#there are some things that i would fix if i had more time but if i went back now i would probably never finish | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

atlabeth · 3 days ago

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something about her

masterlist

pairing: spencer reid x fem gideon!reader

summary: you’re reminded why you’re really here while spencer does some unwanted self reflection.

a/n: things have been a little too fun and fluffy around these parts so i had to fix it. it’s easy to forget you’re still dealing w a stalker when you’re busy living in denial <3 enjoy the mess! this whole thing is in spencer's pov bc this all got soooo far away from me

title from the song by stephen sanchez

wc: 5.3k

warning(s): things start to ramp up! stalking, anxiety, lowkey panic attacks, angst, hurt/comfort, r almost has a panic attack, alcohol/mentions of alcoholism, the usual. but more bonding!!

Spencer can’t sleep.

He’s tried every trick in the book. Counting sheep, counting to one hundred, counting to one hundred backwards, going through the alphabet, going through the alphabet backwards, methods with actual scientific research backing them—none of it works. He’s stared at the ceiling for most of the night.

He feels like a hypocrite most of all, preaching the importance of adequate sleep when he’ll be lucky to get five hours. But it looks like you barely sleep as is. He probably should keep preaching to you.

There’s a myriad of reasons to explain it. His hyperactive brain has been responsible for many restless nights. He’s still in unfamiliar territory, and he hasn’t gotten used to sleeping on this bed yet. Lest he forget, he’s your first and only line of protection here from your stalker. That’s enough to keep anyone awake, even FBI.

But then there’s also… you in general.

Spencer can’t say he tries not to think about you, because this past week it’s felt like the only thing he’s thought about.

It’s practically impossible, even before you were shoved into this house together. You have a way of tunneling your way into a person’s mind and refusing to leave—especially his.

Again, it’s easy enough to pass off. You’re the only ones here, and the time you’re not spending alone you’re spending with each other. Your only choice beyond isolation is to talk to Spencer, and it seems you’re slowly moving past preferring it over him.

But he doesn’t think he can just pass this off.

He can’t get your smile out of his head. Your moments of levity are so few and far between that it makes them shine bright as the sun. Spencer has learned he loves how you look when you’re happy. He just wishes it wasn’t such a rarity.

Gideon’s lecture rings in his ears. He really had two jobs—keep you safe, and don’t fall for you. Hopefully he only fails the one.

It’s not like he has to worry about it, though. You might not hate him as much anymore, but you still don’t really like him. As much as it bums him out, it’s for the best. It means that in a week or two, when the team has caught the unsub and all this is over, you can both go your separate ways and you’ll never have to see Spencer again.

That bums him out even more, though.

He lets out a long sigh. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised. JJ, Elle, now you—Morgan would say he really knew how to pick ‘em. Girls who didn’t like him back.

Just then his phone rings, jolting him out what could have been a convincing play for sleep if not for his thoughts, and he groans a little. Spencer fumbles around for it without lifting his head from the pillow, only turning slightly so he can flick it open and place it against his ear.

“Gideon, why are you calling this early?” he mumbles.

“I hope you’re treating her well.”

The gravelly voice through the speaker is a shock, and Spencer doesn’t really process it. His brain still hasn’t turned on.

“Gideon?” he asks again.

“I know you ran away. Trying to protect her like you have any right.”

His blood goes cold as the words finally register.

This is their unsub. This— this is your stalker.

“What do you want?” he asks, unable to keep the sharp edge out of his words.

“You’ve hurt her the same way he has,” the voice continues. “He’s ruined our lives and you don’t care.”

Spencer’s mind is simultaneously blank and running wild. He knows he should try to profile him or talk to him to get something out of him but— but all he feels is anger.

“What do you want?” he repeats, louder this time.

“Think about your priorities, Agent Reid. I’ll be watching.”

The disconnected tone blares in his ear before he can say anything else, and Spencer stares down at his phone in confused annoyance.

What kind of bullshit game is this guy trying to play with you?

First he stalks you for a month—possibly months— then sends pictures of you to your door, then forces you into hiding and now he’s just mocking you like this?

If Gideon is the goal, this bastard is doing a great job of dragging you along.

Spencer’s heart jumps into his throat all of a sudden. You.

He grabs his gun off his bedside table then lunges to the door with all the athleticism of a newborn baby giraffe, nearly tripping in his haste to get out into the hallway. He slams your door open once he gets to your room, and the relief that floods through his body when you shoot up from your previously sleeping position is almost dangerous.

“Spencer?” you grumble, still completely out of it as you rub your eyes. “What the fuck are you doing?”

You’re alive. You’re okay. You’re still here.

He opens his mouth to respond, still kind of out of breath, when his phone rings again. Spencer takes it out and is already pressing it to his ear.

“What the hell do you want from her?” he barks. The absolute nerve of your stalker to call back—

“Reid, it’s me.”

It’s Gideon’s voice that comes out of the speaker this time, and Spencer feels the wave of red hot rage boiling in his stomach crash against a wall of confusion.

“I—” He swallows deeply, his eyes flicking over to your befuddled expression momentarily before he feels himself flush bright red and look away. “I’m so sorry, sir. I thought you were someone else.”

“You got a call?”

His blood runs cold. “You mean you got one too?”

Gideon curses and he hears him move around. Pacing in his bedroom, if Spencer knew anything about him. “Tell me my daughter is safe.”

“She— she is,” he stammers. “I’m with her right now.”

“Spencer, what the fuck is going on?” You’re sitting up now, much more aware than you were fifteen seconds ago. “Why do you have your gun— why are you talking to my dad?”

“Do a perimeter check,” Gideon demands. “If he’s there—”

“I know.” Spencer looks back at you and sighs. “You should talk to her.”

“I know,” Gideon echoes. “Let her stay on the line with me while you figure things out.”

He nods and takes the phone from his ear. “Gideon wants to talk with you.”

You’re standing up now, a dumbfounded expression on your face. “Hold on, you still haven’t answered me! What is going on?”

“I got a call from our guy,” he says. Your eyes widen and he can see your chest still. His heart clenches at the sight. “Gideon did too.”

“What?” you breathe. “Wh— what did he want?”

“To scare you.” Spencer holds up his gun. “Can you hide in the closet while I do a perimeter check?”

You scoff. Your demeanor is still shaken, but the fire is more prominent. He’s started to admire that about you. “Spencer, I am not hiding in the closet.”

“Then lock yourself in the bathroom again!” he exclaims. He doesn’t mean for the outburst, but he can’t help it. “Just— I can’t focus if I’m worried about you, and right now the only thing I can think of is how worried I am about you, so I need to know you’re safe while I do this.”

You stare at him, and Spencer stares right back, if a little frantic. He feels his chest rise and fall from the force, a stark contrast to your still body—similar to the panic he knows is in his eyes to the steely cool of yours.

“I’m not letting you potentially face an insane stalker by yourself,” you finally say.

Spencer huffs. “I am an FBI agent. I’ve faced worse things than insane stalkers.”

“We’ve been together this whole time,” you insist. “We— we can do this together too.”

He looks at you again—he can tell you’re not going to move on this. Spencer eventually sighs and holds the phone back up to his ear.

“I’m assuming you heard that?”

“Let her go with you,” Gideon says. “It’s riskier for her to be on her own than outside with you. But stay on the line, and stay alert. Nothing can happen to her—do you understand?”

“I won’t let anything happen to her,” he says. “I meant what I said.”

“...Good.”

Spencer holds the phone out to you again, and your lip curls.

“I’m not—”

“Come on,” he interrupts, gesturing with his head into the hallway.

Your annoyance melts into acknowledgement when you realize he’s not blowing you off again, and you nod as you take the phone. Spencer wraps both hands around his gun as he starts moving, you matching his pace as you follow him.

“Yeah, Dad,” he hears you say behind him. “I’m here.”

This is what he meant by you needing to stay behind. He’s worried about you more than anything, yes, but he also can’t help but listen. Spencer has very keen ears, to everyone’s simultaneous disdain and appreciation on the team—it makes him a very good asset in the field, but also a very good asset when it comes time for office gossip.

“No, nothing’s happened yet. Yes— yes, I’m okay, I promise. Spencer’s done an annoyingly good job of keeping me safe.”

Once Spencer reaches the door, he peers through the peephole to make sure their unsub isn’t embarrassingly obvious. It’s clear, and he turns to face you and raises a hand, then places his finger on his lips.

“Uh— I have to go dark for a sec,” you say. “We’re checking the perimeter. Don’t worry, I’ll scream if anyone tries to kill me. Be back soon.”

You pull the phone away from your ear and nod at Spencer, and he holds his breath before he opens the door.

The frigid air hits both of you at once, and he hears then sees your sharp exhale of breath. It’s been a while since either of you have been outside, but it’s good to know he hasn’t been missing superb weather.

“Stay close and stay quiet,” Spencer whispers. “I’m your only line of defense out here.”

He expects you to shoot back with some remark, but you merely nod in response. Spencer hopes he hides the shock he feels before he turns away and starts walking.

Dawn isn’t for a few more hours—the only real light source is the moon high in the night sky. It doesn't exactly help his nerves to be doing all this in the dark, but part of him is almost thankful to be doing this. Spencer doesn’t know how to deal with you or any of the emotions you stir inside of him or the sleepless nights you cause because he can’t stop thinking of you—but he knows how to do his job, and he knows how to do it damn well.

He just wishes it didn’t have to come with the unfortunate side effect of you being in immense danger.

But Spencer does his best to push those thoughts to the back of his mind—right now, he has to have one focus.

And he does. The two of you stick close to the side of the house, his eyes darting all over as he tries to dig out any details, any possible sign that the unsub was here. The ground is still a thin layer of mud from the storm last night, so it should be easy to find footprints. Spencer’s Converse aren’t doing a great job at keeping him upright—slipping in front of you is too embarrassing for him to even think about.

All of a sudden, he stops, his arm shooting out in front of you. You don’t realize it for a second and you run into him, your hand wrapping around his arm on instinct to steady yourself. If he wasn’t so shocked at what he was looking at, he would have been bright red over it.

“What the h—”

“Footprints,” he whispers. “Th— they’re almost gone, but—”

“He was here?” you interrupt. Fear spikes in your voice and your grip tightens on his arm.

“Last night, maybe.” Spencer swallows the doubt in his throat. It doesn’t matter what he thinks, how he feels—he’s not going to make you feel worse. “The rain probably washed most of them away.”

“Spencer—”

“I am surprised these are still here, though,” he continues. “The rainfall was really heavy. I wouldn’t expect them to stay in mud like this—”

“Spencer, look where we are!” you exclaim, gesturing hard with your other hand. He realizes that you’ve let go of his arm by now, but he pushes it out of his head and looks.

“The window to your room,” he says. The blinds are closed and the lock is in place—he’s made sure every night—but there are small enough gaps between the shutters.

“He was watching us last night!” Your breathing is starting to come heavier and faster now. “We talked about all that shit and he was just here watching and we didn’t even fucking know!”

You’re on the edge of hyperventilating. Spencer has got to get you down or else you’re going to have a full blown panic attack out here.

“Hey, hey— look at me.” He says your name and that, if anything else, gets you to listen and meet his eyes. They’re filled with an unbridled fear he hasn’t seen in you until now. “Don’t think about him. Don’t think about any of this. He’s not here.”

“He was watching us—”

“And we’ll figure out what to do next. But you have to stay calm. You can’t let him win.”

You’re still harried, your chest rising and falling rapidly as your eyes dart all around. Spencer says your name softly, tucks his gun into its holster, then takes your hands in his, hoping that it gives you something to focus that isn’t the rest of this.

“Just look at me,” he says softly.

You suck in another shaky breath, but you’re not as frantic as before. You at least look him in the eye, and you don’t wrench your hands out of his grasp. Progress, if nothing else.

“Breathe with me.”

You nod—still panicked, but better. Spencer breathes in deep and you do the same, following as he counts up and down with his fingers. It takes a few rounds, but eventually, he’s gotten you off the edge.

Spencer says your name again, just as soft as before. You’re still breathing slowly in and out.

“How do you feel?”

“Better,” you murmur. “I—”

You’re interrupted by the phone you both forgot was in your hand, Gideon’s voice muddled as it comes from the receiver. You rip your hands out of Spencer’s as you come back into yourself, shaking your head and blinking a few times while you take a few steps away from him.

“I’m here, Dad,” you say. “We— we’re okay. No, nothing happened.”

Spencer blinks too. He looks down at his hands, then glances at you, then shakes his head. He walks back over to the footprint and crouches down, trying to keep his mind clear. He commits every detail he can to memory, doing his best to ignore the conversation with your dad in the background.

Well, he tunes in a little. He can’t help it—he wants to make sure you’re okay.

“We found a footprint outside my room,” you’re saying. “Spencer thinks it’s your guy. I have no idea. Yes, we are. You don’t have to be so pushy.” You sigh and he feels your gaze on him. “Spencer, we have to finish this up. Dad wants us back inside.”

He clears his throat as he nods a few times. “Let me get a picture of this first.”

You hand him the phone and Spencer snaps some photos from a few different angles, hoping forensics will be able to get anything out of it. He hears Gideon’s voice again and he holds it to his ear once more.

“Gideon?”

“Reid, get her back inside,” he says. “We can’t take any unnecessary risks.”

“We haven’t finished securing the perimeter,” he says.

“Then finish it and get back inside!” he exclaims. “You have proof that he was there—”

“We don’t know it’s him,” Spencer interrupts.

“We know there was somebody there!” Gideon shoots back. “I’m not risking her, and from what I’ve heard, you don’t want to either.”

Spencer feels his cheeks warm as he looks back at you, and he pulls his gun back out of its holster. “Come on. We have to finish this up.”

“That’s what I said,” you mutter, but you follow him without further protest.

The rest of the check goes by quickly without any other distractions or surprises, and soon enough you’re back inside. While Spencer chats with Gideon, updating him in a calmer manner on everything with the phone call and the footprint, you’re ruffling through the cabinets.

Eventually, he sees you pull out a bottle of clear liquid from the corner of his eye. He frowns and realizes that it’s vodka.

“It’s 4:29 in the morning,” Spencer says, cutting off Gideon almost absentmindedly as you pop the bottle open.

“And we found out that this place isn’t nearly as safe as anyone thought,” you respond sharply. “I think that warrants some drinking.”

“That means that you should have a clear mind,” he says. “Alcohol impairs your brain’s communication pathways, as well as your judgment and coordination.”

“I’ve gotten drunk before, genius,” you mutter as you search for a glass. You end up choosing a the mug you used for coffee the other morning then start pouring. “Enough to know it’s what I need right now.”

“It can also cause mood swings,” Spencer says. “I think that’s the last thing you need right now.”

You roll your eyes, not even bothering to look back at him as you finish pouring a concerning amount of liquor into the mug.

“What is going on over there?” Gideon asks. Spencer remembers he’s holding the phone and he puts it back to his ear.

“I think your daughter is an alcoholic,” he comments.

“I’m not an alcoholic,” you say sharply. “I just can’t focus on all this right now.”

“It’s best if she gets some sleep,” Gideon says. “All of this is likely terrifying to her, no matter how hard she tries to hide it.”

Spencer’s mind flashes back to your near panic attack—your wide eyes full of fear and harried breathing that only made you hyperventilate more when you realized you couldn’t control it. It’s too easy to think of you as some untouchable being from the way you interact with him, bothered by nothing and no one.

The mask cracks on rare occasion. It makes you seem frighteningly real.

“You’re right,” Spencer nods. You sip your drink without flinching. He doesn’t think he can even call it a drink if it’s just straight liquor. “We could all use some sleep.”

“Just make sure she’s safe,” he says. “Make sure the whole place is secure. We’re not—”

“Taking risks,” he finishes. “Believe me, I know.”

Gideon is silent for a second, and Spencer takes the time to look at you. The bags under your eyes are even more prominent, and there’s a haunted glint in your eyes as you stare at the wall. You shiver ever so slightly, the outside chill still lingering on your skin. You’ve got pajama pants on but just a plain tee. You didn’t have time to put a sweatshirt on before he pulled you outside in the mania of it all.

You really are beautiful—but you’re so damn tired.

Spencer realizes that all he wants to do is give you some respite.

“I’ll call you back later, then,” Gideon says. “To check in.”

“Okay.” Spencer’s throat bobs as he averts his eyes from you. “Get some rest too, Gideon.”

The other end hangs up without a response. Spencer stares down at the phone for a few seconds then sighs before he tucks it back into his pocket.

“What’d he want?” you ask.

“I can’t believe you’re drinking vodka out of a coffee mug at four in the morning.”

You frown. “You don’t get to judge me.”

“It’s not good for you.”

“None of this is good for me,” you enunciate. “What did my dad want?”

“I’m serious,” Spencer continues. “Drinking on an empty stomach can lead to low blood sugar— drinking at this hour is going to completely disrupt your circadian rhythm.”

“You know what else has disrupted my circadian rhythm?” you ask mockingly. “Being here. Having a stalker. Finding out that said stalker was also here, watching us. I think that’s a little worse for me than the alcohol.”

Spencer stares at you, and as you’re prone to do, you stare back. Eventually, he shakes his head and looks away, deciding to quit while he’s ahead.

“He wants you to get some sleep,” he says. “Wants us both to.”

You scoff and shake your head, downing much more vodka than you should in one go. Again, you don’t flinch—for a schoolteacher, you handle your liquor very well. “Like I’d get to sleep after this.”

“It’s important,” Spencer insists. “You’ve gotten— what? Three hours of sleep?”

“Well, all this excitement has woken me up,” you say.

“Well, I’m tired,” Spencer says. “So I guess I’ll see you in a few hours.”

He starts to walk to his room, figuring that you need time to cool off, when—

“Wait.”

Your voice is oddly strangled, and Spencer stops in his tracks.

“I—” you stop and sigh, your tongue darting out to wet your lips. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”

“Our rooms are close to each other,” he says. “I’ll be able to hear if you yell.”

You rub your eyes as you let out another haggard sigh. “I can’t stand to be in that room, Spencer. Not knowing that— that he was right there.”

Spencer can’t look away from you. Your eyes glint with tears you’re trying to hold back, but you’re laid bare in a way he knows you hate.

You’re being pushed to your limits against your will, and it kills him that he can’t do anything to help you. Honestly, sometimes he feels useless being stuck here while the rest of the team is out there actively working to help you. All he can do is stand around here and annoy you.

Except you want him there. For the first time since all of this has started, you want him there.

It’s the only thing he can do for you right now. How can he refuse?

“Okay,” he says softly, and he nods. “Okay. We can share my room tonight.”

The tension in your shoulders fades ever so slightly, and you—thankfully—set the mug down. “Keep your gun close.”

“I’m not sure you want me shooting when I’m sleep deprived,” Spencer says.

Your lips twitch just so, and Spencer’s heart skips a beat. He can’t help it.

He should have known he was in too deep the moment he stepped into this house with you.

“Very cozy,” you say.

“It’s the same as your room,” Spencer responds.

You shrug. “It’s messy. Makes it feel like home.”

He feels his face flush. “I haven’t really been focused on keeping things clean.”

“Relax.” You sit down on the bed. “I’m not judging you.”

“Good.” Spencer glances at you as he moves his bag off of your side of the bed. “Because that would be very rude after the generosity I’ve shown you.”

You laugh and Spencer finds himself smiling at the sound of it. He’s glad he’s turned away, and he’s glad he manages to push it away by the time he’s turned back around.

You’re wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants now, and it’s strange to see you look so… soft. Every part of you is so sharp, some of it jagged—sometimes you harden around him, sometimes you mellow. He’s a bit tired of the back and forth.

Maybe that’s what makes him speak up.

“I’m tired of us always being at odds.”

Your eyebrows rise and you look at him. “Really?”

Spencer nods, his will bolstered. “Really. We have a nice talk one night, and I feel like we’ve had a breakthrough, and then you go back to hating me the next morning. I’m— I’m sick of it.”

He expects you to shoot back with some mocking comment like you always do, making fun of him for wanting more than what little you give him. But instead, you lay back against the pillows and shrug.

“Okay.”

He blinks. “Really?”

“Really,” you nod. “I’m too tired to want to fight right now.”

“You’re the one that always tries to fight me.”

“Aren’t you fighting me right now?”

Spencer shakes his head. “You’re unbelievable.”

You chuckle. “Still fighting.”

He stares at you. As usual, you stare back, but this time you can’t fully bite back your smile. For some reason, that gets Spencer to break. He smiles too, and he settles down on the bed next to you. There’s a pillow buffer between you, but it’s still a lot closer than he’s used to.

Well, he did hold your hands earlier, but that’s because he was bringing you down from a panic attack. That doesn’t mean anything.

“What a day,” he mutters.

“And it hasn’t even started yet,” you muse. “I don’t know how you do this kind of shit every day.”

“I’m not really the target of any of this,” he says. “I usually stay behind the scenes. I’m good with geographical profiles, not chasing down unsubs.”

You look over at him. “You haven’t really talked about anything you do for the BAU.”

Spencer shrugs. “I thought it would be a sore subject.”

You pause. “You’re… probably right.”

“I figured.” He chuckles, then glances over at you. “But you already know enough about me. You said you would talk about your job. Teaching, and your kids, and all that.”

Your eyebrows rise. “You actually care?”

Spencer gives you a look. “I thought we were past that part in our friendship.”

“We’re not friends.”

He shrugs. “Whatever you say.”

You roll your eyes, but you go on anyway. “I’m a highschool teacher in Fairfax. You know Mount Vernon High?”

Spencer nods. “I know the name of every high school in Virginia.”

“Of course you do,” you huff. “But that’s besides the point. I did my student teacher hours there, and they offered me a full time position. I took it, so I guess I’ve been there since senior year.” You purse your lips. “It’s a little depressing when you look at it like that.”

“Then don’t look at it like that,” he say. “You said you loved your job.”

“I do!” You smile again, a bit lighter this time. “My teachers were a huge part of my life, especially in high school.” The lightness fades some, but he notices how you try to hide it. “If I could help even one kid the same way my teachers helped me, then I would have done something with my life.”

“That’s very noble of you,” Spencer says. “I don’t think I ever would have guessed you were a teacher.”

“Oh, please,” you say. “You’re a profiler. You’d figure it out.”

“You wouldn’t know I work with the FBI at first glance.”

“Well, I’m not a profiler. Besides,” you tip a shoulder, “I have the ulterior motive of wanting to introduce kids to the wonders of physics.”

Spencer’s eyes light up. “You’re a physics teacher?”

“I teach a load of science classes, but I carry the banner for AP physics.” You huff a laugh. “You’re probably the only one that doesn’t sound lame to.”

“I love physics!” he exclaims. “I’ve got a PhD in engineering, remember?”

You smile— no, you actually grin at him, and he can’t believe he finally broke through the barrier with science.

“Trust me, I’d love to talk physics with you, boy genius, but—” you’re interrupted with a yawn, and Spencer resists the urge to do the same— “but I think I’m actually about to fall asleep.”

Spencer shakes his head with a small laugh. He realizes that he’s relaxed while you’ve been talking, limbs looser and fully laying back against the pillows.

“This was actually part of my master plan to get you to rest,” he says. “Talking science always works with the team.”

He sees you smile out of his peripherals as you lay fully down, can feel every shift of your body against the mattress while you try to find a good position.

“It wasn’t you,” you say. “It was the vodka.”

“Of course,” he agrees.

Silence falls over the room as the two of you settle in. You take off your sweatshirt, a slight shiver running through you once you’re back in your tank top. Spencer removes his glasses, and he blinks a few times to adjust to the blurriness.

The bed is big enough for you to both have your own space,, and you’re both careful to keep your backs to each other. The silence is comfortable despite the previous animosity. Maybe all it really did take was for him to start talking science.

Eventually, though—

“Thank you, Spencer.” Your voice is little more than a whisper, but it cuts through the silence like a knife. “I— I know you don’t like me. So it means a lot that you still do all this for me.”

He’s quiet for a moment, taking your words in. The mingled sounds of your breathing are really the only things filling the room, and he can feel your weight against the mattress. It’s all oddly intimate.

“You’re wrong.” He’s almost surprised at the sound of his own voice. “I do like you.”

Your shock shows through the silence. Spencer takes his chance.

“You’re going through something no one should ever have to experience, and you’re doing it with someone you think stole your life from you.” Spencer shifts ever so slightly. His hands feel inexplicably clammy. “It was unfair of me to take Gideon’s side so often.”

“Still.” Your words are muffled as you speak half into the mattress. “We have more important things to worry about. It was unfair of me to spend so much time giving you shit. You— you didn’t even know I existed until a month ago.”

“But now I do.” He pauses. “And I’m glad I do. So you can start looking forward instead of always looking back.”

Again, silence. It lasts so long Spencer wonders if you’ve fallen asleep. Your breathing is thankfully steady (a side of him is always focused on your breathing just to make sure) and you don’t shift much, so he wouldn’t be surprised. You were exhausted—

“Spencer?”

His eyes open. He didn’t even realize they had closed. You sound half-asleep, your voice nothing more than a whisper. He wishes more than anything he knew what was going through your mind right now.

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

His heart stutters so blatantly he’s sure you can hear it. Spencer honestly doesn’t know what to say—his mouth is so dry he doesn’t know if he can say anything.

Spencer thought you hated him. You thought Spencer hated you.

It’s ironic.

“Me too,” he eventually manages.

But there’s no response. You must’ve already fallen asleep again, just conscious enough to say a few words. The rude awakening mixed with the fear and alcohol couldn’t have done you much good.

Spencer swallows the doubt in his throat and closes his eyes again, trying not to focus on you. It’s practically impossible.

He’s glad, at least, that you’re able to sleep. You deserve to rest more than anyone.

Eventually, the sound of your breathing lulls Spencer to sleep.

You were the one thing he didn’t have on his list.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfiction #gideon!reader #spencer reid angst #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds angst #x reader #sadie writes

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cxrsed-angel · 2 days ago

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Long Distance Calls| Eddie Munson x fem!reader smut

summary: You call Eddie for you routine phone dates, since you're away at a college and it elevates to phone sex. (late 80s/ early 90s college AU)

warnings: Phone sex, mutual masturbation (Both m and f), use of a dildo. dirty talk, pet names, (lmk if I forgot anything please)

wc: 2k

a/n: Im in college and was missing Eddie so this was the result and wrote this. Sorry for the shitty header. not proof read or beta read

You lay on your twin XL bed in your dorm, lying on your sheets, on your stomach, fidgeting with the pink phone cord on your pink barbie phone you've definitely outgrown, but your dad said if it’s not broken, don’t fix it, so it came along with you to college. Glancing at the clock on your nightstand.

You’ve moved a few hours away for college, and since then, you and Eddie have had to get creative with how you spend time together. You would have date calls a few times a week, and then on the three-day weekends or breaks, you would drive up to Hawkins to hang out, or he would drive to you.

You wait impatiently for Eddie's call, glancing at the clock on the nightstand of your dorm room again, back at the phone, then at the phone, counting the seconds until 10:30 PM. The moment you hear your pink Barbie childhood phone ring at 10:30 PM, right on time, the clock showing 10:30 PM, you pick up, immediately answering.

“Eddie?” you answer, responding faster than usual, too excited, honestly. You really missed Eddie this week. Nothing particularly bad happened this week. You just wished you weren't 5+ hours away from him.

“Hey, sweetheart,” you hear his voice greet you, and you immediately start smiling. The familiar pet name makes your heart race, and even though he says it all the time, you still feel giddy hearing it.

“Hey Eddie, how was your day?” you ask as you lay in your college dorm bed, the phone in your bed so you're more comfortable. You grab your brown teddy bear, holding it closely. It's the teddy bear he had given you for your one-year anniversary. You hold on to it as he starts sharing about his day.

“Well, it was pretty boring at the shop. I fixed some cars, the usual. But then I got home to the trailer, and Wayne told me I got a small package from you. Now, I thought it was your usual package with cute little gifts and pictures and stuff, but I was surprised when it was a little naughtier than the usual package from you.”

Since you’ve gone away to college, you send each other little care packages, small gifts, pictures of things you did that month, letters, small candies, and stuff like that every now and then.

You frown, trying to remember what you sent since it has been a while since you sent it, but when it comes back, you feel flustered as you remember. You were particularly horny that month, a few days before your period started, and really missed Eddie, so you decided to take some explicit Polaroids while your roommate was away, it was just supposed to be you in some lingerie and suggesting poses, but with your mood, it escalated to photos of you enjoying a toy. A few with the dildo in your mouth sticking out tongue, and you got a little carried away taking some with your pussy wet evident you had cum while the dildo was on display covered in your arousal.

You smile, flustered. “Oh, did you enjoy it?” you ask, a bit embarrassed, wondering if you had gone too far. You hear him laugh through the phone.

“Did I enjoy it? Baby, I just opened it and almost came in my jeans. I had to call you and hear your voice. I liked the letter you added, gushing about how much you missed me and wanted me to touch you all over, rubbing my hands along your body and eating that pretty pussy of yours. You were really horny, huh, babe.”

You nod, feeling yourself getting wetter at his words and the memory of taking all those photos and how you fucked yourself hard on the dildo, thinking of him wishing it was him. “Yeah, Eds, I was-must’ve been ovulating or something,” you laugh lightly, joking as you feel your body getting hotter.

Eddie hmms, obviously condescendingly, teasing you. “Aww, poor baby. Is your roommate there.”

“No, she is visiting her family for the weekend.” You hear ruffling through the phone speaker for a few minutes before hearing his voice again.

“You must’ve really wanted a baby in you sweetheart, because god. These pictures are killing me. You look so sexy posing for me like this. Fuck.” You're quiet as you hear a rhythmic movement through the phone, and once you hear Eddie quiet moaning.

“Eddie, are you jerking off?” you ask, already knowing the answer. You set the phone down, take your shirt off, and slide your shorts off before picking up the phone again. “Hell yeah, I am, sweetheart. I couldn't help it once I saw that one picture of your pussy wet and swollen from fucking yourself. He grunts as you hear his hand rubbing his shaft.

Your own fingers slip under your shorts and underwear, rubbing your fingers along your wet folds, getting more aroused hearing your boyfriend get off. “You're touching that pretty cunt of yours, got a finger or two circling around your sensitive clit, huh? Imaging it was mine and having my cold rings touching you?”

You nod as your fingers move a bit faster around your wetness, imagining they were his fingers, thicker and rougher compared to yours. Feeling his cold rings against your clit. You close your eyes as the phone rests against your shoulder. You let out breathy moans as you think of the countless times Eddie fingered you when you were back in Hawkins. In his van, under the table while he was waiting for the rest of the party to join the campaign, against a wall at the renaissance fair. You could go on.

“C’mon princess, this only works when we’re both vocal. I know I have a huge, active imagination, but it can only go so far. Need you tell me whatcha you’re doing over there.” His voice brings you back to the call as a rush of heat floods your body, you’re head getting foggy a little by your arousal.

You nod even though he can't see. “Sorry baby, your voice is just really sexy.” You hear Eddie’s deep chuckle from the speaker for a bit before his moan replaces it.

“ ‘Are you touching my girl for me since I can't be there?” You nod as your face flushes as he refers to your pussy as “his girl.” You pretend to be annoyed when he does it, but you love it. It never fails to make you wet. Your fingers continue circling your cunt as you hear his moans and the sound of Eddie pumping his hard cock.

“Yeah, Eddie, I am. It feels good, but I want you,” you beg and whine as you continue touching yourself to Eddie's sounds.”

“She’s missing me, huh? Sounds so fucking pretty, baby, wanna talk to her? Put her on the phone for me, princess.” he groans after speaking a string of curse words coming out under his moans. Your fingers pause, stopping you to turn to look at the phone, confused about what he had just asked.

“Wh-what?” You're met with Eddie’s laugh before he answers.

“I wanna speak to my girl. Put her on, let me hear her.” you pause for a minute, and you nod your head before slowly putting the receiver to your pussy, slipping your fingers in and out, slowly letting Eddie hear the lewd sounds of you finger fucking yourself.

“Oh fuck…there she is, sounds so fucking good, bet she's all puffy and needy and soaking for me, huh, begging to be fucked.” Eddie moans as you hear him stroking his cock through the receiver. You swear it was the hottest sound. You loved hearing him.

“Miss you so much, Eddie, fuck…fuck me.” You whine, begging for him. The phone is still close to your cunt, letting Eddie speak to “her.”

“Fuck I miss her so much, baby, see her in my dreams. God, listen to her, soaking for me isn't she.” You hear his arousal through the speaker, imaging his leaky cock, wishing you could taste him.

“Eds, I wish I could suck your cock, so bad.” You whine and hear Eddie let out another moan.

“Yea baby? Fuck wish you could too. Shit princess, ‘got that dildo I sent you?” you nod, humming in agreement as you sit up a bit.

“Go get it, baby wanna hear how you use it. How you fuck yourself with it.”

“Okay, hold on.” You set the phone down on your bed before hopping off the twin XL bed, going over to your drawer, and grabbing the dildo you have hidden under a pile of socks, along with a bottle of lube.

“I got it.” you pick up the phone, pulling your underwear down your thighs, taking them off, and tossing them somewhere down on your bed. Waiting for Eddie to respond, but you’re met with gasps and groans and the pornographic wet sounds of his hand moving up and down his shaft. Clearly, he didn't hear you.

“Eddieeee, this only works when we both talk,” you repeat his words earlier, getting his attention. You hear him let out one deep groan before he talks to you.

“Shit, sorry, sweetheart, just looking at the picture of your soaking cunt, and its killing me, babe.” you feel yourself getting wetter as you remember the day you took the polaroid.

“You got the toy? Rub it over your pretty pussy. Get it wet for me.”

You listen, grabbing the toy and rubbing it along your slit, covering it in your wetness, teasing yourself with it. The size and length are almost exactly like Eddie’s. You remember seeing Eddie’s face light up when he spots the “Clone-A-Willy” box in the sex shop in Indianapolis, and you remember when he snuck it into your dorm desk drawer while you were moving into your dorm with a pink bow tied around the box and a note. “Not the real thing, but a close second - Eds.” You moan as you slowly rub the head of the toy along your wet folds.

“Jesus-fuck, you sound so good, baby. Go ahead and put it in for me, baby. I Can hear her begging for it over the phone? She’s been so good suffering all this time without me, go ahead and fuck for me.”

You nod, listening to him, slowly sliding the toy inside you. You let out a moan as you push the toy in deeper. You still missed Eddie, feeling his hand grip on your waist as he’s inside you, the way he kisses your chest as he thrusts into you, or the way he would move your leg onto his shoulder fucking deeper inside you. Or when he would manhandle you, flipping you over onto your stomach, pulling your hips so your ass was up, the sting you’d feel when he would plant a few spanks onto it.

But the fact that it was a model of his cock, did help, you moan, feeling the familiar stretch of his thickness inside you.

“Fuck Eddie!” You cry out his name as you continue fucking the dildo into your pussy, the phone lying on the side of your head as you lean back on your pillows, moving it deeper inside you. “Jesus Christ, you sound perfect, like an angel fuck baby. Go on fuck yourself for me, sweetheart.”

You move the toy faster in and out of your achy hole while you’re other hand rubs your clit, the sounds of Eddie jerking off making you wetter.

“Fuck Eddie, I miss you. I miss you so much.“ You moan louder into the phone, getting closer to your release, more from Eddie's moans than anything else, honestly.

“I know, baby, I miss you too, shit. Miss you so fucking much, sweetheart.” He grunts before moaning more, “Goddamn honey, Im…Im about to-“.

You hear eddies moans through the receiver you can tell he's cumming by the sounds of his moans, the string of curses he lets out, and how he gasps before groaning loudly. You can practically see his hard pretty cock spilling his cum onto his hand, probably his stomach too. You wish you could be there, wish he was spilling his cum into you.

You move the dildo and continue to fucking yourself, getting closer as your fingers rub your clit a bit faster, closing your eyes, imagining Eddie hovering over you fucking your deeply, moving your leg over his shoulder, feeling his balls against your pussy.

“E-Eddie…” you whine into the phone, getting closer.

“You close, baby? I can tell, I can hear it. Come on, baby, cum for me. Let me hear her.” Eddie’s voice sends you over the edge, feeling your orgasm wash over you, moaning eddies name over and over. You open your eyes, coming down from your release, dropping the dildo somewhere on your bed. You breathe heavily, grabbing the phone and putting it back to your ear. “Eddie?” you call him through the phone, and all you hear is Eddie’s laugh.

“Sweetheart, that was so hot, Jesus Christ. Next weekend I’m coming up there and fucking you in that shitty twin XL all day.” you laugh a bit, sitting up in your bed, you twirling the cord line around your finger and glancing at the brown teddy bear.

“Promise?” You light up at the thought of spending time with him, seeing him, and hearing his voice in person, touching him. “Yep, I'm taking Friday off, so I can drive up on Thursday and spend the whole weekend with my girl, well, my girls.” You hear him laugh as you hear him shuffling through the phone You roll your eyes at him and his personification of your pussy. You shift, holding the phone with your shoulder as you grab your blanket, pulling it over your legs. “Do you have to go now, or can you talk for a bit?” You ask Eddie, hoping he doesn't have to hang up. You really did miss talking to him.

“No baby, I'm yours all night.”

#angel writes #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x reader smut #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #eddie munson drabble

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moonbaby26 · 2 days ago

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Title: Anniversary

*Crossposted to AO3 Here*

Notes: Sorry, only a very short oneshot. All I got for Valentine’s Day was the flu 😅. I’m still out in left field somewhere mentally. But I had to at least try and post something for our man, or else the cosmic scales would fall further out of balance over here.

Pirate!Reader/GN!Reader x Doflamingo, NSFW, unprotected sex, ejaculation, very minimally proofread

Fic Masterlist

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“So you’re telling me that the kingdom of love and passion doesn’t even have a specific holiday for romance?” It was amazing you could speak at all right now to ask. But you didn’t get to see him often. Multitasking was just part of both your busy lives.

“If you needed a special day just to remember this, then that would be pitiful, now wouldn’t it?” He grunted with some humor in response, shoving you down into the mattress yet again as his hips kept rocking.

The moonlight was flooding into your captain’s quarters through the portholes. Your crew hopefully none the wiser while the both of you got this very welcome fix, and that tell tale smell of sweat and lust filled the space.

Anytime your ship was near enough to his island in your raiding routes through the New World, Doflamingo would know. And he would come. Flying through the night to land on your deck and prowl below to claim what you still so freely gave him.

How many other of his so called “allies” that he did this with, you had no idea. But you could always pretend you were somehow special as he massaged those powerful hands around your hips and thighs.

The delusion was enticing enough as you contracted around that penetrating cock with another stifled moan.

“Yes…such a good pet.” He breathed with that tightness.

You could hear the unevenness growing in his dark voice too. And it only made your stomach tense even more with the brief praise.

He would alternate from absolute pounding to a more hypnotic rhythm that left you defenseless. So deep, so stretched, no one could ever compare to the things this man could do with your body.

The only man you wanted this from at all these days.

And maybe he already understood that. There were strange hints here or there. Like in the way his fingers sometimes loosened their grip again. The way he’d wipe your sweat or overwhelmed tears away before they could interfere with your desperate eyes he liked to stare down into whenever he pulled out to flip you back over.

“You want me to stay tonight. Don’t you, dear?” Those white teeth bared shamelessly. But his expression wasn’t the threat it might be to his enemies. Not with him still pumping his hips so purposefully as he plunged back inside you and your back arched in the next wave of euphoria.

You amused him so much. He enjoyed this game each and every time.

“Please…yes, just until morning.” That would only be a few hours from now. “I know it’s a lot to ask…please…” You never minded begging him.

“How very needy. I have an empire to run you know…” He angled himself, changing the feel so quickly.

You cursed and he laughed as your fingernails scraped deeper along his back. The vibration of his voice’s sound like music, frightening but further addictive

“Silly little animal…clawing and hoping. Always wanting more…” He chided without ever stopping.

He never stopped until he’d filled you to the point of dripping. The mess of him running down your ass before his weight collapsed on top of you in all his post orgasm panting and grinning.

His legs were too long to even fit on your bed if he’d fully stretched out. But he never did that either.

Doflamingo curled around you as he pulled you onto your side without ever removing his now softening cock.

“You only get until sunrise. I have other places to be tomorrow.” He managed to somehow still sound haughty even with beads of sweat glistening that broad chest.

But you were just soaking this in, no complaint at all while he held you. “Yes, sir. Understood.”

Maybe one day he’d let you call him Doffy. Yet you were pressing your luck far enough already. You couldn’t ask for more as he pulled your blanket over the two of you once the surges in body heat had finally quelled. The king of Dressrosa warmed your bed all the way until dawn on your pirate ship.

——————————

Admittedly you’d been happy enough in all of that for days too. Your good mood had carried well over into the next week. Though it had finally tried to falter when after stopping in the next port, your crew had been giving you the oddest looks when you’d come walking back aboard after fencing much of your stolen cargo in town.

They were too nervous to tell you something.

“Some of the Donquixote soldiers paid us a visit while you were away.” One of them finally confessed.

And you’d had to steel your expression, concealing the momentary panic that ran through you.

Because had you done something wrong after all? Had you gotten too comfortable in this very unbalanced working relationship?

But your crew would tell you nothing more. As if they’d been ordered not to when they only awkwardly said for you to check your quarters next.

Your legs felt weaker even as you’d walked so fast to go below deck and face whatever this would be.

Once someone fell out of favor with Doflamingo, any punishment was possible, any horror that man may imagine for his newest victim.

You’d thrown the door to your captain’s quarters open expecting the worst.

And then you’d stood there, briefly unsure if you were hallucinating as you could barely even see the floor.

Vases and bouquets littered the small room as if a field had blossomed in just the few hours you’d been away. The floral scent was like a slap to the face as your eyes moved from one color to the next.

Roses, lilies, orchids, tulips, and more. Every color, every height.

You’d had to walk so carefully just to navigate between them in your astonishment. Towards the largest vase of all that held cut down sunflowers.

A bright pink vase with a large envelope emblazoned with a struck through smiley face.

Your hands might even have been trembling a little as you’d ripped that envelope open to retrieve the letter within.

The handwriting was done with such flourish and purpose as you read it quickly.

“As I said, dear, I don’t believe in limiting myself to a single day to show my appreciation or desire.

But it appears you are starting to think differently on these things. And if my pretty pet seeks such superficial validation, then at least have the decency of choosing a more meaningful day to do it.

Holidays like you spoke of began solely for the unwashed masses. But I’m wounded you seem to have also forgotten what day it will be for us by the time you are reading this.

The anniversary of the agreement of our two crews to first ally and your inevitable subjugation to me that followed.

I didn’t know your favorite color or favorite flower. This small variety will have to suffice for now. On your next pass near Dressrosa I expect you to make this up to me.

Do not keep me waiting.

Happy anniversary until then.

-Doffy”

Your bed was about the only thing not covered in flowers as you sat down hard upon it.

You now had an anniversary.

And it was the day you’d first placed your life into a pirate alliance with a man who could destroy you all with only a flick of his fingers.

But this was him choosing to do otherwise.

This was him saying he did want more.

He wanted more of you.

Your navigator looked at you like you were a wild thing recently broken free from a cage as you’d come back onto the deck in a rush with that letter still clutched in your hand.

“How many nights until we could make it to Dressrosa?” You’d asked even if you were still smart enough to know the cost.

Your brain knew at least.

It was your heart that was now a whole other matter.

——————————

End.

Thank you for reading! 💘🦩💌

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reality-itself-but-magic · 1 day ago

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Lost in a land not your own, with your memories of the past torn and smudged like paper left out in a storm, you clung to whatever memories you could salvage. When you woke up, you had three things: A brittle, broken sword, a map with a destination circled, and a simple written apology. You were found in the temple of one of the newer gods, one of those which hadn’t quite learnt to control their powers. There were reports of them making storms in deserts, warping life by accident, all sorts of bizarre occurrences. Bizarre almost like taking a stranger from their home and dropping them somewhere else.

But gods did as gods were, and seething over the mistakes of a child would not do any good to you. You set out to get to the circled destination, determined to find your way back home. Home to where there would be people waiting for you - maybe even people who worried after you.

You set sail with a company of honest folk, merchants and farmers looking to sell their wares across the seas. You didn’t want to trouble any of them, taking up instead a quite corner, where it was just you and the rocking waves.

You took out the sword you had landed with. It was broken, brittle, bad craftsmanship. You couldn’t remember where you learnt to tell how well made a sword was. Running your hands over the dull edge, you startled as you heard a voice from behind you.

“That looks awfully worn.” A stranger commented. “Want me to fix that up for you?”

You took them up on the offer, once they told you they used to be a blacksmith. Crows feet lined their eyes, but warmth still shone in them. They told you much more, as you spent the whole evening with them while they worked, partially to keep an eye on the sword, and partially because you yearned for conversation, a sympathetic other. When they were done, they handed you the sword, no longer as marred and battle-worn, but still without many virtues to extoll. Your hands closed around the leather of the hilt, and with a flash you knew something with certainty. You had loved this blade, once. This was a blade you knew as kindly as yourself. The blacksmith might have seen some of that, because they left you be for the evening, departing with an address and a firm order to drop by if you were ever near.

By the time the voyage over sea had ended, your spirits had grown low, and the map had faded for him many times you had unrolled it, pored over it, imagined yourself home with it. The next leg of your journey, you went to meet a woman who led travelers on trips to the mountain villages, whom the blacksmith had recommended you speak to.

She was kind, a bit sharp while she bargained, but kind, inviting you to stay in her house for the night, as the trip on horseback began the next day. As you followed her along hallways with framed portraits, floors dotted with children’s toys, you felt a sort of yearning, a nostalgia for a place you’d never been. The warm, lived-in home she kept was painfully familiar to you, but terribly out of reach.

By the next day, when lunchtime rolled around, the unpolished nature of your sword was irritating you. You picked up a round enough stone, with an expert eye, and spent your spare time polishing the blade. You remember… something. There is a great weight to this sword.

By the time she guides you to the village, your memories are lacing together. Your recollections multiply, you know this path, this stone, this plant. You know this place where you learnt the trade of forging, this place which is your home.

You break into a dead sprint as your heart pounds in you ears. The guide is left behind but somehow, you don’t think she’ll mind. Up ahead, tending to the garden, is a beautiful woman half-wearing armor, interrogating someone nearby. As she sees you, her face lights up.

“So you are here! Everyone seems awfully worried about you, and I was gone far longer than I meant to be, the bounty hunters guild is being stingy as always-” She was cut off by you barreling into her, hugging her as if you could merge into her so you would never be separated again. You step back, drawing the sword.

“I believe this is yours?” You ask, memories almost all reformed. You remember her - your beautiful, amazing wife, for whom you had forged this sword with your two hands, who probably didn’t even know you were missing if she was just now able to return from her adventuring - and you swear you’ll never forget her again.

@otherwindow I made it unsad ^^

A Dark Souls-like game where the lore for a weapon gets less vague the more you upgrade it. Broken Blade: A brittle sword. You can’t seem to let it go. Unpolished Blade: A cherished weapon from ages past. Polished Blade: You remember something. Bride’s Blade: Your wife’s sword.

#Reality writes #writing #creative writing #second person pov #blacksmith and their adventurer wife

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gatorbites-imagines · 2 days ago

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Hello gatorbite, I really liked your imagines with Mark Grayson, could you do an imagine of Mark with a Male Reader who is a vampire?

Mark Grayson x vampire king male reader

Headcanons

Cooking my own headcanons for vampires, how else are they gonna go on cute dates on the beach as the sun goes down?? Ive been listening to abracadabra by Lady Gaga for days, its been keeping me sane.

Mark and the bad bitch he pulled by being a nerd. i had a lot of fun writing this, i would love to write more about these two, or more vampire reader,,,

You guys would first have met after he became a hero, sometime during season 2. Probably before he got Oliver but after his dad left the planet and Mark wanted to fix everything and started working with Cecil.

The GDA knew of your existence of course. You were the first ever vampire, created through horrible magic and rituals against your will. This meant you couldn’t die, even from the sun or a stake or silver.

Every other vampire someone would meet would come from you in some way. Or rather, they were bitten by someone who was bitten by someone, so on and so forth until it reached you, kinda like a disease. The further out you go, the wilder and more animalistic the vampires are.

The few vampires you have bitten and turned yourself are strong and can walk in sunlight, and have other otherworldly powers, but those they bite have weaker powers, etc etc. and all other vampires but you can die. As long as life and death exist, so will you.

How you guys meet can be a mixed bag, but the most plausible is that some rabid vampires have run wild somewhere, and Mark was sent to deal with them since his skin can’t be pierced by their fangs.

The vampires he encounters are naked, human-looking creatures with warped faces, a mouth full of sharp teeth, shark bat-like features and the like. The only thing human about them is their shape.

A nest of vampires has run wild, and as the so called “vampire king”, “vampire well” or even “first vampiric ancestor”, its your duty to take care of it when it gets out of hand.

At this point Mark isn’t at his strongest, so the nest of vampire spawn gain the upper hand. Even with super strength, its hard for Mark since he also doesn’t want to kill at this point, and these technically were humans once.

So, imagine Marks shock, as he’s being overpowered by hundreds of these creatures that are more instinct than sense, when these creatures are sliced in half and turn into dust.

As the vampire king you can teleport all over the planet, you could probably even warp other planets if you focused hard enough. You might have done that once or twice, leading to vampirism spreading to different parts of the universe… but nobody has to know that…

What you wear can be up for debate, do you wear something from the time you died? Something Victorian? Or modern? I can’t imagine you are too involved with the current fashion since time passes so fast for you, so maybe it’s a bit out of fashion. You still look great though.

Maybe it’s having been beaten so hard by the now dead spawn, or maybe it’s just your vampiric influence, but Mark finds himself blushing and breathing a little harder.

The first time you meet doesn’t lead to much other than you taking care of the spawn, apologizing to Mark for causing such a mess and telling him you will take more care of your offspring. Mark just kinda goes “yeah, okay, thanks man…” before passing out.

You end up teleporting mark back to the GDA, or wherever hes being brought, like to the new guardians or whatever. Because obviously none of their protection measures can keep you out. It’s only weaker vampires that need an invitation inside.

They are all pretty damn uncomfortable when you comment about how nice Marks blood smells, because being thousands of years old also means you don’t have any shame in stating the obvious.

You say hello to Immortal before leaving. Of course, you guys know each other, both being immortal and all that. You guys play cards at least once every ten years or so, sometimes more, sometimes less.

This is also why Immortal is the most chill about you showing up, coming and going as you please, and saying Mark smells delicious. You once said he smelled delicious too when you first met, the stronger the person the better their blood and all. Now you guys are friends though, in a way.

After that you guys meet every now and then, mainly because you take his interest and Immortals friendship as an invite to come and go as you please, like a big scary housecat dressed in black.

You also follow him around (stalk him pretty much), and maybe it’s just him secretly loving steamy vampire fanfiction, or some viltrumite instinct, but being hunted is exciting.

You guys finally starting to date would also happen at some random moment when you guys are alone. You would have known about Marks attraction from the very moment you met, but your cold unbeating heart had started warming up around him too.

All his rambling about heroes and fictional stories worked like a charm. The many many questions about vampires and pop culture was cute too. He couldn’t believe that the whole weak to garlic thing started as an inside joke amongst vampires and spread out, when it wasn’t even true.

Mark was positively shocked when the whole pop culture idea that being bitten felt good turned out to be true. Later you would explain it was all about intent and reception. If you wanted it to hurt and he feared you, then it would have hurt. But because he was a little freak who was really into it, then it brought pleasure.

Mark also never thought you would be able to bite through his skin, but you could. Only because of your whole, king of the vampires, first original vampire, deal. Any other vampire wouldn’t be able to bite through vultrumite skin.

Being able to rip through vultrumites will be useful later, and not needing to breathe and being able to fly as well. But that’s for later space adventures.

When the whole thing with Oliver happens, you are of course there to support Mark, but also his family. Cecil also knows not to fuck with you, because its all thanks to you that the dead don’t rise and come for him every single day.

This may mean it doesn’t end as badly as in season 3, or, Mark just has some more support, very powerful support that the GDA knows to fear. Because how is Cecil gonna manipulate the original manipulator? The one strong enough to bewitch the entire planet if he wanted to?

You also have a better time explaining morals and powers to Oliver, since you are still stronger than him at this point, so you can put him in his place when he needs it. Being nonhuman also helps a lot, since Oliver feels his power disconnects him from humanity.

This gives Mark some more room to find himself and settle, and yeah, I feel like him and his family end up moving into wherever you stay. Be it some massive gothic castle in Romania, or a Victorian mansion at the edge of a massive cliff in England, who knows.

Both because its safer, more comfortable, and they get to feel like they don’t always have to look over their shoulder.

You don’t survive the coffin allegations though, since you sleep in a grand one, and have at least 100 different coffins you switch between. Most were gifts from your spawn, or one or two from immortal as “congrats on living another hundred” gift. You gifted him weapons or houses in return.

Mark can’t sleep in the coffins with you, since he hates how claustrophobic it makes him. But he will sleep beside the coffin. You guys keep the lid pushed to the side enough for you to stick a hand out, so you guys can hold hands.

I feel like Oliver would thrive a lot under you and your spawns, since you keep your “children” in line. Being direct descendants of you means they are powerful enough to play and roughhouse with, but also help him train.

Mark trains with you instead, and it regularly ends up with him almost giggling and kicking his feet as you pin him down, barring his neck all “oh please, vampire king, please don’t bite me”.

It takes Debbie a while to settle in, but maybe she meets one of your spawn to gets on with well, or she doesn’t at all. Maybe she just takes the time to heal and find herself when she sees her sons are happy.

You end up getting the shovel talk from her though, which all your direct descendants peek around the corner of the doorway to watch. Somehow you look meek as she points a finger at you and tell you to treat her son right and with respect.

I haven’t read very far in the comics so I cant tell you what happens after this, but Mark will have you by his side when everything goes down, and that might help change it to a more positive outcome.

It might help to have a lover who isn’t held back by his humanity and morals. You are more than willing to turn entire planets into your mindless spawn if it means keeping your dear ones safe. It does lead to a horrible argument and Mark not talking to you for a while, but he forgives you at some point.

Reading his secret fanfic does help with that, even if it means you have to dress like a man from the current era, style your hair and stalk him when he sleeps (as if you don’t already do that).

Being a super ancient and rich vampire also means you can pile gifts on Mark, Oliver and Debbie. Mostly Mark, but you don’t want his kin to be left out. So, Mark gets to live out his nerdy dreams to the extreme.

You’ll remodel a whole part of your house for him if it comes down to it. Your direct spawn will coo at you becoming soft. You let them, for now, but you’ll get your revenge, especially seeing them all tied around the Grayson’s fingers too.

You are so used to dealing with the GDA that it also isn’t hard to keep them at bay, how are they gonna invade a place that’s existed longer than democracy? You will burn the whole place down if you have too. Anything for your nerdy little hero.

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extinctlesspains · 2 days ago

Note

Hey! I am not sure if you have watched the new Cobra Kai episodes yet but if you haven’t then please don’t read my request until you can or have because I don’t want to spoil it.

Would you be willing to write a Yandere!Axel one shot with a Keene!Reader or a Diaz!Reader? Maybe Robby’s younger sister after he breaks Robby’s leg (Keene! Reader) or seeing how he treats Miguel (Diaz!Reader)??

If you don’t want to write it then please ignore/ delete my request!! Hope you have a great rest of your day.

A/n: Hi! I absolutely love this request I think it's so creative and I would love to make it... Here you go and hope you enjoy!! ♡

𝐼𝑡'𝑠 𝐿𝑜𝑣𝑒.... 𝑅𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡? [𝐴. 𝐾𝑜𝑣𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑐]

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

ʀᴇǫᴜᴇsᴛᴇᴅ: ʏᴇs

ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: ʏᴀɴᴅᴇʀᴇ! ᴀxᴇʟ ᴋᴏᴠᴀᴄᴇᴠɪᴄ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

ɢᴇɴʀᴇ: ᴅᴀʀᴋ ʀᴏᴍᴀɴᴄᴇ!

sᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: ᴀxᴇʟ ᴄᴏɴғᴜsᴇs ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴋɪɴᴅɴᴇss ғᴏʀ ʟᴏᴠᴇ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴡʜᴇɴ ʏᴏᴜ ʀᴇᴊᴇᴄᴛ ʜɪᴍ, ʜᴇ ᴛᴀᴋᴇs ᴏᴜᴛ ʜɪs ʀᴀɢᴇ ᴏɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʙʀᴏᴛʜᴇʀ, ʀᴏʙʙʏ, ʙʏ ʙʀᴜᴛᴀʟʟʏ ʙʀᴇᴀᴋɪɴɢ ʜɪs ʟᴇɢ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ғɪɴᴀʟ ᴍᴀᴛᴄʜ. ᴡʜᴇɴ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴏɴғʀᴏɴᴛ ʜɪᴍ, ʜᴇ ʀᴇᴠᴇᴀʟs ʜɪs ᴏʙsᴇssɪᴠᴇ ᴅᴇʟᴜsɪᴏɴ—ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ʙᴇʟᴏɴɢ ᴛᴏ ʜɪᴍ—ᴀɴᴅ ᴍᴀᴋᴇs ɪᴛ ᴄʟᴇᴀʀ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʜᴇ ᴡᴏɴ’ᴛ ʟᴇᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ɢᴏ.

⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

Axel never thought much about you—at first. You were just another fighter’s sibling, another face in the crowd. But then, you smiled at him. Not out of fear or admiration—just casual, friendly kindness.

It was nothing to you.

But to Axel?

It was everything.

That one smile planted a seed in his mind, something that grew every time you looked his way, every time your voice carried across the dojo, every time you asked, Hey, Axel, you good? after a match.

You noticed him.

You cared about him.

And in his mind, that meant one thing—you were his.

You just didn’t know it yet.

At first, Axel kept his distance. Just observing. Watching the way you laughed with the others, how you always checked in after a brutal sparring session. Unlike everyone else, you didn’t look at him with fear or wariness—you just treated him like a person.

Then he started seeking you out.

"Didn’t think you cared about my fights," he teased one afternoon, leaning against the wall as you wrapped up a conversation with Sam.

You gave him a playful look. "Why wouldn’t I? You’re good, Axel. I mean, kinda scary in the ring, but still good."

Scary?

No, no—he wasn’t scary. He was strong. And you liked strong, didn’t you?

He smirked, tilting his head. "If you think I’m scary, why do you keep talking to me?"

You laughed. "Because I know you’re not just some ruthless fighter like everyone says. You’re more than that."

Those words replayed in his head for days.

You saw him.

You understood him.

That had to mean something.

So he made sure you spent more time together. Slipping into your conversations, walking you to your car after practice, stepping between you and anyone who got too close. It was subtle, at first. Just making sure people knew you weren’t available—not to them, at least.

But then, something changed.

He should have known something was wrong when you started pulling away. It was in the little things—how you hesitated before responding to him, how your laughs didn’t come as easily, how your body tensed whenever he got too close.

And then, he overheard you talking to Sam.

“I think he likes me,” you admitted, voice low with uncertainty. “But… I don’t. Not like that.”

Silence.

His world stopped.

Not like that?

Not like that?!

Axel’s fingers twitched as he clenched his fists, trying to understand. You were lying. That had to be it. Maybe Sam had gotten in your head, or maybe Robby had poisoned your view of him. But it didn’t matter—he would fix this. You loved him, you had to!

You just needed to see things clearly.

You needed to see that you belonged to him.

And if words wouldn’t convince you…

Maybe actions would. And he did exactly that... But, to make it hurt, it had to be someone who you loved.

Axel fought like a man possessed. Every match, every opponent—none of it mattered. Not until he was standing in the final round, staring across the mat at the one obstacle between him and you.

Robby Keene.

Your brother.

It was perfect.

It was someone you loved, and he poisoned your sweet, sweet, soul... He was in the way of your love.

Axel could feel your eyes on him, could picture your worried expression, the way you probably pleaded in your mind for him to fight fair. But why should he? Why should Robby get to be fine when Axel was being torn apart inside?

If he couldn’t take it out on you, then Robby would suffer instead.

The match started, and Axel wasted no time. His strikes were brutal, calculated, each one forcing Robby onto the defensive. Robby was strong, but Axel was relentless.

A kick to the ribs. A strike to the jaw. And then—

A vicious sweep, followed by a perfectly timed sidekick.

CRACK.

Robby’s leg bent at an unnatural angle as he hit the mat with a strangled yell.

The crowd gasped. The referee blew the whistle. And you—

You screamed.

"Robby!!"

Axel stood over Robby’s writhing form, breath coming fast, heart pounding—not from exertion, but from victory.

He turned, searching for you.

And when he met your gaze—wide, horrified, betrayed—he finally felt something.

Satisfaction.

But it wasn't enough.

You found him after the match, pushing past the crowd with fury burning in your eyes.

"Axel!" Your voice was sharp, cutting through the noise like a blade.

He turned slowly, his smirk already in place. "Hey, princess."

"Don’t you dare," you snapped, shoving him hard in the chest. He barely moved. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

His smirk didn’t falter. If anything, it grew. "That’s a lot of yelling for someone who should be thanking me."

Your face twisted in disgust. "You broke his leg, Axel! That wasn’t an accident!"

"And?" He tilted his head, watching as your hands curled into fists. "You rejected me."

You sucked in a sharp breath. "What?" How could he have possibly known that you didn't return his feelings?

Axel stepped closer, eyes dark with something unreadable. "You think I didn’t notice? The way you started avoiding me? The way you laughed with other guys but not me? You led me on, and then you threw me away like I was nothing."

Your voice shook. "Axel, I was just being friendly. That’s not the same as—"

"Yes, it is," he cut you off, voice dropping to something dangerously low. "You smiled at me. You cared about me. You don’t get to take that back." You gulped nervously.

Your breath hitched. For the first time, real fear flickered in your eyes.

Good.

Maybe now you’d finally understand.

Axel reached out suddenly, grabbing your wrist. You gasped, trying to yank away, but his grip tightened—gentle enough not to hurt, but firm enough to keep you in place.

"You belong to me, Y/N," he murmured, gaze locking onto yours. "No one else. Not your brother. Not anyone. Me." Panic arose inside of you. The location didn't do you any good either—it was an isolated hallway towards the back of the venue.

You shook your head, eyes shining with something dangerously close to tears. "Let me go, Axel." You could feel tears threatening to leave.

He smiled.

But it wasn’t right.

It wasn’t normal.

It was twisted, wrong, filled with something dark and possessive.

"You don’t get it, do you?" he whispered, thumb brushing against your pulse. It was racing. "I did this for you. For us."

Breaking your brothers leg... For you?

Your stomach twisted. "There is no us, Axel."

His expression flickered—just for a second. A crack in the mask.

Then, slowly, his smile returned.

"Not yet."

And with that, he let you go.

You stumbled back, heart hammering, hands shaking. You should have run. Should have screamed. Should have done something.

But all you could do was stare at the boy who had shattered your world with a twisted kind of devotion.

And the worst part?

You knew this wasn’t over.

Not by a long shot.

He stepped forward, his hand brushing against you cheek as he leaned in to leave a soft kiss.

"Bye bye, love.." He whispered before stepping into the dark hallway.

#cobra kai #cobra kai x reader #karate kid #karatekidxreader #robby keene #axel kovacevic x reader #axel cobra kai #axel kovacevic #axel #yandere cobra kai #yandere #yandere cobra kai x reader #yandere community #yandere axel kovacevic #yandere axel kovacevic x reader #ckxreader #ck

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babsworlds · 2 days ago

Text

NO SURPRISE.

pairing. Sergei Kravinoff x fem! reader

synopsis. the morning after sleepover with your bsf took really unexpected turn.

warning. age gap (reader is like 20, Sergei is in his early 30s), make out, can be part two of Weird, Older & Attractive but can be read as a standalone, inspired by song Cola by Lana Del Rey.

YOU HAD A THING FOR YOUR BEST FRIEND'S BROTHER, Sergei, even though you knew he was off-limits.

Since then, you found yourself practically living in Dmitri’s house. There were two main reasons for that: you loved spending time with your best friend, Dmitri, and you also loved seeing his brother.

Sergei had a way of capturing your attention whenever he was around. His charming smile and confident demeanor made it hard to resist sneaking glances at him. Despite knowing that he was off-limits, you couldn't help but feel something towards him.

The more time you spent at Dmitri’s house, the more opportunities you had to see Sergei. Each encounter, no matter how brief, added fuel to the fire of your hidden feelings. Whether it was catching a glimpse of him in passing or sharing a casual conversation, every interaction left you wanting more.

It was a late summer morning, one you had been eagerly waiting for. The sunlight filtered through the curtains, casting a warm glow across the room as you classically woke up in Dmitri’s bed. You stretched out your hand, reaching for your best friend, but to your surprise, he wasn’t there.

“Dima?” you called out with a groggy voice, your eyes still heavy with sleep. Realizing he wasn’t there, you rubbed your eyes and looked around the room, feeling a bit confused. The familiar surroundings brought a sense of comfort, but Dmitri's absence left you wondering where he could be.

Despite your confusion, you managed to get out of bed, feeling the cool floor against your feet. You were wearing a pair of short shorts and a tank top, perfect for the warm summer day ahead. As you glanced at yourself in the mirror, you tried to shake off the lingering sleepiness.

The mansion was quiet, with only the sound of the wooden stairs creaking under your feet as you descended. The morning sun streamed through the windows, blending with the delicious aroma of breakfast wafting through the air.

You made your way to the kitchen, hoping to find Dmitri there. But as you entered, your eyes widened in surprise. Instead of Dmitri, you spotted Sergei.

He stood by the counter, a casual yet confident presence. His back was turned to you as he prepared breakfast, and you couldn't help but watch him for a moment. The way he moved, the ease with which he handled everything—it was captivating.

“Good morning, принцесса (princess),” he greeted you with a charming smile. Your eyes were involuntarily drawn to his abs, visible beneath the snug compression shirt. You tried to remind yourself that he was way older than you and firmly off-limits.

“Good morning,” you replied, returning his smile. “Where’s Dima?” you asked, still curious about your best friend's whereabouts.

“I sent him to the grocery store for some stuff,” Sergei shrugged casually, his relaxed demeanor making you smile.

“You want me to help?” you offered with a smirk, stepping closer.

“You would be kind,” Sergei smiled, stepping aside to make room for you. You took his place by the stove, feeling the warmth of his presence lingering nearby. As you started to stir the mixture, you could feel his eyes fixed on you, watching your every move.

Despite the flutter of nerves in your stomach, you focused on the task at hand, trying to ignore the way your heart raced. The kitchen was filled with the delicious aroma of breakfast, mingling with the quiet tension that hung in the air.

“You are actually pretty good,” Sergei said, leaning against the counter with his muscular arms crossed. His compliment made your heart flutter, but you tried to stay focused on the task at hand.

“Let me just,” he continued, stepping right behind you. The proximity made your breath catch, and you could feel the warmth of his body against yours. He placed his large palm over yours on the pan handle, guiding your movements with a gentle touch.

The sensation of his hand on yours sent a shiver down your spine. His presence was both comforting and exhilarating, making it hard to concentrate on anything else. “Just like that,” he said softly, his voice close to your ear.

You turned your face to him, your lips just inches away, your eyes locked. “What if I just…” you began, your voice barely a whisper. His blue eyes never left yours, drawing you in with their intensity. “Kiss you?” you said softly, the words hanging in the air between you.

His warm breath mingled with yours, creating an electrifying tension. Gently, he reached out and tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear, his touch sending shivers down your spine. “I fear you are too young,” he said, his voice soft but serious.

The reality of the situation hit you like a wave. You knew there were boundaries, lines that shouldn’t be crossed, but the feelings you had for Sergei were undeniable. You could see the conflict in his eyes, the way he wrestled with his own emotions.

He wanted to kiss you so badly—you could feel it in the way his eyes lingered on your lips. Deciding to press on a bit, you looked at him with the most innocent eyes and said, “So?” Your voice was soft, almost teasing. “I got a sweet taste for men who are older.”

“That’s no surprise, love,” he said, his voice low and filled with unspoken desire. The words hung in the air between you, heavy with meaning. Was it wrong? Was it right? It didn’t matter. In that moment, to him and especially to you, it felt right.

Sergei’s gaze intensified, the conflict in his eyes evident. His breath caught for a moment, and you could see him wrestling with his emotions. “You’re making this really hard for me, you know that?” he said, his voice a mix of longing and restraint.

You stepped a little closer, closing the distance between you. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be so hard,” you whispered, your eyes locked onto his.

Sergei remained silent, clearly battling his own inner turmoil. You could see the struggle in his eyes, the way he wrestled with his desires and the reality of the situation.

Impatience and longing bubbled to the surface, and you couldn't hold back any longer. “Will you just stare like a stupid or finally kiss me?” you challenged, your voice soft but demanding, your hands traveling on his chest.

In that moment, Sergei finally didn’t hesitate for even a second. His lips met yours hungrily, the kiss filled with a passion that had been building up for so long. He wrapped his strong arm around your waist, lifting you effortlessly and seating you on the counter.

The kiss deepened, full of raw emotion and desire. His hands held you firmly, as if he never wanted to let go. The warmth of his body pressed against yours, making you feel more alive than ever. It was a moment of pure connection, where nothing else seemed to matter.

You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him closer, losing yourself in the intensity of the kiss. The world around you faded away, leaving just the two of you in that perfect, stolen moment.

“я тебя люблю (I love you),” he groaned between the heated kisses, his words filled with raw emotion and urgency. The intensity of his confession made your heart race even faster, the connection between you deepening with every touch.

You responded with equal fervor, your hands tangling in his hair as you pulled him closer. The world around you disappeared, leaving only the two of you in that heated, passionate moment. Sergei's grip on you tightened, his kisses growing more fervent as he poured all his emotions into that single, powerful declaration.

You could hear someone unlocking the door. “Dima is here, I think,” you whispered, a hint of panic in your voice.

You felt Sergei rolling his eyes before letting go of you. Quickly, you hopped off the counter, hastily fixing your messy hair.

“Hey,” Dmitri appeared around the corner, “What did I miss?” he asked, looking curious.

You choked on your breath for a moment, trying to compose yourself. “Uh, nothing,” you managed to say, rubbing your hand nervously. “Breakfast is ready.”

Dmitri eyed you both suspiciously for a second, then his expression softened as he walked further into the kitchen. “Great! I’m starving,” he said, placing the grocery bags on the counter.

Sergei shot you a reassuring smile, giving you a silent nod as if to say everything was okay. You took a deep breath, grateful for the normalcy Dmitri’s presence brought back into the room.

#aaron taylor johnson #atj #atj x reader #fem reader #ynstories #reader insert #x yn #aaron taylor johnson x reader #sergei kravinoff x you #sergei kravinoff x reader #sergei kravinoff #kraven movie #kraven x you #kraven x reader #dmitri kravinoff #fred hechinger

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thedoodlebuggo · 2 days ago

Text

john doe design progression throughout the season! design choice explanations/rambling below the cut

okok so. it was time for a redesign because after S5 i just couldn't really see the big hat working, not after his projection scene with the witch. it just wouldnt have the same effect if he looked like this jhsagdf

so! a redesign was in order, and i wanted it to change with his character so. here it is. woo!

SEASON ONE -i love the broken mask thing a lot of people use in their designs, and i wanted to use it for season one to play into the "unknown" elements of john's character

-that's also what the more smokey elements play into as well. his form isn't wholly defined, like his character--especially in season one.

-HIS CLOAK! a little worse for wear and covered in ash, courtesy of his time in the dark world. i also wanted it to be darkened and messed up because i didnt want it to be immediately obvious that the original fabric was yellow. one, cause the dark world erased his memories and identity, and two! because i didnt want him to be able to look down and see yellow fabric, what with his not knowing around all the references to KIY in season one. like this

SEASON TWO

-new cloak! after discovering who he is and his brief reunion with KIY, he gets a new cloak. but he's changed now, so--patches! i wanted it to feel handmade sorta because these changes, he worked for himself. he had help and influence, of course, but the humanity he's slowly gaining is his.

-also the mask is gone! we know what he is now

-he's also got some definition now, some lines in the face. os now he's loooking a little more humanoid, but still has a ways to go

SEASON THREE

-mostly the same as S2, but the colors have shifted more to gold than yellow. he's off; he won't fit back with the king. he's changed! woo!

-a bit of damage from the dark world, but nothing too crazy

-getting some more definition too! he's learning a bit more about who he is and who he wants to be through the choices he makes.

SEASON FOUR

-he's got a nose!! and his claws are shorter! woah! just more human development

-also getting some more patches. covering up fixing some of the damage from the S3 DW trip

SEASON FIVE

-claws are gone and he's got developed human features! wahoo

-more structural design change in the cloak. its kinda hard to see here so. better image for reference

-it's also almost entirely patchwork now. he's built his identity brick by brick and his cloak is meant to reflect that.

-still smokey because he's still got room to grow and also i thought changing it to hair would be too sudden of a change but i dont want him to be bald either so

-also smoke is just cool

-lily patch! i feel like this one is kinda self explanatory. i wanted to move the placement so i could put a patch representative of arthur in its place, but i couldnt think of anything that would look cohesive w the rest of it so. keeping the lily where it is! over his heart. :]

-also in his S5 design i think he wouldn't wear his hood up as much cause. well he knows who he is now, he isn't going to hide that. and there's not really much unknown left about him anymore, so

#malevolent #malevolent podcast #malevolent fanart #john doe #john doe malevolent #john malevolent

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aciddrattboyy · 1 day ago

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Wԋҽɳ Yσυ Mҽʂʂ Wιƚԋ Lσʋҽ

┆ꜱʏɴᴏᴘꜱɪꜱ - "your boyfriend arrives late for your study date and things(sex) happen"

ᴍᴏᴠɪᴇ ꜱᴛᴀᴛꜱ: ★ Starring: Mark Grayson x F! Reader ★ Run Time: 3.9k ★ Genre/Warnings: [Rated R: Drama/Rom/Adult Film] smut, both reader and mark lose their virginities, fingering(f!receiving), vanilla sex tbh, there will be eventual angst, set in au where they are in college before... (gulp) chicago incident, two part story ★ soundtrack: karma police, basta ya ★ pls pls pls any invincible fans HIT MY LINE i have no friends in this fandom and i desperately need them ★ 01 . 02 .

⋆｡°✩

noon. you invited mark over to your dorm at noon. it was three o’clock now, with no text messages or calls from your boyfriend; even after he assured you he’d be there about four hours earlier. mark had been… distant. constantly ditching you, not even showing up to dates or hangouts, or asking for rain checks if he had the decency to do even that. today was supposed to be a typical study date, with exams coming up you thought it would be nice. because even though mark left you hanging seemingly more often than not, the time he was there was, well, amazing. when he did manage to find the time for you he treated you like you were the best thing that ever happened to him, acted as the perfect, doting boyfriend. whether it was picking up your favorite food without asking or buying you a plushie of your favorite animal you didn't even remember telling him about, mark was loving.

but as the minutes ticked by, your phone continued being pathetically dry, and your dorm mark-less, you were starting to think maybe the good no longer outweighed the bad. with a sigh, you push back in your desk chair, slumping in the seat as you tipped your head back. you glanced over at your phone sitting atop a pile of books, almost mocking you with the lack of notifications, and thought about texting mark. again. dragging a hand down your face, you began to spin slowly in your chair, watching the room swirl by out of boredom.

as you spun lazily, you could see your door slowly opening. and then there was mark, peeking his face through the crack, sporting that same guilty expression you were starting to think you saw more than him smiling. you plant your feet on the ground, coming to a halt as you looked at him with narrowed eyes and a frown.

“if your excuse is you had to help your dad with work, lost track of time, or ‘had something to take care of’, save your breath,” you turn back to your desk, staring at the open textbook with your jaw clenched and brows pinched together. mark grimaced at your words, his hand twitching hesitantly on the doorknob, not sure if he should even come inside.

“alright no excuses,” he murmured softly, scratching at his nape as he stared at your back. sheepishly, he held up a plastic bag, the contents inside rustling softly. “but… how about an apology? starting with some food from that place you said you wanted to try?” mark’s voice had a hopeful lilt to it, although he knew he couldn’t keep fixing everything with food. he was entirely sure he’s been fixing anything at all, like a bandaid on a broken bone. but he also couldn’t exactly say: “sorry for being late to our study date. i promise i wanted to be here but my alien space dad made me go train with him since i just got super cool powers.” it wouldn't be a secret identity if he started telling people. and unfortunately, people included you, no matter how much he didn’t want it to be this way.

your glare aimed at your text book softened at his words, once again he had gone out of his way for you. acting as if he cared for you even as he was constantly blowing you off. a few quiet moments of you contemplating what to do pass by before you speak, turning in your chair slightly to look at him.

“i guess that’s not a completely bad start.” marks face immediately lit up like an excited puppy as you spoke. it wasn’t a hard get the fuck out of my room and that was as good of a start as any when trying to make up for his major fuck ups. without missing a beat, he steps inside, closing the door behind him before toeing off his shoes, dropping his backpack near the foot of your bed and making his way over to you.

“i uh got you a little bit of everything- well not everything everything but y’know a reasonable amount of-”

“thank you mark,” you cut him off quietly, not entirely sure how mad at him you still were. you take the bag from him, not able to meet his eyes as you set the bag down on your now limited desk space. mark stood somewhere to the side behind you, shoving his hands in his pockets as he rocked back on his heels.

“yeah, yeah no problem,” his voice cracked slightly and he winced at his own tone, feeling helpless and not at all sure how to really fix this without coming clean about his secret identity; something he could not do. the silence seems to drag on as you looked through the different containers. his eyes trailed over your desk and a fresh wave of guilt washed over him when he the notes scribbled into a notebook. “you.. um you got a lot of work done,” mark said awkwardly, grasping at straws to try to fix what he was rapidly breaking between you two.

“yeah well it would’ve been easier if you had been here to help.” both of you freeze at your words that came out just a bit more harsh than you intended. mark frowned, not sure what to say. he reached out a hand, hovering it over your shoulder as he slowly opened his mouth. but you sighed before he can get anything out, running a hand through your hair before you turn in your chair to face with a faint frown of your own. “look, i’m sorry for talking to you like that. let’s just eat yeah? i’ve done enough studying for the both of us” you offer mark a small smile, one that he returns hesitantly. he takes a step back when you get up from your chair, grabbing the bed and heading over to your bed.

“yeah that… sounds good.” mark nods, following you over to the bed. he sits next to you, mirroring your cross legged posture with his back leaning against the wall. he slowly scoots closer as you pull out the various containers until your knees are touching. you didn’t acknowledge it, but you didn't pull away and that was as good of a win as any. his eyes light up with an idea before leaning over the edge of the bed to grab his laptop. “thought we could watch something while we ate.” he offers softly, already turning on youtube and putting on the type of videos he remembered you telling him you watched sometime in the past. you nod at him softly, your smile growing both in size and genuineness just a bit.

“good thinking,” you respond softly, the anger already subsiding just from being with him. mark had a way of making you feel good, even if it wasn't for long, even if he upset you more often than you’d really like. you knew deep down he was still a good guy, and you desperately wanted to see him be better. wanted to see him start living up to his apologies.

the two of you eat in a somewhat comfortable silence, interrupted by laughs or brief commentary on what you were watching. and everything starts to feel normal again. for you, but also for mark. for just right now he wasn’t Invincible. he was mark grayson, a freshman in college with the more amazing girlfriend by his side. it felt nice to feel normal again, even if he had been waiting his whole life to get powers, to be just like his dad. you find yourself curled up against mark’s side, watching random videos with your head on his shoulder and his arm wrapped loosely around your waist. the sun was starting to set, the fading sunlight casting shadows and warm orange light through the blinds.

when you tilt your head to look up at mark, he meets your gaze. his lips slowly pull into a goofy smile that makes you huff with amusement.

“why’re you looking at me like that?” you murmur playfully while tracing idle shapes over the fabric covering his chest. he pulls you closer, the movement almost imperceptible as his expression turns warm.

“you’re just so pretty,” mark answered just as softly, getting lost in your eyes with a stupid smile. only a second passes before he realizes what he’s said; his eyes widen, face flushing red as he sputters out apologies while trying to pull away. “oh shit that was so stupid- fuck im sorr-” before mark could run away and hide, you grab his face and pull him into a kiss. he lets out a muffled noise of surprise, eyes wide before his brain catches up to what was happening. then he’s humming softly instead, hands finding your waist as he kissed you back gently. “wha… what was that for?” he whispered breathlessly when you pulled away, your faces only inches apart.

“am i not allowed to kiss my boyfriend?” you ask teasingly, smile only growing as your swipe your thumbs over his cheeks.

“no- i mean yes- uh yeah you can kiss me,” he lets out an almost self deprecating laugh, hands squeezing your waist gently. “i’m fucking this up aren’t i?” you pull him into another kiss, languidly moving your lips against his.

“i think you’re doing just fine,” your fingers tangle in mark’s hair, deepening the kiss, starting it off slow, gentle, but one thing led to another and soon enough you’re pulling him closer as you fall back against the sheets. mark follows you willingly, hovering over you with his hands on either side of your head. one of mark’s legs slot in between yours, involuntarily pressing his knee against the apex of your thighs. you gasp softly against his lips, grip tightening in his hair. when you roll your hips, a shudder runs through both you and mark when he realized what you were doing. the revelation only served to send blood straight to his already semi-hard dick.

the kissing grows frenzied, the air between you heavy with harsh panting and even messier kissing. your laptop had been precariously moved out of the way and onto the corner of your desk. both of your shirts? thrown god knows where. was this all happening just a bit too fast? maybe… probably… definitely. but slowing down seemed to be the last thing on your mind along with mark’s. who was now practically buzzing with nervous excitement and lust. he’d kissed you before, many times actually. but never like this. never half clothed and making out with you as if you were trying to eat each other’s faces off while you ground your hips against his knee.

shifting slightly, mark props himself up on his elbow, body pressing more firmly on top of yours. he smooths his free hand up your waist, hesitantly thumbing over the hem of your bra as he waited for some sort of signal to stop. but none came, in fact, he could feel your back slightly arch into his touch. he let out a low groan, muffled by your lips, the obvious tent in his sweats pressed snuggly against your thigh. for a brief moment he thought maybe he should be embarrassed. but how could he when you seemed to just as affected. and somehow a lot more confident… with a gasp, and much reluctance, mark pulls his mouth off of yours, panting heavily against your lips.

“have you uh… y’know… before?” his voice was barely a whisper, face feeling hot and eyes slightly widened as he looked down at you.

“no…” you start, your voice equally as quiet as you prop yourself up on your elbows. “is it that obvious?” your brows twitched, just barely pinching together with a hint of worry and newfound self consciousness.

“no- no no!” mark quickly squeaks out, shaking his head with wide eyes. “i just- you seem so- so…” he trails off, not entirely sure what to say anymore.

“we don’t have to keep going if you don’t want to. do you want to stop?” your voice was soft, a small smile on your face in hopes of making sure mark knew his comfort was important above all. but it only served to make mark feel more… feel more of whatever was making his stomach flip and his cock twitch against your thigh in a way that was getting harder to ignore. he swallowed the lump in his throat when thought about what ‘keep going’ would actually entail.

“um… no. not really,” he murmured softly, a sheepish smile on his face. he feels his face heat up all over again at the admission. but before he can doubt himself, you’re smiling at him. and then you were kissing him, and it was like you had never even stopped at all.

the kissing quickly grows heated, hands fumbling to rip each others pants off through breathless giggles and sloppy kisses until mark was seated between your open legs; both of you in nothing but your underwear and your bra long gone. mark smoothed his hands over your inner thighs, chest still somewhat heaving from the rather heavy makeout session just moments ago. he swallowed thickly, thumbs tracing over the lacy edges of your panties. his head snaps up when he hears a small noise leave your lips. the kind of noise that has his body going hot all over again.

“can i…?” mark wasn’t sure what he was exactly asking permission for. but the way you were looking up at him made him pray to any existing god that he was granted the sexual prowess of a veteran pornstar just for tonight. upon seeing you nod your head, he sucks in a deep breath, feeling both a wave of arousal and anxiousness. with shaky hands, he hooks his fingers under the waistband of your underwear and slowly pulls them off of you. looking at your naked body, mark was afraid he’d bust right then and there. but then your voice, soft and playful, cut through his thoughts currently being led by his dick.

“c’mere,” you reach out, tugging on his hand and pulling him closer until he was hovering over you again. the backs of your thighs resting atop of his, the bulge in his boxers not too far from your pussy. you could tell he was a little nervous. and although you never got verbal confirmation, it was clear to see that mark was a virgin; somehow more a virgin than even you were. you card a hand in the hair at his nape, pulling him into a kiss that seemed to make mark relax just a bit. kissing was good. kissing was familiar territory. and after a small while, you placed your free hand on top of his hand not supporting his weight and slowly inch his palm downwards.

marks breath hitched in his throat, body temporarily going still. that is until he felt how fucking wet you were as you guided his middle and ring finger through your soaked folds. a guttural groan vibrates through his chest, only barely muffled by your tongue in his mouth.

you were panting against his lips now, soft mewls escaping you led his fingers to circle your clit. teaching him what you liked, how you wanted to be touched. and to mark’s credit, he was a very fast learner. soon enough he was moving on his own, your hand holding onto his wrist instead as he pumped two fingers inside of you. he ground his palm against your clit, making your hips buck into his hand as the pleasure just kept building.

“o-oh fuck-” you cry out when he hits that sensitive spot inside you, arms wrapping around his neck as you nuzzle your face against the sensitive skin just below his jaw. if it were not for the string of muffled moans leaving your lips, even mark was able to tell you were getting close almost embarrassingly fast by the way your thighs trembled against his and how your hips snapped up to meet each thrust of his fingers. “fuck- fuck ‘m gonna- hah-”

mark felt like he was almost there with you; he could feel the damp patch on his boxers growing as his dick continued to throb in it’s confines, leaking a lot of precum. his hips twitched involuntarily, searching for some sort of relief. but he would continue to push his own wants aside, breathing heavily through his nose as he peppered your collarbone with wet kisses and focused solely on making you cum. and that he did. biting back a moan of his own at the feeling of your walls clenching around his fingers, your whole body going taut under him as you held onto him tighter.

after a few moments filled with only heavy breathing, your body goes limp against the sheets as he pulls his fingers out with a soft squelch. there was a very satisfied smile on your face as you looked up at mark, who somehow looked more fucked out than you.

“you were… surprisingly good at that.”

“ha, thanks… hey, wait what do you mean surprisingly?” you giggle softly at the small pout on his lips, lifting your head just enough to press a kiss against his lips.

“don’t think about it too much,” you mumble as you pull back, trailing your hands down his sides until your palms met the waistband of his boxers. “uh there’s condoms in the drawer if you…” you trail off, eyes widening when you realized what you had just implicated. “i- i didn’t buy them they were uh- a gift from my roommate a while ago…” you look up at mark with narrowed eyes after seeing the way his lips were pursed, twitching with the force he had to use to keep himself from smiling. for now, mark would bite his tongue, not wanting to face your wrath when his dick was so hard it was starting to hurt.

“condoms. got it.” the words were strained under the weight of his stifled laughter, but before you could comment on it, he was already leaning over you. rummaging through your night stand, he was able to pull one out, settling between your legs with the gold foil in his hands. “but are you sure you want to do this?” there was a hint of vulnerability in his tone, sounding almost worried that you’d regret being with him, or you were for some reason only doing this out of pity. but then you were giving him that warm smile and nodding your head, and suddenly all doubt jumped out the window.

through more muted laughter and clumsy, inexperienced hands, the two of you manage to get the condom on without mark blowing his load then and there. placing his hands on your hips, he leans down to kiss your lips, rubbing soft circles on your skin with his thumbs. you hum into his lips, gently holding onto his biceps as you kiss him back just as passionately. but when mark reaches a hand between your bodies to line his tip with your hole, the energy shifts. less playful and more so intense, romantic. like the both of you realize what you were doing, and what it means for the relationship going forward.

“are you sure?” mark whispers against your lips, eyes fluttering open to gauge your reaction.

“yeah, yeah i am,” you breathe out, eyes shining with something that made mark’s stomach flip in an almost scarily good way. he nods, adams apple bobbing before he presses his lips against yours again. he snakes his free hand up the bed, intertwining his fingers with yours above your head as his hips slowly push forward. it takes a little while of patience and whispering sweet nothings to each other before the two of you are comfortable enough for mark to start moving, the whole situation intense for both of you in a way that was both exciting and a little nerve wracking.

“h-holy fuck-” mark’s voice comes out as a shaky pant, head hanging as he looked down at where your bodies met. his hand in your squeezes gently, the other holding onto your hip as he slowly rolls his hips; pulling out until only the tip was inside before slowly pushing back. “feel s’good,” he groans softly, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck as he continued to slowly fuck into your wet heat. his hand leaves your hips, entwining his with yours and pinning you to the mattress. you bite your lip, muffling the whimpers and moans spilling from your mouth. squeezing his hands tightly, you tilt your head when you feel mark starting to suck and nip at the skin of your neck

“y-you can- nngh- go faster,” your breathy words do not fall on deaf ears. mark’s whole body stills for just a second before slightly readjusts on top of you. the moment he quickens his pace, both of you are turning into moaning messes. kissing sloppily and exchanging spit as the cheap bedframe rocks slowly with mark’s movement. he lets go of one of your hands, reaching down to rub messy circles on your clit with the pad of his thumb.

it didn’t take long for mark to get close, hips already stuttering as he teetered on the edge as your cunt fluttered and clenched around him. he buries his face in the crook of your neck, muffling any and all embarrassing noises that leaves his lips. your hips buck up to meet his with each thrust, thighs shaking with your own impending orgasm. your nails rake down his back in a way that has mark groaning against your skin.

intense orgasms hit you both at the same time; mark’s thighs trembling right along yours as his hips jerkily buck his dick inside you until he spilled every last drop into the condom. collapsing on top of you, the room is silent save for heavy breaths and the smell of sex. after a few moments, mark presses a soft kiss to your jaw before slowly pulling out and flopping onto his back next to you with a content sigh after tossing the condom into the trash bin under your desk.

“that was…” mark turns on his side, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling your back flush against his warm chest. nuzzling his face against your hair. “was… amazing,” he murmured softly, voice full of bliss as he held you tight. you giggle softly, letting your body melt into his warm embrace. at some point, you both clean up; with shrugging on a shirt and underwear and mark slipping back into his sweatpants. cuddling up under your sheets, it was easy to fall asleep in his arms, perfectly content and feeling loved.

i hope you enjoyed !! reblogs/comments are very appreciated <3 ʟᴏʙʙʏ ﹕ꜰɪʟᴍᴏɢʀᴀᴘʜʏ 𝄃𝄃𝄂𝄀𝄁𝄃𝄂𝄂𝄃

#mark grayson #mark grayson x reader #mark grayson smut #mark grayson fluff #invincible #invincible fanfic #invincible x reader #mark grayson fanfic #f!reader #invincible smut #invincible fluff #mark grayson x you #invincible x you #fluff #smut #ac.drama #ac.adult film #ac.rom #ac.invincible

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narnian-neverlander · 3 days ago

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Would You Fall in Love with Me Again [Machine Herald Viktor x GN!Reader]

Preview: “You’re the one who decided he’d rather forget every moment, every laugh, every touch we shared like they all meant nothing! You’re the one who tore out his heart without a second thought and threw it away even though it was mine! And all the while you’re leaving me with the burden of it all! I’m the only person alive who still holds our time together dear to their heart now! Do you have any idea how heavy memories can be? How maddening?! And these—“ you bring your hands up between the two of you, all sleek, perfect metal, the spitting image of him. “You gave me these for all the world to see and left me with yet another reminder of you! Like I needed more of those to know that I am still and always will be irrevocably yours! And now you tell me that it wouldn’t matter if there’s any part of you, however small, that still thinks of yourself as mine?! Fuck you, Viktor!”

Genre: angst, hurt/comfort

Word Count: 10,7k

Warnings: slight body horror/modifications, suicidal thoughts, canon typical violence (injuries and blood, mentions of torture, mentions of character death, alluded murder)

This is part of a series of stand alone One-Shots that all feature the same reader, you can find the masterlist here :3

A/N: Does a broken rib from too much coughing count as the AO3 curse yet cause wow this took way longer than expected. Anyways, Epic x Arcane has been bouncing around my head since Season 2 came out, but this was inspired by this post from @le-fruit-de-la-passion cause I saw that and I’ve been internally screaming over it ever since 💁

Happy Valentine’s everybody 💞

Nothing had been the same since you woke up.

It’s to be expected, it had been almost two years after all.

Two years since the explosion. Two years since half the council had died. Two years since any attempt at peace between the two cities had been shattered. Two years that you had spent blissfully unaware of all of this; a coma keeping you trapped within the confines of a hospital bed and your own mind.

You’d expected pain after coming back to your senses; it was the last thing you remembered before the world had went dark. But you’d slept through most of your recovery. Through your wounds turning into scars. Through your muscles growing weak from disuse. Your hands were a different story, though. They didn’t so much hurt, only at times, as they were simply numb. Shattered bones and nerve damage had made them mostly useless and that was not something any amount of time would simply fix.

Not everything had completely changed, though, you’d found. You’d been awake for not more than an hour when Jayce had burst through the doors of your hospital room. And sure, he’d looked different: his hair longer, a beard, the white and gold that had always dominated his outfits replaced with black and silver, a brace on one of his legs and a cane at his side. But the relief in his hazel eyes when he’d found his friend conscious was familiar. The way his hug had felt. And how he’d completely avoided your gaze when you’d asked about your lover.

He’s gone. I’m so sorry, but… he’s gone.

He’d expected you to cry, scream, anything. But you hadn’t. You’d merely nodded, as numb as your broken hands, and had thanked him for coming to see you. Had told him to go back to his work, he must certainly be busy after all. And it had torn him apart, to see you, someone he’d always known as energetic and joyful, so tired, so apathetic. The very least for him to do had been to offer his help in any way he could, including finding a doctor that would fix your hands. He’d been more than reluctant to leave you, but you’d asked for some time alone to rest and he could hardly deny you that - it had still taken him a good ten minutes more to actually take his leave, with promises of a soon return and to simply send for him if you needed anything.

You’d settled back into the bed, fully intent on going back to sleep and pretending you’d be able to wake up in a different world, but the sun had caught on something metallic on your bedside table, hidden behind flowers and cards. You’d reached for it with stiff, unsteady fingers, almost sending the small, scratched up, mechanical cat crashing to the ground; luckily it had just ended up bouncing off your leg and then settling in your lap.

You’d stared at the little robotic feline in astonishment for a long time, unblinking amber eyes staring right back, like it would tell you who had brought it here, when it should’ve been sitting on a shelf in your apartment. Like it would give you all the answers and solutions in the world. An answer to your pain. To the hopelessness creeping in. To the feeling of your heart slowly shattering.

I’m coming back for you. I’ll find a way to fix you, to fix us both, and then I’m coming back for you, I promise.

It had almost made you drop your precious possession all over again, breaths heavy and migraine pounding in the back of your skull. And your racing mind had very clearly told you that there’s no recollection of ever having heard him say anything like this, your aching heart replying that it had been an idle wish, nothing more.

This idle wish comes back to you know, lying bruised and bloody and dazed in a ditch somewhere in Zaun. The people you’d been sent to for help had turned out to be anything but the kind, generous researches they’d made themselves look like; only interested in their own profit, gained on the backs of the helpless and the beaten. And after months of more pain and suffering, once you’d no longer been of use, your body even more mutilated and damaged than before, you’d been discarded like the trash they viewed you as. Face in the dirt, body and mind exhausted and screaming for rest, just a small respite, you consider letting go. Consider closing your eyes and just letting eternal rest take you; you don’t have anything left, after all. No home to go back to. No loved ones waiting for you.

Your shattered psyche seems to welcome the idea more than anything; through blurry vision you swear you see your lost beloved right in front of you, like it’s just another lazy morning spent in bed together. A warm hand cupping your cheek, gentle amber eyes, voice still raspy and accent thick from sleep. Telling you to go back to sleep. That it’s okay to rest. You blink and he’s gone.

He’s gone. I’m so sorry, but… he’s gone.

I’m coming back for you. I’ll find a way to fix you, to fix us both, and then I’m coming back for you, I promise.

A cry for help, created from a desperate mind and a broken heart. A fantasy. Wishful thinking. Nothing more. No one would be coming for you. Nobody would know or care if you just laid down to die right here. But there’s still a part of you, tiny as it may be, that wants to live. That under no circumstances wants to die on the same streets you once crawled your way out of, while your tormentors get rich on your suffering and are left with no consequences. Your blood’s starting to boil, powering you like a steam engine, getting you up on your hands and knees, groaning and whimpering in pain as you hopelessly try to get your feet back under you.

Peace is for the dead, revenge is for the living.

It’s what forces you towards the city limits on wobbly, clumsy legs, one stumbling step at a time. If revenge would be your only reason to live, then so be it. You’d take it over simply giving up and being forgotten; your body left to rot in the dirt.

So you live off scraps and garbage. Get your quick bouts of rest on dark, dirty street corners. Collect herbs from the riverbed, as scarce as they may be, to fight off the infections you incurred. It’s not pretty or elegant and you can barely call it living, but you’re alive. And eventually you catch rumors, whispers, only spoken in the same shadows you’ve now spent months living in: rumors of a healer. Well, some call him that. Others revere him as a god. Others fear him as a monster, more machine than man. But they all agree on two things: that he’s the one to go to if you’re in desperate need of help and have nothing left to lose. And where to find him.

The gate to the house on Emberflit Alley is old and bent and rusted. Not locked, but your stiff, useless fingers have enough trouble opening it anyways. The front door is a different story entirely, encrusted with interlocking gears to keep you and anyone else out unless invited in. So you knock and you wait. And then you repeat that process. Until it becomes clear that either no one is home or that a disturbance isn’t currently wanted. You’re not about to give up so easily though, so you step off the porch and start making your way around the house in search of any windows to knock on instead or maybe even break if necessary. It’s dusk by now and the ever present fog that always seems to cling to this area of the Lanes isn’t making your job much easier; your foot inevitably catches on something, a loose brick or a protruding pipe maybe, and sends you stumbling, falling and while you manage to catch yourself against the brick wall, your flailing palm ends up going straight through a window.

Perfect. You hadn’t actually been serious about breaking and entering. Not entirely, anyways. Trying to assess the damage to your hand in the dimly lit alley, you’re distracted enough to not pick up on the sound of a door opening and you only notice the heavy footsteps when they stop right behind you.

“You’re persistent if nothing else, I will give you that.”

The voice is deep, warped, with a mechanical echo to it, but it’s the accent that sends an unwelcome and unexpected twinge to your heart. You turn around very slowly and carefully, prey about to get caught by something terrible, and gulp when you actually need to crane your head back and look up cause fuck, he’s tall. At least a head taller than you, with a broad frame, all heavy armor and pieces of metal, a sharp, three pronged claw pulsing with energy pointed right at you from over his shoulder and a mask with only two hollow, glowing, yellow eyes staring back at you. He’s an imposing, unforgiving presence and you’re starting to understand why people only come to him as a last resort. But you’d come this far and he’s right, you’re persistent, stubborn, if nothing else, for better or for worse.

“I was— No one was opening the door and I was just trying to— Are you the Herald?” It’s a redundant question, really. “It’s what they insist on calling me.” Okay, you’re having a conversation. Sorta. That’s progress. “They also say that you… help people?” He crosses his arms over his chest and cocks his head to the side and while you might not be able to see his eyes, you can feel them taking you in from head to toe. “To the best of my abilities. What would you need help with?” You falter for a second. “It’s uhm… a lot, really, but mostly my hands?” Most people have always reacted with disgust or pity and you don’t expect him to be much different, so the way you bring your hands in front of you for him to see is slow and hesitant. He leans forward for a better look and you fight the urge to back away and flee. It’s quiet, too quiet, the way he’s so intensely studying you and your injuries unnerving and the metal claw that looks like it could tear you in half opening and closing and rotating as if in thought is most definitely not helping your anxiety. Finally, he straightens up and turns around. “Follow me.” He doesn’t wait for you, nor does he check to see if you actually do follow him, merely strides back inside the house, leaving you scrambling to catch up.

The halls that he leads you through have dozens of motionless automatons leaning against the walls, the room you eventually arrive in is lined with shelves of glass jars containing organic and metal organs floating in green fluid and in the far corner a leather gurney with a mechanized drill laid upon it and stains you don’t want to think too hard about. Fortunately, he doesn’t lead you over to that, but instead to a workbench cluttered with machinery and tools and blueprints. He sits in the old, rusty chair and then drags out a little stool from under the table, gesturing for you to copy him while he reaches above his head and fiddles with what is revealed to be a bright, neon lamp when it finally flickers to life, blinding you for a moment and leaving spots in your vision. You do as your told and finally place your hands in his when he holds out his own, one gloved and from what you can tell human, the other solid metal.

There’s a certain gentle diligence with which he conducts his examination, something you most definitely didn’t expect, but it puts your frayed nerves at ease. It also triggers a memory from long ago, an accident in the lab, that had ended with you curled up against your boyfriend’s shoulder while Jayce had carefully picked glass shards from your palms. A slight shake of your head brings you back to the present; a different life, it no longer matters. It’s silent between you two, except for the occasional question from his side that you answer truthfully. Eventually, he sits back and switches off the lamp above you. “Your hands can not be salvaged; the damage is too severe and was left insufficiently treated for too long. If you want full use of them back, they will need to be replaced.” He says it like it’s the most logical, natural thing in the world and to him it must be, but to you? It leaves you stunned, mouth going dry. “So I’d lose them entirely…?”

“You already have,” he states matter of factly. “Now it’s just a matter of wether you’re insisting on clinging on to broken, useless flesh and bone for the sake of sentimentality or if you’d rather exceed your human limitations and be able to return to a normal life.” It takes everything you have not to laugh bitterly; new hands or not, you weren’t going back to your old, normal life anytime soon. But he’s right nonetheless. “And you can do that? Replace them? Make them work like before?” You can’t be certain, with the mask’s filter and all but it almost sounds like he scoffs in offense. He waves his own hand in front of your face and flexes his fingers for show; dark, solid metal, expertly welded and crafted together to create a perfectly functioning hand. “Naturally.”

There’s nothing for you to think about anymore. “Okay. Yeah, I… that sounds good. Except…” Maybe there is one thing to think about. “I can’t… pay you for it. B-but I can work it off! Or I could—“ he decisively cuts you off with, “I do not take payment for my work.” And your jaw actually drops, because there is no way anyone in this world would offer services like this for free. There always has to be an angle, something to be gained. “Right. So you just do this out of the goodness of your fucking heart? Do you even have one? A heart, I mean.” He stands to his full height and it hits you like a ton of bricks that you just followed a complete stranger into the confines of his home. A stranger twice your size that would have no trouble turning you into parts for his future experiments. A stranger that has a reputation on Zaun’s streets as an unhinged monster. And it seems like you might’ve hit a nerve.

But he merely reaches past you, for something behind you on the table and comes back with a pair of tweezers and gauze and then proceeds to remove the parts of his window that are still stuck in one of your palms. Right. Since you can’t really feel them, you’d forgotten all about them. “Of course not. And to answer your question, no, I got rid of my heart a long time ago; it was of no use to me any longer. I only ask that you stay here during your recovery so I can oversee the adjustment process. Document it to further my research. You will be paying me in information, knowledge, progress. That is worth more than any gold or jewels you could throw at me.” Your own heart is going a mile a minute after that scare, but you’re slowly coaxing your body to calm back down. If he truly wanted to harm you, he would’ve done so by now. “And you’re sure that’s enough?” A sigh, as if he’s forced to explain something overly simplistic to a child over and over again. “You can bring any scrap metal you may find on the streets to me, if that will make you feel better.” You snort in amusement. “Okay, sure, you got yourself a deal. Sooooo… now what?”

He pauses wrapping your hand for a moment and turns his unblinking gaze to you again. “Malnourished, sick or overly exhausted people make for greater risks, both during surgery and recovery.” You flinch because you damn well know that you check all of those boxes. And you’re sure he knows it, too. “Yeah, well it’s not like I can snap my fingers and magically be healthy again. If I could, I wouldn’t be here. Besides, do you know where you live? You can’t tell me that every Zaunite who comes in here is of picture perfect health?”

“No, I just thought you should be made aware. We can perform the procedure tomorrow, at least get some sleep before that; surely that’s not too difficult?” It almost sounds patronizing and you realize you’ve gained back, or rather are rediscovering a part of yourself you haven’t used in a long time in the few minutes you’ve been talking to him: the defiant smartass. “Of course I can do that, I’m not an imbecile. There’s a brothel owner who owes me a favor, I’m sure I can get her to cough up a bed for the night.” He’s doesn’t look up from putting the finishing touches on your bandages, but apparently he still feels the need to state, “And leave with more diseases than you came with?” Had he just called you diseased? “I’ll have you know I don’t have anything contagious, thank you very much. I don’t think. And it’s that or sleep out on the streets again, so…”

“Or you could just stay here.”

You barely manage a very intelligent ‘Huh?!’ in return.

“You will return here tomorrow anyways. And stay here for your recovery. One night will not make a difference.”

Your eyes flit over to the leather couch in the corner; it’s clearly old and worn, missing an armrest and has obvious tears in the leather. Truly, you shouldn’t be this comfortable around him so quickly, but it’s still the closest thing to an actual bed you’d had in months so you’d take it.

“If it’s okay with you.” you shrug and quickly walk over to the sofa, dropping the bag that contains whatever little belongings you have left to the floor and then promptly collapse on it in an exhausted heap of limbs. That seems to break some of his composed facade as you catch him physically startling in your peripheral while you’re busy shrugging out of one of your coats and turning it into a makeshift pillow. “There is a room upstairs, with a bed, entirely unused. You can sleep there.” But you’re drowsy already, the worn leather surprisingly soft and pliant against your battered body. “So you don’t sleep, I assume; noted. And don’t worry, I don’t snore, so I won’t interrupt your… your work. You won’t… even know… I’m…” You’re out cold before you’ve finished your sentence and it takes all of half a minute before you’re lightly snoring. Liar. But he knew that already.

A heavy sigh and then he’s up, grabbing the blanket and pillow from the bed upstairs; replacing the bunched up coat under your head and pausing before he covers your body with the thick, warm fabric. Your skin has lost color, you’re underweight, he most definitely caught you limping earlier and those are just the things he could tell from a first glance. Your hands would be an easy enough matter to fix, but the rest would take time and care. He covers you with the blanket and you immediately snuggle up into it until only your hair is barely poking out. So you still hate the cold, then. Just like you’re still defiant and mouthy. It’s ridiculous how much you haven’t changed in direct contrast to him; changed so vastly and completely, of course you wouldn’t recognize him.

Carefully dragging down the blanket and the backs of your several layers of clothing, he indeed finds a series of numbers and letters branded into the skin at the back of your neck, as expected. He recognizes their shoddy handiwork by now; you weren’t the first Zaunite to come through his door after they’d fallen victim to that group. But you’d most definitely be the last. He gathers some things from around the lab and finally grabs his staff from where it’s leaning against the wall, gem at the top crackling with energy; one last look at your curled up form and then he’s out of the door, leaving you resting in his lab.

You’re warm, comfortable. It’s quiet and you actually feel well rested. All of that is so utterly foreign to you, it frightens you back to consciousness, makes you startle awake and fall off whatever you’d been asleep on in the process. Blind panic as you untangle yourself from a blanket you don’t remember having and stagger back to your feet, wild eyes searching for the closest threat.

Dim lighting breaking through murky windows, shelves stocked organs, a bloody gurney in the far corner and a hunched over figure at a workbench, their back currently turned to you as a clawed contraption over their shoulder emits a thin, precise ray of light.

“I do not appreciate getting lied to.”

There’s a part of your mind screaming at you that you know this voice, this person, this place, but the terrified haze you’re in yields little room for rationality as he shuts off the laser and turns around to face you, features covered by a mask with nothing but a set of glowing yellow eyes.

“You do, in fact, snore.”

It’s like a switch gets flipped, the haze lifts as you realize that you’re safe and you collapse back into the couch in a relieved heap, breaths still frenzied and heart still trying to jump out of your chest. “Right. Sorry.” He doesn’t comment any further, simply gets back to whatever it is he was working on before, leaving you to recover by yourself. It takes a few minutes, but once you consider yourself sufficiently calmed, you sit back up on the couch cross legged, blanket draped over your shoulders, wanting to apologize and thank him properly, but looking at him gives you pause.

He seems… smaller somehow than the night before. You find your answer in a heap of metal scattered around his workbench: big, cumbersome pieces of armor. Armor that you remember seeing on him yesterday, that you’d just assumed to be irremovable parts of his body. What you most definitely do not recall are the dents, scratches and the dried blood all over the metal. Nervously flitting your gaze back to him, you see what he’s working on is actually himself; laser directed at a part of his chest that he seems to be welding shut. And you’re taken aback at how much skin there is - human skin. The entirety of his chest and his right arm are sleek steel, interlocking gears and mechanisms, flawlessly shifting into each other as he moves, thin glowing panels pulsing with energy from hidden engines. And there’s definitely more metal at his right hip, disappearing into the waistband of his pants, but other than that…

His left arm is mostly pale skin, scarred flesh at his shoulder connecting to the dark steel; a wired glove slipped over his slender fingers seemingly controling the movements of the claw over this shoulder. His stomach and waist are still incredibly human too, if nothing else because of the dark purple bruise forming against his skin. He’s nowhere near as much machine as you’d expected, not to mention he looks… hurt. Had he been in a fight? Gotten attacked?

You open your mouth to ask, but think better of it before any sound can come out. It really has nothing to do with you; what he does in his own time is none of your business. It still feels off, to infringe on his time and help and not even ask if he’s alright when clearly, something that you’re not privy to has happened. Never one to leave well enough alone, you grab your bag from the floor and start sorting through the collection of herbs you’ve managed to acquire over time. Once you’ve found the ones you’re looking for, you package them into the most clean rag you have in your possession and tie it shut; uncrossing your legs you walk over to him and place the haphazardly made package on the table, careful not to disturb him. The movement still gets his attention and even with the mask’s filter, confusion is clear as day in his voice as he asks, “What is that and what is it doing on my workbench?”

“It’s an herbal remedy, for uhm… bruises and the like?” you explain, vaguely gesturing at his waist. “You soak it in boiling water and then put it on the effected area; it helps with swelling and pain.” It’s silent for a few long seconds, then, “I see. Thank you.” Not even remotely close to anything you were readying yourself for as a response, but it makes something within your chest beam with pride. You don’t even realize you’re still staring until he points it out and is met with, “You’re just… not exactly what I expected.”

“A monster?”

The laugh you let out is so shockingly soft, it almost startles him. “You’ve got a reputation, sure, and you’re… intimidating at first glance, I’ll give you that, but… I’ve met plenty of monsters in my life and none of them were anything like you. In fact, all of them looked and acted remarkably, ordinarily human at first.” There’s no further elaboration from your side and your gaze is distant, mind somewhere far away from here. He almost calls your name, but it occurs to him in the nick of time that you never actually introduced yourself. You’ve been here for less than twenty four hours and already he’s slipping, making mistakes; he can’t have that, so he drives the conversation in a direction he has control over. “I am almost finished with my repairs, I can get the general anesthetic started so we can proceed with your surgery as quickly as possible.”

Wild, hot panic takes over your gaze and he fully expects you to bolt out the front door with how you flinch and take a step away from him. “I need be under for the surgery? Can’t you do like, local anesthesia on my arms?” He hesitates; he’s never known you to be afraid of medical procedures, so what’s the problem? “First off, I will not be replacing both of your hands at the same time. Too risky and you’ll be completely incapacitated; we’re going to start with only one today. And no, in theory, you do not have to be under full anesthesia, however, we are talking about a delicate and unusual kind of surgery; I can not promise that it will be painless while you’re still conscious.”

“That’s fine, I don’t mind the pain, I just… I wanna have some agency in what gets done to my body from here on out.”

Ah. So that’s it. One glance at the dried blood still clinging to his armor on the floor and he feels the rage from last night raise it’s ugly head again. He shoves that right back down, cursing internally, before he answers you, voice level and betraying nothing. “All right. It will not be a pretty sight, though.” You shrug, as nonchalant as if he’d just told you about dinner plans. “I mean, I don’t have to watch directly. But I’m gonna admit, I am curious.”

The curiosity lasts for all of the first cut into your flesh, then you turn your head away and simply let him work in silence; wouldn’t want to distract the man currently flaying you open and re-wiring your nerve endings. Luckily, there’s only the occasional pinch and pull, but you stay pain free otherwise. Recovery after the procedure is a different story entirely though; painful and arduous and time consuming. And you’re more than a little surprised at how diligently the Herald takes care of you. Keeping a close eye on his newest test subject, that’s what you write it off as at first. But as the weeks go by there’s a certain familiar domesticity that sneaks into your routine and you find yourself talking with him more and more. Well, it’s mostly you talking, but he listens; you know because the day after you complained about the room you’d been staying in feeling too dark, you’d come back from an errand to find the windows cleaned, the curtains gone and some mismatched lamps placed around the room. It’s a sweet, quiet kind of constant reassurance and you can’t help the way your heart warms at it; so much like what you’d been used to from your lost love.

The day you pick up a glass of water all by yourself, without spilling anything and the glass noticeably cold against your fingers, you almost weep with joy and just barely hold yourself back from tackling him in a hug. Instead you busy yourself with touching as many things in his lab as you can get your one properly functioning hand on - which means you miss the way he so openly stares at you, obvious even with his mask hiding his features. He hasn’t seen you this happy and energized since you showed up on his doorstep. It makes some part in chest whir conspicuously and it almost feels like something is overheating, so he quickly turns away and grabs a random, discarded project from his workbench to fiddle with.

“Do you… ya know, eat?”

It’s a random question, even for you, but he answers nonetheless. He’s used to it by now.

“I no longer require it as a form of energy replenishment, no.”

You roll your eyes. “Okay, that doesn’t answer my question, though. You don’t have to, but do you? Sometimes?”

“I fail to comprehend why we are having this conversation in the first place.” He doesn’t put down his tools, nor does he look at you.

Okay, fair point.

“Well, I uh… I used to be a chef, had my own restaurant and everything? And since one of my hands finally works again I figured I’d like to give cooking something a try? And if you have a favorite, I could make it for you? As thanks for… well, for giving me a hand?” It’s not one of your finer jokes, you will admit, so you’re not surprised he doesn’t laugh. Not that you’ve ever heard him laugh at anything, for that matter. He doesn’t react at all, except for, “I told you, I do not take payment for my work. Are we done with this fruitless conversation now?” It stings more than you’d like, to have him dismiss your tries at kindness like that, even though you know it’s not personal.

“Right, yeah, sorry. It’s just… cooking’s the only thing I’ve ever been good for and I like to be some sort of useful so… but you’re right, it’s stupid. I’ll let you get back to work.”

Because if I stopped being useful, then… maybe he wouldn’t want me anymore. Maybe he’d leave me behind for something better.

It was years ago, he shouldn’t remember you saying it as clearly as he does. Nor the way you’d looked then; all teary eyed and vulnerable, in front of him and only him. He shouldn’t remember and much less should he still care. He finds himself putting down his tools anyways.

“Sweetmilk.”

It doesn’t even register that he’s talking to you at first, considering you’re already halfway out the door to give him some peace and quiet. “P-pardon?”

“Sweetmilk.” he repeats. “It’s technically not food, but a weakness of mine and it’s still made on a stove. However, I am out of—“

“I got it! I’ll go get everything; I know how to make it!” The biggest grin on your face, you’re out of his lab in an instant and he hears the front door open and close not long after that.

There’s an actual skip in your step as you make your way down the street, there’s no other way to put it.

You are no fool. It’s in the way he hyperfocuses on his work. In the way his place is always a mess, right down to how his tools and notes clutter his desk. In the way what little sunlight manages to reach this part of the Lanes catches in his chestnut hair when it filters through the windows. In the little vocal mannerisms and gestures that you remember oh so well, that he apparently was unable to remove, no matter how much of a perfect machine he claims himself to be. It’s all right there, it had been from the start, this had just been the final push you’d needed. The final push to actually let yourself hope.

You are no fool. He knows this. He knows this and yet he let you have this. This tiny, obsolete, aggravating piece of information that has now turned him into the fool instead. He’s certain you’ve already figured it out, how could you not have? With the way you were immediately way too comfortable around him? With the way you sometimes talked about yourself, your past, just naturally assuming he’d be able to fill in the blanks, cause to him, they weren’t blanks at all? With the way it had been so easy to slip back into old, dangerously domestic habits with you? This had simply been the final nail in the coffin, yours or his, he isn’t sure; he is sure, however that you do not belong here in his oh so carefully crafted solitude.

Over two years. That’s how long it had taken him to put himself back together again. To rid himself of the parts the Hexcore had already infected, tainted, taken from his control. To replace his dying lungs. To make sure he didn’t fall apart again after every second step. To ensure he was no longer weak. And then he’d come for you, intending to save you, make you whole again, but you’d been gone. Disappeared from your hospital bed, from Piltover all together it had seemed. He’d crossed several lines in his search for you, even the ones he’d set for himself; namely never asking for help from his former best friend and partner again. In the end, the only thing he’d accomplished had been to widen the ever growing rift between them, no step closer to you. So he’d done the only thing he could still think of: rip his heart straight from his chest to maybe, hopefully, get rid of the agony right along with it; erase the joyful memories that held nothing but misery anymore. And it had worked; everything inside him dulled and numbed enough to simply drown himself in his work with no interferences. Until you’d stumbled back into his life. And things should be different, he shouldn’t care about you anymore outside of how you can further his research, but they’re not. The way the two of you still fit together so effortlessly is disgustingly, hauntingly familiar and he has to put a stop to it. He has chosen to live like this, in isolation and loneliness, he would not force it on you in the name of some long forgotten affection.

Perfect opportunity strikes some days later, while he’s in the process of replacing your second hand and you question him about his own augmentations. So he tells you about his weak leg and his collapsing lungs like you don’t already know. Watches the smile vanish from you lips and your face fall as he explains how he removed his connections to people from his past.

“So you… you don’t remember anyone who used to be a part of your life? Family, friends, lovers?”

“I remember them just fine, I simply got rid of any unnecessary emotional attachments associated with them. I remember my mother’s lullabies, I do not miss them any longer. I remember the discussions with my old partner, yet I no longer look at them fondly. I remember the lazy mornings spent with my lover, but I don’t yearn for them anymore.”

You visibly flinch at that last one and he merely warns you to stay still, like he doesn’t know what hearing all of this must do to you. It goes quiet between you two afterwards and any glance he steals at you confirms his theory, proves that his action had the desired reaction: the cogs are turning in your head and the longer they do, the more the despair and grief start to show on your face; realization that he is no longer the man you knew and that you no longer have a place by his side. It’s quick, simple work to finish your surgery and he decides to leave you be, give you time to let the new information he provided you with sink in and with some trivial errands used as a quick excuse, you’re left sitting alone on a rickety old stool in his lab.

And you stay seated for a long while, still and unmoving, blankly staring off into the distance as you hopelessly try to process what he just revealed to you. The love you hold for him hasn’t diminished in the slightest, no matter how much he might claim to have changed, but what’s it worth if you’re nothing but a stranger to him now? If the affections he’d had for you in return were lost to his quest of a perfect evolution?

You’re unsure what compels you to rise from your seat, to stroll across the room and absentmindedly trail your fingers across the books on one of his shelves. Maybe you’re simply trying to distract your mind from spiraling further down into the dark abyss of hoplessness it’s currently headed for. Maybe a part of you already knows that this is not meant to last and you’re trying to commit everything to memory through touch alone, now that he’s returned that sensation to you. The very last thing you expect is for one of the spines to catch your attention and for just a moment, you’re back in your old apartment, your old life. Hurriedly pulling the book from it’s spot you find that you are in fact correct, this used to belong to you. The corners of the dark blue cover are frayed and the golden lettering faded, but you recognize it anyways; you’d lent it to him years ago and he’d just never gotten around to giving it back. Which still doesn’t explain what it’s doing here, surely he doesn’t have any use for it anymore. You gingerly dust it off, careful not to over exert your new fingers, and crack it open only for a little slip of paper to immediately come fluttering out and land on the floor in front of you. Picking it up, you find only two words written in a handwriting you know all too well.

Lavender = devotion

The memories flood your mind wether you want them to or not; memories of your absolute mess of a first date. Of the meticulously crafted bouquet of flowers he’d gotten you, based on the book you’d lent him.

Putting the paper back with the page containing it’s corresponding flower, you quickly rifle through the rest of the book and find plenty more notes still left within the pages, all in his handwriting.

Iris = hope, trust

Alstroemeria = mutual support, fascination

Carnations = sincere love, respect, new beginnings

The last entry you come across doesn’t have a written note with it. Instead you find a picture: the two of you, slumped together on the sofa in the lab, all tangled limbs and sleepy intimacy, blissfully unaware of your friend sneaking this picture. It’s marking the pages for camellias and you don’t need a note or a proper look at the information in the book to know what they symbolize; not when you can clearly remember him telling you.

Eternal love. I’m yours for as long as you want. If you’ll have me.

The book slips from your fingers, landing open on the floor with a dull thump as you go right along with it, knees hitting the wood beneath you hard as you curl in on yourself and sob, photograph cradled close against your chest.

It’s the first time you’ve cried, some still coherent part of your mind realizes. Since waking up. Since being imprisoned and tortured. Since coming here. Since being forced to accept stroke after stroke of fate that had irreversibly changed your life entirely against your will or control. So you cry and you weep and you scream at the top of your lungs. For yourself and everything you’ve had to endure. For all you’ve lost. For the life you could’ve had.

You have to leave. You have to. Or you’d spend the the rest of your life desperately trying to rekindle a love that no longer exists. A final glance at the picture still held in your hands and you consider taking it; he wouldn’t miss it, he probably doesn’t even know it’s still here. But the people in that photograph are long gone and it would cause you nothing but more grief, so what’s the point? You drop it between the pages you’d found it in and shove the book back into its’ spot on the shelf before scrambling to your feet and beginning to gather your things strewn across his house. And you could’ve left then and there, things packed and mind made up. You probably should have. But it doesn’t feel quite right either, just disappearing without a trace. So you sit on the bed you’ve called your own for the past weeks and you wait. Until you hear him come home in the middle of the night and the urge to sprint downstairs, throw a quick goodbye and thank you over your shoulder and slam the door on this entire sad, miserable chapter of your life is there. But you don’t. You can’t. Because despite everything, you still want a proper goodbye - you didn’t get one last time, after all. Except you have no idea how you’d go about that, so you stay right where you are and rack your brain. Until dawn breaks and you’re no closer to a solution, so you drag your tired body off the bed and make your way downstairs; you’re just looking for more excuses to stay at this point.

Of course you find him at his workbench, where else, most of his heavier armor discarded and Hexclaw dimantled in front of him as he diligently solders wires to metal. Pausing in the doorway, you wait for him to acknowledge your presence, giving yourself some more time to think, but when several minutes pass and he doesn’t even look up you clear your throat, receiving a quick ‘Morning.’ in return and nothing else. No point beating around the bush, is there?

“When do you think I’ll be able to leave?”

Too busy fiddling with a loose thread at the hem of your shirt to distract yourself, you don’t notice the way he almost flinches, everything he’s doing coming to a halt. It’s quiet for only a moment before he says, “You are not a prisoner here. You may leave whenever you wish to.”

Not the answer you want, not the answer you long for, but an answer nonetheless

“I… now would be good for me, I think.”

“Very well.”

And that’s the end of it. The room is blanketed in silence once again, except for the scrapes and shuffles of his tools as he goes back to work. No grand, emotional request for you stay and why would he? You’re a stranger, an experiment and there’ll be others like you; others to further his research and learn from. He doesn’t need you anymore. He hasn’t for a very long time, you realize. Oh how you wish you could feel the same. You go to grab your bag from the hallway in apathetic, almost mechanical movements, nothing but muscle memory driving you at this point and you expect to walk out the front door without another word exchanged between the two of you, but surprisingly enough, he calls out to you again.

“Where will you go?”

Stopping in your tracks, you come to lean against the door frame, gaze falling anywhere but him. You’re not sure what he’s even asking for, it won’t have any impact on his life after all, but you answer honestly anyways. “As far away from this city as I can get, probably. There’s no one— there’s… nothing left for me here anymore.” A pause as the faces of your tormentors flash before your inner eye. “Not before making the bastards who used me pay for it, though.” He unscrews a panel at the base of the Hexclaw while posing another question. “And if that costs you your life?” You shrug even though he can’t see. “Just as well. I’m not sure I’ve got the will to build something new for myself anyways…”

Silence falls again and you interpret it as the natural end of the conversation and your cue to leave. Except there’s one last thing you need to get off your chest - quite literally, in fact. Slipping off the chain around your neck, ring still safely attached to it as always, you approach him and place it on the surface of his workbench. To your utter surprise, he actually interrupts his work and picks it up with careful fingers; his face might be hidden from you by his mask, but he radiates confusion so you explain before he has a chance to ask. “When I first came here, you told me I could pay you in scrap metal if it made me feel any better about encroaching on your space and time. You can melt this down, throw it out, I don’t care; I’ve carried it around with me long enough and it was always meant to be yours.” You truly don’t have the strength to wait for his reaction, or probable lack thereof; this means nothing to him now, you mean nothing, and that thought makes you hurry towards the exit, tears burning in your eyes.

Despite better judgment, you pause in the doorway, fingers tight around the strap of your bag and swallow around the growing lump in your throat. “Thank you…” It’s barely above a whisper and it’s not enough. You were the one who wanted a proper goodbye this time, weren’t you? So you turn to fully face him, met with the same blank, hollow eyed stare you’ve grown oh so used to and you smile, genuine and grief stricken. “Thank you for everything, Viktor.”

Part of you wonders when he last heard his own name. If he even still remembers it.

And then you’re gone, leaving him alone in his quiet lab, with only his research to keep him company, just as it should be.

The front door is as far your shaky legs get you, bag slipping from your shoulder as you slump against it, forehead pressed to the cool, worn wood as you press a hand against your mouth in a desperate attempt to to stifle the sobs. The man you’re leaving behind is the love of your life no matter what, you’ve known that for ages; there was a before him, but there was never supposed to be an after. And yet now you have to figure out exactly what that after is going to look like, because he’s gone and at the same time he’s still here and that, oh that aches something awful. It’s unfair and it’s cruel and it makes you want to claw your own chest open to strangle your heart with your bare hands just to make the pain stop. It makes you envy him for the first time, no heart left in his chest to ail him. And it makes you despise him, because how dare he leave you alone with the burden of this love you were supposed to share?

The heavy footfalls behind you should jumpstart you into action, make you wrench the door open and get out or at the very least compose yourself, but you can’t. You find that you simply don’t care anymore either. Let him see what he’s done to you, what he’s turned you into, even if he wouldn’t shed a single tear over it. A mechanical hand comes to rest next to your head, his presence right at your back, so close and so very much like the first night you came to this place and yet everything’s so incredibly different now.

“What? Did you forget some kind of last diagnostics test on the new hand or something?” The tears are obvious in your tone. “No. But you should know that the people you plan on taking revenge on are already dead. I made sure of it.” Breath catching in your throat, the memory of your first morning in this house comes back to you: the bruises, the blood on his armor, the way everything about him had screamed violence and death that day. “You… Why?” It makes no sense whatsoever and it’s making your head spin and he’s not answering, until, “That’s hardly a concern for you now. I simply thought it consequential for you to be made aware of the fact that if you wish to depart from this city you may do so. There is nothing—“ It’s the first time you’ve heard him falter and fumble in all your time here and when he speaks again there’s an edge to his voice that you can’t quite place, accompanied by the hand against the door clenching into a fist. “There is no one keeping you here anymore.”

The clock in the corner counts down the seconds, loud and echoing in comparison to the quiet that has befallen you both. A quiet you decide to break, tentative and scared.

“Isn’t there? My tormentors might be gone, but what of the man I love? Could he still find it in him to love me if I stayed?”

“I don’t believe that still matters, does it? You’ll leave either way.”

And something inside of you snaps.

You brace your forearms against the door and shove backwards, catching him so off guard he stumbles back a step or two, creating just enough distance for you to rear back your hand and punch him square in the jaw. His mask gets knocked clean off his face, loudly clattering to the floor; your freshly operated hand sparks and creaks ominously, fingers now bent at odd angles while searing pain shoots up your entire arm, but you don’t care. It’s nothing compared to the white, hot fury that’s boiling you alive from the inside out.

“How dare you? How fucking dare you?!”

He doesn’t even deem it necessary to look at you; completely frozen to the spot, head turned away from you and hair covering his eyes from your view. He will have to listen to you either way, wether he wants to or not. Wether he still cares or not.

“You’re the one who decided he’d rather forget every moment, every laugh, every touch we shared like they all meant nothing! You’re the one who tore out his heart without a second thought and threw it away even though it was mine! And all the while you’re leaving me with the burden of it all! I’m the only person alive who still holds our time together dear to their heart now! Do you have any idea how heavy memories can be? How maddening?! And these—“ you bring your hands up between the two of you, all sleek, perfect metal, the spitting image of him. “You gave me these for all the world to see and left me with yet another reminder of you! Like I needed more of those to know that I am still and always will be irrevocably yours! And now you tell me that it wouldn’t matter if there’s any part of you, however small, that still thinks of yourself as mine?! Fuck you, Viktor!”

You slump back against the door for support, chest heaving and unharmed hand coming up to cover your face; a desperate and all but pointless attempt to hide the tears and stifle the sobs.

He’s a scientist, an engineer. Solving problems, fixing things, improving lives; it’s what he does. What he thrives in. Yet he doesn’t know how to fix this. So he zeroes in on the one thing he can fix.

“Let me see your hand.”

But you don’t let him. Curl in on yourself and angle your body and injured hand away from him; it makes you seem so much smaller. So vulnerable. So defeated. Good. Maybe if he can drive you away even further then…

“You are… a distraction. A hindrance to my work that I can not tolerate. You do not belong here and it would be better for the both of us if you left and never returned.”

With the mask gone, the mechanical edge to his voice is missing as well, but every word still stings like the cut of a blade.

“So turn around and let me go. You’ll never have to see me again, I promise.”

He knows all too well how seriously you take that; every promise, no matter how small or menial, a solemn oath, never to be broken. He can not let you make this one; every part of himself rebels against the very thought of letting you walk out that damn door, even if it would be the logical thing to do. Drive you further away, he’s not capable of that any longer, who is he trying to fool? Himself, most likely.

Stepping closer he gauges your reaction and when you don’t recoil from him any further, he rests his hands on either side of you and drops his forehead against the old, worn wood above your shoulder.

“I can’t.”

It’s spat through grit teeth, like it physically pains him to admit it. But it’s the most emotion you’ve heard in his voice during all the time you’ve been here.

“I removed every function that wasn’t vital; every memory that was redundant to my work. Affection, jealousy, admiration, anger, joy, sorrow; any emotion that would’ve proven an aberration sooner rather than later. I clawed and prodded and scraped at my own insides until nothing remained and yet you refused to let go.”

Your sobs have reduced to sniffles, your body still beneath him; except for the hand you’ve dropped from your face that he now feels running up his back, titanium fingers gliding over the metal ridges that make up his spine until they settle at the nape of his neck.

“Your face, your laugh, your favorite color, the way you’d look cooking breakfast in the mornings, the way your body would feel against mine; every detail, no matter how minute stayed. Etched into the fissures of my brain, burned into the steel I used to rebuild myself, regardless of how many times I replaced it. Carved into my being, my very soul; I could not remove you any more than I could remove the engine beating as my heart. And I can not go back to how things were before you came here. Before you found me again.”

“Why not? You seemed perfectly happy in your solitude with your work.” Your voice is small, but genuine. And you almost squeak in shock, wind knocked out of you, when his arms come around your middle to hold you tight, almost too tight, flush against him as he buries his face into crook of your neck.

“Because you are in every fraction of skin, in every blood vein that still remains within me. In every bolt, every wire, every piece of metal I welded to myself. I do not… function properly unless I know of your whereabouts. Unless I know you’re safe and cared for. And it was maddening, to surpress it, to ignore it all these years; a clear error constantly rearing its’ ugly head, telling me that I will never get any further in my research, my work, my vision, unless it’s resolved. Constantly running on loop in the back of my head, reminding me that I am incomplete. I need you, you are an essential part of me, right down to my very atoms and it makes me, all of me, no matter what else I might become, yours.”

There’s fresh tears streaming down your face, because he sounds so tired. So desperate. So upset. So painfully human. You find yourself doing the same thing you’ve always done when you’ve had him in your arms, worried and anxious about something; gently thread your fingers through his hair, scratching at his scalp and lean your head against his carefully. “Viktor, if you want me to stay, all you have to do is ask. You know that; if you want something all you ever had to do was ask it of me. But I need you to ask me, all right? I need to hear you say it.” He doesn’t answer right away, only draws patterns into the small of your back in thought; a habit of his you remember all too well. This close, you can feel the heat coming off him, generated from the several engines powering him and a barely there hum and whirr of machinery against your chest; a sound that comes in regular intervals, akin to a heartbeat. When he does speak, his voice is weary. Conflicted. Unsure. Scared.

“I am not the man you fell in love with, my heart. Not gentle, nor kind. There is no coming back from the lines I’ve crossed and I don’t— I can not love you the same way I used to. The way you’d deserve. And yet… I want to be selfish.” He pauses for a bitter, ridiculing bark of laughter and shifts in your hold and it’s only then that you realize the skin at the slope of your neck and your collarbone is wet. Shame threatens to choke you when it occurs to you that up until now you didn’t think he still could cry. “I shouldn’t want for anything. Machines do not want or desire or long for things. But… they need all their components to operate as they’re supposed to; to perform at their full potential.” He’s rationalizing it, you know and you’ll be fucking damned if you interrupt him. “And I need you to stay. Here, with me. Then maybe in time you’ll be able to love me as I am now.”

Your chuckle is weak; you’re exhausted physically and emotionally. “What a silly thing to say. That’s assuming I ever stopped loving you in the first place.” It should be impossible, for his embrace to become any tighter, but it does and it’s almost starting to hurt - good, because the pain makes it real.

It’s in the way he buries his face against you further, a noise oh so very similar to a sob escaping him, and how your gaze catches on his mask left discarded on the ground that it finally dawns on you: he’s hiding. From you or from himself, you’re not certain, but you’re not having it any longer. “My love, let me see you.” He doesn’t move; if anything he freezes up. “Please?” You try again and are met with the same result, except for, “You will not like what you find.” Irritation flares up in your chest, manifesting itself in a harsh tug on his hair and, “That’s for me to decide.” It takes him a few very long, agonizing seconds, but eventually, he sighs in defeat and pulls back enough for you to be able to get your first proper look at his face after all these years.

No wonder you managed to break your hand, his jaw and cheeks are all solid, dark, smooth metal, connecting to the column of his throat. Your fingers are moving before you can stop yourself, trailing along his cheek bones where hard steel meets soft, scarred flesh. Still as pale as always, almost deathly so, faint blue veins under his skin now in plain view and the contrast to the two moles you adore all the more prominent. The ever present dark circles under his eyes have evolved into lasting bruises. And oh his eyes. The same beautiful gold you remember, except now they’re rimmed with a thin ring of bright pink, courtesy of the Shimmer you’ve seen in his lab no doubt, bright against the deep, dark, purple-ish black that now makes up his sclera. But dissimilar from your memory as they may be, the look in them is one you recognize: careful, poised for rejection, but the remaining tears betray him. It’s strange, how he can look so utterly different yet so hauntingly the same.

He had imagined this moment plenty of times, but never in his wildest dreams could he have come up with this. Yes, there’s several emotions at once crossing your face when you finally see him, yet none of them negative. It’s genuine, innocent curiosity at first, reflected in the careful fingers that reach out to touch him. And before he has time to fully register your touch against his skin, your expression shifts and it’s nothing but pure, unadulterated admiration and affection. “Still so beautiful. Still all mine.”

Just like that, all the tumult and chaos and noise in the back of his head that hadn’t once stopped in the last few years finally seems to silence and he can actually fucking think in peace again for the first time - and the first thing he thinks to do, the most logical thing to do, really, is to curse under his breath before crashing his lips to yours. It’s needy and filthy and all tongues and teeth, your back making abrupt contact with the door again as he shoves you against it, hands coming up from your waist to cup your face. The gesture is tender and sweet and entirely contrasting to the way he’s kissing you; to what he claims to have become. It’s more than welcome nonetheless, giving you a sense of security you didn’t realize you needed as your intact hand moves away from his hair to cover his. It just so happens to be the one that’s still mostly flesh and blood, warm against your skin, except for a thin, cold sliver of metal you feel that you can’t place at first. You don’t remember seeing any augmentations that would feel like this on his hand before. Curious despite the adoring, addictive haze that’s starting to cloud your mind, fingertips try to make out more detail and you find it in tiny little ridges in the metal sitting specifically on his ringfinger that feel suspiciously like letters. Letters that spell out one word: Unconditional.

Your ring. He’s wearing your ring.

It makes you kiss him harder, wanting him so much closer even though it’s hardly possible. You could stay like this for the rest of your life and you wouldn’t ever need for anything else. How unfortunate it is then that one of you both still needs air to fill their lungs to live. How unfortunate that that someone is you; personally you gladly would’ve suffocated against his lips, but he seems to have other plans as he pulls back to let you take some much needed deep breaths, chest heaving while he settles for leaving chaste pecks against the skin of your face.

“Still all yours,” he confirms and you mirror the smile you can hear in his voice. “Now and always.”

#arcane viktor x reader #gender neutral reader #machine herald viktor x reader #epic the musical #would you fall in love with me again #hurt/comfort #angst #childhood friends #past established relationship #viktor arcane #machine herald viktor #machine herald #viktor the machine herald #league of legends #arcane #arcane x reader #arcane imagine #SoundCloud

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juniperskye · 2 days ago

Text

Mr. Bear

Based on the following ask: @itzvenus04 Aaron X reader where Aaron is a little jealous of when reader cuddles the teddy more, but he rather have her cuddle the teddy when he’s away on a case then someone else or something like that, especially when reader made sure the teddy smelled like him, but one morning he makes the bed and holds the teddy and looks at it, seeing some marks on it and stains and a few holes and a small tear on its side, clearly loved by reader for many years now and it makes him a little sad seeing the teddy like this and how sad his gf will be one day if she has to throw it away, knowing full well she wants to pass down the little teddy bear to her kids no wait their kids someday, hopefully a baby girl someday but then he decides to fix the teddy and clean him up or ask someone to help him maybe someone like Garcia idk and surprise reader with the teddy looking brand new and reader is so happy Aaron can’t be jealous of it because the smile on reader face is so worth it even if she cuddles a another man *wink* he’s literally a teddy bear – this is a short one babe, it’s a super cute idea and I loved writing it!

Aaron Hotchner x Fem Reader Fluff Word count: 997

REQUESTS ARE OPEN - not edited - please be kind. Requests are open and feedback is welcome if it's constructive!

Warnings: My blog is 18+, minors DNI, one use of y/n – it was unavoidable, age gap (non-specified), reader has a teddy that she cuddles when she sleeps, jealous Hotch (in a teasing way), Garcia being the best, let me know if I missed anything.

I do not consent to having my work translated or reposted to any other site. That being said I do not own the characters portrayed in this story.

“You cuddle that thing more than you cuddle me.” Aaron whined teasingly.

“Oh, I do not!” You giggled, turning over and nuzzling into Aaron’s strong chest, your hands still clutching your beloved teddy, Mr. Bear.

“I don’t know babe, I’m thinking I might have to be worried. You have maintained a very long and serious relationship with this guy…and now look, he is quite literally coming between us.” Aaron’s tone was completely unserious as he playfully fought to take Mr. Bear from you.

Aaron shifted so he was hovering over you, his hands tickling your sides relentlessly. You writhed beneath him, desperately trying to get away from his grasp.

“Okay I surrender! I surrender!” You giggled, booping Aaron in the nose with Mr. Bear.

Aaron couldn’t help but notice that your teddy had smelled just like his cologne. The thought made him smile, you spraying your bear with his cologne just so it would smell like him, cuddling it while he was away.

“Okay! Coffee?” You asked.

“Coffee would be great.” He smiled “You go, I’ll make the bed.”

You made your way to the kitchen and got a pot of coffee going. You then began heating a pan to make some eggs, throwing some slices of bread in the toaster to go along with it.

Aaron when through the motions of making the bed, pulling the pillows off while he tugged the sheet and duvet up to the top of the mattress. He neatly arranged the pillows, noticing Mr. Bear at the foot of the bed. Aaron hadn’t realized how threadbare your teddy had really become; he was very clearly well loved.

Aaron thought about what he could do to fix him up, knowing that you had hoped to eventually pass the bear down to your future child.

“What can I do for you sir?”

“Garcia, what do you know about restoring plush toys?”

“Oh sir, I went down a seven-hour rabbit hole of stuffy restoration videos on TikTok, what do you need?”

“Well, I want to surprise y/n, she’s had this teddy since she was a child and he’s looking a little worse for wear.”

“Leave it to me…do I have your permission to work on it today – provided we don’t have a case?”

“Of course. Thank you Penelope.”

“Any time sir.”

Aaron had discretely placed Mr. Bear in his bag for work, gathering the remainder of his things. He made his way to the kitchen to have breakfast with you.

He helped you clean up before you both headed out for work.

“Aar, I have conferences tonight, so I will be home later than usual.” You reminded him.

“That’s right! I’ll get dinner started for us when I get home.”

“You’re the best. I love you baby, drive safe! Let me know if you guys get called away okay?” You requested.

“I love you too honey, I will. Drive safe, see you tonight.”

Aaron had made his way straight to Garcia’s office as he arrived at the BAU. He pulled out Mr. Bear and handed him over to Penelope, making her swear that she’d be careful with him.

“You got it sir.”

Penelope had brought in everything she could think of to help her repair your teddy. Penelope began by opening Mr. Bear and removing his stuffing so she could wash him carefully using warm water and a gentle detergent. Letting it dry, using the bathroom hand dryer to speed that process along before checking out where she might need to patch a few things. She used a technique called darning to patch the few small holes that had been created through years of love; once this had been done, Penelope brushed Mr. Bear’s fur to get him looking fluffy again.

Penelope had made two small hearts out of some scrap fabric, filling them both with Mr. Bears old stuffing, she placed one inside him as she stuffed him with new polyfill and kept the other one out as a keepsake for you. Once he was all filled up, she sewed him closed, brushed him once more and tied a neat ribbon around his neck.

The process had taken her the entire workday, though she and her boss didn’t seem to mind.

Aaron had been amazed with the work Penelope had done, Mr. Bear looked brand new, and he couldn’t wait to see your reaction to him!

“Hi honey, I’m home!” You called out, entering the apartment.

“Hi baby, in the kitchen.”

The apartment smelled amazing, it had been a long day, and you couldn’t wait to eat whatever it was that Aaron had been cooking. Truthfully you wanted to eat and then curl up into bed and watch a movie.

“Mmm it smells amazing!” You sighed, taking in the table set up. Amongst the place settings sat a giftbag. “Did I forget something? I know it’s not our anniversary.”

“No honey, you didn’t forget anything, I just wanted to do something special for you.” Aaron explained. “Go ahead and open it.”

Aaron sat across from you, having already set the food on the table. You looked at him skeptically, pulling the bag into your lap and carefully pulled out the tissue paper. A shocked gasp escaping you as you revealed its contents.

“Aaron, what is – what did you – I don’t…I don’t know what to say.” Tears sprung to your eyes.

“I know how much he means to you, and I thought it would be nice to have him fixed up a bit, you know, so he’ll last a while longer.” Aaron wore a sheepish smile.

“This is amazing. You are so thoughtful.” You leaned over the table, pressing your lips to his.

You couldn’t believe that Aaron had done this, going as far as spraying him with his cologne so he’d still smell like him. Aaron was the best thing that ever happened to you, and every time he did something like this, it reminded you of that.

Taglist: @bernelflo@pastelpinkflowerlife@just-moondust

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fairestwriting · 4 hours ago

Note

Hi! Hope you're doing well! I love your writing, I got so excited when I saw you're rqs were open!!!

Could i request dorm leaders w/reader who sang a break-up song while they're dating w/a happy ending? not for a performance or anything, just listening to music and singing along and a mob character passing by heard it. then suddenly there's rumors around the school saying their relationship is falling apart. the reader doesn't know. the boys don't realize that it a big misunderstanding and think that the reader might not be happy with their relationship and they desperately try to make it up to the reader.

Kind of like this one including malleus and azul https://www.tumblr.com/coralinnii/697097733985730560/singing-a-break-up-song-while-dating-feat

sry for rambling, i really love the way you write the characters, if it's too much, don't worry about! thank you!

fjfejf thank you i hope you enjoy your rq too <3 this one takes me back…. throwback sunday

(Also happy (late) valentines day everybody! i wanted to post that that on time for it but it got. so long

𐙚 Riddle Rosehearts

Ironically, you might have even shown him that song before. Riddle is pretty out of the loop, so he’s always curious about what you’re listening to. He never thought that your enjoyment of the song had anything to do with your relationship. It’s just a song, right? And at first, he thinks the exact same when the rumor arrives at him through Cater, chastising him for spreading such baseless claims.

…But it doesn’t take too long for it to get to him. And wasn’t that one of your most listened songs too? He can never remember the titles very well. His uncertainty feeds on the words of others until they make complete sense to him. If you were really happy, why would you be so obsessed with that specific song, after all? Riddle starts to pick apart his own actions, trying to find what could have made you so unhappy… And the truth is, everything is not only going well, but he probably mixed up the song from the rumor with an unrelated song you’re actually obsessed with. His entire issue is built around an impression that you’ve been secretly wallowing all this time, all due to some awful thing he’s supposedly done— Without even noticing how much he hurt you, no less.

Suddenly, when you spend time together, he’s awkwardly asking if you’re really sure that this or that is really okay, like he did when you just started dating. You ask him what’s wrong, and he quickly, awkwardly, blurts out that he heard the rumors, and he was trying to make up for his actions… And you’re just standing there, confused.

Luckily, Riddle has just enough common sense that saying his worries out loud makes him realize how frankly insane he sounds. And when he hears that he was, in fact, thinking of the wrong song, his whole face is as red as his hair. You might have to hold back some laughter as you comfort him… Despite the ridiculousness of the situation, it does feel sweet that he’s so eager to make you happy. Even if it means having to fix a huge problem he doesn’t quite understand.

𐙚 Leona Kingscholar

There’s probably no shortage of rumors about your relationship. Good ones, bad ones, and a good few that were just weird— Leona says with his full chest that he thinks they’re all a waste of time, that it was just people being bored, or jealous, or both. He does wholly believe his own words. He also remembers every single thing he hears about you two.

Similar to Riddle, his initial reaction is that the rumor is just stupid. You listening to a song meant that you wanted to break up with him? Really? People must be running out of things to say, if they’re fixating on something so meaningless… And yet, he can’t keep himself from getting the urge to watch you more closely when you’re together.

Leona will die before he actually admits this rumor ever got to him, really. Even the people he overheard talking about it said it kind of seemed like a reach. He’s not about to start a conversation about it, or even openly express that some stupid bit of gossip had him so worried— But he still feels the need to watch. Do you get bored when you’re just sitting nearby while he’s supposedly sleeping? Do you look uncomfortable when he comes closer? Questions like that come up in his mind.

The answer, of course, is that you don’t. And that’s the end of it… or at least he wants to believe that. The rumor won’t come up unless you mention it, he just randomly comes off just a little softer than usual. It’d be hard for anyone to make the connection, surely Leona wouldn’t get that affected by something so silly, he said it was stupid himself. And yet, it’s still hard to miss how he visibly relaxes when you confirm that’s how you thought.

𐙚 Azul Ashengrotto

There’s all sorts of rumors going around about Azul himself, but they’re mostly just long debates on whether it’s worth getting involved with his deals or not. That’s easy enough to ignore when he has people coming in and out of the Lounge everyday. People who complain were just mad about the consequences they faced due to not reading the fineprint and all that.

This self awareness doesn’t help that much when the rumor comes to his attention, though. He’ll comment about how childish the people gossiping about you were to whoever tells him the news, but his words are hollow. Logic is already in the process of leaving his brain, entirely skipping over how ridiculous the whole thing was. It’s sudden enough to hit him with every mistake he might have made like a truck. The office door is slammed shut and locked so he go insane in peace. The thought of rumors themselves are what stands out the most. That had to be what drove you over the edge, right? Someone must have told you terrible things about him, and now you were miserable and confused and— And then he’s calling you, urgently asking for you to give him a chance to explain himself.

The whole “song” part of the rumor might as well not exist anymore. You ask him what this was all about, and he’s going on and on about how he swears whatever you heard about him wasn’t actually that bad and how he’s sorry that you’re getting caught up in all of this mess. You have no idea what it’s all about. It takes a bit of a back and forth for him to realize this. Then he’s just silent. And on instinct, as the realization hits him, he just hangs up, mortified.

You leave to go see him in person, worried or confused or amused or all of the above. You knock on his door, asking him what was up, what rumors he was talking about, he’s too embarrassed to answer for a bit. When he finally does, he looks at you so guiltily, you might even expect he’s about to make a serious confession— It does take a little effort not to giggle when he actually explains it. Insists to get you two some fancy dinner afterwards to make up for the “trouble”, no matter how much you insist you’re glad that it was just a misunderstanding.

𐙚 Kalim Al-Asim

Surprisingly, or maybe not, Kalim is actually quite used to people gossiping about him too. It doesn’t mean he’s the best at handling it, but even before deciding to work on becoming a more capable person, he was already a couple steps ahead from quite a few other people. Even compared to the other dorm leaders — or maybe, especially compared to them — he usually doesn’t have a very hard time ignoring what others say about him.

The first time he hears the rumor, it’s from a few Scarabia students whispering to each other in the corners of the dorm lounge. His first concern is calling out how rude it is to spread rumors about other people, and while he doesn’t have much of an aura of authority, people like him too much to not back off. He thought that was the end of it, and was almost succesful at fully ignoring the rumor, but he’s unlucky enough a particularly nasty someone catches on that it did bother him, despite it technically not showing on the outside.

And then it’s not just a problem, but a long running one. Because he doesn’t want to listen to people saying all those mean things about you! You’re always happy when you’re around him, there’s no way you’d be secretly holding a grudge over… what, really? You two don’t even fight! …That’s the sort of thing he’ll be telling himself, as time passes, and without him even fully processing the building anxiety, you start to wake up to… random gifts from your boyfriend, piled up at the door of your dorm room. How long had it been since you forgot about the song, when you reach the point of deciding to ask him what this was all about? Who knows. The gifts didn’t feel that odd at first, he just does that sometimes, but you were starting to run out of space, and Kalim was starting to act weird around you. So you bring it up… And he actually bursts into tears.

Poor guy, honestly. He’s a mess, saying he’s sorry, he didn’t know what else to do to make your not want to break up with him, all that. He’s saying he’ll let you go if that’s what you truly want when you interrupt him and ask what he’s even talking about, and he tearfully mentions he heard those rumors— That at this point might have even died down. You have to assure him it’s all just rumors for a while, and he tears up again, this time out of happiness. He’s not even going to think about how crazy it was that he got so deep into something that had no depth at all. He’s just too glad that you’re not upset.

𐙚 Vil Schoenheit

Vil’s initial reaction mostly depends on what sort of day he’s had. It’s harder to not overthink things when he’s already stressed — Not that he believes it in any case, it’s just unpleasant to hear either way. The whole thing sounds, frankly, just too shallow to truly hit him. How could anyone claim to know how you were feeling just because you liked this one specific song? How could they even confirm you actually liked that song at all, really… But people still talk about it, and that’s how it sticks to his thoughts.

He’s already dismissed the rumor itself, the question is whether it really came up out of nowhere or not. Maybe someone had noticed you were looking down, or you confided in a friend about relationship issues, and that’s what’s really behind all those flashy claims about the song — The idea makes him anxious. You two usually just talk it out if there’s an issue, so what could have happened? You’re caught off guard when he asks you out for lunch, just the two of you, right in the middle of the week because it’s the only time slot he has available.

You think maybe he just felt like doing something nice but still easygoing. So it definitely feels strange when he starts to speak up about how he’s aware he’s not perfect, but he’s willing to work on anything that might bother you, you realize he looks oddly serious for the situation—

You blink, telling him you knew that, but everything was fine. If anything was wrong, you would’ve just talked to him, like you always do. He stops on his tracks, suddenly feeling kind of silly. If it was anyone else, maybe he’d question if you really meant that, but you say it so easily it couldn’t not be the truth— Then you ask him if something is wrong, and he does his very best efforts to circumvent the topic, something about being told you were unhappy… You recall a friend bringing up the rumor to you, before that, and it feels hard to believe something so silly would get to him. It turns out to be a nice date anyway, though. Maybe something you could do more often?

𐙚 Idia Shroud

Honestly, even before he registers that all of this is over you enjoying a song, his brain is already going haywire. When it does hit that this was all over a song, though, he stops, and not because it’s all over a song. But instead because the gossip itself implied that you weren’t listening to it while wallowing by yourself— Then, right after, he wonders if that means things were even worse than they seemed. Did people know because you were telling your friends about it or something? The questions keep coming up, the logic getting more and more complicated inside his head…

Would it be better to check up on you? Straightforwardly ask if anything is wrong? There’s no way he could just do that, what would he do if it all turned out to be right, if you’ve been silently despising him this whole time? In the end, you don’t hear from Idia that day at all. Then Ortho calls you out of concer, not knowing what’s happening beyond the fact his brother is losing his mind. You can even hear him in the background, telling him to hang up.

…And after a day without any texts, and a call from Ortho that sounded like Idia might as well have been stabbed in his room, you rush over to his dorm. You hurry to check up on him, expecting something bad, and he’s actually shocked you’re worried about him. That you don’t outright hate him. Hearing that, you’re understandably confused.

Your reaction brings him back to reality a bit, prompting him to ask if he’s done anything wrong. You ask him what made him think that. He mentions something about a song. Music, of course, is the furthest thing from your mind right now, so you ask him which song— It soon becomes clear there’s been an insane misunderstanding. After relief hits, it’s a little awkward, and he’s apologizing for how crazy he must have looked. You’re just glad your boyfriend didn’t get jumped or anything like that. Details can be discussed later.

𐙚 Malleus Draconia

Malleus takes it all pretty seriously. You probably showed him the song yourself, since he gets curious about the music you like, and it did stand out to him that it’s breakup music— But he doesn’t consider that, by itself, a reason to worry. He’ll always believe your word over others, which is why it’s so confusing to him to hear that you were supposedly unhappy. And people were considering your taste in music as proof on top of it all? Would that mean that showing him the song was some sort of indirect message, then…?

It doesn’t feel in character for you, he thinks, but he doesn’t want to risk it. He does consider doing something to make up for his supposed mistakes, but since the topic of breaking up is on the table, he decides nothing could really be enough. And you were really so upset you were about to give up on him, he doesn’t know what he could do to make you feel better. In the end, he just decided to ask — right at the very next time he sees you, before saying anything else — why you wanted to break up with him.

”What”,you echo, and for a moment he wonders if you were really so resentful you were making fun of him, but that definitely doesn’t sound like something you’d do. He explains he heard people talk about it, saying he wanted to “hear your thoughts on the matter before believing anyone else”, that he was hoping to solve whatever the problem was. He’s so serious it stuns you, you tell him there aren’t any problems.

That confuses him. What did you mean when you showed him the song, then? Nothing, it turns out. You just liked the music. His worries dissipate soon after that, if you say it was all well, of course he’ll believe you. He does remind you to tell him if it’s not, because he doesn’t want that imagined scenario to become true at all, but he’s ready to just (very) gratefully set it all aside. Simple as that. Won’t get it if you seem to find the situation amusing, but won’t stop you from finding humor in it either.

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