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francisofthespook · 2 months ago

Text

Closer

Oneshot

Daryl Dixon x Reader

Summary: After a long journey, you and the group have finally settled down at Alexandria. You decide to throw a little party after you found a Nine Inch Nails CD while on a run. You spend most of the party waiting for your favorite archer to arrive. By the time he does, your favorite song is playing...

Setting: Alexandria, pre-saviors

Warnings: Suggestive content/Drinking/Descriptions of being drunk/I don't really know what to put here I've never done warnings before so if I'm missing something please let me know !

Word count: 4,433

Author's Note: Hi ok so this is the first time I've written like this in literally so long, the last time I remember writing fanfic or oneshots was when I was deep in the 1D fandom in like 2013 and it was dogshit. So please be patient with me while I figure this out again. If there are any errors or I do anything wrong, kindly let me know and I will fix it. I love you all, I have been inspired by so many of you great writers on here and it has renewed my love for writing <3 (especially you @thevegandarkelf <333)

(ps divider and gif made by me:) )

((pps if the gif or dividers act weird lmk because I've never made them before))

OK HERE IT IS !!

Parties. If someone were to ask you what you missed the most since the dead started rising, you would say parties. (Or maybe your Juul, but there were good enough replacements for that…) You had been in your first year of college when the fall happened, far from your family and in a city you didn’t know that well. But you were lucky enough to have been out of the inner city when things started to fall apart. Even though you had a good distance between you and downtown, you were still not shielded from the chaos that ensued when the dead began attacking. You had been out working on an assignment for your environmental studies class by a quarry when the cell towers went down. Since you had most of your stuff on you, you decided to stay put until you got reception again. (ha.)

It wasn't too long after, that a small group began forming at the quarry. And there, you met your new family. It hadn’t been easy, far far from it actually, but you guys survived. You took it day by day, but you survived. You weren't particularly skilled in survival, but your group was, and you had picked up little things along the way that crafted you into the person you were now.

Your group had set up several camps along the way, but none of them lasted long enough to get too comfortable. So when you finally landed at Alexandria, the hesitancy was looming for a while. For the first few days, everyone slept in one house, despite being offered each a place of your own. To be honest, you loved sharing a house with everyone. Not just because of the safety it made you feel, but also because it just meant getting to stay close to a certain archer that you had grown fond of.

Daryl was… hard to read. He was quiet and stoic most of the time, but around you he got a little softer. You knew he liked you, but you weren't sure if he like liked you, like you did. But in fear of ruining the friendship you had worked so hard to build, you kept quiet and substituted flirting with friendly gestures. Letting him know that you cared, but not that you cared cared. Sure, there had been many times when it felt like all the cues were lined up and you could just lean over and kiss him, but you knew him well enough to know that even if he maybe felt the same way, his emotions would overwhelm him and he would probably run. So you played it safe. A good rule of thumb, especially in this world.

However, after a while, your group slowly started to let their guard down. They accepted that Alexandria could be what you all had been looking for. You started to get just a little bit comfortable. You could tell this shift in the group's demeanor frustrated Daryl. He wouldn't allow himself to let his guard down and he thought you all were mad for beginning to trust this place given your past experiences. But you didn't care, you were just relieved to finally be able to get a good night's sleep without having to worry about the dead stumbling upon you while you weren't conscious.

When Deanna threw the first party, you were sold. It was a quaint gathering of everyone in the community, nothing like the ragers you knew from high school and college, but it gave you hope. Hope that there was still a chance to get back to where you were, or at least close to it. You had begun to feel less and less human every day that you were on the road. But being here with a drink in your hand and a skirt on for the first time in god knows how long, you started to feel human again.

When you found the CD on the run, Daryl had scoffed and told you to put it back. “There's nothing wrong with bringing back something fun” you had told him. “Yeah well fun's not gonna keep us alive now ain't it?” he replied. Maybe he hadn't meant for it to sound so harsh, but it hurt just a bit. You had frowned and looked down at your shoes, feeling deflated with guilt. “I know we need to survive, but we also need to still feel like humans.” you sighed and looked back up at him. At seeing your expression, his own softened. “When we were out there on the road, I forgot what that felt like. It may just be a stupid CD, but it reminds me what we're fighting for.” He didn't say anything after that. Just gave you a small smile, a nod, and squeezed your shoulder while he walked past you to continue gathering items from the shelves.

You had been planning it for weeks, and it had finally come to fruition. You invited everyone from your group and some of the Alexandrians that you had gotten to know over the past few weeks. It definitely wasn’t a frat party like the ones you used to know, but it was close enough. The CD you had found a while back was blaring through the house as you filled up another cup of your DIY ‘jungle juice’. Admittedly, Nine Inch Nails were never your favorite band, but you remember how their album ‘The Downward Spiral’ used to spin on your record player while you absentmindedly did chores around your college apartment. Human, you remember how it made you feel human. Though you obviously never acknowledged that feeling at the time.

It was definitely funny to see everyone's reaction to the music when you had put the CD in the player. For some reason, the group had formed a collective opinion of what you were like before the fall that did not include ‘listens to rock’. But like the others, being given a safe place to stay allowed your true personality to shine through as the stability and comfortability grew, bringing you one step closer to the girl you used to be. As the drinks kept flowing, the attendees became more agreeable to the music. (Plus it was the only CD you had, so it would have to work whether they liked it or not.)

The party went on, and you found yourself discreetly scanning the crowd for your favorite archer, but were disappointed when you were met with his absence. Of course, you knew that something like this was extremely out of his wheelhouse, but still, you were sad to see he had yet to show up.

“So, don't feel like you have to… but I’m having a party this weekend, and I would really like it if you came.” You turned your head to look at him and gauge his reaction. “A party?” He scoffed and looked back down at the squirrel he was gutting on your porch steps. “Dun think that's really my scene." He grunted. "Plus, got more important things t’do.” You looked back out at the street in front of you and nodded your head. Trying to hide your disappointment and biting your lip. “I figured.” You replied. “But still,” You looked back at him again, “it would mean a lot to me if you came.” You gave him a small smile when he met your eyes. His expression softened, like it often did when he looked at you. An annoying habit he couldn't seem to shake off. He would never admit it, but he had grown an achingly large soft spot for you over the years, you were his reason to keep going, keep fighting, you were his Achilles heel.

He had a hard time understanding his feelings towards you. He knew he liked you, you were his friend. But if he had only ever acknowledged you as a friend, then why did his heart speed up just a bit when you looked into his eyes? Why did he feel a fluttering in his stomach when you gave him a big toothy grin after finally catching a deer you had been tracking? Why did his shoulder feel like it had been brushed by a flame whenever he shouldered past you? He didn't want to think about it. Stuff like that didn't matter given the state of the world. Or did it?

“I'll see if I can make it” He finally mumbled. Not wanting to let you know that you had won him over, or the effect that you had on him. “Really?!” you squealed, your eyebrows shooting up your forehead and a huge smile on your face. “Dun push it.” He grumbled as he shifted his focus back to the squirrel. But as he turned his head, he made sure his hair fell in front of his face to hide the small smile that was forcing its way out. “Okay! I'll see you Friday then.” you beamed as you got up, using his shoulder to help yourself stand. There was that fire again.

As ‘March of the Pigs’ began playing, you had given up on waiting for him. Throwing back another shot of whatever you could find in front of you and swaying to the music as you re-entered the dancing crowd. It was a little silly to see everyone acting so loosely, never in a million years would you have guessed that the Rick Grimes could actually somewhat dance, it was amusing nonetheless. You made your way towards him and Glenn on the makeshift dancefloor and started moving along with them.

“This is the best party I’ve been to in years!” Glenn shouted to you over the music. Rick chuckled and took another sip from his cup before pointing out, “It's the only party you’ve been to in years” You laughed and threw your head back, the alcohol making everything funnier than it should be. You reached for Rick's shoulder to steady yourself as your laughing died down. You felt warm and tingly, your head light, your smile so big it was making your cheeks sore. You felt human. Your expression shifted as you watched the two boys focus on the front door closing. You turned your head to see what they were looking at, but the alcohol made you dizzy from your movements and you further leaned into Rick for support, your drink sloshing in your cup as you spun. “What?” you slurred to them. Rick locked eyes with you again. “Daryl’s here.”

A sobering shot of butterflies ran through you and you tried to hide your excitement before Rick and Glenn could see it, but it was too late. “Told you it was Daryl, man! You owe me five bucks.” Glenn laughed and pointed to Rick. “Okay, okay,” Rick chuckled and raised his hands in surrender. “When the war on the dead is over and society goes back to normal, I will be sure to give you five dollars.” He replied as he rolled his eyes. You looked between the two of them, “Five doll- what? What are you talking about?” You sputtered out. Glenn put his hand on your shoulder and leaned down close to you while whispering as quietly as he could given the state of the music, “It was just a little bit obvious that you were waiting for someone to show up” he said, holding up his fingers in a pinching motion.

Your eyes grew wide with surprise and a little embarrassment as he pulled away. “What?! No, I was not! What’re you talking about?!” Glenn straightened back up and gave you a smirk. “You're not as discrete as you think you are” You felt the already present heat in your cheeks grow even hotter. “I was betting on it being Spencer but I guess I was wrong.” Rick shrugged and you looked at him in horror. “What? Spencer?! God no!” “So you were waiting for Daryl then, right?” You looked back at Glenn, shooting him a warning look. He held his hands up in surrender “Hey man, I'm just calling it as I see it. Not my fault you've had a blaring crush on him since the farm.” You covered your face with your forearm in embarrassment and the movement made a droplet of your drink fall to the ground. “Oh my god, is it really that obvious?” You dragged your arm down your face before looking back up at the two. They looked at each other before focusing back on you and giving small, smug nods.

“But hey, look on the bright side. One, I don't think he's noticed. And two, it's obvious he feels the same way.” Rick gave you a sly grin and a pat on the back. You removed your hand from his shoulder and shook your head. “You guys are making me so self-conscious now” You chuckled to yourself before hiding your face again. Glenn gave you a reassuring smile and said, “Go, talk to him. He obviously came because you asked him to. If it were anyone else he would have walked away before they could get the full invite out.”

You groaned and took a deep breath before addressing the boys again. “Okay, fine. But when it's made obvious that he does not like me, and just came out of pity, then you both owe me five dollars.” You pointed your finger at them and they laughed before nodding and giving you a thumbs up as you backed away and chugged the rest of your drink.

You approached Daryl as your favorite Nine Inch Nails song started playing. The swirling bassline of ‘Closer’ making you feel light in the head again. Or was it the sight of him standing there, basking in the soft glow of the lamp from the entry hall? He looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight between his feet and looking around like he didn't know where to stand. You grabbed another cup from the table as you walked past it and towards him. Trying to play it cool, you sauntered up to him until you were standing right in front of him. You were close, definitely too close, but the alcohol had messed up your depth perception and you totally didn't mean to land that close to him. Yeah, definitely the alcohol…

“Well hello stranger, didn't expect to see you here” You sung out as you handed him the cup. Was that too much? Oh god, that was too much. Gotta take it down a notch. You looked down and shuffled backward a bit so you weren't encroaching on his personal space. His discomfort seemed to dissolve as he looked at you. His shoulders visibly relaxing a bit and a small grin spread on his face. “I told ya I'd come.” He replied, stifling a small laugh. “You told me you'll see if you can make it, which is ‘Daryl code’ for ‘I definitely won't be there but I don't want to tell you no to your face’ ” You pointed towards him but you miscalculated the distance again and landed your finger in the middle of his chest. Yeah, totally the alcohol, definitely not the magnetizing pull you feel toward him every time you are in the same room. Whatever.

You worried for a split second that your poor attempt at flirting had come across as an insult, but were quickly relieved at the sound of his small laugh once again. God, that laugh made you feel like you had drank all the liquor in this house. It made you feel buzzy and your whole body shuddered at the feeling. “If it were anyone else yeah, but I'd never stand ya up.” You made eye contact with him as he smiled at you and suddenly the room was empty, and it was just you two staring into each other's souls.

Nothing else around you registered in your mind as you stared into his blue eyes and drowned out all the background noise. You leaned closer and muttered as sultry as you could, “Well I guess I must be pretty important then, huh?” You tried, but it came out with a hint of a slur. Maybe it was the drink he had begun sipping on, or maybe the fact that the music was loud enough that no one could hear him, or maybe it was because everyone else was already tipsy enough that they were paying you no attention, but a small wave of confidence visibly came over him as he leaned into your ear and whispered, “I guess you could say that.” He lingered by your ear for a minute before pulling back and locking eyes with you again.

You weren't sure how to react. Your body felt like it was on fire, the root of it at your ear where he had just been, still feeling the breath of his words like a ghost against your head. You tried to play it cool. You stepped back while outstretching your hand to him, “Come dance with me, this is my favorite song.” You flashed him a smile and he scoffed and took another sip of his drink. “I dun dance.” He shook his head. “Maybe not in general, but tonight you do.” You tried to counter, but he just shook his head again while smiling. “Ya go on and dance to yer song. I'll be here when yer done.” You rolled your eyes but started to move back towards an even tipsier Glenn and Rick.

You let me violate you

You let me desecrate you

“Who is this again?” Rick asked as you approached them. “Nine Inch Nails.” You replied, taking a sip from the new cup you had grabbed on your way back over. “Pretty raunchy, not somethin’ I would’ve listened to.” He responded. “Well judging by the way you've been dancing I wouldn't say you hate it.” You scoffed. “So? How’d it go?” Glenn cut in. “Mmm” you bit your lip, unsure if you should confide in them the heated moment you just experienced.

You let me penetrate you

You let me complicate you

“He said he wouldn't have come if it were anyone else's party. So I guess that's a good thing…” You said, sounding unsure of yourself. You didn't want to overthink anything, you were worried that you were just making up his attraction to you in your head. You were trying to save yourself from the embarrassment if it did end up being something you misread. “Good thing? That's a great thing!” Glenn countered. “Is he not coming over?” He questioned, looking around to see Daryl still leaning against the wall by the front door, sipping on his drink. “Nah, I told him to come dance with me, this is my favorite song on this album, but he told me to go dance and he would be there when I came back.” You replied, trying not to sound too disappointed.

(Help me) I broke apart my insides

(Help me) I’ve got no soul to sell

“Well then let him be a party pooper. We’ll dance with you.” Rick gave you a smile as the three of you continued to sip on your drinks while swaying to the music. You glanced over your shoulder briefly to check on Daryl and found him staring directly at you. He looked almost… jealous? Well if he was, then it was his own fault for staying over there instead of coming to dance with you. But why would he be jealous? You were suddenly struck with a devious idea that sober you would never have executed. You started singing along to the lyrics, you knew what was coming next, and your stroke of boldness had taken over your brain. You angled your body and turned your head back towards Daryl, trying to make it look as natural and inconspicuous as possible, and began mouthing the lyrics at him.

Help me, the only thing that works for me

If you weren't sure before, you were sure now. As you began mouthing the lyrics while dancing closely to Rick and Glenn, Daryl's stare became more intense, more purposeful. He was jealous. You took that as an advantage and shifted your attention back to the two boys in front of you. This time you threw your head back at an angle while mouthing the next line, trying desperately to get Daryl to see you, but also trying to make sure it didn't look like you were doing it on purpose.

Help me get away from myself

As the line rang through the small house, you made a split decision to make a bold move. As you sang the next line out, you turned your head once again and looked him directly in the eyes. His were already locked onto yours, and you stared him down as you sang,

I wanna fuck you like an animal

You swayed and moved your hips to the beat, the skirt you were wearing rising up ever so slightly over your thighs as you did a subtle squat as you swayed. You looked back toward your dancing buddies again, hoping they hadn't noticed what you were doing, but they were oblivious. In their own little words dancing along to the music and the flow of liquor through their veins.

I wanna feel you from the inside

The music continued to bounce through the air, the room had become hot and humid, adding to the tension you felt towards Daryl. A small bead of sweat rolled down your back as you continued moving your hips to the beat.

I wanna fuck you like an animal

You felt a sudden ignition of a flame against your hips as two large hands began to sneak around them from behind. For just a second, you froze in fear, before your nose picked up the all too familiar notes of him, this time with a hint of liquor. You didn't look back, you didn't acknowledge him, you just kept dancing. Ever so slightly grinding up against him as he stood stiff behind you. Rick and Glenn, still oblivious to what was going down right in front of them.

My whole existence is flawed

You ran your hands up through your hair, your cup had been lost at some point but that was beyond your thought parameters right now. You slowly arched your head backward and leaned into him. Almost by instinct, like some primal urge that existed within him and had been lying dormant for years, he leaned his head down into your neck and breathed you in. You slightly craned your neck to the side to make space for him. A combustion of nerves spread like wildfire throughout your entire body. The space on your neck where his breath was hitting felt white hot, numb, and electric all at the same time. You felt like you were being born again, it took everything in you not to let out a small moan right there. The overwhelming feeling of him being on you took over and as the next line played out, you angled your head up just enough so that your mouth was at his ear and whispered to him the next line,

You get me closer to god

He grunted and pulled you closer into him. Bringing your arms down from holding your hair up, you placed them over his hands that were gripping your hips. His breathing was a constant flow against your neck as you continued to subtly dance up against him, causing droplets of condensation form on your skin. The whole room was spinning now, but not from the alcohol. No, his touch had sobered you up from that, but now you were drunk off him. You spun around to face him and put your arms around his neck as he adjusted to wrap his around your waist.

“Hi,” you whispered with a sickening grin on your face, eyes locked directly into his and your faces so close, your noses almost brushed against each other's. “Hey,” He whispered back, obviously fighting off a grin. “So you do dance then?” You challenged, hoping that you wouldn't scare him off by being a little more direct. “I guess for ya I do” He murmured. You took this a green light to push a little further. Looking off to the side while you feigned innocence you said, “Well I wonder what else you can do for me that you wouldn't do for anyone else…” That was it. That was as far as you could push it, you had thrown the ball into his court and it was his turn now to take the reins and show it, if he did have any interest in you that is.

He was taken aback a bit by your remark, but he quickly shook off the surprise. He looked into your eyes, searching for the sign that you wanted this as badly as he did. He thought he saw it, but he wasn't sure if he was just blinded by his own attraction and deflecting it onto you. But in the millisecond that his mind ran through all the possibilities of disaster that could come from misinterpreting your interactions, he decided to take a chance. He bit his lip before he slowly leaned into you yet again, brought his lips to your ear, and whispered, “I can show ya if ya want.”

Your veins filled with ice, your heart stopped beating, the butterflies in your stomach turned into wasps, buzzing around rapidly and stinging your insides with desire. He pulled back and looked at you. As hard as you tried, you couldn't close your mouth as it hung slightly agape. He did feel the same way. He did want you as badly as you wanted him. Your mouth formed into a smile with your eyes half-lidded, weighted down from the lust you felt towards him. “Okay,” you spoke, barely audible.

Moving your hands down to his, you wrapped your small ones around his large ones and pulled them off of your hips. You slowly turned around, looking back at Glenn and Rick one more time before you began, as discreetly as possible, pulling Daryl towards the stairs that lead up to your room. He froze for a second, and you looked back at him. He hadn't really meant ‘right now’ when he said that, but he was filled with butterflies as he accepted that you definitely meant ‘right now’ and he let you pull him behind you and up the stairs.

When you reached the last step, you glanced out at the partygoers, making sure that everyone was occupied and hopefully wouldn't notice your and Daryl’s absence for a little bit. As you scanned the crowd you locked eyes with Rick and Glenn who were holding back smug looks. You threw them a middle finger before taking the last step and guiding Daryl into your room, closing and locking the door behind you. Hopefully, the music was loud enough that no one would hear you…

okay there it is, plus the song that inspired it ! pls be nice :)

#daryl dixon #twd daryl #daryl #twd daryl dixon #the walking dead #daryl dixon one shot #daryl x reader #Spotify

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captain-bubble-wrap · 1 month ago

Note

Christmas time engagement with Quinn, yeah? Something to make me feel less #foreveralone or whatever

#foreveralonesquad

Gold-coloured holiday lights reflected off the dark water of the bay like diamonds scattered against black velvet. The distant sound of several Christmas songs played from storefronts in the distance. All around downtown Vancouver, laughter could be heard as the city bustled with last minute shopping and dinner plans. It was a magical time of the year, the last fleeting moments of Christmas Eve right before everything shut down.

Quinn had three days off before the season resumed pace as usual on Friday. You had spent the day with your family in Vancouver, before Quinn and yourself would catch a flight to Florida in the early hours of the morning. The day had been wonderful! You helped your mom in the kitchen like you always had, while Quinn and your father talked hockey and the outlook of the Canucks for the playoffs. Your own personal Hallmark movie, that was what today had felt like.

The goodbyes had been hard but then you remembered it would be harder for Quinn in the coming days. You were fortunate enough to have your family outside the city proper, but his were thousands of mile away. You couldn't imagine what that must feel like, but you were appreciative that he had given up some of his rare time off to spend the day with your family instead of catching a flight the night before. There was also another agenda, that Quinn had, that involved needing to spend the day with your family: he wanted the permission from your father to ask for your hand in marriage.

He was an old-fashioned, hopeless romantic at times and this was one of those instances where it was almost necessary. He couldn't picture doing it any other way and thankfully your father appreciated the respect the young man had shown in asking him. Getting the chance to ask him had been harder than he had expected. The kitchen had butted up against the living room, in one large, open-air styled space. They could hear you and your mother just as easy as you could hear them, but just asking your father to leave the room would have been weird for Quinn to ask. He had to get creative. So, while he was having a short conversation with you about lunch, Quinn had texted your father about the idea of leaving the house on the premise of picking up something from in the city.

[Quinn: I need to talk to you about something. Can you make an excuse about us needing to leave the house?]

Your father didn't question it, and brilliantly spun the tale of Quinn and himself needing to pick up some wine that he had forgotten he had ordered. Both of you had looked at your father with mild confusion. He didn't drink wine, hated it actually, but the man probably had his reasons. So, when the two of the moved to leave, you gave Quinn a kiss goodbye as did your parents. Even after all these years, they still seemed to be in love. That was all you wanted in life; you wanted a marriage like they had.

No sooner had the car left the garage, your father turned to Quinn and asked him if everything was okay.

"Is there some kind of problem?" Your father asked.

"No, no, quite the opposite. I um, there was something I wanted to ask you, but I didn't want anyone to overhear it."

"Yeah?" He replied, eyebrow cocked in interest.

"I wanted your permission to marry your daughter."

Brakes were applied instantly, lurching the occupants forward in their seats. Quinn was wide-eyed and nervous, fearing he had said the wrong thing. He was now pained with regret.

"Are you serious?"

Quinn swallowed hard, his brows knitted making his face look more troubled than usual. "I am, yes."

In an instant, your father busts into a wide smile and laughter. "My god, that's great to hear! I always knew you were a good one, Quinn! Shit, you had me nervous there for a minute!"

The car returned to its forward momentum; Quinn sighed a full-bodied sigh of relief. "That makes two of us," he said, fighting a wave of dizziness.

"You're a good match, the two of you. I'm happy she found you, Quinn, truly. She loves you like no other. I would be happy to give you my blessing. When were you thinking of asking her?"

"I was hoping tonight before we left the city."

"Perfect! Since she was a teenager, I swear she's dreamed of a Christmas engagement," your father laughed, shaking his head over the fairy-tale moment that was being orchestrated. "This is just…wow. I'm at a loss for words!"

Dinner had been wonderful: full of laughter, embarrassing childhood stories, and new memories to be recounted years from now. Now, however, it was time to get ready to head to the airport and travel the eight hours south. Your parents had given you each a hug, and your mother both a kiss before finally letting you leave. Your waves goodbye continued until you left the driveway.

"That was nice," Quinn said, holding your hand as he drove.

"It was! Thank you for wanting to go!" You reply, turning in your seat to look at him. He always made you smile: from his brown curls, to that sly little smile he had grown accustomed to.

"I have somewhere I want to take you, before we get to the airport."

This strikes you as odd. "Are you sure we have time?"

"Oh yeah, it's fine." He brings your hand to his mouth for a kiss which makes you blush. "It will be worth it."

There was an area of the bay that was absolutely dripping in golden lights; strung from every lamppost for as far as the eye could see. With your hand still in his, the two of you began walking beneath the lighted glow of the numerous archways beside the waterway. There was a slight breeze but the temperature was mild enough and no rain. In fact, it had tried snowing a couple times that day but had ended moments later. White Christmas' were rare in Vancouver, it was just the nature of the region.

"Are you warm enough?" Quinn asked, checking in after a few minutes into the night air, he was fussing with the ring box in his coat pocket. It was like he had to reassure himself that it was still in his possession.

"Mhm, I'm okay."

"Are you sure?" Before waiting for your answer, Quinn let go of your hand and put his arm around your waist, pulling you in close. Your head found his shoulder, and your arms around his waist in a compromise. Still you walked, unsure just where he was taking you. You tried to stay in the moment but the looming stress about catching a late-night holiday flight was still lurking in your mind.

In the distance, there was a garden gazebo, absolutely ablaze with light. It looked so beautiful against the dark backdrop of the bay. You found your feet being steered in its direction, Quinn placing a kiss to your temple.

"Here, sit down a moment," he spoke, taking a seat beside you. "I wanted to thank you for everything you've done for me this year. For being with me through all my ups and downs, the playoffs, my moods, and my injuries. You've been my everything. You've kept me grounded and my feet going forward."

You smile, letting him talk without interrupting him.

"I owe you so much. You've been with me through the celebrations and the tears and there's no one else I'd have rather had by my side but you."

You watch him smile, as he shifts his weight, and before you can react he's on one knee, the black ring box in his fingers. "There's no one else I'd rather ask: will you marry me?"

Hands cover your mouth as you gasp. Of course, you had hoped he would have one day asked for your hand, but you hadn't dreamed it would be today. A fanciful daydream, sure, but you tried not to get ahead of yourself.

"Oh, Quinny! Absolutely! Yes~"

He's grinning ear-to-ear, putting the stunning diamond on your finger. As soon as it's placed you grab his face for a kiss, the warmth of his skin soothing your cold fingers. Minutes could have passed before you two parted ways but it didn't matter. Never, in your life, could you remember being so happy.

"You'll want for nothing with me," he whispers, your foreheads touching, lost in each other's eyes.

"I never have," you reply, tears now streaming down your cheeks.

"Only happy tears, okay?" He asks, kissing each and every one of them away.

"Only happy ones."

"I love you," Quinn smiles, holding your face in his hands.

"I love you. I love you so much!"

Moments pass, just exchanging sweet little promises to each other before Quinn remembers the night isn't over yet.

"Come on, sweetheart, lets get you warmed back up. I don't want you to get chilled." Another kiss is placed on your lips, one you could tell he didn't want to end. "We've got a flight to catch."

"Quinn?" You sniffle as he stands to his feet.

"Hmm? Something wrong?"

"No, nothing. I just… thank you, for everything."

"Sweetheart, you don't need to thank me for anything. I'd give you the stars if I could reach them."

#💌Maven's Love Notes #may we all find our Quinn #I - too - feel like a “forever alone”#a - “I'll never get proposed during the holidays” - girlie #may this post find you anon (and everyone else) well and with lighter hearts #quinn hughes fanfiction #quinn hughes x reader #quinn hughes imagine #quinn hughes #hockey imagine #hockey fanfiction #nhl imagine #nhl fanfiction

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spacegyaru · 6 days ago

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cw: michael kaiser x afab! reader. all characters are aged 21+! (in this case, they're both 23) + pls don't read this if u haven't seen the first and second part. huge angst and confrontation. make up sex in the end so minors, dni! also, i tried my best to make it in character. i personally believe that kaiser is a cocky asshole except if the person he interacts with is someone who knows him from the past, or someone he's attached to in the past. so yep, i tried making him in character!

part 1 / part 2 / this is pt. 3!

also here's my masterlist if you wanna see more 😉

word count: 1.7k+ words

three years after separation, you meet again in unexpected circumstances. but is it too late?

it's been three years since that time you forgot about michael kaiser. you were so hurt by what happened. it's as if he just left you in the air.

because of that, you just focused on your career and in working at the bakery. eventually, you've finished the culinary program that you were taking and was able to focus fully on your family business. apparently, you had to take over because both your parents are considering retirement. so you've worked on your way to the top.

to you, kaiser became nothing but a painful memory. you thought he would protect you, but he was the first one to break your heart that way. anyway, you got over it and eventually accepted what happened. as what people say ‘it is what it is’.

your bakery got bigger. aside from offering bread and pastries as menu, you also started serving other delicacies like meat, chicken, and etc. you made it really big and out of the slums when you decided to level things up by adding other recipes on the menu.

you were able to invest a lot on yourself. you brought your family out of the slums and were able to help build a house for your parents in the rural area, as what they wanted for their retirement. you were also able to buy a car, your own house (out of the slums), and the small bakery that you owned no longer sits at the downtown slum area, but it is now located in the bustling streets of berlin.

as business continued to succeed, you decided to explore the world of catering. and boi, everyone loved it! you were striving as a successful person in the business industry. until eventually, a big offer landed on you.

you were asked to cater a huge ball for german celebrities. feeling great about the deal, you immediately accepted it.

tbh, you got a lot going on that you forgot about kaiser. from time to time, you would see him on tv, and you would think of the good old times. it would make you sad how things ended between the both of you, but then again, you’ve moved on. your heart hurts sometimes, but it's okay. things happen.

so the day came. you were at the big event, in a huge venue. your staff worked in the kitchen while you were fixing everything— from decorations, to the food preparation, and to serving the food. you were kind struck in awe as you saw loads of people around.

the night was normal. that was until you were serving some red wine to the guests and eventually, you bumped on someone. your eyes widened and apologized immediately.

“...y/n?” when you heard that, you stopped apologizing. your eyes widened as you saw him— michael kaiser.

you did not say anything. you stood up and stared at him for seconds before awkwardly leaving him alone. you formally apologized for the suit and left. you acted like a total stranger to him. and it made him a little bit confused.

you tried so hard to avoid kaiser the whole night. you thought you already moved on but when you saw him, you felt your world crumbled. you remember the pain of losing someone important to you, and the pain of losing a best friend. the guy who ruined the whole concept of having a first love for you.

after the event, one of the organizers called you and told you that one of the biggest investors for the event wanted to thank you personally and is waiting in his private suite. you didn't think about it that much so you followed along.

and that investor is… of course, it's michael kaiser. when you saw him, you sighed and attempted to walk away, but he held your wrist as if he didn't want to let you go.

when kaiser hugged you, you just stood there, feeling his touch. he back hugged you when you were trying to leave. your hand was still on the door knob, and your urge to leave was still there. but you seem to be so weak when it comes to his touch.

“y/n, i've missed you…” kaiser said while hugging you. you just clicked your tongue and freed yourself from his hug. you gave him a look filled with irritation.

you reminded kaiser that he was the one who left. your voice was filled with bitterness while you said it.

his brows furrowed and sighed while he said, “i know i did hurt you but please, just give me a chance? come on, we could make it work this time.”

you wanted to be harsh on him, but you also longed for him to the point that you still stood there and gave him a chance to explain.

and he did. kaiser said that he would be guilty if you guys actually got together and he didn't give your relationship enough time. “liebling, i was so busy that time and i was so afraid of the fact i'll hurt you if i'll always be away. you have to forgive me. it's been lonely without you…”

you looked at him for a moment before starting to embrace him. and he did hugged you back as if he will never let go. you didn't know what to expect when he eventually planted a kiss on your lips.

kaiser’s kiss still felt the same. it gives you butterflies in the stomach. your heart felt warm as he held your hips. you started kissing back, but you pulled away.

you looked at him with widened eyes as you realized what you did. you gave in to him again. after staring at him for seconds, you ran away out of the room. you swear you're gonna check the guestlist before accepting a big offer like that.

days later, you were at your own restaurant, managing things on your own. you were about to head inside after throwing the trash, when someone suddenly dragged you. the man seem to wear a suspicious disguise. you were about to scream when he took off his face mask. of course, who? it's kaiser. michael kaiser. why is he so persistent in winning you back?

after few minutes, you found yourself inside his car. at the front seat. his car was parked in an empty alley. both of you didn't talk, until you broke the silence. you sighed before speaking.

you asked him to explain the reason why he left. and then he did try to explain himself. his football career took a toll on him and he just knew that he would never have the time for you.

“i know i screwed up, but my career really got busy so i already knew that i would never have the time for you. but now, i'd be willing to give you more attention that you deserve.”

after saying that in a more serious tone, kaiser began kissing your knuckles… then eventually, he ended up kissing you. and you… you ended up kissing back. you can't just resist his touch.

both of you ended up making out in his car, until he carried you at the backseat. you continued your heated makeout session with your tongues battling with each other. his hands were placed on your hips, caressing your ass, while you focused on pulling him closer to you.

the foreplay felt really nice. his tongue was on your neck while your knee was rubbing his cock, making sure he felt good. he smirked at your actions.

“since when did my little virgin liebling learned this? were you a bad girl while i was away?”

you shook your head. you've given your entire focus on improving your career while he was gone. you thought you've moved on but here you are. still craving for the touch you felt years ago.

“so you were a good girl all this time? i bet you waited for me.” kaiser gave you one kiss before lining the tip of his cock on the slit of your pussy. “you deserve to feel so good tonight, so i just want you to lay there, love. let me do everything.”

again, you felt the tip of his cock enter your pussy. it's as if you were a virgin again. it's embarrassing to admit, but the last time you had sex was also three years ago. and it's still with michael kaiser.

kaiser stared at you as your mouth formed an ‘o’ shape while he was deep balls inside you. he couldn't believe what he was missing out on all these years. he tried so much to forget you, having hook ups here and there, but you were always in his mind.

his thrusts were sensual at first, and he as rubbing your clit. it felt like he actually wanted to make you feel good. he tried kissing you as your legs locked around his waist. kaiser tried to put one of them around his arm as he looked into your eyes and french kissed you again.

as time went by, kaiser's thrusts became erratic. you could just imagine how his car looked like while he was making you see stars. you felt his cock twitching as he began to whisper into your ears.

“how is it, my love? are you cumming? i want you to say my name. tell the world who makes you feel good.”

you moaned kaiser's nickname ‘mihya’ loudly while he rubbed your clit more as he spurted his juices inside you. you ended up squirting on his cock too. after that, both of you looked at each other while panting. a small smirk was placed on his lips.

when the both of you got dressed, kaiser tossed you something. you caught it with your two hands. it was a set of keys. you asked what's that for, while looking at him in curiosity.

“in case you still don't think i'm serious, here's the key to my house. and if you're wondering about the address, check your pocket later.”

oh boy. kaiser might've started off as rocky at first, but upon realizing that you were the only one for him and that there's no one else like you, he knew he'd do everything to win you back. there's nobody else in this world could love you like he does.

a/n: anddd i'm done with this for now 🤭 my next one will be reo x stripper reader 💗

#💗★ vivi's tots #bllk x reader #blue lock x reader #bllk smut #bllk x you #bllk headcanons #blue lock smut #★ michael kaiser #michael kaiser x you #michael kaiser #michael kaiser x reader #michael kaiser x y/n #blue lock headcanons #blue lock imagines #blue lock fanfiction #bllk kaiser #bllk

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bueckersbitch · 2 months ago

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Grace and Grit - paige bueckers x oc

chapter two: how you get the girl

𐙚 characters: hopkins!paige x oc

𐙚 warnings: small mention of vaping

𐙚 authors note: letting this one speak for itself! this is all fiction!! enjoy ;)

Warm air flows through the cracked windows, Blaire stares at the girl beside her. Her golden hair was down, pushed all to one side, the bright blonde bringing out her sharp features, jaw prominent as her eyes were locked on the road, occasionally glancing over at Blaire, softly singing to the song that flooded the space between the two in the car. Angel-like glow radiating off of her as they passed the yellow streetlights. Blaire finds a way to pull her gaze away, now focused on her hand that rested in her lap, bright sapphire surrounded by gold, resting around her middle finger, a gift, her father giving it to her from Madagascar, a parting gift before he left for work in Australia. Other hand intertwined with Paige, Paige’s soft, warm hands grounding them in the moment, the warmth a direct reflection of the type of person Paige was, endearing, kind, big hearted, everything.

She felt her own hair blow into her lip gloss, Nars, Turkish Delight, over top her lightly lined lips, quickly moving her left hand to tuck it behind her ear. A familiar song now playing, How You Get The Girl, by Taylor Swift. Shocked, she turns to Paige, a smug grin across her face, “Paige…” She starts, although she’s quickly cut off “Don’t, I want you to feel comfortable, I know your obsession with her” Blaire hums, gently singing the lyrics, rubbing her lips together in an attempt to evenly coat the remaining lip gloss on her lips. She takes in her surroundings, the dark car having few decorations in it, a basketball car freshener that hung around the rearview mirror, and a photo of Paige, her Dad, and little brother, Drew, in the space in front of the steering wheel, two things that truly screamed Paige. Her love for her family, and basketball.

Paige focuses on living in the moment, maybe that's the reason why she is where she is today, putting her game and family first, so of course, she can’t help but take in the moment that is shared right now, in her car. She focuses on the road, deer trailing to the left, two, prancing around each other beneath the streetlight, spotting the incoming car, they leap away into the forest. Paige pretends to have a rough exterior, boasting in her competition's faces, after all, it’s why the people loved her so much, why she had highlights of her clipped together. She was fierce, never one to back down from a challenge. In reality, though, she was just a teenage girl living her dreams, decision day was right around the corner with school starting up soon, senior year. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind she would attend Uconn, past rosters stacked with greatness all around, thoughts about her future took her out of the moment, and so she slowly removes her hand from the steering wheel, turning up the music, attempting to drown out her thoughts while relishing in the look in Blaire’s eyes, embarrassment? Maybe. But Paige wished Blaire wasn’t afraid of showing who she really was. Paige was as observant as she was extroverted, noticing the front Blaire puts on, the fact she only really had four friends, her childhood best friend, and a couple of classmates from school. “When do you have to be home?!” Paige blurts over at Blaire, nearly shouting over the music. “I mean, I don’t have a curfew!” Blaire says, Paige winks before saying, “Perfect”

The twenty minute drive comes to an end, car pulling into the parking lot. Paige opens the car door for Blaire, her hopping out, the two follow the downtown street, talking about senior year, “Soooo… Senior year…” Paige nudges, smiling, Blaire responds, “Yeah, kind of crazy isn’t it? I feel like just yesterday I was clad in my pink tutu posing for my level two dance photos” Paige nods, “I feel ya, time moves so fast, hard to believe we’re going to leave the life we know behind next year” Blaire turns her head, thoughts swarming her head, the life she knew was uninteresting, to say the least, she didn’t really have a reason to stay, growing up in California, her dad insisted on moving to the quiet state of Minnesota, sure, her dance studio moved from California to Minnesota, something about the founder wanting to be close to her mom, Blaire always held a little bit of resentment towards her dad for that. Packing up everything, leaving Blaire’s childhood behind, dragging her with him, and for what? For him to be on work trips all the time? Leaving Blaire in a hauntingly quiet house? Her mom and dad split shortly before her and her dad made the big move. But who was she to trauma dump? Especially not on a first date, so she's restricted to replying with a quiet murmur of, “Yeah” Paige’s side eye doesn’t go unnoticed, Blaire curses herself in her mind, the feeling of messing up taking over, unfamiliarity reminding her of when she first moved here, caging herself in her room, no urgency to get to know those around her.

Pink lights illuminate the ice cream shop, sweet scoops in cursive on the window, a hole in the wall kind of place, reserved for locals. Paige holds the door open, ever the gentlewoman. Stepping inside, Blaire feels the cool air rush against her face, a direct opposite to the humidity of the summer air outside, Save Your Tears playing through the seventies style stereo, the shop overall emitting a seventies style, checkered floors, pink stools on the other side, fun teal booths lining the wall, pictures of the family that founded the shop snug in a corner, a time capsule, almost. Walking up to the register, Paige orders first, “One small vanilla cone please, and for this pretty lady…” Blaire smiles, “One small raspberry chip cone please” Paige pulls her card out of the back of her phone case, purple, handing it to the worker, a tired girl, probably in one of Blaire’s classes, but she wasn’t one to want to get to know people in her classes, she was there for one reason only, to learn. Paige hands Blaire her ice cream, and a few napkins, before walking back to her car.

Now seated, her knees pulled to her chest, she turns to face the blonde, “So tell me about yourself, I know that there’s more beneath that rough exterior you show during your games” Paige finishes her bite of ice cream, the cold treat regulating her body temperature on the warm summer night, “Well, what do you want to know?” Paige counters, Blaire doesn’t know. What do you even ask on first dates? Paige lifts Blaire’s chin, “Well I’ll help, I love music, I feel like it puts my emotions into words, comforts me before a game, during school, you get it” Blaire laughs “I hope I’d get it, I’ve danced my whole life” Two of them laughing, conversation flowing easily after that, personalities dancing around each other beautifully. Ice cream is long forgotten by now, finished, napkins set in the cupholders, the sunroof pulled back, their seats are reclined now, stars shining in the night sky, Paige asking Blaire everything about dance, the training, what the greenroom looks like, quick changes, auditions, everything you could think of, Blaire was pleasantly surprised, eager to tell Paige everything she knew, excited to tell her about the harsh reality that went on behind the scenes of all the grace that was shown on stage. Blaire asks about basketball, conditioning, exercising and working muscles to avoid strain, reading plays on the whiteboard, the rush Paige feels after making a three, this was who they were, so alike, yet so different, both sports being on opposing sides. Conversation fizzles out, Blaire watching the mint smoke from her vape dissolve into the expansive car space, providing her some clarity to loosen up, Paige occasionally tugging it from her palm, doing the same. Blaire found peace, here, simply parked in an empty parking lot, the clock read, 2:00 a.m. Time slipped away easily when she was with Paige, something she hasn’t encountered since her time in California.

They eventually make their way back to Blaire’s dance studio, her car waiting for her, reserved in her senior parking spot. Blaire moves to open the car door, Paige grabbing her hand before she can do so, “Wait!” Blaire whips her head around, face to face with a flustered Paige, soft pink covering her cheeks. Paige softly takes both of Blaire’s hands in her own, before kissing them, soft lips coming into contact with her knuckles, “I had fun tonight, call me tomorrow?” Paige hopes, Blaire pretends to think for a second, an amused, “We’ll see” coming out of her mouth, before she slips away into the night.

#grace and grit #paige bueckers #uconn wbb #uconnwbb #uconn women’s basketball #hopkins paige #paige bueckers fic #paige bueckers fluff #paige buckets #paige bueckers smut #paige #paige bueckers x oc

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lalunanymph · 1 year ago

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your stepbrother just can't resist you anymore — itoshi. r

flirty!reader, pining rin, heavy stepcest sorz, conflicted emotions, forced orgasms, almost getting caught by parents trope, humiliation, dirty talk, pro-player!rin, rin is 22/ reader is 21, i wrote this completely blasted and came twice to it i fear

Rin never thought he would take this too far.

He was known to be meticulous, and calculative—a man made out of stone. On the field, off of it.

Fans chanted his name, and newspapers exalted him as the latest football legend. But, it did not change the grinding tension he felt whenever his reflection shone back his dark eyebags and pinched frown—a symptom of overworking himself too much.

Through it all, however, Rin always prided himself on being a smart man.

That is, until he met you.

His new stepsister.

You fit every stereotype of a stepsister Rin had heard of from his horndog colleagues.

Pretty, with a too wide smile. Eager and ready to be his friend.

He hated to admit how those cheap, sleazy pornos Shidou would mass share in their group chat had a grain of truth in them.

If they didn’t, he wouldn’t spend his entire time avoiding you, hoping you never noticed how the hairs at the back of his neck stood whenever you passed by smelling of vanilla and sin. He would try to at least give you a hug, not tense everytime you so much as brushed your arm against his.

The idea of self-hatred was not a foreign concept to Rin.

He had spent countless hours comparing himself to Sae, wondering if he would ever reach the pinnacle of such greatness.

His destroyed ego had been remade too many times to count. And he was starting to suspect you would be his final undoing.

“Rin-nii.”

Your soft voice jolted him from his thoughts. He turned the TV down, trying not to let his stare linger on how the shadows from the dimmed blue light threw the curve of your collarbones into sharp focus.

Both your parents were out of town for the weekend, and you had the house all to yourself.

Rin lived on his own in a penthouse somewhere in downtown Tokyo, and he rarely came home unless his father called him to have dinner together with his new stepmother and stepsister.

There was no reason why he should even be here on a Friday night in the first place.

Plus, with Sae still in Spain, he had no one to turn to as a buffer, and the onus of suffering fell on him to return your unsure smile with a half-hearted nod.

“Do you want to have dinner?” you fiddled with your fingers, and he hoped to whatever deity above tasked with listening to his pathetic ass that you hadn’t noticed the heat dusting his cheeks.

“Sure,” his voice came out steady, almost bored. Just the way he always sounded.

Rin’s practised poker face was handy when he had to sit opposite of you, pretending to be absorbed in his plate of udon while you struck up sparse conversation here and there. You talked about work, your colleagues. Sometimes, you brought up your mom and how happy she was on holiday with his dad.

His father had told him how you were raised by a single mother for your entire life and never really had a family to rely on. This would be the first time you had male figures in your life—and you never failed to express your gratitude at how easily they took you in.

“Ah, ka-san sent me some photos of the seashore,” you mumbled wistfully, picking your phone from the table and scrolling through your gallery with a fond smile on your face. “Isn’t it beautiful?” you shared the screen with him and he reached out to steady your hand, accidentally grazing your fingers.

He pulled back slightly, mumbling an apology.

“It’s fine,” you beamed, stowing your phone back into your pocket. “How’s practice?”

This was the reason Rin absolutely hated you.

How you could feel his touches but never responded to them.

Was he the only one cursed to feel his heart doubling in size whenever you so much as looked at him?

Rin wished he could pull back your tall curtains to uncover the orbit of your thoughts—if they were even a millimetre close to colliding with the idea of him. The nuclear reaction was enough to get his mind reeling, and the tightness of his breath and the front of his shorts was enough to snap him back to reality.

“Fine,” he muttered curtly, standing up abruptly, the back of his chair hitting the wall.

You physically recoiled back, and for a second, there was a shadow that passed your pretty eyes, one which you quickly put out when he turned his searing gaze to you.

“Okay, Rin-nii,” you whispered, and your resignation crushed his soul.

Nice going, Itoshi.

You slipped on a smile, taking his plate to the sink before he could protest. He couldn’t tell that your hands were shaking, chest crumpled almost to your ribcage with the cold sting of rejection.

“You…”

His soft voice rose above the clanging of your thoughts, and you stopped scrubbing. Turning to him, your raised brows spoke of honest intentions to hear him out. Unfortunately, Rin was unsure of what else to say, and you waited for your older brother to break the awkward ice.

The parting between his two lips which revealed his white teeth, zig-zagged through your pulsing thoughts, goading you to crash into him.

Your shoulders fell from your ears, and you stopped in mid-motion. Cold water ran down your wrists like tears from a crack in heaven, calling you back into the light. But, you ignored the righteous siren.

Those teal eyes, framed with thick lashes and desperation slowly inched up your bare thighs, right to the crease where your cotton shorts was caught in between an affair with your plush thigh and the enticing slope of your—

Rin flinched and spun on his heel, darting up the stairs as quickly as his toned legs could bring him.

You watched after him, frozen in one spot, fighting the current of disbelief and disappointment threatening to tear you apart.

The fleeting glimpse of warmth that ignited within the chambers of your lower belly was extinguished by the cold harsh truth: your step brother absolutely hated you.

Swallowing hard, you turned back to your hands that were starting to prune from the water.

You switched off the tap, drawing your hands out of the sink basin and letting them fall to your side, breath coming out in stuttered puffs. Not caring how a tiny puddle was forming under both your arms.

Rin snapped back awake to the sound of thunder crashing above his ceiling.

Like the heavens were rioting against the sins plaguing his thoughts, he twisted to this side, trying hard to squeeze his eyes close and allow his mind to drift off.

Another clap of thunder, and Rin swore he felt a cold draft brush his arm.

The bed dipped behind him, and he jumped, a strangled yelp escaping his throat, ready to fight off whoever dared to interrupt his sleep.

When the whites of your eyes shone in the half-darkness of his room, Rin calmed down enough to exhale noisily, fisting the sheets to still his rapidly beating heart.

“What are you…?”

Rin trailed off, anger dying in the back of his throat when the shape of you adjusted in the dark. He first noticed the dip of your shoulders, bare under black spaghetti straps. Following the curve of your collarbone which led right into the trap of your cleavage, he couldn’t help caress your soft skin with his heated glance.

“You can touch them.”

He blinked, and the whites of your eyes suddenly became more vivid even as the night darkened. The shape of your mouth was coming into focus, his retinas gathering enough light in the pitch black room to illuminate the soft flesh-tone pillows he wanted to bite down on in his frustration.

The owlish blinks and stuck silence was cut off when you reached for his hands, pulling them into your lap. Rin felt the heat of your thighs seep into his skin, and a low gasp spilled past his defences.

Lucky Rin, the man who could score even in an unfair match, couldn’t believe if he was dreaming or not when you guided him to slide his palms up your thighs, your touch loose around his wrists. Your night dress hinged off your hips, and he briefly casted his glance to the darkened triangle in between your thighs. It fell back in place, hiding your most vulnerable part like a hasty curtain catching him right in the act.

But, when his larger palms encased your breasts, both of them curving nicely into the concave of his trembling grasp, your nightie’s betrayal was quickly forgotten.

“Fuck,” Rin whispered despite himself. You were softer than he imagined. “Is this real?”

It took him a second to realise he had asked that question out loud like a fucking loser.

Your chest vibrated noiselessly with the buried sound of a laugh. “I can’t believe it either.”

He flexed his wrists, wishing he could close his fists around such delicate flesh. His grip waned, and he felt like he should drop his hands before this got too weird, when you stopped him with a soft sigh.

“You’re scared, aren’t you?”

The shadow of disappointment in your tone, the way your syllables fell flat against your tongue like a limpid towel made a shiver of contempt flash hotly in his chest.

Taking control over the voices screaming in his head, Rin firmly squeezed your tits, hearing your gasp of surprise and ecstasy rebound across the room.

“Such a fucking eager slut.”

Those words slid past the curlicues of his tongue with an ease of deadly poison, each word slowly bringing you up short.

“What—”

“Shut up,” Rin glowered, feeling the stiffness of your excitement between his fingertips as he twisted and tugged on your nipples through the sheer silk. “You seriously interrupted my sleep for this?”

He yanked you closer to him, your body sprawling open like a chest of precious scrolls above his own. Your hair fell into your face, and your scalp’s sensitive skin cried out when he tugged it back with one hand, forcing you to reveal the truth.

“Only little sluts try to seduce their nii-sans.”

The harsh collision of his hot breath and the stinging slap of his palm on your ass made you come up short. Your cry was smothered by his tongue pillaging past the barriers of your mouth, forcing it wide open for him to devour the softness of your sudden shock.

You barely kissed him back when Rin rolled you onto your front, pushing your face into his pillows. Something hard and insistent was pressing down on your thigh, and you shivered when you felt him reach in between your bodies to yank his shorts down.

“Begging like a bitch in heat—I’ll show you what desperation truly looks like.”

“Rin—hah!”

Another hot slap landed on your skin, this time in between your upper thighs. It seared through your flimsy bleats and protests, crawling up your throat as strangled cries when you felt him shove his hands through the gap of your legs, cupping the heart of your desire right in his palm.

Two thick fingers parted the wet seam of your folds, finding the flushed pearl which had the power to make you agree to any transgression. Those digits twisted it slightly in between their callous grab, flicking, rubbing and tapping on the fleshy dome with feral insistence.

You cried out, and a large hand slammed over your open mouth.

“Shut up,” he whispered, fervently, like he suddenly remembered that the walls have ears. “Our parents, they’re…”

Rin trailed off when the stony silence from his parents room down the hall finally hit him. Like someone had thrown cold water over his unbearably hot impatience, it dissolved into greasy pits of lust which opened up right to the darkness winking at him.

Begging him to choose her.

“... not here.”

“Yes,” you whispered, and Rin didn’t know if your shunting hips brushing his aching cock was intentional or not. “T-They’re on holiday, remember? We’re all alone.”

The way you said those last three words—the breathy rejoice of this simple truth—made Rin lean his entire weight into you, the warmth of his breath brushing the shell of your ear feeling like the world’s most beautiful electric shock.

“Good. We don’t have to be quiet when I fuck you.”

You were tossed onto your back with barely any grace, and Rin raked his hot stare down the planes of your body at the same time his veiny, outspread hands made their way down towards your hips. He pulled back the flimsy red hem which had so cruelly denied him the pleasurable view of your pussy, baring your glossy folds to him.

“Wet already, little sister? I would’ve never expected this from you.”

He drove his thick fingers back to the sacred promise of your heat, using your own desire as a lube to take him right down to the knuckles. Your sharp squeal filled him with a masculine pride no goal ever could.

The feel of your warm walls, sucking him in and lovingly keeping him there like nobody had ever done in his whole life, made Rin feel like he could win 20 World Cups in a row. His nostrils flared and he curled his fingers in a seductive motion he once saw a pornstar do. Your arched back and tiny squeal almost made him smile.

“How long have you waited for this?” he whispered, loud enough in the quiet of your heaving breaths. “How long have you waited for me to fuck you?”

“As long as you’ve waited,” your returning whisper, pushed through the scarlet haze his fingers were eliciting in your body, caught him off guard.

“As I’ve waited?”

You nodded sluggishly, half-lidded gaze heavy with emotion when you whispered:

“Since the first day I saw you.”

Him, in a weathered jersey, coming back from practice while both your parents stood side by side, a cinder block about to explode his entire world while you were seated behind them—hidden from his sights. You were only twenty when you first met Itoshi Rin, but you knew you would love him for the rest of your life.

“A year ago,” the ghost of his laugh in the crook of your neck made the patch of skin it caressed explode into tiny sparks. “I hated you the first time I saw you.”

As he spoke, he started to increase the speed of his fingers, using his thumb to put constant pressure on your aching clit. Sometimes, he would rub a few circles into it, drawing out your torment and causing your legs to jerk.

“R-Rin—”

“You reminded me of everything wrong about my parent’s marriage. You were my father’s failure right in front of me. I wanted to hate you so much.” His voice quavered, and his fingers stilled inside you. He pitched forward into your neck, covering his powerless side with a muffled sigh right into your throat.

“But, I could never hate you.”

Despite how wrong everything was, his words were right. Rin never hated you or your silly laugh or your insistence in making sure he was comfortable around you. Maybe he never hated you at all, just the upheaval in his life that followed along with you.

He couldn’t blame you for that. It wasn’t your fault that your mother’s love had severe consequences on his upbringing.

“Never?” you brought him back to the ground with your quaking question.

“Hmm,” Rin hummed, in a half-answer to your longing. “We’ll see about that.”

Those fingers were back to bring you towards the edge, ready to have you spilling out your deepest release and desires for him to taste on his tongue.

Rin curved one arm around you, holding you to his chest while his leg instinctively hooked around your thigh, drawing it right to his side and keeping you open to his plunging fingers.

The hand protectively curved around your shoulders was the same one which pushed your neckline down, revealing your sumptuous breasts topped with heavy, hard nipples right into the chilly room air.

He eyed how those nubs stiffened and perked under his watchful gaze. Rin couldn’t resist the temptation to pinch them around with his thumb and forefinger, relishing at how such a simple action could render you breathless and arching your back.

Your hips swayed like a wave threatening to break over his entire wrist, while he skillfully rocked your world with timely strokes and tugs.

The wet sounds coming from between your legs and spilling from your mouth painted an entire map of your release—the hitch in your breath, the gasping quiver of his name, your pitchy squeal which broke off into a pathetic whine.

Rin let your body find her release from its shameful tether, those watchful, beautiful eyes never taking off from your undulating hips and flushed chest.

While you were easing down from your high, he prised your legs apart, resting in between them and thumbing the raw, angry red head of his neglected cock. Your small fists crumpled around his white sleep shirt, the tilt in your waiting hips and the hungry look in your eyes undoing his patience.

He fisted the base of his cock, giving it a few strokes. Rin was no amateur, but he wasn’t exactly as experienced as the other players. A truth he would take with him to his grave—his ego always needed to know that he was the best.

In your arms, you proved to him that he was worthy of your visceral reactions.

You gasped out his name when you felt the tip breaching past your rippling walls. It was an exquisite stretch your toys or fingers could never give you.

Rin set a pace which had your tits jiggling freely with every heavy slam of his hips into yours. He hadn’t bothered to fully remove your nightie; something about how the hem was haphazardly draped across your thighs with the full reveal being where his cock was currently churning your insides, and the lewd way your breasts were revealed to his starving eyes from your hastily pulled down neckline, added a layer of wickedness to this already sinful affair.

He devoured your flushed cheeks with a debauched sneer.

You turned your face away into the fluffy pillows to muffle your groans, but he pried it back to his impatient gaze. Wrapping a hand around your throat, he kept you pinned to one spot, held in place like how a prey would be frozen in fear from a starving predator’s gaze.

“I’m fucking you so well, huh, Y/N?” his gritted scoff warmed your blood, making it sing in your ears. “You’re taking me like a champ.”

“Stop,” you whispered harshly, tightening your hold on his loose shirt. “You’re being m-mean—”

Your protests died as a choked moan when he wrenched your thighs off the bed and hitched them over his broad shoulders. Rin wrapped his arms around your legs, lifting them off slightly from the soft mattress with his sheer strength.

This position deepened his strokes, and coupled with your shaky circles on your clit, it had you right at the edge.

“Rin… Rin-nii…”

The featherlight whisper of that honorific slammed into him like a tidal wave.

Rin picked up the pace, the slick sounds coming from your pussy intoxicating him with everything about your presence; your airy moans, the glossy tears in your eyes, how you scrunched his shirt in your hold as if he would float away if you let go.

You clawed at his chest, scrambling to grip his dark green locks and the back of his neck to draw him closer. Your legs were fully in the air, the deep rut of each sweet plunge in and out of your eager, twitching hole a shameful sign of your surrender to Rin.

“Say it again,” he growled, the snarl on his face both terrifying and arousing. “Call me that again, little sister.”

You wasted no time in succumbing to the darker instincts tainting the air tonight.

“Rin-nii… nii-san… please fuck me good…”

He grasped the doughy softness of your hips, sinking his nails into the welcoming flesh to take more and more until you were crying for him to stop. Rin was selfish with many things, and you were not the exception. He wanted to own your every sniffle, sob and moan. Every exhale of pleasure you released was consumed to feed his ego.

You belonged to him and only him.

That thought alone could’ve brought him to his knees, and it nearly made him lose control over his own body.

The teasing darkness, beckoning him into her disastrous embrace, called out his name in a slurry, seductive moan which sounded awfully like your own voice.

“Rin-nii! I-I’m close!” your choked whimper made the red fog in his mind thicken. There was a finger hovering right over his trigger button, held back by his rapidly corrupted morals.

He couldn’t cum in you, you weren’t on any protection, he would get you knocked up, your parents would kick him out, he would be a disgrace—

“Rin-nii, inside,” you hiccuped, slipping your hand right onto your mound; using your index and middle finger to pry your nether lips further apart so he could see the glistening chokehold of your folds clinging around his cock. “I want you to cum inside.”

Those words barely left your spit-soaked lips when a well of warmth filled you right up to the brim. Rin’s guttural groan was primal, muffled into your shoulder.

You welcomed his weight on top of you; pushing his cock deeper and pressing on a spot which had you seeing stars and releasing all over his twitching length.

“Rin…” your soft gasp reverberated through his ringing ears. He shivered when you scratched his scalp, the pleasurable itch running down his spine.

There was nothing else uttered between you two. Sleep came like a feathered down blanket over your consciousness, dragging you into the dark from the sound of his jagged breathing.

Your stepbrother was right in between your thighs, eating you out for breakfast.

Rin and you had woken up in a mess of limbs and dried cum, and rather than forcing normalcy after a night where the biggest boundary was crossed, you both continued to fall deeper into each other’s trap.

“Rin-nii…”

He had only fucked you twice, and yet, Rin was already feeling a possessive need to keep filling you up if only to hear you airily breathing out his name.

His tongue slid through your folds, sampling your flavour with the patience of a man starving for his next meal.

Your back was pressed to the expensive marble counter, and your fingers were yanking on his locks.

“Mhm!” your teary hitched breath made him throb right in his sleep pants.

Rin played with your clit, using his tongue to flick the flushed pearl and sucking around the greasy bud until your legs shook around his ears.

Your nails sank into the underside of the counter, and he didn’t have to glance up to know that your face was crumpled in pure ecstasy. He could sense it in your hips—how they swayed like poetry in motion, spelling out his name and claim on you.

He flattened his tongue to let you slide your soaked folds over it as you struggled to find sweet friction; risking a peek up at you through his lashes. Your head was thrown back, the morning sun haloing your hair. Rin had seen a few women in the pinnacle of their own pleasure, but never one as breathtaking as you.

Your moans were strained around your need to remain quiet, even as both your parents were still on holiday. He noticed your hand moving to cover your mouth in his periphery, muffling your moans behind a wall of flesh.

Rin grunted; he couldn’t let you get away with this.

He retracted the pink muscle of his tongue back into his mouth, kissing your clit as a sweet consolation to his change of mind.

“Let me hear you,” he ordered, observing how you pried your teary gaze from the ceiling to the man right in between your legs.

“Rin-nii,” your broken whisper stirred none of his sympathies.

“Our parents aren’t home, so let me hear you,” he kneaded your hip with one hand, swollen lips pulled into an uncharacteristic smirk. “Unless… you don’t want to cum as badly as I thought you wanted to?”

Your breathing hiked, and you tightened your hold on his hair.

“N-no… m’wanna cum around your tongue…”

He sucked your clit into his mouth, using his lips to massage and roll the tiny bud. Sadistically enjoying how you flinched and tossed your head back to cry out his name.

“Then let the neighbors know who’s eating you out s’good,” he growled into your flushed folds. “Let them know who this pussy creams for.”

His words hit you like a freight train.

Running you down the tracks straight into madness, you let Rin order you around, control your reactions with his straitlaced dominance and encouragement to let go for him.

You gasped, preened, cried out and moaned his name, calling him Rin, Rin-nii, Rin-Rin…

His name sounded gorgeous wrapped in lust—your lust.

The sound of a car on the driveway knocked you back to the ground in shock, and from your stance in the kitchen, you could look out the window onto the front porch. Your parents were stepping out of the car, a few hours early from their scheduled arrival, lugging suitcases and joking around.

They couldn’t see you from the kitchen window’s heavy tint, but they were just a few feet away.

“Rin,” you tugged on his hair harshly, begging him to ease up. There was a puddle of spit and juices gathering on the floor, right above where his mouth was still insistently connected to your clit. “Rin, t-they’re here—”

Those large palms caged your hips to the corner of the island, holding you down so you couldn’t squirm away.

“R-Rin!”

“Cum first,” he muttered roughly, licking up and down your seam to tease you from clit to hole. “Cum on my tongue first and then I’ll let you go.”

“No!” you whisper-shrieked, thrashing about, trying to push him off you. He stubbornly held on, pinning you to the edge of the counter with one arm, easily pushing his free hand through your thighs and plunging two thick fingers into your well-teased pussy.

You gasped out loud, back arching.

Footsteps echoed down the gravel walkway, getting closer.

“Rin—”

Your toes curled, and the room started to spin. It felt like your entire skin was covered with flames licking every inch of your body—the biggest ember burning right where Rin was insistently eating you out.

Despite every nerve that was drenched in horror, the coil in your belly never stopped tightening, thrilled by the possibility of being discovered.

“Rin,” you were sobbing at this point, whether in fear or ecstasy, you had no idea. Your body was in a raging battle, your self-control razed to ashes.

“... wonder how Y/N and Rin are…”

Your parents were just right behind the door, their voices breaching through your foggy mind.

They were a few feet away from opening the huge mahogany slab and finding your older brother on his knees, pleasuring you.

Dad would freak out first. After all, he had explicitly told Rin to be nice to you—but he hadn’t anticipated how well the younger Itoshi would treat you.

Your mother would cry. She would curse you out for ruining the first family you ever had.

And Sae, your other brother…

The thought of your older nii-san and the disdain shining in those detached teal eyes (so similar to Rin’s yet so different) if he was the one to stumble upon the both of you, was the final push your body needed.

Flames licked your entire body, the world falling off its hinges. You crumpled to the floor, in time for Rin to catch you, his fingers furiously pumping in and out of your drooling cunt, squeezing you dry from the pleasure.

He was frantically lapping at your clit, drinking up your juices, more of them splattered onto the floor.

“Fuck,” he cursed, kissing and tonguing your folds as you shuddered and creamed around him. “Fuck, so good, so good—”

The lock clicked, and the front door creaked open.

The elder Itoshi found nothing amiss in his house when he stepped in, his new wife trailing behind with their luggage and souvenir bags.

His teal gaze swept over the spacious kitchen, and the only sounds in the house came from the living room where light was spilling past the archway. Someone was watching TV.

“Is Rin here?” his new wife asked, always excited to see one of his boys. He hummed, tossing his keys onto the console table and shrugging out from his jacket.

“Beats me. He comes and goes when he pleases—”

“Tou-san?”

Sanjiro paused, recognizing his son’s voice calling from down the hall.

“Rin-Rin?”

Both parents ambled towards the light source, rounding the corner to find Rin scrolling listlessly through the channels, still clad in his sleep shirt and pants with a cushion fitted snugly in his arms, nestled right on his lap.

He peeled his disinterested eyes from the screen to assess them. “How was your holiday?”

Your mother spoke first. “It was great! The weather was so good. How has Y/N been? She mentioned you stopped over for dinner yesterday.”

Rin’s expression barely changed, only a flicker of recollection behind those impassive eyes. “Oh. Yeah, I did. I stayed over in my old room—it was too late to drive. I hope neither of you minded,” he added as an afterthought.

His stepmother, always there to reassure that he was always welcomed in their new house, stepped into her hostess role. “Of course not! This house is as much yours as ours.”

Never mind that this luxurious double-storey once belonged to his biological mother and father.

Recognizing that his new wife might have overstepped with this careless slip, Sanjiro cleared his throat gruffly. “So, did you at least try to be nice to Y/N?”

Before Rin could reply, he was cut off by a chipper: “Yes, he was!”

You drew all three of their attention, bouncing down the stairs with an effervescent grin plastered on your face. You were ready for the day, dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a t-shirt, hair damp from a shower.

“Rin-nii and I watched some horror movies last night and he made fun of me the whole time, did you not, nii-san?”

There was a crack in his son’s composure—a look of annoyance that made Sanjiro want to chastise him when Rin spoke up, surprising the older man who could faintly make out a teasing lilt in his boy’s tone.

Which was completely unusual to hear coming from his sullen, withdrawn son.

“Hard not to when you can’t even handle a jumpscare… little sis.”

said i would never write stepcest yet here i am oopsie anyway every reblog and (nice) feedback helps us manifest our own rin-nii bless

©️ all works belong to lalunanymph. do not copy, repost or claim as your own.

#rin smut #rin itoshi smut #itoshi smut #rin itoshi x reader #bllk x reader #bllk x y/n #bllk smut #blue lock smut #🦢 writes

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solar-wing · 11 months ago

Text

⚣ It's Not A Competition 🥇

⚣👊🏻 A/N → SURPRISE! double post today! I've been wanting to do a Clark Kent post forever but never had any good ideas. Then, this popped into my mind. Also, I'm really trying to clear out my drafts and any old requests. WARNINGS: Canon-Typical Violence | Jealousy | Established Relationship

⚣👊🏻 Summary → Dark Knight this and Dark Knight that. What about Superman?! He's also a great hero! Better than Batman, at least. The guy doesn't even have powers. But that's what makes him more interesting and cool, according to Y/N. And frankly, Clark has had quite enough and intends to show him why Superman is way better than Batman.

⚣👊🏻 Words → 4.7K

REBLOGS & replies are greatly appreciated, please! 💛

⚣ ENJOY 👊🏻

Clark just didn’t get it.

Why was it that Y/N was so obsessed with Batman and not Superman? All the young reporter ever talked about was the Dark Knight and how he was so cool and mysterious. Going on and on about his awesome gadgets and the fact that he had no powers, which made him so interesting.

Clark very much would beg to differ.

“You know, Superman can shoot lasers out of his eyes, and I heard he can move faster than the speed of sound,” Clark pointed out while walking with Y/N down the sidewalk. They decided to go out for lunch and since the Daily Planet was so close to one of Y/N's favorite restaurants downtown, he figured, why not just walk together?

“Clark, not this again,” Y/N chuckled while sipping his drink.

“I’m sorry, you just always talk about how great Batman is, and I’m not saying he’s bad, but I don’t get how he’s better than Superman?”

“You know, you’re starting to sound like Lois with all your Superman praise and comparison.”

“Well, she’s not wrong. I mean, come on. What can Batman do that Superman can’t?” Clark asked, looking down at his boyfriend while waiting for an answer.

“Batman’s quicker on his feet. He thinks of solutions faster and more creatively than what I’ve seen from Superman. Plus, he’s resourceful. The guy’s got a freaking jet. The only people I could think of that own jets and planes and all the crazy gadgets he has would probably be Lex Luthor or Bruce Wayne.”

Clark tried not to react to the irony of that statement, rather focusing on how he could combat that logic even though it was true. He had to admit that his comrade, whether in the field or in practice, was very good at analyzing a situation and using whatever he had around him to his advantage.

Still, it didn’t mean he was better than him.

“Well, Superman can also fly, and as many have witnessed, is crazy strong.”

“Yes, he is. But if Batman can afford a jet, I’m pretty sure he can afford a jetpack, too. Plus, we all know how strong Superman is, some more than others. Their insurance claims can definitely speak to how strong he is.”

That last line Y/N said was more so to himself than as a statement to Clark. However, it didn’t take away the slight sting from his words, considering how true they were.

“So you’re saying Superman is reckless and bad at his job or something?” Clark accused.

“What? No, I’m not saying that at all. Why are you getting so defensive about this? You’re acting as if you know the guy. Wait, do you know him?” Y/N asked, now looking up at his giant of a boyfriend.

Sometimes, he wondered what kind of genes ran in Clark’s family. It was a bit of a puzzle to Y/N why the six-foot-something man was in journalism rather than something that seemed more his speed, like fitness or athletics.

“No, of course not. I just don’t think it’s fair or even logical to compare Superman to someone like Batman, considering what each of them has respectfully achieved, not to mention the state of their cities and everything. I mean, have you ever been to Gotham before?” Clark asked, doing his best to not draw any more curiosity or suspicion out of the younger male.

Not that he was doing a good job of that in the first place.

Clark just wished he could’ve shown Y/N why Superman was better than Batman. They’d only been dating for a few months so it wasn’t reasonable or even smart for the Kryptonian to consider revealing his identity to him, no matter how much he wanted to.

“Clark, it’s not a competition. You know that, right?” Y/N said, placing his hand on Clark’s arm.

They paused in their steps, Clark looking down at the gentle hand lying across his forearm before looking up into the eyes that always put him under a spell. He smiled to himself, thinking of the fact that even if Y/N favored Batman over Superman, Clark was still the real winner, because he had him.

He took his hand in his own, doing his best to contain his excitement pulse at the feeling of his larger hand surrounding the smaller one in his grip. Y/N was still a male, so his hand wasn’t dainty or small by any means, but compared to Clark’s, it might as well have been.

“Yeah, I know. Sorry, I got a little bit crazy.” Clark apologized with a small kiss on the shorter man’s hand causing a slight blush to appear on the smaller male’s cheeks.

“It’s ok. Besides, I like a little bit of crazy. Keeps things interesting.” Y/N said before continuing their walk towards Clark’s place of work.

‘You have no idea,’ Clark thought to himself as he followed behind, letting himself be tugged along.

They returned to the Daily Planet to find everywhere in a buzz, chattering excitedly with each other as various individuals were either running to the bathroom with pouches of makeup and skincare and others at their desks touching up their hair and clothes.

“What’s going on?” Clark asked aloud as he strode into the office while still holding Y/N’s hand.

“Was it like this when we left?” His boyfriend asked, chuckling at the comical movements and gestures of the rushing to get re-ready for whatever was happening.

“No, it was actually the opposite,” The reporter stated before eventually spotting Lois at her desk, who was also touching up her makeup and hair. He made his way over to the desk area, narrowly avoiding multiple people rushing while pulling Y/N closer to him to keep him from getting bumped into.

“Lois, what’s going on?”

“Oh, hey, Smallville. Hello, Y/N. Didn’t you both get the emergency email Perry sent to everyone earlier?” She said in her usual fast-paced, business tone while curling her eyelashes.

“No, We were at lunch. What was the email about?”

“Oh, Clark. Must I always have to save your butt?” Lois said before handing her phone over to the man, Y/N chuckling behind him at the comment.

Clark threw him a look while Y/N did his best to keep a neutral face before reading over the email.

“Bruce Wayne is coming to the Daily Planet?”

Y/N's eyes went comically large at the mention, immediately jumping to read the email for himself, “No way!”

Lois smirked to herself before grabbing her phone back from the man, while Clark just stared at his boyfriend in jealous shock from his excited outburst. “Yep. Wayne Enterprises has announced its support of various major liberal movements and is donating large proceeds to different organizations calling for massive change in the nation. And with this being an election year, many political figures and business entities are feeling a little uneasy at this sudden new support from the tech giant. And yours truly, landed the exclusive interview with him to get all the nitty and gritty details .”

Y/N’s eyes were almost bugging out of his head, before he ran to the bathroom himself, snatching his hand from Clark’s who looked desperately after him.

“Dammit, Bruce.” The reporter growled under his breath.

“You say something?” Lois asked while powdering her nose.

“No,” Clark responded gruffly, an irritated glint in his eye before walking to his own desk.

After everyone has ridiculously made themselves extra presentable, including Y/N much to Clark’s annoyance, the pair stand outside the room with a few others, watching through the glass pane walls as the interview is broadcast live to the entire nation. Lois asked Mr. Wayne various questions, ranging from his real intentions behind his charitable donations to whether he was looking to begin any political endeavors and win the favor of the public.

Bruce answers every question with confidence and suaveness, leaving no room for questions about his actions, and denies any political motivations. Y/N watched impressed from the other end while Clark just looked around with a grim and irritated look, his arms crossed as he listened to the interview and watched his boyfriend fanboy over his secret comrade.

“Well, you certainly seem like the charming and noble benefactor, Mr. Wayne. I can see why you're known as ‘Gotham’s Favorite Son.’ I have to ask though, even if you truly have no political ambitions, aren’t you worried that these donations and announcements along with the unwavering stance you’ve taken on these political topics will inevitably place a target on you?” Lois asked, notepad and pen sitting with poise and precision, ready to take down every little thing the billionaire said.

“Wow, I can see why she’s so respected. She’s nailing this interview.” Y/N commented.

Clark nodded to that. Even if he wasn’t feeling the most agreeable at the moment, he’d always give hats off to Lois’ skills. The woman was a powerhouse when it came to this stuff.

“Well, first off, thank you for your earlier comment. I don’t think of myself as anyone’s favorite, but even I can’t control what the public says or does,” Bruce responded with his ever-so-billion-dollar smile, earning a laugh from Lois and probably every other American tuning into this broadcast, including Y/N.

Clark, however, wasn’t impressed. He’d heard funnier.

“But, to answer your question,” Bruce continued, “...any move in the business or even the political world I imagine can be considered a risky one. I’m not going to pretend that my decisions have made some very happy, and others very unhappy. That’s life. You can’t please everyone. But, to sit and accept things as the way they are for fear of retaliation or backlash is misery in itself. I believe anyone who doesn’t speak up for what they truly believe or want for fear of ‘rocking the boat’ is just content with living in their own misery. And, let me be clear before I’m canceled—I know the meaning behind that now thanks to my kids, particularly my two youngest sons—I’m not saying someone who’s genuinely content and happy with where they are is included in this. I’m specifically talking to those who want change, and want to create a better world, but are waiting for others to do it for them.”

Despite its clichéness, many in the hall gave a small clap to the CEO’s words, Y/N looking thoroughly impressed himself.

“Wow, he really is an inspiring man,” Y/N commented.

“He’s alright,” Clark said in response.

Y/N gave the taller man a suspicious side look, “Alright, what’s going on with you? You’ve been standing there pouting

since this interview started. What, do you not like Bruce Wayne or something?"

Clark sighed before looking down at his boyfriend. It was true, he wasn't really liking the guy at the moment. But, it was just because he was so jealous. He didn’t like how Y/N was looking at him, or how he was talking about him.

It wasn't fair.

The reporter wanted Y/N to be looking at him and only him like that, and he wanted his attention and affection, and he wanted him to only talk about him like that. It was petty, and it was selfish, but Clark didn’t care.

He just wanted Y/N to only admire Clark Kent. not Bruce Wayne.

Only Superman, not Batman.

Despite Y/N's earlier words about it not being a competition, Clark knew the truth. It was a competition, one he was not planning on losing.

"No, I don't not like him. I'm just not that impressed, is all. He's not a superhero." Clark said.

"Neither is Lex Luthor. But, that doesn't stop the public from making him the villain in his story. I'm sure there's a lot more to Bruce Wayne than the media is letting on."

"Oh, trust me. There's more to him than what meets the eye," Clark mumbled to himself as the interview was getting ready to wrap up.

"Well, on behalf of the Daily Planet, I'd like to thank you for joining us today. Your words are certainly ones that will not go unheard by many. I look forward to—"

Before Lois could finish speaking, the lights in the building suddenly went out, leaving the office pitch black. A few people in the hall gasp, Y/N instinctively grabbing Clark's arm, who in turn places his hand over the smaller man's own.

"What's going on?" Someone asks.

"I don't know. It's almost like a blackout, but it can't be because we have backup generators. They should've turned it on by now." Another responded.

"Clark, what's going on?" Y/N asked toward his boyfriend, who was holding the smaller male closer to him out of instinct.

"I'm not exactly sure..."

Just as he said that, the lights came back on, and everyone was looking around confused as to what the source of the blackout was.

"Oh my god!" One of the people in the hall screamed suddenly as everyone turned back towards the interview room. Inside the room, some members of the crew suddenly had masks with insignias covering their faces on them. One of them was behind Lois holding a dagger to her neck while another stood to the side, pointing a gun directly at Bruce's head.

"I'm so sorry to interrupt, Ms. Lane," The individual in the middle of the room said, "But, this interview isn't over just yet."

"Who the hell are you people?!" Lois asked, fear and anger in her eyes as the blade was held to her neck.

"Wouldn't you like to know? As for Mr. Wayne, we're going to have a little chat. I suggest you and your friends don't follow or intervene. Otherwise, this broadcast won't be the only thing getting cut" The masked individual threatened, nodding to Lois.

"Don't you dare touch her," Bruce warned, his expression serious, as he got ready to stand.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Mr. Wayne. We wouldn't want anything bad to happen, now would we? Especially with all of America watching right now."

Bruce sat back down, knowing that his opponent was right. He couldn't let them hurt Lois, and he certainly couldn't risk any lives in this room.

"Don't worry, Mr. Wayne. We'll make this quick," The leader said as one of the other masked goons went to lock the door that led inside the interview room.

"Clark, we have to do something," Y/N said, his heart racing a mile a minute.

"I know. Stay here. I'll be back." Clark said before running off, leaving the smaller male alone.

"What? Clark, wait! Where are you going?" Y/N called after him, but the taller man didn't hear him, already too far away.

'What the hell is he doing?' Y/N thought to himself before turning his attention back towards the situation in front of him.

As Clark rounded the corner and made his way down the hallway, he made sure no one was watching him before he ran as fast as he could into the supply closet. Once inside, he quickly changed into his suit before taking off through the backdoor.

"So, how does it feel knowing that you're on the side of the wrong? How does it feel knowing that no matter what you do, you'll never be able to fix the mess you made? All the lives lost because of you," The masked man asked Bruce, who was sitting calmly in his chair, his eyes not showing an ounce of fear.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you don't. None of you wealthy elites do. You don't know the pain and suffering your companies and your products cause to others. You don't know the misery you cause. Well, allow us to show you." The man said before signaling his partners.

One of them immediately moved and grabbed a hold of the camera, pointing it directly at the masked man in the center.

"Hello, Metropolis. And hello, America. If you're watching this, that means you're just as much a part of this as we are. if you've been sitting here listening to the lies and promises of a better world by this man and his kind, you are as much a part of his schemes as he is. It is because of people like him that we have the world we live in. It's because of people like him that so many of us suffer. It's because of people like him that the world will only continue to rot and decay until there is nothing left but a pile of ashes. But, we will not be the ones who burn. We will not be the ones who lose. We will not be the ones who suffer, not anymore. Today, we fight back. Today, we will show the world that we will not be silenced, we will not be oppressed. We will not allow the likes of him and his kind to continue to control us anymore with false promises of a better tomorrow while lining their own pockets. Today, we say enough is enough. Today, we rise. Today, we will take back what is rightfully ours. Today, we take back our freedom and our lives from the rich and corrupt." The man spoke, his words filled with conviction and determination, but also hatred and poison as he stared deep into the camera.

"And if any of you try to stop us, then you will be considered just as guilty as the rest of them. We will not be silenced. We will not be ignored. And if you think that the likes of Batman and Superman will save you, I wouldn't be too sure of that..."

As soon as the leader was done with his speech, the sound of the glass shattering was heard as Superman broke through the windows, flying into the room before stopping directly in front of the man holding the camera.

"But, I am..." The Man of Steel said, shooting a laser beam at the dagger being held by the goon threatening Lois. He immediately dropped the blade as it became too hot, giving the Daily Planet reporter the opportunity she needed to escape his hold.

"Bastards," She cursed, turning around and delivering a kick to the masked man's groin.

He groaned out in pain, falling to the floor before Lois punched him in the face, knocking him out.

Superman turned his attention back toward the masked man standing in the center, "I believe it's time for you to take a hike."

"Not yet. We still have unfinished business," The man said before signaling his other henchman. The man immediately aimed his gun at the Kryptonian, firing shot after shot into him.

Superman stood his ground as the bullets hit him, before eventually, the gun ran out.

"You're right. This is definitely the end," Superman said as he flew toward the man, knocking him out before he could reload his gun.

As Superman finished off the last of the henchmen, the leader turned back towards the camera, "Sorry, Superman. But, the damage has already been done. I hope you enjoyed this little taste of what's to come."

Before the Kryptonian could stop him, the man took out a smoke bomb, throwing it onto the ground and covering the room in a cloud of smoke.

"Crap," Superman cursed, unable to see as the man escaped.

As the smoke began to clear, Bruce took out his phone, "Alfred, I need you to track this signal."

"Understood, sir. I've also informed the police and they're on their way," Alfred responded.

"Good," Bruce said before turning back towards the room.

The actual camera crew was not out in the hall, hugging their co-workers who were all relieved at their safety. The broadcast was cut from the air, but there was no doubt every TV station from here to San Francisco was talking about it. Y/N was standing nearby, his eyes filled with awe and admiration as he stared up at Superman.

There was something oddly familiar about him.

...

Nah.

"That was incredible, Mr. Wayne," Lois said.

"I could say the same thing about you. I'm glad you're ok."

Lois smiled at him, "You were worried about me?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't I?" Bruce asked, a small smile forming on his lips.

Lois blushed slightly before turning back to look at Superman, who was now standing right in front of the two.

"Thank you for the save, Superman," Lois said, extending her hand out to the Kryptonian.

"My pleasure," Superman said, shaking the woman's hand before his attention was drawn toward Bruce who just gave him an appreciative nod. Though the look in his eyes signaled they would definitely be communicating about things later.

As Bruce and Lois moved towards the hallway, Lois spotted Y/N who was standing close to the door peeking inside.

"Oh Y/N, there you are! Thank goodness, you're alright." Lois said, walking over to him and hugging him.

"Yeah, I'm ok. Are you?" He asked, looking up at the woman.

"I'm fine. I'm tougher than I look."

"That's good to hear. And, it's good to see you’re okay as well Mr. Wayne. That was scary." Y/N said, turning his attention to the billionaire.

"Yes, I'm glad I'm alright, too," Bruce said, his attention on Y/N.

"Oh, Bruce Wayne, this is Y/N L/N. He's one of our upcoming new reporters along with Clark Kent, who you've met before." Lois said, introducing the two.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Wayne," Y/N said, extending his hand out.

Bruce took it, giving the younger man a firm handshake, "The pleasure is all mine."

As the two looked at each other, Clark was standing nearby, his gaze focused on the two, his fists clenched.

'I swear to Rao...' He thought to himself, jealousy coursing through his body as he watched the two interact.

"So, Mr. Wayne, what do you think that was all about?" Y/N asked.

Bruce turned to look at the woman, an amused eyebrow raised, "He must be getting trained by you," He said, sparking a laugh from Lois and another eye roll from the Kryptonian before flying off, "And please, call me Bruce. Mr. Wayne makes me feel old."

"Bruce, then. What do you think that was all about?" Y/N asked again.

"Well, I can't be certain, but based on their words and their actions, I'd say they were a group of anarchists."

"Anarchists?"

"Yes. They're not an uncommon group. Many people are growing tired of the way things are in this country. With the state of the economy and the government, it's only a matter of time before things begin to boil over."

"So, you think this is going to happen more often?"

"I'm not sure. But, I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of them."

Y/N nodded his thoughts on the events that had transpired earlier.

"Y/N!" Clark called, interrupting the conversation.

"Clark, there you are! You had me worried sick," The smaller male said while hugging his boyfriend, missing the sharp look the taller man was throwing at the billionaire.

"I just went to alert the building security and the police. Seems everything turned alright though since Superman showed up," Clark said, wrapping an arm around the younger man's waist while still giving a side eye to Bruce who was watching with amusement.

"Yes, thank goodness he did. I'm sure we all owe him a huge thanks for his services."

"Yes, indeed we do. But, unfortunately, I must be going now. It was a pleasure meeting you, Y/N." Bruce said, extending his hand once more to the younger man, who took it, shaking it gently.

"It was a pleasure meeting you, too."

Bruce smiled at him before turning back to Lois, "And it was a pleasure seeing you again, Lois."

"Likewise, Mr. Wayne."

Bruce smirked, "I do believe we're a bit past the formalities now, Lois. Please, call me Bruce."

"Of course. Bruce." The woman replied, her tone flirty and her expression coy.

Y/N noticed this and turned to look at Clark, whose expression was blank as he looked on.

"Will do, Lois. I look forward to our next meeting," Bruce said before stopping in front of Clark.

"Good seeing you as well Clark, as short-lived as it was," Bruce said, extending his hand out for a handshake.

Clark reluctantly took it, the handshake lasting longer than was necessary.

"Likewise," Clark replied.

Bruce nodded, his eyes giving the reporter a knowing look before he was escorted out by security.

Once the billionaire was out of sight, Clark and Y/N decided to leave as well, making their way towards the elevator.

"Well, that was a crazy day," Y/N said.

"Yeah, tell me about it."

"Do you think Bruce Wayne knows Batman?"

Clark stopped mid-step, a shocked expression on his face as he looked down at his boyfriend.

"Are you serious right now? You can't be serious?" The taller man said with an indignant expression.

"What?"

"You're still thinking of Batman after Superman just came and saved everyone?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, he's a hero too. They both are. Besides, Superman is always getting most of the credit, don't you think? It would make sense if they were working together. You know, the world's greatest detective and the world's greatest hero, solving crime and catching the bad guys. Wouldn't that be so cool?" Y/N asked, his eyes gleaming with excitement at the thought.

"No, not really. I don't see why that would be a good idea," Clark said, rolling his eyes.

Y/N sighed, "Clark, remember what we talked about earlier about it not being a competition?"

Clark looked down at the smaller man, his eyes filled with frustration, "Yeah, but it doesn't mean you have to obsess over Batman. Superman is just as obsessed-worthy!"

"Clark, seriously, what is up with you? It's not like I want to marry him or something."

"You're acting like you want to," Clark mumbled under his breath.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Look, Clark. I'm not going to say I'm not a fan of Batman. I mean, I think he's cool. But, that doesn't mean that I'm not a fan of Superman either. I'm a fan of both of them. I think they're both great heroes, and I think they both do good work."

"But, you don't think that Batman is cooler, or that he's better than Superman?" Clark asked, his expression pleading.

"I mean, I guess. But, why does that matter? Why are you so hung up about this?"

"Because, I—" Clark started before stopping, knowing he was about to give away his identity.

"You what?"

"I just want you to think of me, is all," Clark said, looking down at the ground, feeling a bit embarrassed.

Y/N's heart softened at the confession, the older man looking like a little kid who just got his favorite toy taken away. He stepped forward, cupping the taller man's face in his hands, causing him to look up.

"Clark, I do think about you. I think about you all the time and I love how protective you are of me. Whether I like Batman or Superman more isn't going to change that" Y/N said, trying his best to ease his boyfriend's fears.

"Promise?" Clark asked.

Y/N chuckled, "I promise."

"Good," Clark smiled while leaning down to place a kiss against his boyfriend's lips, "You should still like Superman more."

Y/N rolled his eyes, "Sure thing, Clark. I'll work on that."

"Thank you."

"Whatever. Now come on, we now have a celebratory date to go on." Y/N said as he grabbed Clark's hand.

"What are we celebrating?" Clark asked with a laugh as he was pulled towards the elevator.

It was always adorable watching the smaller male pull Clark around like it was nothing.

"Surviving our first criminal encounter together," Y/N said while hitting the first-floor button.

"First?"

"Honey, we live in a city with sky-high insurance because a superhero lives here. You really think this will be the last?"

He definitely doesn't.

☀️ | Clark Kent/Superman | ☀️

☀️ | Masterlists | ☀️

796 notes · View notes

mickandmusings · 8 months ago

Text

i. true blue

part one of the 'hangman & honey' series!

summary: The summer he turned nine, Jake was convinced he'd spend it like any other summer: riding his bike down dirt roads with all the other kids, lending a helping hand on the family farm, and brushing up on his backyard football. His life hits a tailspin when a new family moves into the house just down the road, leading him to a friendship and feelings he never saw coming.

word count: 4.5k

warnings: cute childhood friends to lovers, small sections of angst, tragic backstories and southern traditions. primarily self indulgent. this is written by someone from the most southern small town imaginable, so it's written with love as an ode to my own hometown, enjoy. <3

In the great state of Texas, just a few hours south of Austin, sits a small town called Haven. It was a fitting name for a town so picturesque-miles and miles of endless farmland, stunning sunsets and sunrises, and the beauty of the state's flora and fauna. However, in all it's Southern small-town glory, it was home to little else. There was the hub of activity 'downtown'-the one school system, a family-owned restaurant, a convenience store, the First Baptist Church of Haven, and a hair salon. On the outskirts of Haven sat a large patch of barbed-wire fenced farmland, one that spanned most of the remaining parts of the small town, more than the eye could see. It was large enough to have its own unpaved road-Seresin Farm Road-and was home to only one house, the Seresin family house.

The Seresin family had owned the land long before the turn of the century, and had been passed down from generation to generation ever since. The Seresin's owned much of Haven to begin with, their farmland excluded. Most of the businesses rented their buildings from Jacob Seresin Sr., with the exception of the school system and the church. Despite their seemingly looming hand of ownership, you'd never know they held power at all. Mrs. Janet Seresin-first lady of the Seresin estate-was known as the town egg lady, always more than happy to pass out dozens of Styrofoam cartons free of charge. She held the unofficial prize of having the best homemade ice cream in all of Haven, and anyone in the small town would attest. Jacob Seresin Sr.-head of the Seresin farm and Janet's husband-was regarded in the same warm fashion. You could find him driving up and down the main street in his trusty red farm truck, often loaded with feed or some kind of good necessary to keep his place up and running. He'd stop and talk to anyone and everyone, literally everyone, he knew. He had been the one to help nearly everyone in his community rebuild after natural disasters, always willing to help someone in need, never asking for anything in return. The Seresin's were Haven's unofficial first family, leaders of sorts, in the small town.

Their son, Jacob Seresin Jr., was elusive and a topic nearly everyone knew to avoid. He had been raised on the family farm, attended the local school, lived and breathed the same life as everyone else, but found himself itching for more. He quickly fell into trouble with the local law, and with a last name like Seresin, he got away with mostly everything, which, perhaps, was his greatest downfall. He had gotten his high school girlfriend-a sweet local girl named Georgia Joann Smith-pregnant their senior year. When she broke the news, he'd taken off in his truck to Kentucky, where it was rumored he still was, looking for something he could never find. Nine months later, Jacob Thomas Seresin III, or 'Jake' as he preferred, was born, healthy, all ten fingers and toes. Just hours after birth, his mother fell gravely ill, and made her own swift exit in death. She left behind only one thing-her son. Jacob Sr. and Janet took him in with no questions asked, raising him as any grandparent would. Jake, luckily, seemed to inherit more of his mother than his father. His blonde hair gleamed in the Texas sun, turning almost gold in the heat-filled summers. His green eyes held his kindness-a sharp contrast to his father's dark brown eyes that seemed to only hold his anger. Jake bore Georgia's gentle soul, her wide smile and her witty personality, she lived on in Jake entirely. So when the new family moved into the empty house at the end of Seresin Farm Road, Janet had zero hesitations in sending Jake down to welcome their new neighbors to Haven. She'd spent the entire morning making homemade bread, having to occasionally swat away Jake's hands from the counter or tell him to completely get out of the kitchen while the loaves cooled. After lunch, she handed him a well-wrapped loaf and gave him instructions to take it to the newcomers, which Jake did without complaint. He'd placed the bread into the metal basket attached to his royal blue bike, trekking down their long and winding driveway. When he'd arrived nearly ten minutes later, he had parked his bike on the edge of the lawn, against a towering oak tree. He made a point to kick the dirt off his shoes, not wanting to track it onto the seemingly freshly painted, white wrap-around porch. He lifts his first to wrap against the door, one with a glass cut-out, much different than the screen door on his farmhouse. He fixed his windswept hair in the reflection of the window, remembering Granny's words of always looking well put together when meeting new people. The door's lock clicked, and when Jake looked up to see the man or lady of the house, he instead had to look down, finding a girl who couldn't be much younger than him. Her eyes were wide as they stared up at him, hair pushed out of her face with colorful butterfly shaped clips. Her eyes were captivating, and all of Jake's intended Southern charm had flown out the window. She smiles shyly at Jake, wondering why this stranger was on her porch.

"Uh, this is for you-or,uh-your parents," his arm extends the bread as he stammered. "My Granny made it, we live at the farm on the end of the road, we-uh, she-wanted to invite you to the neighborhood. I'm Jake."

Jake stuck out a clammy hand for her to shake, and winced internally. His Pawpaw would be reprimanding him if he saw this-it wasn't polite to make a lady shake your hand. Shaking hands was for business deals, and Jake had just shook her hand like she'd bought his show heifer. Jake's mind was clouded for a reason he couldn't explain, and he wasn't thinking straight. The girl blushed and smiled slightly.

"I'm Honey," her voice was quiet but pronounced. "That's not actually my name, but everyone calls me Honey, so, you can call me Honey. Um, is your house the one with the big magnolia tree in the front?"

Jake nodded quickly. Her eyes widened, shimmering with something Jake couldn't make out. Quietness settled over them before Honey spoke again.

"Is that your bike?" Honey points at his bike leaning against the tree.

"Yeah! Most kids ride their bikes everywhere here."

"C-Could I ride with you, maybe?" Her voice was suddenly shy, no longer meeting Jake's eyes. "It's just summer and I-I don't know anyone yet and-"

"Yes!" Jake cut her off, and mentally scolded himself, but as Honey flashed him a wide smile he couldn't find himself caring. She tossed the bread on the table just inside the door, slid on her purple jelly sandals and shut the door behind her. She led Jake to the empty garage, only full of empty moving boxes and a bright yellow bike. As she led them out of the garage and towards the edge of the yard, Jake's eyebrows furrowed as he looked at her.

"Shouldn't you let your momma know you left, leave her a note or somethin'?"

Honey's eyes cut to her feet, her smile fading.

"She won't care, I'll be back before she will. S-She's a nurse, works the night shift at the old folks home in the next town over."

Jake nodded but said nothing, pedaling off on his own bike to lead her back down to his farm.

From that moment on, Jake and Honey were practically inseparable. The entire summer was spent with a blue bike parked next to a yellow one, swimming in the creek behind Jake's house, and running around the farm with nothing but their imagination and makeshift stick swords. Jake's Border Collie, John Wayne, became a frightening dragon of their imagination, and Honey taught Jake how to make flower crowns from the wildflowers in the fields. Janet had grown fond of looking out her front window to see Honey sitting next to Jake under her magnolia tree, reading her Boxcar Children book as much as she could with Jake chattering next to her. Even when Jake was busy with his farm chores, Honey would sit placidly under the tree, enjoying the occasional breeze as she read her book of the week. After the long summer, Jacob Sr. had started referring to it as "Honey's tree," and he'd laugh to himself every time he saw the girl sitting quietly under it. Both Janet and Jacob Sr. loved having the sweet but shy girl around, especially when they found out that she spent most of her time alone in that house down the road. On the last night before summer ended, Jake and Honey sat under the tree, swatting at mosquitoes as the Texas sun set. Jake looked over at Honey, who had finally put her book down, and asked:

"Why do you like this tree so much?"

She smiled a smile that Jake knew to be half-hearted and brought her knees to her chest, her chin resting on her kneecaps.

"It reminds me of home."

Honey had moved from her tiny town in Mississippi that summer, and she often talked of her home there, the friends and family she'd left behind, how her mother had left when her grandmother died, looking for a fresh start.

"My Gram had a tree like this in her yard, and she'd babysit me when Mom worked," Honey's eyes rested on the ground, where she was picking grass from the ground around her bare feet. "She'd read to me a lot, and it was my favorite place in the world. Sometimes when I read here it sort of feels like I never left."

Jake simply nodded, thinking of the mother he'd only met in pictures, and the grandparents he wouldn't trade for the world's richest man. Neither of them spoke a word about the statement she made, but they understood what it meant to both of them. Even at age nine, Jake was in love with the girl next door, even if he didn't know it yet. From the first year they met and every year after, Jake and Honey found themselves under the magnolia blossoms. Well, almost every year...

As the budding teens entered into their freshman year at Haven High School, the differences between their personalities became more apparent than ever. Jake was the ideal all-American southern boy: athletic, outgoing, someone who guys high-fived in the hallway, and one that girls would be late to class just to get a glimpse of. Jake was never one to let the attention get to his head, at least not too much. Sure, he enjoyed the feeling of being liked, and, sure, he could be cocky at times, but he was never the one to bully those completely different from him. Someone like Honey. Honey had always been quiet, shy by nature, and the very definition of an advanced student. She was beloved by her teachers, but not as well received by her classmates. With a town as small as Haven, it was either incredibly easy or incredibly hard to make friends, and for Honey, it seemed to be the latter. It wasn't as if Honey was perpetually odd-she wasn't homely or weird, just quiet. Jake was the only one who knew about her boisterous laugh that could be prompted with his corny jokes, or her wild streak, like sneaking into his bedroom window after she and her mother got into yet another fight.

At the beginning of the school year, she spent her breaks talking to Jake, and she sat next to him at lunch. He'd let her ramble about her current read, and he'd talk about yesterday's football practice. She'd leave with the promise to come around for dinner, Mrs. Janet was making her favorite. However, when football season started, and Jake had made an infamous saving play at one of the first few games, he had peaked in popularity. Honey found herself on the outside of his swarm of new friends, listening to him talk to his football buddies while the girls that followed shot her sympathetic or lethal glances. She'd ignored it at first, simply enjoying her paperback until Jake could spare himself a minute to talk to her. Eventually, the bell would sound before she even got the chance to say 'hello' to him, and, with her heart suddenly heavy, she'd make her way to class. The routine lasted for weeks and she'd find herself waiting by the phone, figuring Jake would call her after football practice, but she'd only be greeted with silence through the night. After the second week of no contact, she decided to leave Jake and his new friends to their own devices, opting to sit in the library for breaks, taking her lunch in the empty courtyard. It was like Jake hadn't noticed her absence at all, at least in her mind, but Jacob Sr. and Janet noticed immediately. They had missed her bright aura that lit up their farmhouse, watching as she greeted the dogs as she parked her now lilac bike in the driveway. Janet missed her companionship as Honey would watch her sew patches onto Jacob Sr. and Jake's clothes, and her husband missed catching up with her over dinner. The only time they'd see her anymore would be on Friday nights, at Jake's games. She'd sit in the bleachers with them, decked out in her navy blue and gold, watching intently as the boys in jerseys made their way up and down the field. At the end of the game, she'd say her goodbyes before Jake would find his grandparents and they wouldn't see her until the following Friday. In typical grandparent fashion, Janet had assumed Jake had done something. Her grandson was kind, gentlemanly, but he also had a sharp tongue and a big head, which he sometimes used in malice. So, over dinner one Thursday, Janet finally dipped her toes into the water.

"Maybe you should talk to Honey after the game tomorrow, she always seems to slip away before you two get to catch up."

Jake's eyebrows furrowed as he wiped his mouth, looking up at his grandmother.

"Honey? At a football game? Granny, I don't really think that's her scene. She hates when we have a pep rally at school, I don't think she's going to a football game voluntarily."

Jacob Sr. and Janet give each other a knowing look across the table.

"How blind are ya, son?" Jacob Sr.'s voice is accusatory.

Jake looks up from his plate, looking over at his grandfather with a confused look.

"She's been at every game this season, Jake," his grandmother's voice speaks, much softer than her husbands. "She sits next to us in the stands. When was the last time you two talked? Just the two of you?"

Jake scoffs at his grandmother's accusation, his head shaking as he tried to wrack his brain for the last time he'd talked to his best friend.

"Maybe a week or so ago, I-I can't remember."

"That's a damn shame," Jacob Sr.'s voice grumbled. "She's a sweet girl, smart too. I know she doesn't run the same circles as you and your new buddies, but she's a good friend Jake, and you're treatin' her as if she doesn't exist. She still comes to all of those games. I'm not tellin' you what to do, but maybe give her a call, and pray to the Lord above that she wants to talk to your dumb ass."

Jake's heart sank as he carried out his nightly farm chores that night, thinking of how he had treated Honey. He knew what the other girls in the group said about her, how she was 'quiet' and 'weird,' often making comments that were completely false or disrespectful. Jake always shut the comments down, but found himself not bothering to talk to the one person who had always been there for him. Was it his fear of his new friends thinking he was weird? Did he think he wouldn't be surrounded by his football buddies if they saw him talking to someone like Honey? As Jake shut the barn door, he sighed, deciding he didn't care about either. Honey had been his friend for years, long before high school or popularity, or stupid teenage rules. She'd never changed, she was still the girl he fell in love with all those years ago. That night, as he sat by the phone thinking of what to say, he'd heard the faintest knock on his door. He figured it was his Granny coming to tell him goodnight, so he made quick work of making his way to the door and flinging it open. Instead of his grandmother, Honey stood in front of him. She held an algebra textbook in her arms, her eyes never meeting his, her arms crossed protectively. Her eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot, tear streaks staining her cheeks. She'd been crying, and Jake knew Honey all too well, her tears had nothing to do with the algebra assignment. Something had happened to her.

"Uh, hey, I-I know it's late, and I didn't want to bother you, but I've been workin' on this stupid algebra assignment for three hours, and i-it's not making a lick of sense. You-You're the only person I know who could help me, so if you could just show me how to do one, I'll be out of your hair. I know you have a game tomorrow, and you should really sleep-"

Honey was rambling, picking the skin around her fingernails, she was nervous. It shattered his heart in his chest, he could never remember a time when she was nervous around him.

"No, no, you're fine, Honey. C'mere."

He opened the door wide for her to come in. She nodded in thanks, hovering awkwardly in the space between his bed and his desk. Any other time she'd plop herself down on his plaid comforter, all but curling into the sheets and falling asleep. Now, she didn't know what to do. She hadn't spoken to him in weeks, and he was different now. He wasn't just Jake, her Jake, he was Jake Seresin, up and coming star of their hometown football team, someone that a person like her should avoid in the hallway, someone that shouldn't even be talking to her.

He pushed the chair of his desk out for her, figuring she'd feel more comfortable there. She laid her textbook and notebook out flat, opening the book to the dozens of equations she couldn't make out. Honey was incredibly smart, but as her math classes advanced, she found herself staring at her own notes in utter confusion.

"Um, so, this is on polynomials," she started. "But I couldn't even tell you what a fuckin' polynomial is and I'm starting to lose my mind."

Jake quickly noted the physical manifestation of her worry-her hair messy with the way she had been running her hands through it, the chipped nail polish on her nails, and her chewing on her bottom lip. His heart ached, how had he not noticed her struggling? They were in the same class, she sat two chairs in front of him.

"Honey, I'm sorry."

She didn't even spare him a look.

"It's not your fault I'm stupid, Jake."

Jake took her arm in a light hold, turning her to look at him.

"I'm not talkin' about algebra, and you're not stupid, first of all. You're one of the smartest people I know. I'm talkin' about the way I've been actin'. It's not fair to you, I've been an ass. I've been ignoring you at school, treatin' you as if you aren't even there. You've come to all my games and I didn't even know. Thanks for that, by the way, but, I mean it, Honey. I'm sorry."

Honey shrugs, her face sprouting a faint pink blush.

"'S fine, people grow up, move on. You don't have to apologize for leaving me for people more like-minded. I get it, I don't necessarily fit the mold of your new friend group. It's okay. They seem to really like you though, and you seem happy. Plus Sam is...she's pretty. I get why you wouldn't want me hanging around."

"Sam?" Jake's voice was confused. Sam was a cheerleader, and she was friends with the girlfriends of his teammates. They had a passing conversation from time to time, but they weren't dating. "What're you talkin' about?"

Honey's brow furrowed, tapping her pencil's eraser against her book.

"Sam Vance told me like the third or fourth week of school that you were together, around the same time we stopped talking. I just assumed that was why you didn't want to talk anymore. It's sort of the reason I've kept my distance."

Jake's blood boiled, he was not dating Sam Vance. She was heinously mean, even to her own 'friends.'

"Honey," Jake started, his eyes full of sympathy, his flash of anger flickering. "I'm not dating her, not by a long shot. I don't know why she lied to you, I've never said more than a few sentences to one another, she's...mean. She's vicious, I'm sorry."

Honey's head only shook in a nonchalant manner. She was good at this, pushing people away, Jake had noticed it over the years. After years of practically raising herself, those she loved either abandoning her or leaving her in death, she expected everyone to leave. Honey herself knew that someday Jake would leave her, just like everyone else, so when he pulled away, she didn't bother trying to stop it, no matter how it hurt.

"Stop that. I know what I did was shitty, and it seemed like I didn't want you there, but this isn't me dumping you off, Honey. I swear. And I know something's wrong, you're not crying because of a homework assignment. If it's because of what happened between us, I'll do anythin' to make it up to you-"

Honey's bottom lip trembles, her eyes lining with tears as she shakes her head. She looks up at Jake, pain clouding her usually kind eyes.

"You don't have to worry about me, Jake."

"No I don't," he stated honestly. "I want to, Honey. You're my best friend, and you're hurtin'. You may not need me, but I want to help you. I know I haven't been a good friend, the worst actually, but talk to me, please."

Honey looks at her lap, bringing her knees to her chest in an action of protection Jake was familiar with-every time she has to get vulnerable, it's her defensive action, as if curling up in a ball would save her from hurt.

"For what it's worth," Honey started, her voice small and quiet. "I really don't understand polynomials, like, at all. But you're right, it's more than that." She pauses and takes a deep breath, Jake's heart shattering. Her inability to speak freely, the bags under her eyes, her nervous habit at the forefront-he'd never seen her so tired, so heavy.

"About a week ago, I came home and all of my mom's stuff was gone. I mean, all of it, her bedroom was completely empty. She left a note on the kitchen table." Her eyes focus on the Cowboys poster on the back of Jake's door, her eyes dulling. "She decided to move in with her boyfriend, and he-he doesn't even know she has a child, so she left the house for me. Which is fine, we never got along anyway, it's just been...lonely. She pays the bills and leaves money, so it's not like I'm fending for myself, but, it just really sucks she doesn't really care about me. I guess it shouldn't, but-" She pauses, eyes dazed out, silent tears running down her cheeks. "Sorry for the soapbox, I just, it all is piling up, and now I'm crying over polynomials." She laughs dryly. "Just, God I've missed you, Jake. I sort of pushed myself away from you because I thought you'd found people you'd rather spend your time with. I'm nothing like you interest wise, and-"

"Stop putting yourself down, I won't stand for it." Jake looks at her as she laughs in a quiet manner, hands wiping away her silent tears. Jake moves directly in front of her, making eye contact. "I mean it. You're ten times cooler than any of them. Most of the guys on the team, pretty laid back, cool, but all they ever want to talk about is football and how hot so-and-so is, and their girlfriends? Worse, by a thousand, at least most of them. I'd like to think I'm not that shallow, right?"

Jake Seresin was a lot of things, but shallow was not one of them.

"Please hang out with me tomorrow? I'll have Granny pick you up for school. You and I are going to talk until the bell rings, you've got to catch me up on that Scarlett girl in that book you were reading last time we talked. I'm sitting with you at lunch because Granny made me promise to bring you lunch, and you gotta catch me up on last week's Dawson's Creek episode. Then I'll see you at the game, and we can swing by The Burger Basket, you, me, burgers, fries, a strawberry shake for you and a chocolate one for me."

Honey laughed, nodding her head, her heart warming as she heard Jake ask for the things she thought he found annoying-her ranting about the books she was reading, or the TV shows she was watching. She wiped her tears, standing and hugging the blonde boy who knew her better than herself sometimes. Her chest felt lighter, it felt good to be known so incredibly well. He squeezed her tight before she let go. (Jake never, ever, let go first.) She sits back in the desk chair, sliding in next to Jake, her head falling on his shoulder.

"So," she spoke after a moment of silence. "Polynomials?"

Jake chuckles.

"Let's make a deal, Hon. I explain to you how to solve these equations, and you explain to me what the hell Shakespeare is talking about in those English assignments for Mrs. Elmer's class?"

Honey laughs, she and Jake were both good students, but in two very different subjects.

"You've got yourself a deal, J."

Jake smirks, taking the pencil that sat in the crevice of the book, his scratchy handwriting across her paper as he attempted to explain. In a matter of minutes, Honey began to understand, a smile forming as she grasped the concepts. Jake's green eyes met hers in the light of his desk lamp, glimmering, and the breath in his chest catches, his heart hammering. His palms sweat around the pencil and he can't look away from her.

"You alright, Seresin?" Honey's voice is laced with humor, and it snaps him out of his trance.

"Y-Yeah."

Jake had lied, he had just realized, for the first time since Jake had known Honey, he was beginning to see her as something more than just his best friend. When he looked at Honey, he noticed something he'd never noticed before, she was beautiful.

#jake seresin x reader #top gun maverick #top gun imagine #jake hangman seresin #hangman x reader #hangman imagine #requests

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gatorbites-imagines · 1 year ago

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Hi, I’m not sure if you still write for the batfamily but can I request them and a sick teen reader, who’s also in the batfamily and a vigilante with them and they get sick but refuse to rest

Batfam with a sick teen reader

Headcanons

I like to imagine the reader is the best and worst part of different batfam members combined into one person. Meaning he gives the family heart attacks on the regular.

You weren’t the oldest, or the youngest, member of the batfam. You were only a few months younger than Tim, making you older than Damian but younger than the others.

You were the 13th child of a great warrior who had built a group of expert warriors, think like the league of assassins but smaller and more lowkey.

Because of your tough upbringing, and your siblings always outshining you, you have always felt a deep need to show no weakness and appear stronger than you are.

This means you work extremely hard to be a great member of the batclan, going by the name Red Bat. It had started out as a joke, as you wore a helmet that appeared to have the same ears as Bruces, but was red in color. It hadn’t been on purpose, but you had come to like the name.

The family are impressed with how hard you work, though it also worries them because you work yourself to the bone sometimes, never accepting failure and punishing yourself when you don’t do good, by your own standards.

In the beginning when you joined the family, you had some struggles with Damian, Tim, and Duke, as they are the closest to your age, and you are so used to having to claw yourself into the light, to get any positive attention from a father figure or to stand out.

So, it caused some tension, but after you started settling in and you all started bonding, it went away for the most part. A small part of your soul, deeply hidden inside, still feels like you aren’t good enough and never will be, and there might be some faint jealousy of the rest of the family. It doesn’t get in the way of you loving them all though.

Bettering your relationship with the family hasn’t slowed down your excessive training though, or how roughly you treat yourself. Cass ends up having to just resort hugging you until you allow yourself to relax. Damian will train with you, but does it with the purpose of tiring you out without causing any damage. If anybody knows what it’s like, it’s Cass and Damian, so they never blame you.

Because of your extremely high standards for yourself, you never slow down, even when you are sick. You’ll go as long as possible, hiding your sickness from the family until you literally can’t anymore.

And even then, you keep pushing yourself and brushing off their concern. The only one who seemingly can pull you away from your spiral with no struggle, is Alfed, because its Alfred, and no one goes against Alfred.

The rest of the family would try different ways to make you rest.

Dick would wrap a weighted blanket around you when you are at the batcomputer, and lean against you as you work, just telling you about his day. It works sometimes, because you always feel safe around him, so if you are already exhausted and drowsy, it can put you out.

Jason hovers in the background too, maybe brings you some of your favorite food from downtown, sits nearby. If you are really sick, he will scold you in the way he does, prodding at you till you go to bed to rest. If its really bad, he will throw you over his shoulder and force you to rest.

Cass is always the first to spot when you are sick, and always gives you small, disappointed frowns when you push yourself too hard, and her reaction probably makes your heart ache the most. She pulls you from your work to watch a movie with her, making sure to wrap you in blankets and keep you close until you fall asleep.

Tim is the type to sit beside you when you work, since hes not the pinnacle of health most times too. Might use it as a “if you go rest, I will to” to force you to go, since you love your brother very much and want him to get better too. The rest of the fam regularly finds you guys passed out over a case together.

Duke hovers too, brings you medicine and will talk to you about his day to keep you distracted from whatever is keeping you awake and active. He understands pushing yourself even when you are sick, and knows that forcing you to go rest wont help, so he tries to subtly push you in that direction instead of pushing you.

Damian scowls nearby, probably gives you some speech about how being sick will make you less lethal and weaker, and then you can’t do your job as Red Bat at all. Resorts to dumping different batclan animals on you until you have no choice. You end up laying against batcow, Jerry the turkey beside you, Alfred the cat in your lap, Titus and Ace laying around you, you get the point.

Bruce looms and hovers, since he’s not the best with words. Its easy to tell he’s worried when he keeps pacing near you or keeping an eye on you. Will matter of factly tell you that you need rest, brings you a blanket or other comfort items.

If you try to run off on patrol, Barbara is quick to tell the others what you are up too. If you are really sick, they’ll whisk you back to the manor kicking and screaming if they have too, as being extremely sick can put you at risk.

If its milder, they’ll just hover nearby and keep a close eye on you and your physical state.

The first few times it happened, it caused a huge argument because of your inability to let yourself rest, and because that sick twisted part inside you was sure it was because they saw you as weak or a burden, like your first siblings did, since there was no excuse for weakness in your first family.

It results in them, and especially Bruce because he’s the one you look up to the most, having to sit down with you and explain that there’s nothing wrong with being sick or so called “weak”, and that its okay to take a rest when you need it.

It also results in the rest of the family having to lead by example, because you’ll always snip and point out how they’re not resting when they are sick, so why should you.

Alfred thanks the circumstances and that the family all love each other so much, he’s been trying to get the batfam try to take breaks and rest when sick for years, and now that they must be someone you can look up too, they’ll actually do it.

It becomes kind of a game to force the sick family members to rest, lotsa blanket burritos and the sick person always ends up with Alfred the cat curled up on their chest purring somehow. Its especially fun when its Bruce that’s sick, because you all have to hound him an extra amount for him to take care of himself.

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ausetkmt · 1 year ago

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Pharmacist Lunsford Richardson made Vicks a household name throughout the nation, but his popular product did not do the same for him.

Even in his native North Carolina, where his most celebrated of chemical concoctions has been right under our stuffy noses and on our congested chests for generations, the mention of Richardson’s name elicits blank stares from all but those who study and cherish history.

Richardson’s salve, Vicks VapoRub, helped the world breathe easier during the devastating influenza pandemic of 1918 and during the countless colds and flus of our childhoods, yet most of us couldn’t pick Lunsford Richardson out of a one-man police lineup, much less a who’s who of medical pioneers.

Why didn’t Richardson — by all accounts a creative inventor and smart businessman — ever become as famous as those vapors packed into the familiar squat blue jar?

Because his name wouldn’t fit on the jar.

That’s one version of the story. According to company and family lore, Richardson initially dubbed his promising new product Richardson’s Croup and Pneumonia Cure Salve. Realizing that this name didn’t exactly roll off the tongue nor fit when printed on a small medicine jar, Richardson changed the name to honor his brother-in-law, Dr. Joshua Vick. Another account suggests the inventive druggist plucked the name from a seed catalog he’d been perusing that listed the Vick Seed Co.

The truth may never be known. What is known, though, is that Lunsford Richardson created a medicinal marvel for the ages, the likes of which may never be equaled.

Croupy beginnings

A Johnston County native born in 1854, Richardson loved chemistry and hoped to study it at Davidson College. The college’s chemistry program at the time wasn’t as strong as he’d hoped it would be, so he studied Latin instead, graduating with honors in three years. He returned to Johnston County and taught school, but it wasn’t long before the young man’s love of chemistry got the best of him. In 1880, he moved to Selma to work with his physician brother-in-law, Dr. Vick. It was not uncommon in those days for doctors to dispense drugs themselves, but Vick was so busy seeing patients that he teamed up with Richardson, allowing him to handle the pharmacy duties for him. Richardson relied on his knowledge of Latin to help him learn the chemical compounds required to become a pharmacist, and that’s when he began to experiment with recipes for the product that would become Vicks VapoRub.

It wasn’t until Richardson moved to his wife’s hometown of Greensboro in 1890 that his magical salve and other products he created began to take off.

“He was a man of great intellect and talent,” says Linda Evans, community historian for the Greensboro Historical Museum, which has an exhibit devoted to Richardson and Vicks.

“Druggists at the time fashioned their own remedies a lot, and he created a number of remedies, in addition to his magic salve, that he sold under the name of Vick’s Family Remedies. He was obviously a man of such creativity.”

In Greensboro, working out of a downtown drugstore he purchased (where he once employed a teenaged William Sydney Porter, the future short story writer O. Henry), Richardson patented some 21 medicines. The wide variety of pills, liquids, ointments, and assorted other medicinal concoctions included the likes of Vick’s Chill Tonic, Vick’s Turtle Oil Liniment, Vick’s Little Liver Pills and Little Laxative Pills, Vick’s Tar Heel Sarsaparilla, Vick’s Yellow Pine Tar Cough Syrup, and Vick’s Grippe Knockers (aimed at knocking out la grippe, an old-timey phrase for the flu).

These products sold with varying degrees of success, but the best seller in the lineup of Richardson’s remedies was Vick’s Magic Croup Salve, which he introduced in 1894. And by all accounts, necessity was the key to its success.

“He had what they referred to as a croupy baby — a baby with a lot of coughing and congestion,” explains Richardson’s great-grandson, Britt Preyer of Greensboro. “So as a pharmacist, he began experimenting with menthols from Japan and some other ingredients, and he came up with this salve that really worked. That’s how it all started.”

Another version of the story suggests that all three of the Richardson children caught bad colds at the same time, and Richardson, dissatisfied with the traditional treatment of the day, which included poultices and a vapor lamp, spent hours at his pharmacy developing his own treatment.

Richardson’s salve — a strong-smelling ointment combining menthol, camphor, oil of eucalyptus, and several other oils, blended in a base of petroleum jelly — was a chest-soothing, cough-suppressing, head-clearing sensation. When the salve was rubbed on the patient’s chest, his or her body heat vaporized the menthol, releasing a wave of soothing, medicated vapors that the patient breathed directly into the lungs.

Vicks in the mailbox

In 1911, Richardson’s son Smith, by now a successful salesman for his father’s company, recommended discontinuing all of the company’s products except for Vick’s Magic Croup Salve. He believed the salve could sell even better if the company stopped investing time and money in the other, less successful remedies. He also suggested renaming the salve Vicks VapoRub, according to the company’s history timeline, to “help dramatize the product’s performance.” Richardson agreed, and a century later, the name’s still the same.

Meanwhile, Richardson intensified his marketing efforts by providing free goods to druggists who placed large orders and publishing coupons for free samples in newspapers. He also advertised on billboards and sent promotional mailings to post office boxes, addressed to Boxholder rather than the individual’s name, thus earning him the distinction of being the father of junk mail.

In 1925, Vicks even published a children’s book to help promote the product. The book told the story of two elves, Blix and Blee, who rescued a frazzled mother whose sick child refused to take nasty-tasting medicines. Their solution, of course, was the salve known as Vicks VapoRub.

Expanding and experimenting

As successful as the marketing campaign was, nothing sold Vicks VapoRub like the deadly Spanish flu outbreak that ravaged the nation in 1918 and 1919, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans. Loyal Vicks customers and new customers stocked up on the medicine to stave off or fight the disease.

According to the company’s history timeline, VapoRub sales skyrocketed from $900,000 to $2.9 million in a single year because of the pandemic. The Vicks plant in Greensboro operated around the clock, and salesmen were pulled off the road to help at the manufacturing facility in an effort to keep up with demand.

As the flu spread across the nation, Richardson grew ill with pneumonia in 1919 and died. Smith took over the company. Vicks continued to grow, buying other companies until Procter & Gamble bought it in the 1980s. Through the years, Vicks continued adding new products to its arsenal of cold remedies: cough drops, nose drops, inhalers, cough syrup, nasal spray, Formula 44, NyQuil. And whatever success those products attained, they got there standing on the broad shoulders of Richardson.

Richardson will never be a household name, but his salve has held that status for more than a century — and may do so for the next hundred years. And for Richardson, were he still around, that ought to be enough to clear his head.

A cure-all salve

Vicks users have claimed the salve can cure and heal many maladies. Even though Vicks doesn’t say the salve works for these problems, people still believe.

Toenail fungus: Rub the salve on your toenails, cover with socks, and sleep your fungus problems away. Cough: For a similar fix to a nagging cough, some believe rubbing Vicks on the soles of your feet can fix the problem. Dandruff: Rub Vicks directly on the scalp, and your flakes may just disappear. Chapped lips: Petroleum jelly is one of the ingredients in Vicks, and some say the ointment can help heal cracked lips. Mosquito bites: If you smooth Vicks on the red bumps on your legs and arms, it can supposedly take the itch right out. Warts: Dab Vicks on the wart, cover with duct tape, and it may fall off in a few days.

Greensboro Historical Museum 130 Summit Avenue Greensboro, N.C. 27401 (336) 373-2043 greensborohistory.org

See historical Vicks VapoRub bottles and learn about Lunsford Richardson.

#VICKS #Vicks vapo rub #Lunsford Richardson #Vicks VapoRub #spanish american flu #Spanish flu outbreak #1918 #1919 #pneumonia #Black Inventors

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theyhavetakenovermylife · 6 months ago

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A New World: part 2

Bayverse!Leonardo x reader

Part 1 / Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

A/N: I have decided to give you guys part two already, hehehehehe. Now it’s time for your side of that fateful encounter hehehe. Nothing super detailed or super important, by ay, part 2 it is.

Leo is 25, reader is 22 - 23.

Warnings: None so far💙

When (Y/N) woke up that day, nothing could have told her about the things to come. Not a cloud in the sky or smell in the air. No beeping alarms or sirens up above. Nothing. Nothing but good weather, blue skies and singing birds, along with the usual sounds of the bussy city. It just seemed like a normal day off, and (Y/N) had every intention of enjoying that day.

(Y/N) woke up with a big stretch, before making her way to the closet to get dressed, all while ignoring the early morning texts from her needy and possibly drunk ex boyfriend. With that she went to the kitchen, so she could make herself breakfast, planning out her day in her head. As stated before, the weather was great. A warm day in the middle of summer. It was as if the day was made for her to have a day off. So why not use this amazing weather as a reason for going downtown and do some shopping. Listen to some music, look at some clothes, geek out at her favorite nerd shop, and just see what caught her eyes. Sounded like a plan. A perfect plan actually. Maybe even grab some food on the way home. Only time would tell.

With that plan in mind she cleaned up after herself, before venturing out of her apartment and down to the metro, taking the first train towards centrum. With her headphones covering her ears, (Y/N) kept bobbing her head to the music, keeping an eye on the station names above her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a boy jumping in his seat, playing with his new Mutant Mayhem figures, telling his mother what they were doing and mimicking sound effects, all while she nodded along, not really sure what any of the words he said meant.

(Y/N) smiled at the sight, remembering the days she got TMNT action figures for Christmas. She had had all four turtles, all from different episodes of the 2003 series. Mikey dressed in dinosaur skulls, from the episode where they were stranded in the dino area. Raph in a big red foot clan robot. It could even shoot small plastic projectiles. That had been an annoyance for her parents, as they never knew when they would be shot by an angry toy turtle. A cyborg Donnie with tubings and all sorts of robotic gear and a grappling hook. And Leo, in his natural katana holding stance. That one action figure didn’t come with much, but that didn’t matter to (Y/N). Leo had always been her favorite turtle, so having an action figure of him with just his two katanas and nothing more, didn’t diminish him in her mind. To (Y/N), the blue wearing ninja turtle stood for everything she wanted to be as a child. A leader, a role model, a savior, the good person that always did what was right. It wasn’t until (Y/N) got older, that she realized what else he stood for. He was anxious and worried for his family’s protection, just like she worried about her siblings, both now and growing up. The leading turtle struggled in every single version of himself. His mental state, his own insecurities about his strengths and weaknesses, and the thought of not being good enough. Those topics was only getting scarily more relatable to (Y/N) as she got older. Now (Y/N) was a newly single woman in her 20’s with an apartment of her own, and now they were more relatable to her than ever.

It didn’t take long before (Y/N) got to her station. She went up the stairs from the underground station, before making it to the big shopping streets. With music booming in her ears, she went into one store after another, seeing if there was any clothing. And behold… nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing really caught her interest, and the few things that did was not in her size.

(Y/N) huffed, slightly annoyed, before leaving and going to the next store. It was the same story all over again, again and again, until she came to her crown jewel. That comic book store that had everything a small geek like her could think of; Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, DC, Marvel and Avatar. They even had H.P. Lovecraft, and her childhood favorites such as Tintin and Asterix & Obelix. And of course Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. On the shelfs between Avatar and Star Wars stood the TMNT comic books. (Y/N) found herself over there in no time, looking through one after the other. For a long time she had been thinking about buying the second big collection of the TMNT IDW comics. She often found herself flipping through it while standing in the store, but always putting it back on the shelf when she saw the price. As much as she loved TMNT, that price seemed to surprise her everytime, even though it was the same everytime she came to look at it. Well, she had already bought the first collection after several days of looking at it. It was good, she wasn’t going to lie about that. (Y/N) loved the idea of her favorite turtles having a human past life, and she was stocked for the rest of the IDW series. But the amount of money tho…

After standing there for some time, (Y/N) decided it wasn’t the day to spend money. Maybe she should just go home and watch some movies. Batman VS Ninja Turtles maybe? Rise of TMNT? Maybe even Turtles forever? No, she decided on the bayverse movies.

(Y/N) left the store as a new song started playing in her headphones, causing her to once again bobbing her head to the music. As she was walking back towards the metro, it was as if a strong wind came down the street towards her, making everyone stubble in its way. (Y/N) felt it as the strong vibration made a stubble backwards. She managed to catch herself, slightly confused at what just happened. And as she wondered, it happened again. A hard and fast vibration, causing her to fall this time around. And just as she landed on the ground it was gone as quickly as it came. People mumbled in confusion. A slight earthquake? Just a hard sudden wind? Who knew, but whatever it was, it seemed to be over. That was at least what (Y/N) thought, but in reality, it should have been the first of her warnings for things to come. Nonetheless, (Y/N) wanted to go home. The food at home suddenly seemed way more appealing.

On her way home, (Y/N) heard people talk about what just had happened. Should we be concerned? Probably not, there is most likely a reasonable explanation behind it. Nothing worth bothering over. And with that though in mind, (Y/N) went back to listening to the song that was playing in her ears.

(Y/N) once again left the underground metro station, walking towards her street. She opened the door to the stairwell, before making her way up the steps to her apartment. As she came to her front door, she turned off her headphones before unlucky the doors with her keys. As she got through the door, she was still humming the song that just had been playing. Closing the door and leaving her headphones and keys on the table at the entrance, she went to take her shoes off. At that very moment, (Y/N) was just thinking about what food to eat while watching the bayverse movies. She should probably check the fridge to see what she had to work with. And with that she walked down the hallway towards her kitchen, only to stop dead in her tracks. In her kitchen stood a well over 6 foot tall green muscular terrapin, wearing his signature blow mask, trousers and boots and his two katanas on the back of his shell. (Y/N) was in shock, staring at the terrorfied mutant. (Y/N) did not know how long she had been staring at him before he broke the silence.

“Don’t freak out!” He held his green three fingered hands up in front of him, as if he was trying to keep her at bay. (Y/N) didn’t really register any of his words. All she could do was stare at him, even as he continued talking about her knowledge. “I- I know it looks weird, b- but I can explain-”.

That was when it finally clicked in (Y/N)’s head, as if she suddenly realized what she was looking at. “You’re in my house”. Was she talking to him? Nope. She didn’t even know if he was real, yet that thought hadn't even crossed her mind yet.

“I know, and I’m sorry! I don’t know how I got here-”.

She didn’t register a word he said. As she finally said the words in her head, they came through her mouth; “Leonardo is in my house”. The turtle was taken aback, seeming as shocked as her, mouth open but no words coming out. She repeated the words, as if her brain was still trying to catch up. “The Leonardo is in my house”.

#tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt leonardo #tmnt leo #tmnt x reader #tmnt leo x reader #tmnt leonardo x reader #tmnt bayverse #tmnt bayverse x reader #tmnt bayverse leo #tmnt bayverse leo x reader #tmnt bayverse leonardo #tmnt bayverse leonardo x reader #bayverse leo #bayverse leo x reader #bayverse leonardo #bayverse leonardo x reader

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itsstrange · 2 months ago

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A Little Bit Warmer

Fandom: MW, MW2, MW3

Relationship: Zombie Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x Reader

A/N: I’ve Had This Idea Since Zombie Ghost Was First Introduced But Never Got Around To Officially Write It Down, But Now, IT’S OFFICIALLY HERE!! Had So Much Fun Writing This One.

Also, This Will Definitely Be A Mini Series! Another Thing, This Was Also Semi Inspired By Warm Bodies. 🤗

{ANY WARNING TRIGGERS WILL BE POSTED IN THE BEGINNING IF THE STORY!}

Summary: Is It Possible That There Is Such Things As Miracles? Or Does A Cold Heart Eventually Finds Its Warmth?

Word Count: 12k

Warnings: (Yes) Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Murder, Slightly Graphic Content, Guns, Knifes, etc, Slow Burn, Fluff, Angst, Zombie Protective Ghost, Jealous Zombie Ghost, Eventual Smut,

Call Sign: Kali

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ENJOY! 💀🫶

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October 18, 2026

S.C.H.Q

23:00 pm

“How low are we?”

“Low. A lot of children and families are getting sick with this damn weather,”

“What about the emergency vault? I thought we did a big score not too long ago? Filled it up with supplies?”

“Like I said Lieutenant, a lot of children and families are getting sick. It’s spreading like wildfire. And fast. The medical ward is getting overwhelmed with people that they’re down to their last case of supplies,”

“Any casualties?”

The older man sighs, rubbing at his eyebrow, “One so far,”

Fucking great.

You sigh heavily. Leaning your exhausted body against the desk. It had been such a long couple days that the moment you finally arrived at base all you wanted to do was fall asleep for a week straight. You had gone out of the safe zone with a group to try and clear more sections of the city to keep it safe, to expand your community, to make more shelter considering it kept growing as the days went by. So after 8 days of being out of the safe zone, sleeping in uncomfortable conditions, killing herds of flesh eating Zeds, killing looters, you had successfully came back to base with great news. You and your team were able to successfully recover another hot zone, another great victory where everyone in your group made it back with no injuries. No bite marks.

Yet, despite the great news you had for your leader, bad news was landed on your shoulders once again. Fucking typical with this goddamn unit. You had barely gotten off the humvee when a soldier walked towards you with a message that you were needed in the Generals office. Which resulted in you standing near General Shepherds desk as you listened with exhausted eyes that threatened to close on you.

Your long term friend, teammate, partner in crime Phillip Graves stood beside you. His own exhaustion lingering on his stubble jaw.

“When are we heading out?” You ask after a heavy exhale, hands resting on your vest as you stare at the man in front of you,

“Tomorrow. 0500,” Well there goes my beauty sleep. “You and Graves along with the rest of your squad will head up North.”

You nod at the man. Taking in all the information given. It was nothing you’ve never done before, practically done it your entire life. First stop was to head over to Lincoln Grove, where a small downtown with multiple stores stood. You’ve raided most of the stores, but some still remained untouched so it was worth checking out. Main mission was to head further down, passing the barricades of the safe zone towards Red Lines where a hospital stood somewhere in the section.

Easy enough.

Only it wasn’t. Red Lines was known for its activeness of Zeds, Lurkers, runners and Ghouls. Ghouls were rare to be seen out in the city, they mostly hid where it’s dark so they can ambush anyone who pumps warm blood. But still, even they make random appearances during the day.

Red Lines was one of the most uncontrolled sections of the city, it wasn’t where the pandemic first hit, but it was where most of the population lost their lives. It remained untouched. Every time a group went through in hopes to control it, they never came back. Not a single soul in the group would make it back.

Unfortunately, Shepherd was a stubborn old dog and continued in trying to push out every infected there is to officially claim Red Lines. Why? Because he knew by owning Red Lines he’ll have higher authority when it came to medicine. His main goal was to claim that hot section just to control what comes in and out of the hospital.

And you knew he’d do anything to own it.

“Any questions?” Shepherd asks, eyes averting from you to the man beside you, when neither spoke up he nods his head before dismissing you both,

Without another word, just another exhausted sigh falling from your lips you walk out of the man’s office then down the hallways to get out of the building to get to your private quarters. Which really was a rundown apartment complex that was right across from the business building where Shepherd stood hid.

Fifth floor to be precise. Inside the biggest office there was.

Almost every soldier from Shadow Company lived in your apartment complex. Shepherds orders. Claimed his soldiers needed to be ready and alert for anything and everything. The actual truth you knew that he just didn’t want to admit to anyone or the civilians was, he simply wanted his soldiers closer to him for better and faster protection from anyone and anything that tries to threaten him.

The thought alone makes a loud scoff leave your lips as you walk down the stairs to the first floor. Graves, who was walking beside you and speaking to you the entire time—which you obviously weren’t paying attention to— sends you a look. Brows knitted together as you both make your way out the building.

“Somethin’ funny?”

You look over to him, eyes locking for a second before you avert them back in front of you as you push through the semi broken glass doors.

“Yeah. Funny how I thought I was gonna get a good nights sleep today,” You throw in a lie. Well.. not really,

Graves snickers at your words, placing an arm around your shoulders to tug you closer to his side as you both make your way to the apartments.

“Come on up to my room and I’ll give you a good nights sleep,” Graves purrs into your ear, a scoff leaving your lips as you shove him off you,

“In your wildest dreams Philip,” After so many years of working alongside the Texan man you’ve grown use to his flirtatious comments,

Philip Graves was a man known for his words. Especially when it came to luring woman into his bedsheets, something that personally makes an acid-like taste in your tongue at the thought of it. No matter how much you need to unwind or just forget about this shitty ass world for a few minutes, you will never accept his offer. You saw Graves as a close friend, a teammate, and surprisingly a brother. And you knew he knew that too, mostly because you have rejected him multiple times, but Graves was such a stubborn man that he didn’t take no as answer. Obviously he’ll never push it, once rejected always rejected, but that didn’t mean he’d try again every so often.

No matter how many disappointments you gave him after each rejection, he never once gave up.

You knew the man was a man-whore, never one to take a relationship serious, which is why you also declined his offer. Not that you’d ever want a relationship with him. Hell, the thought of possible being in a relationship with him only made you scrunch your face in disgust. He was a friend to you, nothing else.

“Oh (Y/n) (L/n) you fill my soul just a little more each day,” Says Graves, hand planted on his chest as he pouts his bottom lip at you,

“Good. Because one of us has to be the brightness in this friendship,” You give him a smile as you walk through the black gates of the apartment complex,

Other Shadow men and woman can be found passed the gates. Some spoke to one another in the lobby, sitting on the beaten down couch, smoking, drinking, eating, cracking jokes. The apartment was everyone’s safe space. Where they can unwind, relax after completing their tasks, sleep in their proper quarters before having to get up before or at crack of dawn to start their rounds once again. Although, since civilians keep joining the team and the apartments had limited rooms, some soldiers unfortunately had to bunk with other soldiers.

Thankfully, the higher the rank one was, the privilege they had in having their own rooms. Hence, you and Graves.

You both slept on the 7th floor. Overlooking the entire safe zone. Getting a perfect view of the once beautiful city of Chicago. Yet, despite the view and the single apartment you had, you still hated the fact that you had to climb seven flights of stairs to get to your door. It was times like these that you loathed living on the highest floor.

Your legs shook as you climbed the stairs, even considered asking Graves to piggyback you to your floor but you knew that man would you haunt with that memory till the day he dies. And you knew he wouldn’t stop there. As stubborn as that man is he’ll find you in the afterlife and torment you for existence.

So, with an annoyed huff you climbed the rest of the stairs till you made it to your door.

“See you in a few hours,” You hear Graves as he walks further down the hallway, not sparing him a glance you simply wave at him as you push open your door,

Your apartment was decent. Well.. decent as it’ll ever be in times like these. Once entering the small living space, a small hallway greets you with cracked walls, the paint chipping off on either side with smudges of dirt or mud. Once walking further into the home it looked… more decent. A broken tv hung on the wall next to some windows, which some were boarded up as they didn’t have a window— which you were in the process of fixing them somehow— next, there was a single beaten down brown love seat against the wall towards the entrance. A medium coffee table stood in front of the loveseat with your AR-15 leaning against it. Then a medium size generator leaning against the opposite wall where you hung a metal bat on the wall as some sort of prize.

As mentioned, the living room seemed a little more decent, the kitchen however was just a mess with your armory. Guns and cases of bullets engulfed the kitchen. You never made or ate your food in your apartment, you mostly ate at Taz’s Diner where everyone ate together. So it was pointless to have a kitchen when it was never used for cooking, so you made it into your armory instead.

Now going towards your room where you can rest was slightly in better shape. In the center of the room laid your king size bed— something that Graves personally found for you one day while out on patrol, the ever so kind man he was. Grey and orange bedsheets laid on top of the comforter, a brick wall stood behind the bed that had a couple shelves with multiple books. It was another way to destress yourself, minus the working out or going to kill some loitering Zeds, books has always been helpful. So you’d collect as many you can find, causing you to have a mess of stacked books on your shelves.

It surprises you how they’ve managed to hold on for this long or how they haven’t collapsed on you as you slept.

A few more trinkets can be found in your room that you’ve either found or was gifted by some close friends, close civilians or Graves.

You tried to limit your collections, only wanting to keep things that seemed important or useful, yet, books were the only exception.

A metal desk leaned against the wall across the bed. Maps, bullets, a couple parts from guns, dirty rags, tape, tools and markers were scattered on the desk. Then right next to it was your window to the view of the overrun city of Chicago. Some buildings and sections of the safe zone was brought back to life, small dimmed string lights can be seen from your room, then passed the safe zone remained the cold, dark side of Chicago. Every so often you sit on your window sill, cigarette in your mouth as you scan the view, the expanding life just a few floors down, then back to the destroyed city where your mind would often get trapped in the past. Remembering nightmares you wish would vanish from your mind, including the good memories.

They were nothing but pain. It was never good to remember the past, because it reminded you what you once had, what you lost. And those were the nightmares you tried avoiding.

So, shaking the thoughts away, you shrug off your tactical vest, your heavy boots, holsters, jacket, and your tactical belt before falling face first on your mattress. Causing the poor comforter to make a loud noise from the force fall, something you could care less at the moment, all you cared for was sleep.

Nightmares or not, you were getting your sleep.

****

October 19, 2026

S. C. H. Q

0430 am

“You seen Graves?” You ask a soldier, Portman, was his name, as he sat inside a humvee. He simply points in the direction of a tent,

“The General asked to speak to him,” The young soldier says,

With knitted brows you sip your warm, very warm coffee as you make your way towards the tent. Why would he ask for him? Is he changing the plans last minute? If so why weren’t I involved in the conversation? Question after question popped in your head as you make your way through other soldiers to get to the tent. However, just as you rounded the corner of other parked vehicles you hear faint, but loud enough whispers to know people were talking to one another. Your brows knit tighter once more, trying to figure out what was being said but before you can even walk inside, Troy— one of Graves’ idiotic friends who you loathed— steps outside. His face expression showing distaste when he meets your gaze. Yet, not a moment later Graves steps outside with an oddly distant look. Brows knitted together almost in a frown, however once his eyes land on you they instantly change. As if nothing happened.

Why the fuck was Troy apart of the conversation?

“There you are! Beginning to think I had to drag your ass out of bed,” He claims as he fixes his vest,

You give both men a wary look. Your eyes averting from them to the tent behind his shoulder.

“Everything okay?” Graves shakes his head with an annoyed look,

“Busting my balls it’s all,”

“Regarding?” You ask, brow slightly raised,

“None of your concern,” Troy comments, causing you to glare at him, yet before you can argue back Graves is pulling you away from him by wrapping an arm around your shoulders,

However, you still throw the piece of shit a raised finger as you’re forced to walk away.

As Graves lead you towards the trucks you asked again if everything was alright. You knew the General was a miserable old dog at times and would give shit to anyone he decided to target, so you knew what Graves felt at the moment. However, you couldn’t wrap your head around anything Graves has done wrong in the past few days or weeks. So it just seemed off.

“Don’t worry bout’ it sugar. It’s handled,” The man smirks down at you when he sees the way a mask of annoyance hovers over your face at his pet name,

Oh how he knew how much you loathed that pet name and oh how much he loved using it to simply get a rise out of you.

“You’re lucky I’m sleep deprived otherwise I’d toss this whole cup of coffee on you,” Your comment earns a loud chuckle from him,

“Thank god to your lack of sleep then,” He claims as he wraps an arm around your shoulders to lead you both towards the humvee’s where soldiers were loading in,

After another 5 to 10 minutes of briefing the soldiers of the mission, loading the trucks of empty duffle bags for medical supplies, checking and counting ammunition for every rifle, everyone began climbing into the trucks.

Once you checked your vest multiple times, checked each component, your extra magazines, your holsters, your combat knives that you had tucked behind your back, drank your cup of coffee before pouring another one, you finally climb into the passenger seat while Graves took the drivers side.

Once signaling the man you were ready, he shifts the gear before feeling the truck moving down the road. You stare out the window, watching kids wave goodbye as their parents stood right behind them, a small smile tugs on your lips as you notice their proud, wide smiles as they wave goodbye. Yet, your heart also gets pulled on by sadness at the fact they are living in a world with such cruel conditions, instead of the happy, semi-safe world it use to be. Now, they had to fight to survive. They had to become soldiers to survive and help protect their new home.

“ETA to Red Lines is approximately an hour ladies and gentlemen. Keep your eyes pealed for any movement, safeties off once out of the safe zone,” Your thoughts are interrupted by Graves speaking into the radio,

‘Rog,’

‘Copy,’

‘Copy that sir,’

Multiple voices can be heard through the radio as they announce their confirmation.

“Get some shut eye Kali. I’ll wake you up for whatever reason,” Graves calls you by your callsign before voicing his offer, his eyes focused down the road,

No matter how heavenly that sounded, you knew it wasn’t a good idea. He needed an extra pair of eyes looking after him, after the team. Plus, if you were the last to survive Shepherd would have your head if he found out his team got killed because you wanted to get some extra sleep on the road.

“No I’m good,” You respond, slowly sipping on your coffee,

Graves turns to look at you, observing your sleep deprived frame before looking back towards the road. Just staring at you alone made him exhausted. You needed sleep and he’d forcefully put you to sleep if that’s what it took to make you catch some extra hours.

“(Y/n) seriously, gets some sleep. I’ll wake you when I need you,” He tries again, voice calm and comforting as his baby blues look into yours,

You softly chuckle, appreciating his concern, “I’m okay. M’not that tired anymore,”

That was a total lie.

Because after 10 minutes of driving down the dark, destroyed, abandoned roads of Chicago you swiftly dozed off. Empty coffee cup nearly falling out of your hands if it wasn’t for Graves’ quick reflexes.

The man slightly chuckles at you as he observes your sleeping frame before focusing his eyes back on the road. He knew you trusted him enough to be vulnerable around him, to have faith in him in keeping you both alive when one was resting. He hoped it’d remained that way. But deep down, he knew it won’t, not after today. He knew it was going to be a difficult decision if you don’t come around the new regulations that Shepherd will have back at base.

The rules made sense. But he just knew you’d be against it. And that alone brought an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach.

*****

Red Lines

0800

“Alright, Eagle 3 stays out here. Keep watch for any movement. Eagle 1 you’ll take care of building A. Find anything valuable that we need. Eagle 2 you’re with me and Lieutenant Kali. We’ll scope the bottom before making our way to the pharmacy unit,” Graves lays down the orders, looking at every soldier who simply nods back at him,

You on the other hand couldn’t help the annoyed look on your face when Troy would be tagging along with you and Graves. You’d rather much get chased by a group of Zeds than walk beside him. That man was not to be trusted by any means.

“If things get too complicated you retreat. Whatever you find is whatever we’ll take. Got it?” You join on the orders, receiving more nods from the soldiers,

“Remember. Safeties off. If anything moves you shoot to kill,” Graves says once again before sending everyone to their positions,

Meeting Graves’ gaze you send him a nod before following him up the stairs that lead to the hospital building. Once inside the lobby, Eagle 1 slowly and quietly parts away to checkout their side of the building. Guns raised and ready to fire. From the corner of your eye you watch them walk past the doors before disappearing from your sight. Once the lobby was clear to move forward, you and Graves lead the rest of the soldiers down the hallway.

As you made your way down the hospital you kept your gun tight to your shoulder, finger off the trigger but close enough to be used in case of anything. You and the group slowly and quietly searched each room. Your eyes cautiously scanned every inch of the place, noticing just how rough this hospital had gone through after the outbreak.

Hospital beds, equipment, papers, wheel chairs, broken windows, everything you can possibly think of was scattered across the floor, the hallways. The ceiling tiles were broken, wires hung from above, vines somehow made their way inside the hospital and have overtook the walls, the entire hospital was out of power but emergency lights still flashed, casting a red bright glow throughout the building.

However, the further your group walked into the building the worst everything got. Blood stains coated the floors, the walls, bodies that have been dead for months maybe years were left on the ground. Yet, what made everyone on edge and more cautious of their surroundings was how fresh some blood stains were. Everyone kept close watch on everything, every corner and every room.

Luckily, no living dead was seen, yet, causing you to reach the pharmacy wing with no issue. Although, it still didn’t mean everyone was safe, they still had to stay cautious.

Yet despite scanning the pharmacy for any danger, no one noticed a pair of white frosty eyes watching them in a dark corner the whole time. Watching a specific person in the group.

While two soldiers kept watch on the entrance of the door, the rest of you tossed as much medicine as you can into black duffel bags.

“Bronx start piling these bags on something with wheels,” You call out to the soldier who kept watch as you start on your second duffle, throwing variety of medical supplies inside,

From alcohol wipes, rubbing alcohol bottles, medical bandages, band-aides, any working thermometers, stethoscopes as a request from some doctors back at base, anything you saw that was of use you’d toss it in the bag. As you helped Graves carry another loaded bag onto a medical trolley that Bronx has brought from somewhere in the room, a faint noise coming from outside the double doors has everyone stopping.

“Anyone hear that?” Silo, another soldier that was placing pill bottles inside her duffle calls out,

“I did. We should bail Graves,” Troy claims, eyes directed at the doors,

“Negative, we’ve got orders,” You demand the soldier. Ignoring his words you continue tossing items inside the duffle,

With a grunt the man goes to place the duffle bag on the trolley, mumbling words underneath his breath which was most likely directed towards you but you continue to ignore him like any other day. As Troy placed his bag amongst the other filled bags, another noise that sounded like glass being stepped on comes from outside the doors, catching everyone’s attention again.

“I’m telling you something’s out there,” Silo repeats again, taking a step away from the doors, weapon slightly raised,

The sound of a shot gun being pumped rings in the air, “Graves, let’s bail!” Troy harshly growls as he points his gun towards the door,

Your own ears heard the noise, causing your blood to run cold. But you knew the base was running low on everything. You were already here, at least three bags worth of medical supplies, you couldn’t just leave them. Not when people, families, kids are slowly suffering and possibly dying. You had to take it back with you.

The stores that you’ve checked before coming to Red Lines were no use. Everything had been cleared, leaving every shelve empty. So you had to go back to base with something.

“We have orders Troy!” You remind the man as Graves slowly walks towards the double doors, rifle of his own pointing upwards, finger ready on the trigger for anything,

Troy only throws a scoff at you, “Fuck the orders!”

Jesus he’s more of a fucking pussy than I thought. You think to yourself as you turn to face the man, who still had his shot gun up in the air. Signs of sweat lingered on his temple.

“Fuck you! Families are at stake they need medicine!”

“That’s my point! None of this matters anymore they’re all gonna die anyways!”

Now that raised a flag.

“What?”

“Troy shut up that’s enough!” The look of panic and anger on Graves face raised more flags, what the hell were they hiding?

“What the fuck is he talking about?” Graves looks at you, that same odd look in his eyes from earlier was back, but he simply shakes his head with closed eyes,

“Nothing! Look, there’s nothing out there alright everyone just needs to stop being fucking paranoi—,”

“Phil!” You scream just as you see a large herd of Lurkers and Runners pushing through the doors,

Graves was able to slam the butt of his rifle towards the first Zed reaching towards him, sending him on the ground as he’s quick to shoot the rest.

“Aim for their heads!” You hear him scream as bullets begin flying in the small pharmaceutical,

In less than a second mayhem irrupted. Snarls, growls, screams, pained screams, bullets, windows, glass shattering can be heard in the building. Whatever medical supplies were left had been pushed off the counters or damaged by bullets as the living dead attacked. You had unloaded a whole magazine on the dead causing you to reach for your belt to grab another mag when you glance around the horrific sight unfolding in front of you. Multiple soldiers had been pinned in the corners by herds, pained screams surrounded the pharmaceutical as each soldier got mauled by the living dead.

You watched with wide eyes as you see one young soldier being dragged towards the back of the building by a herd, you go to reach for his wailing hands but before you can grab ahold of them you’re being slammed against the counter. A grunt rumbles in your throat when something digs into your hip, causing pain to travel up your side.

Turning, your met with the most gruesome face inches away from your own.

A runner in the process of forming into a Ghoul. His skin grey and rotten. Patches of skin missing or peeling from its face, blood either fresh and dry stained his entire torso. His mouth. Eyes wild and wide as it tries to latch its teeth onto you. Which you’d like to point out, most of his mouth was completely missing. Only bits and pieces of skin held it upright, giving you a disgusting and traumatic view of his teeth as he growled and snarled.

You groaned out loud as you try pushing the runner off of you. Doing your best in forcing his face away from you by placing your hand under his neck, forcing it away from you, your legs struggling to also kick him away from you. But it was no use because he was ravenous for you, causing him to use all his strength to mark you, eat you. Although, noticing how you’ll probably get bit by this piece of shit if you don’t fight hard enough, adrenaline rises in your veins, giving you enough strength to push him backwards till you slam it against the other counter. Bottles of pills, liquids of you don’t know what the fuck fall from the top shelve, some of it landing around you both or on you as you both struggle with each other.

But as you fought with the runner you somehow lose your balance, causing you to fall backwards, bringing the dead with you.

Another pained groan rumbles in your throat as the weight that falls on top of you nearly takes out all the air from your lungs, but with the little strength you had, you held the runner above you. Away from your skin. But your arms were quickly growing tired, causing an angered, frustrated, slightly fearful yell to fall from your lips. You cannot die this way.

However, before the dead can get a taste of your throat you feel him being pushed off you. Confusion settles on your face at the sudden moment, but is soon replaced with another feeling. Fear and worry as you see a tall, very tall being nearly hovering above you. The bright glowing red light illuminates his features, giving you a glimpse of a skull mask. From where you were on the ground you noticed military gear covered his entire frame, however fear—panic overtakes your body when you noticed this military man was not in fact alive. No. He was infected. The blood and slightly rotten skin was enough proof for you.

As the dead inches closer towards you, you instinctively crawl away from him. Trying to get away from him, away from his ravenous state. You even managed to throw your knife at him while crawling away, causing it to latch onto his right shoulder, yet he only pulls it off with no care in the world as he continues inching closer to you. Crawling away quickly turns into you curling into a ball when he suddenly launches at you. As you waited for the end in a tight ball, your eyes are quick to shoot open when you never see it. In fact, you turn around when you see the tall infected military man fighting off a Ghoul that was apparently fighting him to grab onto you.

Not thinking much about the odd situation you quickly rise to your feet before running to grab your rifle from the floor.

Just as you grip the gun, a pair of strong arms clasping around your shoulders brings a shriek along with a jolt from you. You go to punch the infected, but Graves quickly spins you around to look directly in your eyes.

“We gotta go!” He yells over the ongoing commotion and without any hesitation he drags you by the arm to leave the death trap,

You quickly follow him, but just as you jump over the fallen trolley you stop to quickly pick up a duffle bag that had medical supplies before continuing in following him out the building. Graves yells at you to fucking run for your life, literally, as more horrific shrieks and snarls echo throughout the hospital as you, Graves and of course Troy run down the hallways.

More bullets fly in the air as the three of you shoot any oncoming herds. Felt like a never ending nightmare, but the three of you eventually make it outside. Where Eagle 3 had been mauled to death.

“Fucking Zeds!” Graves curses underneath his breath at the horrific sight,

Blood, lots of blood coated the pavement. Limbs, ripped intestines were scattered throughout the floor, turning your stomach as you scan the gruesome scene. If you had the time you’d definitely puke your coffee and protein bars, but your life was literally at stake. No time to puke your guts.

No pun intended.

“Fucking bastards! I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you! Come on!” The sound of Troy yelling like a complete maniac brings you out of your thoughts,

“Troy get your ass in the truck!” Graves yells from inside the humvee, already igniting the ignition and placing the gear in drive,

Adrenaline still coursing through your veins, you grab ahold of Troy’s tactical vest before dragging him towards the truck. Who was still yelling harmless profanities to the infected, who by the way were rapidly forcing themselves out of the building, causing you to push the idiot inside the humvee before quickly climbing inside yourself. The moment the door shuts Graves all but burns rubber on the pavement, leaving the herd of dead running after the truck.

*******

S.C.H.Q

1000 am

“I’m telling you sir, everything turned into a shit show,” Graves explains once again, exhaustion written on his face as he rests his hands on either side of his hips, “There was nothing we could’ve done. Sons of bitches ambushed us,”

“Goddamn it Graves,” Shepherd growls under his breath as he massages his forehead,

“With all do respect sir, you knew what we were walking into. That place is just damn near impossible to get through. We’re lucky enough to even stand here and tell you it was a failed mission,” You go to defend the Texan, earning a small glare from the old dog,

“Not lucky enough. Not everyone made it back,” You hear Troy behind you, feeling irritation rise in your chest. He’s been such a fucking Parrot since you’ve arrived at base,

But like usual, you ignore him, not even sparing him a glance. Yet, he still kept going. You hear him push off the wall as he walks closer to the group huddled around the Generals’ desk.

“My men would still be here if you’d just listen to me. But no! You just had to keep fucking grabbing medicine did ya!”

“Well excuse me for wanting to fucking save lives! For doing my goddamn job!” You yell back, facing the man to stare directly into those dark, coward, brown eyes of his,

“Yeah? Well look what that got us! One duffle bag filled with medical supplies that’ll not even last a week and the lives of soldiers lost because you wanted to save people who aren’t worth saving anymore!!” The moment those words left his mouth, your fist was quick to make contact with his left cheek. He stumbles backwards against some chairs.

Everything you were feeling; exhaustion, hunger, rage, adrenaline, annoyance, irritation, all of it had combined. Causing you to lash out. Physically. Besides, he’s had coming.

“That’s enough! Both of you!!” Graves once again is pulling you away from the man storming at you,

Although, Troy wasn’t close to reach or touch you because Graves had placed a firm hand on his chest, forcing him to take a step back.

“Now you listen here Lieutenants!” Shepherd announces with a dark tone, rising from his chair he fixes his uniform before walking around the desk, “I understand this is a tough situation on both your parts, but killing each other won’t bring anyone justice!”

“But what I do need is both of you to be on the same page! I’m already dealin’ with a herd of sick, panicked folks out there demanding for any sort of help! The last thing I need is to deal with both of your childlike behavior!”

You send a small glare to Shepherd from the corner of your eye before bringing your fuming orbs to the idiotic dirty blonde head. Who now sported a small gash on his bottom lip, bringing some sort of satisfaction knowing it was you who caused the small gash.

“Now I know we’re all frustrated and stressed about all this mess. But we gotta keep our heads on straight! So with that being said, Lieutenant Lennon go on and catch a breather. Lieutenant (L/N) you’re dismissed. Get some shut eye, I know you need it,” Shepherd orders with a cold, firm tone, eyes challenging you, “You’re dismissed Lieutenant. We’ll spell you later on in the night,”

You don’t argue. Mostly because Graves gives your arm a slight shove with his elbow, a message to just let it go and follow orders. So you do just that. Not sparing either men a glance you storm out the office, the door slamming shut, rattling the windows with its force. Not stopping, you head down towards the steps of the building, ignoring other soldiers standing on guard or the looks directed your way, you just kept walking till you eventually reached outside. The fresh air hitting your heated skin.

Closing your eyes, you take a deep breath through your nose. Holding it for a few seconds before exhaling deeply through your mouth.

This whole morning was a fucking shit-show and you blamed no one else other than Shepherd. If he wasn’t so obsessed in overtaking Red Lines, everyone from your squad would have been alive. If he’d just send your troop to another location that hadn’t been touched before, none of this mess would have happened.

More time is being wasted, more lives are being taken by a goddamn flu that this base has no medical care for, especially now since the mission was a failure and whatever was inside the duffle was not going to be enough. If you were feeling stressed before then this only made your shoulders heavier at the thought of multiple families slowly dying for the lack of medical care.

“I’m assuming the mission didn’t go as planned?” A soft voice coming from your left has you opening your eyes,

Sandy. One of your closest friends’ girlfriend stood beside you. Her blonde hair held in a messy bun as she wore a grey coat, light brown long sleeve underneath with some old brown timberland boots on her feet. You observed her features, trying to see any signs of sickness and immediately feeling relief when she looked completely fine. Your eyes then fall down to the little boy by her side, bright green eyes looking up at you with a wide smile. You smile down at him, ruffling his short dirty blonde locks.

“Was a fucking disaster,” You mumble under your breath, locking eyes with the woman,

She gives you a small saddened smile, one hand reaching out to your arm to give you reassurance while the other cradled her growing bump.

“All that matters now is that you’re back. That you’re alive,” Sandy states with the same warm smile,

You give her a small smile as you look down at her hand rubbing soft circles on her stomach, “How’s the nugget?”

Sandy’s smile widens, “He’s good. Kickin’ and punchin’ in there. Think he wants out already,”

You chuckle at her response, “Just like his father. Stubborn as hell,”

Sandy softly chuckles. A glimpse of sorrow hovering over her eyes at the mention of her ex-boyfriend. But you knew she was strong, stronger than you that’s for sure because she pushed down the growing ball in her throat and continued smiling at you.

“Listen.. whatever we brought it’s.. it’s not enough. So regardless if you both aren’t sick.. just go to medic. Better safe than sorry,” You tell her with a small smile, which she returns, appreciation written on her face for your constant help,

She truly did appreciate everything you’ve done for both of them after Billy had passed away. At first she didn’t need your pity, but once she saw you were determined in keeping Billy’s promise, she slowly began opening to you. A bond was soon formed between you three, and you absolutely cherished it.

After kindly declining her offer in grabbing some breakfast with them—considering that’s where they were heading in the first place before running into you— you wave them goodbye before heading towards the Shadow Company’s apartments. Looks from multiple soldiers were sent your way, word had traveled fast about the failed mission which you weren’t surprised about, but still grew annoyed for this squads loud mouth. Nothing is ever kept a secret. Yet, you held your head high, giving dark threatening glares at soldiers who dared look your way, making them look the other way with a panicked expression in their eyes.

It felt like an eternity when you finally made it to your private quarters. Once the door was shut and locked behind you. You toss your keys somewhere on a nearby couch, placed your rifle against the coffee table, start to shrug off your boots and vest before making your way towards the bedroom. Where you fall face first on the mattress, slightly rattling your shelves from the rough impact, although at that moment you could care less if they decide to give its last breath and have it crumble on top of you.

You just needed sleep.

And that’s exactly what you got. Within five or so minutes you start to drift away, the sound of heavy rain beginning to pour just outside your window helps your exhaustion take over your body, helps the stress from yours shoulders to disperse for the time being and sending you into another deep, dreamless sleep.

++++

1900

BANG!

The loud, extremely loud noise has you bolting from your bed. Your breath uneven as you scan your surroundings. Your bedroom remained still, only the sounds of rain hitting against your window can be heard, but before you can calm yourself, convince yourself it was just another nightmare you hear it once again. Only difference it has you jumping from bed when those loud sounds were familiar sounds of gunfire. With quick movements you slip on your boots before darting outside the bedroom, you quickly grip your rifle before running out the door.

The hallways were empty, but as you hurried down the steps, it was then you began hearing muffled screams, which then grew much louder and clearer that sent a dark shiver down your spine the moment you stepped outside into the pouring rain. It was absolute chaos outside. People were desperately running from something, someone, while others sought for safety. You tried asking a civilian for answers but they only pleaded with you with a frightening look as they ran away from you

“What the fuck?” You whisper as you watch them bolt down the road, but your eyes wildly turn at the sound of more horrific screams,

Your eyes grow wide as you catch a Shadow dragging a woman by her hair as she screams and pleads with them. Immediately, you ran towards the commotion where you roughly shove the soldier away, causing him to lose his balance. “What the hell are you doing?!”

His eyes stare at you with confusion, determination, yet they also had uncertainty and fear in them, “Following orders!”

“What?!” You yell the same time when more frightful pleads and screams are heard before hearing another round of gunfire echoing down the street,

The loud, piercing noise has you flinching, but nonetheless run towards the rapid fire. Your feet come to a complete stop when you see the horrific sight in front of you. Inside a gate we’re at least five Shadows with rifles, but your stomach turns when your eyes land on the pile of bodies that were stacked upon each other. The sight alone has a gasp falling from your lips, never in a million years did you think your team would be slaughtering civilians. Civilians and..kids.

The moment you see soldiers lining another group of people, along with kids, you run towards the gated area.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” You demand out loud as you shove the soldier that was about to raise his rifle,

Taken aback by your sudden presence and sudden shove, his eyes were just as wide and frantic as yours. Even with a mask covering most of his face you can see the horror in his face. “G-General Shepherd, Lieutenant. He’s ordered a sweep of the community,”

“A what?!” You question with genuine confusion and horror,

You should have seen it coming, of course the old man would do something like this to keep himself safe and away from any sort of danger. But killing innocent lives? You knew Shepherd was crazy with his risky motives, but now, you were convinced he had finally lost it.

Yet, before you can demand him to put the rifle away and free the civilians, a loud voice is calling after you. Turning around, your met with another soldier jogging after you.

“Lieutenant (L/N), General Shepherd wants you in his office. It’s urgent,”

“Damn right it’s fucking urgent!” You growl at him then turn back to the man who still had his rifle in his hand, “I don’t know what kind of shit ass order he gave you, but that’s enough! Let these people go,”

Just as you turn to walk with the other man, a voice is calling after you, “But Lieutenant.. General Shep—,”

“General Sheperd has lost his goddamn mind!!” You yell over the pouring rain, your eyes firm and angry, “Now I’ve ordered you, to stand. Down!”

The soldier hesitates to lower his weapon, even spares a glance to the other soldiers who stood by with the same hesitance, but they all eventually lower their weapons and allow the civilians to leave from the gate. All of them sprint away with frightened screams, once you knew not a single soul was apprehended you followed the soldier to the building where the piece of shit was. Although, you couldn’t deny the uncomfortable feeling settling in the pit of your stomach, you knew something bad was soon to come.

As you made your way through the streets, the streets that were once filled with certainty, safety, and joy, were now filled with absolute darkness and silence. Only the sound of the pouring rain surrounding you can be heard, along with faint screams coming here and there. You eventually make it to the top of the building where you shove open the door to his office, causing it to roughly collide with the glass window.

“Wanna explain to me why we’re killing half the fucking community?!” You yell as you march towards the desk where the old dog sat with a grim look,

Other soldiers who were nearby took a step closer towards you, indicating they’d hold you down if you’d tried anything.

Troy stood right beside Shepherd, his hands clasped behind his back as he glared at your storming frame. You also didn’t miss the way he takes a step forward in a protective manner, which makes you tighten your hold on your rifle. Your eyes then turn to the left of the office where Graves leaned against a stack of piled cases, his own rifle hung around his neck, dangling in front of his body, but it was his eyes that had a unfamiliar dark look in them.

“Lieutenant, I need you to calm down,” Shepard orders, his voice horsed as he spoke to you,

“Calm?— calm down?! You just ordered to kill innocent lives! How the fuck do you expect me to calm down!” You scream, your voice bouncing off the walls as you step closer to the desk, but hands gripping on your elbows has you halting your steps,

“Because Lieutenant, what I’m about to tell you is something I need you to understand!” Shepherd sternly states as he slowly rises from his chair, his eyes looking at you as you shrug off the soldiers,

“Understand what?! That we’re becoming mercenaries?!”

“Understand that this goddamn flu we got going on is only becoming more of a problem!” The old man starts, he remains behind his desk as he continues, “More lives are being infected with this flu every god forsaking minute and we don’t have the medical equipment to cure it!”

You shrug your shoulders from frustration and rage, “So what?! So that means you have to start killing people for it?! What happened to isolation?! Or quarantining the sick?!”

“Quarantine won’t do any justice here!” Troy joins in, his gaze firm as he continues standing by the General’s side, “Like General Shepherd said, everyone is being infected by the second. We need to kill the sick to kill the flu!”

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. You couldn’t believe Graves was allowing this! All he did was stay quiet throughout the whole argument, just switching his gaze from you to Shepherd to Troy then back to you. After everything you’ve all been through, every near death experience, this was how your relationship would end? He wouldn’t try and attempt to back you on this? How can he agree with them? How can he kill in cold blood? What happed to him?

“Does that also include children?! Innocent children?!” You yell at every man in the room, but your eyes land on Shepherd when he inhales deeply through his nose, his shoulders straightening as he looks directly in your eyes,

“Whatever it takes. Lieutenant,” Your blood boiled in your veins at his words,

Your anger, hatred, frustration, exhaustion, everything you were feeling at the moment, you let it take over. Your vision immediately gets clouded with pure white hot rage, your heart pounded in your ears, the hair on your arms raised as your hands shook.

End him. Fucking kill him! He’ll never get away this.

“You crazy old fuck!!” You yell as you raise your rifle in the air, the barrel directed towards Shepherd, his eyes wide as he stares at you,

The situation had escalated rather fast. Your finger pressed the trigger with no hesitation, igniting the chamber to go off, but just as you had raised the gun towards the man and just as you pressed it, someone is knocking the rifle out of your hands. Because of this, the bullet only clipped Shepherd on his left shoulder. Which still had him stumbling backwards against the wall as he clutched onto his injured shoulder.

Almost immediately as the rifle fell to the ground, you feel large hands grasping your arms, but you quickly fight them off by twisting from their hold and snapping one of their arms, bringing an agony scream from them. It was then you realized it was another Shadow.

Yet, just as you hurt one soldier, more pair of hands are grabbing ahold of you, forcing you to the ground but your body was filled with adrenaline, rage that you used it to push against them. You roughly knock your shoulder against another Shadow’s firm chest, sending him tumbling back towards the other that had held onto you.

The moment both of them had fell to the ground, Troy was next in grabbing onto you. He gripped your hair as he pulled your head backwards, earning a pained scream from you. He threatened you disgustingly close in your ear that only seemed to intensified your rage, so with your free arm, you let your fist connect with his face once again where you hear a cracking sound before seeing him tumbling backwards against the wall. His hands reached up to his bloody nose as he groaned in pain.

“(Y/n)! Stop!” You hear Graves’ scream, your eyes avert to the Texan, noticing then he had his rifle pointing at you but held out a hand as his blue eyes pleaded with you,

It was at his moment that you knew, he’d shoot you if ordered too.

You stared at him with hurt, angered, betrayed eyes. How can he possibly allow this to happen? Why would he allow this to happen? You knew Graves would often do so some shady stuff or risk his life in order to get the job done, but this?! This was beyond not okay. This was not the Philip Graves you knew.

“Troy don’t!” Graves yells, his eyes wide as he watches the man behind your shoulder,

The moment the words leave his mouth you quickly turn to bolt out the office just as bullets start to fly. A bullet still manages to get lodged in your right upper arm as you ran out the door, but it wasn’t enough to halt your steps, instead it only heightened your adrenaline to run faster down the hallway. That was until you see more soldier running down your way, causing you to push through a random door just as their own rifles start sending live rounds your way. It felt like an eternity of you running through the building, dodging numerous bullets with your name on it, fighting Shadows who only ended up getting their life ripped from them by your own hands, but you eventually make it out the building. Except it wasn’t in a nice way.

Just as you had gotten to the second floor of the building and were focused on running down the hallway, one of Shepherds soldiers had caught you by surprise. He had emerged from a dark corner and had tackled you against the window, shattering it on impact. You fought him for a few minutes before you see him lunge at you in frustration, sending you both flying out the window. The both of you tumble down the second floors rooftop before landing roughly on the street. You groaned heavily as you laid under the pouring rain, your entire body flared with pain as you laid on the ground gathering your breath. But a voice in your head screams at you to get up. It took some strength, but you eventually pull yourself up and off the ground.

It was then as you slowly got to your feet that you noticed the man you were fighting with didn’t have the same luck as you. He had landed on nearby humvee, where you had landed on a tent filled with crates and cardboard boxes. Still wasn’t a painless fall, but at least you survived it.

With a hand clutching onto your aching abdomen, you limp away from the building, but the moment you had gotten a few feet away from said building, more shots are being fired in the air, forcing you to run through your pain.

You ran through crowds of people who were also running scared in different directions as those sons of bitches fired away. Not caring if they shot an innocent life, not caring if they shot innocent children, they didn’t care what was in front of them just as long as they got their job done. And their job was capturing you. Alive. Alongside “sweeping�� the community.

But from the looks of it they had excuses ready to share to Shepherd on why they wouldn’t be able to bring you in alive.

Fearful screams are heard all around you as you ran through terrified crowds. Slightly being shoved or tripped by the civilians as they ran anywhere to find safety, fearing for their lives. You didn’t blame them. This was supposed to be a community where it should have felt safe for them, where they can rebuilt themselves, where they can depend on to stay alive, now they tried finding any escape to survive from those murdering cunts.

You ran as fast as you can to a dark alley where it led to a barricaded tunnel, the tunnel that led outside the headquarters. A tunnel that nobody knew about. A tunnel you had created as an emergency escape, no matter the situation. Whether it was an attack from Looters, from other rival groups, from Zeds, or in your case at the moment. Being captured and killed by your very own team who you thought was your family.

With quick movements you pull apart the gate from the floor, causing a small opening to get to the other side. The muddy floor covered your tactical gear as you forced your way into the small opening, huffing and puffing as you used whatever energy you had left to escape. Just as a flashlight points down towards the alley you were already on your feet running down the tunnel. Looking behind your shoulder you see more lights running your way, which only caused you to run faster. Once out the tunnel you turn to your left to head further away from the base, careful to stick to the shadows as you see more soldiers outside the base in guard. Pointing their lights to see if they find anything, anyone.

After what seemed like eons of dodging their spotlights, you quickly run further down the streets, however, just as you thought you were at a safe distance, before you can even process it somebody had tackled you down. A loud groan falls from your lips as you land painfully on your ribs, again. The captor who had tackled you fought with you, forcing you to turn around as he tried his best in zip tying your hands together, but of course you fought back. With irritation of not being able to control your squirming frame, the soldier forces you to turn forward right before letting the butt of his rifle land a heavy strike on your face. Causing your world to spin for a hot second.

“Eagle to base, I’ve got her. I repeat, I’ve apprehended Lieutenant Kali,” You hear him say into the cold night air, your mind slightly still dazed from the brutal blow to the head,

You didn’t know what the other person in the radio orders him to do, but knew it was nothing good because you see him nod before slowly making his way towards you. You tried crawling away from him, despite the blood trickling down the side of your temple and dizziness clouding your mind, you tried your best in moving away from him. But it was no use because he was quick to grip you from your ankles before roughly dragging you against the floor till he hovered above you, however, before he can do you any more harm he’s suddenly being tackled to the ground by a dark figure.

A brutal scream is being irrupted into the dark sky as the dark figure eats away at the soldier. Fuck. Holy shit. You think to yourself as you remain frozen on the floor, watching the gory scene unfold right in front of you. It didn’t take long for the screams to die out. Just when they did, the dark figure rises from the floor and slowly turns to you. It was then you noticed it was the same Zed from earlier. The one from the hospital. Your brows knit together in confusion, not quite understanding how he was standing right in front of you, just a few feet away. Did he follow us? You think once again, but before the Zed can try and pounce at you too the sound of more Shadow Company’s soldiers come running down the street, catching both yours and the Zeds attention. Using the opportunity of him looking down at the group of soldiers running your way, you quickly rise to your feet before bolting further down the street. Away from the soldiers, away from the flesh eating zombie.

Because if it wasn’t bullets that would kill you, it would be in the cold hands of the Zed.

You ran without looking back. Not really caring where you were heading, you just knew you had to get somewhere safe. So you ran down the darken streets of Chicago, the streets that were once filled with noise and joy, now they stood in cold frozen silence as the fungus eats away at the buildings and streets. Vines overtaking numerous houses, buildings, burnt cars, making it look indeed out of a horror movie.

After running aimlessly down the roads and cutting through multiple buildings without looking behind your shoulder, you squeeze through a broken down garage door that led to the other side of the home. However, just as you managed to fit through and turned to run once again, your feet come to an abrupt stop when your eyes land on a large herd of zombies.

Neither of them had noticed you yet. But it wouldn’t be long for them to pick up your scent and started chasing you, so to avoid that at all costs, you slowly begin to backtrack your steps as quietly as possible. But just as you moved a leg you see a creeper coming from the corner, noticing how he desperately begins sniffing the air, causing his dead buddies to do the same as they try following your scent.

Panic rises in your chest as you watch them slowly turn in your direction, but before they can get a visual of you a large cold hand covers your mouth, earning a muffled scream as you feel a firm arm wrap around your shoulders and hauling you out of their sight. Fear and adrenaline rushes in your veins as you try fighting the Zed, mentally preparing that this is how you die, this is how you’ll get infected. Despite you still trying to wiggle yourself out of the strong arms, you knew this was the end. After so many years of fighting to stay alive, so many bullets you’ve caught, so many lives you took, this was your end. None of it mattered anymore.

As you continued to fight your way out of his hold, you feel the way his hand tightens around your mouth the same time he pins you closer towards his chest. Noticing the way the heard of Zeds and Creepers slowly walk past the little alleyway you both hid from. The darkness helped hide you two, but your heart hammered in your chest as you watch with wide eyes, seeing them desperately follow your scent, seeing them pick up their pace when it must be fading into the night sky. After what seemed like centuries, the Zed that held you against his chest eventually lets you go, which you are quick to take a large step away from him.

Your breath came out of your mouth in quick panicked pants. Eyes still wide as you avert them from the tall figure to the walking dead. You weighed your options. Either stay and fight off the tall one or run and risk getting chased by the rest of the herd who seemed to be in good distance, but still. You don’t know how many more of them are out there.

So, you settled on fighting the tall one. Would you win? That’s highly unlikely. But hey. You’ve survived worse situations.

Slowly backing away from the military Zed, your eyes held his white, frosty, gaze. Then, from the corner of your eye you spotted an old, rusty iron crowbar, which you quickly grip onto it. Still holding his gaze, your hands tighten their hold on the bar when you see the Zed now walking towards you, a loud, threatening growl rumbling from it. You continue taking slow steps away from it, but just as you did you hear another loud, deep, gurgling growl, only except this time it didn’t come from the dead in front of you. This time it came from behind you.

Fuck sake give me a break. You mentally curse as you slowly, oh so slowly turn around. Only to be met with a large, very, very large obese zombie. Your eyes grow wide as your mouth falls open at the monstrosity standing just a few inches from you. This night was seriously determined in ending your life one way or another.

Yet, before your life can officially come to an end, you’re suddenly being tossed backwards against the cold concrete. A pained groan vibrates in your throat as you land awkwardly, but just as you fell you see the dead soldier once again launching at the large zombie.

“The fuck?” This time you voice out your thoughts as you remain watching the way the tall soldier fights off the other zombie, as if it was preventing it from reaching you,

There’s no way. That’s clearly not happening right now. There’s no way this very dead soldier is fighting off another zombie to get it away from me. I’m just going bat-shit crazy. That’s what’s actually happening right now. You think to yourself as you continue staring at the sight in front of you, eventually, you slowly crawled away then finally jolt to your feet before once again running out of the alley. As you ran, growls echo right behind you, but you never stopped. You once again continued running till you knew it was safe to stop.

You honestly don’t know how far you got, but you eventually come to a stop when you get to a suburban area that was deserted. Your lungs burned while your ribs stabbed at your sides. The rain never ceased, in fact it only seemed to intensify as the night went on, which you then realized you had to find shelter to gather yourself, deal with your throbbing arm and dry yourself before you die of hyperthermia. That’s how much luck you had.

As you panted heavily under the pouring rain, eyes observing your surroundings to catch a glimpse of any movement, any danger, you had missed the way a dark figure blended well in the shadows of the suburban area, as well as blending his heavy footsteps with the rain. That was until you turned around to check if no one or anything was indeed following you, but the moment you turn around your entire body is jolting from fright as the tall tactical Zed stood inches away from you.

“Fuck!” You curse as you fall backwards again. Which you’d like to point out that you’ll be waking up with some serious bruises on your lower backside from the repetitive falls,

You slowly crawl away from the dead, but the more you try distancing yourself, the more it walked towards you with a faint growl. Little did you know he— it was completely irritated with you and your lack of mobility. As you remained frozen on the soaked, cold ground, while your eyes stared upwards to him, you didn’t expect him to let out a grunt before walking past you. You watch his dark figure walk towards a house behind you, he climbs up the steps with a slight limp before ramming the door open with his shoulder and walking inside. Something you definitely, definitely were not expecting. In fact, you were so confused, speechless and shocked that you remained sprawled on the floor, the heavy rain still pouring down on you.

This was beyond a fucking weird and odd night for you. However, after a long minute, you get to your feet, but you stand your ground. Your eyes darting from the opened door of the home, to down the dark, cold, pouring street, then down the street you came from. You contemplated whether you should just run, again, or… No!! That’s a terrible idea!! It’s a trap! The moment you step foot into that house he’ll just launch at you!!

The voice argues in your head as you stay standing outside in the rain. You had such wild options right now that neither of them sounded safe or great. However, the option was made for you when you hear a loud shrieking noise echoing down the dark street. Can this night get any worse? Instantly your feet are moving to the house. Yet, just as you stand on the front porch of the rundown home, your eyes squint to get a glimpse of inside the death trap, but sigh heavily when darkness is all you can see. Your eyes then scan outside, trying to see if you can find anything of use to protect yourself with, but only thing you find are pieces of rotten planks of wood that looked like they’d snap on the first hit.

So with no other option, you slowly step inside the home. Your eyes trying to see through the darkness, luckily, the moon was bright enough to cast some sort of light through the broken down windows, but it still didn’t calm your nerves. Upon entering the home, the first thing that welcomes you is the stench of dusty, murky old walls, then a flight of stairs that lead upstairs. On your left, laid a destroyed den with rotten couches that have been flipped upside down, books, glass littered the ground, then to your right you assumed was the living room since you got a glimpse of some more couches. You weren’t able to fully get a view since the sound of heavy footsteps climbing down the stairs jolts your body to action mode.

Your hands curl as you prepare yourself for what’s to come. Your eyes never leaving the dark, tall figure slowly coming down the steps. Thick silence surrounds the both of you when he finally stops at the end of the stairs, your gazes locked on each other, that’s until the dead gives a grunt before slowly turning to walk to the right, entering the living room. Again, just like outside you watch him leave with tightly knitted brows, confusion once clouding your mind. This is definitely the most weirdest thing you’ve ever experienced. You stood there, not sure of what you should do next. Your eyes then look up the steps, a debate running in your head. It was simple, either go up, lock yourself in a room and try to catch some sleep— if that ever happens— or remain downstairs to keep a close eye on his.. intentions. Although, you were convinced on what exactly his intentions were.

Eventually, after what seemed like minutes passing, a cold, uncomfortable shiver runs down your spine, making you decide in heading upstairs. You slowly walk up the steps, keeping your gaze locked behind you in case he decides to attack you from the back. Your priority wasn’t on checking upstairs for any other of his brain eating friends, you had assumed upstairs was clear since you didn’t hear any commotion upon entering the home and had seen him coming from upstairs. With a ridiculous thought, you assumed he had checked the whole house before you had stepped inside.

It was such a dumb thought that it even caused a scoff out of you as you continue making your way up the home. Your steps causing the old staircase to groan under your weight. Once up the second floor, you scan your surroundings until they settle on a door on the far end of the floor. You quickly make your way inside the room and shut the door behind you. It didn’t have a lock. Fucking perfect, but you did see a desk near the window, so with quick steps you walk towards it before dragging it towards the door with heavy grunts. You make sure to jam it right under the doorknob, it wasn’t much but you knew it’d keep him from entering while you slept. Or at least tried to get some sleep.

More time had passed by. After getting a better look of the room you chose, you realized it must’ve belonged to a male in his mid twenties, possibly in his thirties. Old playboy, alternative rock band posters hung on the walls, a mess of papers, old shoes, clothes, books, CD cases, was displayed on the wooden floor. Once discarding your wet clothes and managing to find dry clothes that shockingly fit you, which was another pair of dark jeans and a faded grey AC/DC t-shirt, you checked your injured arm. The bullet was lodged between your flesh, making it a bitch to pull out you eventually remove the piece of metal with some old scissors you found.

Definitely wasn’t sanitary nor was it not painful but what other choice did you have? After semi bandaging your arm with some shirts you finally settled under the covers.

You didn’t exactly fall asleep right away, your mind was on high alert to even let your eyes close. Every little noise you’d hear it’d sent a wave of paranoia, causing you to grip onto the wooden baseball bat you had found somewhere in the room. The paranoia never ceased, especially when you’d hear movement coming from downstairs, reminding you that you were in fact not alone.

Sleep and exhaustion does eventually force you into sleep. Little noise would often wake you, but those eventually drifted away in the air as sleep overtook you. You just prayed to god, if there is a god, that you’d wake up in the morning.

And if you did. You’d gladly escape with the first chance you’d get.

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-> Aahhhhhhhh After 3 Long Months!!!! It’s Finally Here!!!!! I Have Been Working On This One Back & Forth!!

-> Like I Said, This Is By Far The Longest Fic I’ve Ever Written. I think I Usually Always Stop Around 9k Words But This Is Definitely My Longest Yet! 😭

-> I Really Do Hope Y’all Liked This One Because… I’ve Worked On It For So Long 🙃

-> But Anyways, It’s Finally Yours To Read! Give It Some Love, Share Your Thoughts Much Love To Ya’ll & Expect More Chapters To This Mini Series! 🫶🫶

-> Turn On Post Notifications!! For More Updates!!! 🔔

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misslycoris · 1 month ago

Text

AULD LANG SYNE

For old time's sake — Alastor spends the new year remembering a person from his distant past.

STORY TAGS Angst, childhood friends, flashback, happy ending but not really but everyone's happy, no smut, gender neutral reader, no mention of y/n

“𝚂𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚘𝚕𝚍 𝚊𝚌𝚚𝚞𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚋𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚘𝚝,

𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚋𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍?

𝚂𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚘𝚕𝚍 𝚊𝚌𝚚𝚞𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚋𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚘𝚝,

𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚍𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚊𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚢𝚗𝚎?”

New years meant a lot to Alastor. In his first year in Hell, it gave him the opportunity to see his first extermination day. Twenty-four hours of bloodshed delivered by Heaven's savages dressed in gray. The stroke of midnight signaled another year for him to spend terrorizing Hell and crushing the next incompetent power hoarder under his boot.

But after his untimely absence, celebrating the new year had taken on a different meaning for him. Charlie had a habit of celebration, she likes holding celebrations, yes, but more than that she loved reviving celebrations. From Valentine's Day, Easter, even until Christmas — not even Hell's counterpart Sinsmas — did she persuade her hotel patrons to celebrate. New Year's Eve was today's victim, even the impending danger of this year's extermination day wasn't enough to dissuade her.

"Alright, everyone! We have a few minutes left, and I just wanted to take a moment to make a toast!" Charlie happily stood up, raising her slim tall glass of champagne.

"For all of you who have been with me since the beginning, for those of you who have stayed with this hotel even if, uh, things were not so great." Vaggie held her shoulder with a reassuring smile.

"For those of you who are here despite our differences in beliefs and for those that we've lost. This hotel would've never been where it is if it weren't for all of you." It was a sentimental moment, with Charlie trying to wipe the tears that were threatening to spill out of the corner of her eyes.

"So, everyone! Let's spend tonight together and remember those that we've lost. Let's continue to live happily as friends and family! To a happy new year!" Each resident held up their glasses, chirping back her greetings before being absorbed back into their own conversations.

"Those that we've lost, huh?" Alastor mused to himself as he snuck off to the hotel's balcony. He's had enough socializing for one night, he could use a little break and a good glass of whiskey.

Outside the hotel was the same view as it always was, even if Charlie had her way in the hotel, the rest of Hell seemed more busy with preparing themselves for the annual cleanse. The smell of sulfur was a little more tolerable tonight, the noise downtown wasn't as bad as it usually was, and the harsh lights of the city were muted tonight. It was the calm before the storm, a moment of peace and a taste of what a quiet night would be like.

It gave him room to think and let his mind wander.

Back in the simpler days when he used to celebrate the arrival of a new year with other people in a nicer house than his, dressing up to the nines and pretending to have a happy family. A classic scene from his childhood to his early teen years that brought a smile that wasn't so difficult to etch on his face.

His family consisted of him and his mother, anyone else he may have forgotten to mention was rotten scum. Besides his blood-related family, however, were the people of his old neighborhood before he had moved into the city. Lovely folks the lot of them, all smiling and happy like they hadn't had a care in the world. It was especially true when they celebrated New Year's. He remembered lots of fireworks, and neighborhood parties where families either ate inside their houses or hosted a generous party for others to attend. Kids running around before being scolded by their parents, back to bed once midnight strikes, they've stayed up late for long enough they say.

It was in one of those celebrations he met you.

Odd little thing you were, traveling with your folks around the country, actors in those silent films his family sometimes watched in the local theater. They were eccentric, often going around in random out-of-the-way neighborhoods to spend your vacations away from the hectic cities. You were often left alone by the other children, you were new and nobody was brave enough to approach you and your odd family. You were simply that kid their mothers would force them to play with.

Alastor was similar in some regards.

His mother often went on long tirades about how every single kid in the neighborhood avoided her son like the plague and she hasn't got a clue why. Her son was obedient, kind, and more respectful than the others, so why was it he was always on his own?

Alastor chuckled at the thought. If only his mother knew how much of a devil he was, a little hellion who punched kids like there was no tomorrow before scaring them out of their wits. She would faint if she knew!

But that was why when his mother saw you, she had the grand idea of putting you and him together, ain't no better way to force foster friendship between two outcasts.

"Be nice okay? I'll be right over there servin' up the jambalaya." She ruffled his hair before leaving the both of you in an awkward silence. Alastor considers it the first experience he had with dealing with difficult people, and as the first of this instance, he was out of his element. He didn't like how quiet you were, he didn't like how you didn't mind it either. His family was always loud, in more ways than one, but his mother had always showered him with a lively home, one filled with music and smiles. Weren't you supposed to come from a couple of actors? Surely you had to have some sort of social bone in your body.

"I'm Alastor." He greets with a smile, you'd turn your head lazily toward him and take a moment to stare at him.

"Green doesn't suit you." Not even your name, no. The first words you've ever addressed him with were about his outfit. Mind you, he was wearing what his mother bought him for Christmas so he was understandably miffed, but you said it so blandly it didn't sound like it was an insult. It was just a statement, green in fact, didn't suit him.

"That face doesn't suit you." He narrowed his eyes, expecting you to cry or punch him, either way, he was prepared for.

"That missing tooth doesn't suit you." That was neither crying nor punching, what's next? He immediately slapped his hands over his mouth to cover it, last month, or was it the week before Christmas? Somewhere along those days, he had knocked his tooth out in a scuffle, one of the older kids had decided to pick a fight with him and Alastor had a few things going against him.

"What's wrong with that?" His voice came out muffled behind his hand.

Even when you met all he could remember was indifference on your end but for a moment he could remember how you stifled your laughter at the sight of him hiding his teeth. He doesn't know what his mother saw during your interaction that night but he remembers being dragged out to play with you whenever she was invited over by your mother for chitchats over beignets and coffee.

You were a strange child, you continued to comment on his fashion tastes and all you did was draw all day. No wonder no one wanted to play with you, you were no fun at all! For a conversationalist such as Alastor, it was as if he was put up against a brick wall, it's not even funny at the time, he remembered constantly falling into awkward bouts of silence even after trying to rile you up into bickering with him.

"You really should consider wearing red more often." There you went again, with your fashion statements all the while you kept your eyes glued on your sketchbook.

"You should consider makin' friends than whatever you're doin'." You shook your head.

"I'm fine, thank you." Kicking rocks all afternoon was hardly entertaining but he'd rather take that than sitting by the staircase. He had half a mind to just snatch your sketchbook from your hands and see what was so tantalizing about it.

Actually,

"Hey!" You didn't put up much of a fight when he did just that, only sending him a glare that warned him not to do anything he'd regret. It was a sketch of the house in front of you two, unfinished and rough but in the eyes of a child it looked like something that came out of a museum.

"You drew this?" He asked, flipping through other pages filled with illustrations of flowers, sceneries you've seen, picturesque locations you've been to, and random household items.

"Yes, now give it back." You snatched the sketchbook right out of his hands, flipping back to the sketch you've made. You clicked your tongue at the stray pencil mark that you accidentally made when he grabbed ahold of it, not being able to notice him sitting beside you and staring at your drawing until he was right there. That afternoon something shifted, Alastor began to ask you things about yourself. About your life and passion for arts, even the places you've been to. It was his first glimpse of the world outside of his city, stories about snowy mountains and humid canyons, skyscrapers lining up the streets, and the sound of vendors gathered in tight alleys.

You and Alastor grew to tolerate each other until that tolerance morphed into you and him actively seeking out each other's company.

Two odd ducks — he was often seen sneaking off to sit in a random meadow or empty field with you lagging behind him. Alastor did the talking and watched as you captured the beauty of his hometown within your sketchbook.

"Do you draw people?" Alastor saw fancy portraits in the houses of sugar barons and cotton kings so he'd expected you to have some drawings of your own but surprisingly, you didn't. Even with drawing bustling cities you actively try to avoid drawing people, at most, you'll draw silhouettes of people. Clumps of shadow meant to imitate a crowd.

"No."

"Why not?"

"They're too difficult. If you get one thing wrong it'll look messed up entirely." You held up your sketchbook against the landscape, trying to see if you had missed anything.

"Have you tried?"

"I drew my parents once, they're actors but even I could tell they had a hard time trying to like it." Alastor leaned against the grass, staring at the setting sun far beyond the horizon.

"Well, practice makes perfect. If you wanna be an artist you gotta try harder than that." You replied with a half-hearted hum, much more invested in your work than what he was saying.

"What do you want to be anyway? You wouldn't do so bad as a boxer." Perish the thought, he'd never. His dreams were far beyond his neighborhood and much farther beyond his city. To be heard by the masses, his name spread far and wide, that's right, a radio broadcaster. Starring in late-night crime shows and afternoon suspense series, in game shows and commercials. He'd be a household name! That way he'd help his dear old mother out of the throes of misery and be remembered by all.

"I'm destined for radio, I just know it." He said with confidence. How true those words were, there was never a doubt in Alastor's mind that he would make it, one way or another it was him against the world and he fucking won.

"Seems right for a chatterbox."

"Still, that doesn't change the fact that you need to start practicin'. Momma said she'll consider puttin' me in school but if you ask me I'd rather sell newspaper. At least we'll be earnin' somethin'." Your hands froze over the paper, bothered by something that he said but he couldn't tell what it was.

"School's starting soon, huh?" There was a solemn tone in your voice that he didn't understand back then.

"You don't like school?"

"You can say that." Alastor elbowed your shoulders at your reply.

"Wanna sell newspapers with me? I'll ask momma and then we'll go and ask your folks." You grabbed onto your sketchbook and began to pack up your things, getting rid of the weeds that were stuck on your socks.

"I don't think that's possible." Alastor stood up and followed right behind you, blissfully unaware of the turmoil you were currently facing. Your family was just about ready to leave New Orleans back then, aiming to provide you with formal education that your parents gathered up their savings on.

It was funny how big of a deal it seemed like to the both of you when your parents broke the news, you two even had a spat if he remembers correctly. That's the thing, however, it had been so long ago he couldn't even remember what you looked like. Not the color of your eyes, your hair, not anything. Half of what he remembers is either made up by an overactive imagination or half-truths he filled in to close any gaps. He was a child, it was in the early 1900s, and you were only in New Orleans for less than a year, he was surprised he could even remember you.

What he did remember was the single torn page you gave him before you left.

A portrait of him.

It was messy, filled with mistakes, and clearly something an amateur drew, you had all but cried when you were giving it to him. But for as rough as it was, no matter how disproportionate it might've looked to a seasoned professional, Alastor liked it. Like was a strong word but it was the truth. A childish appreciation of something objectively worthless. It was no Picasso, but it meant more than all those gaudy paintings tucked away in galleries. For something you were admittedly bad at you were more than willing to try, your parents told him you've crumpled more than half of your sketchbook's pages before you got something you were satisfied with.

He couldn't see any of your indifference during your day of departure, you and him stayed tethered to one another until the moment you had to leave.

"Let's see each other again someday!" Alastor shouted as you waved goodbye, he was holding the portrait between his arms, too scared to leave it unattended.

"I'll be waiting!" You shouted back.

As happy as you both tried to be, hoping to find the time to see each other again, you two never did. Your family never gave out your new address and while you had his, you never reached out. More than that, his family moved to a different part of the city when their financial situation went down the rocks due to a fool. So even if you did send a letter afterward, it wouldn't have reached Alastor.

That portrait you gave him soon got lost during the move, maybe he misplaced it somewhere or it was blown away by the wind into a crevice in his old house, never to be seen again.

You would've died decades ago so maybe you were up in Heaven enjoying a life without worries, you were always the voice of reason between the two of you. If you were somehow down here in Hell with him, then considering you hadn't reached out to him despite his notoriety it would mean you'd rather stay incognito, that or you were dead.

As distraught as he was back then, with time you became someone who was just a part of his childhood. Not meant to be anything more than just a memory that he can go back to reminisce and sometimes that's just alright. He'd hate to rope you into the mess he was up to during the 30's, maybe that's part of the reason he wasn't that keen on meeting you again.

Would he have wanted to? It was a nice thought, he wanted to know if you got somewhere within the art industry, he'd like to catch up and tell you all the things he's been up to. But other than that, he doubted there was anything more to say.

"Hey Smiles! Charlie was callin' everyone for the countdown. Get your ass in 'ere!" Alastor downed the last bit of whiskey in his glass before reconvening with the rest. There was no need for hypotheticals, he was already busy with the mess of living an afterlife with a merry band of misfits.

Being a memory for someone isn't such a bad thing, not when you were part of the very few that he looked back on fondly.

All he could hope for was you looking back at those days with just as much fondness as he has.

“𝙵𝚘𝚛 𝚊𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚢𝚗𝚎, 𝚖𝚢 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚛,

𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚢𝚗𝚎,

𝚠𝚎’𝚕𝚕 𝚝𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚊 𝚌𝚞𝚙 𝚘𝚏 𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚢𝚎𝚝,

𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚢𝚗𝚎.”

╭┉┉┅┄┄┈•◦_•◦❥•◦_

One final gift from me before the new year hits, Auld Lang Syne always makes me cry whenever I hear it being played especially during New Year's Eve. It reminds me a lot of the people I used to be friends with but have since grown apart from. Not really due to any fights or arguments, just drifting apart in general. But they're happy and I'm happy (mostly), if anything I'm thankful that I was a part of their life, as short as it may have been. With that, I wish you all a very prosperous new year.

#hazbin hotel #alastor x reader #writing #alastor #alastor x you #alastor the radio demon #hazbin alastor #oneshot #hazbin x you #hazbin x reader #hazbin x y/n

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sashaisready · 2 months ago

Text

Feel The Burn: Chapter 1

Lance Tucker x Reader | Destroyer!Chris x Reader

Series Masterlist

Your casual situationship with notorious flirt Lance Tucker comes to a shocking head at a party, fortunately the mysterious stranger you meet that same night is more than happy to help take your mind off it.

Wordcount: Approx 4.3k

Me again! I've never written for Lance but felt inspired by the wonderful @nickfowlerrr and her recent Lance fic (it's great, go check it out!) Expecting lots of angst, smut and drama cos you know I love that. Warnings for Lance being a dickwad. Also my first Destroyer!Chris attempt so let's see how we go. As always - reblogs and comments mean the world!

🥇

He’d snuck out before you had woken up.

The little shit.

You knew it shouldn’t be a surprise…but it still stung regardless.

You weren’t stupid. You knew your ‘arrangement’ with Lance was a casual one – no labels, no expectations, no exclusivity. You’d both been transparent about that, and you weren’t exactly looking to lock into anything serious at the moment – between work, friends, family and general surviving, you only really had time and headspace for fun and stress release.

Lance was the perfect candidate for that. Between his personal trainer role job and coaching on the side, he was just as busy as you were. He was also fun and wanted to keep things light, he didn’t put demands on your time and didn’t ask for more than you were willing to give.

He was also an asshole. Which helped keep the boundaries and lines clear.

You’d met at a bar a few months prior. He’d sent over a cocktail via the bartender, and you were rolling your eyes at the cheesy gesture from the guy who appeared to be wearing what looked like a bright red Olympics jacket at the dive bar. But then he came over, and you were surprised at how disarming his stupid smile was, and how easily he made your friends laugh. And then suddenly you were laughing along with them.

He was cute, you’d give him that. Big blue eyes swimming with mischief, a permanent smirk tattooed across his face. Carefully coiffed hazelnut hair that you just instinctively knew had to be perfect before he left the house.

A walking red flag.

Literally too, with that jacket.

You ended up chatting deep into the evening, your friends moving onto the club while you chose to stay with your new buddy. You found out he was a former Olympic gold winning gymnast turned personal trainer and gymnastics coach, which sounded so fake that you laughed out loud at the outrageous claim – until he smugly made you google him on your phone…

…Touché.

Your job wasn’t quite as impressive, but he did seem interested in the fact you owned your own coffee shop downtown. He’s big into the whole self-made thing.

He was cocky and arrogant; you rolled your eyes constantly and groaned at all his jokes all evening. He was everything you’d normally avoid in a man, yet you were strangely captivated by him. There seemed to be a self-awareness to him that intrigued you, as if he knew how awful he was and leaned into it with a knowing wink. At least he was upfront about his assholery, so many men you knew hid theirs until you’d fallen into the deep.

Of course you ended up back at his place, practically falling through the door as he kissed you feverishly, his hands all over you as if he couldn’t get enough – tugging your clothes off before he’d even closed the front door behind him. He spread you out across his couch and ate you out like a starving man, you were shocked at how quickly and how hard he made you come. Men like him often only talked the talk, so you were genuinely caught off guard that he could also walk the walk.

You’d giggled at the utter ridiculousness of the tattoo across his crotch after he’d removed his boxers, the fuzzy haze from your orgasm giving way to clarity as the ludicrous medal image snapped everything back to focus. What the fuck were you doing here??

But he was unperturbed, laughing along with you and shrugging off your reaction – surely, he must be the cockiest man on the planet. “I earned it,” he grinned wickedly, pulling you into him.

His touch was dizzying. He knew exactly how to hold you, how to feel you, how to push you to let go. You were initially conscious of your softer body compared to his rock-hard abs, you didn’t exactly have a gymnast body yourself - but he looked at you unashamedly – circling every inch, tracing every curve. He’d eyed you hungrily, helping himself to you as if you were the tastiest buffet he’d ever had. If you covered your tummy with your hand he’d rip it away, leaving no part of you hidden from him.

It was intoxicating.

And god, the stamina. The flexibility. You lost count of the positions he’d twist you into, effortlessly coaxing your figure into shapes and angles you didn’t even know you were capable of. Never too far, never leaving you uncomfortable for long – or you’d just be too euphoric to notice. Something just clicked with the two of you physically, your bodies fit together as if they’d been designed that way. If your body was a song, he hit every note.

You’d never experienced anything like it.

That was a few months ago and you were unable to fully disentangle yourself from him. What you had intended to be a one-night thing had spread into many nights. Texts. Filthy FaceTime calls. Meeting each other after nights out with respective friends. One of his buddies even began dating one of yours, so you find yourself in the same spots more and more regularly. You were very different people – he was loud and brash, you were more shy and reserved. He would talk the ear off anyone who’d chat to him, you’d quietly listen and observe the conversation. Nobody would have ever put you two together, and your friends were slightly baffled by the arrangement – but they just wanted you to enjoy yourself.

Every time you said you’d wean yourself off him, he’d pop up on your phone and it would be back to square one again.

You knew he was toxic, you knew he was bad, but you couldn’t help yourself. Your brain switched off when you were with him, no anxiety, no insecurities – just enjoying the moment, lost in your pleasure. Nobody had ever made your feel like that in the bedroom, or outside of it either, he was an addiction your body couldn’t curb. He was the bag of candy you knew was in the cupboard and couldn’t resist sneaking the occasional piece.

…You just had to be careful not to binge the whole thing.

All you’d ever asked from him was respect. You may have just been casual, but you wanted to be treated decently – no degradation or meanness unless you’d specifically requested for it in bed (and sometimes you had), no ditching once you’d agreed to meet, no asking anything too personal about each other’s lives. Sure, you were always mouthing off to each other, but it was infused with fun and banter – never cruel, never unkind.

Just because this was casual didn’t mean you should treat each other like dirt.

Sometimes you stayed over at each other’s places, you both enjoyed a post-coital cuddle – even if neither of you had ever said it aloud. You often ended up sleeping on his chest, hearing his breathing deepen as he absent-mindedly played with your hair. Or you’d shower together, and he’d carefully clean you up, the one time the wise cracks were muted as he washed your body and stood with you under the water, holding you against him. Sometimes you’d just stay up late talking, laughing into the night. As wrong as he was for you, he was also easy to be around. You didn’t need to put on a show or performance for him, maybe because you had never really felt the need to impress him. It took the pressure off.

If you didn’t know any better, the altogether picture might look like something resembling tenderness (but you did know better).

Leaning over this morning and seeing him gone felt like a surprising shot in the gut.

He knew full well you were a light sleeper, he’d accidentally woken you up numerous times at your many sleepovers during late-night bathroom trips or bumping against you after rolling over. He was very used to the angry pillow thrown in his direction as you groaned at the interruption and snuggled back into the sheets or allowed him to tug you back into his arms.

But this morning…He must’ve put his training to good use and crawled out of bed like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, carefully dodging the creaky floorboards in your bedroom like lasers and collecting his clothes at the same volume as a gnat's hiccup.

You frowned, not liking that.

It’s not like you wanted him to hang around. You had to go to the shop anyway. But normally he slept in with you, sometimes getting up before you to make you both coffee, or on rare occasions getting something started for breakfast. Ever the committed coach and former athlete, he often liked a detailed ‘debrief’ of the previous night’s performances – with focus on high points, and areas to develop and work on. Yes, really. He took it very seriously and wanted to be top of his game. Which only really benefited you in the long run, as farcical as the whole ritual was.

You knew his schedule, you knew he didn’t have any sessions booked at this time. Him sneaking off just felt…wrong. Rude, somehow. Like he’d got what he needed from you so felt no need to keep up niceties or courtesy, even though that’s always how this thing had worked.

You glanced at your phone. A message from Kat but nothing else. You checked your text thread with Lance – nothing except the ‘you up, Cupcake? 🧁’ text and selfie he’d sent you last night before you’d arranged for him to come by. Hmm.

Fine. Whatever. Unusual, but shit happens – maybe it was just a one-off. You shrugged it off, despite the faint pang of anxiety it left in your stomach.

You fired off a quick text to him, “nice disappearing act, Tucker. You must’ve pulled a muscle with all that stealth”.

You watched the screen and saw that immediately the little bubbles appeared to show he was typing. They hovered for a few seconds, then disappeared, then started again…only to disappear once more. Huh. Weird. Not like him to ignore a jibe like that. Oh well. Maybe he was in the middle of something.

You put it to the back of your mind and got ready for work, heading over to the coffee shop. Marina had opened that morning so you joined her behind the register, greeting her cheerily and asking about her day so far. You did a quick scan of the shop – a few regulars had piled in, but it wasn’t too busy yet. You threw yourself into your normal tasks – helping with customers, wiping down tables, checking inventory, doing some accounts in the back office. All very normal. You soon forgot about Lance and the unusual start to the morning, getting into full work mode. Filter and Foam Café was your baby, your life. It hadn’t been easy to get the business up and running, you started out with a second-hand espresso machine and a cart, then built your customer base brick by brick until you could eventually afford to lease a premises and hire a small team. It was the result of endless long hours and hard graft, but it had paid off. Maybe your business degree had been worth the money, after all.

You felt at home here with your regulars and your staff, life was hard for many, and you were never going to cure cancer or broker world peace – but if you could brighten someone’s day with a decent cup of coffee and a nice pastry, that was something at least. There were lesser contributions to life.

You took a break and checked your phone. Nothing from Lance, unusually, but you replied to Kat’s message from this morning. She was reminding you about her party at the weekend, asking you to bring a bottle. Kat was dating Lance’s friend, Matt, and they were throwing their first joint-party at their new place together. It was cute.

If all else failed, you could berate Lance for his radio silence when you got to the party.

The week rolled on. Still no word from Lance, which was strange as he normally replied to your messages quickly, but it also wasn’t unusual for one/both of you to vanish for a little while if you had a lot going on. You weren’t worried, and you weren’t the type to be obsessively checking your phone. A tiny voice at the back of your head told you that something felt off, but you easily smothered it. The whole point of your arrangement with Lance was to avoid stress and drama, so you wouldn’t entertain anything else.

Friday night came around. Marina was closing which meant you could leave the shop early to go get ready. You settled on a black dress you were fond of, not too showy, not too frumpy, but hugged your figure nicely. You threw on a pair of comfortable heels and did your hair and make-up how you liked, grabbing a taxi to Kat’s place with the requested bottle and feeling excited about spending some time with your friends – even if parties weren’t your scene.

As you walked in the party was in full swing. Kat rushed over to you excitedly and thrust a cocktail in your hand as she gabbled about the new place – giving you a mini tour. Matt chimed in where he could and you grinned at their dynamic – Kat the whirlwind of chaos, Matt the calming breeze. It worked. It was charming to witness, they’d moved fast - but anyone could see how much they meant to each other. Kat and Matt, even their names worked together.

As you moved through the house with them you recognised most of the faces dotted throughout the party, waving and promising to catch up with some of them after you had finished the home tour. You noted you hadn’t seen Lance, but no doubt he would be making himself known sooner or later.

An hour later you were perching on the arm of the sofa, giggling along with Kat as she regaled Matt and some of your friends with a notorious anecdote from your college days.

“I just can’t believe you did it!” Kat squealed with laughter as she playfully knocked your arm, “and here was me thinking I was brave!”

“Well in my defence, he did cheat on one of our best friends…and it was unlucky for him that I still had all that chicken feed after the farm volunteering day,” you grinned, slightly awkwardly as you’re not always comfortable holding court like this. “But hey, it wasn’t like he couldn’t get the bird crap off of his car after they’d finished eating…”

The group all laughed raucously but your eyes were drawn to someone watching you from across the living room. You sipped from your glass as Lance observed you carefully. His expression was strangely unreadable, not giving you the knowing grin he usually flashed when you locked eyes. He wore dark jeans and a nice navy button-down, no sign of the ubiquitous Team USA jackets this evening.

He made his way over to the group you were talking to, Matt greeted him enthusiastically and they did their buddy fist bump thing they often did. He said hello to the other members of the gathering then gave you a curt nod.

“Cupcake”.

“Tuck”, you responded with your own nod.

The group exchanged knowing glances. Your friends were very aware of the unconventional nature of yours and Lance’s ‘friendship’.

He joins in the conversation effortlessly, much easier than you, flowing and diving in with jokes like he’d been standing there all evening. When separate discussions broke off and formed within smaller groups, you took the opportunity to freshen your drink in the kitchen.

“What’s up with you two?” someone hissed.

You looked up from your glass as Kat slithered around the door, checking over her shoulder to ensure you were alone.

“What? With who?” you wrinkled your nose.

“Don’t play dumb! You and Lance! What’s the latest?” your friend pestered, throwing an arm around your shoulders.

You laughed, “oh, stop. Nothing. You know it’s just a physical thing…”

“Yeah, whatever,” she rolled her eyes. “I’ve seen the way you look at each other. Having your weird silent conversations with your eyes. When are you going to wake up and realise that you’re basically dating at this point??”

You huffed in protest but she persisted.

“I’m serious, babe, you know Matt said recently that he hasn’t seen Lance with any other girls for a while now…”

You were surprised by that. You and Lance had never been exclusive, but also had the manners not to discuss anyone else with each other. You’d had the occasional date but nothing much, and based on his aggressive flirting had just assumed he had a steady roster of women in his life (although sometimes you weren’t sure how he’d fit them in based on how frequently you saw him).

But you shook it off. You weren’t naïve enough to think someone as greedy as Lance Tucker would be satisfied with only one girl in his life.

You scoffed in response, “oh come on Kat. It’s not like that…it’s just fun. Besides, he snuck out of my apartment earlier this week and then didn’t respond to my text. Hardly boyfriend behaviour…”

“What? That little…want me to beat his ass?”

“I’d love to see that. But no, I’m good. Thank-you,” you chuckled, Kat was 5’1” – any ass kicking she did would be a sight to see. But you knew full well she could handle it, if she wanted to badly enough.

“I’m not letting him treat you like shit…you know that…” she warned as she squeezed your shoulders.

“I do, Kat,” you smiled, “but you know I’m not letting him do that, either”.

She nodded and grimaced, but that seemed to put her mind at rest.

As if summoned, Lance entered the kitchen a second later, making his way over to the rows of bottles to make himself a drink. Kat was being called back into the living room by a loudly drunk partygoer, she rushed out and shrieked an apology to you as she flew out of the door.

“Fuck, Marcy, not the vase!” you heard her cry out as she vanished.

You laughed at her disarray and finished pouring your own drink.

“So, what’s up with you, Tuck?” you asked Lance as you took a sip.

You watched as he made his gin and slimline tonic – always health-conscious, of course.

He shrugged, “what? Nothing. I’m good,” he said blankly without looking up.

“Right…well why did you sneak out the other day? That’s not like you,” you asked casually, “you’d never normally miss a debrief, and sneaking isn’t really your thing,” you laughed good-naturedly, “louder and prouder, in my experience”.

He shrugged again, “I had to run. Sorry”.

His voice was flat, with none of his usual vigour or mirth. It was…weird.

“Oh, okay. Well…you could’ve said bye. But no biggie. I just thought it was weird you didn’t text me back, so thought I’d check you were okay. All good? Gymnast emergency?” you joked.

“Nope,” he shot back – his tone contained none of the lightness that yours did. “And would you just get off my back, already?”

“Jesus, okay,” you frowned, surprised at his reaction. This wasn’t like him at all. “I was just playing…it wasn’t like you-”.

Suddenly he slammed his glass down, it rattled as it hit the counter, “Fucking christ – just drop it, would ya? Needling away at me…I’m not your fucking boyfriend, alright?”

You flinched, completely caught off guard by his vitriol. This wasn’t Lance, this wasn’t the usual dynamic, normally you bantered back and forth and teased each other. He was often crass, but never…mean.

You didn’t speak for a moment, scrambling for words as your brain tried to compute what had just happened.

“I didn’t say you were…” you mumbled.

“Do this, do that, let’s have coffee, don’t sneak out, blah blah blah. I mean what, are you my fucking wife or something?” he spat venomously.

He looked up at you with anger in his eyes, a look you’d never seen in them before.

“No…Lance, I’m just messing around…”

“Are you? Because it feels like you’re suffocating me here”.

You scoffed in disbelief, “what? How? Because I asked you why you snuck out of my apartment?! Because it’s something you’ve never done before. And then I dared to texted you once about it? Hardly a fucking marriage proposal!”

“I don’t need to tell you where I am every fuckin’ minute of the day…”

“I’m not asking you to, fuck! I just think it’s shitty to sneak out like that. You could’ve just told me you were going! Or sent a text or something, damn! It’s pretty basic decency! Like having to acknowledge me before you leave is that strenuous…”

Both of you were yelling now, fortunately drowned out by the blaring music from the living room, the party obliviously continuing in full swing as you two of you exchanged barbs across the kitchen.

After some time going around in circles, he eventually sighed, taking a deep breath as he placed his palms flat on the kitchen counter. His voice now lowered.

“Look…I thought we were on the same page about this. It’s just fun…just messing around. We aren’t a thing, you and me”.

“I know,” you scowled. “I’m very aware. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that you treat me with a degree of respect…We can have fun and be casual without contempt for each other. Sneaking out and then ignoring me…then acting like I’m the asshole for bringing it up…that’s just…”

“All of it…the coffee…the showers…the sleepovers. It’s just gone a little too far,” he sighed. “Cupcake I…”

You blinked at him, bewildered.

He continued, his voice was soft, as if approaching you like you were a frightened deer, “you’re a great fuck, alright? But that’s it. I can get it from 10 other girls in my phone, if I want. You’re cute, you’re funny, but you’re also a means to an end. You get my dick wet, and you’re good at it. Damn good. You make me so hard I can’t see straight. But I also don’t need you interrogating me about my business. Got it?”

You were shocked by his reaction and the callousness of his words…and the pang of hurt that radiated in your chest.

But more so you were angry. Angry at how he’d blown up out of nowhere, angry at his cavalier approach to all of this, angry at his patronising tone, angry at him for trying to talk you down like you were some kind of idiot. Acting as if he could say whatever he liked as long as he did it in a soothing tone. Like you were some kind of besotted lovesick pup he pitied and needed to let down gently.

Asshole.

You glowered at him so hard he actually leaned back a little, the arrogance in his eyes suddenly dulling in response.

“Cupcake, look, I’m sorry…that was-” he started, moving towards you.

“Oh save it, Lance!” you shot back furiously, shoving him away as he advanced towards you.

“Cupcake…I’m sorry-”

“And don’t call me that!”

“Okay, sorry, look, I was out of line…really…” he said gently.

Great. Pity. That was somehow worse.

You wished you had some witty retort for him, some clever insult to stop him in his tracks and put him in his place. But your rage paralysed any potential wit you may have been capable of.

“Tell it to one of the other 10 girls in your phone. Fuck this…and fuck you too!” you told him through gritted teeth.

That would have to do.

You downed your drink and stormed out of the kitchen. He was hot on your heels, telling you not to be like this and just to take a second but you could barely hear him over your own anger. You did a quick scan of the room but couldn’t see Kat, doing your best to ignore the stares from other partygoers as your newly found shadow tried to stop you from leaving. Some of your other friends were calling your name but you couldn’t bear to speak to anyone.

“Cupcake…hey, wait up,” Lance pleaded, cupping your shoulder.

“Just…leave me alone,” you hissed and wriggled his arm off you. You hope he didn't notice the slight crack in your voice.

He relented, letting out a low exhale and sheepishly shoving his hands in his pockets. You turned away from him, quickly grabbing your coat from the large pile in the hallway, leaving the house as fast as your feet could carry you.

You were trembling as the cold outside air hit you, not quite sure what had just happened. Your face felt hot and flushed with humiliation as you stood uselessly on the porch.

You somehow managed to quickly fire off an apology text to Kat saying you’d left. No doubt she’d be blowing up your phone imminently after the partygoers filled her in on all the drama. You suddenly felt immense guilt for making her big night all about you.

“Motherfucker!” you said aloud into the night.

“What did I do?” replied a smooth voice.

You flinched, confused until a man stepped out from the front of the house. He was smoking out here, initially hidden from your view as he must’ve been leaning against the wall just out of sight. He was tall, his hair shaved at the sides but longer and darker on top. He had a thick beard, cutting an intimidating figure in his denim vest, showing off the tattoos on his biceps. Mostly you were struck by his eyes, cerulean pools that were as striking as they were daunting.

They were also oddly familiar in a way you couldn’t place.

“S-sorry, I wasn’t talking to you…” you mumbled, embarrassed to have been caught out like this in your current state.

“Well, I got time. Just taking a break from the party,” he took a long drag on his cigarette, “I’m Chris. So, tell me about this motherfucker…”

🥇

#lance tucker #lance tucker x reader #lance tucker x you #chris!destroyer #chris!destroyer x reader #destroyer chris #feel the burn fic

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