, Reiko, but I’m not Reiko!”

“No,” Madara said heavily, “no, you’re not.” He wished it was just some mean joke Reiko was playing, but he didn’t think that was the case; she’d have swapped out her disguise and started bragging by now. “You got a name?”

Just like that the boy was tense again and Madara had to roll his eyes.

“I’m not going to steal your name. Or...force a contract. You don’t even have to give me a true one, just something to call you.”

There was a long pause, then, “Takashi.”

“Cool. Call me Madara.” Madara rolled over so his back was to the door. “Now either stop stalking me and go away or just get in here and let me sleep. Today’s been a hell of a day.”

“You won’t seal me?” Takashi said. “Or try to make me your shiki?”

“What the hell would I do with a shiki? I’m a bum camping out in an abandoned shrine. And so long as you don’t try to kill me I don’t give two shits about what you do. Try to off me in my sleep and sealing becomes a lot more likely.”

Farther off, the fox yowled again. There was a soft scuff of cloth on wood and the rattle of the door closing most of the way. The boy, Takashi, settled into a corner of the shrine, as far from Madara as the small space allowed. He was paranoid as hell for how strong he had to be.

There was a part of Madara that didn’t like having his back to an unknown ayakashi. At least that discomfort wasn’t one-sided. He closed his eyes and despite his misgivings, eventually he fell asleep. For the first time in years he dreamed of Reiko, her presence all around him, confident grin on her face and him looking up at her, beautiful, powerful, and untouchable.

Takashi wasn’t sure what he was doing here, curled up in a dead god’s shrine with a human. A human that could have been an exorcist with how strong his spirit powers felt in the brief moments he stopped shielding them. He’d called Takashi Reiko, just like so many others had before, but he hadn’t tried to hurt him for it, and he hadn’t tried to bind Takashi to his will like the exorcists had before they gave up and sealed him instead.

The man, Madara, was an anomaly and Takashi wasn’t sure where to categorize him yet, potential ally or enemy. For now, it wouldn’t hurt to keep track of him. There was something about him, something that was familiar in his spirit senses, like they’d met once a lifetime ago. The vague warmth that had flashed through him, that spark of recognition was gone as Madara snored, curled into a tight ball in the cramped space. Humans, ayakashi, neither made sense. Not this man, not the ayakashi who recounted the story of this man as a child saving her from an exorcist that bound her when she was researching humans, and not any of the others he had run into before in his brief span of memory. They hurt without provocation and lusted for power and would walk over you to get what they wanted without remorse.

Still, Madara had unsealed him, Touru had been kind, and Madara offered shelter instead of chasing him away. It meant something, something that Takashi didn’t understand yet.

He meant to stay awake, but little by little, he drifted off, feeling strangely safe with a sleeping stranger.

Takashi woke to muffled swearing. At some point in the night he had slumped to the ground. One of the blankets Madara had been using was draped over him, an unnecessary gesture but surprising in its kindness. The man in question was bent over his luggage, searching through it for something. Takashi stared.

“Stupid thing has to be in here, I packed it. I know I—” Madara cut off, either feeling Takashi’s stare or some other sense catching his attention. He whipped around fast enough to make Takashi flinch. “Oh. You’re awake. Uh. Just go ahead and go sleep as long as you want I’m just...” He jerked a hand at the warped door, still most of the way shut. Takashi kept staring. Madara’s hand dropped. He grabbed a pieces of cloth from the luggage and scooted to the door. “Breakfast. I’m going to find breakfast.”

“Breakfast?”

“Food. That you eat in the morning.”

Takeshi frowned. “Every morning?”

“Yes, if possible, every morning. Eating might be optional for most ayakashi, but humans don’t exactly live long if they don’t eat.” Madara rolled his eyes like it was something obvious. Maybe it was; Takashi was hardly an expert on humans. “You should try it sometime.”

“It seems impractical.”

“Impracti—” Madara sputtered and froze in the doorway. He jabbed a finger in Takashi’s direction. “You know what, I’m getting you breakfast too. If there are three things worth living for, it’s food, sake, and sleeping as much as you want. Nothing better than that.” He stomped out of the shrine and slammed the door behind him.

Takashi stared at the closed door. He could go back to sleep, sleep for longer than he’d been sealed if he wanted to. Or he could leave and follow Madara and the vague feeling of familiarity his presence pulled at his subconscious.

He followed Madara. Yesterday it took Madara ages to realize he was being followed. Today it took all of ten minutes before he turned around and glared in Takashi’s direction. Takashi almost flinched back into the middle of a bush.

“If you’re going to come, at least do it in the open!” Madara complained. “It’s creepy being stared at behind tree trunks. C’mere.” He beckoned imperiously.

Against all instincts telling him he should head back to the shrine or run for the hills, Takashi crept closer.

Madara pointed at a plant on the ground in front of him. Its leaves had jagged edges. “Look! Shiso. You can eat the leaves in a salad.” He proceeded to pluck a bunch and stuff them into a cloth object shaped a bit like a bag. “And that—” Madara pointed to bright purple blossoms of thistle where the trees were a bit thinner. “Azami. You can eat the leaves if you boil them a bit. I can’t find my pan though, so raw food it is for this morning.”

There was something weirdly familiar about what Madara pointed out as they walked through the woods; knowledge slotted into place like it was something Takashi already knew, but had forgotten.

“And of course there are always dandelions,” Madara said, pulling up new green leaves from the tenacious weed at the edge of a clearing. “You can always find dandelions. Bitter as hell, but better than nothing.”

“Purslane,” Takashi said, the name of another common weed popping into his head. There was some growing a bit further into the clearing, paddle-shaped leaves on a low-growing plant. “You can eat it raw or cooked.”

Madara stared at him for a moment and Takashi wondered if he’d remembered wrong. Then Madara huffed. “Right. It also tastes kind of gross, but it’s healthy.”

“Isn’t the point of food to taste good?”

“Not everyone has the luxury of being something that doesn’t require food,” Madara said. “Now pay attention! I’m teaching!” He grinned. “You should call me sensei.”

“Why would I do that?” Takashi complained. Madara wasn’t terrifying anymore; the more he talked, the more Takashi thought he just liked the sound of his own voice. He wasn’t terrible company even if he was kind of annoying.

“Because I’m teaching you life skills, brat! You never know when you might need to know this!”

Those words tripped something in Takashi’s memory. A woman and a small child in the woods and a handful of warabi, the fern stems still tight and new held close to her chest. It’s a life skill, brat! Takashi blinked and the feeling of being two places at once vanished, but the moment lingered, exasperated fondness tinging his emotions. How odd.

Madara had an eyebrow raised in challenge and his hands on his hips.

That echo of fondness swelled and for a moment Takashi could see Madara as something other than a potential threat, just a ragged man with a bit of an ego and a soft heart under a gruff exterior.

“Well?” Madara said.

“Nyanko-sensei,” Takashi decided on.

“Excuse me?!” He puffed up, just like an offended cat.

“Your eyes are gold like a cat’s,” Takashi said. And Touru’s nickname of ‘fluffy’ wasn’t wrong; he was a bit fluffy.

“Why is there a ‘ko’?!”

“It sounds better,” Takashi said, amused as the man sputtered and grumbled about ayakashi and demeaning nicknames.

“Fine!” Madara threw up his hands. “Whatever! Help me find something that isn’t god-awful bitter to make up for the rest of this.”

Takashi didn’t point out that he had no idea what to look for. He’d let Madara remember that on his own.

#natsume week #natsume yuujinchou #species swap #i hopefully will come back to this #i have like 10 wips at the moment tho #i want to look at a bunch of different human/ayakashi swaps in this universe #if anyone is curious takashi IS reiko reborn after something went wrong with an exorcist #debating about how a book of friends works in this au #reiko's diary?#she beat up ayakashi or a literal friend book to remember humans she's fond of?#People think takashi's madara's child #hinoe's devastated thinking reiko had a kid with madara or something #maotoba's an unsettling and powerful ayakashi with a grudge against humans and a weak spot from an exorcist encounter #said exorcist is the ayakashi that wants to eat him in canon and is TERRIFYING #and maybe had something to do with Reiko becoming Takashi #the real question is if Madara's family name should be Natsume #since ayakashi don't have family names #tanuma is the son of a minor local god who is a fairly frail spirit and v sensitive to exorcists #there are endless possibilities and my brain half wants to run off with them

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dycefic · 3 years ago

Text

Have An Evil Day

No prompt this time, just a sequel to ‘Welcome To Evil-Mart’

Working at Evil-Mart is usually… well, it’s retail. It’s physically exhausting, you have to deal with a lot of idiots without being overtly rude, and your feet hurt. Even though the hours and pay are very good, the benefits are great, and our bosses treat us well compared to most retail employees, it’s still not what I’d call a fun job.

But it’s not what I’d call dull, either. Especially not on days like today.

I was promoted to supervisor after the Food Poisoning Incident, so I have a little more authority and a little less obligation to be pleasant and I got issued a weighted cosh because sometimes Evil-Mart customers get… feisty. I’d never had to use it, though, because those who hadn’t seen what I did to Majority Rules, either in person or on one of the cell-phone videos that circulated afterwards, had at least heard about it. They didn’t give me any trouble.

I was halfway through my shift, and the worst things that’d happened had been running out of croissants and a machine oil spill in Aisle Seven, when our greeter pressed the alarm button, which sent an alert to my handset. As front-end supervisor, that meant me, so I went over. Sam, who is unusual in the henching community for having actually aged out rather than ‘being retired’ jerked his chin in the direction of a tall, swaggering figure. “He just came in,” he whispered.

I did a full double-take before I took it in. Superdyne. Fucking Superdyne.

We’d all heard about his dramatic heel-turn a couple of months ago. The whole world had heard about it. Superdyne, who’d skated closer and closer to the line for years, had decided to cross it in a blaze of bloodshed. He was a villain now, he said. There’d been a whole speech about how ingratitude had driven him to it blah blah blah.

I work at Evil-Mart. I’m from a hench family. If someone becomes a supervillain because they hate Mondays or want to turn us all into dinosaurs or whatever, I don’t judge. I will sell depth-charges and laser guns to anyone who can prove they’re over eighteen without hesitation. But even we get kind of grossed out by the ‘I am forced to turn evil because I haven’t been given enough love’ thing. People who are actually so fucked up by emotional abuse or neglect or some superhero killing their family, we’re fine with them. But they don’t say that’s why they do it, and most of them need a lot of therapy to even realize it. People who actually say that’s why are entitled dickwads.

And now the dickwad had walked into Evil-Mart like he was entitled. Like he thought he was one of us.

“Lockdown protocols,” I told Sam quietly. “On my authorisation.” That takes a minute or two, though, so I went over to talk to Superdyne. “Sir, I have to ask how you even knew where to find this place.”

He smirked at me. “I have my ways,” he said smugly. He’d either bribed or beaten someone, that was my guess. “So this is where the villains shop? We all thought you went to Wal-Mart.” He laughed, like he thought it was clever.

“Yes, so you all say,” I said dryly. I didn’t feel like pretending he was the first person to make the bad joke. “My next question, sir, is what made you think it was a good idea to come in here.”

He spread his hands. “I’m one of you now!” he said happily. “I’m a bad guy! So now I guess I shop where the bad guys shop!” He looked around, frowning a little. “Although I was expecting more weapons and explosives. A… more villainous atmosphere. I didn’t know Evil-Mart had fresh produce.”

“I don’t advise buying herbs here unless you’re a magical practitioner. Some of them have… unusual effects.” A lot of our produce is normal stuff, but some of it not only isn’t legal, it doesn’t exist anywhere else.

“Oh. Well, that makes sense. But the bright lights and the bakery?”

“We have excellent gluten-free breads. In many ways, Superdyne, this is just another store. We have sales, we mark down the breads in the afternoon, we even have a PA system.” I pulled out my handset, and thumbed the button that tied it to the PA. “Attention, shoppers,” I said in my most soothing Customer Service voice, which made him grin. “Evil-Mart wishes to inform you – “ The countdown on my handset reached zero, and I turned to look at the entrance as a huge blast door thudded down. That was the last part of the sequence – staff outside the area were already in lockdown and security were on their way. I smiled, and continued almost without a pause. “- That we are in lockdown at this time, due to the presence of Superdyne in the store. Please remain calm, and be advised that security are on their way to deal with the problem. If you have a personal grudge that you wish to address with Superdyne at this time, he is standing near Register Six with a stupid expression on his face.”

He was staring at me, stunned. “But… but…” he stammered, and damned if he didn’t look puzzled. “But I’m one of you now!”

“No,” I said flatly. “You were always evil, that’s true, but you’ll never be one of us. And for the record, I’m one of the people with a personal grudge. All those henchmen you’ve killed and maimed had families, asshole… and they all shop here.”

He swung at me, then, but I spent years in hench training. Even someone super-strong can be dodged, and once I slammed my cosh into his groin a few times his punches got a lot more aimless. Around then, Tiger Ty came over the register, claws out and snarling, and I figured I should stand out of the way.

About ten minutes later, I turned on the PA again. “Clean-up to Register Six,” I called, in the same special voice. “Category 7, class three. Shoppers, please be advised that lockdown is now lifted but Register Six will be closed until clean-up is completed.”

Hunter, who’d been working Register Six, came out from underneath it. He looked a little green. Well, he was still in his teens, this was probably his first fatal mobbing. “What’s Category 7?” he asked in a shaky voice. “I haven’t heard that before.”

“Biohazard.”

“Oh. Class three?”

“Send three people. He was a juicy one.” I stepped away from a spreading puddle of blood. “Run and get a couple of caution signs we can put around this mess.” I eyed it measuringly. “And one of those fifteen-gallon plastic tubs with a lid, I’ll damage it out.”

He eyed the mess. “Are you sure that’s big enough?”

“Yeah, the average human is only about seventeen gallons by volume, and I’m not going to put all the blood and mush in there, just the big pieces.”

He gulped. “Ah. Yes, ma’am.”

I called after him when he ran off. “One of the black tubs, not a clear one!” Which honestly should only be common sense, but you can’t count on a flustered teenager to have common sense.

We frown on killing customers at Evil-Mart, up to a point… but when a particularly murderous super-hero walks into our store, well, that’s something else. I’d have to fill out a ton of paperwork, though.

I had to chase off one of Doctor Malign’s minons and two members of the Genetic Reign before the clean-up crew arrived, both of whom urgently wanted samples. In the end I scraped a few pieces of liver and unidentified organ into two of the bags we use for possibly-contaminated money just to make them go away. (They’re good customers, and it was just going to go in the trash anyway.)

By the time the clean-up was done, all the big pieces were boxed up, and I’d finished the paperwork, my shift had been over for twenty minutes, and I’d been asked to come up to the boss’s office.

“Listen, I have no issues with how you handled the situation, I want you to know that.” Mr Trent leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingertips together. “It was quick, it was efficient, and… given your personal history with Superdyne, not to mention mine and that of half of our customer base… richly deserved.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. It came out too meek, and I cleared my throat and straightened up. It’s hard not to be intimidated by Mr Trent, when you’re in the same room with him. It’s not his fault, and he does his best, but even under the strictest control his fear-inducing powers tend to unsettle anyone who gets too close. We all know he’s not doing it on purpose and we try not to show our reactions. “Do you have any orders regarding the remains?”

“Doctor Order wants them.” He rubbed his chin. “Get someone from the pharmacy to prepare samples for him, please, including brain tissue. He’s our primary supplier, and we can’t offend him. As for the rest… as you know, I’m retired, and I don’t usually participate in the Endless War.” One of his hands dropped to his left thigh. His prosthetic leg is some of Doctor Order’s best work, but the injury that led to his retirement had been brutal even by our standards. “But this is different. Superdyne came here. To our place of safety. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

I nodded. “Do you want the remains dumped somewhere public? Some kind of dramatic display?”

“No. Something more direct.” He rubbed his chin again, then tapped the intercom on his desk. “Iris, please send up Miss Fedorova from Marketing and Mr Levy from the warehouse.”

“Yes, sir,” Iris responded, and he clicked off the intercom again.

“The three of you worked together very well, during the food poisoning incident,” he explained. “And I believe they can assist us in a satisfactory conclusion.” He hesitated, then smiled ruefully. “Perhaps you should wait outside until they get here. I can tell I’m unsettling you.”

“Sir, I know you’re not – “

“Not doing it on purpose.” He sighed. “I do appreciate how hard you all work to make me feel… accepted, I really do. But I’m very annoyed right now, which makes control more difficult for me, so I think we’d both be more relaxed if you waited outside while I do my meditation exercises.”

I waited outside. When the three of us went into his office again, the miasma of low-level fear was definitely a bit lighter, and he smiled. “All right. Now, this conversation is going to be very confidential, and I will remind you all of the agreements you signed when you were employed.” We all chorused agreement, and he nodded. “Good. Now, this is very much a secret, even among Evil-Mart staff, but we do have a few online clients who are… ah… on the other side of the fence.”

Ms Fedorova blinked. “What?”

Knuckles sighed. “We ship to a few heroes,” he explained. “The ones who are… less homo than sapiens, if you get my drift.”

I didn’t, and from her expression Ms Fedorova didn’t either. Mr Trent spread his hands, drawing our eyes to his fingers. Which as a rule nobody looks at, because there’s fourteen of them, with four joints in each finger, and we know he’s self-conscious about it. “The less… purely human ones,” he said quietly. “One of the reasons I created Evil-Mart was to give those who can’t pass for human, like me, a place to be… people. To have dignity. So that the obligate carnivores weren’t reduced to living on pet-food or scavenging for scraps, so that those with complex metabolisms could get the supplements they need so that people who are still people, for all their outward differences, could shop in safety. There are a great many more monsters, demigods, abominations of science and other non-standard persons among our set than among the heroes, and I wanted to meet their needs, as well as selling weapons and Lair-away-from-home sets and so on.”

“And there are a few heroes who order from us for that reason,” Knuckles added. “The ones who can’t get medications to suit their metabolism, or need to eat things that you can’t get easily anywhere else.”

I nodded, because that much I understood. We have some very esoteric ‘dietary supplies’ that start with fresh, healthy, well-treated and disease-free prey animals frozen whole (from mouse up to calf and goat kept in stock, larger sizes by pre-order, halal and kosher certified where possible) and end with human blood (rejected blood bank stock mostly, we have an arrangement), and human flesh and organs (sourced from hospitals, morgues and crematoriums, guaranteed no murder, at least not by us). “Well, I suppose that makes sense. I’m surprised we ship to them, though.”

“Oh, they don’t know we know. It’s all assumed names and secret bank accounts.” Knuckles grinned. “But Mr Trent has all our online customers identified before we ship. And for the ones who don’t have any other options, well… we let it slide.”

“I can see why you don’t want that to get out.” Ms Fedorova tapped her chin. “What does this have to do with disposing of the body? I was planning to set up a really ghoulish display in a public place somewhere, I already have some sketches.” Marketing for Evil-Mart is… well, it includes more than designing our sale flyers.

“No. We’re going to deliver them to a hero… one of the ones who owes us… and make it very clear that just because someone decides to admit he’s a villain, that doesn’t make him one of us and it doesn’t entitle him to union services,” Mr Trent said flatly. “I want to make it crystal clear to all of them that a heel turn does not mean their sins are forgiven, or that we will accept them as anything other than a very brief amusement.”

Late that night – we were all on overtime, but it couldn’t be done in daylight – we wheeled a cart down the run-down hallway of a shoddy apartment building. “This is a terrible address for a hero,” Ms Fedorova muttered. “Are we sure he lives here?”

“I deliver here a couple of times a month.” Knuckles was pushing the cart. “I’m sure.”

“Okay.” Ms Fedorova cleared her throat, coughed once or twice, and suddenly her voice was deeper and her very faint Russian accent was as thick as pea soup. “This is intimidation tactic,” she said, grinning toothily. “Do not act surprised.”

I knocked on the door, but let Knuckles do the talking. “Delivery, Mr West,” he called, using the fake name the guy had been giving.

It worked… the door was unlocked and opened almost immediately. “I scheduled the order for next – “ the mark said, and then we were pushing inside, slamming the door behind us.

“Do not be alarmed, Mr… Dinoid, is it?” Ms Fedorova said, folding her arms. “Evil-Mart is knowing all along your real identity. But you are needing to eat, and we are not turning down regular business, so we make no trouble.”

Knuckles rolled his eyes behind her back at how much she was hamming it up, but I waved a hand. Let her have her fun. So Knuckles started unloading the boxes onto the table while she talked. “First, your Budget Bunny Box. Your favourite, da?” The next box, smaller, plunked down. “Two fresh chickens, halal certified, healthy and having lived good life, gift for good customer.” Knuckles dumped the plastic tub on the floor. “And mortal remains of Superdyne, with note.”

Dinoid was staring at us, but that made him shift into a combat stance, his long claws spread. “The… Superdyne’s dead? And in there?”

“Well. Most of him. The big pieces.” Ms Fedorova shrugged an impressively Russian shrug. I hadn’t even known that was a thing, but when she did it, it was obvious. “You must understand, when a mob tears a man apart, it is hard to find every little piece.”

“I’m pretty sure Doctor Malign and the Genetic Reign took off with doggy bags,” I said, as if I hadn’t handed them over myself. “And Doctor Order probably has some of him too, by now. So looking out for clones would be a good idea, I don’t know if that’s in the note.”

Insofar as that reptilian face could show readable expressions, he looked shocked. “Why on earth would… why? He changed sides? And why did you bring him to me?”

“We know your address, we know you don’t want to turn us in because we’re the only ones who can supply your meals, and our boss wanted us to make this very clear.” I indicated the note. Since Ms Fedorova was hamming up her Sexy Russian Supervillain act, and Knuckles was very obvious Muscle, I figured it was on me to be the Reasonable One. “He might have stopped being a hero, but that didn’t make him one of us. That didn’t make him acceptable to us. Our boss wants it made very clear that your failures shouldn’t expect to be accepted by us… or even spared by us.”

He shifted slowly, the tip of his tail twitching. “I… see. I understand why you would reject Superdyne. He was notorious for killing and maiming people on… your side. But I know other defectors have been accepted. Philomel, for example.”

“Philomel was child of villains. She is young, she is rebellious, she sides with heroes for a while.” Ms Fedorova shrugged. “Is understandable, da? The young do foolish things. She comes home, all is forgiven.”

He nodded slowly. “Tenebrous?”

“That story I don’t know.” Ms Fedorova glanced at me.

I nodded. “Tenebrous was just a kid. He was twelve when Varide recruited him. Nineteen when he broke with the guy. Varide put a kid into combat, left him with massive PTSD, then ditched him when he had a breakdown and went too far. Mx Frantique at least made sure he had a safe place to stay and some therapy.”

“It’s happened a few times.” Knuckles rested his elbows on the cart’s handles, his inhumanly big, strong hands dangling. “But there’s a process. A system. If someone’s sponsored by a villain in good standing, like Frantique sponsoring Tenbrous, they can be accepted. Nobody gets to just choose to join. Especially not a smug, entitled prick like Superdyne.”

Ms Fedorova suddenly leaned forward, scowling. “And why are you called Dinoid? You are not dinosaur. You are clearly monitor lizard. Golden monitor, I think.” She reached out and prodded his arm. “And not healthy, either. Look at colouration! You do not keep environment humid enough. Are having trouble with shedding, da?”

Now we were all staring at her. “You’re a lizard expert now?” Knuckles asked.

She shrugged. “What? Is hobby. Mamma’s little Varanus Acanthurus are pride and joy. Sadly, cannot keep larger monitors in city. Is unkind.”

Dinoid ran a hand over his head slowly. “Not many people realize,” he said slowly. “That’s why I order from you guys. I used to get frozen… food… from a pet supplier, but then I got contacted by someone who told me there was another option.”

“Is good thing. Those pet suppliers, they are rogues. They do not keep animals healthy, can get diseases or mites from those things.” Ms Fedorova sniffed. “I would never buy from them. My babies would get sick.”

He actually chuckled, then, seeming to relax a bit. “You’re not wrong. After… this happened… I got really sick a couple of times before I figured out what to eat, and where to get it. And even the reputable suppliers don’t always have the healthiest stock.” He opened his mouth wide, making a gagging noise. “You have no idea how bad that ‘reptile food’ is. Eating whole animals may be a little disgusting, but it’s nothing to some of that stuff.”

“I believe it,” I said emphatically. “There’s a reason Evil-Mart has such an extensive pet-food line. The horror stories we hear from some of our customers… well, you’d believe it, I bet, but most humans just look confused.”

Knuckles nodded, and spread his hands. “People who can’t pass for regular humans… or even for people, the way most normies see it… are a lot more common on our side of the fence than yours. That’s why we delivered to you. We figured you really needed it.”

“Does he order from the pharmacy?” Ms Fedorova was around behind him now, examining his back. “He is having calcium deficiency, am betting. He needs nutritional supplement.”

“I take a nutritional supplement,” he said defensively.

“The one for normal-sized lizards is not enough for man-sized monitor/human hybrid,” she said firmly. “Check pharmacy section next time. We are having excellent selection of supplements for hybrids, and chart to tell you how much to take for body-mass.”

He looked back and forth between the three of us. “You people are… not what I would have expected from an evil supermarket.”

“We may be… morally challenged,” I said, shrugging, “but we’re not heartless.” I looked around his tiny, shabby apartment. “Unlike some of your lot. I thought you were on a team. Why are you living here?”

He ducked his head. “I couldn’t live at the base,” he said, his tail drooping. “My… I made people uncomfortable. And the stipend isn’t much.”

“Isn’t much? With the merchandising deals they have?” Ms Fedorova sounded shocked, and the accent had dropped back a lot. “I know for a fact that if the accountants ever got hold of their books they’d owe more in back taxes than… well, than Evil-Mart would if our illegal product arm ever got discovered. And we pay our taxes on the legitimate stuff scrupulously.”

Dinoid blinked rapidly, though I couldn’t tell whether he was more surprised by her suddenly dropping her act or the idea that Evil-Mart pays taxes. “You do?”

“Of course. Not under that name, of course, there’s a shell company.” She sniffed. “All villains do. Al Capone, you know. We’re not getting caught that way again.”

Knuckles and I both nodded when he looked at us, and he shook his head. “Huh. Makes sense, I guess.”

“It does.” I looked around again. The place really was crappy. “I know it’s a personal question, Mr… West, but under the circumstances I’d like to know… how much is that stipend?”

He looked down at the floor for a while, then cleared his throat. “Uh. $1100 a month.”

We all stared at him. Ms Fedorova’s mouth fell open. Knuckles looked shocked, and I was horrified. “$1100 a month?!” I asked, my voice coming out louder than I’d intended. “For risking your life on a superhero team?! I have teenaged cashiers working part-time who make more than that!”

He looked almost as startled as we did. “For working a cash register?!”

“Evil-Mart pays pretty good.” Knuckles shrugged. “But that stipend is disgusting.”

“You are being exploited,” Ms Fedorova said, sounding really aghast. “That is terrible. Why, baseline henchman pay is twice that, and there are danger bonuses and…” Her voice dropped suddenly. “You don’t have a union, do you?”

“A union? Of course we don’t have a…” He trailed off. “You mean you do?”

“Of course we do. An extremely well-armed one.” Ms Fedorova folded her arms. “Henchmen And Allied Industries has represented us for generations. The last time a supervillain executed a union henchman for failure, he was boiled in oil… literally. On camera. Oh, of course some of the less reputable villains just pick up small-time trash from the streets, untrained rabble from the gangs and so on, so they can treat them as disposable, but we union members are skilled workers, with rights and protections. I bet you don’t even get overtime.”

“Of course not. Crime happens when it happens, and we have to…” He trailed off. “You guys get overtime?”

“We’re getting double time and a half for this conversation. And an extra day off.”

His eyes widened again. “Really? Wow, that’s… even when I was working a regular job, before this, I didn’t get pay like that.” He looked down at his hands and bared his teeth in what looked like an unhappy expression. “And now I can’t work anything but this kind of job. People don’t like having a scary dinosaur in their restaurant.”

There was a long pause.

“You can cook?” Ms Fedorova asked carefully.

“Yeah. I worked in my parents’ restaurant before… this.” He gestured at himself. “They were killed when we were attacked, and I was… changed.”

We all looked at each other. “After you’ve returned Superdyne’s remains to whoever you consider appropriate,” I said, grabbing a notepad and scribbling down my number, “I’d like you to give me a call. Evil-Mart is always hiring in the bakery and deli, and I mean always. Most bad guys aren’t great cooks. We don’t know why, it just seems to be one of those things.”

“You want me to join the bad guys?”

“I want you to work in a bakery. Villains and henchmen need to eat, and so do their families. Nobody’s going to ask you to rip superheroes in half, just maybe make a sandwich that won’t give anyone food poisoning.”

“That’s a regular concern?”

“Six months ago the three of us ran Evil-Mart’s physical store completely unassisted for most of a day because the only people who weren’t down with food poisoning were the ones who’d had the vegetarian and kosher meals.” I shuddered at the recollection. “Trust me. Someone who can cater staff functions without a major disaster would never have to live in an apartment like this working for us.”

“And we get full benefits, including dental.” Knuckles was shaking his head. “I bet you don’t even get hospital.”

“What hospital would take me? I always figured I’d go to the zoo and talk to the vet if – “

Ms Fedorova actually put her arms around him. “You,” she told him firmly, “are going to resign your terrible exploitative job, and then I will personally sponsor you to the union immediately. I have a spare room. You will like it. Humidity and temperature can be set just how you like, and Mamma Yelena will take you to real doctor expert in health of hybrids.”

“Those exist?” he asked, sounding a bit overwhelmed.

“Yeah, the Genetic Reign has like three of them,” I said sympathetically. “Listen, you can take some time to think it over, but you don’t have to put up with this kind of exploitation just because you don’t look human. Nearly a third of Evil-Mart’s staff can’t pass, and they’re treated just like everyone else.”

Superdyne’s dramatic demise got a lot of news coverage. Apparently it came as a real shock to the ‘good guys’ that there were some monsters even the superest villains wouldn’t embrace.

Dinoid no longer exists. Ismail Jameel works at Evil-Mart, and has expanded our fresh food lines a lot already. He’s a nice guy, and after Ms Fedorova told everyone how disgustingly he’d been exploited by those so-called ‘heroes’, he was welcomed with open arms. Literally, in at least one case – he’s dating someone from the warehouse, I’ve heard, though I don’t know who. He says we should rename the store, because we suck at being evil.

But evil is a really relative term. It can mean the blackest depravity, or a moment of viciousness, or even just ‘people on the other side’. Evil-Mart is called that because everyone, at least everyone on our side, is welcome. Plus, we all think it’s funny that the least-evil megacorporation is called ‘Evil-Mart’. What can we say? Bad guys have a sense of humour too.

Have an evil day!

#welcome to Evil Mart #good is not just good #evil is not just evil #people are complicated #and so is retail #tw graphic #tw gore #tw violence #tw murder #it's a supervillain story #supervillain shit happens #you are now warned

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lovejosephquinn · 2 years ago

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Worlds Change When Eyes Meet - Joseph Quinn x Reader, Part 3

Ok so it’s safe to admit I had half of this part written last night on my laptop, so I threw the rest together tonight. I know I keep saying it, but I’m so overwhelmed by the love. Thank you ALL so much! Here’s part 3!

Tag Requests: @sadbitchfangirl

Summary: It’s time for the London & Film Comic Con, you’re surprising your niece for her birthday by taking her to meet & greet with Joseph Quinn. It doesn’t turn out to be just a meet. Is this love at first sight for you both? Or is it all just some stupid crush.

Warnings: some angst, mild smut and the worst fluff you can possibly imagine, sorry our boys just too sickeningly cute

Word Count: 4.6k

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

You sit up suddenly in the middle of the night, your chest heaving violently. A nightmare, one that makes everything feel so god damn real. You wipe the sweat off of your forehead, clenching your face into your quilt. The nightmare was of course, him. How could he be involved in such a horrible thing? It will of definitely had something to do with the day before, the craziness that happened so quickly. You turn to tap your phone at the side of you, revealing '4:17am'. No notifications, just an update required for your phone. No. Dozens of thoughts running across your brain. What time is it in America? Has Joe landed there yet? Has he gotten there safely? Does he really want you after all of that? Of course he does, right? You settle back down, staring at the dark, empty ceiling. You don't want to return back to your sleepless state just in case he calls, just in case he messages. Counting sheep is the worst idea, so you just ponder your thoughts. Dangerous, yes. What if he's really done with you before it even started?

You must have fallen asleep at some point, you wake to the sound of chirping birds and sunlight beaming down through your window, poking you in the eye ever so slightly. Turning over, again tapping your phone. Nothing. Nothing at all. It's now 9:00am. Your heart drops, your stomach once filled with butterflies is purely empty. He's gone and it hits you. You sob like a baby. Crying into your pillow, staining them with your tears. "I miss you." you whisper lightly to your phone, staring silently at the picture of you and Joe on the screen.

A couple of days have passed, all you have done is mope around the house in your own filth. You've still not heard a thing from Joe. In what world is this okay? You've now become angry. The feeling of upset is still there but there's more a broken and gut wrenching sensation going on in your body. How could he have never called or even messaged you to at least tell you he's okay? All of these stupid questions which lead to stupid thoughts and pointless answers roam your mind. All of a sudden, your phone buzzes. Oh. It's your sister, you decide to answer anyway. "Y/N? Are you alright? Haven't heard from you in days... what's going on?" you sigh which also appears to be a silent scream. "Yeah, I-I think so. I have some stuff I need to talk to you about." She sounds curious and determined to find out yet worried in the same breath. "Okay... I'm ready when you are." she waits. You spill everything, right from the beginning to your first meeting with him at Comic Con, to your photographs, to your niece and him teasing you on the brick wall outside. To you giving him your number. To the texts, sparing no detail of what was said. To the private date or whatever you could call it at your place, to going out for dinner and dancing with Joe on the balcony of his apartment. To the sweet endless nothings and kisses you were given. To the fans you saw going mad about you right to the very finish of him disappearing to America and you walking out on him.

She was speechless, it was safe to say. "Well, uh, bloody hell Y/N, I never expected that, so you haven't heard from him since?" You shake your head, not like she can see you. "No... He didn't reply to my voicemail, which I sent whilst he was on the plane. What do I do? It's not as if I can go and find him right? He mentioned the state he's going to but it's a big place sis, not like the UK." she let out a giggle. Now's not the time for laughter, you're pouring your heart out to your sister and all she can do is laugh at your misfortune, bitch. "Go and find him, you idiot. Surely you can get in touch with someone he knows? Has he mentioned anyone... at all?" You sigh again, you're doing a lot of that lately. "No. I'll wait till he's back, I'll show up at his place and I'll get an answer then. I've waited all my life to find a man like him, I can wait a few weeks, surely..." the call ends abruptly when your sister's husband shouts her down for dinner. "Gotta go, keep yourself busy and things will work themselves out."

You do as you said, you wait. You get yourself back into a routine. Back to your 9-5 job, the one you love to hate. You visit your sister and your niece every now and then. Go out with your friends. Do all of the stuff you did before you met Joe. You start to forget the heartbreak after 3 weeks, he's made no attempt to contact you in anyway. You've seen photos and videos of him all over TikTok which you ultimately hate to see. Knowing he's okay and safe is the only positive thing that runs through your mind when you see them. The other thought is sticking your middle finger at your phone but then feeling guilty after because he is pretty fucking adorable.

A month has passed. It's a wild Friday night, you're exhausted from the week at work and you lay on your sofa with a bowl of popcorn, ready for the weekend. Your phone buzzes. You ignore it whilst you aimlessly scroll through Netflix. You find a rom-com you've seen multiple handfuls of times. Your phone buzzes again. "Oh what do you want now, sis." You fully expected it to be her, she's done a lot of worrying about you this last few weeks. You yell an unintelligible sound out loud as you lean to your phone. You freeze as you read the name 'Joe'. He's calling you. You answer and stay as silent as possible, dragging the phone to your ear.

"Hello?" You say nothing.

"Y/N, are you there?"

You sigh yet another heavy sigh.

"I-I'm back home. I got your voicemail when I landed. I messaged you a million times, why haven't you been answering? I thought you wanted to talk..." his voice was so low and so grew with concern.

You furrow your brow. "You got my voicemail Joe; you never messaged me once. Don't sound too disheartened."

"Are you at home?" You nod. Why are you such a moron, these people can't see your movement through the phone. "Yeah."

He hangs up unexpectedly. What. The. Fuck? You try calling him back, no answer. You call him again, no answer. You throw your phone in anger to the other side of the room which knocks to your wall and falls on the floor. You throw your cushion onto your face and squeal into it. You decide to go for a shower, the movie can play, you're not in the mood to watch people fall in love anyway. Stepping out of the shower and drying yourself off. You hear banging at the door. Not just a knock, a loud bang. You slowly step out into the living room and open slowly, the chain attached to the door so it won't open fully. There he stands, wet through from the vile weather outside. It's really him, it's Joe. "Let me in please, love. Can we please talk?" you clutch to your towel wrapped around you. "There's nothing to talk about, Joe. You never messaged me, you didn't even care to call, you just fucking hung up on me. I had to endure seeing you through a fucking social media app with your precious fans." He looks to the floor, not taking his eyes off of it, not raising his voice but staying calm, cool and collected as he always seems to be. "5 minutes of your time, please. Then if you want me to, I will leave, I promise."

You unlatch the chain and step to the side, gesturing him to come through. He sits down immediately on your sofa, taking in every inch of you stood there in your towel with your sodden hair, similar to his from the rain. "I did message you, several times Y/N." He begins. "My phone wouldn't connect to any of the UK numbers in my phone. I couldn't do a thing about it, I was panicking the whole time because I couldn't reach you. I am so sorry. The hanging up was a sudden move, I decided I needed to come here to show you... Here, please look if you don't believe me." He offers you his phone already opened to your messages and there they are. A months worth of messages, unsent, undelivered and unread. A single tear drops down from you and your lips tremble. He really did try his best. "I missed you so much and there was nothing I could do about it. I hate the way we left it, I regret leaving the day I did, I wish I'd told my agent to stuff it when he called that day. The way I saw it break your heart - that was never my intention..." He stands and moves closer to you, at least 6 inches to your face when you push your phone back to his chest. He takes it and throws it back to the sofa, not taking his eyes off of you in the process. Your now swollen eyes stare into his longing dark brown doe eyes, searching into his soul for where this is going next. You say nothing but your eyes tell the whole story. You want him, you need him, who are you even trying to fool? You whole heartedly believe him and what he's shown you. Joe swallows hard, obviously fighting back the tears himself. "Meeting you was the best thing to happen to me in a while, princess. I-I don't want to lose what we've started, I want to give you everything and only make you happy. Your smile is so precious to me. I love every part of you, even your stubbornness... I..." You gesture a finger at him and run into your bedroom, throwing on whatever clothing you could find. Settling for a long-oversized jumper. You dart back out to the same position you were stood in before. "You..." you move your hand at him to continue. "I... don't want to know a world without you anymore, love. That's all."

You squeal like an excited child in your head. What is this hold he has on you? He only so much has to look at you and you're on your knees. You throw your arms around him, lifting up onto your tip toes. You kiss him and you mean it, you return every word he's just said and more into this one, long kiss. He cradles your back as you try to move away and he just pushes his lips down harder onto yours. You're a sucker for this man. "I... I... I didn't... expect... this..." He speaks through your kiss, it just forces you to smile and kiss deeper. He lifts you up as you straddle your legs around his waist, not breaking any contact with each other. He walks to the sofa with you in his arms, laying you down and slowly laying himself half down on top of you, still refusing to break his lips from yours. The kiss gets more heated and more passionate by the second, his hands gripping your jaw, stroking one of your cheeks as your hands run through his wet curls. He moves down to your jawline where his hand was, kissing slowly, moving down to your neck, sucking but kissing ever so lightly and sweetly until a moan hitches from your lips. He's found the sweet spot on your neck. He continues to kiss and roll his tongue over it, he knows it's driving you insane. Your fingers grip his hair and he lets out a slight groan of his own, the vibrations of the sound rolling down your skin, making goose bumps appear. He returns back to your lips, kissing them slower this time, more soft. Your thigh can feel the hardening bulge growing down below from his jeans and your brain is running 10 million times an hour more than normal. The butterflies have made a reappearance, as if none of this had ever happened.

He tugs at your jumper. "Get this off, I want to see you. All of you." He flutters his best puppy eyes at you. You do not say a word, but you grant his wish. You sit up and lift it over your head and lay back down, feeling his eyes burning all over you, slight embarrassment slips your cheeks as they blush but the grin on his face tells another story. "I knew you were a pretty face, but you are so god damn beautiful, princess, look at you." He removes his slowly drying shirt and moves back down onto you, kissing down your neck again and moving to your chest, kissing lightly around your collar bone and leaving feather touch kisses from his lips around your boobs. Your whole body is alive now. He kisses down your stomach and you squirm as it starts to tickle. "I love how worked up you're getting, and I haven't even done anything." He smirks right at you, this time not his normal happy little face. He's showing a whole different emotion right now, one you've never seen before. He kisses down your waist to your thighs, not wasting a cell of your skin before reaching himself back up to you, taking off his jeans and boxers in a flash and lowers himself down and into you slowly with no word of warning. You need no help; you're already wet through. Your back arches, the rest is a blur. You make love. Not sex. You make full, passionate steaming hot love. The ending is bittersweet but mind blowing.

Before you know it, you're both laying there side by side staring right into each other's eyes. He holds your hand to his chest with one hand, whilst playing with your hair with the other. "Please, let's never repeat the last few weeks again." he loses his smile for a slight second. He releases your hand and sticks out his pinkie finger. "Pinkie promise me princess, I know there'll be disagreements and let's say... heated discussions but, never that again you hear me? I'm not willing to almost lose you again" You giggle as you wrap your pinkie finger around his. "Never again Mr. Quinn, pinkie promise." He looks down at the fingers hugging each other tightly, you see him biting his bottom lip, he fucking loves it when you call him by his last name. You let go and resume your position. "It's you and me, love. I'm not waiting any longer, I'm not taking anymore chances in waiting. Be mine - for real Y/N. Please say yes." You can't even breathe at this point, your heart is exploding. "Well..." he waits for your answer for a few seconds but feels like an eternity as he imitates a cog turning in your head. "Yes. A million times yes." You are not letting this man go for anything or anyone this time, nothing can stop you now. Rough patches are bound to happen, but you know if you can get through waiting a whole month for this man whilst anger and heartbreak has fell through you, you can get through anything. The feelings have flooded back and just like that, you're his. You're his girl, for real.

The morning light seeps through your curtains and hits you square in the eyes. Slowly opening them to the strong beams of sun, a whole different scene to the violent rain bashing on the windows the night before. It was like a change in mood - the irony of it fitting yours in a way. You turn your head to gaze on the beautiful man by your side, a light sigh leaving your mouth as you realise how real this was again all of a sudden. You retrace your thoughts to last nights antics, the pain had quickly turned into long needing lust, and you had done the deed at least 3 times to which after you both passed out from utter heights of excitement and exhaustion. The endgame was that you were his and he was yours, there was no going back now. You stroked your hand along Joe's cheek down to his jawline, tracing your finger down, a widespread grin on your face. Joe kept his eyes closed but his face leaned into your touch as you saw a mirrored grin appear on his. "Good morning handsome." you whisper. He shakes his head and mumbles a distorted sound. "It's not morning if I don't open my eyes, therefore I can stay here in this moment longer." You chuckle lightly and with that, he pulls you to him, your face smothered in his chest. Oh that smell, his smell, it's phenomenal. You can hear his heart beating, you can feel his hands as they wrap into your hair whilst his fingers play with it. "I guess this means you're not going anywhere, love." he lets out a hearty giggle as your head reels, you could be content with this being your life forever. You lift yourself to his face and his eyes are still closed but his smile is beaming as though. You plant a firm peck onto his lips and Joe instantly welcomes it. "Mmm, do that again." he murmurs against you - his eyes open slowly making a beeline straight to look into yours. You obey, kissing him and lingering against him as your teeth go to bite his bottom lip. "Didn't you get enough of me last night Y/N?" he knows what he's doing, fishing for those god damn compliments. "Never Mr Quinn, I could never get enough of you." He flashes his Oscar worthy winning smile at you and can't help but crash his lips back onto yours, a slow, sleepy kiss turns into a hot, passionate one. Your tongues collide with each other, groans escape both of you, the feeling of your bodies close made the temperature of the cool room sore. The god damn effect this man had on you was insane, you were ready for him and him for you, there was no place you'd rather be.

Showering quickly and leaving Joe to his own devices, you walk out into the living space and into the kitchen to find him working his way round it. The smell of bacon hits your nostrils and the sight of the man cooking and humming a song to himself from the radio so contently. You stand there for a couple of minutes admiring the extremely pleasant view, even if it was just the back of him. "You sure know your way round here." He turns around startled and shrugs his shoulders. "It's only small, love. The stuff wasn't hard to find." A wink returns your way as he turns around to continue. You make small paces until you reach the back of him, wrapping your arms around his torso and leaning your head onto his back. "Hello." he chuckles. "Hi." you reply.

You sit down to eat with a comfortable silence to eat when all of a sudden Joe's phone doesn't stop vibrating from the table. Three missed calls and a text message pop up one after another until he gives up and opens it. "I'll be back in a second." he mutters as he excuses himself to your bedroom. You didn't want to pry but you also felt hesitant in knowing who it was and what it could be about, after all the last time his phone blew up he left and you didn't hear from him for days on end. As much as you had forgiven him and accepted it was through no fault of his own, you couldn't go through the heartbreak of him being ripped from again, at least not straight away.

Shy of 15 minutes later he saunters back towards you with a slightly lopsided smile. "Everything ok?" you offer a reassuring smile back to him. "Yeah, just got to get going soon, got a last minute shoot at the other side of London. Must admit as much as I love my agent, he doesn't half get on my nerves with these spur of the moment ideas." Your eyes shoot down to scan both of your half eaten plates of food. "It's okay, I'll find something to occupy my time until I can see you again. Duty calls Joseph Quinn." He frowns at the full name. "It's Joe to you." You give him a sassy look and he finally loosens up and laughs. "Fine, Jo.....seph." He rolls his eyes and sits back on the chair, leaning back and patting his lap for you to sit, you happily oblige.

"I'll be back to you this evening ok?" he plants a kiss onto your forehead. "Okay love." He shakes his head. "Okay love." He imitates your voice mockingly.

You decide to fill your day with your sister and niece. Taking a shopping trip in central London. No conversation was made about Joe for the time being, but your sister could see your change in mood and that was enough to understand that things were better. When you sit down for a spot of lunch at a quaint little café you decide to check your phone. Joe had sent you a photo of himself sat on the floor in a seemingly plain building making a silly and utterly quite bored face. Underneath a text that read 'Hope you're having the best day, princess. Joseph has been really busy but Joe cannot wait to come back to see you again later.' Your cheeks redden at the play on his names, Joseph is the hardworking, amazing actor people have fallen in love with, the one you met at Comic Con, but Joe - Joe is your person. Your niece glances at your phone and her eyes widen excitedly. "Eddie, oh my god, Eddie and you text!" Your sister's brow furrows. "Who's Eddie, hon?" your niece rolls her eyes. "Eddie Munson mummy, the one Y/N and me met and they flirted with each other there lots of times." Your sister glanced up to you and her mouth changed into an O shape. "Oh, that Eddie." You nod as you lean against the table putting your hand over your mouth. "Everything ok with him?" she muttered quietly. You nodded again as you felt your cheeks flushing. "More than ok." You return your sisters grin. She knew you were happy, that's all she needed. "When will I see Eddie again now that you two are basically married Y/N?" you and your sister barked a laugh at your nieces question. "I'll bring him to see you soon." Her whole face scrunched into the biggest and frightening smile you'd ever seen. "So does that mean you're on good terms since you want him to meet the family?" your sister was intrigued now. You could only nod, you solidified a promise that your niece would indefinitely see Joe again and your sister would get to meet him. Your phone rings as you're about to leave the café.

"Hello."

"Hello, love, I'm just finishing up, turns out they didn't need many - I'm just that good. What are you up too?"

Your sisters gaze falls on you and she can see the blush in your cheeks turning crimson red at a fast-paced speed from his smug yet innocent voice.

"Just out with my sister and niece, we've just had lunch at this cute little place."

"The same niece I met at Comic Con?"

"One in the same." You look down at her smiling.

"I'll not keep you then, I'll see you later beautiful, be at yours round 6pm. Find out blankets, pillows and I'll bring the snacks and wine."

"Can't wait, love."

Your sister and niece pull the exact same expression. "Since when do you call people, love?" your sister chortles at your embarrassed yet accomplished face. "Since Joe."

You spent the rest of your day laughing and spending. Getting home and dropping your purchases into your bedroom, you light candles and dim the lights whilst you place a few pillows and blankets onto your sofa, a make shift bed. You change into your comfy clothes, leaving your hair in a messy bun, nothing to the imagination - but nevertheless Joe could make you feel beautiful wearing only a potato sack. As if on queue, 6pm has arrived and no later than 6:01pm does a knock come from your front door. You skip happily like a child, unlatch the door and open to find him on the other side. One hand holding a bag filled with a bottle of wine and pastries and a bunch of 10 blooming red roses clutched in the other. You swoon your side, your head is going ten to the dozen as your eyes gleam at Joe. "Good evening Miss, I brought you the goods." he mimicked a overly posh accent as he lifted the bag in the air. "Oh Sir, you're too kind." You take the bag from him and go over to the kitchen and place it on the counter top. "And those?" you point at the flowers. "An apology for missing you for days on end whilst I was overseas and a thank you for forgiving me." You tut loudly at him, shaking your head though the beaming grin has not left your face. "Are you just going to buy me flowers every time you mess up?" He nodded. "Pretty much." You both chuckled at one another as you took the roses to put them into some water. "Now come here, I missed you and you look so god damn inviting." Your eyes grew wide as he pointed and ran to the sofa, flopping onto the blankets that were once neat. "Charming one you, Mr Quinn." He patted the space next to him. "You look good too Y/N." he smirked.

You happily complied to his gesture and leaped onto him instead of falling next to him. "Jokes aside, I definitely missed you, princess." Your faces were close as for a few seconds you stared so intently at each other, lips inches apart, bodies closed in on one another, legs intertwined in and round the blankets. "I missed you too, Joe, way more than I probably should have." You settle down, blowing the candles out but leaving the lights dimmed after a few hefty make out sessions, a bottle of wine, empty plates but sincerely full hearts. Laid to the side of Joe with his arms wrapped around you as your leg cocks over his. You feel hands rubbing down your back, Joe's face also matching your tired state, you knew in a short moment that this, right here was all you could ever want.

You were just about to drop off to sleep, not hearing anything from Joe for at least half an hour when you heard him mumble your name. "Y/N." You snuggled deeper into him, not saying a word. You didn't respond, he was just clearly in a trance, and you were in no less of a ready state for the sleep to take you away after feeling heavily fulfilled with your day. If it was something, you'd wait to find out - that was at least until he managed to say as clear as day; "I love you, I really do.”

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sunrisefairy · 4 years ago

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Annoying

Paring: Remus Lupin x fem!reader Warning: NSFW! MDNI 18+ unprotected sex, swearing, mentions of oral sex. If I’ve forgotten anything let me know! Summary: Remus finds the reader so annoyingly distracting. A/N: for the anon that wanted a mix of enemies to lovers and Remus losing control near the full moon. I hope I did it justice. Requests are open!

tag list: if your name is crossed out i couldn’t tag you :( @theweasleyslut @anxiousblanketqueen @midnightgremlin @babyjordy @widowdays @inglourious-imagines @garbdump @star-sunshine-sage @weelittleweasley @starlightkell @omghufflepuff @weasleysprincess @harrysboo28 @j-amespotter @woodxweasley @gryffindorgirl @siriusbarnesslut @joytce397 @thegirllostinthelibrary @layaaaa @nuttytani @horrormoviebitch @j-weasley-lupin @sunflowerdarlingx @touchdeprivedwh0re @melonoptimist @iamnibbsi @thebiggestsimponearth @impulse-anchor @lilytheally @familydisappointed @alinor-padfoot

To be added to the tag list click here

Remus Lupin isn’t one to hate people, sure there is only a select few people that he actually likes spending time with and considers his good friends but that doesn’t mean that he dislikes everyone else, he just doesn’t have time for a lot of people, especially annoying people. And some people are just more annoying than others and most times those people don’t even realise they’re acting as such. Except for the girl who is basically in every one of his classes, you. Remus is certain you know how infuriating you are, especially when you shoot your hand up to beat Remus to answering a question or how a smile will stretch across your pretty lips when you finds out you scored higher than Remus on a test or how you always seems to giggle a little louder when you knows Remus is nearby. Remus finds it irritating how you seems to know exactly how to get on his nerves, you know precisely how to make his cheeks heat up in anger and make his blood boil and his cock hard, okay maybe you don’t realise you’re doing the last one but still. But the thing that annoys Remus the most is you don’t seem to care.

Being friends with James Potter and Sirius Black, Remus has learnt to obtain the patience of a saint. He finds no trouble in zoning out their constant chatter and ignoring their mindless bickering. However, as it gets closer to a full moon, Remus’ tolerance wears thin and the marauders quickly learnt to simmer down and be wary of Remus around a full moon, unless either one of them wanted a smack to the back of the head. As it gets closer to his transformations Remus’ senses are heightened tenfold, it’s as if he can hear every sound, smell every scent and everything he tastes is 10 times more intense.

His joints were aching more than usual last night so that combined with Peters constant snoring ensured minimal sleep which resulted in Remus being extra irritable today which would have been manageable if he didn’t have a class first thing with you. Beautiful, cute, annoying you.

Remus thought if he could just spend the lesson concentrating hard enough on the professors dull voice that you sitting in the same room as him wouldn’t be an issue, it wasn’t like he sat next to you anyway, James or Sirius always occupied the desk next to him eager to ‘share’ his notes. Expect this day was different, because Remus got little sleep last night he slept through his alarm and somehow even slept through the booming voices of the Marauders when they were getting ready this morning. Remus started off the day jumping out of bed and rushing to get ready, having no time for breakfast (which added to his already foul mood) and practically falling through the classroom door only to find his usual seat was pre-occupied by some girl Sirius was trying to woo and James was sitting next to Pete.

“Ah, Mr. Lupin. How fantastic to see you have finally decided to join us. Please find a seat so I can continue on with my lesson,” the Professor states before continuing his lifeless lesson.

Remus quickly scans the room for a free chair to rush to, he spots one in the far corner of the room but falters in his step when he notices who is seated next to the free space, you. Remus groans when he realises this was the only free chair and very obviously drags his feet before plopping down beside you, he can only hope you decided to not be annoyingly distracting today.

“How scandalous that Mr. prefect is late to class,” you whisper, chuckling when you see Remus roll his eyes, a usual reaction of his.

Remus comes to the conclusion that the best point of action is to just pretend you don’t exist, which goes according to plan until 3 quarters of the way through the lesson. The thing is, Remus hasn’t sat in such close proximity to you this close to a full moon before and he’s struggling to keep his focus on the jumble of words in front of him and not on the way you’re obnoxiously twirling your hair between your fingers. Whatever perfume you sprayed on yourself is suffocating Remus’ nostrils and he can’t get enough. Within no time Remus thoughts are straying away from his textbook to more filthy thoughts surrounding you. The main image that is burning a hole in his brain is the thought of burying his face in your neck and inhaling your scent and sinking his teeth into your perfect skin, he has to bite his lip to stop himself from groaning.

Remus manages to write 2 more messy sentences down before glancing in your direction and noticing the way your lip is pulled between your teeth and he can’t help but fantasise about biting your annoyingly pretty lips himself.

“Stop doing that,” Remus grits through his teeth as he speaks.

You meet his gaze confused, “stop doing what?”

“That!” Remus whisper yells, pointing at your lips as you once again pull your bottom lip in between your lip. “It’s distracting.”

You mumble an apology and go back to writing your notes. You’re so engrossed in reading the selected chapter you don’t even notice you’re bouncing your leg up and down rapidly until a rough hand stills your movements. You’re expecting Remus to remove his large hand once your movements stop, however to your surprise he keeps his hand resting firmly against your bare knee. Mouth agape and staring down at where Remus is touching you, the way his thumb is stroking at your skin seems innocent enough, so why is your stomach in knots?

Remus leans dangerously close to your ear, which thankfully goes unnoticed by the rest of the class given the fact the two of you are seated at the back of the room. “You are being very distracting right now bunny, it’s making me angry.”

A visible shudder runs through your body, feeling Remus’ hot breath fanning the side of your face makes your mouth dry. Remus’ low teasing voice makes you whimper immediately a heat rushes up your cheeks because even though your whimper was quiet Remus is so very close to you right now, you know he heard.

“Come with me,” Remus squeezes your knee and moves to rise from his seat.

You halt his movements by grabbing onto his bicep, “we can’t just leave, we’re in the middle of class.” Your eyes dart to the front of the room to see if your professor has witnessed Remus’ half standing and planning his escape.

“What’s life without a bit of risk bunny, now c’mon.” his tone demanding and firm. Without even a second glance Remus walks out of class, making you wonder if he’s done this before. The odds are high, given that he’s one fourth of the infamous marauders clan.

You look away from the door Remus just so carelessly walked out of and to the front of the class at your professor, he’s sitting at his desk reading over papers and very obviously trying to stay awake. The chances of him catching you are slim but that isn’t what you’re nervous about. You’re nervous about what will happen if you do make it out of the classroom unnoticed, you’re nervous about what Remus will do to you. The endless possibilities are both thrilling and exciting. There’s no way you could stay seated not when there’s a wetness pooling in your panties just from Remus’ hand on your knee.

Carefully you slip out from your seat and rush to the door, breathing a sigh of relief when you successfully make it out into the corridor. Looking around you notice the corridor is empty and there’s no sign of Remus, you begin walking down the hallway in search of the boy.

“Remus?” you’re met with nothing but silence. Just as you’re about to turn and head back to class you feel a strong arm grip yours and tug your harshly into a tiny room.

“Ooft,” your body slamming into someone’s hard chest; if only there was a light source in this closet? yes it’s definitely a closet, if only it wasn’t so dark in here you would be able to figure out who decided it a good idea to scare the shit out of you by pulling you in here with them.

“Took your fucking time,” the other person grunts, Remus you thought, you knew that voice.

“Remus, what the hell? Care to explain why your dragged me out of class and into this dark broom closet?” Although there is no light in the tiny closet you can vaguely see Remus’ outline towering over you, you gulp realising how close the both of you are standing to each other. Remus’ hot breath fans your face and you’re very aware that if you were to angle your head further upwards and stand on your tiptoes you could connects your lips. The thought itself has you shuddering.

“Couldn’t wait.” Remus replies, stepping closer, invading your personal space even more, not that you minded.

“Couldn’t wait for what?”

“Merlin you’re dumber than I thought if you don’t know.”

You scoff defensively, “I am not dumb, do I have to remind you I bet you on the last Charms essay? and on the transfigurations one so-”

The words die in your throat, Remus cutting you off by connecting your lips in a needy and desperate kiss. Immediately you wrap your arms around his neck and tug him closer by the hair. Remus rests his hands on your waist pulling your hips flush against his, you whimper feeling his hard cock pressing against your stomach.

Remus breaks away from your mouth and starts sucking and licking down your jaw and neck while his hands move to grope at your breasts over the top of your school shirt. “We don’t have much time before class ends.” Remus mumbles into your skin, his mouth is salivating when he breathes in deep, his nostrils filling with the sweet scent of you, it’s so intoxicating and immediately images of you are accompanying his mind, some more sinful than others. Remus wastes no time in sinking his teeth into the fleshy part of your shoulder, his cock twitching at the sound you make.

“Then you better hurry up and fuck me Remus,” you smirk, loving the way Remus groans and narrows his eyes at you. His pupils have seemingly expanded and darkened, his eyes are scanning over every inch of your face leaving you feeling vulnerable.

Your pussy has been throbbing since Remus firmly rested his hand on your leg back in the classroom and you know your panties are soaked by now with the way Remus is rutting his hips against yours but it’s not enough. It won’t be enough, not until you know what it’s like to have Remus’ skin against yours and his cock inside you but even then, you think you will always be wanting more of him.

Your hands are fumbling at Remus’ pants trying to get them unbuckled as quickly as possible, Remus understands the rush and helps you, skilfully undoing his pants and pushing them along with his boxers down his legs with only one hand, the other creeps under your shirt and rests delicately on the small of your back. Just the feeling of Remus’ skin on your back makes you melt further into him, your desire to have him fuck you hard and fast is becoming unbearable. Remus’ cock is sitting hard and angrily between your bodies, desperate for any sort of attention and Remus wishes you had more time because he would love to push you down to your knees and finally force you to shut up by pushing his cock into your sweet mouth and make you gag and choke around his length until you’re crying. But time isn’t on his side right now so instead Remus wraps his strong arms around your arse, silently signally you to jump which you do with no hesitation and lock your legs around his waist.

Remus reaches his hand down to flip your skirt up, he be damned if he couldn’t see the cunt he’s spent way to much time thinking about. Remus pull your panties to the side groaning when his fingers graze your wet dripping core, another thing he wishes he could do is to taste you. He just knows you taste sugary and sweet just like the sounds you’re making as he teases your entrance. He wants to bury his face deep in your cunt inhaling your scent while he licks and sucks until you’re screaming his name, maybe another time.

“You gotta be quiet for me kay bunny? Think you can do that?” Remus’ voice is thick with lust and a condescending tone is laced throughout it.

“You think that highly of yourself?” you retort trying to rile Remus up like you normally do, it seems to be working judging by the way Remus pinches the flesh of your arse.

Without breaking eye contact Remus lines up his cock and drags your hips down until he’s deep inside you, his balls pressed flush against your skin.

Remus isn’t sure if it’s because it’s close to the full moon but he hasn’t even started moving yet and the way the soft velvet walls of your cunt is gripping and hugging at his cock feels so intense and heavenly, he thinks he might cum right there.

Along with a lack of patience around this time of the month Remus also struggles to control himself and his urges. It takes every ounce of self-discipline in him to hold you against the rough wall of the broom closet and slowly rock his hips into yours, feeling the need to control the situation. Remus is very conscious of not gripping your hips too hard and not slamming his hips up into yours too roughly, he doesn’t want to let go mentally and hurt you.

You can tell Remus is holding back, the authoritative tone used in the classroom is vastly different to his actions right now. He’s supposed to be fucking you hard and fast and making you scream, not this.

Although the pleasure from Remus’ rocking into your cunt is great you know he can do better, can fuck you better. “Remus,” you whine, pulling his face away from your neck, forcing him to look you in the eyes. There’s clearly an internal struggle behind his eyes. “Remus, I need you to fuck me properly. I can take it, you won’t break me, promise.”

Remus does pick up the speed slightly, but you can clearly tell there’s still some hesitance on his behalf and you asking nicely didn’t seem break that. You’re desperate for Remus to let go. A smirk breaks out onto your face, an idea forming. Based on your previous interactions you know exactly how to get under Remus’ skin, what to say and do that would have him clenching his jaw in annoyance, after all it was a hobby of yours, annoying Remus Lupin. “Guess we don’t have to worry about me being quiet if you fuck like this. Pity, was kinda hoping you’d have me screaming.”

Something deep and primal in him snaps, blame it on the full moon or how you’re silently challenging him, he doesn’t care, all he cares about right now is proving you wrong, and he wasn’t going to stop until he had you trembling and shaking.

His grip on your hips tighten, nails threatening to break skin as Remus pushes your further into the wall behind you so hard for a second you think you might go tumbling right through it. You’re grateful for the material of your school top slightly soften the rough texture of the wall behind you. With no warning Remus starts slamming his hips harder and faster into yours, clearly set on making you squirm against him. Each thrust is harder than the last and his cock is poking your g-spot repeatedly. The sounds you were making were positively indecent and only fuelled Remus on. Neither of you cared that anyone walking by the broom closet could possibly hear the sound of skin slapping together or yours and Remus’ moans. None of that mattered, not when the two of you felt this good.

The vigour of Remus’ pace was unmatched and all you could do was hold on tight to Remus’ shoulders and take every powerful thrust. You were hypnotised with the feeling of Remus’ cock inside of you, you couldn’t help but wonder what other parts of his body like his fingers or tongue, would feel like when fucking you.

“Fuck Remus, so good. I-I” you weren’t even sure what you were trying to say, all your thoughts were jumbled and bouncing around in your brain, all you knew is you never wanted Remus to stop.

“You feel amazing,” Remus’ body was on fire, every inch of him alight and burning, his annoyance of how his day started was far from his mind. All he could think of was you and how you were clenching around him. He chokes out a strained sob when he hears you chanting his name in time with each rough snap of his hips, you sound both angelic and sinful at the same time, Remus’ wishes he had one of those muggle voice recording devices so he could record your whines and listen to them when he’s alone in his dorm room.

Using his free hand Remus reaches down to rub tight circles on your clit edging you closer and closer to your release. Your orgasm is fast approaching much like a freight train heading straight for you, sirens blaring but you can’t move, the pleasure is too intense and too powerful to do anything except take it.

Remus’ face is pressed back against your neck and he quickly decides it’s his favourite place to be, if someone offered him 1,000 Galleons to never bury his face in your neck, he wouldn’t take it. Remus can hear the squelching sounds of your soppy cunt as it helplessly takes his fat cock. He’s leaving sloppy kisses and hickeys wherever he can get his mouth. It’s right when Remus’ digs his teeth into your neck and bites down hard do you fall apart, your pussy clenching and spasming around him, right in this moment you’re thankful for Remus holding you up against the wall, your legs are shaking and tensing and you know if you were standing the intensity of the orgasm would have brought you to your knees. Remus’ name is the only word you seem capable of saying as the coil inside your stomach snaps and rapidly unravels as you come undone.

“Remus, Remus, Remus!”

You connect your lips with Remus’ in a lame attempt to shut yourself up, the kiss is rushed and your teeth clash together but you don’t give a fuck. Remus’ name is still spilling from your lips and into Remus’ mouth as your body begins to come down from the high.

The boy holding you up hasn’t faltered in his movements at all, determined to fuck you through your orgasm. There’s beads of sweat dripping from Remus’ forehead, his mind is whirling and thoughts of you are spiralling around his brain, he thinks he might pass out and he’s certain he does for a second when you whisper and bite his earlobe.

“Want you to cum inside me Remus, fill me up,” half a thrust later and Remus’ hips stutter and he’s spilling into your cunt groaning your name as he does so. His vision blurs around the edges before he closes his eyes and he lets out a moan so deep, primal and loud. Remus continues to rock his hips milking his own orgasm until the last drop is squeezed from his soften cock. He stills his movements but doesn’t dare pull out just yet, relishing in the warmth of your pussy and the way your hand is brushing the sweaty hair off his forehead. You rest your forehead against Remus’ sweaty one, pecking his lips, once, twice then three times.

“That was…” you drift off unable to find the right words to describe what just happened.

“Intense?” Remus offers breathlessly.

You nod, “in the best way.”

It wasn’t until you hear the sounds of students outside signalling the end of class do either of you move, Remus helping you clean yourself up. And it wasn’t until the two of you were certain the coast was clear did you exit the closet with the promise of doing that again very soon.

#Remus Lupin #remus lupin x reader #Remus Lupin smut #Remus Lupin x you #Remus Lupin imagines #remus lupin imagine #elles recs #smutty recs #smut

1K notes · View notes

dienamights · 4 years ago

Text

Ex’s and O’s | K.Bakugou

» Pairing: Katsuki Bakugou x Fem!Reader.

» Word count: 6.7K

» Genre: hurt/comfort, Smut MDNI, Prohero!au

» Summary: Its bad enough that you’re spending your ex-boyfriend’s birthday curled up in bed, wearing his merch, drinking away your sorrows, but what’s even worse is having your eardrums pierced by the blaring music upstairs at the party thrown just for him.

» Warning(s): Smut 18+ MDNI please, hurt/comfort, mentions of alcohol, dubcon since reader is under the influence while getting dicked down, drunk sex, oral sex and fingering (female receiving, we getting fed tonight), one pussy slap lol, manipulation, unprotected sex (don’t be silly, wrap your willy)

» Author’s notes: Hello! aaaah I’m actually pretty excited about posting this fic! First of all, its Bakuhoe’s birthday! and what better way to honor it than to feed you all some good ol angst sprinkled in with some good dickin’ down. Its been years since I’ve written smut and I’m actually really fuckin proud of it, yet real nervous but I hope you enjoy! Secondly, this fic is a part of Bakugous Birthday Bash! I’m so excited to read everyone’s work, thank you everyone for holding this event and allowing my ass participate to create this with you all ♡ be sure to read everyone’s contributions, I know it’ll be more than amazing since everyone worked so hard!

Happy Birthday to our favorite King Explosion Murder♡♡

Lastly, I wanna thank everyone for their support and helping me reach 200 followers already! You guys are the cutest thing ever and I promise I’ll update more frequent the minute I’m out of uni late june fml, thank you @tteokdoroki for giggling with me when i wrote cock for the first time lol

» Masterlist | Requests

Rolling out of bed and flailing onto the floor as a start of your day ensures you that the following 24 hours will ultimately suck ass. Getting up and readying yourself for the day by looking through one of your cardboard boxes for your favorite Dynamight hoodie, the back of your mind keeps nagging you, trying to remind you of something buried deep in your subconsciousness, and you have half a heart to try and remember, because for some odd reason, you feel so fucking weary, as if the few steps from your bed to your bathroom are somehow now endless miles, almost making you breathe out in relief after finally reaching it.

And as you are making your coffee, that odd feeling keeps annoying you again, prodding at your brain to remember something, something. And ultimately, that's when your eyes fall to the counter. You knew this day was coming and you were dreading it for months, so as you look at the calendar on your kitchen counter, you frown, the quote of the day you always love reading so much long forgotten when your eyes fall on the date.

“You’ve gotta be kiddin' me.” You mumble at the calendar on your counter hatefully with furrowed eyebrows, as if it would either reply or change its date, it doesn’t do either, and your lips curl downwards even further. As in immediate response, you pick up your phone, your coffee pot tossed aside as you dial the number of the only person you could think might help you right now.

“G’morning y/n -” you hear Kendo’s voice through your phone, and you honestly want to sob right then and there, but you hold yourself, barely and speak over her overly cheery voice first thing in the goddamn morning. “It's Kats- Bakugou’s birthday” you whimper at the slip up, being so used to the first name basis you were in with your now ex-boyfriend.

“Yeah, was kinda hoping you would’ve forgotten.” She sighs, tugging at her bangs and pulling back her phone to check the time. “Tell you what, I get off work in an hour, then I’m spending the day with you. I’ll get tequila, I know you love your shots.”

“Ken, it's like 10 right now..” you can’t help but pout, having alcohol in your system as an escape to help you forget about the entire day still sounding better than the urge to cry and crawl into a hole, even if it's at the start of your day. “Y'know what? Get those gummy worms I like too.” “Bet.” you hang up with a sigh, moving back to the kitchen to sift through your bubble wrapped kitchen utensils, barely forcing yourself to prepare breakfast as to not have your liquor on an empty stomach.

You loathe the fact that you remembered his birthday, always reminded of him no matter how long ago since you’ve last seen him, being the center of the media’s attention for years as the number 6 hero in japan has its perks, well, in his case, but to you? Nothing but trouble and heartache as every channel you flip through plasters his face, whether it be about some big rescue mission he partook in or a new rumor about a potential lover to the explosive hero, followed by him almost attacking a reporter, yelling to them about ‘needing to mind yer goddamn business and keep my fuckin’ name outta your mouths’. Therefore, you opted long ago to stay away from the TV to avoid seeing him, his captivating rubies for eyes, covered by that goddamn mask you like to push up to his forehead, sweeping his bangs away and exposing his sweaty forehead that he bumps against yours as he makes love to you, still in his hero costume, all battered and dusty and so incredibly hot you have to-

You grip your coffee mug tighter, almost to the point of breaking the handle off of it, placing it rather roughly onto the table before pushing your food away, appetite gone with the thought of whatever paradise you were thinking you were in before now long gone and never coming back, all because of you, of your action, of your mistake.

Kendo walks in with a bright smile on her face, as if her overly cheerful attitude will balance out the void you’re slowly but surely falling in. She shakes the bag of snacks in your face as you blink your eyes back into focus. Dragging your heavy feet across the floor to get to your kitchen to retrieve the shot glasses. Only kissing her cheek in thanks when you snatch away whatever it is she brought with her to lift your mood.

She eyes the boxes by your kitchen, the four placed haphazardly in your living room and the one you're using as a stool while filling your shot glasses, tongue sticking out to try and fill each one to the brim without spilling any on the new coffee table that she failed to notice before is still wrapped in bubble wrap that prevent any damage during the moving process.

“y/n…” you hum in response, a frown falling on your lips as the third glass spills a bit and the liquid pools on the plastic.

“Don't you think that you should’ve probably unpacked a while ago? Hasn't it been, what, five months?”

“I didn't know you were gonna come here to harass me about my life choices, Kendo”

She flinches away, your tone venomous, almost feeling it as a slap to her face, before leaning in when she sees your eyes start to water.

“If I did, that just means it's true… that just means it happened, and I did the stupidest thing- you know what,” you wipe the few tears that managed to escape away with the sleeve of your sweater, looking down at the shots in front of you. “It, it doesn't matter anymore just- can I just drink and try to forget about how my life has gotten nothing but fucking worse since the day I left him?”

You questioned your worth that one time, that one time all those months ago. Thinking that by doing what you did and leaving, he’d drop everything and run behind you, chase after you and win you back, but he didn't, and as you sit surrounded by the evidence of how much of a failure you find out you are without him, you regret ever questioning it, ever questioning him. Because to you, living in denial was so much better than whatever hell this is.

So all you could think of is to just drown yourself in alcohol until your mind is too numb to think of the possibilities of how you could have avoided this, how you could’ve been a less of shitty person, and stop imagining how your life would be now if you just swallowed all your insecurities and just stayed. Despite the neglect, despite not being prioritized, because in some weird twisted way, those lies held you with warmth that you were never able to find after uncovering the ugly truth you’re living in right now.

You lay on your living room floor, the alcohol swirling in your system and clouding your vision as you trace imaginary shapes in your ceiling, the voice of Kendo muffled as she rambles on and on about her day, the amount of outlaws she bitch slapped - a term she uses to get a laugh from you - and how she considers herself the unluckiest being in the whole world for having Monoma as a partner of all people, seriously contemplating who she should beat up first between him and the villains.

“Must be nice,” you voice, low and slow, scared of how Kendo would react to what you’re about to say, yet your intoxicated self unable to stop your mouth from uttering the words. “To have a purpose in life, to not be quirkless and lost like us.” your face twists in an ugly scowl at your ceiling, but mostly to yourself for putting a downer on whatever mood your friend is trying so hard to build, proven by the hitch of her breath before she enters your peripheral vision when she leans over you, all upside down and pouty.

“What’re you talki-” the shrill ringtone of her phone breaks you away from each other as she leaps to fetch it and silence the god forsaken thing by answering the call. “Battle Fist here, yes sir, I was partnered up with Phantom Thief for the patrol at area B, n-no sir I wasn’t informed.” Kendo breaths out in irritation, pinching the bridge of her nose as she starts tapping her feet aggressively on the floor, eyes falling onto yours when you look up at her all weary and sad, knowing what she would tell you once she hangs up. “That dumbass is gonna be the end of me I swear.” She crouches down to your level and kisses your forehead, promising to be back in the morning with hangover food, before she leaves and locks the door behind her.

Now you’re left all alone, back aching from laying on the hardwood floor and eyes watering as you feel your loneliness eating you up inside, the god awful music thumbing loudly in your ears followed by the cheer of people as you-

Music?

You sit up abruptly, groaning at the dizziness of the swift movement as your hands fly to cover your ears, a failed attempt of ensuring your brain doesn’t begin to spill out from them, because of the loud voices, the bass shaking your entire fucking apartment by how strong it is, and you curse yourself for falling for the scheme the landlord pulled you in, paying half of the rent everyone did, just because you lived right below the penthouse that hosted the loudest parties in the area, 4 days out of the fucking week.

The money hungry shameless bastard praised the apartment the minute it spiked your interest all those months ago, selling it so well you actually moved in the next week, anything to stop feeling like a burden to Kendo as you couch-surfed her apartment. Only to realize within that first week from your downstairs neighbors that he rents the penthouse to host parties of all sorts, and due to its location in the city, it was pretty popular, yet you didn’t have the money to move out again, nor the heart to concern your friend with your problems, as she was a hero with other responsibilities aside from taking care of your hopeless self.

So you get up, barely gathering yourself onto that elevator to tell off whoever the fuck will answer the door first to turn the music down. You pound the door with your fist repeatedly the minute you reach it, the door opening so suddenly you almost punch the man standing in front of you in the chest, the cool air created from the door cooling your warm cheeks as you squint at your victim for the day.

“Welcome!”

“Listen here, you buttfaced moron” you start to chew the person’s ear out, your sight blurring yet still able to notice how bright his hair is, how fiery and familiar it looks, and you’re certain you’ve seen it somewhere before. “I’m trying to drink away my regrettable life choices and cry over my ex-boyfriend, so if you would just turn down the-”

“y/n?” oh, that’s where. Your stomach drops as Kirishima looks down on you, the bright smile he flashed to whoever he was welcoming now dropped with his eyes almost bulging out at your presence, you both stand in silence, the boy unbuttoning the collar that suddenly feels like it has a chokehold on him while you cross your arms and hope the floor would swallow you a floor down back into the comfort of your home.

Kirishima basically is shutting down the second his eyes lay on you, breaking a sweat as your eyes never waver, despite how you fail to stay standing straight, what was he supposed to say? ‘Hey we’re throwing a birthday party for your ex-boyfriend because he's been feeling depressed from the day you dumped his ass’ ? No! He wouldn’t do that to his friend, but what was he gonna say now?

Well, he didn’t have to really think about what to say to you, because his other friend didn’t hesitate to push him forward, slurring something along the lines of ‘lettin the hot ladies in so they can take a look at the prettier blond, aka moi’. In his moment of panic, the redhead stumbles forward, his cup slipping from the tips of his fingers and meeting its doom by the floor, whatever was filling it now staining your pants as you both look at the mess between you.

“Woah bro, we said you gotta get’er wet but not- '' Denki's cackle stops him from continuing whatever filth he was gonna spew out - thankfully - before his eyes drop down to your chest, or more like what was covering it. “Hey! You a Dynamight fan? Hey Bakuhoe, comere for a sec.”

Dear God, move, for the love of all that's pure in this god forsaken world, move! Run!

All you could do is shake and breathe in short segments as your widened eyes meet his unamused ones, the garnets in his eyes glistening at your sight, he stands straight and so tall, suited up in his usual attire. Dressed for the occasion, words aren't able to describe his beauty. You try not to let your brain be dazzled by how incredibly handsome he looks. He is wearing a dress shirt, in the deep color of wine that complements his eyes, dress pants hugging his long legs, not to mention the open collar, and no tie. He looks like a long, lean Lothario.

At that your eyes drop down to the floor, specifically the now stained carpet, your hands wrenching the end of your hoodie to distract yourself from the piercing rubies that haunts your dreams.

You build up some courage, enough of it to lift your head to continue what you came here to do, so you open your mouth, and drop a few IQs while you’re at it. “The m-music is loud and m’tryin’ to sleep,'' you mumble, noting how Kirishima leans down to make up the words you are saying over the sound of the blaring music while Bakugou narrows his eyes at you as if disregarding his sight will make him hear you better. “So, if you could turn down the heat, that’d be,”

“You squiffed?” The blond grunts, leaning his face close to yours to inspect it, and he catches a whiff of alcohol in your breath, his eyebrows furrowing at your response. “No I'm not squinting-”

“Yeah you’re drunk alright,” he huffs at your less than intelligent reply, pushing his glass of whiskey - you figure since it's always been his drink of choice - against Kirishima’s chest, telling him to lower the fucking volume and grabs you by your bicep. “C’mon, I’ll take you home.” you stumble at the force used against you, no matter how weak it actually is, before you barely straighten yourself to push his hand away. “I can walk down all by myself, thank you.” Of course you’d expose where you live, you dumbass.

He doesn’t question your integrity, just continues to basically drag you to the elevator before pushing your apartment door open when you choose your floor, irked to find your misplaced trust in the people of the complex by not locking your door after leaving. He barges into your bedroom and tells you to change out of your fucked up pants and proceeds to saunter to your kitchen to get you water, eyeing the boxes that he comes across during that small trip.

He stands awkwardly by the door when he sees you standing in the middle of the bedroom, sifting through countless moving boxes with your pants on the floor, thrown next to a pile of clothes that he can only assume that its supposed to be your laundry ‘basket’, until you opt against wearing any since you can't seem to find anything to replace them. And when he asks you if you just moved in, his expression sours when you shake your head no and explain to him that you’ve been living for months in this space, after chugging that cup of water like you’ve been parched for days.

“Birthday party?” You ask out of the blue as you play with the strings of your hoodie, your ears perking up at the confirmation hum you receive. “Hmm, thas’cool… I-I guess.”

Bakugou’s impassive as he gently pushes you onto your bed, eyes meeting yours as he covers you up with your blanket. “Get some rest, I’m leaving.” He said, slowly stalking away from you and barely reaching your door as your big mouth talks on its own. Your body sitting up and facing his retreating back.

“That's what you always do, you always leave”, you utter and you see him stiffen his shoulders before he spins to face you, so fast you almost want to check up on him about getting a whiplash.

“Hah?” it's one syllable, but it shakes your very core, that one sound making you almost shake, overwhelmed by the amount of emotions, the amount of pain that one sound has. He steps closer to your bed, the stomps of his feet sounding like gun shots in your ear, and you pathetically lift up the blanket to cover yourself up, cowering behind it like it's some pseudo shield that might protect you from him.

“I’m the one that leaves?” he growls at you, his eyes sizing you up when you react to his forceful approach, leaning back to look down on you, but his lips are still curled in a frown, he tries to hold himself from blowing up at you, his feelings oddly enough still raw in his chest the moment he lay eyes on you the first time since you left, threw him away and walked away, probably finding someone better, probably finding someone who you tolerated, unlike himself, but when he sees you straighten up your back to rebuttal him, an automatic response to whenever he raised his voice at you from all those years ago, he knows he is in for a fight.

He snarls when you nod at him, your eyes hard and glaring up at him, not knowing that your silence is by your better judgement since you don't trust your voice, knowing it’ll fail you, probably crack and show him how much he actually is affecting you by his closed off posture and demeaning look down at your frame.

“Real fuckin’ rich of ya, y/n.” He snaps back, his hands brought up to his hair, tugging at it. “As if you didn’t pack your shit,” he kicks at yet another cardboard box fucking spewed in your room, noting its heavy weight when it didn't move but an inch by his action. “Dropped your keys by the fuckin’ door,” as an emphasis, he throws your apartment key at you, making sure it doesn’t actually hit you, but falls onto your lap. “And left. Without a single fuckin’ word, like I'm some lowlife who didn't deserve an explanation, like I didn't deserve anything! And-” that hurt, goddamn it.

Exhaling deeply, he focuses on how your eyes look a little less glossed over, a little more sober, but holding fear, and he almost steps back and out when he looks at how you’re fighting tears, almost wanting to bust his own kneecaps than to see you like this, always wanting nothing for you but to be happy, to never upset about anything no matter how small it might be.

Then why did you leave him? Left him to drown by his lonesome self, waves of his insecurities and sorrow crashing into him, pulling him even further down to his inevitable doom.

Despite the fact that you both yearn for each other, long to feel one another, engulf yourselves in the others presence. You both stand your ground, eyes glaring despite the emotions hidden behind them, mouths shut and curled into ugly scowls regardless of the words you wish to speak to each other, whispers of promises into each other's ears about being together forever, in spite of not knowing what the future holds.

Bakugou breathes out again, recalling all those months worth of coping mechanisms to exercise when placed in anger inducing situations like this one, the time in therapy spent to better himself, to control himself, to be the best version of himself, for you, hoping that one day you’ll pity him enough to want to come back, knowing full well he would never hold a grudge against you and welcome you back with open arms, intending to never repeat whatever it is he did that made you think of him as so unbearable you couldn't spent another day with him.

You on the other hand, are barely holding in the tears, wanting him to just leave your sight, so you can go back to the world of denial where he didn't look like straight out of a magazine, looking as captivating as always, as if your absence did not have an effect on the hero, of course it wouldn't, why would a quirkless extra have an effect on the great Katsuki Bakugou, that's what he used to call them, right?

“Just leave, Bakugou-” his ears pick up the way your voice breaks at his name, the way you utter it sounds so horrendous, because you aren’t meant to call him Bakugou, you’re meant to call him Katsuki, Katsu, Suki, your Suki. Not- “I hate you.”

The room suddenly spirals. The floor panels misalign themselves into zigzags. Bakugo’s eyes shatter like a glass window. He tries to hold himself against the tears that threaten to fall, stomach wrenching as if reaching from inside of his body, but it’s useless. He brings his hand up close to his chest and sinks his head, letting the words overtake him.

Oblivious to his internal struggle, you pile whatever courage you have left in another attempt to ask him to leave, aware that your body wouldn’t aid you in pushing him away physically, you open your mouth, only to gasp after a moment of silence when he pounces on you and grabs you by the neck, sliding a hand behind your head and leaning your face impossibly closer to his “you fuckin’ hate me? show me you hate me then,”

Then he's pressing his lips against yours, your half foggy mind all too surprised by the flow of motion you can only try to keep up with his feverish kisses, you try to pull away, to push him away, to no avail, Bakugou only stopping his assault on your lips to growl at them again “Show me then, hah?”

But he wouldn't even let you, his grasp on your neck loosening to circle around your back to push you to him even more. His kisses get more and more aggressive, trying his best to show you how much he was hurt by what you said, by what you did, after all this time, almost begging you to not let him have to voice out whatever he’s feeling because he would do so much of a worse job than he is doing now.

The hands you placed on his chest in a failed attempt to push him away are now just placed over his pecs, welcoming their warmth and the way they flex under your touch, your right hand clenching over where his thumping heart is, and he almost sighs in relief, the movement feeling like it holds together all the broken pieces of his heart to make it whole again.

Almost like that gesture calmed him down, Bakugou’s rough touches start to soften, very caring as they glide to your hips before sliding underneath your - oh my God it's your special edition Dynamight hoodie! His amused chuckle tickles your lips as he pulls away when he feels you stiffen at the realization, barely letting you breathe in ease until he places his lips against your ear. “Love how m’still the only one sprawled over yer tits.”

“But I still want the real thing, lemme see ‘em, hm?” And just before throwing a dumb retort and embarrasing yourself even further, the article is tugged eagerly off of your body and thrown haphazardly on the floor. Earning yourself a low whistle when he realises you’re wearing nothing underneath. Bakugou all but shoves you onto the bed, spreading your legs when you try to rub them against each other for any friction, wedging his body neatly between them as his teeth gently bite your soft buds, pulling them slightly before captivating the nipple entirely.

His tongue flicks against your hardening nipple while keeping a watchful eye at the sinful expressions your face makes, his one hand toying with and twisting the other nipple while the other slides down to tease your needy cunt, pressing his fingers against your -fucking soaked- panties, swearing under his breath at the feeling of your walls trying to clench around his fingers just from that one movement. Sitting on his haunches, he lifts your hips with ease to pull your panties right off, eyes travelling between your heaving chest and your exposed pussy. Before lowering himself and finding comfort in biting and sucking your nipples again.

Bakugou’s smirk grows with your moans as his tongue dances over your sensitive nipples, he presses his finger against your walls, and you immediately keen at the prodding feeling that almost feels foreign after all this time apart. His thumb pushing your pussy lip to the side to see you suck his finger in like the good girl he knew you always were.

“Ba-ba-ba,” you struggle to talk, your drool collecting at your lips, stopping you from forming any words as you feel a breeze hit your spit covered tits, whining at the feeling and wanting him to pull your nipples in the warm cavern of his mouth again. Bakugou’s eyes focus on the spit line connecting his bottom lip to your nipple before disconnecting it to smash his lips against yours in an effort to shut your blabbering up.

“Ba-ba, what? y’better not be callin’ me Bakugou with my fingers deep in yer pussy baby, its Katsuki for you, yeah?” he taunts with a fake pout that immediately turns into a grin at the way you hold your pathetic sobs, pressing another finger in your tight cunt, reveling in the wet sounds your pussy makes as he thrusts his fingers in and out of it, soaking his fingers in your slick as he curls them, eager to hear the squelching sounds it would make when his cock is shoved deep inside you. “Or better yet, lemme hear you say Suki, hmm?”

“Suki- p-please, eat me out” you throw your head back and bring your hands down to play with your clit, showing him where you want his lips to be, as if the blond doesn't already know where it is, and he scoffs at the thought, slapping your hand away and giving another slap to your clit, earning a moan from you from the sharp pleasurable pain.

“Yea, yea I fuckin’ know already, needy slut,” he growls, keeping eye contact as he circles your clit with his tongue before sloppily eating out your cunt, making a mess of both drool and your arousal, mumbling “my needy slut.” to himself, and you do hear it, yet you brush it off with the thought that your lust must be messing with your brain.

Your chest still flutters at his words and your walls clench in on his fingers as he curls them again in a way you didn’t know would make you yelp like it did. He thrives off of how your body responses so easily to him, your back arching and the squelching getting louder as his fingers pick up speed, his tongue so skillful in drawing circles around your clit before sucking it again. A whine escapes you when he draws his head away from you, only for you to see the way his eyes darkens, his chin glistening from your arousal when it catches the light.

“Let go for me princess,” he whispers uncharacteristically, making you question if the glint in his eyes is from his desire for you or something else. “Lemme see you fall apart for me, alright?” the way he’s almost begging you to come undone for him takes you by surprise, and your body curls in on itself so fast, not realizing your orgasm was creeping up on you until it hits you. The knot in your stomach breaks as you gush around his fingers, white crossing your vision as he slows his pace to help you come down from your high.

Your shuddering body lays on your bed, eyes unwavering as they meet Katsuki’s, his fingers stuffed in his mouth as he moans around them at your taste. It's all a blur after seeing that unravel, and you’re so woozy that you don’t register him discarding his clothes until he lays above you. Placing himself between your legs as he pumps his cock, hardened from seeing you fall apart on his tongue and fingers, his tip leaking precum and burning a bright red.

His movement is almost too quick for you as he dips his head into your leaking hole before pulling right back, a breathless chuckle escaping him when you whine and roll your hips and try to suck him in again, wanting to feel the stretch of him inside of you.

“Didja wanna say somethin’ princess?” he taunts you, one of his hands holding you down by your stomach while the other is wrapped around his length, teasing you in the ways that he knows drive you crazy, he leans in, using the tip of his cock to spread your pussy lips open and running it along your slit to coat it with your arousal.

“Katshu, p-please I-” you hiccup, your fists tightening on your bed sheet as you try to rock your hips up get more than just his leaking tip, but your begging is always interrupted when he isn't hearing what he wants you to say.

“Say you love me.”

You freeze at his demand, your widening eyes looking up at him before you pout your lips, not thinking about surrendering to him, no matter how much you want your cunt stuffed full of him right now.

“I don’love yooou-” you gasp as katsuki’s grip onto your waist tightens and you feel as he gives a thrust into your sopping cunt, arching your back at the burning stretch of being filled up by his thick cock. Katsuki’s hand traces down your left thigh before cupping behind your knee, hiking your leg up and out, close to your chest to expose more of yourself to him, wanting nothing more than to see his dick seething in and out of your tight pretty pussy, and by almost muscle memory, you did the same thing with your right leg, replacing his hands with your own, presenting yourself to him.

“Y’see that? Fuckin’ know you like the back of m’hand, y’think someones gonna- ah, take the fucking time to work you like I did?” he's right, absolutely right, he ruined you for any other potential lovers and he loved it with every fiber in his being, knowing this means you’re always going to be wrapped around his finger. You moan as he pushes more of himself into you, bottoming out and holding one of your tits and squeezing when he feels your walls do the same to his cock.

You hate it, after all this time, you’re still a blubbering mess the second he was one fucking inch deep in your pussy, sucking him in and clawing at his back begging for more. No self respect, no dignity, you hate it, how come after all this time he gets to come here and fuck you like you belong to him, like you’ve belonged to him despite everything that has happened.

You only realize that your eyes are closed when Katsuki’s breath hits your face, and you open them wide, noting how wet your lashes have gotten from your tears, only for him to kiss at the tears gliding along your right temple and licking the ones on your left. He breathes out a chuckle and when he leans to look at your eyes, the humor and menace you expect to see in his eyes are nowhere to be found, clouded by a solemn look instead.

“What? Yer cryin on me now, huh? Y’think a few tears are stoppin’ me?” His voice is masked so well, because he sounds like he was simply enjoying a game, like an imp that had branched from a demon. “C’mon, not gonna tell the birthday boy you love’em?”

“I don't love you, I hate you, h-hate you-” you keen as drool pools at your lips, your body betraying you as it shakes from pleasure, letting go of your legs to wrap them around his slim waist, to bring him in closer, if that was even possible, stopping his deep thrusts that were brushing up against your cervix, it feels pathetic, denying him the pleasure of telling him you love him while clinging onto him like he's your last breath of fresh air, because in a way, you feel like he is, like him leaving would just collapse your lungs and stop your heart from beating, you know that he’s gonna leave you. While your spent body would lay on your bed and you'd cry because you didn't tell him you love him, yet you wouldn’t ask him to stay, knowing deep down that you don't deserve it, you don't deserve him.

You feel his weight on top of you as he rests his elbows by your head, his lips brushing against your ear as he repeats again with every shallow thrust into your warm insides, his cock twitching from time to time in your walls. “You love me.” he says it once, twice, thrice. Every time his voice lowers more and more to a broken whisper, almost a plea instead of the cocky taunt he started off with.

Your legs are starting to ache from the grip they have around him, so you loosen up, your mind easy since his thrusts haven’t been rough nor painful. And when you do, you notice two things immediately, first, your thighs are so soaked from how he's making you feel, probably ruining your bedsheet at this point, second, he pushed his chest away from yours to look you directly in the eyes, one hand molding around your thigh to keep it from wrapping around him again while the other is placed on your stomach, his thumb inching closer and closer to your clit, wanting to toy with it, toy with you, but not ready to give you any satisfaction until you admit to him, please just tell him, that you do still love him. All insecurities, all battle scars, all emotional constipation as layers he covers himself with, that no one gives a fuck to peel off, to see who he really was, except you.

His red eyes lock onto yours as your chest heaves with breathless sobs at the lost of his warmth, and when you think he's lowering himself back down, he pulls out suddenly, sending a shiver down your spine as you gasp, now feeling like you're frozen over, your tears coming from lack of both pleasure and warmth.

Suddenly your face is met with the pillow and you feel his hands on your hips as he lifts them up and off the bed, your half intoxicated, half aroused mind barely registering that you’ve been flipped over on your stomach until you feel his cock prodding at your cunt, easily sliding in like they’ve been made to be warmed up in there, when you know Katsuki would argue that your pussy was made just for him and to warm his dick.

He presses his chest against your back, pushing you onto the bed as he thrusts his hips roughly, pulling out fully before seething himself right back in, your moans and whimpers muffled by your pillow from being pushed down by his hand as his other holds your hips firmly.

Then what happened next probably shocked him more than you, despite how delirious you’ve become due to his relentless thrusting, his dripping tears feel cool on your bare warm shoulder, one by one as his groans and moans turn into strangled sobs, before Katsuki digs his teeth into that shoulder, to both hear you scream and to muffle his cries from you.

“because I love you” he sobs, detaching his teeth from their grip and kissing the bite marks before resting his forehead against it, but his thrusts never cease, getting sloppier, as if the confession is pushing him off the edge. Dragging the tip of his nose from your bitten and bleeding shoulder to the back of your ear, his own face flush and warm against you as he breathes harshly against your ear and kisses along it.

“So-” he moans again, the hand behind your neck now turning your face so he could see your fucked out expression, the tears streaming down your face and the drool that pools under your cheeks, with your tongue lolled out and your eyes barely focusing on his form.

“You better say you do too, becau-”

“I love you.” you gush, like saying it is a breath of fresh air, your eyes never leaving his teary ones, your gaze so intense and fixated on him with no regards to the way the snapping of his hips against yours is shaking your entire body against the bed.

With new found vigor from your confession, Katsuki grabs onto the meat of your ass, hammering into you from behind with force that pushes you against the bed even further, your pulled hair jerking your head back so he can listen to the lewd noises you are making, long forgotten the will to cover your pleasure and hiding your moans.

Your ass heavily slaps against his thighs as he grabs your hips with both hands and pounds into your sopping wet cunt, relishing in the way you’re begging for him. “Y’like it when I fuck you baby, hmm? Like it when I stuff you so fuckin’ full of me?” He growls, feeling you push your ass back every time you repeat ‘yes’ to his questions. “Yes, yes love it, love you, please please don’t stop, please ‘Suki. Yes, gonna cum ‘Suki please” you weep, your head pounding from the grip he had on your hair and your eyes crossing as you feel his thrusts stutter, getting sloppier when you bounce your ass against him, his hand coming down and slapping it.

“That's fuckin’ right, cum on this cock, c’mon baby” he brings four of his fingers to rub your clit with urgency, and you can’t help but arch your back as your orgasm hits you again, screeching as you feel your walls tightening on him, squeezing him for what he’s worth. “F-fuck ah, y-you’re so- Fuck” his heavy weight falls on you as he fills you to the brim with his milky seed, forehead pressed against your shoulder as he rocks his hips against you, pushing more of his load inside before slowly pulling out, gaze flutters down to where your bodies were once joined, seeing your mixed arousal seeping out of your hole and he has half a mind to push it back in with his fingers.

But he flips you over effortlessly, the sight of your crossed out eyes and wet cheeks squeezing his chest at the realization he might’ve been too rough on you, so he wipes your cheek with the palm of his hands and revels in the way you lean towards him, turning your face to kiss his palm. “Say it again.” barely a whisper, as you flip his hand and kiss the back of it as well, and he almost repeats himself, thinking you didn’t hear him, but your hands reach up and cup his face, bringing him towards you. “I love you Katsuki” and goddamn if that wasn’t the most beautiful thing you’ve ever spoken. “Again,” “I love you, Katsuki” “Again,” you giggle, and he knows that's probably what angels sound like.

Your thumb brushes over his warm cheeks, red from showing vulnerability, and you pull him even closer, “Happy birthday, ‘Suki.”

“Yea,” He breaths out, his lips barely brushing against your bitten and bruised ones. “It really fuckin’ is.”

aaaaaaaaah! Hope you enjoyed it! Lemme know what you think of the smut, I also changed my writing style from past tenses to present tenses or tried to at least

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har-rison-s · 2 years ago

Text

very metal

fem!reader x eddie munson one shot

a/n: okay hello here goes one of my eddie munson ideas.... my god am I whipped for this man. jhsfdbajsdfagjshds. anywhos. let’s go. I hope I write him good. I also hope this won’t turn into a series because I have that tendency to turn one-shots into series and then never finish them. god help with that. also I made up some little very brief background on eddie’s parents – just my version, my imagination, don’t hate or say it’s wrong. just my take. happy reading!

summary: fem!reader is eddie’s friend, and goes looking for him. not only does she find him, but she comes to learn of things about her hometown and the world she never could have predicted.

masterlist

stranger things masterlist

word count: 3.2k

tags: mentions of chrissy's death, fluff

gif credit goes to owner!

eddie has always been hard to catch or keep track of, even before all this hell shit that’s happened to hawkins in the last two and a half years. he’s always following his impulses, constantly going somewhere, changing plans, doing something completely opposite of what he’d promised to do, and everything that follows.

so being friends with him hasn’t been the easiest thing, either. he’s a great guy, a good friend, and overall a charming person, but damn would you like for him to be punctual sometimes. he doesn’t think beyond himself sometimes, and doesn’t care for ruining others’ plans when it comes to certain things. his campaign is a different story, of course. you’d love for him to just keep to his schedules and be reachable sometimes.

and you’re surprised that it surprises and even disappoints you that he’s nowhere to be seen now. with the terrifying murder of the sweet girl chrissy last night, a possible killer on the loose, eddie not being in anyone’s reach terrifies you. what if he’s the next victim? what if he’s been kidnapped or something? this stuff only happens, but with what’s happened in your hometown the last few years, anything could be going on.

the possibilities are endless, you cannot think or want to think of all of them, much less any of them involving eddie. he’s been your friend since before high school, even before secondary school, and you hate for him to be in any sort of trouble. much less in pain... that’s where you try and stop your brain from running further and just digging yourself a grave by assuming the possible worst of anything and everything.

your last resort, the last place—you actually don’t know why you didn’t think of it first—you think to look for eddie, is his supplier’s, rick’s house. out by the lake, quite the middle of nowhere even for your small town of hawkins. you’re scared shitless to go there, of course, because what if the killer is lurking around somewhere here, especially preying on young girls walking around alone at night? and what if the killer has already got eddie, if he’s at rick’s house, and now you’re just walking into certain death?

but you hurriedly walk alongside the dark, empty road, your arms crossed over your chest, a flashlight squeezed in one palm, illuminating the way. you’re not a fan of the dark, especially with the recent murder, and you don’t particularly like flashlights, either. they illuminate only some of the way, and anything could be in that instant darkness beyond the white ellipse of light. anything! you’re even scared to lift the flashlight higher to see, because what if someone or something is there?

at least you know the way to rick’s house well. eddie usually drives after school over there for new stashes of drugs and rounds of drugs in pill form. and he usually takes you with him, because day to day he drives you home or drives you both to his band practice or the occasional bar gigs. and eddie knows he can trust you, you won’t talk to anyone, it’s been clear since the very beginning.

it’s not exactly your ideal plan of kicking off spring break - running around your hometown in the dark in desperate search for your best friend. but you’re worried about him. you were supposed to have him drive you both to a flea market in another town near-by, right in the morning hours because it’s a half-hour’s drive and all the good records and clothes get sold out quickly there. so when he didn’t come to your door, knocking that special theatrical knock of his, not at ten, when you were supposed to leave, not at half past, not at eleven... you got really worried.

first you ran over to the trailer park, where he lives with his uncle, wayne. and his uncle was there, wide awake, alright. and so were the police. and so was the body of chrissy cunningham, which, thankfully, no one let you see. especially wayne. throughout the years he’s said you’re like a daughter to him, and he’s always treated you as such. he sat you down and explained what’s happened, and that eddie was nowhere to be found. that raised your worry to quite the height.chrissy murdered in the munsons’ trailer? that raises a lot of questions.

“he’s probably hidin’ somewhere, scared out of his damn mind,” wayne said as he drew smoke from his cigarette, shaking his head, “neighbours are already talkin’, makin’ up a story...” he sighs, “they’re sayin’ eddie did this, but... there ain’t no way. you and i both know that.” he’d looked at you, and you’d nodded your head without hesitance.

“he wouldn’t,” you said to him with a certain shake of your head, “they’re crazy for saying that, and believing it.” you shot a look over the trailer park, seeing all the people staring and peeping like the creeps they are. you sighed. “i’ve gotta find him.” you said and lift your eyes up to wayne’s. “wanna come with?”

“wish i could, kiddo, wish i could...” wayne shook his head, “i’ve gotta answer all kinda questions from the boys in blue, and it wouldn’t look very good, either, would it? they’d think i was hidin’ him or something.” wayne looked at you. “but you be careful. don’t wanna see you wind up like this poor girl,” he said and you nodded, “if you ain’t found him ‘til dark, don’t keep lookin’ until tomorrow mornin’.”

and though you promised him you’d do exactly that, you’re now breaking that promise. you’ve just gotta find him, and this is really the last place he could be. you’re so near rick’s house, anyway, it would be stupid to turn back and go home now. every little noise you hear makes your head shoot in its direction, your eyes go wide and you make a gasp, but every time it’s some bird or animal. and you curse yourself each time for getting scared of such a little thing. but since your nerves are about electrified right now, you also can’t blame yourself.

finally you reach rick’s property, and nearly breathe a sigh of relief. there’s no sign of eddie so far, and even if he’s not here, you have shelter for the night, as disgusting and stereotypical for a drug dealer’s house it is, because there’s no way you’re going home now. you’re exhausted, anxious and even hungry, too. it must be... you glance at your electronic wristwatch. eighteen minutes past midnight. you sigh. as far as your parents know, you’re at eddie’s place. you’ll worry about your alibi later, anyway.

your first destination in the property is the house, of course, so you sneak in through the already open door? interesting. if that’s a hint towards eddie being here, then great. if it’s someone else... you’re in not that much luck. you tread around the house slowly, as quietly as you can, scared that any noise from you will lure in the other person here more, and maybe even attract the killer – but that’s just paranoia.

funny or not, to calm your mind, you start humming paranoid by ozzy quietly to yourself while looking for signs of life or eddie around rick’s house. it keeps you focused on something, and a little distracted from the stressful reality you’re facing right now. but even in the upper floors of the house, there’s no sign of anyone here. you huff. where is he?

you plop down onto the couch at the front of the house, the shadows and the dark making your legs shiver. you draw your knees up to your chest and look anxiously around. but then your mind lingers on the stretched shadows displayed on the other side of the room from you. you see your own shadow, your silhouette, and that makes you realise there’s a light behind the window, somewhere outside, making those shadows.

hoping against hope that it’s no one predatory holding a flashlight from the outside, you turn around in your seat, and are met with the boathouse down by the lake. the boathouse’s porch light is on, and that’s what’s creating the shadows you see. you sigh deeply in relief and hop off the couch. maybe eddie is here, after all.

excited, you run down the small hill to the boathouse, nearly trip along the way, and stop at the door. eddie better be here.and the door better be open. you press your empty hand down on the handle and jiggle it. it jiggles around pretty freely, and so you swing the door open. you’re met with nothing but the dark and silence, except for the gentle splashing of the lake water against the house’s base. you huff.

“eddie?” you call out in a whisper, hoping he’ll come lurking out of the shadows, alive and well. you close the door after you and make a few steps into the boathouse. it’s not much, just swimming and boat necessities, and one boat with its waterproof cover on top, slightly swinging with the soft waves of the water. quite literally sounds like there’s no signs of life here. “eddie?” you call again, but your voice betrays the disappointment and stress you feel. you reach the window that gives a view of the lake at night, and you see nothing but the dark water and sky. you huff again.

but a floorboard creaks somewhere behind you, and only as your turn, you notice an empty cereal box by your feet on the floor. your body is almost frozen in fear, and so you turn slowly and cautiously towards whoever might be there. and all you’re met with is eddie’s hairy silhouette, only there’s also an oar in his hand (??). but as you both stop and take each other in, eddie comes into the moonlight, where you can see him better, and he drops the oar as relief and surprise takes over his features.

“y/n?” gets past his lips in an emotional whine, and you can barely confirm it’s really you before eddie closes the distance between you both and pulls you into the tightest hug ever. though by the way his hands feel on and around you, you realise it’s he who needs to be hugged more. so you wrap your arms around him, squeezing him tight as well, and close your eyes as you breathe a sigh of relief. “it’s really you.”

you don’t think you’ve ever seen him like this before. he’s never been scared of teachers and any kind of other authority, he’s never shown to be scared of anything, really. sure, there were the times with his father before the fatal car crash, where you’d seen fear in eddie’s eyes like you never had before, and it opened a different perspective on your long-time best friend. that kind of fear, a version of it, you only see for the second time now, so something must have happened. “i’m so glad i found you,” you tell him, rubbing a comforting hand across his back, “i’m so glad you’re not hurt. i was so worried... looked everywhere for you.”

you don’t want to be delusional, but it sounds like eddie could be sobbing into your shirt. you can tell he needed to hear those words. before you can question his state, he pulls back, though still holds onto your shoulders as he looks at you. his big brown eyes bigger than usual, darting around, searching yours, shining with tears. you reach up your hand to his face and flick away a spot of dirt on his cheek, and the movement makes eddie’s eyelids flutter. “physically i’m not hurt, but otherwise, well...” eddie makes one of those sarcastic smiles, which already is a give-away that something’s wrong, “what are you even doing here? didn’t you have plans tonight?”

a laugh at his worry for you escapes you unfiltered, and you shake your head. “thanks for worrying, but that doesn’t really matter right now. you weren’t there to pick me up in the morning, so i went looking for you at your place, but you weren’t there. what was there, in return...” you shake your head, remembering glimpses of the cops’ dialogue about the body, “a crime scene.”

surprisingly, eddie nods. “yeah, i know,” he says. you’re still aware of his hands on you, and though you’re not a person who is friendly with the language of touch, you ignore that for now. for eddie. you can tell he really needs this, he’s always been a touchy person. which raises the question of how you two could ever even be friends, but... it’s pretty easy to respect each other’s boundaries. he needs this. “i, uh... you know, my mind’s kinda all over the place right now, so i hope i’ll make some sense of what i’m about to tell you.” he admits and lets go of your shoulders, “let’s... sit down,” eddie says and leads you away from the window, towards where there’s a bench by the wall in this boathouse. you both sit down, and you bring your backpack into your lap. you cross your knees in front of you and lean against the wall as you listen to eddie.

while he tells you all of these crazy things and you listen intently, without words you offer him your hand to hold. and you feel his mood and thoughts shifting with how he holds your hands. how when he tells you about dustin and his friends—including, apparently, steve harrington—visiting, his hands are calmer then than they are when he talks about what happened with chrissy. turns out eddie was there, and he witnessed her murder. which is traumatic enough, and you completely understand why he ran away. you believe him, you believe what he said happened did happen, and you can’t imagine what that’s like.

his thumb also nearly digs holes into your palm when he tells you about the upside down and the monster, you guess, dustin and he think killed chrissy. the connection between that guy and a wizard from dungeons & dragons is spot-on, actually, and seems even too fitting to be true. but you believe him nonetheless. eddie may be a lot of things, but a liar or a murderer he certainly isn’t.

after he’s told you seemingly everything, you can’t think of things to say to put him at ease. but you remember what you have in your bag. “you want some giggles?” you ask him as you’re opening the zipper of your bag. they might not be very metal, but they’re one of eddie’s favourite snacks. you take the pack out of your bag and see eddie eyeing it quite hungrily. you always make sure to be carrying a pack or two of giggles, anyway, knowing eddie likes them. and he loves you for it. you hand eddie the small box over and look into his eyes, pondering his silence. but then you realise it’s probably because of your own. “you know i’m not good with words,” you tell him.

“yeah,” eddie says quietly with a nod and opens the giggles box, “but... but you believe me, right? i feel so stupid asking that, but...”

“no, no, it’s not stupid,” you assure him, “it’s just a lot to take in. you’re still processing, and i can’t imagine what it’s like—what you saw.” you say and shake your head. “god, it’s just horrible...”

“i can hardly believe it happened,” eddie says with a shake of his head, “has my name... gone public yet? the cops after me?” he gives you a look. but you shrug, even though you hate to crush his hopes.

“i have no idea, eddie,” you tell him, “i haven’t been home since, like, eleven am.” he gives you a worried look.

“you should go, then,” he says and you look into his eyes. is he asking you kindly or is he pushing you away? “it’s already late.”

“go home alone? by foot? with a killer on the loose? yeah, no way,” you dismiss his suggestion or whatever it was quickly, “besides, i don’t wanna be anywhere else but with you. and you may not admit it, but you need the support.” you make a point. “you’ll go insane, all cooped up in here with no one to talk to. while dustin and the others are looking for a solution... you need a friend.” you say and turn to look at eddie with a smile.

he gives you a half-sad, half-cheeky smile in return as he eats his giggles. “you wanna hang out with your cult-leader, freak murderer best friend?” he offers teasingly, always trying to make humor out of any situation. you shake your head.

“you’re not a cult leader or a murderer, eddie,” you assure him, “i don’t believe you killed chrissy, especially like that. i don’t believe that at all.”

eddie wanted to express his gratitude before he made that stupid, teasing comment, so he decides that now’s the right moment again. “thank you,” he says, “really. i know how... how all this sounds, and how shit like this can twist people’s minds... you could have thought anything of me and of what’s happened.” there’s a solemn look in his eyes, the eyes that shine in the moonlight of this beautiful night.

“no one could ever convince me you killed someone,” you pat his hand, “i like to think i know you like no one else does,” you say with a smile, “and i know you’d never do something like this,” you say as your eyes connect, “and i’m not the only one that does. wayne, too.”

eddie breathes a deep sigh of relief at that fact, even closes his eyes and leans against the wall behind him with his back. now he’s on his way to being at some sort of peace. “i was worried about him,” he admits, “i even thought the cops might think he did it. later, of course, i didn’t have any time last night, to think about him, or anyone or anything else besides...” you both know besides what, he doesn’t need to say it out loud. you give him a nod.

“come on,” you start to say, “you might have your disagreements with wayne, but he’d never think you a murderer. he knows you just as well as i do, if not better.” you assure. “there are people on your side, okay?” you look into eddie’s eyes again, having leaned a bit closer to him now. eddie just looks back into yours. “one way or another, we’ll figure this out. until then, i’m here with you.”

finally eddie gives you a nod in response. he rubs his thumb over the skin of your hand in that certain way that only says one thing. “thanks, y/n, really,” eddie tells you quietly, earnestness in his eyes and in his voice, “it’s very metal of you.” he says, knowing it will crack you up. eddie doesn't always know how to best communicate his feelings, even if he wants to be straight-forward. so he expresses his feelings how he best knows to. he tries to hide his smile as he says those words, but he cracks once he sees you laugh.

“i do try,” you say between heaved breaths and laughs. very metal indeed.

tags: @d4td7ewmachine

permanent tag-list: @gabiatthedisco @v0idbella @works-of-fanfiction @ur-gunna-h8-ths @betweenloveandfire @but-legendsneverdie @deardeacy @thewinchesterchronicles @mavieesttriste16 @intrrverted @the-freak-cassie-131 @gasbomb69 @xoxobabydolls @corallyink @rottenstyx

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson oneshot #eddie munson one shot #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fic #stranger things fanfic #stranger things oneshot #stranger things imagine #stranger things one shot

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tryingmybestpls · 4 years ago

Text

Me and My Husband

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: The reader warns herself of her relationship with Steve Rogers.

Rating: R

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: Infidelity, miscarriage, depression, suicidal thoughts

No one will tell you what to do when you find out your husband is cheating on you. No one tells you that whether you stay or you leave him, everything you do will be judged ruthlessly. So you just pretend. You will pretend like its not happening, like you haven't seen the text messages on his phone or heard the whispers when you visit the Compound upstate. You'll ignore them the best you can, pray that somehow you got this all wrong. But you can read minds, so you get it straight from him that he's cheating on you.

You'll keep your head held high, ignoring the issue as much as possible. You act like nothing is amiss, even though everyone that you work it-or have worked with-knows the truth. They all know your husband was having an affair and they wonder if you know. You can see their questions as they appear in their heads. You plaster a smile on your face, wishing to be in your bed so you just cry. You'll get bombarded with their thoughts and it'll make you feel like you're drowning.

You'll never bring it up to your husband, but he knows that you know. You've promised that you'd never read his mind, but he knows that you have. You know every gritty little detail of the affair and he knows. He is reminded of it every time he sees you lying in the bed you once shared, your back to him. He's reminded of what he did every time the two of you visit the Compound upstate, when everyone gives her looks of sympathy while he gets glares that bore into his skin. Every time your eyes meet his, he is reminded that he didn't care about the sanctity of marriage and because of that you'll never look at him the same way ever again.

You'll spend moments wondering what you did wrong. Did you not love him enough? Not give him enough attention? Instead of being mad at your husband, you're mad at yourself. Wanting to think about what you could have done instead of thinking that your husband just didn't love you. It'll be easier to blame yourself and you'll live with this bundle of hatred for yourself.

A betrayal by the people closest to you. Your husband and your best friend. Your husband and your maid of honor. The two people you loved most in the world sleeping together and losing your trust, losing you. You wanted it to be anyone but her, anyone else. You prayed and begged that somehow his thoughts betrayed him and he didn't sleep with her, but you know deep down that he did. Her face is all over his memories. She won't meet your eyes and you've stopped taking her calls. You will want to hurt her, kill her. Want to make her brains spool out from her head because you're so God damned hurt. She isn't friend anymore. Friends don't betray you. Friends don't sleep with your husband. Friends don't make a mockery of your marriage. Friends don't-

Cry.

You'll find yourself crying a lot. It's an endless stream of tears that leave your head pounding and your eyes aching. It's the type of crying that makes your throat and entire chest hurt, the types of crying that leaves you feeling hollow. You must be dehydrated with how much you're crying. Your husband will come home to see your eyes red and watery. He used to be so concerned when he saw you post-crying, but that was before your marriage imploded. He knows he is the reason why you're crying, so he doesn't bother asking anymore. And that only makes you cry even more.

A night of emotions being too high and apologies that he doesn't mean result will in a positive pregnancy test and you're stuck in marriage with three people. You, your husband, and the other woman. It's too cramped and you feel like you can't breathe. It's suffocating.

When you get pregnant, people will whisper it's a save the marriage baby. None of their smiles will meet their eyes and their pity will be written all over their faces. They congratulate you nonetheless, calling you a fool once your back is turned. Having a baby with a man that betrayed her with her best friend.

They'll ask you how he feels about it. Not how you feel because you're not allowed to have feelings anymore. You gave up your feelings when you chose to ignore his infidelity. They'll ask you how he reacted, if he is happy. You don't want to tell them that he just nodded when you told him, his face not giving away way what he felt about the news. You don't to tell them at he left immediately to go see her as soon as you got into the shower.

She will be in the room when you tell the remaining members of your team, both holograms and in person. Hidden in plain sight, she sits among the people you call your friends-at least the ones that remain. His eyes meet hers when the news falls from your lips and you can hear her whisper in her mind "What are we going to do?". As your friends and teammates walk up to congratulate the two of you, she takes her time getting up, takes her time to walk over to you. She looks you in the eye and says that the two of you are going to be great parents. Three of us in this marriage and I can't breathe.

You'll wonder every day as your stomach grows if the man who you married hates you. He's stuck in this house that he had built, with the family he had wanted, in loveless marriage because he messed up and you found out. It doesn't stop him from leaving at night, showering immediately when he comes back. They both know you aren't stupid. You know what they are doing, but your heart can't break anymore. You'll tell yourself that he'll stop when the baby comes, but you know that's a lie, but it's a lie you keep repeating to yourself in hopes of it coming true.

Sometimes, you will dive into his mind when he is asleep next to you. He'll never know that you've snuck inside, but you get to see every moment of their relationship. It's sadistic and all it does is make you more upset, but you can't help yourself. You need to know how far it goes, if they love each other or if it's just a physical thing. She fills up more of his memories than you do. You're being replaced and there isn't a thing you can do about it. You can only watch it happen.

And no one will tell you what to do when you start to bleed. It will seems to pour endlessly from you, staining the cream colored sheets. Your husband won't be beside you, he's off with her. So instead, through the pain, you drive yourself to the hospital, blood covering the seat. Tears streaming down your face as you force yourself to walk into the emergency room, hand on your stomach. You'll lean on the receptionist's desk and calmly tell her "I think I am losing my baby." as blood drips down your legs. No one tells you who to call. Should you interrupt your husband's time with his mistress? Make him hate you more? No. Instead, you call your friend, the one who has always been like a brother to you. The one who lives a few hours away with his wife and their newborn daughter. You'll wait for him, sitting alone in a hospital room as nurses run tests on you.

No one will tellyou how you are supposed to react when they come in and tell you that your baby-a boy, you learn-is gone. Your bump is still there, so how can he be gone? He. A sweet baby boy that you'll never get to meet. When Tony arrives, you can't get the words out. Saying it aloud will mean it's true. But he knows. He knows as soon as he walks through the door that the baby is gone. He doesn't bring it up and instead sits next to you, where your husband should be, and holds your hand. Your hand in his while you other hand cradles your bump. Your husband will return home the next morning to find your car gone with blood smeared everywhere. For the first time in months, he'll call your phone, wondering what was going on.

Tony will be the one who answers the phone when you're in surgery, the doctors wanting to make sure the contents of your womb are completely out. He'll be the one who tells your husband that you lost your baby. Tony will be the one to tell him to stop calling. Before your friend hangs up, Tony will tell your husband that he caused this, that his infidelity direct caused your miscarriage.

In that time, you'll finally lose it. It's like you're finally reacting to everything. You'll be drowning in anger, in sadness, in sorrow. How you managed this far you'll never understand. Tony will bar your husband and his mistress from coming anywhere close to your hospital room. Your life is falling apart at the seams and you're losing control of everything. You're unable to sleep, unable to eat. The last thing you've had was your baby and now that he's gone-Well you don't have anything left. You just want all of the pain to end and you'll tell Tony that. He'll will be worried and he'll ask for you to be put into a seventy-two hour hold. While this is happening, while your brain is being picked in order to see if you're going to harm yourself, Steve will be throwing away the bloody bed and getting rid of the ruined sheets and blankets.

Tony will decide that you can't go back to your home you share with Steve, but you also can't stay with him. He has a baby and you just lost yours. It's not right for you to stay there. So instead he takes you to Asgard's new home. You'll be thousands of miles away from the home you had wanted to raise a family in, away from your husband. Thor and Valkyrie will welcome you with open arms, helping you transition into your new lifestyle as you grieve. Tony will handle the divorce proceedings and Steve will get a new bed. Your things will be packed up and sent to you and you'll be completely removed from your husband.

And when Bruce and Rocket come knocking on your door three years later, begging for your help, you'll be forced to make a choice. And you'll sit there in your tiny cottage next to Thor's, thinking about what to do. And then you'll agree to help because you want to bring back half of the universe. You love saving people and it doesn't matter if you feel uncomfortable, you are going to help bring people back.

So when that beautiful man with the baby blue eyes comes up to you after a mission, a million dollar smile stretched across his nervous face and asks you to go on a date, heed this warning. He'll be amazing at first, but it'll go down hill so fast. Know that you were never his first choice, you were the only available one.

If you don't heed the first warning and you do go on a date with the blonde man, don't marry him. The marriage is a sham, something you'll do a year after half of the universe turns into dust. You'll be excited and it'll seem like he's really happy, but he isn't. He just wants purpose again and he won't get it from the marriage. He'll emotionally leave you and you'll try to stick it out.

Being with Steve Rogers will only end in pain, so save yourself the heartbreak and stay away.

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers #captain america x reader #chris evans x reader

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semischarmed · 4 years ago

Text

Projection

Have I ever told you about how the astral plane works? So, here’s a little secret about me. I’ve been dabbling the past few years a little in lucid dreaming. Well, it turns out I have a knack for it, and it’s amazing, I can go around doing whatever I want. I climbed Mount Everest, flew through the skies, visited Paris. The possibilities are literally endless. And, me being me, I like to go around in these dreams trying different ways at possessing people.

Of course, since it’s still a dream at the end of the day, the experience is somewhat detached. As fucking hot as it is, flooding my dream self inside my hot neighbor, or phasing into that cute barista at the Starbucks down the street, I always wake up to a sense of disappointment. There’s only so much the brain can make up. I’m not particularly smart or imaginative either, so it honestly feels like half my energy is spent just trying to maintain that dream.

So that led me to try other means. Of course, the next logical step was astral projection. Unlike a dream, when you project, you yourself are experiencing the world- the real world. I wanted to try my hand at projecting into people.

I found a book online that detailed specific steps on how to achieve this. I think this was where the trouble began. In addition to being a great lucid dreamer, I was apparently an astral projection savant. The book mentioned it could take months before I could manifest my full body outside the physical plane, and years before I could untether and explore the world. It took me two days before I was able to leave my own body and jump inside people.

All things considered, astral projection is a bit of a dead end. I thought I’d be able to jump inside people, control them, live as them, fuck as them, the works. Well, the human body is resilient. It knows what soul belongs in it, so there’s not much to do inside someone, you can’t really influence what they do, and people seem to pick up on the odd sensation of someone else being in the room with them, so even when I do jump inside someone masturbating or fucking, half of them stop on the spot. Still, when you’re in someone who’s a little more fearless, you feel their body as them, and, let me just say, it’s hot being inside someone when they masturbate. It’s like feeling your own hand do the deed, but you feel it as them. You feel every muscle, every feeling, every thought. The hot ones kind of suck at it, but the afterglow is pure bliss.

This book gives one strange rule on projection though: Twins, especially identical ones, are unique. They hold a special bond. “Do not project into a twin.” Given this ominous warning and my curiosity, and given how much of an expert I already was at this whole projecting thing, I had no choice but to try.

———

The first time I projected into a twin, was magical. Of course, I knew immediately who I wanted to test this on. The hot twins who lived down the street who were especially close. They seemed to have different people over all the time so at the very least, they were active. I had my sights on one particular twin: Chase. Goddamn what a specimen.

I decided to go into a sleeping Chase as a trial run during one of my late nights. The twins apparently slept on the same bed, which was a bit weird but was perhaps a testament to to their closeness. I thought it was kind of cute. Like with all projection, the body resists the intrusion and I have to claw my way into him. Easy enough.

Chase’s twin Caleb immediately stirred with eyes closed in confusion- “Chase... are you there?” The slumbering Chase did not respond. Upon closer inspection, I caught sight of Caleb’s slumbering form talking to the spirit of Chase that he took inside himself. Oh shit does this mean what I think it means? Then I decided to move inside Chase’s body while his form followed my spirit’s commands. I knew it.

The first thing I did once I realized I had full control of Chase, of course, was to start playing with this new dick. In my excitement, I was immediately drawn back into my own form, awoken by my raging hard-on. Damn it! Fucking tease. I decided to finish beating it out, with Chase’s hot bod on my mind and a resolve from then on to get better at this projecting thing and stay longer inside him.

I made a fascinating discovery that day- a discovery that had probably prompted that ominous message in the first place. Twins are already naturally connected in spirit, so when you astral project into a twin, you can displace them and the owner’s spirit actually has a welcome place to go.

———

The second time I projected into a twin, I went into the wrong one. Equally unfortunate was that they seemed to have just had a fight, sitting in and angry silence before going to their respective rooms. I really should have done more research as far as who lived where because the person’s back that I slammed into was none other than Caleb. Likewise, it was apparently possible for twins to resist the displacement. This one was a fighter. The first thing I try to do in his body is flow into each limb and untether him. This proved to be fruitless, as he was easily able to fend off my attacks, kicking me right out of his body. I wasn’t one to lose a challenge so I again attempted a different route this time, concentrating all of me into his mind- control the mind and the body follows. Failure again. My final route was perhaps the cruelest, I expanded and positioned my soul to encompass all of him and began an all out barrage for control of his bod. Back and forth, my spirit squeezed in and out into him from all sides until he could no longer defend himself.

Finally, his soul submitted and I felt an emptying motion, accompanied by a quick shout from the other room. “H-What the fuck!” Chase barged in, visibly shaking, hands on his head in a mix of pain and confusion. He looked at me intently with an emotion I could not attribute. In response I gave a quick smirk and flipped him off with his own body before stating “Caleb, you’re pretty cute too. You like this? This is mine now.” As I start doing poses with his body, the emotion of my temporary twin became clear. Desire.

I stripped shirtless and began doing push-ups with his body, easily clearing 70 before finally breaking a sweat. I stood up and raised my Caleb arms, imbuing the room with his scent. Caleb looked on from Chase’s body with silent intent.

I then used Caleb’s nose to sniff his own armpits, used his own tongue to lick it clean, used his own mouth to flash him a demented smile. “Caleb, you taste very good, just like your hot brother,” I stated “-cmon, join meeee Chase... let’s do something sacrilegious” I ended with a wink. Of course, my fucking body woke up again, just when it was getting good. In the process, Chase also fell unconscious, as the real Caleb returned to himself. As I felt the last of my spirit be pulled back, and the waking world return, I caught the troubling sight of Caleb, back inside his own body, furiously masturbating over the events that had transpired.

——-

The third time I projected into a twin, he fell into depravity with me. Truth be told, I was again making a beeline right for Chase because, come on, look this face. Just as I was about to claim that tight ass, I felt myself get dragged into Caleb. A-fucking-gain. This time felt different though- he was still in the body with me. That in itself wasn’t too odd, given our fight from last time, but even stranger this time around was that his body was willing. It readily welcomed my soul. His form followed my spirit’s every move, yet I still felt his soul present, compliant. I decided to do what I meant to do in Chase and began masturbating. At the end of the day, they were twins after all, Caleb was still fucking hot to cum through, and I was not one to miss an opportunity.

“Well I think today’s little trip is gonna be a two-for one” I said with his voice as I finished. I then purged myself from Caleb’s physical form and headed straight for Chase until I felt a part of my current body pull me back. My spectral form attempted to claw myself back towards Chase, but Caleb’s pull had been too strong. He wasn’t letting me go. My spirit recoiled and slammed right back into his and I felt a part of myself stain Caleb. “I didn’t say you could leave,” he commanded, forcing me to watch as he began to rub our body with his warm seed. Hot. We both brought some of it up to our shared mouth, taking in all that we had just completed. “If you want, I’ll let you go so you can go inside that asshole Chase”, he states, “Make him dirty like me...or I’ll have to”. That last line definitely threw me off. Though I meant to to investigate further, I again felt the pull of the waking world from my own body. He moaned a quick “thank you” before passing out.

The return trip to myself equally odd. The human body naturally resists a little before accepting a spirit, even when it’s the owner of that body but somehow mine accepted me with no push back. Something was off.

Still, being inside these twins was fucking hot and I was not going to let a few unfounded fears stop me. I set plans for my return trip to them.

———

The fourth time I projected into a twin was also the most impactful. I once again aimed for Chase, but immediately ran into a confusing sight...

Standing before me was Chase, or rather, Chase’s body, unconscious in frozen discomfort. As far as his soul, however, I could see its form convulsing and contorting in pain. I then catch sight of the cause of that pain- Caleb’s spectral form was somehow deep inside Chase’s filling into him. It’s like watching an infection in real-time.

I stood, or rather hovered, in silence at the bizarre display I had witnessed. Evidently, that was a mistake, because before I aimed to leave this terrifying sight and head back, I notice Chase’s unconscious form raise its head, turn right at me and give me a toothy, wicked smile. “I can see you”. Chase’s body licks its lips. “You probably didn’t know this but independent little Chase over here has been planning on leaving for a while now. Said we should split. Move to a different cities. Live out our own.” Chase’s body opens it’s eyes and starts walking to Caleb’s slumbering form. He leans over and starts making out with the unconscious Caleb. “Oh Caleb” he moans “Don’t worry. I’m never gonna leave you” Chase’s lips gently pry open Caleb’s and he snakes his tongue inside. Parts of Caleb’s cheek puff up and back down as Chase’s tongue explores every crevice. He sucks a little before letting out a satisfied sigh “so...so that’s what I taste like,” he says breathlessly.

Chase then starts playing with himself right next to his twin’s sleeping form and I couldn’t help but get a bit aroused. “You always were the hotter twin” Chase says to himself as he continues tracing his own calloused hands all over. His attention moves to the unconscious Caleb, who he stops first to ponder for a moment before beginning to pump. He then positions Chase’s mouth over his original body to expertly deepthroat his own dick. This stirs the Caleb body to life, and he makes them both finish on each other off.

With both bodies, Caleb finishes licking himself clean. “Since it’s all me over here, this is technically just masturbating” he says confidently, as if to justify the disturbing sight I just witnessed. Caleb then positions Chase’s sweaty body behind his and has Chase wrap his sweaty biceps into an embrace from behind. “Like I said bro [moan], I’m never leaving you”. Two amused pairs of eyes then look directly at me. “You’re never leaving us either right? We have to thank you somehow for this,” they say, gesturing at their incestuous selves. I am immediately creeped out. After thinking for a few seconds, they chime in unison “Welcome to the family! We have a present for you”. With that, Caleb drops unconscious. That was signal enough for me, giving me shock I need to head straight back for my body.

Of course, by the time I get there, I instead see my own self, sitting naked, eyes rolled back and moaning as he maneuvers my hands all over. I see him continue to explore me, twisting my nipples, which, fuck that feels good, masturbating me, using my own body to maneuver in ways I never did before. With Caleb inside, my body moves with a confidence I never had. The experience is surreal. The sheer pleasure more or less stuns my soul on the spot. When my physical body finishes cumming, Caleb brings our hands to scoop it up and, oddly, it tasted different- slightly salty, slightly sweet, slightly Caleb. He sniffs our armpit and, again, the scent was rank, putrid, and nothing I’ve ever created. What was coming out of my body was undeniably Caleb.

“Mmmmmm... property of Caleb now” he says with my voice, as he rubs my Caleb-smelling sweat all over. Admittedly this was kind of hot. With an assured stride that I didn’t know my body could perform, Caleb opens my door, greeted by a Chase carrying his own unconscious twin. Caleb brings my body to his own and starts defiling himself. He turns his own body around and starts fucking it with my penis. Fuck that also feels good. With each pump, his own body starts to animate, ever so slightly. When he finally cums, my physical form falls unconscious and Caleb stirs awake. I take this as my chance to get back inside me. Success.. and god with Caleb smeared all over me, I smell disgustingly good.

“You’ll never leave me, right?” The body in front of me questioned. I’m a bit taken aback and try to stammer out a response “Uh...-“ before I could finish, Chase penetrates me from behind. “That would be a no” He whispers before giving my ear a playful bite. Why did he have to be so cute. This whole series of events was something straight out of my dreams. Despite this, my self preservation instincts kick into overdrive. Whatever this is, however good this feels, I need to get out. Fast.

As if he could read my mind, Caleb’s body smiles as he makes his twin use his rough fingers to gently grab my hair and pull me back. He leans Chase over to give me a deep, sensual kiss. “Oh well, Chase isn’t here anymore. Caleb took me, all of me. We’ve always had a deep connection... but he wanted more-I trusted him and he used that love to get inside me, pervert my soul... he’s in so deep inside me now that Caleb is all that’s left.” He wipes his sweaty face all over mine and continues making out. He then starts gyrating his hips, pushing more of himself inside my body as the Caleb body does the opposite and swallows more of my still-hardened rod with his ass. I feel the throbbing almost impossibly deep inside me from Chase’s dick as they proceed. “Thank you for this” they moan in unison.

They continue humping me from both sides, locking me in a paralyzed bliss. “We wanted to give you something special for keeping us close” they say. Then I felt it in my soul. Caleb. He pulls my spirit out and with his twin souls begin to fuck me in the astral plane. The feeling is indescribable. Nirvana. Bliss. Ecstasy. Enveloped by and merged to Caleb and Chase’s spectral forms, completion. This could be me. This could be us forever.

Then reality snaps back and I am floating alone. I finally regain my composure I try to head back to my unconscious, smiling body. No dice. “Occupied” it says with a chuckle. I head for Chase’s instead, “mmmm getting close” it moans. My body grins wider and motions to the unconscious Caleb. He spits with both bodies at his own motionless form. “Go ahead, take you new place, Caleb”. With no other option, I fill into the empty Caleb shell.

Chase and my body then start fucking each other. Hard. Messy. He’s doing more things with my body that I didn’t even know was possible, and as the original owner of my body, and the current inhabitant of Caleb’s, I feel both motions amplified. Im sure he feels the same.

As Chase, he turns my body around, and again rams his thick dick inside. My body involuntarily gasps, which causes me to gasp inside of Caleb. He forces a wicked, dirty smile out of my body’s face as he plunges ever deeper. He slips Chase’s sweaty abs onto my body’s back, wraps tone, sweaty Chase biceps over mine into an armlock from behind and takes plump Chase lips into a quick peck on my body’s cheek. My body then sags unconscious. Despite the sight, the smell throughout the sweaty combination was undeniably just Caleb’s.

Chase’s eyes flutter and his body trembles as Caleb repossessed his twin’s body with the extra soul he stuffed mine with. With double the soul inside, Chase exudes double the vitality and in that sweaty embrace, Caleb again gyrated his twin’s body into mine as he fills it with double the seed- double the soul. “T-thank you for the house warming present. I’ll take real good care of you-you’ll take real good care of us” he moans, as Chase’s body now goes unconscious as well. Dread fills me.

Aside from the odd cases with twins, human bodies know who their masters are. The act of imbuing a soul into a different body is, in and of itself, unnatural. So it was at this point that my empty body starts involuntarily writhing, trying to escape. I see tears well in my closed eyes, still unconscious from effort. Of course, as Caleb, I motion to protect myself from whatever was going to occur next and set to pull my unconscious form off the Chase embrace. Before I could pull my body out of the entrapment, it shoots awake, face swinging upward to face me. Bright white eyes shoot open. Behind my skin I see a force pushing deep inside, stretching it unnaturally. The visage of Chase appears, beneath my flesh, wearing my face like a mask. Though it’s Chase’s spirit he melds, the smile growing is undeniably Caleb. When it all settles, eyes roll back into place. Instead of my normal eyes, Chase’s pale blue orbs appear in their place. The crooked smile grows to a laugh on my body, teeth looking odd, until I realize it was Chase’s own molars poking through my own mouth. He takes shallow breaths and smears more sweat around himself, and though I can’t place if it was my own body’s sweat or Chase’s, the smell emanating is fully Caleb. Bones crack, skin shivers and stretch and contract and construct and I feel, from my own soul, a massive wave of nausea.

If astral projection into another is, in itself, an unnatural act, astral displacement, astral merging was another layer of corruption entirely, it was unholy. He was changing something in me, fundamentally. Wave after wave of Chase’s flesh bleed into my body from Caleb’s onslaught. My nausea shifts into a unique pain, a pain of the soul, originating from where he stuffed my physical form full of Chase’s seed-Caleb’s seed, mixing and amalgamating us into a wholly new being. Musculature appears in place of the frame of my body’s previous shape as more and more of it is twisted and contorted. Then, perhaps in one last push of defiance, my body screams involuntarily, and I, in Caleb, scream.

“So you’ll never leave me, like he planned to” Caleb says, with a mix of my voice and his, as he rams the last, massive part of himself into my body. My physical form’s face contorts in discomfort one last time before Caleb settles it into satisfaction. “Look at us” he states as he runs vascular new hands over my body’s new face and then uses that new face to give me a seductive wink. “We’re cute as a button”. The transformation was complete- my old self no longer recognizable in the new brother he had created.

The change, of course, had hit my soul as well. From inside Caleb I screamed...convulsed...shook... moaned... you know, the works. When that last bit of Caleb dug inside my spirit and changed me, I truly felt him, felt my twin, felt his love. I’ll be a better Chase for him than Chase ever was. Our souls are bonded for life. I am a part of Caleb now, and he is a part of me. Everyone experiences it differently, but we’re all grateful after to have Caleb inside us, to be a part of something greater. I like to think I have the extra privilege of being his twin, new and improved, wearing his old body’s skin while he wears and controls mine. And sometimes, with his permission, I get to play around inside the others. Sometimes we switch and he lets me jump inside Chase, like I’m doing now. The only body off limits is my old one. I like to think that makes me special, it’s the only body Caleb keeps his soul in 100 percent of the time. It’s proof of our special connection. And he wears the new me so well, better than I ever could anyways.

And, well, that takes us to today doesn’t it? Why even tell you all of this? Caleb likes you. I like you. We like you. And we think it’s time to expand the family again. You got some good traits to work with- we’ll get a lot use out of that bod, after a few adjustments. You’re probably feeling a little sleepy now. Sorry, guilty, that was me. Oh this thick Chase dick you feel inching deeper inside your ass? Yep, obviously also me. But, cmon future bro, dig deeper, listen with your body. What else are you feeling? Do you feel our love, throbbing in you? Do you something else, leaking inside? Do you feel these calloused Chase hands pulling you ever deeper into us? Do you feel him? Do you feel Caleb already worming himself into you? Good. Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of you. You’re gonna love us. We’re gonna be fucking hot together after we’re done with you. Welcome Home.

—End —

Wanted to explore something a little different with this one. Hope y'all like it!

#male possession #twin possession #male body swap

717 notes · View notes

woogyu · 3 years ago

Note

Can I please have 4,5 and 8 with hyunjae 🥺

4. You're staring again

5. Wow. You look stunning

8. Don't smile at me like that. You know it drives me crazy

»»————-　♡　————-««

notes; MIGHT HAVE NEARLY SOBBED WRITING THIS, THIS IS SO CUTE, AM DYING, HOPE YOU LIKE. Tbz and royalty aus are just a perfect match in my brain.

Thank you for requesting!!

wc; 1633

Drabble Game Requests | OPEN | Drabble Prompts; fluff | angst | funny

»»————-　♡　————-««

“You’re staring again,” Younghoon elbowed Hyunjae in the side, nearly causing the prince to drop his drink. Hyunjae shot a glance at his oldest friend, eyes wide as he was caught watching the far door.

“Was not,” Hyunjae mumbled, his cheeks tinged a light pink as he quickly averted his gaze anywhere else.

“She’ll be here.” Younghoon told him, voice softening as he realized what the prince was doing. Hyunjae didn’t respond, his attention now very focused on the glass in his hand. He had already brushed off half of the ladies at the ball, wanting to save his first dance for the special one he was waiting for.

“We are late because you spent so long with those hair curlers,” you hissed at your friend, hurrying up the palace stairs. “Beauty comes at the cost of time, my dear y/n,” the girl responded, batting her eyelashes at you. A smile threatened to pull at your lips as you rolled your eyes.

You were honestly foolish for even coming here, for assuming that the prince would be expecting you. He had his pick of all the unwed ladies attending, there was no way he would want to waste his time with you. It was really a miracle you had even spoken with him at all, a chance of fate some might say.

»»————-　♡　————-««

You were here far too late, but the head baker had left you with a seemingly endless number of tasks to complete before you could leave. Granted, the tasks had been left to your entire team of bakers, however, as the youngest of the bunch they had graciously left them for you as an ‘initiation’. You supposed that taking advantage of the new staff was nothing new.

You worked on rolling out the dough for rolls, your arms screaming in pain after being worked for nearly 16 hours straight. Part of you wanted to leave, quit this job and go back to your town. Forget about your dreams of becoming head baker at the palace and admit to your family that they were right. Blinking back tears, you shook your head, no, you could do this. You wouldn’t let them force you out.

“Gods! You scared me half to death,” a voice cut through the silence, your eyes darting to a figure in the doorway. It was nearly 3am, no one should be awake right now.

“Don’t the baker's shift end at 6? You are either here very late or very early.” The voice commented, walking toward you. As they entered the light you realized, to your horror, that it was the prince. You were very aware of the fact that you were covered in flour and probably had horrendous dark circles under your eyes. You quickly wiped off your hands and bowed, your shoulders tensing up.

“Your Majesty” you greeted, voice wobbly and uncertain. He waved a hand, leaning against the counter you were working on.

“No need for the formalities…” he smiled at you and you could have sworn your heart jumped at the sight. “I don’t believe I’ve met you before… and I am a frequent visitor of the kitchens” he hummed, reaching under the counter to retrieve a glass before filling it with water.

“I just started working here… my name is y/n, your ma-“ a quick glance from him cut off your honorific. You shut your mouth and relaxed a little bit. You had always heard wonderful stories regarding the prince, both in reference to his kindness and beauty.

“You can call me Hyunjae” he said smoothly, chuckling when you quickly shook your head, mouth open in shock. You could never.

“So Miss y/n, what keeps you here so late or early?” he inquired, his eyes fixed on yours, nearly causing you to choke when you began to answer him. Why did your name have to sound so pretty on his lips?

“I stayed late to finish the work assigned to my t-“ you quickly cut off your words, you couldn’t rat out your team to the prince, that wouldn’t look good on you. “Assigned to me today” you quickly finished, hoping he did catch your slip up.

“Hmmm, a bakers’ assignment shouldn’t take into the night to finish” he mused lazily, moving around to stand next to you. He was quiet for a moment, sipping his water, either waiting for you to explain further or giving you time to think of a better answer. When you didn’t say anything he simply smiled and set his cup down, you were thankful he didn’t press the topic further.

“Would you like some help? I haven’t been able to fall asleep so perhaps a little bit of work might be good” he explained, causing your eyes to widen. You quickly shook your head, struggling to find out how to respond to such an offer. What sort of prince offered to help those working in his castle?

“I simply couldn’t… It wouldn’t be fit… You…” you struggled to supply, mind reeling with how close in proximity he was to you. This prince was going to be the death of you if he kept this up, your heart couldn’t handle it.

Hyunjae merely smiled at your weak protests, rolling up his sleeves and dousing his hands with flour. “An extra set of hands will make the work go faster” he offered, pulling off a piece of dough you had been kneading and began working it on the table.

»»————-　♡　————-««

You had been in shock that night, and the weeks after only showed you that the prince would not run out of ways to shock you further. Your nightly rendezvous in the kitchen became nearly a daily thing, him helping you with your tasks and the two of you chatting about everything and nothing.

You hadn’t planned on attending the ball, unsure if you would even be allowed to do so. Then Hyunjae asked, and you were learning that it was impossible for you to say no to him. He looked at you as if you weren’t a baker and him a prince, but as if you were just another lady and him just another gentleman.

That being said, you knew how foolish it was to come here tonight. Stolen moments in a dark kitchen were one thing, but a ball where there were dozens of other ladies in beautiful ball gowns… you wouldn’t stand a chance in your simple white lace dress. And yet, you found yourself utterly excited about the event, about the possibility and of course, about the prince.

“Thank you… for attending with me” you told your friend before the two of you stepped through the doors. “I don’t think I would have been able to do this alone” you admitted, sheepishly looking down at the floor.

“Don’t let the other ladies intimidate you y/n, you look absolutely stunning” your friend said with absolute certainty before pushing the large doors open.

You stepped through, the bright lights filling your vision before the ball came into view. Many eyes snapped up to yours before retreating, but as you slowly descended the stairs you found a pair of eyes focused entirely on you. Your cheeks flushed as you focused on not tumbling down the staircase, the prince maneuvering through the crowd to meet you at the bottom of the stairs.

Upon reaching the bottom you took Hyunjae’s outstretched hand, your eyes focused on him as the rest of the guests faded into the background.

“Wow.” He swallowed, his eyes momentarily flashing down to your feet and back to your eyes. “You look stunning” he breathed as your heart raced. You smiled softly, nervously glancing down at your gown.

“It was my mothers,” you said softly, unsure if why you had even said that as if he would care. He simply smiled at your words, leading you out onto the dance floor.

“She must be proud to have such a beautiful daughter” he commented, his eyes sparkling in the brightly lit room. You flushed once more, allowing him to lead you onto the ballroom floor.

“May I have this dance?” he asked, his eyes trained on you as he held out his hand. You nodded a little too quickly, not trusting your voice to provide him with a verbal answer. When he pulled you in close, you could have sworn that time itself paused around you. You were entirely unaware of what was going on outside of you and the prince.

“I saved my first dance for you… I am so very happy that you decided to come” he admitted, his lips close to your ear. Your breath hitched and you nearly tripped over your own feet. Not only had he been waiting for you, he hadn’t danced with anyone else… If your heart hadn’t been racing before it certainly was now.

When you didn’t answer he leaned back a little bit as he looked down at you wearing the most dazzling smile you had ever seen.

“Don’t smile at me like that. You know it drives me crazy” you breathed before you could even register what you were saying. You flushed and his smile only grew… gods you could have sworn there were stars in his eyes.

“Like what?” he promoted, amusement swimming in his gaze. You look a steadying breath and brought your eyes back up to his, getting lost in the depth of them.

“Like I’m the only girl in the room” you answered, voice barely above a whisper. He let out a breathy laugh, his arms tightening around your waist.

“In my eyes, you are” he stated, the sincerity in his voice washing over you.

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jxsatlas · 3 years ago

Text

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐋𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐍 ⇢ keith kogane, ch. 2

keith kogane x gn! reader – previous, next

DISCLAIMER! this story does not originally belong to me, the author is @MaddieWolf37 on Wattpad. i have simply received permission to rewrite and continue her story. go and check out her profile for the original version!

SYNOPSIS! a story in which you are thrown into the middle of an intergalactic space war and have the undesirable weight of being a symbol of peace dropped on your shoulders. but maybe if you look past the constant danger and endless fighting, there's some good to being a paladin of voltron.

MATURE CONTENT! swearing, violence, gore, war, graphic descriptions, mentions of self-harm

The roof..? you think to yourself as you watch Pidge disappear through the stairwell. The three of you give it a moment before following him up. Your footsteps will echo loudly in the enclosed stairwell, and you have a hunch that it won't be good if Pidge hears you at this point.

So you try to climb the stairs as quietly as possible, but you still make some noise. It's hard not to when there's three of you.

You reach the top and Lance opens the door leading to the roof slowly. Pidge sits close to the edge of the roof, surrounded by various types of tech. His figure is silhouetted by the glow of the screens.

Lance shoves his hands in his pockets and sneaks up to Pidge, who doesn't hear your brother's approach because of the bulky green headphones he wears.

You and Hunk walk out onto the roof. You shiver slightly from the breeze, wishing you had put on some longer pants.

Lance grabs Pidge's headphones and pulls them off of his ears. "You come here to rock out?" Lance asks, causing Pidge to jump five feet into the air. He relaxes when he realises it's just you three.

"Oh, hey guys," he says.

"Hello," you say and give him a friendly wave.

Lance looks over the tech. "Hey, where'd you get this stuff? It doesn't look like Garrison tech," he asks, furrowing his brows.

Pidge smirks. "I built it," he says with pride.

Hunk's interest is piqued. He steps closer and starts looking over all the things Pidge has laying around him. Although Pidge has to smack Hunk's hands away a couple of times to keep him from touching his stuff.

"With this, I can scan all the way to the edge of the solar system," Pidge explains.

"All the way to Kerberos?" you ask with a smile as you join Hunk, your eyes sparkling with curiosity and awe.

Pidge hangs his head a little and grumbles at the mention of Pluto's moon.

Lance irks. "You go ballistic every time that's brought up! What's your deal?" he asks in an annoyed tone, but Pidge is hesitant to answer. "Look, we can't have any secrets between us if we wanna bond as a team," Lance says as he puts his hand on his hip.

Pidge looks down at his hands in his lap for a moment, letting Lance's words settle in. He sighs and looks up at the three of you. "Fine. I'll tell you."

He looks back at the objects laying around him and picks up a small notepad. You can't see what's scribbled all over the page as he holds it close to his chest.

"The world as you know it is about to change," Pidge says ominously, looking back at us. "The Kerberos Mission wasn't lost due to some crew malfunction. So, I've been scanning the solar system and picked up alien radio chatter."

"Aliens?" your eyes widen.

"Wait, aliens? Like the little green dudes? Or something bigger and meaner? Like Predator?" Hunk questions with fear, but Pidge only shrugs. This makes him uneasier.

Lance, however, isn't bothered at all by the mention of extraterrestrial life. "Okay, so you're insane," he insults.

"I'm serious," Pidge says sharply, glaring at your brother. "They've been repeating one word, Voltron," he says as he holds up the notepad.

Scribbled on the page with various coloured pencils looks to be something straight out of a Transformers movie. The word Voltron is messily written in big letters above it.

"What is it?" you question, taking the notepad from Pidge's hands. You stare at it. "It looks like a warrior or something."

"It's a superweapon," Pidge answers, "And the aliens are crazier about it more than I have ever heard," Pidge says, turning back to his tech.

"How crazy?" you ask.

The school alarms start to blare the moment the words leave my mouth. A voice crackles over the loudspeakers placed throughout the campus.

"Attention students!" the voice says. You all pause and listen, wondering silently if this has something to do with what Pidge was talking about. "This is not a drill."

You swallow. For some reason, the coincidental emergency announcement makes you uneasy. You grab onto your brother's sleeve in hope of a bit of comfort.

"We are on lockdown," the voice informs. "Security situation Zulu Niner. All students are to remain in barracks until further notice."

The voice repeats the announcement a couple of times, making you feel worse. Whatever it is must be serious.

Hunk stammers, pointing to something in the sky. "Is- Is that a meteor?" he asks wearily. "A really, really big meteor?"

You look up to see a giant bright ball falling towards the earth. Your heart climbs up to your throat and a worried expression takes over your face. Are those the aliens Pidge has been talking about?

Pidge grabs a pair of binoculars he had sitting next to him, using them to look up at the object burning up in the atmosphere.

"It's a ship!" Pidge exclaims.

Lance reaches over and snatches the binoculars from Pidge, taking a look for himself. "Holy crow! That is not one of ours!" he says.

"No, it's one of theirs," Pidge says with awe.

You watch it shoot across the sky, crashing down to the earth in the far distance with a loud boom, a trail of smoke behind it. For a moment, you just stare, trying to process what just happened.

Is this real? Or is it just some dream?

Lance jumps up excitedly. "We have to check out that ship!" he shouts, grabbing your wrist and dragging you to the stairwell. Pidge quickly packs his tech into his backpack and him and Hunk race after the two of us.

"Is that your idea of team bonding?" you ask.

"Yeah!" Lance chirps happily, racing down the stairs with you, Hunk, and Pidge trying to keep up with him.

﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋

The four of you are now perched upon a ledge not too far off from the crash site. The Garrison had beat you to it and were guarding the area heavily. They have the ship loaded up on a large, flatbed truck and a big, science tent set up off to the side. Scientists and high-ranking Garrison officers walk in and out of the said tent and you wonder what they have in there.

Did they find something? An alien? A strange artifact?

Pidge types away furiously on his laptop while Lance surveys the area with a pair of binoculars. You and Hunk sit back, tired and not really wanting to be there. Your head rests on his shoulder and you start to nod. The boredom you feel from the lack of interesting events is getting to you.

How long have you been there exactly?

"Hey," Pidge says, looking back at you and Hunk. You jolt out of your half-asleep state and sit up. "They set up a camera inside and I managed to hack into it and pull up the feed."

You stand up and stretch, yawning as well, and walk over to Pidge. You plop down beside him as he adjusts his position so you can all see his computer screen.

Your eyes widen when you register what you're seeing on the feed. A human man is strapped down to a metal table, his eyes darting around frantically as he struggles against the metal restraints.

He looks extremely familiar and his name is on the tip of your tongue, but you can't quite make out what it is.

A couple more scientists walk into the tent, joining the one that's already in there. They start to prepare a few things, and now that he has an audience, the man starts to shout a few things.

"Shiro, calm down," one of the scientists says, walking over to the man and placing his hand on his shoulder. "We just have to keep you quarantined until we run some tests on you."

"Shiro?" You say under your breath, the identity of the man now clicking in your brain. He was the pilot on the Kerberos mission. Him and his crew were pronounced dead about a year ago. But obviously, that isn't the case, and Pidge knew that for some unknown reason. Shiro is alive. Are his crewmates alive as well?

"Do you know how long you were gone?" a scientist asks.

"I don't know! Months? Maybe years?" Shiro answers frantically. "But we don't have time! Aliens are coming, they're probably on their way right now! They'll destroy us! We have to find Voltron!"

The four of you share a look of shock at the mention of the superweapon, wondering how Shiro knows about it.

"Sir, take a look at this," a scientist says and gestures to Shiro's right arm. "It appears his arm was replaced with a cyborg prosthetic."

The other scientist nods. "Alright. Put him under until we know what that thing can do."

Shiro jerks his body, pulling against the metal restraints at those words. "No! No! Don't put me under! There's no time!"

You watch with wide eyes as the scientists inject an anaesthetic into Shiro, not heeding a single word that comes out of his mouth. You definitely would, seeing how blatantly obvious it is that Shiro was captured by aliens.

"They didn't ask about the rest of his crew," Pidge says, a frown tugging down at his lips.

Lance furrows his brows. "They aren't even listening to him! That guy's a legend," he says.

"We have to get him out," Pidge says.

"Wait, weren't we just watching the feed because we couldn't get in?" You say, raising a brow at the others. "Plus, the place is heavily guarded. It's a miracle we haven't been spotted yet."

"True, but now we're properly motivated," Lance says and holds his chin in his hand. "We can come up with a plan."

Silence only gets a second to settle before Pidge perks up. "Oh! Maybe we can get some hazmat suits and dress up like scientists and sneak in!"

"That could work," You say with a shrug, "But I don't think they have spare suits just lying around in the open desert."

Pidge shrugs. "It's an option."

"Maybe we could tunnel in?" Lance suggests.

"That'll take time we don't have," you say with a roll of your eyes.

"I have an idea!" Hunk announces and you look at him. "Why don't we head back, dress up like chefs, sneak into the commissary, and have a late-night snack?"

"Food does sound appealing," You say and place your hand on your stomach. It's been a few hours since you have eaten dinner and you can feel a minor hunger.

Lance shakes his head. "No, what we need is a distraction–"

You scream when large explosions go off in the not-so-far distance. The loud, booming noise hurts your ears and you slap your hands over them, hoping to muffle it out. You squeeze your eyes shut out of fear.

When it's quiet, you peek through one eye to make sure everything's okay before opening both. Your hands fall to your lap as Hunk starts to panic.

"Were those the aliens? Are they coming for us?" he asks wearily.

"No. That was a distraction," Pidge says and points to something kicking up dust. "For him!"

Pulling up on a red, hoverbike beside a boulder near the tent is another person. Almost immediately you recognise the dark mullet and red jacket, and your brother seems to as well.

"Oh no," Lance growls and jumps up to his feet. "He is not beating me in there!" he says as he slides down the steep side of the small cliff.

Your brother runs towards the tent.

"Who's he?" Pidge asks, shoving his stuff into his bag once again to chase after Lance.

"Keith!" Lance shouts.

"Are you sure?" Hunk asks, following after him.

"Oh, I'd recognise that mullet anywhere!"

You roll your eyes and chase after Lance.

You know Keith as well. He was one of your classmates until he dropped out halfway through the school year.

He was top of the fighter pilot class with you just under him. You always got a score a few points less than his, and secretly strove to surpass him.

You were actually on pretty good terms with him though, seeing as your instructors liked to pair you up for team activities. The two of you were more promising than the rest when working together, so it made sense.

As you run towards the tent, you wonder what he's been up to. And if he even remembers you.

#voltron #keith #keith kogane #fan fiction #fanfic #x reader #keith x reader #vld #vld keith #vld fanfic #voltron keith #voltron legendary defender #gender neutral reader

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h34rtizuku · 3 years ago

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𝔭𝔦𝔱𝔶 𝔭𝔞𝔯𝔱𝔶

i hate angst without happy endings, but i’m also self-destructive. therapy is expensive, but ripping your own heart out and bearing your insecurities into a full-fledged story for you and others to read? free.

warnings : angst without a happy ending, insecurities, jealousy, mayhaps toxic behavior?? idk if ur looking for a good time, this isn’t for you bestie <3 also i might misspell uraraka’s name wrong a few times, i’ll fix them later :*

being quirkless had its advantages. with such a small number of us being born without powers, it left a lot of the mundane jobs open.

which is why, as soon as pro-hero deku opened his agency, i came to him with the request to be his assistant.

on the daily, he had people coming up to him asking for internships or to be his sidekick. but he never had anyone ask to be his assistant.

being the number one hero often meant that every day things, things one may take for granted or deem insignificant became just another list of things on the busy man’s to-do list.

therefore the appeal of having someone file his paper work and run to get him coffee in the morning was great enough to hire me.

and i was glad he did.

this is what i have been working for since i was a first year in high school. after watching the freckled boy break limb after limb to defeat his opponent.

yeah, i saw it as irresponsible and stupid that he had to break his own body to save others. but i was willing to overlook it.

my one goal during my remaining years of high school and up to college was that wherever that little green haired boy went, i would follow.

and that reigned true as his assistant. i would shuffle after him like a duckling following it’s mother, wherever he needed me.

if he needed me in a briefing to take notes for him, i was there. if he needed me to put in overtime to help him file the last minute paperwork, i was there. if he wanted a particular pastry from a specific bakery half way across town, i was there.

izuku was never mean, or demanding. always thanking me profusely for anything i ever did for him. leaving me to remind him that this was my job, and any way to make his life easier was good enough for me.

but maybe i should have held onto those blushed cheeks and crinkled eyes as he thanked me for the coffee that he didn’t even know he needed, for a just a little bit longer.

you know how a child will open a new toy on christmas and it quickly becomes their new favorite toy? playing with it non-stop, taking it wherever they go. until one day, they grow bored of it and never touch it again as it grows dusty at the bottom of their toy bin.

i know izuku wasn’t doing it on purpose, he didn’t have an intentionally mean bone in his body. i guess you could say, some other toys came around and took his attention away.

and that toy, was a particularly difficult mission in collaboration with uravity’s agency.

the two spent long hours cooped in his office as they went over notes, plans, intel, etc. until the conversation melted into talk about the old days and the wonderful memories they had together in high school.

i went to work the following days with absolutely no energy to handle whatever would be thrown at me. i hadn’t been able to get much sleep, as when i closed my eyes the only thing i could see was the look in his eyes when he saw her.

my patience was already thin given the events of the most recent week, but when the printer started malfunctioning leaving me unable to fax the papers izuku wanted me send, you could say that was the first domino.

i swatted and kicked and pressed any button on the stupid machine. telling myself i was merely trying to get to stupid thing to work, but deep down i knew that the printer was just my temporary punching bag. an outlet to unleash my anger and emotions onto something instead of letting them fester inside me.

so when one of izuku’s sidekicks came by, giving a snarky comment about my behavior, i was able to brush it off with a roll of my eyes and an equally snippy comment back.

but as the hunk of plastic remained steady in its plan to ruin my day, the lack of sleep and lingering resentment started to bubble within me once more.

i heard footsteps behind me and a joking voice say, “having a bit of trouble are we?”

if it weren’t for the white hot anger buzzing in my ears i may have been able to identify the voice before i lashed out on them. but we already established this was not my day.

so as my hands moved to clutch the machine below me, most likely to restrain my abuse to merely verbal instead of physical. i spit out, “listen i’m fucking trying okay? so how about you get off my ass and do something useful.”

i turned around to face who i thought would be another sidekick sent to push my buttons. but i instead came face-to-face with the green haired man himself.

eyes blown wide, mouth agape in shock, a light blush dusted under his freckles as he fought to handle the situation the best way he could.

but i beat him to it with a deep bow and an endless flow of apologies, opting to only blame my anger on the malfunctioning piece of junk behind me and not the several other reasons i was plotting murder in my head.

with a gentle smile and a soft chuckle he placed his hand to the back of his head, rubbing at the baby jade hairs of his undercut. “i see. bad days happen to the best of us.” he replied, his voice like honey.

i became drunk on the minor interaction he was giving me, bringing me back to the beginning days at this job where we would spend late nights trying to keep each other awake under the only singular yellow light as we finished paperwork. or where sometimes he’d invite me to spend lunch with him as he felt he’d enjoy the company.

i got lost in the intricacies of his face as he tampered with the printer. thin eyebrows furrowed in concentration, bottom lip captured between his thick scarred fingers as he muttered to himself.

i fell in a trance, locked on the slope of his button nose, his gemstone eyes, and chubby caramel cheeks dusted in freckles.

he looked essentially like the same boy i saw on the screen all those years ago, yet matured and hardened by the realities of life.

i wanted nothing more than to reach out and protect him any way my small quirkless body could. to be there for him the same way he was for everyone else.

he eventually got the printer to work with a boyish smile on his face as he told me that despite the good roughing up i gave the machine, he was able to locate and handle the issue. “next time, skip the punching and come find me, yeah? i’ll help with any problems you face.” he joked as he made his way into his office to resume his work.

i didn’t know it was possible to fall harder for that man, but he proved with every day of his existence that the impossible didn’t apply to him.

i was finally able to get some sleep the next few nights as my eyelids filled with the blush on his cheekbones and his gaze of concentration.

but my trip to cloud 9 didn’t last very long as the occasional meeting with uraraka became trips to her agency, and occasional meetings in civilian clothes to civilian places, like coffee shops and corner stores.

to anyone else, those would read as dates. to me, they read as dates. but izuku assured the gossiping sidekicks that it was strictly professional ~ nothing more, nothing less.

i knew that i would end up with more fits of restlessness and sleepless nights as i pictured the two of them laughing over a cup of coffee. so i sought out a replacement.

a moment. a look. a sentence.

anything directed at me that would choke out the ugly thoughts and images my brain would show me of the two of them together.

so that afternoon as i brought him his lunch, i placed the box safely onto the table beside him as he continued skimming through the papers littered across the desk.

he muttered a small ‘thank you’ but it wasn’t enough. as my hand moved to place his drink that i held in my other hand next to his food, a different idea popped in my head.

my hand moved faster than my brain could register what it had just planned to do. squeezing just enough for the lid to pop off and slip from my fingers to tumble into his lap.

as soon as the liquid and ice hit his lap he flew up from his seat and away from his desk.

my hands flew up to my mouth as a string of apologies fell from my lips. eyes watering in guilt as they moved around the room trying to locate something to soak up the mess with.

“i am so sorry, my fingers slipped and before i knew it i had lost control of the cup. i-i can’t tell you how sorry i am.” i rambled as i took my blazer off to wipe at the wet stains starting to form at the bottom of his teal suit.

“hey, hey, hey.” he said softly, taking my tinier hands into his large and battered ones. warmth enveloped my clutched sticky hands as he gently urged me to stand from my crouching position in front of him.

“it was an accident. no harm, no foul.” he said with a soft smile.

i should feel bad, as it wasn’t entirely an accident. but the warm and gentle look in his eyes made what little guilt i felt crumble away.

his thumbs rubbing soft circles to my skin as he worked to get the tears to stop streaming from my eyes was enough to get me to sleep like a baby for a good 2 weeks.

until it became a cycle. he would spend too much time around uraraka, and then i would do something all in the name of garnering his attention back on me.

was it wrong of me to do, to take advantage of his kindness? to take advantage of the fact that he was naive to my true intentions? maybe.

but i felt i deserved it. i felt i deserved to be looked at the same way he looked at her.

i wasn’t any different than she was. with the way she used her big brown eyes to pull him in. or the way her cute behavior made him blush. or the way her sweet way of talking made him laugh.

i can’t be her, or compare to her. so i found my own way around it. and no one could fault me for doing so. they just couldn’t.

at the end of the mission, uravity decided to throw a party in celebration of their win. a nice formal gathering, with everyone she had involved.

when izuku pulled me aside one late night to tell me that he was extending the invitation to me felt akin to a marriage proposal.

i wasn’t involved much in the case, merely being used as the one who provided them their lunch on their long meeting days. or filing and organizing the paperwork and notes that they would compile. i wasn’t out in the field, breaking bones like izuku or saving lives like uraraka.

i didn’t deserve to go, but i didn’t care. izuku had invited me personally and damn it, i was gonna be there.

yet, i shouldn’t have gone.

i shouldn’t have spent the hours on my makeup. i shouldn’t have enlisted the help of my best friend to do my hair as i gushed about how izuku had personally invited me, how he was the most perfect man ever, and how i was undoubtedly in love with him.

i shouldn’t have spent the week leading up to the event going from shop to shop trying to find the prettiest dress that was just the exact color of his eyes. i shouldn’t have spent about half my paycheck on said dress when i found it.

i shouldn’t have decided to face my fears and step out of my comfort zone to join a group of heroes that i knew were old classmates of izuku’s as they whispered about something that clearly was a raving topic.

because then i wouldn’t have heard how izuku was planning on confessing to uraraka. i wouldn’t have heard how this mission caused old high school feelings to rekindle. i should have known my place.

and that was far away from here, from the hero scene. i should have grown up to be an accountant or a chef.

when my father took me to get that checkup when i was 5, to confirm that there truly resides no quirk inside me.

i should have left it at that.

when i was riding my bike that day as a first year and i saw the group of boys huddled around a screen as they tuned into the u-a sports festival, i should have kept riding.

as maybe it would have saved me a lot of pain.

i backed away slowly, heels tapping against the tile floor as i hurried out of the building.

i didn’t realize how suffocated i felt until the chilly autumn hair brushed my face and into my lungs.

my whole body felt hot, i felt numb. i stumbled onto the sidewalk as i looked into the dark azure sky glittered with stars.

the tears finally spilled from my eyes as the stars muddled together into a messy blur. my stomach swirled and tensed as pit of nausea sunk in my stomach.

my chest heaved as it tried to process the crisp cold air into oxygen, but my throat was too tight to let much in.

i gasped and sobbed as my back hit the brick behind me, my legs wobbling unable to carry my weight much longer.

i slid into a crouched position as my tears mixed with the black of my mascara. streaming in pools down my cheeks, neck, and chest.

in the midst of my sobbing and heaving, i called my friend who was still at my apartment awaiting details of that night when i came home.

knowing it was far too early for me to be calling her she picked up the phone with confusion. it didn’t take much words from me, not like i gave her much, to convince her that she needed to come pick me up.

as she hung up the phone, my hand slipped from my ear, falling limp to my side as i placed my head into my other arm resting atop my knees.

this was inevitable and i knew it. no matter how many ways i was able to manipulate a sweet glance from him, it didn’t mean anything.

izuku was nice to everybody. sweet to everyone. kind to anyone.

but with her, it was different. he treated her that way, not because he had to, but because he wanted to.

they had years of memories, of laughs. they were perfect for each other, both smart, and kind, and always looking to help others. never acting selfishly or for personal gain.

they shared soft touches like they did old stories. they looked at each other with the same respect and admiration.

i was wrong. uraraka and i are nothing alike. she didn’t have to beg izuku to look at her like she hung the moon, he did so without asking.

unbeknownst to me, as i was manipulating izuku into these fabricated moments of gentle gazes and kind words, i was manipulating myself.

lying to the deepest parts of me that knew that this wasn’t real. that i wasn’t her. that he didn’t think of us the same way.

to him, uraraka is an old friend, who views the world the same way he does, who shares his same passions, who built her quirk to do some good within this world.

to him, i was a coffee-getter, the girl who knew his lunch orders like the back of her hand, the girl who filed his papers. the quirkless little fangirl who practically begged him to give her a job under him.

i heard the metal door open and snap shut announcing that someone was now outside with me. however, i just assumed it was a party-goer stepping outside for a smoke or a phone call so i didn’t bother to look up.

i also wasn’t in the mood for if the person happened to be a drunk girl who was ready to become my therapist as she saw me crouched on the sidewalk wishing to become one with the cement and simply cease to exist.

“there you are, i was wondering where you went?”

i would have taken the amateur therapist over this.

the voice belonged to izuku, dripping with sugar and default kindness.

if i could become one with the bricks just a little bit faster that would be great.

“hey, are you alright?” his tone became worried but i still didn’t dare to look up from my arms.

“do you feel sick? did something happen? do i need to take you home?” there he goes, into hero mode. ready to drop anything to help anyone facing the slightest of inconveniences.

“please just leave me alone.” i mumbled, throat tight and voice wavering as i try to hold the tears that still remain to fall.

“what did you say? i didn’t quite hear you.” he said softly, gently setting his large hands onto my exposed shoulder.

they should feel like welcoming warmth, but instead they felt blistering hot as i shoved them away as quickly as i could.

“i said leave me alone.” i said, slightly louder as i no longer was stuffed in my arms and knees.

he immediately saw the mess my face was in, i could tell by the way he quickly reverted fully into deku.

“hey, what’s wrong? whatever it is, i can help. didn’t i say you could come to me whenever you ne-“

“oh my god just stop! i can’t take it anymore.” i snapped, finally able to look him in the face.

but not for long as i saw the same look on his complexion as the first time i snapped at him.

“you’re too fucking nice. leaving you vulnerable for people to take advantage of you. giving them a reason to be selfish.”

“i dont-“ he tried to start but i cut him off.

“i don’t need a hero, izuku. there are people you just can’t save.”

as he worked to wrap his head around what was happening, my friend pulled up in my getaway car.

i bent down and grabbed my purse, but before i could fully escape this night, izuku grabbed my wrist causing me to stare into his eyes.

now lit aflame with desperation, “please just tell me what’s wrong. let me help you.” he encouraged softly.

but i wasn’t going to fall for it, not again.

i wasn’t gonna be played for the fool as i took the soft look in his eyes for anything but the gaze of a hero hoping to add another save to their statistics.

“god you never know when to quit!” i yelled as i yanked my wrist back. “and i hate that i-“

loved that about you?

no, love that about you.

i shook my head, thankful that for once my brain caught my actions before i spilled and made a mess again.

i walked quickly to the car, opening the passenger door almost as fast in hopes that within its metal sanctuary i could finally escape this hell.

“y/n- i-“

“mr. midoriya.” i just about whispered, my energy long since drained.

he laughed gently and i cursed the way my heart squeezed a little at the sound.

still head over heels for the angelic sound.

“you haven’t called me that in a long-“

“i quit.”

“w-what?” he muttered in disbelief.

i wouldn’t believe it either, not after the way i came to him nearly 4 years ago saying i would even be willing to clean toilets if he asked me to, so long as i got to work for him.

“i quit.” i repeated.

“you don’t mean that.”

he’s right i didn’t, not really.

hot tears started to dribble as my lower lip puckered in a sour quiver.

“no i do, sir.” i shook. “i will send someone to collect my things on monday.”

and with that i closed the door.

“drive.” i whispered to my friend who after a moment of looking at me, trying to read me, silently put the car into drive and started forward.

leaving izuku behind to stumble after the car, mouth muttering, trying to form any sort of sentence or sense.

but i couldn’t see him, knowing not to look at the mirrors situated on the side of the vehicle.

for they too are liars, as objects in the mirror are farther than they appear.

*** my little blue bitch working overtime

🧼 also mayhaps “soap” by melanie martinez fits this story… unintentionally ~ but if i’m wrong it’s cuz i haven’t listened to it in a while

#izuku #izuku midoriya #deku #deku x reader #izuku x reader #my hero academia #mha #bnha #boku no hero academia #izuku angst #deku angst #deku headcanons #deku imagine

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notnctu · 4 years ago

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when the snow falls | j.jh

jung jaehyun x reader genre - angst first, fluff later details - childhood best friends!au, ghost!au, platonic relationship, genderneutral!reader, ft. boyfriend johnny warnings - grieving/mourning, mentions of death, lots of crying, explicit language (swearing) word count - 8.3k inspiration - A Christmas Carol synopsis - Jaehyun visits you every holiday season since his death to bring you out of your self isolation and hatred for the one season you both once loved.

a/n - this is for my first collab ever: a taste of winter collab hosted by @dearyongs & @pastelsicheng ! again, thank you for letting me participate and i hope this fic brings more warmth for everyone during the winter!! happy holidays everyone & i hope you can check out the rest of the fics in the collab as i will be, they’re written by such amazing writers! :)))

An iridescent frost covers the tall windows of the apartment and a bright white sky greets you this morning. The fallen sheets expose your bare shoulders to the bitter crisp cold air and goosebumps rise to remind you to wear a fucking sweater for once. However, the cold isn’t what bothers you this horrid day as you’re leaping out of bed to glance out at the world. It’s the first thing that you lay eyes on: it covers the streets, it’s falling from the blanket of grey sky, it’s others’ joy when it’s your trauma. What Mother Nature has brought upon this winter season, as she always does this time of the year, is snow.

The first sign of snowfall marks the first day of your self isolation period until the holidays pass. It marks the anniversary of your best friend’s death and an agonizingly long winter, but in spite of that, it also means the appearance of a rather special guest. A guest that is only visible to you and though resembles much of your passed friend, does not share the same memories as you do.

“The snow is just so comforting, isn’t it?” Though you live alone, a sudden voice erupts from behind you and has you turning rather quickly to face the truth of this season. Your greatest treasure, yet haunting demise. “Hello, y/n. How has your year been?” Jaehyun stands with a lean at your door frame, his arms crossed at his chest and hair full of fluff.

“Hello, Jaehyun’s spirit. I happen to hate the snow, if you have forgotten.” Your hip presses against the cold glass and you’re no longer afraid of being half naked in front of what this form of imagination possesses itself to be.

“Remind me why again.” Jaehyun casually sits on your unmade bed, looking as about your age now. There is a brief silence as you examine how he’s grown with you, you’d imagine this is how he’d look if he was still alive and well.

It would be his third year in college, same as you, possibly studying engineering due to his past fascination with the mechanics of roller coasters. With such a strong jawline and a definite lean built, girls would be running all over him. Not to mention, his dimples remain one of his charms.

Kicking off the icy window, you walk carefully and slowly up to Jaehyun. A hand reaches to caress his cheek, but it goes right through him and leaves your hand to hang in mid-air. This happens every time you see him again, wondering if you can get one last touch of his dewy complexion, and you simply can’t. Despite his ability to touch you, there is no possibility for your senses to travel through to the other side of the supernatural dimension.

Jaehyun gently rests your hand back to your side and repeats his request, “remind me again why you hate the snow.”

“It’s how you died.” A small croak gets caught in the back of your throat and tears well up to blur your vision. “So when the snow falls, it brings me back to the dreadful memory of me losing you, of you leaving me.”

“I died from snow? That is so lame.” Jaehyun grumbles and rolls his eyes.

You chuckle, but the tears roll down your cheeks as if they know no happiness. “You died from a car accident in the snow. Your tires slid, you couldn’t brake … and so, you crashed. Full trauma to the head, an instant death.”

“Where was I going?” He wasn’t this curious last winter, and so you’re unaware if it’s your mind playing sick tricks on you or if his unrest spirit is this forgetful. You wish it was the latter.

Choking on your tears, the droplets hit the hardwood floors below you. An overwhelming feeling of melancholy overtakes your chest and you’re suffocating underneath an unknown pressure. Your throat is drier than your mother’s gingerbread cookies, but you swallow the frigid air around you.

You’re so choked up by your sobbing that it’s too difficult to speak. Any words you say feel like thin ice, ready to crack at the lightest touch. “O-On the way to … my house. You were coming over to tell me a secret.”

“And I never got to tell you.”

“No, Jaehyun. I’ll never know what you wanted to tell me that day.”

when the snow falls.

There has never been a time before Jaehyun and all that you knew, all the memories that fill your brain, every growing pain you could possibly share, was with him and all until it wasn’t. Had there been a time after Jaehyun, you would not have expected it to come as soon as it did.

For the months following his death, you were in denial of his missing presence because every. single. thing. reminded you of him. Jaehyun remained in his assigned seat in school, although it was clearly empty. He lived through others’ mourning stories, where they spoke of fond memories that they shared and things he liked. The worst of them all, you still texted him every day in hopes to see the tiny three dots pop up that he was typing. And the warped reality in your head, the first stage of grief flooding every possible corner, was that he has always just been slow at replying back.

Then, his funeral rolled around and his parents asked you to share one happy memory of him. There were so many, how could you possibly have chosen just one? And so you didn’t. The moment the frame of the church entered your view, your legs stuck to the ground and refused to enter. There was going to be a point when you entered the building filled with crying people and a gripping, horrid smell of death and you wouldn’t be able to forget it. That scary thought, not only frightened you, but angered you.

The large attendance of people walked past you as teary eyes blinked up at the dark wooden frame of the door, but every one of them had never visited him for more than once when he was alive. His older cousins that had forgotten about him when they flew away for college, his acquaintances from piano lessons who never bothered to remember his full name, his old friends from primary school that he had lost connection with after graduation, they were all here.

And you can’t help, but fester a fueling frustration in the pit of your stomach and as it grew into your chest in the matter of seconds, you wondered the single thought that picked up your feet to run home: where were they when he was alive?

After a year and the appearance of Jaehyun’s ghost became less of a shock during winter, you were stuck in an odd and uneasy place of what if’s. Talking to him once a year was never enough, texting his old number was never enough. It was just never enough.

Missing him grew into a dark sense of yearning, longing, bargaining. Long nights of twisting and tossing in your bed, many thoughts and endless possibilities ran through your unhealthy thoughts. The description and police report of his accident played like a reel in darkest contemplations.

The first year of college had to be the hardest to go through without him and thus, aiding in your regrets of not cherishing him enough when he was around. A rabbit hole of universe paths drove you wild, wishing and hoping that you could turn back time and stop him from coming over in the middle of a blizzard. And the one lasting thought still haunts you to your present: if only you hadn’t encouraged him that night, he wouldn’t have died.

The saddest part has barely been acknowledged, even by yourself. That this one tragedy tainted the one holiday you two loved the most --- Christmas. Every year since his passing, you locked yourself in your room for two weeks before the holiday and waited through it all. Truthfully, there was nothing in the universe that was going to allow you to enjoy the holiday when it wasn’t with him. Even his ghost, who very randomly popped up on a December day and cluelessly never brings much comfort as the live him did during this season.

Jolly holiday music lost their joyous sound and became awfully low tempo. The bright red and green signature colors of Christmas became dull and rather grey; the long strings of colorful lights that hang from houses and around large trees were absolutely drained of their color. The warmth of the fireplace went cold. The cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies no longer entertained and lost their spark.

The Christmas themed decorations that covered the windows of shops, the city, your own house, became an overwhelming sore sight to look at. The love from your loved ones… you couldn’t feel anything remotely close to love anymore, just meaningless affection. The one gift that the Earth blessed your region with, snow, became the one petrifying thing that it had to offer. And your favoritism for the holiday, the so-called ‘Christmas Spirit’, slowly died out, along with Jaehyun.

Now that it’s been three years since his passing, you’re here spending your third lonely holiday season inside your apartment discussing your yearly recap with your ghostly best friend.

“That ridiculous final exam lowered my grade and I walked out of that class retaining none of the information. When will I ever need to know about pirates in the 1800’s?” The chocolate wrapper crinkles in your fist as you finish your overly passionate recollection of the most useless class you could have taken this whole year.

Jaehyun sits by your side, facing you as he hugs his knees close to his chest. A small grin dots the dimple on his left cheek when you peer over at the huddled boy and the sad reminiscent glisten in your eye does not go unnoticed. “You used to love pirates. Dressed up like one for Halloween and went up to every house yelling,” Jaehyun clears his throat and perks up, ready to perform.

A balled fist in the air, paired with a look of utter gusto and passion, Jaehyun speaks in an attempt to horribly reenact your once embarrassing pirate impression. “Argh! You scoundrel, give me all the treasures in your possession… preferably chocolate sweets.” He holds his stomach as he bursts into a fit of his baritone laughter. His wide mouth grows into such a big, open smile that his eyelashes dance on his glowing cheeks.

“For a ghost, you sure look like someone who’s very much alive.” Naturally, you’d swat lightly at his knee or arm whenever he would joke around. However, the pain of your hand passing right through him breaks this habit and you’re left scoffing at the way Jaehyun is consumed with laughter.

“You know, for someone who is alive… you sure look a bit … lifeless. When was the last time you were happy, y/n?” Jaehyun finally settles down and gently nudges at your elbow.

His question hits you like a wall of bricks. Unexpected and completely straightforward, but that’s just always been the way he is. “This past weekend when I turned in my last assignment for the semester.”

“No. The last time you were genuinely happy, not relieved. You mentioned a boyfriend, right?”

Rolling your eyes, you grow a bit silent and annoyed at his comment. “Listen, hopeless romantic. Not every relationship is perfect sunrays and gushy unconditional love.” Perhaps, your gaze drops down to your hands and the wrinkled wrapper between your fingers has worn out from your fidgeting.

Johnny Suh. If you could move mountains for this man, you would. It all started due to an accidental happenstance of you abruptly walking into your campus’ coffee shop to seek shelter from the rain and him, the attractive barista behind the counter, chasing after you in a stained apron and an immensely strong aroma of coffee beans. Jaehyun practically swooned over hearing how you two met, hearts in his pupils and a dreamy grin resting fondly as he attentively listened.

Jaehyun has always wanted a relationship, though he did have many admirers in high school, he never had the opportunity to experience one true love and to play out every sappy romantic thing rom-coms taught him. Hearing about your love life is the closest thing he can get to it, unfortunate for him, but fortunate that his best friend still has some romance in them.

Nevertheless, it’s only been a few months together. Though Johnny has seen intimate parts of you, he’s never experienced a winter with you and frankly, he won’t ever experience one with you if you keep this up.

“Johnny doesn’t make you happy, then why are you with him?” Jaehyun knows Johnny makes you feel something that is hard for you to put into words. He also knows the type of person you are, pushing your buttons to get you to defend something you love. Boldly. Loudly. Strongly. He knows how to get you to spit out words of truth, even when they’re difficult.

“My partner is the literal definition of happiness, okay?” The defensiveness drives your assertiveness further. “The last time I was happy was when…” your eyes are frantically examining the floor for any source of focus as a highlight reel of this whole year flashes through your mind.

“... On my birthday, he planned me a picnic. Bought me roses, the whole grand scheme of romance. I started to cry, out of happiness… it was the first time in a while that the reason behind my tears was something good.” There’s somewhat of an epiphany when you finish your sentence. Your voice gets lost in your train of thought as the blissful scene plays out.

“Why were you crying?” Jaehyun snatches the distracting wrapper from your fingers, it being unrecognizable from the wear and tear. It causes you to meet Jaehyun’s round eyes: empty, but not sad. They’re lost, yet filled with purpose.

Jaehyun has always been able to open up the darkest parts of your heart. “Because it reminded me of the time when you and I walked up that steep hill over on Fifth Street… and we forgot the picnic blanket. But it didn’t matter because after the strenuous journey, all we wanted was to sit down and enjoy some fucking sandwiches, along with some hot chocolate your mom packed us.”

“y/n, you cried over the memory of sandwiches and exercise? That’s so---”

“Before you insult me by calling me lame,” you bring your finger to stop him mid-way and narrow your eyes, “I was so happy to be able to share our same experience with someone else. Even though you’re gone, I can still have these happy moments with other people.”

Then, Jaehyun gathers both of your hands to hold and brings them to his soft lips. Everything about him feels cold, like a harsh chill that bites at your skin. In spite of it all, his delicate kiss on your knuckles somehow feel warm and slightly comforting. Jaehyun peers up with kind eyes, “you’re almost there. I will do everything I can to get you there.”

Blinking at him with confusion, your expression asks the questions for you. When he sets your hands in his lap, a soft pat on the back of your hand reassures you. “Can we bake Christmas cookies?”

Rolling your eyes, you tear your hands away from him. He leaves you with unspoken words and an oddly comforting feeling, but it’s not enough to dissipate your deeply rooted dislike for this particular holiday. “You ask this every year.” Getting up, you walk towards your bedroom to get away from feeling too vulnerable.

Jaehyun watches your back intently as you’re stumbling over your feet. He whispers to himself, “and I think this year is going to be the last year I’ll ask for it.” And a hopeful smile appears joyously as he anticipates the storm before reaching still waters.

The sound of the doorbell awakens you and Jaehyun is nowhere to be seen. He comes and goes as he wishes, however, he’d usually accompany you during the mornings. You’re particularly sluggish, finding it difficult to adjust to the blinding white sky outside as snow continues to drift upon the city.

“Good morning, gumdrop.” Your boyfriend is rather chirpy today. Johnny engulfs your fragile body in his long arms and you’re lost in his scent of peppermint bark.

“This was unexpected.” His shirt muffles your tiny voice and Johnny is setting down bags of groceries on your kitchen countertop.

“I texted you last night that I was coming over to do some grocery shopping for you. Did you sleep early?” Your very helpful boyfriend starts unloading all the parcels of fresh produce and your favorite snacks. However, there is a slight tinge of annoyance and possibly it’s due to the fact you weren’t expecting to see anyone during your isolation. Johnny couldn’t have known though.

A deep sigh escapes your lips and you walk over to stop his movements. A hand holds his arm and the other intertwines with his own, but you stand under him with the sweetest smile you could wear during the holiday season. “How is it that your mom invited me to your family holiday party, but tells me that you’re not going to be there?”

Your smile automatically falls from your lips and a hand retracts from his warmth. It’s the sudden truth that you must face, the confession of your sadness that you’ll eventually need to tell your partner. Wondering how he’s going to take the news, your mom probably gave him a brief breakdown about how you’ve been this way for the past few years now.

Nonetheless, Johnny has always been bold with his statements and though you’ve adjusted to his abruptness, this one is hard to give a quick answer back to. So as you’re racking how to present your dark narrative, Johnny sets you down on the couch with the utmost gentleness. You don’t even feel the cushion underneath you when the million different answers streamline their way into your brain.

Johnny notices your frantic eyes and unfocused gaze, growing a bit concerned at how cold your skin feels at his touch. Taking off his sweatshirt, he carefully slips it over your shaking figure. When the softness of the polyester cotton blend brushes upon your bare arms, you’re snapped back facing a worried expression.

And you say the one thing on your mind, the only thing you can think of in your scattered brain. “Jaehyun died during this time of year, so it just makes me very emotionally unstable to… participate in any festive events. I’d rather be alone, the whole holiday season.”

Johnny nods, but his face remains with his eyebrows together and lips pressed into a tight line. He’s well aware of who Jaehyun was and means to you. Though you don’t talk much about him, your eyes light up with a bright twinkle whenever you do. It’s like the world spins ‘round and everything feels restored. Johnny knows enough about your good friend to deduct how hard it must be for you during the winters.

“Can I help you in any way?” Johnny peers over at you with a small smile, and you wish there is something in your decaying heart to keep it up forever.

“I hate to say it, but please just leave me alone for the winter.” Flopping on his lap, you’re burying your face in your hands to cower away from seeing your sunshine hurt. There are no more sugar coated kind words for you to pick and choose from.

While Johnny can understand how difficult it must be for you, he still holds onto a sliver of hope that you’ll come around. “Come on, don’t be such a Grinch. No one should be alone for Christmas.”

Groaning, you sit up and roll your eyes at the familiar references. “Listen, Cindy Lou Who. Don’t call me that.”

“It’s still a cute nickname, you don’t think?” Johnny snickers lightly, but your expression turns rather grim and serious. A faint overcast of melancholy washes over your expression as you’re staring off into your memories again.

In a faint voice, your voice is barely above a whisper, “that used to be one of Jaehyun’s favorite movies.” Your arms drop from your puffed up chest, but Johnny catches your hand and kisses your fingertips.

“What was yours?” Johnny keeps the atmosphere as light and playful while he still can.

“The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Ironically fitting and that’s one of the sole reasons you don’t watch holiday movies anymore. There have been too many parallels with your life and the wrenched holiday. As twisted as the joke may seem, you’ve lived your own nightmare before Christmas, except you never got the happy ending to it all. It’s like a nightmare that continues and you can’t escape it.

Having said, Johnny pulls you up to stand and draws you into the biggest hug. “I can’t leave you alone, even if I tried my very best. I still get butterflies every time you smile at me, so you think I wouldn’t be addicted to that feeling?”

“Johnny…” This man is in love with you until the ends of this Earth, until the horizon stretches so far that it’s unimaginable to see where it stops.

“I’ll respect your wishes as much as I can, but know that it’s not the best form of healing.” The final word causes a chill to run down your spine. It implies that you’re still hurting, although he’s not wrong, it’s rather disheartening to hear someone else speak it aloud. “I’ll come around less.”

“If I’m grumpy, then you’ll know why. And don’t try to shove the whole Christmas spirit act on me, I don’t want to hear a single thing about it! I can’t spend a Christmas without Jaehyun.” Johnny squeezes your shoulders at your bold declaration.

“You can’t or you won’t?” A painful tick at your heart leaves you speechless at his question.

For as long as you could remember, every Christmas was spent with Jaehyun. Picking out a tree for both of your families and getting lost together between the evergreens brought laughter and excitement. Baking cookies and drawing the ugliest faces in tacky colorful frosting always happened a few days before the holiday. Drinking hot chocolate by his family’s fireplace and watching Christmas movies were one of your favorite activities. Christmas Eve was always so special, where you and Jaehyun made it tradition to open your gifts from each other right when the clock struck midnight.

Then everything simply stopped. And when you tried to participate in those same activities, selfishness and guilt preoccupied your heart. What do any of those things mean without Jaehyun? Jaehyun was the reason you loved Christmas as much as you did. Then, his death became the reason you hated it as much as you do.

“I think that’s enough for today.” Johnny knows he’s hit a nerve, he can see it in your glossy eyes and subtle drop in the corners of your mouth. There is no protest from the taller man when he accepts his sweatshirt without a complaint. The bitter cold air bites at your bare shoulders again and you’re practically existing in its lack of warmth. Gathering the rest of his belongings, you two bid a kiss goodbye and shut the door.

It’s almost a relief that he’s gone and the tear runs down your cheek when your back hits the door. Suddenly, Jaehyun appears across the living room leaning on the door frame to your bedroom. “He seems like a nice guy.”

“He is.” There is a hang at the end of your sentence and Jaehyun walks toward you. A few sniffs fill the empty apartment, but you’re rubbing away any sign of sadness from your face.

“But?”

“But, he’s so optimistic about… everything. He lives by the sun and every waking day, he just lives it to the fullest. There’s nothing in the world for this man to possibly understand how sad I feel.” It’s the heaviness in your voice that has your heart sinking to the pit of your stomach.

Jaehyun’s freezing hands graze your chin and as he lets go, his stare doesn’t leave yours. “Learn from him.” Your best friend’s ghastly voice reminds you that he’s not real. He’s a ghost. He’s very much gone and not for a split second, should you be wanting to cave into his embrace or else, you’ll hit the floor hard. Nevertheless, you’re entirely vulnerable and the next few words that leave Jaehyun’s mouth causes your throat to close up.

“Keep him close. y/n, he is the sun.” It’s a moment you thought you’d never witness, your best friend complimenting your significant partner. Moreover, it hurts to think about how great of friends Jaehyun and Johnny could have been. “To be very honest, you need some heat this winter.”

“Then, what were you?” It’s the curiosity that nips at your tongue as it leaves no space for a pause. The thumping of your heart being so loud in the dead silence, but you know Jaehyun doesn’t have a heart to beat recklessly as yours.

Jaehyun smirks and chuckles fondly, despite how desperate and serious you may have sounded. “I was a pain in the ass.”

Scoffing, you break the immensely intense eye contact. “You still are. This whole haunting thing is very creepy.” Gesturing his entire being in front of you, he just looks so alive and breathing. Before Jaehyun, you always thought ghosts were floating entities with a white transparency. But your best friend stands before you, well aged and all together.

It still tosses you into shambles as to why Jaehyun exists, but you’ve given up on figuring out his purpose. He could be a form of your own imagination for all you care, perhaps you’ve grown so sad that you started to seek things.

Companionship from the one person you wish was still alive?

Like before, you’ve always spent Christmas with Jaehyun… alive or in ghost form.

It’s another one of those long days that seem to never end. The bright white sky seems unchanging, stark with a dusty and imminent endless overcast of snow. It’s blinding and you’re regretting the moment you overlooked the curtain blinds at the department store.

Your phone has already been lost somewhere underneath your bed and there isn’t a single desire to reach for it. Missed calls pile up, voicemails clutter your inbox, texts flood your messages, and your social media notifications fill your screen. Despite everyone’s effort to contact you, there is no sense of joyous cordial nature to even glance at them.

Jaehyun has been appearing more frequently and staying for longer periods of time. The conversations bring an empty comfort, most of the times you feel the need to remind yourself that you’re not actually talking to someone, are you?

“What’s that sad look in your eyes?” He startles you when you’re off looking vacantly out the window. Your mind has been completely distracted lately by meaningless thoughts and the sweetest reels of Jaehyun that have turned blue.

The more you wrap yourself in your white sheets, the less you can feel any source of warmth. And perhaps you haven’t realized that you no longer felt any heat the past few days, that you’re at a freezing point and it’s made you numb.

“Not sure what you mean.” Your voice remains dull and monotone, lifeless almost. Jaehyun takes a seat against the window and for the first time, you can see right through him.

“It’s not your fault, y/n.” Is he a mind reader too? The thought that always circles your mind when Christmas draws near is not only that Jaehyun is gone forever, but how you could have prevented it all. The guilt eats you up and no matter how hard you’re searching for acceptance, it slips away from you before you have a chance.

When you don’t answer, Jaehyun heads over to your bed and he’s alarmed at how cold your hands are. “It was never your fault.” Your best friend pulls you into a hug, but it can barely be felt. What kind of hug can’t be felt?

“I never said it was.”

“No, but you thought about it.” The chilly draft causes you to shiver and it’s hard for you to concentrate on anything else besides the night of his death.

“I should have stopped you from coming over.” Although you’ve confessed this many times to him before, it never gets easier to say. Jaehyun sighs and ultimately frowns at your tears slipping from your eyes again. Like the snow that drifts from the heavens, your tears know no end to their downfall. It’s become too natural for them to appear. The closer it gets to Christmas, the harder it is to stop from crying.

“It’s hard for me to speak about it since we don’t remember much of the same moments---”

“Jaehyun! I remember that night as clear as it was just yesterday that it happened.” There’s no reason to yell, but a strong sense of pain erupts from your chest.

He’s so calm at your sudden outburst, turning his head to face you with a deadpan expression. “You weren’t there, y/n. You were home, safe and sound as you should have been. I’m more than grateful that you’re the one alive.”

“I’m not!” But when the confession leaves your lips, you’re shaking and fearful. The entire room is stiff and silent. You couldn’t even believe what you had just said, wondering if that is anything close to truth. You look up at Jaehyun, who blinks at you with furrowed eyebrows and wide eyes. “I mean,” you clear your throat in the midst of the tense atmosphere. “I could have saved you.”

“You’re not a hero and I didn’t need saving when I was already gone.” He taps his temples lightly, “full trauma to the head. It was just my time to go.”

“The secret. I wanted to know so bad that I didn’t stop you from coming in a snowstorm!” Jaehyun pats your head in an attempt to soothe your aching heart.

“And I wanted to tell you just as bad that I didn’t care about the snowstorm. y/n, stop blaming yourself for something that happened to me. The universe is much more complex than that, give it some credit.”

“You’re even philosophical as a ghost? Give me a fucking break.” Groaning, you pull the sheets over your head to somehow run away from the conversation.

Jaehyun lies down next to you, smiling cheekily to himself and glancing over at the lump that you had become underneath the blankets. “Do you remember the time I taught you how to ride a bike?”

“I thought it was your dad who taught me.” You grumble, tossing away the sheets to glance over at him. It always puzzled you how Jaehyun never remembered the same memories as you do, and even if you did, one of you remembered it differently.

“He was probably there as supervision. I was the one who helped you take off your training wheels and strap on your impressively thick knee pads.” You’re lying on your elbows now, fists pressing into your cheeks and a fond attentive gaze upon Jaehyun’s resting figure. He’s staring up at the ceiling that protects you two above, yet can cave in at any moment.

Dimples dip into his round supple cheeks as his toothy smile comes into view, reliving the happy memory. “You rang your little bell so many times that day.”

“Because I was scared!” You protest, muttering something incoherent. “Didn’t we go downhill when I said I wasn’t ready?”

“We went downhill because you said you were ready.” His hair ruffles in your sheets when he turns to face you, and he just takes your breath away. It’s the stars in his dark eyes that sweep you off your feet, like the gleaming star on top of a tree. The color that oozes from his smile, like Christmas lights that line a rooftop, make it hard not to stare. Jaehyun looks just like Christmas, the most wonderful thing of the year. In someway, he resembled an angel or the soft sheet of snow ready to fall right through.

You’re encompassed by overwhelming effervescent emotions from listening and watching Jaehyun glow and gleam. “Then, what?”

Jaehyun’s low chuckle illuminates the room, dazzling the boring grey interior. “Little ol’ you, hurt yourself real bad that day, scrapes and wounds you thought you’d never heal from. You didn’t talk to me for a week, but you ended up learning how to ride a bike.”

“Is that right?”

Jaehyun rests on his side now, only an elbow supporting his body and he’s leaning in close to your face, you’re almost too sure you could feel a breath on your lips. “No matter how painful it gets, I’m always here to push you through it all.”

When your heart beats sporadically at his proximity, you didn’t realize that you are holding in a breath, being quite afraid that if you let it out, it would simply blow him away for the night. And you’re not ready for him to leave you again.

Christmas Eve;

It had to be a miracle that anyone got a hold of you this week when Johnny comes practically banging at your door. Though you are so close to ignoring his loud thumping, the sound of your boyfriend’s soft sniffles alarms you greatly.

“y/n, holy shit!” It’s deja vu when you’re in his arms again, a horribly warped version of it when the smell of peppermint bark tickles your nostrils disgustingly. “I thought something happened to you. You weren’t answering my calls or texts.”

“My one wish for Christmas was to be left alone and I meant it.” The attitude in your voice becomes jarringly evident and Johnny blinks back at you with a new found annoyance as well.

“Can you at least think of the other people around you?” He holds your shoulders lightly, but staring into his eyes seems to be harder to do lately. Jaehyun appears on the couch, lying flat on his stomach and a hand resting underneath his chin. This is no longer a private conversation, but you learned long ago that no one else can see him.

“Who are you talking about? My family? Because they’ve all given up on me.” This is the first time Johnny has seen you act so cold and distant, yet entirely vulnerable. You’re stripped of everything that you usually hide in --- oversized clothes, happy smiles, and a beaming warmth.

All Johnny ever wants is for you to be loved, not only by him, but by the world. And interestingly enough, he loved you for your vulnerability and your rawness. This is until he realizes, in this moment, that it stems from your trauma of losing Jaehyun.

“What about me, y/n? I’m still here.” Johnny is frantic, and by all means, hurt by your aloofness. Brushing off his hands from your body, you’re taking several steps away from him.

“And why are you still here when I kept telling you to leave me alone? Whenever I was upset, Jaehyun always gave me space! Haven’t ever thought about how that is something I need?” You’re saying nonsensical statements that are fueled by anger and annoyance.

He’s pushing your limits and for once, you’re pushing him away. But this isn’t new to you, in fact, you’ve pushed so many people away just like this and that’s why they’ve decided to just let you be.

Johnny is taken aback, “you know, I feel like I’m competing with Jaehyun and I’ve never even met him.”

You scoff and throw your arms in the air, visibly in disbelief at what your boyfriend is saying to you. May you lose your temper, you’re unsure about the future of this relationship. Yet, something in your cruel and painful heart no longer cared, snapping your wits and patience at your beloved.

“What are you saying?” You’re pacing back and forth, fuming with an inexplicable infuriation. Jaehyun catches your eye, and for a brief moment, you’re holding eye contact with him instead. “Jaehyun is dead,” facing Johnny now, you say words that jumble in your chest, regardless of their true meanings, “and even if he was alive, there would be no competition.”

“Because you were always going to choose him over everyone else in your life, is that right? Exactly like how you do now.” Johnny’s words sting like daggers at your skin, worse than the layer of frost that bites at you for the past two weeks.

“Please, don’t attack me for hurting.” With that, your voice breaks and cracks all over. Your tears hit the ground without you feeling them run down your cheeks.

Johnny is quick to wipe them away, not minding that his hands will now be wet from your salty droplets. He instantly regrets it all, the unwarranted questions, the fighting, the barging in unexpectedly. It pains him more to see you like this.

“I apologize. I’m sorry that I’m not saying the kindest words to you when you need to hear them the most.” Your partner is frowning, a true rare sight to see. “But, you’re still grieving and there is going to have to be a time that you move on.”

It’s one of those tip of the iceberg moments or when the ball finally hits the ground and a rush of cathartic enthusiasm washes over you. However, you’re not happy. You’re not even remotely close to happiness. You’re fucking sad, you’re aching with a pain so deeply rooted that it isolates you, that it rips apart anything that used to bring you joy.

And this causes you to scream your lungs out, sobs that choke you up. “I can’t! You don’t understand, no one understands! I just fucking can’t. He was my best friend and that night… he was going to tell me something.” Jaehyun can’t bear to hear your piercing wails, as he’s disappeared completely from the setting. When you’re panicked and searching for him, you only see Johnny staring back at you with a very concerned expression.

“And I will never know what he wanted to tell me.” Your tone grows soft and rather delicate, like a sad realization at the possibility that the secret died with Jaehyun that night.

“Some things are better left unknown. Do you really think you’ll feel better knowing?”

“Listen to him, y/n.” Jaehyun randomly appears next to Johnny’s stature. He stands a few inches shorter than him, but the sight of them together has you blinking in awe.

You’re darting between the two of them, “I don’t know what will make me feel better.”

“Come, tonight. Your whole family wants to see you for the one holiday that brings people together.” But when Johnny steps forward, you’re taking a step back.

“Please, just go.” With an assertive point to the door, your head does not lift up to watch your boyfriend leave. Despite every person you’ve done this to, Johnny’s hurts the most. His flame dies out tonight, providing no sense of security or heat. And with a toss of his arms of exasperation, he shuts your front door and leaves without a goodbye, without wishing you a merry Christmas.

Jaehyun calls your name, but you’re rushing to your bedroom and slamming the door shut. “Don’t you dare travel through the wall.”

Your apartment has grown so dark due to the shorten winter days. It’s pitch black all around you and the sky is no longer a deafening white. It’s the first time you notice the dark blue scattered clouds and the intricate snowflakes that drift carefully down to the streets. And, you’re all alone in the quietness. You truly are isolated every Christmas.

“y/n, let’s talk.” Jaehyun is beyond fed up with your behavior, that has to be the last straw. This is the first year since his death that he’s seen the evident spark in your eye, the hope that is hiding behind your depression. He sees it in the way Johnny looks at you, like you’re the greatest present he could receive in life. In your proclamation, as hard as it was to witness, is a spirit that wishes to be freed. There was a chance this year. There still is one.

“Jaehyun, you left me! You left all alone, and no matter how hard I try to stop thinking about you, it never works. In the end, no one is here for me like how you were.” Hands in your hair, you’re losing yourself at a rapid rate. It hurts to keep your eyes open, tears sting as they well up around the rims.

“Find a part of me in the people around you.” The door to your bedroom swings open and Jaehyun takes note of you by the window again. You want to leave, you want to be out there and he knows, before you can actually realize it yourself. You’re turning to face him and in the dark, he looks solid. He looks so real and whole.

“How do I do that?” It’s a genuine question that you’ve pondered before, but never feeling like you had the strength to do so. You’re always dwelling on your past with Jaehyun, indulging in the sacred memories only you two shared.

“What are things that you associate me with?” He is found leaning against your door frame again, hands are shoved into the pockets of his faded jeans.

You say the first thing on your mind, “snow.” When the words hit the air, your ceiling light flickers briefly. Jaehyun doesn’t flinch, however, still focused on your crying figure. Snow, the first sign of snowfall is when he appears for the winter.

“What else?” He encourages.

“Familiarity.” The light flashes again, for a mere second longer this time before it resumes darkness. Familiarity, for he grew up by your side for as long as you could remember.

There is an odd feeling that enters the room and you’re fearful of the unknown. But, Jaehyun’s cadence doesn’t falter, he’s not distracted by the random spurts of light. And if anything, it all could be his doing. “Keep going.”

“Comfort.” Flicker. “Warmth. Love. Excitement.” With each word, the light builds stronger and stronger. You’re speaking memories into existence now, “making snow angels until it got dark, laughing until our stomachs hurt, watching movies until the clock struck midnight, dancing until our legs gave out!”

Streams run down your face and you’re yelling until your throat feels raw, but you don’t wish to stop as the light glows brighter and brighter with each spoken word.

As you listen to every listed attribute and memory, you recognize a central theme in all of them and one thing that Jaehyun embodies, the one thing he’s always been associated with.

“Christmas.” A shaky breath exhales and a loud spark pierces your ears. The light illuminates intensely all around you, lighting up the darkest corners of your room and blinding you more than the sky has been lately.

“Jaehyun?” Closing your eyes, you can see the brightness through your eyelids and you’re beyond confused as to what is happening. When you mindlessly reach for his hand, you actually feel it and your heart is soaring due to strange unquestionable physics.

Jaehyun intertwines your hand in his own and caresses your face gently. For once, he doesn’t feel cold. He’s blazing hot, melting away the long days of isolation. “Open your eyes, y/n.”

What lies before you is an incredible, marvelous sight. Snow dusts the roof of your family’s house as green, red, yellow bulbs light the frame of it. Your parents really went all out; round snowmen sit perfectly together on your lawn. A decorative wreath hangs at the front door and a distinct chuckle catches your attention.

From the window that looks into your kitchen, your mother rolls a sheet of dough on the counter as clouds of flour erupt around her. Your father is preoccupied at the stove, with the silliest gimmicks for decorating the feast they’re about to hold. Silver tinsel line the dinner table with a festive table cloth draped upon it. The remarkable tree shines in the center of the living room, a glimmering star on top.

“I know we probably won’t see y/n again this Christmas…” The sound of your mother’s voice rings a bell in your yearning heart and Jaehyun is gazing at you with a wondrous look in his eyes. The grip on his hand is tight, your breath enters the night in puffs of smoke, and regardless of this all being real or imaginary, you’re so immersed in this reality that he knows you’re anticipating what your family has to say.

“... but something about this year really makes me miss them.” Your mother puts the rolling pin off to the side and rests her hand on the kitchen counter, trying to hold back any form of her own tears from falling.

“May Jaehyun watch over them tonight, our little angel doesn’t deserve to be alone.”

Your dad walks over to embrace your mother in a long hug, kissing the top of her head gently. “Merry Christmas, y/n.” Your father speaks into the air, without the knowledge of you outside, he’s thinking of you.

Something in your heart shatters, but it’s entirely different from the pain you’ve felt over the years following Jaehyun’s death. It’s a warm, bubbly feeling that spreads across your chest and you’re covering your mouth out of pure shock at the sight of your parents.

Your parents, who you’ve neglected every holiday season, still think of you. You recognize the ingredients that scatter the table, they make your favorite dish every year in hopes you’ll come join them.

Jaehyun whispers, “y/n, know that I’m always going to be here. I may physically be gone, but I live in your heart and the joyous memories we’ve shared together. I live through the many people who love you now, through Christmas. This spirit is also very much alive in the other people around you.”

When you peel your eyes from the scene of your parents, the vision suddenly disappears and you’re facing Jaehyun right back in your cold, empty, dark apartment. But you wish the moment lasted a little longer. For the first time in a long time, you wish to be with your loved ones. You wish to celebrate Christmas with the people who still care about you, the ones that are still alive and well.

“What if I’m not ready?”

“This signifies my final push down the hill. You’re all strapped up in your knee pads, y/n. You’re never truly going to be ready, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying.” Jaehyun pats your head lovingly and mimics the motions of securing a helmet on your head.

You’re letting go of his hand, running around quickly in search for the appropriate outerwear for the snow. It’s like a switch went off in your heart and a cathartic feeling settles in the pit of your stomach.

Every Christmas since his passing, you thought it was best to be alone. You thought it was selfish to live your favorite holiday season without your best friend, that you lost the spirit of Christmas.

However, this entire time… Jaehyun’s ghost has been a reminder that the Christmas spirit has always been alive. It’s not about the enthusiastic festive events or the cheerful themed activities or the distinct colorful decorations, it’s about the appreciation and love you have for the people who have made your year so special. You’ve associated the holiday so much with your best friend, that you’ve lost sight of it in your family, your current friends, your own boyfriend.

When you’re rushing out the door, you stop in your tracks and peer back at Jaehyun leaning against your door frame, just as he appeared a few weeks ago. He has the warmest, brightest smile on his face, “y/n, I think I finally remember the secret I wanted to tell you.” You’re afraid of the answer and the outside world, but your hand doesn’t slip from the door handle. Could it really be? The long anticipated secret that has been gnawing at your conscience since his death?

Nevertheless, he’s giggling and holding his stomach slightly from the immense amount of joyous laughter. “I wanted to tell you that I... finally learned how to shave.”

At first, you’re stunned at the simplicity of the beheld secret. All this time, you thought it had been something so meaningful, something so mind blowing, that needing to know practically destroyed your mental state. Then, a wholehearted and genuine laugh erupts from inside of you and you’re lighting up the darkest parts of yourself. Jaehyun looks at you fondly, like a beauty that he hasn’t seen in awhile.

“That’s fucking it? You came out in the middle of a blizzard to tell me you learned how to shave? How lame.”

Jaehyun chuckles, “when did I ever need an extremely valid reason to see you?” The laughter falls short at his confession and in the midst of all this enthusiasm, you bid him the softest smile. His purpose has been fulfilled, as the best version of you he’s always known and loved stands before him at last.

“I guess... you’re right. What’s going to happen to you now?”

“I’ll always be here for Christmas, even when you’re old and grey surrounded by the warmth of your loved ones in front of a large, extravagant Christmas tree. When the snow falls, I’ll be here.” Jaehyun’s dimple smile is the lasting image you see, the one you’ve always hoped to remember him by.

“Merry Christmas, Jung Jaehyun… I--”

“Love you too, y/n. Merry Christmas.” He ushers you out the door with a small kiss on your knuckles.

That is the last time you ever see him again. Now, when the snow falls, it marks the anniversary of your long awaited healing, the journey to acceptance, and the beloved memory of your best friend. May you never lose the spirit of Christmas and the warmth from your loved ones.

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