#this just reminded me why I hate posting full fic | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ladadiida · 1 year ago

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𝐩𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 | 𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐣𝐢 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 as much as you wanted to stay by his side, you couldn't bear the thought of watching him fall in love with other women while you're stuck at the kitchen washing dishes and measuring ingredients. so you dreamt of leaving, of traveling to different islands to share your lovely songs and tunes; but the more your desire to leave grows, the more sanji finds himself drowning in your warmth.

or,

you and sanji over the years, wherein five times you tried to leave him and the one time you finally did, despite his refusal to let you go.

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬 musician reader, 5 + 1 things, pining, unrequited love, not actually unrequited love, heavy (kind of) angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending

𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 HERE IT IS! the response to the sneak peek was crazy, and so i rushed to get this done. i only watched the live action so beware of minor mistakes if you ever saw one. english is also not my first language and you are welcome to correct me anytime for any grammatical errors. title is a lyric from the last time by taylor swift ft. gary lightbody. this fic is also posted in ao3 with its full summary and WITH A BONUS CHAPTER. enjoy reading!

𝐰𝐜 11.3k

"There you are."

Your soapy, wet hands almost dropped the ceramic plate you were currently washing in the dirty kitchen sink as soon as you heard a familiar smooth and honeyed voice. Abruptly turning off the sink so that the sound of his approaching footsteps were clear to your ears, you wiped the sweat off your forehead with the back of your hand before turning your body towards him.

He was carrying a stack of plates, a fresh batch to add to the pile you had to wash, with an obnoxious yet handsome smile plastered on his lips. You took a deep breath to calm the growing irritation at the bottom of your stomach, reminding yourself that this was your job and you only had a couple of hours to endure until you're free to lock yourself up in your bedroom. You were particularly looking forward to writing today, and the thought of finishing the lyrics to your new song tonight slightly eased your mood. Accepting your fate, you pointed to the remaining space beside the sink.

"Place it there." You told him, albeit begrudgingly as you turn on the sink again and pour more soap on the battered sponge.

You took a mental note to ask Zeff later about buying new sponges, and if you were lucky to catch him in a good mood, you'll put in a request to get the sink fixed and cleaned. Your eyes scanned over the grime and rust around the area. If you were going to spend the rest of your life washing dishes, then you might as well get a proper kitchen sink to do so.

An amused laugh fell out of the golden haired man you grew up with, surprised at your compliance to do the job you hated. The sound nearly sent your poor heart into a dizzying whirlwind of little nuisances called emotions. "What a hardworking woman."

"I could say the same to you. It seems like you have a new record today." You said while you splashed dirtied bowls with soap water, smiling at him teasingly, "Thought you would've been kicked out of the line by now."

"The old man just can't help but to accept the fact that I am a greater cook than him." He smirked, wiping a knife with a dish cloth. Trying not to roll your eyes, you shook your head at his usual display of arrogance, yet you can't help but to grin as you began to hear scratching sounds against the floors.

"Then you better get those chopped carrots ready." You replied, and when you got to finish your sentence, the doors to the kitchen swung open, revealing the head chef.

Zeff's cold and steely eyes immediately landed on the blond. He walked towards him with a fast pace despite only having one leg, his braided mustache bouncing in each step.

"Aye, aye, aye. Why haven't you started on the carrots yet, little eggplant? Can you get any slower?" He scolded, loud enough for the whole staff to hear, but none of them even flinched. You returned back to your plates and glasses, smiling softly. This was part of your routine everyday: to listen in their silly arguments.

However, before the younger chef can reply, you butted in, "Sanji fetched some of the plates for me. Since there's a lunch rush, I couldn't leave the kitchen."

Zeff let out a low hum. You couldn't even see Sanji's face, but you knew him well enough to know that he was smiling triumphantly, knowing that he won this time. After a few minutes of contemplating, the head chef clicked his tongue. "Don't defend him, little lass. But I'll let it slip this time. What are you waiting for, then? Start cutting them!"

"Yes, chef." Sanji answered in a jovial manner, placing the carrots on a chopping board.

Twisting the faucet lever so that the water flow from the sink is gentle and quiet, you then paid attention to their little banters every now and then. You brought up a wine glass and positioned it by your side to try to get a glimpse of the two most important men in your life. Through their reflection on the glass, you can see Zeff hunching over Sanji's knifework, nodding every time the vegetables were correctly sliced.

On the other hand, Sanji was unbothered by the head chef's observations and continued to cut the ingredients calmly. Some of the strands in his hair fell down on one side of his face, covering an eye, and most people would think that it was an unusual way of styling hair; yet it was one thing out of many that you loved the most about him.

You accepted it years ago.

You accepted the fact that you somehow fell in love with Sanji Vinsmoke along your weird journey of working in a sea restaurant full of former pirates and making music while at it. How the pesky feelings grew and wrapped themselves around your aching heart, you didn't know. Maybe it was when he learned to cook your favorite food and gave it to you afterwards, or the way his crystal blue eyes reminded you of snowflakes every winter.

Or maybe it was when he pulled your hair out of jealousy the moment he learned that Zeff would be taking in another child in his care, but brushed it and even braided it after the latter cleared the misunderstanding. Maybe it was when he supported you in your dreams and told you they weren't silly, maybe it was when he fought off drunk men that were trying to hit on you. Or maybe it was the way his voice would drop an octave lower whenever he asks you for a favor. The list could go on and on and you still wouldn't know the reason why. It doesn't matter anyway. You tripped, you fell, and now you're pining.

Drying off the last of the plates, you washed your own hands after and patted them dry on your skirt. You were the last one to leave the kitchen, the other staff already back in their quarters after a long, exhausting day of cooking. You fixed the signature blue bandana tied in your hair then went on your way towards the upper deck.

You weren't blessed with a talent in cooking, so you offered to do chores instead. Washing the dishes, cleaning the restaurant, and doing the laundry were few of the things you do in the Baratie. You can't say that you enjoy it, but you were beyond grateful that Zeff gave you a chance despite his opposition to let a woman work inside his restaurant.

As you were about to go to the newly laundered clothes you hung on a thin wire earlier that morning, you heard two voices speaking. You also smelled cigarette smoke wafting through the air, and you only knew one person who could be smoking at this hour. Your breath hitched in anticipation.

"You bringing a woman to your bed again, Sanji?" The other person asked playfully, but there was a hint of disbelief in his voice. You carefully took a peek so you won't accidentally reveal yourself and be accused of eavesdropping. Two people came into view with their backs facing you.

"Now, what are you talking about, Patty? I am a gentleman. I only had a nice chat with the lovely lady and escorted her back to her ship." Sanji interjected, a cigarette hanging on his lips.

Patty huffed. "I didn't know that chatting included kiss marks on jawlines."

This caused Sanji to laugh and say, "Not my fault she was charmed by my food."

"The boss man ain't gonna like it when he finds out about this."

"He's not gonna find out." Sanji assured him, wiping off the said kiss mark on his jaw. You stared at him as he did so, and you pitied the woman who planted that kiss, knowing she was just one of the many beautiful ladies Sanji had flirted with before. However, a tinge of pain in your chest said otherwise, taunting you that it was not pity you're feeling, but foul jealousy.

"Why don't you look for more decent women, eh? How about 'little lass' for a change?" Patty suddenly suggested.

It was like someone had hit your stomach with one of the metal pans in the kitchen with the way it lurched in surprise and nervousness. Your heartbeat started to quicken the longer you waited for his response, making your grip on your skirt tighter. In moments like these, you allowed yourself to hope, to wish that he saw something in you and that he finds you beautiful and lovely enough to be the person standing by his side.

But his answer made all that hope crumble down into nothing but dust.

"I don't see her that way." Sanji said after a long stretch of silence, taking a long drag from the cigarette then releasing the smoke in a single breath.

Ah.

You blinked repeatedly, trying to keep the tears from forming. It's always been like this, so why can't you get used to it? Taking a deep breath, you gulped away the knot forming in your throat and decided to leave. You can grab the clothes later.

"You're too kind for him." Someone behind you spoke, making you jump and tense up. Turning around, you saw Zeff looking at you with an unreadable emotion in his eyes and his hands on his hips, almost like he knew your secret. Of course he does. He always sees everything.

You stumbled on your words. "Sir?"

"That boy is always up to something." He began, switching his attention to Sanji. "One minute he's stubbornly immature in the kitchen, and the next he'll be a thirsty man staring at women like they're liquid booze."

Clearing your throat, you forced a smile.

"Well, he can be a lot sometimes." You agreed, remembering the days when the two of you would fight over irrelevant matters. Then you chuckled and continued, "But he's kind. He's gentle, and lovely, like a freshly made poem you keep repeating in your head. But then he's also confusing, hot-headed, and reckless. He's like the sea, isn't he? Calm yet wrapped with mystery, dangerous yet beautiful..."

You trailed off, an unbearable heat rising up your cheeks and neck once you slowly began to realize that you just ranted out your feelings to the head chef. You glanced at him with wide eyes, preparing to see a disgusted look on his face; however, Zeff didn't appear to be repulsed by your little speech. In fact, the corners of his lips were slightly quirked up.

"But I cannot swim. If I were to drown, he wouldn't save me." You quickly added, hoping to shut down the topic.

He sighed. "You will meet someone who deserves you as much as you deserve them, little lass." He simply said. He then laid his hand out, and on his palm was a little box poorly tied with a ribbon. "Here, for you."

Altnough you were a bit confused at the random gift, you accepted it and cradled the box to your chest. "I'll be okay, Zeff." You insisted, grinning cheekily. "When I become famous, I'll sing my songs here in Baratie, and people would flood the restaurant to hear my singing. And to eat your food too, of course."

The head chef nodded, relief flooding his expression. "I look forward to that." He said while awkwardly returning your smile.

That night, when you were sure that everyone in the Baratie was asleep, you opened the loose floorboard on the floors of your bedroom and grabbed the wooden box you kept hidden for a long time now. You opened the lid and began counting the Berry you saved for the past few months.

Tomorrow was the perfect day to leave.

You just can't stay here. Yes, you had a roof over your head, delicious food to eat everyday, and clean clothes to wear but you were so miserable. This wasn't the life you wanted. You wish to go out there, sing your heart out, and fall in love with someone who actually loves you back.

A knock on your door made you freeze. You held your breath as the person on the other side continued to knock a few more times. "You awake?"

Pain surged through your veins, your chest twisting in agony. Sanji.

"You didn't come down for dinner. I guess you're too tired, hmm?" He said, his muffled voice gentle, and the sound almost prompted you to stand up and open the door for him. But you dug your fingernails in your palms and resisted, because you can't just let this opportunity pass by.

You heard a brief clinking sound before Sanji spoke again, "Sweet dreams, ange."

Once his footsteps faded away, you cautiously moved towards your door and opened it as quietly as you can. There, on the floor, was a small plate with a slice of your favorite desert: angel's food cake, topped with fresh cream and strawberries.

You bent down and saw a note beside the plate. And when you got to read the contents of the note, you burst into tears and sobs that wracked down your entire body.

Happy Birthday

— S.

You ate the cake with tears silently falling down your cheeks, and that was the first time you failed to leave Sanji Vinsmoke.

�� • ⸻

Today was the day, and you won't allow anyone to ruin it for you.

You had saved enough Berries to travel around the world and sustain yourself for the upcoming months. Your notebook containing the lyrics of the songs you wrote laid open on top of your bed as you spent all night revising them while planning out an itinerary. Then you'll find a place to settle in, a stable job that required doing what you loved the most, and overall just be peaceful and free from pirates and chefs and pirate chefs. It was perfect.

Folded clothes surrounded you everywhere, ready to be packed in your bags. Once you finished stuffing them all in, you grabbed your treasured instrument, the one thing you couldn't live without: your guitar, which has been with you since you were a little child. It was given by your mother and you've been attached to it ever since.

It has scratches all over its wooden surface, and the strings needed some fixing occassionally, but you wouldn't trade it for the greatest treasures in the world. You ran your fingers over it, suddenly feeling like it was lacking something. Seeing the paint chipping off at the corners, you figured that it needed a little color. You'll need lacquer, and paint if you managed to find some.

You set the guitar aside and left your bedroom to head downstairs to the kitchen. As you were about to push the doors open, a loud, angry shout made you stop in your tracks.

"I won't ever become a pathetic waiter for you!" Sanji's thunderous yells can be heard from outside. Your shoulders tensed up. It was a good thing that brunch was over and all the customers had left.

Zeff's own furious voice followed, "Leave then, for all I care! You can do anything you want, but don't you ever serve one of your shit dishes in my kitchen!"

A frown settled on your face. Their fights were a normal occurrence to you, but this one sounded more grave than usual. Crossing your arms, you stepped in closer to the entrance and hesitated whether you should go in or not. Before you could make a decision, Zeff beat you to it by pushing the doors open, rage emanating from his figure as he ignored and walked past you.

Without hesitation this time, you entered the kitchen, greeted by the sight of Sanji bowing over the counter, breathing heavily, his face covered with his hair. He didn't move an inch even as you approached him, the clacking of the heels in your boots echoing throughout the room.

Both of you were silent as you rummaged through cabinets, trying to find lacquer to cover your guitar with, while he tried his best to calm himself down after his outburst. Many cupboards later, you finally found a small can of used up lacquer, but as you started to reach for it, your hand completely stopped mid-air.

You looked over your shoulder, and found Sanji already recovered from the argument seeing that he was on the move again, preparing a cut of beef tenderloin and other ingredients he needed for tonight's dinner.

Slowly, you closed the cupboard and went closer to him. He still refused to look at you. And so you watched him place a bag of flour on the countertop, slices of cold butter, and a variety of spice bottles to season the meat with.

Sanji began to wrap twine around the beef tenderloin. You sighed, and before you could stop yourself, you grabbed a bowl and decided to help him. Your guitar can wait.

It was rare for you to cook inside the kitchen, having so little knowledge about food and how they were prepared, but you knew this recipe well. You poured two cups of flour through the sifter, followed by placing heaps of the cold butter in the mixture.

The moment you started to mix the dough for the puff pastry, Sanji quickly pointed out in a monotone voice, "You're adding too much butter."

You raised your head and glanced at him, his attention now on the meat he was searing on a skillet. You smiled, glad that he was speaking again.

"You're beginning to sound like the old man himself." You joked lightly.

His jaw clenched. "Don't compare me to that shitty geezer."

In a softer voice, you asked, "What happened?"

"The usual." He replied curtly. "Didn't approve of my dishes."

You perked up upon hearing about a dish he made himself. Sanji was talented when it comes to creating his own recipes, and sometimes, you would be the person he chooses to test them out. Every time he lets you taste them, your chest would feel warm and you wouldn't be able to sleep for days because you'll keep replaying it in your head. "What did you make this time?"

"It doesn't matter. He'll never agree to any of them."

"Maybe I can—"

"Drop it. Don't poke your nose in things you're not involved." Sanji cut you off, his hardened gaze meeting your concerned stare. You only blinked at him, straightening up.

"I see." You muttered, eyes landing on the bag of flour. You looked at him, then at the flour, then back at him. A smile began to form on your lips as a devious plan formulated itself in your brain. Sticking your hand inside the bag of flour, you took a fistful of the pillowy powder and threw it straight into his face.

Sanji jumped back, flinching and closing his eyes when some of the flour's particles managed to enter them. His jaw dropped open in surprise, hands quickly removing themselves from the skillet's handle to dust off the flour that rested on his now white hair. You tried to stifle a laugh as you watched him struggle getting the flour out.

Once he managed to clean himself, he stared straight at you and said in the calmest way possible, even if you knew deep inside that he was fuming, "What was that for?"

A high-pitched snort left your mouth. You covered it to prevent yourself from laughing.

You cleared your throat and smiled at him innocently. "Am I involved now?"

His piercing blue eyes then started to sparkle with mirth, amusement replacing the vexation previously swimming in them. He also looked to be trying to push down a smile, and that made your heart skip a beat. "You're insufferable."

He reached for the bag of flour. You squeaked and took off running, trying to escape from his attack, but he still managed to throw a small amount on you. Giggling, you ran the opposite direction to confuse him, and yet he caught up with you, throwing another round of flour. This time, it hit your cheeks, making you laugh loudly. He laughed along, pointing a finger at you because you probably looked crazy at the moment.

You tried to take the bag of flour away from him, but he just took it an as opportunity to catch your arm and grip it firmly. He pulled you into his chest, caging you completely.

With your cheeks warm and your breaths short, you tilted your head up and looked at him, noticing the way that you were both covered in flour; and not only that, you also noticed the short distance between your bodies and how your noses were almost touching. His pupils were dilated, black dominating the alluring blue shade that kept haunting your dreams. You drank in the attention he was giving you, the breathing coming out from his soft lips, and the comfortable silence that wrapped around the both of you like a safe little bubble.

"Caught you." Sanji muttered, voice deeper and huskier, making you let out a quiet sigh. His arms snaked around your waist as he leaned in closer. A million questions started to run inside your head, begging to know what this situation was and how you got into it. "Nowhere to run now, darling."

A slamming of doors shattered the secret moment you shared, and you immediately pulled away from each other. You pushed down your disappointment and hid it in the secret crevice in your heart as the two of you faced your intruder.

Zeff observed your flour-laden figures, his thick eyebrows scrunched together in irritation. He then demanded, voice seething and dripping with anger, "What in the hell are you two little brats doing?"

Sanji blurted out in defense, "Zeff, we—she was the one who started it!"

"And you went along with it!" You accused incredulously, grinning from ear-to-ear. Sanji grinned back, shaking his head and biting his lower lip.

"Oh, shut up before I stitch your mouths! Just by looking at you two, I already know that you snot-nosed shits are both at fault!" Zeff shouted, clicking his tongue at the sight of the half emptied flour. "Wasted them good flour for your childish fights. You're even worse than fatwits. Get out and clean the toilets!"

"Not the shitty toilets!" Sanji groaned, and you couldn't blame him for it. The bathroom area smelled revolting and the floors were always wet for some reason.

"I don't wanna hear complaints from you when you've dirtied my kitchen! Off you go!" Zeff dismissed, and you can't help but to laugh again when you saw Sanji pout like a little kid.

The head chef watched the two of you leave the kitchen together while giggling and exchanging fond looks. Patty, who also saw the whole situation unfold, suddenly appeared beside him, snickering, "I can already hear the wedding bells ringing."

Zeff took a deep, tired breath.

"Oh, they're ringing alright."

You cleaned and scrubbed the toilets the entire afternoon with the man you're in love with, flushing your plans down the drain and forgetting all about them, and that was the second time you failed to leave Sanji Vinsmoke.

⸻ • ⸻

You didn't know how you ended up in a ship full of pirates.

Well, maybe you knew. A little. But it wasn't supposed to be like this.

Your knuckles were beginning to turn white with how tight you were clenching them. A mix of emotions swirled around in your chest, namely confusion, impatience, and hesitation, pondering about whether you should be irritated at yourself or at Sanji.

The opportunity was there, handed to you like a steak on a golden platter, or a miracle that suddenly fell from the sky. The day you met Luffy and his strange pirate crew was the day you immediately realized that he was the key to your exit from the Baratie. He was friendly; a good pirate, according to his own words, so you figured he would allow you to tag along for a while until you find an island to get off to. You just had to ask for his permission and wait for his reply.

Luffy agreed. And you were ecstatic. You were finally going to leave Sanji Vinsmoke and your pathetic, unrequited feelings behind.

Or so you thought.

You watched in horror as he followed you when you boarded the Going Merry, also carrying a bag of his own. He said something along the lines of Luffy needing a cook for the journey to the Grand Line but you couldn't care less. You got here first. Why was he here?

So here you were, sitting in a corner, lonelier than ever and regretting your life decisions. You watched Luffy and his friends celebrate after defeating the pirate Arlong and saving Coco Village from his inhuman hold over its people, but Sanji and the beautiful orange haired Nami were nowhere in sight.

The thought of them being gone together at the same time left a bitter aftertaste on your tongue.

Nami. The first time you laid eyes on her, ethereal was the word that came up to your mind. With soft deep saffron locks that framed her small face and a wide blue eyed gaze, she would have the cruelest of men begging for mercy and affection at her feet.

Unfortunately, Sanji was one of those men.

Fuck, you cursed mentally, rubbing your face with your hands to try and forget about the times he flirted with her and the moments he wouldn't stop talking about her or kept asking about her favorite food or dessert or if she's into blonds. Your already battered heart doesn't need the usual reminder that he'll never see you that way, that you weren't going to experience his sweet words and his loving gazes.

You took a sharp breath. It's okay, you tell yourself over and over again until they were buried in your heart. They'll make a great pair, Sanji the cook and Nami the thief. A strong man with an equally strong woman. Yes. That makes sense.

You'll leave soon anyway, and you'll no longer have to worry about seeing them or how they were going to end up together.

And yet you can't help but to think about the things that could've been if you were the one he was in love with instead.

You were crossing your arms and hugging yourself as the crisp afternoon air was getting chilly when a hand gripping a shot glass filled with amber liquid appeared in front of you. Looking up, you saw Luffy smiling widely at you, waving the glass encouragingly.

"Come on, just one drink! Usopp poured this for you!" The captain exclaimed heartily, obviously trying to uplift your spirits and to make you feel welcomed in his crew, even though you did nothing but to guard the Going Merry while they were fighting for their lives.

You shook your head and smiled politely. "No, I don't drink. Sorry."

Luffy's smile faltered, but he recovered quickly. He nodded, setting the glass down on top of a barrel. "Well, okay." He said, then turned to Usopp, who was currently downing a whole bottle of whiskey. "Hey, where's Nami?"

"Oh, she's with the cook," Usopp replied cheekily, wiping his mouth after drinking. There was a teasing tone in his voice as he continued, "Someone's getting a boyfriend tonight!"

With that said, you reached for the shot glass that Luffy was offering you earlier, grabbed it swiftly, and poured the whole thing down your throat. The whiskey tasted unfamiliar, and it burned and made you dizzy at first taste, but it doesn't matter; as long as it can make you forget just for a little while, you were willing to drink more of the horrible beverage.

Zoro, the green haired swordsman and the captain's first mate, stared at you as if you had lost your mind, but a tinge of concern was visibly written on his face. "Woah, slow down." He warned sternly.

"I thought you didn't drink." Was all Luffy said, blinking in confusion. You chuckled tiredly.

"Now I do."

Drink after drink, glass after glass. You lost count on how many times Usopp poured whiskey for you, or how many times Zoro shook his head in disbelief. Luffy was the same old happy-go-lucky captain throughout the disaster that was starting to brew inside you, turning your brain into mush. You can barely lift your head or your fingers as you asked for another shot in an incoherent voice. Luckily, Usopp was still able to understand you, tipping the whiskey bottle yet again towards your glass.

You started to raise the glass to your lips, eager to just get severely drunk and be over with it already. However, you suddenly felt strong fingers wrap around your wrist to stop you from drinking; and when you caught sight of a familiar silver ring with Baratie's jolly roger inlaid upon it, you didn't need to look up to know who it was.

Sanji's voice was unnervingly calm as he questioned the crew, but the slight shake in his words lets you know otherwise. "Which one of you allowed her to drink?"

"No one. She took the glass and made the decision herself." Zoro drawled, challenging the chef, "The last time I checked, waiter, you were supposed to be the one responsible for her."

Sanji ignored him and turned his attention to you. He stole the shot glass away from you, then kneeled and held your hands comfortingly, smiling. "Come on, ange. It's time for you to rest now." He said quietly, yet loud enough for only you to hear.

You stubbornly shook your head repeatedly and whined loudly. "No! Don't touch me!" You cried, prying your hands away from his, "I don't like you...!"

Zoro huffed in amusement at your declaration. Sanji glared at him for a short second before looking at you again. This time, he stood and gently placed his arms under your shoulders to raise you up. Once you were standing on your feet, he swept you up and carried you bridal style with ease. Another whine escaped your lips.

"Put me down! I want another drink, please, just one more!" You pleaded while throwing weak punches on his chest. Sanji only smiled and began to lead you towards the sleeping quarters. You continued to thrash in his arms as he walked slowly and in small steps so he wouldn't drop you.

Sanji carefully set you down on your hammock. "No drinks for you until you actually learn how to take them." He told you, tucking a stray piece of your hair behind your ear. His thumb caressed the soft skin of your cheek and rubbed it in circles, noting how fast you were heating up due to the alcohol. You pouted.

"Pretty please, Sanji...please..."

He chuckled, staring at you intensely. "Maybe some other time, ange."

You went quiet, staring back at him with half-lidded eyes. Then, you crossed your arms like a child and asked, "Why do you keep calling me that?"

Sanji raised a brow. "Call you what? Ange?"

You nodded. "I don't like it."

He began to smile, the dimples on his cheeks appearing. You briefly wondered if he'd allow you to poke and feel them. "Why?"

"I don't know what it means. Is it an insult?" You wondered aloud, your eyes widening in curiosity.

A hearty and warm laugh came out from Sanji, his eyes forming half-moons as he cackled at your words like they were the biggest joke he heard in his entire life, "Oh, my dear girl, how could I possibly insult you?" He managed to speak between laughs, "It means angel. You're an angel, to me at least. My angel."

Oh.

Your lips parted in surprise. Blinking, you simply said, "You're not Sanji."

He's not Sanji. He wouldn't call you angel; you're not even sure if he found you beautiful or attractive. You wear the same old tattered dresses that Zeff bought for you a long time ago, and you didn't even bother to style your hair or put on face powder like all the other beautiful ladies do. You look nowhere near to an angel.

But Sanji only grinned. "I assure you, I am very much Sanji. The little brat who pulled your hair when we were barely eleven years old."

Your breath hitched at the thought of him remembering one of your fond memories in your childhood. "You remembered."

"Of course I remembered." He whispered, cupping your cheek one last time before he got ready to leave. He turned on his heel and was about to walk away when you spoke.

"Are you going to see her again?" You asked, and he quickly noticed how broken your voice sounded. Sanji faced you in concern and was taken aback with how deep you were frowning. He figured that you were just drunk and women tend to be different when they were intoxicated. You were no exception to that, it seemed.

"Hm?" He hummed, prompting you to elaborate further.

Tears began to form in the corners of your eyes. You shakily mumbled, "Nami...you're going to Nami, aren't you?"

Sanji froze, an icy cold rush filling up his body. A knot formed in his throat, and it continued to tighten the longer he stared at your face. You looked so hurt—like he just destroyed your beloved guitar into pieces. Your lower lips were trembling, your eyes glistening with unshed tears. For a moment, he couldn't find the courage to answer you, feeling like he could die at any second now if he answers your question.

But the answer was simple.

"Yes." He breathed out, a sharp pain stabbing through his heart.

And it only became worse when a teardrop finally rolled down your cheek. "Why?" You rasped, and Sanji didn't know that a single word can hurt this much.

He tried to give you a reassuring smile but awfully failed to do so. He started to explain, "We were just discussing something—"

"Why not me?"

Those three words coming out of your mouth felt like a final blow to his heart. He can feel himself bleed, drained of life and soul because of you and your words alone, and he let you. He let you kill him, he let you make him swim in his own guilt and he doesn't why, why, why.

More tears fell out of your angelic eyes, staining your cheeks with wet trails, and he tried to hold himself back from wiping them off. You choked out, "Why not me, Sanji? I have been asking myself that question for the past decade, and it eats my brain every night like some kind of plague, but I let it anyway. Because why? Why can't you just recognize me and appreciate me and see me? Why can't you go to me if you want to talk about your dreams, or what dish you're planning to create? Why do you have to seek solace in other women when you have me standing by your side everyday, me who is willing to listen to you and whatever you have to say?"

Angry, red rimmed eyes glared at him. Your hair strands stuck to your skin and framed your face as sweat began to form on your forehead. Teardrops clung to your wet eyelashes and your face was drenched like you just took a swim in the ocean. You were burning with fury and rage and want, struggling to breathe properly after your little rant, and Sanji thought you couldn't be more beautiful. You were so beautiful.

"Oh but I couldn't blame you for that. She's just so beautiful, so perfect, and so strong. She could give you anything you wanted and she could be anything that I never was." You hiccuped, smiling forcibly, "But in the end...I will still love you. I will always love you. I think."

You scooted closer to him, leaning in until your faces only had a few inches apart between them. You didn't notice how his lips were slightly parted in shock, nor his eyes that were starting to glisten with his own tears. "No matter where I flee to, or where I lay my heart on, or which skies I look at—it's always you, Sanji. It's always been you."

"I had been so selfless all these years, Sanji. So please, can you pretend to like me too, just for today, before I leave?" You whispered meekly, cupping his cheeks with both of your hands. Numb and completely speechless, Sanji simply gave you a single nod as a response.

You gingerly pressed your lips against his, and he immediately tasted the saltiness of your tears. But your lips were soft, as he expected from an angel like you. And so he couldn't help himself; he closed his eyes and delicately kissed you back, repeating your name in his mind like a sacred prayer and wishing to the stars above to not let the moment end.

However, you broke the kiss by losing consciousness and falling down on your hammock, knocked out and peacefully snoring.

Sanji spaced out, not moving from his position. No. It's not that he didn't want to move—he couldn't move. He couldn't feel anything except for the drumming of his heart, knocking on his chest desperately. His lips were still tingling and his ears and neck were warming up.

He gulped, loosening the collar of his shirt to cool himself down. He needed a cigarette. And a drink.

Scrambling to get up even with his trembling legs, Sanji managed to stand properly. He avoided your sleeping figure and decided to get out of the room as soon as possible. However, when he took a step forward, his foot touched a notebook lying on the floor.

Sanji bent down and took the notebook. He flipped it open, and after reading only the first page, he finally came into a conclusion.

Heartbroken, drunk, and unaware, you dozed off the rest of the afternoon. When nightfall settled on the azure horizon and dusk fell on the rough surface of the sea, you missed the chance to walk away from the crew yet again; and that was the third time you failed to leave Sanji Vinsmoke.

⸻ • ⸻

The next morning, you woke up feeling much better with only the memory of you drinking and crying yourself to sleep and nothing else. Everything was normal, and the crew began to make plans for their next adventure during breakfast.

Everything was normal, except for Sanji, who was quiet throughout the whole discussion. And of course, just like always, you were the only one who noticed his strange behavior. You tried to catch his eyes, but he looked at everywhere except you.

When he finally met your gaze, you gave him a soft smile, hoping he would smile back and everything was fine and you were just overthinking it.

He doesn't.

⸻ • ⸻

"Are you really going to leave?"

Taking your gaze away from the heart shaped cloud you spotted on the clear blue sky, you faced the person who asked the question you were dreading for some time now. Luffy was staring curiously at you, awaiting your answer. You can't help but to smile softly at the captain, whose kindness you have yet to repay.

"I believe we already talked about this, captain." You said, recalling your short conversation last night. He kept asking you if you were really sure about your decision while his eyes darted to a certain blond haired chef every time he shoots you the question. It was strange, and you felt even more suspicious when Sanji pretended not to hear your answer and even refused to glance your way.

Luffy put his hands on his hips. "You know, you're welcome to stay and be a part of my crew."

You crossed your arms, smile growing wide. "And what, pray tell, is my role? Sing battle songs and chant your names while you swing your gummy arms at pirates?" You joked playfully.

The young captain stroked his chin in deep thought, almost like he was considering your suggestion. "That's not a bad idea."

You bursted out laughing, shaking your head in disbelief, "I'll leave first thing in the morning. I told Nami to dock at a nearby island."

"What about Sanji?" He suddenly questioned, leaving you flabbergasted for a split second. You weren't prepared to hear Sanji's name after days of not talking to him properly.

Him not speaking with you wasn't a strange occurence at all; back when you were still in the Baratie, there would be days when Sanji wouldn't bother to acknowledge your presence and would completely ignore you. This would happen whenever he was extremely busy with his cooking or he had a disagreement with Zeff.

And it seemed like this was one of those days, seeing that he had been ignoring you for about a week now. Yes, you have been keeping count. Although he doesn't appear to be angry with you, the short-lived exchanges and the abrupt cut-offs before you could say anything deeply concerned you more than it should have.

You tried to rack your brains for reasons on why he was acting like this. Maybe Nami had rejected him for the hundredth time, or Zoro kept throwing insults in his direction—or maybe his cigarette packet had ran out. Maybe his kitchen knives weren't sharp anymore and he was struggling in the kitchen.

Should you ask him? Should you go to him and demand him to tell you what's wrong?

You pressed your lips together. It sounded like the worst idea you've thought of so far. You convinced yourself that Sanji was fine and he'd be back to normal in no time; there would no need to talk to him.

"What about him?" You faltered, chuckling to ease the tension in your body.

"You care for each other." Luffy explained bluntly and matter-of-factly, "What does he think about you leaving?"

A shaky sigh made its way out of your lips. How will you tell the captain that his cook has been avoiding you like you were some kind of rotten fish these days?

"I..." You stammered, gathering the courage to lie to Luffy even if you thought it would be the gravest sin you could commit, "He...agrees. Yeah. No need to worry."

Luffy grinned, but it didn't look normal at all. You winced in embarrassment. He knew that you were lying and was totally unconvinced.

Luckily, he didn't voice it out. He only nodded and said, "Great! Oh, I have an idea! Why don't you sing for us before we part ways? Think of it as a farewell party for the crew."

Hearing the pure and genuine excitement dripping from his voice, you couldn't turn him down. It was a good idea too, and now that you thought about it, you haven't performed for them yet. "Sure." You agreed, shrugging.

He raised his fist up in the air and cheered. You smiled, watching as he shouted for his crewmates' names to come down and listen to you sing. You prepared yourself for an impromptu performance, making sure that your guitar was properly tuned and your voice was clear enough to give you the best version of your singing. Sitting on top of a barrel, you faced your audience of four, all their eager eyes watching your every move.

As you struck the first chord to your song, you tried hard not to think that Sanji wasn't there to watch you sing the song you secretly dedicate to him.

In the kitchen, Sanji busied himself by plating the food that he'll serve to his fellow crew mates for dinner. He grabbed a large plate and placed the chicken drumsticks that his captain favored, but Luffy wasn't the one in his mind when he cooked those. Looking at the food, he wondered if you would love them too.

He shook his thoughts off and took the plate with him outside. Approaching the crew, his steps slowed down when he heard a familiar singing voice and a melodic tune of a guitar.

Sanji almost dropped the plate.

It was you. Of course it was you, you were the only one he knew who had a voice like that. It was you, and you were singing with a lovely smile painted on your sweet lips, the very same lips that touched his a few days ago, resulting in him not getting a wink of sleep every night. The beam of the sunset right behind you colored your hair in the different shades of the sky as the dulcet-filled notes you made echoed throughout the vast sea. For a moment, he was worried that you were going to attract ferocious sea beasts with your angelic voice and steal you away from him.

He could hear his blood pound in his ears the longer he observed you from afar. You looked happy. Happier than you were when you stayed with him and Zeff. His chest tightened, knowing that you leaving and go on adventures on your own was probably the best decision you could make, even if that means leaving him too.

You were finishing up your song by the time you saw Sanji standing behind Usopp, silently listening. He met your gaze, and for the first time ever, you couldn't read his mind. His expression was blank as you stared at each other, and as you opened your mouth to say something, he cut you off.

"Dinner's ready." Sanji announced shortly, setting down the plate in front of Luffy and then walked away without saying another word.

That was your final straw. You immediately put down your guitar and followed him into the kitchen. You didn't care about how you felt Nami's watchful eyes on you as you went after him, nor how Luffy was scarfing down the dinner and was definitely going to finish it all before you could take a bite; you just chased the blond with determination oozing out of you.

You roughly pushed the door open and found Sanji washing the pans he used for cooking. He glanced at you briefly then quickly looked away after. This irritated you even more as you demanded, "Is there something bothering you?"

"You should eat before the food gets cold." He said with an empty voice.

"Sanji!"

He stiffened. You rarely raised your voice at anyone. Sighing in defeat, he dried off his hands and fully faced you.

Your eyes were sharper than his knives, cutting straight into his soul. "I've known you for a long time now, do you think I don't notice whenever you have a problem?" You glowered, taking a step closer to him, "You have a problem. What is it?"

It happened fast. His hand landed on the small of your back and pulled you to his chest, and the other was placed on top of your cheek, and in a single motion, Sanji captured your lips with his. You gasped in the kiss, your heart dropping to the soles of your feet when he tilted his face to deepen it. Your fingers tightly grasped the sleeves of his shirt for support as he passionately moved his lips against yours. A pleasant heat ran down your spine, your whole body tingling and warming up. You were simply drowning. There was no other way to describe it, and it was only caused by his fervent kisses.

Sanji pulled away, resting your forehead on top of yours, and you took it as an opportunity to breathe in air that you lost. "You are the problem." He murmured lowly, eyes darting down to your swollen lips. Confused and lightheaded, you didn't get the chance to retort.

"Ever since that night, ange, you occupy my thoughts. You gave me a taste of your lips and you didn't even remember the next day. Do you know how that feels, hm?" He said, pecking your lips once again. You made a noise in the back of your throat, turning your head sideways so he couldn't kiss you anymore, but he took your chin and hungrily connected both of your lips.

He spoke between kisses, "You torture me. Ever since I read those songs you wrote about me in that little notebook of yours, you torture me with your presence."

That was when you snapped out of your daze. With all the force you could muster, you placed your hands on his chest and pushed him away. Sanji stepped back, surprised at your reaction.

Without giving him a chance to ask you anything, you ran off and left the kitchen, slamming the door loudly so you wouldn't hear him calling your name and be tempted to go back in his arms again.

You arrived in the sleeping quarters, locking the door behind you. You were sure that the others would understand you needing your alone time. Once you made sure you were on your own, your body collapsed altogether, your back sliding down against the door as you panted heavily.

He knows, was all you could think about. He knows about the songs. He knows about your feelings.

Well, you finally got your answer to your previous question, but a more complicated one replaced it. With trembling hands, your fingers raised themselves to your lips, touching its surface. You hated the way that you still felt his warmth on top of them.

A lone tear slid down the side of your nose. He was cruel. Sanji was cruel.

You didn't come out of that room for days, refusing to talk to anyone as you gathered your scrambled throughts and pulled yourself back together, and that was the fourth time you failed to leave Sanji Vinsmoke.

⸻ • ⸻

A stack of books, most of them being a collection of maps compiled in one, rested beside you while you flipped through the pages of the one you chose among them.

Nami has been lending you her books ever since you shut yourself out from the crew. You ignored all of them and only let Nami in, hoping that she'll be able to understand you; and she did. She was a good listener. Although you weren't particularly close with each other, you trusted her and told her everything: your dreams, your problems, your feelings, and Sanji. In return, she confided in you too.

"Here. So you can finally decide on where you will go to," You recall her saying while she handed you her collection of world map books, "and to distract yourself, of course."

"You're too kind, Nami." You said in admiration. Maybe this is why Sanji was enamored with her. She was a beauty inside and out.

Nami shrugged, yet she was smiling. "Just helping a fellow woman out."

The books did take your mind off the stubborn blond haired man that was still resting inside your heart, even if it was only for a fleeting moment. You tried to search for islands that will be suitable for you to start your career, narrowing some of them down into choices, but your eyes wil always lead back to where the Baratie was stationed.

You leaned back against your chair, letting your head hit the wall with a soft thud as you released a sigh of frustration. Not only will you need to prepare yourself for a journey all alone, but you also have to talk to Sanji sooner or later, whether you like it or not. The kiss distracted you more than the books Nami gave you. You think of it in the morning and dream of it at night, and it only got worse every time you remembered that he kissed you like he loved you.

Relaxing in your seat, you closed the book and listened to the silence.

The Going Merry docked for a quick trip to a market to gather fresh ingredients for food. Sanji will be gone for the meantime and you were free to roam around the ship without his heated stare boring holes in your skin.

But the peace was ruined by rushed footsteps and Usopp breaking into the room, almost destroying the door with his brute force. You frowned, standing up on alert when you saw how nervous he looked.

"Sanji's injured!" He exclaimed, which got your brow raising, knowing that he had a long history of lying to people. However, he forcibly pulled Sanji inside, and you were greeted by the sight of a bruised man, whose lips were bleeding and cheeks were starting to yellow.

You immediately sprang into action. You took the first aid kit you packed in your bag and grabbed his arm, making him sit down on your chair.

"How did you get into a fight in just a span of ten minutes?" You asked in irritation, wetting a cloth with saltwater to wipe off the blood on his lips.

Sanji grunted, tensing up when you took a hold of his face and dabbed on his lip using the cloth. "Some petty vendor was selling overpriced onions, and they weren't even the best of quality."

You stopped for a minute, glaring at him. "So you decided to punch them instead of talking it over?"

He only huffed in reply. Pursing your lips in annoyance, you continued to treat his wounds in silence, noticing him flinching and wincing in pain whenever you compress the bruised area with ice. "Who's being petty now?" You scolded impatiently, "Stay still."

The only sound that filled the room was you hastily rummaging your kit trying to find an ointment and an awkward silence that made you want to jump into the sea and never swim back to the surface. You unscrewed the lid of the jar of ointment and scooped some with your finger, looking at Sanji as you did so. He looked back at you quietly, and you tried hard not to think about the fact that you have to touch his lips in order for you to apply it.

It seemed like he realized that too, glancing down at the dollop of ointment on top of your finger, then back to you. You just gave him a small, uneasy smile, showing him that you weren't uncomfortable even though you were, and shyly took a step forward.

As gently as you could, you spread the ointment on the wounded area on his lips, reminding yourself to not be distracted on how soft they looked.

"A busted lip because of overpriced ingredients...it almost feels like you're doing this on purpose so I wouldn't get the chance to leave you." You half-heartedly joked to lighten up the atmosphere. However, you were greeted by nothing, not even a smart comeback or a funny joke from the blond. You hesitantly observed his reaction, and saw that he was grim and serious, guilt swimming in his beryl blue eyes.

The realization began to sink in.

Oh.

You should've known from the start. Sanji was a great fighter; he wouldn't be injured in the first place. "Sanji..."

Sanji took your wrist and held on it tightly. Your breath hitched, only then realizing how much you missed his touch, his warm, gentle, and loving touch.

"Let me go." You weakly said, even though deep down, you didn't want him to.

"Tell me you're not in love with me." He said, sounding utterly desperate that it almost made you fall down to your knees, "Tell me, and I'll let you go."

When you didn't answer, he stood up and cupped your cheeks with both of his hands. He pleaded, "Look at me. Look into my eyes and tell me you don't love me."

"Please don't do this." You whispered in pain as you tearfully shook your head.

"Stay. Please, stay." Sanji begged, pressing his forehead against yours, "What can I do to make you stay? Tell me. I'll do anything. Do I need to kneel? To beg for your forgiveness? Tell me what you want. I'll do anything in my power to make you the happiest woman in all of East Blue. Just please, don't leave."

"I can't." You answered, closing your eyes, a few tears streaming down your cheeks. You hate the way he was making this so hard for you.

He only continued, "Hate me, curse me, shout at me, if you must. Anything but you leaving me. Or do you want to make me yours? Then I am letting you. Whatever you want, mon ange—my heart, my soul, my attention, they're all yours. I'm all yours."

"No..."

"The crew will be incomplete without you." Sanji insisted in anguish.

"I have dreams, Sanji. Just like you and the rest of the crew." You explained softly, placing your own hands on top of his in attempt to comfort him and relieve him from his confusion.

However, he was persistent, "You can achieve your dreams without leaving. You can stay, and I will support you in everything you do. You're better off staying with me—with us."

You said firmly, "I will not spend the rest of my life doing what I don't want."

"Even with me by your side?"

A few second pass before you finally reply, "I'd be miserable."

Pain flashed on his face, making you want to take back your own words, yet you remained strong and unyielding. Sanji took a deep breath and stepped away from you, saying, "I'd rather have you miserable here than go out there and encounter ruthless pirates."

The statement quickly irritated you, frowning at him deeply. "You think I'll have problems with pirates when I've been serving them for years?"

"Oh, darling, you wouldn't be able to say that once you've encountered worse ones, with bounties higher than you could ever imagine." He snapped, voice raising with each word.

"I can manage on my own!" You bit back frustratingly, your tears evaporating into anger.

Sanji scowled at you, impatiently running his fingers through his hair. "You can't fight!" He shouted, voice breaking in the process, and with it, your heart too. It shattered like glass and the shards landed and pierced through your lungs, rendering you breathless. Your eyes widened, mouth dropping open in shock.

Seeing your expression, he immediately snapped back to reality, regret writing itself on his face. You shook your head in disbelief and let out a humorless laugh, "Are you telling me that I'm weak?"

"I didn't say that." Sanji quickly said in a hushed manner.

"But you're implying it!" You choked, still can't believe that he doesn't trust you. He doesn't trust you enough to accomplish your dreams on your own, and that he was not confident that you'll succeed without him by your side.

You wanted to ask him about the passionate kiss you two shared, about his loving gestures that confused the hell out of you, about his fresh bruises that he received on purpose so that he can get you to stay, and why he did all of that. You needed confirmation. But the question that left you was, "What am I to you?"

Sanji stayed quiet, and your heart broke again once more. Deciding that this was the last time he breaks it, you walked away and left him alone to tend to his own injuries.

He lit up a cigarette as he listened to your fading footsteps. A single teardrop fell down from his eye the moment he placed the cigarette between his lips, and all he could think about was that you hurt more than the bruises on his cheeks.

You packed your bags and spoke with Nami, telling her that you were ready, and that was the fifth time you tried to leave Sanji Vinsmoke—and tomorrow, you'll finally succeed.

⸻ • ⸻

The sun had just risen, and the early morning breeze smelled of the ocean, the calming sound of waves filling your ears. It was one of those days when the sky was clear and the sunlight wasn't harsh but pleasantly warm on your skin, making it the perfect day to start working on a new song and strum on your guitar for the melody.

But today was different. You were standing on the first step of the ship's staircase that leads to a docking station and a wooden walkway towards an unfamiliar island that was soon to be your new home. Your fingers clenched on the strap of your bag, finding this moment to be surreal. You have tried many times to leave, and here it was, right on the palms of your hands.

"So. This is it, huh?" Your trance broke as Nami commented beside you. She was the only one to bid you farewell and watch you leave, since the others were still asleep. You thought of Sanji and how he looked like when he was sleeping, staring at his handsome features so you can memorize them and implant it in your mind. He was your first love; you didn't want to forget him.

You smiled. "Thank you, Nami." You said earnestly, "I would've liked to spend more time with you. It's tiring to speak to men sometimes, don't you think?"

She laughed. "Yeah." Then, she caged you in her arms and hugged you tightly, surprising you for a second before you laughed too and returned the hug. "Stay safe out there."

"I will."

"So you planned to leave? Without saying goodbye?" A new voice interrupted, breaking the hug you and Nami both shared. You swiveled to look behind you, and there stood Sanji, appearing to have just woken up, with the strands of his blond hair sticking up in different directions. You observed his dejected expression, the downward tilt of the corners of his lips, and the glistening of his tired eyes. You stared at his crumpled suit and his crooked necktie. Despite how messy he looked, he will always be perfect to you.

You walked forward and looked at him fondly, with your eyes full of so much love reserved for him and him only. "Thought it would hurt less." You said, raising your hands to touch his hair and brush it down, "And I was right. How can I leave now when you're standing in front of me?"

He sighed shakily as he felt your soft fingers threading through his hair. "Then don't." He whispered. You only smiled at him. He didn't smile back, but that didn't stop you from taking both of his hands and caressing his knuckles using your thumb.

"Every night, I'll look at the moon and think of you. I'll tell my stories, sing my songs, and whisper my secrets to it. Just like what you and me would do when we were little." You told him softly and endearingly, "Would you be so kind as to look at the moon too and think of me?"

Sanji's eyebrows were scrunched together in agony, muttering, "I can't make you stay, can I?"

When you didn't answer, he just nodded his head, understanding what you wanted to stay. He forced a smile and tightly squeezed your hands. "I'm sorry."

"I'm yours." You answered, placing a soft kiss on the back of his hands. After letting your lips linger on his skin for a while, you slowly let go, and with one last glance at his face, you stepped back and made your way downstairs to the docking area, leaving before you could change your mind.

Sanji watched you go. While you walked away from the Going Merry, from the crew, and from him, not once did you look back. He just watched as you went farther away and became smaller in the distance, until you blended in with the crowd and you were just another person in a sea of people. And then you were gone.

It was the sixth time you tried to leave Sanji Vinsmoke, and this time, you finally did.

⸻ • ⸻

The red velvet curtains began to draw in front of you, gently falling back down on the stage as you said your final good-byes to your audience for tonight, a bouquet of roses cradled in your arms while you blew delicate kisses towards them. You can still hear their loud cheering and clapping even as you retreated to your personal room backstage.

A middle-aged woman greeted you inside when you stepped in the room and closed the door behind you, whistling. "There she is, our talented rising star!"

You only laughed at the silly nickname, setting the bouquet of roses that one of the people gave you in tonight's show on top of your vanity table. "You exaggerate, Madam. I have only performed two shows in your beautiful theater."

The madam, who was the owner of the theater you were currently working in, shook her head in disagreement. "And those two shows are sold out!" She informed you proudly, placing her hands on your shoulders, "Let me know if you want to add more, you are welcome to perform here anytime."

"I'll think about it." You replied, smiling. The madam patted your shoulder twice before she left you alone, humming happily to herself. You huffed in amusement, fully aware that she doesn't appreciate your talents at all, but only cared for the money.

Regardless of that, you were happy. It has been a couple of years since you left the Strawhat Pirates and pursued your dreams all on your own, and you've been traveling to different islands across the seas to perform. You never had a permanent home; being a musician meant going to many places from time to time to share and spread out your music.

Yet you can't help but miss life on the sea.

You missed washing dishes on the Baratie and the late night conversations you had with Zeff. You missed Luffy and his weird antics, Usopp and his jokes, Zoro and his blunt comments, and Nami and her kindness.

You missed Sanji and everything that he was.

You stared at your reflection in the vanity mirror on your desk. Your hair was pinned neatly, you had make-up on and you were dressed fancily for your performance. Years ago, you wouldn't look like this. It was hard to believe how much you've grown and changed, but these days, you felt like you wanted your old self back. Slowly, you took the itchy pins off your hair, and cleaned your face with warm water and a cloth. You replaced your dress in a more comfortable one and went outside.

Looking up at the night sky, you saw a bright full moon with no stars in sight. It was just the moon and its beauty, illuminating the pitch black sky with its glow. You silently watched it, a smile growing on your lips as you felt a tug on your heart.

"I wonder what you're up to, Sanji." You thought aloud, cheeks heating up at the memory of your first love and his golden hair and his contagious smiles. Then, to your surprise, a voice spoke unexpectedly.

"Well, I am fortuitous to have met such a beautiful angel."

You froze. No one referred to you as angel except for one.

Sanji.

As you turned around, he was already walking towards you. And there you both were, bathing under the moonlight, with him grinning at you mischievously and you looking at him lovingly. You didn't know how he found you, but what mattered was that he searched for you and now he was here, and he was still making your heart beat fast in your chest just like all those years ago.

How the pesky feelings stayed and wrapped themselves around your aching heart, you didn't know. But maybe it was because he was standing in front of you, and the way his next words made you run into his open arms and kiss him until you were both breathless,

"There you are, ange."

taglist part 1 @angel-luv3r @appalost @chexmixtrys @nimtano @sparklyphantom @natalieisfreeziing @reallysparklychaos @maydaylovex @johnnysactualgf @mochamei @kisumisumi @ttokyocat @mypurplewinee @rosaliinnn @nonniecannie @court-jester-stuff @detectivelucy07 @megumiif @untitledandrandom @erin-the-king @fangeekkk @nikolaevna-art @candesstuff @chaoticevilbakugo

#opla #opla x reader #opla x y/n #opla x you #one piece #one piece live action #opla sanji #one piece sanji #one piece live action sanji #sanji live action #sanji #vinsmoke sanji #opla sanji x reader #sanji x reader #sanji x you #sanji x y/n #angst #one piece sanji x reader #ਏਓ ladadiida

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wonustars · 2 months ago

Text

In Front of Me (Teaser)

⊹ pairing: jeon wonwoo x f.reader ⊹ genre: bestfriend to lovers, angst, smut (18+ mdni) ⊹ wordcount: TBA (this teaser: 679) ⊹ release date: TBA

⊹ summary: jeon wonwoo has spent most of his adolesence and early adult hood unable to understand why he can't seem to stay in a relationship for more than a few months. as his best friend, you allowed him to vent about his worries without judgment. so what if you're in love with him? your friendship with wonwoo meant more to you than having your feelings reciprocated. that is until you hit your breaking point, while wonwoo finally realizes what has been in front of him this whole time. ⊹ tags: non-idol!au, uni!au, bestfriends to lovers (?), unrequted love, emotionaly stunted charcters, wonwoo has a bit of an ego, toxic!wonwoo&reader. (more tags and smut tag added to full fic when posted.) ⊹ note: im really excited to share this with you all. its not by any means done but heres a teaser for now since ive been away for so long ♡ also the teaser is not edited so pls just ignore if theres typos hehe. lov u all pls come into my ask box cuz i refuse to shut up abt this story :p.

⊹ masterlist, taglist, fic playlist.

Rejection is foreign to Wonwoo.

Most times, it’s him that’s doing the rejecting. He was the one to always initiate the break up, to lose feelings first, every decision was made by him. He has no control over whether you’re going to text him back or not, and to put it simply, he can’t stand that feeling.

Wonwoo hates not being in control. Whether that be his future, his relationships, and especially his feelings. At least that’s what he forces himself to believe. That it’s not fair of you to ignore him when he’s worried about you, because he’s your best friend. You should answer him when he texts you. When he calls you, and especially when he shows up to your door, seeking your comfort. In his mind, that is what he believes the foundation of your friendship is. To comfort each other, just like it always has been.

Sure, maybe Wonwoo is entitled, perhaps he’s conceited and selfish, but he doesn’t care. Because in his mind, you’re his bestfriend. There was no way in hell that you were ignoring him. His ego doesn’t even consider it a possibility. You were busy, that’s it. That has to be it.

{໒꒰ྀིっ˕ -。꒱ྀི১ ‧₊˚ ⋅ ⋆˙}

Less than fourty-eight hours in, Wonwoo couldn’t stop himself from texting you once more. Nimble fingers practically itching to open your contact to update you about the most mundane things. Maybe if he pretended that this moment of silence is perfectly normal, then maybe, you would eventually end up answering him.

12:36 p.m [wons <3]: class just finished. lunch at our usual place?

Nothing. Not even a thumb’s up reaction. Wonwoo had become antsy, guilt and slight annoyance gnawing at the pit of his stomach. Where the hell are you? What are you doing that’s so important that you couldn’t even open his message let alone read them?

1:27 p.m. [wons <3]: this random girl asked for my number after class lol. weird right? i didn’t give it to her though 😁

Cursing at himself, he regrets pressing the send button on that text. Double texting you is already out of the norm for him, but triple texting? He can’t believe how desperate he looks right now. He wishes he could bring himself to unsend it, but he just hopes it’ll be the text that finally gets you to respond.

2:10 p.m. [wons <3]: saw a bunny running thru the oval today u should’ve seen it! reminded me of u. [1 photo attachment]

Absolute radio silence from your end. Wonwoo is starting to think that you had him blocked, but his messages are still delivering. Unsure of what’s worse, you ignoring him or blocking his number, Wonwoo still tries his best to remain calm.

4:00 p.m. [wons <3]: im about to head home soon. r u riding w me today?

The sight of you getting into Seokmin’s car made Wonwoo scoff. Since when did you start getting rides home from Seokmin? And why was he the one opening the door for you? Buckling your seatbelt instead of his own? Wonwoo is completely dumbfounded at what he had witnessed.

4:30 p.m. [wons <3]: saw u get into seokmin’s car, lmk if u need a ride tmrw.

Seeing you laugh and smile while walking to the student parking lot with Seokmin of all people solidified the fact that you are actively ignoring his texts. And he just can’t stand the thought of it. How dare he be ignored? Especially by his best friend, the one person who had always responded to him, no matter the time or how busy you were, you always texted him back.

Wonwoo initially thought that even if the world ended, you would be there within arms reach, enough to hold you close, where he can keep you safe. You were predictable in that sense. But if the world decided to burst into flames, or swallow itself whole tomorrow, he’s unsure if you would be there right next to him by the time he woke up.

⊹ a/n: if u want to be apart of the taglist please fill out the form, comment or send an ask! please note that i'll only add those who have an age indicator somewhere in their blog! thank you ♡

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alchemistc · 14 days ago

Text

Y'all were so insistent that I keep going with the Eddie Fixes It By Making It Worse post breakup fic.

This is officially a three-parter. Sorry. Or you're welcome.

You can read part one here

We have to make out in front of Tommy.

Buck's in the ice cream aisle, reminding himself that he has given himself three more days of moping and ignoring his diet before he gets his ass in gear and starts to live a life again. The Halo Top is mocking him, jeering and heckling as he goes for the Blue Ribbon. Mint chocolate, because Buck always loved it and he can almost forget the mock fight he'd had with Tommy three months in when he told Buck he refused to allow toothpaste flavored treats into his home, and how they'd barely gotten back to his place without a public indecency citation.

He stares at the text until his eyes cross.

What, he sends back, and slowly, cautiously, returns the pint of ice cream to its spot in the cooler. Maybe he should lay off the sugar. He's had enough.

Trust me

It comes in almost immediately and Buck tries to rewind, tries to figure out what any of this means, what the context is, why he's getting an actual Trust Me Bro from his best friend.

You've already met your last and it's not me comes crashing back to the forefront of his mind. He's had a full 36 hours to forget it, and he had been nearly there, nearly ready to chalk it up to Tommy trying to make him angry. Which he's been doing a really fucking excellent job of, lately. Almost like he knows all the buttons to push. Like Buck had given him the owners manual.

Tommy had meant Eddie? How could Eddie have possibly come to that conclusion? What the hell was he doing sending Buck half across town to the market for snacks when -

Buck judges the distance from this market to Eddie's. Then to Tommy's.

"Oh you mother -."

A woman squeaks by with her kid in the cart seat and glares.

---

Are you at Tommy's right now

No question marks. This is an accusation. Buck's thankful there are no perishables in his cart as he abandons it in the lane and hikes it towards the door. It's a dick move, and Buck feels, a little spitefully, like if anyone remembers him they'll remember him from the times he and Tommy giggled and play-fought down the aisles, so they'll think of Tommy when they think of the cart left behind. Resent him for it, maybe.

Not like Tommy isn't particularly good at just leaving things behind.

Yeah. Join me.

Buck breaks through the doors and feels a little woozy. This might be a panic attack. His chest fucking hurts.

🖕just get my stuff and meet me at yours. tell Tommy we burned all his shit

Eddie is an asshole. I'm not gonna LIE to the man. Also he definitely doesn't have an Evan box ready to go, so take what you will from that

Buck's still in that vicious cycle where he goes from angry to upset to sad in record time, no barriers in between, where every bruise feels like it's healing too fast so he keeps pressing in just to watch the color muddle. He hates this.

It'd be a Buck box, Buck texts back, just to release some of the pressure behind his temples, and he pulls in a few deep breaths before he jogs for the Jeep. He's gonna go home. Throw on the DVD copy of Sleepless In Seattle Tommy left behind and then maybe once that's done he'll throw the damn thing in a blender.

Are you coming or not?

Buck turns the ignition and peels out in a direction that won't lead to his own home, or the things Buck has been too much of a mopey bastard to pack up and return to their owner. At a red light two miles down the road, he shares his location.

Eddie sends back an ominous Hope you brushed your teeth today.

---

Eddie gets the door and it sucks just as much as if Tommy had. They barely ever spent time at Tommy's, and Buck can see it now for the boundary it was. When they had, though, their time had been split pretty evenly between Buck picking him up for a date, and Eddie wanting to leave the quiet echo of his own house to hang with them - a car on a lift and beers shared between them, Buck watching the pull of muscle beneath Tommy's shorts as he took Eddie down to the mat, Tommy's fingers drifting through the short curls at the back of Bucks head while Eddie yelled about triple-doubles and chatted with Tommy about how impossible coverage was for some guy named Joker.

Buck has never actually figured out who that guy was. Eddie hated the Mavericks and he hated the Lakers but Eddie also complained about the guy so much he definitely wasn't a Clipper.

Eddie gets him by the forearm when Buck shows clear signs of regretting this. Drags him through the front door before Buck can fully execute his spin and stomp back to the Jeep.

Tommy's next door neighbor had waved at him from her yard where she was doing something new with her display of bird sculptures, and Buck hadn't had the heart to do anything but raise his hand back.

It's less than ten seconds before Eddie is steering him down the hall, into the living room. It's cozy in here. Lived in. Mismatched furniture that somehow fits, a blanket thrown over the side of the couch, dark wood tables and light wood flooring and lamps that look like they came from an estate sale up in the Hills. A huge ass TV set above the mantle of a gas fireplace that Buck never even had the opportunity to see working before... Before.

Tommy is a shadow coming out of the kitchen, and Buck can't help but be a little pleased that he looks as crappy as Buck feels.

---

Eddie claps his hands together before either of them can get a word in. "Okay. Here's the thing. You're both dumbasses and there's a lot of shit that you guys gotta figure out on your own. But apparently you," he points at Tommy with the lip of a beer bottle. Corona. Tommy hates the stuff, and Buck is reminded once again how dearly Eddie loves him, "need empirical evidence that there's no deeply repressed sexual tension between Buck and I. So."

"You're insane," Tommy says, and Buck feels like snapping at him. He's probably right. This is an insane thing to do. Eddie ambushed his ex and then ambushed Buck in the frozen treats aisle and now he wants to kiss Buck to prove a point? What??

Eddie ignores it. Turns to Buck. "How do you wanna do this?"

And now would be the time, actually. Now would be the time to cut the thread, make it clean, break it for good. Only despite his protest, Tommy is staring between them and his expression looks almost... hungry. Frightened, at the same time. Oh. Oh.

He really had thought...?

Eddie's a fucking idiot. Buck doesn't want to kiss him. He's squared with the fact that he definitely had a crush when they first met and he's definitely been attracted to Eddie and just not realized it but he doesn't want Eddie. He doesn't want a life with Eddie, not like that. He doesn't- He isn't -

He loves Eddie more than almost every other person on the planet, but he's not in love with him.

Buck squares his shoulders. Nods. "Yeah, okay," and then he's taking three strides to meet Eddie at the coffee table.

---

"Oh come on, are you serious?"

Buck ignores the exclamation from the peanut gallery. Tries to figure out where to put his hands. He's never really noticed the height difference before. It's barely anything - a couple inches at most - but it feels like he's looming, this close. Which is stupid. He's been this close to Eddie a million times.

Eddie bends his knees to set the beer down. Darts his gaze back up to Buck.

Buck's seen him pull this move before, and has to bite down the urge to cackle because those big brown cow eyes have charmed women up and down California and probably plenty of Texas too but the only time Buck's ever seen them look genuine was when he was looking at Shannon.

He's got a good face. Angular in all the right places, expressive in a way a lot of men try to hide. Good eyelashes, clear skin.

Eddie gets a thumb in one of Buck's belt loops and tugs.

It's a good move. It's a move that has inspired Buck to sink to his knees on more than one occasion with the right men. Man. Just the one man.

He desperately bites back a giggle when the front of their thighs brush and Buck feels nothing more than the heat coming off Eddie.

Eddie's flushed, just a little, like he's well aware how ridiculous this all is, but he's got his I'm So Fucking Serious face on and there is a part of Buck, something fucked up and broken and wrong, that wonders how Tommy would feel to see it. To know that Buck is out there in the world kissing people who aren't Tommy. It's not like he'd ended things because he didn't care for Buck, because he wasn't attracted to him. It's gotta sting, right?

Buck gets a hand on Eddie's waist, just above his hip bone. He's never actually paid attention to how much more slim Eddie is, before, how big Buck's hands feel against him.

The night Tommy had first kissed him, Buck had spent an indeterminate length of time replaying every second of the interaction. The lead up, the frank honesty, the way Buck's entire body had followed the flow of Tommy's. Heart racing, body thrumming: when Tommy had ducked his head, when he'd laughed, when he'd opened up his body language and dropped a tiny morsel of his heart, Buck had felt himself drawn in.

The lips that had caught his had set him alight.

Eddie shifts his weight and blinks up at him and for half a second Buck wants this to be a good kiss - earth shattering, life changing. He wants to feel it. Wants it to be better than every kiss he and Tommy ever shared.

The pointer and middle finger he uses to tilt Eddie's chin up are petty as hell.

#bucktommy #bucktommy fic #tevan fic #this is not a bvddie fic #or a bvddietommy fic #this is my self indulgent 'i get what you see but i don't see it' fic turned up to eleven #tommy is quickly getting his stupid prize for playing stupid games

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obbystars · 8 months ago

Text

It hurts to be something, it’s worse to be nothing with you.

NOTES: dividers by @cafekitsune !!

( Written before 2.2 / Kinda short tbh / Boothill may be OOC / not really angst as it turns into fluff tbh / I blame this / title was chosen because I was listening to the song at the time / GN!Reader )

It took a while for Boothill to even get used to this new life, or new body. Every time he looked at himself, he’s reminded of what was stolen from him. For a time, he hated his body. He sometimes wished he stayed dead. He feels so cold. He didn’t… He never wanted this, though as time passed, he grew accustomed to it. He eventually accepted it, but it never stopped those thoughts from worming their way back into his head.

He doesn’t quite feel… human. Nothing about him truly felt human.

“Boothill? You still there?” The voice was barely above a whisper.

“Hm?”

The gentle beating of a heart entered his ears. He felt warm. He felt a warm hand gently rubbing his face. Another hand was playing with a few strands of his hair before it was now gently brushing it. He opened his eyes, finding himself in an all too familiar room. One he had always looked forward to going back to once he finally had time to spare.

And underneath him? His favorite person, of course. Someone he always looked forward to seeing again, to spending more time with. He looks up at you, and you took note of his expression.

“Oh, sorry. Did I wake you up?”

He shook his head, burying his face into your chest and closing his eyes again, “No, no ya didn’t... Don’t worry ‘bout it,”

His arms were wrapped securely around your waist, trapping you in bed with him. You wiggled around in his grip for a bit to get a bit comfortable, resulting in you having to move him further up. His face was now in the crook of your neck.

Was he crushing you? Surely if he was, you would’ve said something or even tried to nudge him away. Were you cold? He hoped not… You did sometimes push him off of you because he was too cold. Sometimes he wishes he could provide you the warmth you always give him, but it’s not like he can feel it anywhere else other than his face. He hated that.

“You okay?” You questioned, your voice snapping him back to reality.

His answer was only a faint hum this time. He feels your hand brush his hair again, and you swear you can just feel him melt under your touch. It surprised you sometimes. A brash, flamboyant Galaxy Ranger, always full of energy and ready for the next journey across the stars almost turning into mush once your hands meet him. It was something you picked up on very quickly, and it didn’t take as long for you to realize why he reacts this way.

“Does it bother you?”

Your hands stop moving through the white strands, “Does what bother me?”

“This… My body. Does it-”

“No. Not at all,” you suddenly cut in, “You get cold sometimes, but that doesn’t bother me. Why do you ask?”

“…it’s nothin’,”

You turn your head to face him, nuzzling him knowing he can feel you there, “Well… It definitely is something, but… Whenever you’re ready, I’m all ears,”

He can feel you gently press a kiss on his head, and another, and another, and another. The only place where he can feel you, and you were practically showering him with small kisses.

He feels warm, especially when he’s with you. Maybe that’s why he always looks forward to moments like this with you because for once, even if it’s just for a moment, he feels human.

ehhh, this felt better in my head but oh well, I just really wanted to write Boothill

I don’t regularly post fics or hcs like this but maybe I’ll make a silly side blog for it if I do find myself wanting to write so much more for Boothill ( I literally love him so much )

#🌑 // the moon provides #it was gonna be a frank sinatra lyric but it turned into laufey #i love laufey #the frank sinatra one was gonna be and then i go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like i love you #it sounded nice #honkai star rail boothill #hsr boothill #boothill x reader #boothill #honkai star rail #honkai star rail x reader #star rail #hsr x reader

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signanothername · 3 months ago

Note

saw your recent post about Nightmare's room for Dream, and it reminded me of a fic, where due to Dream still physically and mentally being 6 in the stone, Nightmare was preparing for what to do now as the 'older brother'

which made me wonder

I'm betting Ink or someone from the Omega Timeline found Dream first when he was freed from the statue

What would've happened had it been Nightmare? When faced with this small six year old who is nothing like he remembers, would Nightmare's true self and corruption be mentally first fighting on what the hell to do?(The mental image of this is a bit comical)

Aw that’s adorable dhhxhxhxh

So funny enough, I kinda already made 2 comics that explored what Nightmare’s reaction will be to a small 6 y/o Dream before, just under completely different circumstances

But here’s the thing, while i have explained before how Nightmare’s corruption works in my eyes, I don’t think I was really clear in my explanations, so I’m taking your ask as an excuse to explain it better >:) (i’ll get back to your main question I promise hdhdhdh i just wanna help you connect some dots when it comes to Nightmare’s behavior)

So something to keep in mind is how Nightmare’s mind isn’t truly strong enough to fight off his corruption/corrupted thoughts from controlling him and guiding his actions, and while Nightmare is in absolute control of his mind, his corruption has shaped it in its own twisted way, that’s why he’s an absolute fucking bitch, that’s why Nightmare can be extremely cruel to those around him

Think of his corruption as a parasite, it feeds off Nightmare’s own pain and in turn it’s what makes Nightmare feel that pain (and his own emotions) magnified times a thousand

So when say a normal person who isn’t corrupted feels anger for example, they would feel that anger through stages from it being a mere mild frustration that turns to anger and then full blown rage (depending on the situation of course), but even then a normal person would be able to control that frustration so it doesn’t escalate to anger and in turn never turns to rage, or even if this person were to immediately jump to rage, then they’ll be able to calm themselves down by venting that anger a bit

Nightmare on the other hand,

A- doesn’t go through those stages for his emotions, he immediately experiences the most intense form of them

and

B- those feelings never go away, they linger and fester inside him like an infestation as it is what his own corruption feeds on

He feels angry? That anger is a full blown rage inside him, he feels sad? That’s crushing depression for him, he feels hate? That hate is nothing but raw loathing for everyone and everything around him, he feels fear? It’s fucking paralyzing to the point Nightmare seeks power so he won’t have to feel afraid, he feels happy? It’s tainted by his now sadistic behavior as Nightmare finds sick satisfaction and glee in hurting those around him

Of course, how he deals with that changes as he grows and learns and adapts, so such emotional intensity/ instability is extremely apparent on him as a newly corrupted 6 y/o who feels all alone and lost in the world while it shapes his personality and who he becomes as an adult with a lot more control over his actions/reactions (corruption + bad experiences that shapes his mind = Mean Girl Bitchmare)

What I’m trying to say is that his corruption contributes to his emotional instability, and that corruption knows what to feed on exactly, it makes it so Nightmare feels dependent on negativity so he won’t have to experience what it’s like to feel powerless again, it feeds on his fear, pain, anger, hatred and it extends to Nightmare’s sadistic cruel actions that in turn brings more negativity, which in turn makes him stronger and by extension the corruption stronger which contributes to magnifying his emotions even more, which leads to more cruelty and so on, it’s a never ending torturous cycle that no one is aware Nightmare’s in.. including Nightmare himself, Nightmare is as much of a victim to his corruption as those poor souls who have to deal with Nightmare cause of it

The corruption magnifies Nightmare’s emotions too much for his mind to even be able to process them let alone regulate them, (and Nightmare already has problems understanding his own emotions to begin with) and in turn that corruption only got to his mind as well

Imagine it this way, Nightmare’s mind is plagued by his now corrupted thoughts, he can’t truly think clearly through the thick suffocating corruption, trauma, and horrifying experience in his first 500 years of corruption, it’s like looking through a broken mirror, the pieces of the mirror are still there, and they still show his reflection, but they’re too distorted and messy to form a clean and clear reflection, Nightmare looks at himself in that mirror, but all he sees is scattered pieces of who he used to be (he can no loger recognize his reflection) and so as Nightmare keeps trying to put the pieces back together, it’s more and more clear that not only do they now show the reflection of he used to be, but also who’d he become, the shattered mirror pieces reflect both his corrupted and passive self in a distorted messy way (that’s who Nightmare is now)

Ok if that’s the case, how come Nightmare has kind moments that contradicts his own corrupted state of being? Cause despite his corruption, he’s still Nightmare, I can never emphasize that enough

Despite the cycle he’s in, despite the state of those shattered pieces of who he used to be, those pieces that has his passive self STILL EXIST alongside his corrupted pieces, Nightmare’s own mind, thoughts, emotions and identity beyond that corruption still linger inside him, even if if in a sort of a limbo state

Ok with that all in mind, what the fuck does that have to do with a 6 y/o Dream? Everything

Just like I showed in the comic before, Nightmare would be too blinded by his own pain and hatred (that’s magnified by his corruption) to actually slow down and realize that Dream is 1- literally still a 6 y/o in mental and physical capacity, and 2- is just as in much pain and with such as much trauma as he is

Nightmare hates Dream with a passion

But the thing is, as I showed in this comic here, apart of Nightmare still deeply cares about Dream, even when Nightmare’s in absolute denial about it, I dare say Nightmare doesn’t even realize how much that lil part of him cares

And that would reflect on how he deals with Dream, Nightmare would be conflicted alright, but his corruption would win first and foremost and as such, he’ll deal with Dream with cruelty (that he later realizes was a mistake)

I will not lie, I’ve yet to decide on what I love to think happened to Dream as a statue, but allow me to say that it’s one of 4 options, I like to believe it’s either

A- Nightmare kept him in Dreamtale beside the corpse of their mother

B- took Dream with him to his own castle where he kept him in a safe space

C- left him in a remote part of the multiverse in an empty universe devoid of life (which later got populated)

D- a combination between A and B and C in a linear timeline (i think option D is my fave so far, but I haven’t made a final decision yet :’D)

That being said, the moment Dream breaks out his stone prison, I believe Dream would be too confused and scared to understand what’s going on, hell, would probably think the Apple incident happened just yesterday, not that 500 years passed (you can imagine Dream’s shock later) only to start frantically searching for Nightmare and when he does find his twin? Nightmare doesn’t look like Nightmare anymore, where’s his golden crown? Where’s his tunic? Why is he so much taller? So many questions, and Nightmare’s not in the mood to answer

Nightmare would definitely be shocked to see Dream out of his prison, a big part of him hates that Dream escaped it, Dream doesn’t deserve to be free, another part of him (the one that cares) is relieved cause turning him to stone was never the plan, and then the more dangerous corrupted part of him is sadistically gleeful, he could finally get a proper payback and to have the golden apple from such a weak, small and helpless child

Dream would start talking about how he wants Nightmare back and you can imagine how pissed Nightmare would be at Dream’s daring audacity to bring up the apple incident

Their first interaction after Dream is finally freed is not at all pleasant (the fact Dream is still a 6 y/o physically and mentally doesn’t deter Nightmare’s cruelty)

Nightmare eventually realizes he should’ve been a lot more merciful on his twin when he first broke out his prison, yet that sadistic gleeful part of him can never be quelled (unbeknownst to Nightmare that the glee he feels at Dream’s misfortune is just his trauma shaped in a twisted manner due to his corruption, he feels like Dream hadn’t suffered like he had, so Nightmare will make Dream suffer himself)

And the rest is (kinda) history :)

#anothers ask #anothers art #dreamtale #nightmare sans #dream sans

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bridenore · 6 months ago

Text

HD Party Games fic recs

Here are a few drarry fic recs in which party games play an important part. Listed in alphabetical order, as always.

Back to You by @aibidil & daisymondays [8k]

The eighth years make Harry and Malfoy go head to head and back to back in a question-and-answer drinking game. The worst that can happen is they end up drunk, right?

Boom Clap (The Sound of My Heart) by @femmequixotic and @noeeon [39k]

Post-war Hogwarts has been energized by its new teaching fellows program. Where once bitter enmity divided the wizarding community, Malfoy and Potter chummily patrol hallways together whilst Granger and Zabini seek lost parts of the castle at McGonagall’s behest and Chang supervises Quidditch when not lecturing in Charms. It’s a veritable wizarding utopia and life is predictable for the first time in years. Which is, of course, when everything blows apart as the result of a drunken dare and Malfoy’s life is ruined beyond his capacity to repair it. Ever. In a million years.

check this hand 'cause I'm marvelous by @lqtraintracks [7k]

Harry's had a crush on Malfoy for months now. But it will take a bar full of his friends, some Firewhisky, wagers made on his behalf, and Malfoy himself to get him to act on it.

Erase the Shame by FleetofShippyShips [6k]

An Inter-House unity party is the last thing Draco wants to go to. It's not long into a game of Truth or Dare when he is reminded why. But maybe his dare is worth it after all.

Exceeds Eggspectations by Elle Gray (LGray) [61k]

Eighth year. Winter. Christmas has been and gone. Harry’s just been dumped and so has Malfoy. There’s a stupid fake baby assignment to be done, and what’s the harm in doing it together, really, when life is this shit already? This is not slow burn, this is a roman candle pointed at a pile of dry twigs that represent your heart.

Games Night by @agentmoppet [6k]

Harry has no idea why Hermione decided that an inter-house Games Night would be a good idea, but he’s here now, and he intends to beat Malfoy, no matter what game he chooses. But, who would have thought muggle games could be full of so much... tension?

How to Handle an Enemy by who_la_hoop [7k]

Everyone knows that it’s no fun playing truth or dare with a Slytherin. But add a little Veritaserum, a scheming duo of Slytherin girls and surprising things can be revealed. Particularly about the fine line between love and hate… Turnbout Is Fair Play by who_la_hoop [10k] After a – cough – revealing game of truth or dare instigated by his fellow Slytherins, Draco Malfoy finds himself in possession of a). the interesting knowledge that a certain Gryffindor horror may not be as immune to his personal charms as hitherto suspected and b). the password to the Gryffindor Tower. But Draco makes a fundamental error when he decides to make use of these facts.

Love, Harry by Zzzara [26k]

Harry Potter keeps a huge secret: that scary thing he can’t tell anyone about. Until a mysterious penfriend changes his life, because he keeps a secret, too.

Never Have I Ever Thought That You Might Want Me, Too by @drarrymyheart [8k]

“When it’s his turn, Ron gives Harry an ominous look. “Never have I ever wanted to kiss any of the boys in this room.” Harry freezes. Dean, Seamus, Hermione, Hannah, Pansy, and even Blaise are all immediately lifting their drinks. Malfoy moves to pick his up as well and Harry tracks the movement as if watching in slow-motion…The ridge of Malfoy’s bottle of cider pushes against his lower lip as he takes a sip. Harry nearly groans. Steeling himself, Harry drinks.” Harry and the crew take a ski trip. Harry can’t seem to keep his eyes and thoughts off a certain blonde.

One Night at the Leaky by birdsofshore [41k]

Harry should have known better than to accept a drunken dare. Especially when Malfoy was sitting right there, looking like that and wearing those bloody tight trousers.

A Perfectly Valid Dare by kitty_fic [5k]

“It’s a perfectly valid dare,” Pansy says, and somehow she looks like she actually believes what she says. “I am not doing that,” Draco insists. He really has no idea when daring someone to wank in Harry Potter’s bed became a perfectly valid dare?

Right Hand Red by @lqtraintracks [73k]

Harry felt Malfoy’s breath on his lips as they came together over the bottle, hands firmly planted on the floor as though they each needed their familiar soil, refusing to cross into enemy territory. Except that Malfoy no longer felt like his enemy. Malfoy felt inevitable.

Silk Scarves and Enchanted Handcuffs by TommyLane [28k]

It was only supposed to be for seven minutes and then the blindfold would come off and he'd be free from the dark cupboard and his mystery partner - only Harry was no longer sure he wanted it to end.

Starts With a Spin by Maxine [119k]

It started with the spin of a bottle, and now Harry and Draco have gotten themselves so far into their own game there's almost no way out again. Except to keep playing.

Truths, Dares, and Love Affairs by @ronbinary [17k]

NEWTs are approaching, Mind Healing is mandatory, and something is wrong with the castle. And then, there’s Potter.

When I Put My Eyes On You by Zzzara [31k]

When a hero defeats a villain, there’s supposed to be a happily-ever-after… but when did anything ever happen to Harry Potter the way it was supposed to? Having sacrificed himself to the greater good, Harry is left alone in the darkness, blindly groping for the shreds of the life he knew. When the enemies meet, how is the story supposed to go, once they learn there’s more to it than the eye can see? A story of pain, hope and things we discover, once we stop looking for them with our eyes.

where all the veins meet by eight_of_wands [146k]

It’s the summer of 1998. The battle is over, and Voldemort is dead, but Harry still has more questions than answers. Who is he without a piece of Voldemort’s soul in his head? What is he supposed to do now? His friends try to help, but the only thing that can hold his attention—one of the only things that ever has—is Draco Malfoy, out on parole and weirdly hanging around the British Museum. As they keep running into each other, Harry sees that Malfoy is different, and he wonders if he can be someone else, too. Featuring rumpled band shirts, poker games everyone hates, fumbling sex, and a Harry going a little mental over how wands even work.

I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I did!

#my recs #drarry #drarry recs #theme rec

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babybluebex · 6 months ago

Text

venus pt.2 | angus tully x fem!reader

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: you and angus pilfer from the chapel on your first night alone together at barton, and, after angus gets hurts and drags you into his lie, you're reminded of the worst moment of your life. not to worry, though; angus manages to soothe your sorrows, while simultaneously confusing the hell out of you. PART 2 OF ? (14k words) 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: angus tully (the holdovers, 2023) x fem!reader 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒: canon compliance (this is a complete rewrite of the film, just with the added reader insert), lots of swearing, 70s ideals about feminism (which YES is a warning), mentions of grief/loss, drug use and drinking, graphic descriptions of injuries, a tiny little morsel of fake dating yum yum, is anyone else familiar with the spider game grumps bit? spider punch! spider kick! spider...? 𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄: icymi, i'm splitting this fic up into several smaller parts, just bc i'm not sure tumblr will actually let me post one big chunk of text the way i wanted to (it might exceed the character limit eesh) ((also i didn't wanna make yall wait forever for another part of this hehe)) if i missed any warnings/tags, pls dm me and let me know if you think i should add something! other than that, thank u for ur patience and enjoy!

The first evening of just you and Angus alone felt like an extended stint in hell. He was still cold and bitter, hardly speaking at all at dinner, and it made your skin crawl. You hated the silence, the feeling like you had done something wrong, even though you knew that you hadn’t, and, after dinner, in the television room, you sat next to Mary as Angus sat away from everyone else, trying to pretend like he was reading. You knew better than that, though; every time you chanced a look at him, his eyes weren’t following the lines on the page and he looked… Tired. Staring off into space, obviously lost in thought.

He only spoke when Hunham mentioned something about writing a monograph, inquiring why Hunham didn’t just write a full book, and Hunham laughed at him. “I’m not sure I have a whole book in me,” Hunham chuckled, and Mary gave you a forlorn look, reading your mind.

“You can’t even dream a whole dream, can you?” Mary mumbled, and Hunham fixed his jaw firmly but said nothing in return.

The room at night was cold and lonely. You put on a sweater and two pairs of sweatpants before you slid into bed, looking out the window at the inky black night. Every so often, you would hear the wind howl outside and see fat snowflakes pass by the window, and eventually your eyes slipped closed, and you drifted off into an uneasy, blank sleep.

It felt like moments later that you heard a whispering shuffle, and a sudden hiss of your name roused you. You winced at the light that streamed through the ajar door from the hallway, and you squinted to see Angus’s silhouette. “What d’ya want?” you mumbled groggily.

“Come on,” Angus said, jerking his head towards the hallway. His hair was messy, wearing his winter coat, and your sight drifted down to his hands to see him carrying a large, silver flashlight, and—

“Are those— Why do you have Hunham’s keys?” you groaned.

“Just come on!” Angus huffed.

You reached over to the little table beside your bed and snatched up your wristwatch, and you squeezed the button on the side to turn the little light on to see the time. “Fuck, Angus, it’s like four in the morning!” you groaned. “Fuck off!”

“C’mon, you won’t regret it,” Angus told you. “Put on your coat and shoes, let’s go.”

For some reason, you did as he told you, lacing up your sneakers and shrugging on your jacket, and you followed Angus as he led you out of the infirmary, sneaking past Hunham’s open door. You heard his snoring from inside, but you didn’t stop, catching up with Angus’s long-legged stride. He shined the flashlight down the dark hallways of the school, not speaking a word to you as he led you to the kitchen. It was pitch-black in there, even with the flashlight, but Angus moved with certainty, taking you to the big freezer towards the back of the room. You almost wanted to question him, ask exactly what the fuck he thought he was doing, but you stayed quiet as he wrenched the freezer door open.

“Go grab a spoon,” he told you as he winced in the fluorescent lights inside the freezer.

“What for?” you asked.

“You remember that ice cream they gave us at the start of the semester?” Angus asked. You nodded slowly, remembering how dinner on the first day of classes had included individual scoops of vanilla ice cream; it was unusual and special, but you remembered not having eaten it and turning it over to Teddy. You followed Angus’s gaze into the freezer, and you spotted the cardboard tub of vanilla ice cream, sitting and waiting.

You furrowed your eyebrows, but you slinked back into the kitchen and used the light of the freezer to find a single spoon, an oversized serving spoon. “Won’t we get in trouble?” you asked, passing the spoon to Angus, and he pulled the tub of ice cream into his grip and wrestled the lid off. The carton itself was frosted over, freezer-burnt to all hell, but Angus still attacked the mound of ice cream with the spoon. He scooped it into his mouth, and he wrinkled his nose as he shook his head.

“I doubt it,” he replied. “How will they ever know? And by the time they figured out someone’s eaten out of here, they’ll never be able to trace it back to us.”

“Woah, us?” you repeated. “What ‘us’? You’re the one going to town on that right now.”

Angus looked at you with those almond-shaped dark eyes of his, and you scoffed at the little white splotches of ice cream on the corner of his lips. “We can change that,” Angus said, offering you the spoon.

You shook your head. “I don’t eat ice cream,” you told him.

“So, that’s what your fuckin’ problem is,” Angus chuckled. “You’re not judgmental or anything like that; you’re just low on joy.”

“Fuck off,” you said as you rolled your eyes.

“C’mon,” Angus said. “Blood oath or whatever… Except it’s vanilla ice cream.”

Your chest roiled. It felt like a petty thing, not to eat ice cream anymore, but you couldn’t help it. It just felt too bad. The memories were too hard, and even the experience of eating what you had been in that dreadful moment was too much. You remembered it like it was yesterday; your dad had taken you to Dairy Queen, which wasn’t unusual in itself, but the fact that your sisters weren’t with you was odd. After all, you supposed with hindsight, he wasn’t their dad; just yours. He had his typical ice cream sandwich while you had a cone, and he had walked on eggshells as he explained to you what the word “draft” meant. It was hardly two years ago, you were old enough to know what it meant. You chose not to remember the rest of that night, but you stayed steadfast— you hadn’t eaten ice cream since.

“What sorta blood oath?” you asked warily.

Angus shrugged. “If you don’t kill me over the next two weeks, I won’t kill you,” he said.

You quirked your mouth for a moment, trying to convey to him that you were considering it. “I told you, I don’t eat ice cream,” you said as you crossed your arms.

“Is this some kinda girl thing I don’t get?” Angus asked. “Depriving yourself of dessert or whatever?”

“I’m lactose intolerant, you dick,” you fibbed quickly. “Sorry if I don’t want an upset stomach at four in the morning.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, going back for another bite. “It’s really mediocre.” That got a laugh out of you, and Angus smiled.

He gave up on the ice cream soon after that, putting it back and washing off the spoon (“Getting rid of the evidence”, he said), and you dug your hands into the pocket of your coat. “Is that it?” you asked, and Angus laughed.

“No, man,” he said. “I got more.”

“Jesus,” you groaned, but, for some reason, you followed him out to the hall and down the corridors. It was still dark outside, and Angus fumbled with the keys and flashlight as you approached the door to the chapel. “Alright, whatever you’re planning to do in here, I’m nearly certain I don’t wanna be a part of it.”

“You know they’ve got wine in here?” Angus asked, passing off the flashlight to you so he could find the correct key.

“Duh,” you said. “Catholics really buzz off wine in communion.”

“Didn’t your old church use wine?” Angus asked. He tried a key on the door, then frowned when it didn’t fit, and moved onto the next option.

“No,” you said. “We didn’t go to church. Only when we visited my dad’s mom, which wasn’t often, but her church used Fanta Grape.”

“What sorta church did your grandma go to?” Angus scoffed. “Church of the High Fructose Corn Syrup?”

“It was mostly flat by the time it got to us, anyway,” you said. “Dad and I usually sat in the back, so he could slip out and smoke mid-service.”

“Smart man,” Angus said. He tried another key, succeeding this time, and the heavy door swung open. It was dark inside the small room, a sort of storage room for the chapel, and the beam of the flashlight hit various pieces of junk scattered around, boxes or whatnot, before it landed on a small credenza pressed against the wall. There was some sort of ceremonial tapestry on the surface, a large ornate goblet on top with a dusty bottle of wine sitting next to it. “Bingo,” Angus mumbled, and he went to the lightswitch on the wall, flicking it on so he could turn off the flashlight. The overhead light crackled and buzzed as it came on, and Angus ushered you inside before shutting the door again.

He was quick to fill the goblet partways with the wine, and he offered it to you silently. At first you hesitated— did you really feel like drinking wine with Angus?— and you quickly grabbed the goblet from his hand and took a sip. You held your face stony, not offering a reaction, and you passed it back to him. “Well?” he asked, and you shrugged.

“It’s fine,” you replied. “Are there any of those Body of Christ crackers in here?”

Angus gestured towards the heavy furniture against the wall, a sorta “Look for yourself” movement, and he went for the wine as you started through the cabinet. He gave a little shudder at the bitter sourness, then shrugged for himself and took another sip. “Not bad,” he mumbled. You quickly found the tub of little round wafers, and you worked the lid off as you sat down on the floor. You offered him one, which he shook his head at, and he took another sip of wine as he sat down next to you. He leaned up against the side of the credenza while you settled against the wall, and you put a wafer in your mouth, letting it melt a little against your tongue. “What would your body and blood be?” you asked.

“Huh?” Angus grunted.

“Like, Jesus’s body are these rice paper crackers, and his blood is cheap wine,” you explained. “So what would yours be?”

Angus furrowed his eyebrows as he thought. “Well, blood is easy,” he said. “A beer.” You scoffed, and Angus quickly said, “No, no, listen, hear me out. You’ve had a beer before, right?”

“Of course,” you replied.

“Well then, you understand,” Angus sighed. “A nice beer on a hot day… The glass of the bottle is all cold and everything and it’s sweating a little and the weird foam label is tearing from the condensation… Isn’t that, like, a godly experience?”

“Sure,” you giggled. “So, beer for the blood. And the body?”

Angus screwed up his mouth as he considered it, and he finally said, “How about, like, a cheeseburger?”

“Really?” you asked, popping another cracker in your mouth. “Why?”

“It works good with the beer,” Angus said. He reached over to you and stole a cracker, and he chewed on it as he said, “Beer and a burger? What’s better than that? Brings you closer to God and shit like that, right?”

“I mean…” you mumbled. “Yeah, that makes sense. So, taking communion, you do a shot of beer and… What? Take a bite of a burger?”

“Sure,” Angus snickered. “Or a slider, like at a barbeque.”

You laughed, and you reached out to grab at the glass of wine in Angus’s hands. He passed it to you, and you took a sip of it as Angus exchanged for another cracker. “What about you?” he asked. “What’s your body and blood?”

“Hmm,” you murmured. Your body shuddered at the warm bitterness of the wine, and you coughed a little. “A hot coffee.”

“Ew,” Angus sneered. “You drink coffee?”

“Not always,” you said. “Only when I need to warm up. It’s too bitter. But, like, the way your beer is relieving to you, a hot coffee is relieving to me. The same, but different, y’know?”

“Oh, yeah,” Angus said. “Like, coming in from playing in the snow and your fingers are all stiff and cold or whatever… My mom always made us hot chocolate that was pretty much just heavy cream and cocoa powder and some sugar. We’d dip graham crackers in it and sit by the fire and listen to Christmas records…” He trailed off then, and you caught onto his train of thought— used to. Not this year.

“Us?” you asked. “You got a sister or something?”

“No,” Angus said. “My, um… My dad.”

“Oh,” you mumbled. “Right. Sorry”

“What do you mean ‘sorry’?” Angus said.

“Well, a few days ago, when everyone left,” you started in confusion. “You said your dad died.”

The room was quiet for a beat, and Angus shifted as he sat, pulling one of his legs underneath himself. “No,” he said carefully. “No, um… Dad’s still hanging out, but he’s… He’s in the hospital. For, like, the past four years. He’s as good as dead.”

“Shit,” you mumbled. “What happened?”

Angus shrugged, quirking his mouth. “He got sick,” he said simply. “And Mom thought it would be better to have professionals take care of him instead of us…”

“M’sorry,” you whispered. “I didn’t mean to pry or anything.”

“You’re fine,” Angus said. “So, your dad…?”

You nodded solemnly. “His number came up,” you said softly. “He… Had something to prove, I guess, and no reason to try to get out of it. Told me he was gonna go and make me proud of him…” Your throat got thick then, and you trailed off for a moment. “January’s gonna be one year since…”

“Jesus Christ,” Angus said under his breath. “Sorry.”

You quickly wiped at an escaped tear, trying to get rid of it before Angus could see it, and you choked down a cracker. “It’s whatever,” you said. “These things happen, y’know?”

“Yeah, they happen,” Angus said. “But that doesn’t make them any less sad.”

“I don’t care about sad,” you said. “Been too sad lately. All I want is to stop feeling sad.”

Angus tilted his head at you, watching for a moment, and he started to dig into the pocket of his coat. Quietly, he extracted something, a sort-of crushed up cigarette that looked like it had fallen out of the pack and had been jostled in his pocket for months, and he held it out to you. You clocked it immediately, though— the paper too thin, the contents too packed in. You scoffed with a watery voice, twisting at a loose thread on your jacket. “Wow, you really are a Barton boy, huh?” you said. “Getting high and drinking holy wine in the chapel.”

“If it makes you feel better, it’s not mine,” Angus said.

“Whose is it, then?” you asked. “And how did you come to have it?”

“Ah, well,” Angus shrugged. “Kountze the Cunt’s always had it coming for him. I steal his cigarettes, he steals my picture, I steal his last joint out of his bag before he leaves to go ski. What’s that called? Quid pro quo?”

“That’s not really what quid pro quo is,” you laughed. “But I don’t have a lighter. And, furthermore, I don’t smoke weed. Especially not Kountze’s shit.”

“I’ve got the lighter situation covered,” Angus said. He went back into his pocket and extracted a small matchbook, and he added, “And, yeah, you don’t smoke weed, but I’m not even sure this is weed. Knowing Kountze, it’s probably oregano or tea leaves or something. So, smoking this isn’t smoking weed, because there’s a fair chance it’s not weed.”

You pursed your lips as you considered Angus’s offer, and you looked at the ornate goblet in your hands, still a little full. “Fine,” you decided. “But not here. We’re not gonna hotbox the chapel storage room.”

“Aw, we’re not?” Angus whined jokingly. “I really think that’ll give us God points.”

“Yeah, sure,” you chuckled. “Get enough of them, and you can redeem them for a free large soda at the check-out counter.”

You helped each other drain the last of the wine out of the cup, and you pocketed a handful of crackers as you exited the room. Angus did well to lock up behind him, to make sure nothing seemed awry or unusual on the off-chance that Hunham checked the grounds, and Angus led you through the school to the main interior entrance to the chapel. It was as cold in there as it was outside, and still just as dark, and your eyes adjusted to the low light as Angus took a running leap at the raised stage, hopping up there with ease. You followed suit, though not as quickly or gracefully as Angus, and you settled on the piano bench next to him. His long, thin fingers worked to strike one of the matches on the edge of the matchbox, and he brought the flame to the joint nestled between his lips.

You had never really noticed before (because when would you have ever noticed it before?) but Angus had a tiny scar on his upper lip, not really that raised or any different color than the rest of his lip, but it shifted as he puckered his lips around the joint. Come to think of it, Angus’s lips looked… Good? Wrapped around the joint, his lips looked plush and soft, just a hint pinker and darker than the golden-olive tones of his face. And the middle of his top lip poked out a little bit, a bit more pronounced because of his scar. Angus pulled at the joint for a moment before removing it from between his lips, and he offered it to you, and you fixed your expression from focusing on his lips to looking him in the eyes. “Well?” you asked. “Is it marijuana?”

“No,” Angus said. “Well, yes, but it’s Kountze’s ditch weed. So, technically yes, but you’d need to smoke a lot of it to get high.”

“Lemme see,” you said quickly, reaching out for the joint, and he passed it to you. You had only ever smoked once before, back when you went to Central, and you had gotten dizzy and sick, but, as you pulled a toke on this joint, you felt nothing of the sort. Sure, there was that weird herby taste in the back of your throat that made it unmistakingly weed, and you cringed as you blew out the smoke. “Oh, this is shitty,” you chuckled. “Like, super shitty. God, Teddy, where’d you buy this?”

“He only has it to sell to eighth-graders,” Angus shrugged. “Make a quick buck to buy Playboys with.”

“Ew,” you snickered.

“What?” Angus said. “Not a fan of Playboy? Are you more of a Penthouse fan?”

“No,” you said. “I mean, like, no, just… Thinking of Kountze doing that is… Just gross.”

Angus took a drag on the joint, and he said “I guess you’ve kissed a guy before, huh?”

“Excuse me?” you sputtered.

“I mean, there’s not an elegant way to ask if you’ve had sex before,” Angus started quickly. “So, like, gotta build up to it, right?”

You rolled your eyes. “Fucking hell,” you mumbled as Angus quickly muttered out a “Sorry, forget I said anything”, and you slowly added, “No. If that answers your wildly-invasive question.”

“‘No’, you’ve never had sex before?” Angus asked. “Or ‘no’, you’ve never kissed a guy before? Or a girl? Are you gay? I don’t really care if you are, but like—”

“Shut up,” you huffed. “Both.”

“Oh,” Angus said. “Not even at your old school?”

“Not even at my old school,” you echoed mirthlessly. “Guys just never really cared about me. There was always some girl who was prettier or funnier, smarter, richer, whatever. I’m nothin’ special.”

“Hm,” Angus grunted.

“What about you?” you asked, taking the joint and pulling at it.

“Oh, I get it regularly,” Angus said. “Yeah, my girlfriend’s a Playboy model. I sneak her into the dorm once a week and— Be serious, of course not.” You laughed as Angus smiled at his own joke. “I’m the same. When I wasn’t going to all-boys schools, girls just never liked me. I’ve always been a weirdo.”

You furrowed your eyebrows. “I thought you’ve always gone to Barton?” you asked.

“No,” Angus said. “I’ve been kicked out of a ton of schools. S’why I’m still a junior and I’m about to turn 18, I’ve been moved around so much that I ended up falling behind.”

“Why?” you asked.

Angus shrugged. “I’m what they call a ‘troubled youth’,” he said, reciting the title like he didn’t believe it but had been told it too often. “I cheat and steal and get in fights. In fact, Stanley says if I get kicked out of Barton, I’ll be going to Fork Union.”

A shiver ran down your spine. You knew Fork Union; you hadn’t ever been or knew anyone who went there, but its reputation preceded itself. Whoever Stanley was really had it out for Angus. “Fuck,” you hissed. “That’s… Intense.”

“Yeah,” Angus nodded in agreement. “So I gotta be on my best behavior.”

“And smoking weed in the chapel is what you consider good behavior?” you asked.

“Of course not,” Angus scoffed. “But it’s fun, and that’s what I care about.”

You nodded slowly, and Angus pulled at the joint again before pressing down on one of the keys of the piano with his outstretched pinky finger, hearing a single little chime sound. He seemed to drift off then, going off in thought in silence as he absently passed you the joint. After a few moments, his eyes slid off to the side, and you followed his gaze over to see a small table set up just in front of the stage with a single picture frame on it. You knew the picture: Curtis Lamb. It was something that you and Mary could commiserate on, and you held the utmost respect for her and for the late Curtis.

You declined the joint and got up to go sit in front of the picture. You had never chosen to sit in the front row of the chapel, always trying to be as close to the back door as possible, just like with your dad, and you had never seen that picture of Curtis that close up before. He was handsome, his uniform spotless without a wrinkle, the skin on his face smooth and shiny. He was young— 19.

Angus slowly joined you on the pew, pressing his back against the arm and pulling his legs up to his chest, and he let out a gentle sigh as he too examined the picture of Curtis. “That’s why you like Mary so much,” Angus whispered eventually after a long and heavy bout of silence. “‘Cause you both…”

You nodded. “You can say it,” you mumbled. “S’not the Boogeyman or anything. Saying it doesn’t make it more powerful.”

“I know,” Angus murmured. “But thinking about it… Dying, being killed…” He shook his head, trailing off. “I used to think about it a lot. Back when Dad first got sick.”

“Oh, yeah?” you asked gently.

Angus hummed. “Then Dr. Gertler put me on some pills… They help a little, but sometimes I still… I dunno.”

“Gertler?” you repeated. “That’s your psychologist or whatever it’s called?”

“Yeah,” Angus said. “He used to be my dad’s doctor too, but then Dad went to the hospital, and they’re better for him there. Not that The Gert isn’t good, he is, just… Not what Dad needed.”

You fell into silence then. The purples and blues of the morning began to bleed in through the chapel windows as you and Angus sat still, looking at the picture of Curtis but not seeing it. You were each lost in your own heads, and you found yourself sinking down to the thin, threadbare carpet and settling on your ass, and your head leaned back just so to touch Angus’s hip. You didn’t know him too well— you were clueless about what his favorite color was, but you knew the surface level of his worst trauma— and you wanted to comfort him, but something like holding his hand or hugging him seemed like a bridge too far. So, the slightest contact, a sort-of “I’m right here” seemed like the way to go.

At long last, you heard the heavy creak of the chapel doors opening, and Angus turned to look. You couldn’t see from your vantage point, and the person nor Angus said anything, but you heard the groan of the old wooden pew in the very back row as someone sat down, and, based on the silence and the fact that Hunham was a staunchly non-Christian man, you could deduce that it was Curtis’s mother back there, coming in for her morning prayers.

You all sat quietly, ruminating on your own thoughts, and finally you heard Mary’s smooth and smoky voice, not a yell but not a whisper: “You two better get back in your beds before Mr. Hunham decides to wake up.”

You passed through the aisle towards the front doors of the chapel, and you and Mary locked eyes for a brief moment as you walked by. She gave you a small nod, then closed her eyes and went back to her prayers.

Angus wasn’t a chatty guy to begin with, but the silence as you made your way back to the main building and the infirmary felt suffocating. It was cold as hell, somehow feeling even more biting than the 4AM chill you had felt before, and you nudged away a few slushy snowflakes as you walked up the steps to the doors. “Thanks,” you said finally. “That was, umm…”

Angus shrugged, tugging the key ring out of his pocket carefully to keep the keys from jingling together. “Don’t mention it,” he said. “And now we know where they keep the good wine.”

You managed a halfway-decent smile, and you dug into your jacket pocket and handed Angus a few Christ crackers. “Not a cheeseburger,” you said. “But it’s something.”

You were sleepy throughout the entire day. Even though your excursion only lasted a few hours and didn’t give you any less sleep than a typical bout of insomnia did, you kept yawning throughout your library time and jog around the campus. Angus seemed to be in better shape than you were, his usual sullen self but not in any way looking tired, and you envied him.

The day only brightened by a bit at lunch. You sat next to Angus as you quietly ate, chancing glances at him every so often, and he seemed… Normal. Drinking his Coke, looking past Mary and out the window to the snowy expanse outside. Not attempting any conversation or showing that you had shared a moment just a few hours earlier. Of course, you didn’t expect him to really do that, but the point held true that it was infuriating. When your eyes met, he could have at least smiled instead of averting his eyes like you were Medusa or something.

The brightening came in the form of Hunham setting a large ceramic plate in front of him, covered by a napkin. “I have a surprise,” he announced. “These were a gift to me, and I would like to share them with all of you.”

Quickly, Hunham tugged off the napkin, and you saw a plate of cookies. Sugar, with hard, shiny frosting decorating the different shapes with vibrant Christmas colors. “Look at them,” Hunham added. “Look at the… Festive shapes. Snowflakes… Gingerbread men… A tree… Oh, a little mitten!” He picked up the pastel blue mitten and bit off the thumb, and he contemplated the taste for a moment before looking back up at you and Angus. “And they’ve got frosting!”

Angus’s eyes slid to you, unimpressed, then back at Hunham. “May I go to the bathroom, sir?” he said flatly, already getting out of his chair as Hunham excused him, less of a request and more of a “I’m leaving, here’s my sorry excuse as for a reason why”. You watched Angus stalk out of the dining room, his hands bouncing limply at his sides, and Mary sighed, taking a sip of her coffee.

“Well, I’m trying,” Hunham mumbled half-heartedly, and Mary scoffed out a laugh. Obviously, this was a continuation of a conversation that you had not been privy to, and you kept your thoughts to yourself as you stuck a green bean in your mouth.

The three of you sat in silence for a few moments, long enough for the tick of the second hand on your watch to bore under your skin, and Hunham looked back at the door, as if expecting Angus to come back in. “Where the hell is he…?” Hunham mumbled, and he scooted out his chair noisly.

His shoes clicked across the polished hardwood, and you nudged a few French fries around with your fork. “You’re not eating,” Mary said as the door closed behind Hunham, and you tore your eyes up from your plate to look at her. Her cigarette clutched between her manicured nails, her dark mug of coffee in her palm, she looked every bit of a mother as she should, especially with the soft, sad look in her eyes. She wasn’t admonishing you; she was worried.

You shrugged.

“Do you not want this?” Mary asked. “I’m sure I can find something else back there for you.”

“No,” you said quickly. “I-I’m fine, Mary. Just… Tired, I guess.”

“Mm-hm,” Mary hummed. “Which has nothing to do with your little excursion with that boy earlier, right?”

You shook your head, closing your eyes. “That wasn’t…” you started. “We were just…” But you stopped yourself before you could tell her why. Why had Angus dragged you out of bed to galavant around the school? From what you could tell, he didn’t particularly like you. “Huh. Weird.”

Mary ashed her cigarette. “All I’ll say is, I’m not your mom. Whatever you and him get up to isn’t my business and I don’t want it to be, but… Don’t let him do too much to ya.”

“God, Mary, we don’t…” you started softly.

“That’s not what I meant,” Mary said coldly. “I meant, don’t let that boy into your head too much. He’s a boy. And boys are, for the most part, dumb assholes. So, whatever he does, don’t let it affect you too much. After all, he’s just trying to—”

The hallway outside the dining room suddenly echoed with a cacophonous “Son of a bitch! That’s another detention!” and a sudden metallic crashing, and you nearly snapped your neck with the speed at which you turned to the door. Before you could even think not to, you got up out of your seat and made your way out the door, just in time to watch Hunham disappear down the corridor. Angus was already on the far side of the hall, the metal trash can tipped over with the lid rolling beside it, and you spotted Hunham’s pink detention pad sitting next to the payphone. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened, and you trailed after Hunham and Angus at a quick walk, staying a few steps behind Hunham.

“I don’t know what you’re playing at, Mr. Tully, but you are courting disaster!” Hunham called after Angus, and you watched Angus hook a corner, but peek back out at Hunham.

“Without sufficient exercise, the body devours itself,” he said with a cheeky smile, and his gaze landed on you. The smile dropped from his face for just a moment before he disappeared around the corner once more, and Hunham turned to see you. He wasted little time with you, though, going back to his huffing-puffing pursuit of Angus.

“You are careening towards suspension!” Hunham shouted, and you sped up your steps to overtake Hunham, but there was no way you could keep pace with Angus. He was standing in the middle of the doorway, waiting for Hunham to catch up, and you breathed heavily.

“Angus!” you shouted after him, but he picked up the chase once more, allowing you to get within grabbing distance of him before he sped off. “Ang— What the fuck? You— Fork Union!” You couldn’t process your thoughts efficiently, let alone in a good enough way to express what you needed to, and you hoped that the mere mention of the military school would make Angus rethink his decision.

But it didn’t. In fact, he seemed to pick up speed as he ran from you, and you skidded into the trophy room to watch Angus pull off a clumsy cartwheel. The fucker was enjoying himself. Your chest burned with agitation as Angus came to a stop at the open doorway, and an acid bile rose in your throat. The gym.

Before he had fucked off to Haystack, Jason had mentioned how Senator Osgood had paid for a brand-new gym to allow his son Jordan to graduate from Barton, and that apparently Hunham was the one who had failed him and forced the gym to happen. You knew nothing of Jordan Osgood and even less about his right-wing Republican father, but you (along with everyone in Senator Osgood’s district) knew that they had money. And the money seemed to have gone a long way, a basketball court with bleach-white nets hanging from the goals, straight and even hardwood floors with the Barton lion mascot expertly painted on them, tall and high windows that let in a blinding amount of sunlight. But the gym was obviously unfinished, only half of the floor shiny and waxy with lacquer.

You saw what Angus did, and you huffed out a breath. “Angus, please,” you said through labored breaths. “Don’t— You can’t—”

Before you could say more, Hunham came up behind you, in a similar winded state as you. You watched Angus’s back straighten, and Hunham held out a warning finger to him. “Don’t even think about it, Mr. Tully,” he said. “You are a hair’s breadth from suspension. I’ll wash my hands of you. You hear me? Wash my hands!”

Angus took half a step forward, the toe of his shoe touching the gym floor, and Hunham said, “Stop right there. You know the gym is strictly off limits. This is your Rubicon. Do not cross the Rubicon!”

Angus slowly turned to look at you and Hunham, a coy smile on his scarred lips. He gave a light, taunting shrug, then flicked his eyebrows, and said something in Latin. If you had been in a better mindset, you could have translated it in the moment, but you weren’t, and you watched Angus wink at you, then charge across the floor into the gym, towards that fucking gymnastics vault.

You had never watched someone get seriously hurt before. You hated the idea of it— even watching a scary movie was a little too extreme. But time seemed to slow down as you watched Angus bounce off the springboard and go ass-over-head over the vault, landing with a thundering thud and a sickly sound of flesh against the thin mat. Not a snap, but definitely the sound of an injury. The air was still and stagnant for a long second, a second that felt like a lifetime, before a shrill scream cut through the air.

“Oh, fuck! Mr. Hunham!”

The next few minutes felt like a blur. You ran into the gym and helped Angus to his feet, holding down vomit at his limp left arm— not that it would have mattered; Angus had already taken care of that for you. You pawned him off to Hunham, then somehow, you mechanically went back to the infirmary and gathered your coat, Angus’s coat, and Hunham’s coat and keys. You felt numb, out of your body, listening to Hunham and Angus bicker back and forth the whole car ride to the nearest hospital. You were quiet, letting Angus lean into you and sniffle and cry at the pain, and you saw his eyes all red and glassy as he choked back his tears. He was scared. You grabbed his hand— the good one, not the one he had raised and trembling with the effort— and his sniffles quieted down to pathetic whimpers.

“This is the end,” Hunham said, and you snapped back into your head in an instant. You don’t remember having gotten to the hospital, let alone maneuvering Angus inside and to the emergency room, but somehow you were there, Angus wedged between you and your teacher on the bench, his hand still clasped in yours. “They’ll inform the school, who’ll inform your parents, and then it’s curtains. You are gonna get me fired. You!”

Angus sniffled. “I’m the one who might lose an arm, and all you can think about is yourself.”

You sighed. “That’s dramatic, Angus,” you mumbled.

“When I get my arm chopped off, will you help me carry my books to class?” Angus asked.

“I’m not helping you with shit,” you snapped.

Before Angus could snark back at you, a nurse came, dressed in white, and she handed a clipboard and a plastic ballpoint pen to Hunham. Her eyes glazed you, then Angus, and she said, “If you could just fill this out, please. Admissions and insurance.”

Insurance. Fuck. You hadn’t even thought about that. Hunham’s face went sour and pale, and he slowly started to fill out the first box, putting A-N-G in block letters, but Angus spoke in a clipped voice. “Excuse me,” he said, and the nurse turned back to him. “Is there any way we could skip this whole insurance thing?”

The nurse sighed. You recognized that sigh; your mother did the same one with her customers at the diner. The ‘I don’t get paid enough for this’. “It’s just standard procedure,” she said.

“I understand. But look…” Angus started. He chewed his lip at Hunham, then looked at you, then turned back to her with a breath. “We were over at Squantz Pond playing hockey… And I slipped on the ice.”

“Angus,” Hunham said in a hushed tone. “What’re you doing?”

“My mom told him not to take me, but I made him,” Angus continued, and Hunham looked past Angus to you, seeing if you had any idea what stunt Angus was pulling now. You were just as lost as him, though, and you watched Angus with a curious enrapturement as he spun his yarn. “My folks are divorced, and we don’t get to see each other very often. She’ll be mad as a hornet if she finds out.”

“Okay, that’s your business,” the nurse said, sighing again. “But we just have certain protocols.”

“Y-Yeah, protocols,” Hunham protested weakly, but Angus bulldozed right over him with more lies.

“Please,” Angus said, his eyes going all glassy again. “I never get to see my dad, a-and I just wanted him to meet my girlfriend.” A hot shock ran down your skin, blazing in your cheeks, as you understood that you were the supposed girlfriend. God, you were going to strangle Angus Tully when this was all done. “It was my fault, all mine. I don’t want to get him in trouble.” He gave Hunham a pathetic little glance, his bottom lip wobbling, and his voice was all broken as he added, “I don’t want her dragging you to court again.” He sniffled and squeezed your hand, and you pulled his hand into your lap, stroking his soft skin with your thumb. “Can we skip the whole insurance thing? We can pay cash. Right, Dad?”

Angus didn’t drop your hand the entire time. He held onto you as the three of you were led to an exam room, and he shied away from the nurse (she never told you her name) as she tried to take off his sweater. He mumbled something about his shoulder, how he couldn’t move it right, and you carefully nudged in front of where he sat on the exam table, flexing your hand to get him to let go. Quietly, you tugged Angus’s maroon sweater up as far as it would go before he groaned in pain, and you swallowed thickly. “I know, Ang,” you said gently. “It’s alright, baby.”

His eyes got all big at you as you played the role he had assigned to you, and with gentle encouragement from his beloved “girlfriend”, you managed to get the sweater off his right arm and have it slide off his left arm. Next came his robin’s-egg-blue buttoned shirt, and you sighed as you focused on the small plastic buttons, not able to look Angus in the eye. As calm as you seemed on the surface, you were screaming and cursing and spitting like a possessed woman inside. You were so angry at him, for everything— for disobeying Hunham, for getting himself hurt, for roping you into his kinda-sorta insurance fraud. If you could have slapped him across the face, you would have. But you couldn’t, so you settled for a sweet kiss on his cheek and a whispered “There you go” as his shirt came off. That left him in his thin white undershirt, and you balked at his pale skin, but particularly the way his shoulder stuck out grotesquely. You could tell from a glance— dislocated. “Jesus…” you whispered, and the nurse moved you aside.

“Yeah,” she said. “Sometimes the things you see here are a little sickening. But you’ve been more than enough help; thank you, sweetie.”

“Guess you’re not going to nursing school, huh?” Angus chuckled, trying to lighten the heavy mood, and you folded his sweater and shirt over your arms.

“You know how I get with blood, Ang,” you said softly. “Nursing school was never gonna be for me.”

“Oh, yeah,” Angus hummed, as if he knew anything about you and was just being reminded of this fact. “Hey, remember back in August, at the football game against Choate, when Jason got flattened by that linebacker?”

You had never gone to a single Barton football game, but obviously Angus had a point to why he brought this up, so you nodded. “Yeah,” you said carefully. “Umm, i-isn’t that the same day Kountze invited us to that bonfire?”

“Yeah,” Angus nodded along with your addition. “I think you were somewhere else, bathroom or something, but Jason just got pummeled by this dude that was twice his size—”

“I was with his girlfriend when that happened,” you said. “She was hysterical.”

“But he got up and went back to the sideline, and I went down to talk to him,” Angus said, wincing as the nurse worked his undershirt over his head. “And his mouth was all full of blood, but he was laughing ‘cause he said Jenny was gonna be doting all over him for the next week.”

You nodded. “And she did,” you said. “That was… Kinda gross to watch, actually.”

Angus shrugged, but immediately regretted it, hissing in pain at the involuntary action. “That’ll be us,” he said in a tight voice. “I’m all injured and everything, and you get to take care of me.”

“Get to?” you repeated. “You make that sound like a privilege.”

“I took care of you when you got your wisdom teeth taken out last year,” Angus said, and your hand went lightly to your jaw. How in the fuck did he know you didn’t have your wisdom teeth? Had he seen it? When? “Now it’s your turn.”

“I didn’t sign up for that,” you chuckled.

“Sure you did,” Angus said. “That was in the fine print when I asked you to go steady.”

You rolled your eyes. “I think the pain’s making you delirious,” you said.

“We’ll get him some pain medication soon,” the nurse said. “First, we’re gonna have to X-ray your shoulder. Your dad and girlfriend are gonna be right here, we’re just going down the hall.”

The silence in the exam room once Angus left was deafening, and Hunham stood opposite you. Every so often, he looked like he wanted to say something, then would change his mind, and he finally settled on “I can hold Mr. Tully’s things.”

“I-I’ve got it,” you said softly. You held his clothes a little closer to your chest and chewed your lip nervously, and you mumbled, “I guess we’re lucky… It could be worse.”

“We don’t know how bad it is yet,” Hunham said, and you shrugged.

“At least he’s not, like… Dead,” you offered. “His arm’s just a little messed up.”

Hunham sighed but said nothing else, seemingly agreeing with you. You let yourself shift your weight as you waited, and your fingers itched in Angus’s sweater. It was soft, and still a little warm from his body, and you buried your cold hands in it.

Angus returned soon after, and the air was prickly with silence until a doctor walked in. Dressed in a white lab coat, he carried a thin piece of plastic, and he smiled thinly at Hunham before he threw the plastic sheet onto the lightbox on the wall and flipped it on. There, as clear as day, was an X-ray of Angus’s fucked-up shoulder, the ball-and-socket joint clearly not ball-and-socket anymore. “The good news is nothing’s broken,” the doctor told you, and Hunham audibly sighed.

“Thank God,” he said.

“But you did dislocate your shoulder pretty badly,” the doctor added, eyeing Angus down. “That was quite a tumble you took, kid. What happened?”

You saw Angus look at the nurse out of the corner of his eye, and, knowing that he had to stay with the fib he told, you chimed in quickly. “We were playing hockey,” you said. “Or, rather, Angus was playing hockey, and me and… His dad were watching. The ice was slippery, and Ang just… I don’t know, one second he was up, the next he was down.”

“Was trying to impress you,” Angus mumbled, and you lovingly brushed down his messy curls.

“I know,” you said. “It’s okay. Just don’t do it again.”

“I take it you’re the girlfriend, then,” the doctor said.

“It would seem that way,” you said lightheartedly, but you gave a secret, harsh tug to the bottom of Angus’s hair as retribution. He winced and sucked in a tight breath, and the doctor nodded a bit.

“What’s that mean?” Angus asked. “Like, I know what dislocating is, but what does that mean for me?”

“That means your arm has popped out of the socket,” the doctor said. He moved away from the X-ray and went to join the nurse at the side of Angus’s exam bed, and they wordlessly began to move him onto his back. “And we just have to pop it back in.”

“Is it gonna hurt?” Angus asked, and you watched panic fill his eyes as the nurse’s hand brushed the skin of his upper arm, and he winced in pain.

“Not if you relax,” the doctor told him. He turned around to the small counter behind him, where the nurse had laid a bundled-up bedsheet, and he started to shake it out and loop it around Angus’s torso as he added, “The key is to relax. Deep breaths.”

You watched the doctor and the nurse expertly wind the bedsheet around Angus, and you furrowed your eyebrows at it. “What’re you doing?” you asked.

“We are making a sort-of slipknot,” the doctor told you. “We’re going to pop his arm back in, and then he’ll be right as rain, with only a little discomfort afterwards, but the Percodan we’ll give him will take care of all of that.”

Angus said your name, his voice a little shaky, and, even though you had never heard him talk like that before, you knew that he was scared. You stepped forward just a touch, close but not too close, but, as the medical professionals began to gently pull his arm back, readying it, Angus’s free hand shot out like lightning and gripped your fingers. His eyes were squeezed shut, holding his breath, his neck and ears red, and you looked at the doctor for a moment before you said, “Ang, baby, it’ll be okay. Just one second where it hurts really bad, then it’ll be over. Can you do it for one second?”

“...Think I’m gonna puke again…” Angus mumbled.

“That’s okay,” you said soothingly.

“Don’t wanna puke on you,” Angus added, and you frowned.

“I’ll just throw everything in the washer when we get back,” you said with a shrug. The doctor made eye contact with you from behind Angus, and he flicked his eyebrows at you in a way that told you to keep talking. Distract Angus, so he can’t see it coming. “How about, when we get back, we can watch TV?” you started, trying to find anything to blabber about for long enough. “I think a new episode of Bonanza comes on tonight. But, God, I missed the last few weeks, I have no idea what’s going on anymore. Is Hoss still courting that fancy lady? I thought maybe that was done, but I heard something about it on the radio the other day, so who knows—”

At that moment, the doctor and the nurse yanked the bedsheet in opposite directions, and Angus writhed and wormed as he let out a guttural gurgle and hiss, then a pathetic yelping scream as his shoulder went back right with a wet pop that made your neck hair stand on end. You heard Hunham behind you give a scoff of “Jesus!”, and then the ordeal was over.

Angus moved his left arm slowly as the doctor rattled about the medication he was prescribing, something where Angus couldn’t drive while on it or drink alcohol or mix with other medication, and you nodded along as you listened. Angus worked himself into his undershirt and threw his buttoned shirt on, and you took over doing up his buttons. He frowned at the sight of his sweater, though, and you knew that lifting his arm to get it into the sleeve was maybe asking too much, so you held onto it as they fixed a sling around his neck and looped his left arm in it.

“Take care, young man,” the doctor said. “And keep her around. Hard to find someone who cares about people like that nowadays.”

The first significant thing Hunham said since arriving at the hospital was spoken as the three of you approached the pharmacy counter, prescription in hand. “Barton men don’t do that.”

“Do what?” Angus asked.

“Barton men don’t lie,” Hunham clarified.

“Yeah, well,” Angus sighed. “I had momentum.”

Hunham passed the paper prescription across the counter to the pharmacist, and he mumbled, “Hello, we have this, uh…”

The pharmacist looked over his glasses at the paper, then up to Angus, then Hunham, and finally you. “Percodan, huh? Gimme a few minutes.”

He went off in search of the requested medication, and Hunham paused for a moment before adding, “You too, Miss, you’re included in this.”

“What, was I supposed to refute all of that?” you asked. “We were already committing insurance fraud, might as well play along as best we can.”

“And you said that if Woodrup finds out, you’re screwed,” Angus interjected. “So now he won’t find out.”

“What happens if your parents inquire?” Hunham asked, and Angus’s face darkened for a moment as he scoffed flatly.

“Never gonna happen,” he said. “Trust me.”

Hunham looked obviously confused at the certainty of Angus’s words, but nevertheless said “Okay, then. This all remains entre nous. Got it? You know what entre nous means?”

“Oui, monsieur,” Angus said, screwing up his face mockingly. Then, a coy smile crossed his lips, and he said, “Now you owe me.”

“Owe you?” Hunham repeated, glaring at Angus. “Oh no, do not try to leverage me, Mr. Tully.”

“All I’m looking for is a little thank you that I did something nice for you,” Angus said. “That’s all.” After a moment, he flashed Hunham a cheeky smile.

You swallowed thickly. “You look real stupid with your hand dangling out of the sling like that,” you said quickly. You don’t know what possessed you to say that, and Angus scoffed.

“God, you’re mean,” Angus said. “What happened to the little kisses and the ‘baby’s and shit?”

“You think I enjoyed doing that?” you asked. “Fuck, Angus, grow up. I’m gonna go to the bathroom.” You didn’t wait for a reply before you turned heel and made your way to the nearby bathroom, adorned with a silver plaque with a little stick woman on it, leaving the boys in a confused dust behind you.

Lucky for you, it was a single stall situation, a big room able to accommodate a wheelchair or walker, and, once inside, you quickly flipped the lock on the door and sighed. Your heart was racing, your cheeks hot— in honesty, you did enjoy all of that. Something about it felt almost cathartic, pretending to have a healthy and loving relationship with someone, like you were acting out your greatest fantasy. Whether or not Angus was a part of that fantasy or just a placeholder until David Cassidy paid Barton a visit, you weren’t sure, but your heart ached and cried. You didn’t want to pretend— you wanted the real thing. And the fact that you’d never get the real thing, at least not anytime soon, made your eyes burn with tears. Just more evidence to the fact that your life was doomed from the start— nobody wanted you, plain and simple.

You slammed at the tap, turning it on to run cold water over your hands, and you pressed your hands to your burning cheeks, trying to calm down. You took a deep breath, then another, and you shucked off your jacket and tugged Angus’s red sweater over your head. It smelled like him, clean but also a little sharp from the sheer boyishness of it all, and you slid your jacket back on.

By the time you left the bathroom, Angus had worked himself partially into his coat, a small paper baggie in hand that rattled with pills against the glass bottle. “We’re getting dinner,” Hunham told you, his tone indicating to you that he and Angus had had a battle while you were absent and he was the loser. His eyes swept your frame, obviously catching Angus’s sweater on your body, but he said nothing about that.“There’s a small place in town.”

“I-I didn’t bring my pocketbook,” you started to protest, but Angus dug into the pocket of his corduroy pants and produced his own wallet.

“I’ve got it,” he said simply, and gave you the same smile he had given Hunham.

The chosen dinner spot, a small pub called the Winning Ticket, was surprisingly bustling with activity. Music played from the bar portion of the place, competing against Nixon on the television and the dinging of pinball machines, and the air felt warm but not thick, the way some restaurants could feel. You slid into the booth first, then Angus settled himself next to you, nudging your arm with his slinged elbow (he had shifted his arm backwards after your comment about his hand, so now only his fingers spilled over the edge), and Hunham sat across from you.

“I think I’ll start with a beer,” Angus said, and Hunham scoffed.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Mr. Tully,” Hunham told him.

“We’ve had a hard day,” Angus continued. “We deserve to loosen up a little.”

“You’ve had ten milligrams of Percodan,” Hunham said. “You’re plenty loose already.”

He was right. Angus had swallowed down two of the pills in the backseat of Hunham’s Nova on the drive over, and already he was acting differently, just a little lighter and less reserved. It wasn’t a dramatic change, and you might not have noticed it, but Percodan Angus almost reminded you of Holy Wine and Joint Angus.

“They’ve got Miller High Life!” Angus said, looking down at the laminated menu that lay waiting on the table. “‘The Champagne of Beers’!”

“Oh, yeah?” you asked. “You and what identification, Mr. Seventeen Years Old?”

“Hey, if you could have a beer, you would,” Angus told you.

“Oh, I can,” you told him. “If the bartender’s a guy, I just gotta flutter my eyelashes at him, and I’ll get whatever I want.” As soon as the words left your mouth, you became very aware of your teacher’s presence across the table from you, and you cleared your throat. “O-Or so I’ve heard.”

Before anything else could be said, a waitress approached, and your face lit up. Dyed ginger hair, fun earrings, a soft face and kind eyes.

“Miss Crane!” Hunham beat you to the punch, and your Secretarial Studies teacher glowed. “As I live and breathe! What are you doing here?”

“Hi, guys!” Miss Crane laughed. “And our sweet Barton girl, how’re you, darling? Uh, yeah, I always pick up a little extra work over Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

Hunham took a moment to respond, still smiling at Miss Crane, and he stammered out, “Oh, this is Mr. Tully—”

“Oh, sure, I know you,” Miss Crane said, and Angus gave her a smile.

“Angus Tully,” he introduced himself. “We met outside Dr. Woodrup’s office. I was wrongly accused of blowing up a toilet.”

Miss Crane gave you an amused smile, and you shared a laugh. “I didn’t know about the ‘wrongly’ part,” she said.

“And, of course, Miss Y/N,” Hunham added.

“It’s good to see you,” Miss Crane cooed. “I was worried I wasn’t going to see you before you moved back to Boston. Barton sure is gonna miss you.”

“Oh, I’m…” you started. The real story was far too long and messy to get into right at that moment, so you swallowed down the truth in exchange for a grin. “I’m glad to see you too.”

“Yes, well,” Hunham started. “He’ll have a cheeseburger.”

“And a Miller High Life, please,” Angus butted in as Miss Crane began to write the order down, and Hunham grunted.

“No, you will not.”

“Where do you stand on Miller High Life, Miss Crane? Quality-wise, I mean,” Angus asked, and you groaned.

“Christ, give it up,” you said. “He’s on pain meds, Miss Crane, don’t—”

“Well, like they say,” Miss Crane started with a scrunch of her nose. “It’s the champagne of beers.”

“And she’s a professional!” Angus said, looking at Hunham as he gestured to her, and Hunham rolled his eyes, unamused.

“Okay, one cheeseburger,” Miss Crane started, and Angus sighed.

“And a Coke,” he added reluctantly.

“Umm, same for me,” you told her. “But, umm, if you can have them do no pickles, please?”

“Sure, sweetie,” Miss Crane said softly.

“I’ll have a cheeseburger as well,” Hunham told her.

“Three cheeseburgers,” Miss Crane recited. “Hold the pickles on one—”

“And a Jim Beam,” Hunham added, and Angus gaped in awe, the audacity of Hunham to say no to a beer but yes to a drink for himself washing over him. “On the rocks. Please.”

Miss Crane smiled and left the table, and you watched as Hunham watched her leave. You looked over at Angus with a smile of disbelief, and Angus grinned— Did Hunham have game after all?

“Ouch,” Angus laughed, shaking his hand like he had gotten burned. “You two have chemistry.”

“That’s the Percodan talking,” Hunham grumbled.

“No shit, Mr. H,” you giggled. “That was something. Who knew you were such a Casanova?”

“I don’t know, seeing her like this,” Angus started. “I think she’s pretty attractive.”

You snorted so loud with a laugh that you almost missed Hunham saying “Listen, you hormonal vulgarians” as he leaned into the table. “That woman deserves your respect, not your erotic speculations.”

Angus looked at you with a smile, and you tamped down more laughter. “May I at least go to the bathroom?” he asked. “Sir?”

“You mean the payphone?” Hunham asked, and Angus’s face fell stony. You watched the staredown, seeing who would break first, and eventually Hunham bested Angus, because the younger peeled away from the tufted booth seat, and you rolled your eyes.

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” you groaned, and you got up just as Miss Crane was coming back, her tray ladened with your drinks and Mr. Hunham’s Jim Beam. You tailed Angus towards the bathrooms, but paused at the corner of the bar, watching him disappear into the mens’ room. You stayed behind, looking around at the televisions mounted on the walls, and your mouth went sour at footage of the war being shown on the news. You looked away before you could even properly read the headline, and your fingers nervously went to fiddle with your necklace.

The bartender gave you a look from down the way, expecting an order out of you, and you shook your head. He (of course it was a male bartender) tilted his head with a smile, a sorta “You know you wanna” look, and you pushed a small laugh out of your nose. Driving, you mouthed simply, making a little steering-wheel motion with your hands, and he nodded and smiled, then turned back to his marginal work.

The door to the mens’ room swung open, and you watched Angus slink out. He didn’t look at you, or back in the direction of the table— he looked around the bar, and found his focus being pulled in by one of the pinball machines. You watched him approach and dig in his pocket for a moment, and he watched the guy play his game as he set his dime down on the edge of the machine.

You foolishly almost thought that the night would pass without any more incident. You’d eat your dinner, get back to Barton, and go in your room and ignore everyone and everything until the sun crested the snow in a few hours. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve. If you were back home, your mom would let you and Rachel and Anna open one present from underneath the tree, which was always a pair of pajamas that somehow coordinated with everyone else’s but never matched, then you’d fall asleep on the couch while your mom listened to her favorite Nat King Cole Christmas record. Well, that’s what had happened every year up until now. Up until Richard and his daughter (you still didn’t know her name). You wondered what their traditions were. You wondered how they were changing the fabric of your family. You wondered if your mom had bothered to keep up the picture of your dad that hung in the hallway, or if it had come down when Rich moved in.

Yet, incident came. Over the din of the bar, you heard Angus’s whiny little voice say “‘Cause I don’t wanna shoot the other fuckin’ machine.” You looked over at him, and recognized his body language, tall and looming, as the guy playing pinball stepped back with a huff.

“Thanks for fuckin’ up my mojo,” he said to Angus, and you started forward as he called, “Kenny! You’re up!”

“Bullshit,” Angus said as you came up behind him, laying a hand on his shoulder. “I put my dime down, so I’m up next.”

“Angus, let it go,” you told him firmly, but a voice stopped either of you from splitting the scene.

“What was that?”

You turned to look at who spoke, presumably Kenny, he of the next round of pinball, and your heart sank. Young— older than you, but still young as hell— wearing a heavy jacke with jeans and a chain dogtag, and your throat closed up. A hook at the end of his right hand. There was no mistaking where he lost it, and a flash of fear and dread washed over you. It was too much— first the news, now this. You felt sick.

“Ang, c’mon, let’s just go,” you mumbled, but Angus was too busy staring down the hook that swung at Kenny’s side.

“Hey, sport,” Kenny said, his voice low. “My eyes are up here.”

“Look at this kid,” the pinball wizard chortled. “Spoiled little fuckin’ Barton boy. And his bitch too, huh?”

“Yeah, he’s a fancy little prick, isn’t he?” Kenny said, and he looked at you. “Why the long face, honey? Look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I-It’s fine,” Angus stammered, and his arm snaked around to you, pushing you back just a touch behind him. Something in your chest tightened, thinking that Angus thought he needed to protect you, but there was also a warmth— Angus was protecting you.“You can take my dime.”

“Take it?” Kenny repeated. “You want me to take your dime? Like it’s charity?”

“N-No,” Angus breathed. “What I meant is we can play together.” He lightly jostled his left arm in the sling, and he added, “You can be my left arm.”

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” Kenny asked, taking a step forward, nearly nose to nose with Angus, and you felt Angus freeze up.

“Hey,” the pinball wizard started. “You. Prom Queen over here. You gonna let your little boyfriend talk like that?”

Your eyes darted from him to Kenny, then to Angus, then back to Pinball Wizard. You stammered for a moment, trying to find anything to say, and the only thing that came out of your mouth was “I-I—”

“No wonder he’s got a big mouth,” Kenny chuckled. “She doesn’t have one at all.”

You felt dizzy, and you tugged on Angus’s sleeve to leave as you examined Kenny for anything you recognized— a patch on his jacket, a logo on his t-shirt, anything would suffice to ground you. Finally, you saw it: a little appliqué of a purple ribbon with a heart at the end, looking just like the real thing that, last you knew of it, was stashed in the back of your mom’s closet. “My dad’s got one of those…” you mumbled. You couldn’t even think about self-preservation anymore; you were fixated on it now, saying everything you could about it to anchor you in your head and not the stratosphere. “...Got it during Green River…”

“Oh, yeah?” Kenny asked. “And why hasn’t he knocked some fuckin’ respect into your boy here?”

Your mouth felt stuffed with cotton. “He-He didn’t…” you started, and stared at Angus. “He’s an asshole… Socially inept or whatever. Didn’t mean anything by it.”

You couldn’t add in anything more before Angus was peeling away from you, hot-stepping it back to the table, and Pinball Wizard and Kenny made chase as you took up the rear. “Angus!” you shouted, and Hunham and Miss Crane both looked in your direction as Angus walked up to the table.

“Mr. Hunham, can we go, please?” Angus asked urgently.

“Why?” Hunham asked, looking back at the two men and you.

“I’ve just been called a fancy little prick,” Angus said as Kenny called after him. “We should go,” Angus added, and you passed Pinball Wizard and Kenny to get to the booth, once again taking up your assigned place behind Angus.

“Why’d you run off?” Kenny asked with a fake smile. “We were just talking to you. Don’t they teach you manners at that school?” Kenny closed in on Angus, and he brought his hook up to his chest, poking Angus in the sternum with it, and Miss Crane jumped as Hunham jostled in his seat.

“No, no, no, Kenneth!” Miss Crane pleaded. “Leave him alone, they just came in for some food!”

Kenny seethed at Angus, and you squeezed your eyes shut. You could tell that mayhem was a moment away, but then Hunham began to speak.

“Kenneth! Is that right?” he started, holding up his hands placatingly. “I don’t doubt that he did something to offend you, it’s his specialty. Perhaps I could purchase you gentleman something to imbibe, and we could let whatever this unfortunate incident is go the way of the dodo.”

“The what?” Pinball Wizard sneered.

“The dodo, it’s an extinct bird,” Angus grumbled, and Kenny put force behind his hook again, causing Miss Crane to butt in once more.

“What he’s saying is he wants to buy you guys a beer!” She exclaimed, hoping that her explanation would ease the situation as quickly as possible.

Kenny stared Angus down, then looked at you, cowering and scared. Maybe he took pity on you, the poor little Purple Heart’s daughter, or maybe he realized that what you had said about Angus’s social ineptitude was right, because he finally stepped back, lowering his hook. “Yeah, okay,” he nodded.

“Same here,” Pinball Wizard said. “I’ll have a Miller.”

It’s almost like he couldn’t help himself: “Champagne of beers!” Angus chuckled, and your arm shot out, smacking him across the stomach. You glared at him, and the smile fell off of his face.

You couldn’t even enjoy your food. Not that you were worried about Kenny or Pinball Wizard coming back for round two, but you couldn’t keep your mind off of your dad. Seeing everything had affected you for some reason, and you kept your mouth shut the whole time as you ruminated on it; the images of the newscast swirled in your head, and your least favorite but most common nightmare stayed in your mind— the Army claimed they couldn’t locate enough of your father’s remains to even send back a body, and you could only see remnants of your father in some field. Mostly, you saw his tattoo, big on his chest, the same one he had had since you were a baby, needled in as an homage to you— your father always called you his miracle, and he had a starburst right over his heart. You could only envision the starburst, charred and detached, laying in the grass somewhere in Vietnam, never to return home to you.

You saw Hunham looking at you every so often, maybe checking if you were alright, but nobody said anything until you were gone and out the door. The energy had turned prickly and stiff, and even Angus’s voice cutting through was enough to make you jump.

“Why’d you buy those guys beer?” Angus asked. “They’re assholes.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” Hunham grumbled, digging in his pocket for his car keys. “Here— catch.” He tossed his keys over to Angus, and his right hand raised and caught them deftly, almost reflexively. “How many boys do you know who have had their hands blown off?” He paused to give Angus a moment to respond, despite it being obvious that there was no answer, and he continued, “No, Barton boys don’t go to Vietnam! They go to Yale or Dartmouth or Cornell, whether they deserve to or not.”

“Except for Curtis Lamb,” Angus mumbled.

“Except for Curtis Lamb!” Hunham exclaimed. It wasn’t hard to figure out the implication, and Angus swallowed thickly at you.

“Were you ever in the military?” He asked Hunham, obviously looking to somehow change the subject.

“I tried to enlist in ‘41, but was rejected,” Hunham began, pointing at his eye, then tugging at his door handle, consequently mumbling something about “I have to get in over there”.

“They made me an air raid warden,” Hunham continued, breezing by you and Angus to slide into the passenger side door of the Nova, and both you and Angus wrinkled your noses at the sour smell that followed Hunham. “Gave me a whistle and everything… Helmet, arm band…” Hunham slid into the car, scooting over to his seat, and Angus sorta shook his head.

“Before we get going, can I be candid with you?” Angus asked, leaning down to peer at Hunham through the open car door. You settled into the backseat, slightly thankful that you wouldn’t have to share space with Angus again (not that you minded on the ride up here), and Hunham grunted out an affirmative. “You smell.”

“Angus,” you frowned admonishingly. You were struck by the sheer and blatant rudeness, and you saw Hunham’s face fall sadly in the rearview mirror.

“Like fish,” Angus continued, getting in his own seat and shutting the car door. He wasn’t wrong, of course, but you never would have outright said anything like that. “And it’s really noticeable towards the end of the day; I can even smell it on your coat… Mind if I crack the window?”

Hunham sighed as Angus worked to turn the window crank, and Hunham said, “Trimethylaminuria.”

“Huh?” Angus grunted.

“Trimethylaminuria,” Hunham repeated himself. “Means my body can’t break down trimethylamine. That’s the smell…” He paused for a moment to uncomfortably wipe his nose, and he added, “And, uh, yes, more towards the end of the day.”

“Wow…” Angus said. “Your whole life?” Hunham nodded, and Angus perked up for just a moment. “No wonder you’re afraid of women!”

“I am not…!” Hunham began, shaking his head. “Afraid of women!”

“Sorry,” Angus mumbled as Hunham continued with an under-the-breath, “Jesus H. Christ.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Angus added. “Dr. Gertler says I don’t always give consideration to my audience.”

“Ah,” Hunham began. “And who is Dr. Gertler?”

Angus looked back at you silently for just a moment, the tiniest acknowledgement of the fact that you were privy to this information, and he snapped at Hunham, “My shrink.”

“Has Dr. Gertler ever tried a good, swift kick in the ass?” Hunham asked, and you couldn’t help the scoffing giggle that left your mouth.

“Okay, all right,” Angus chuckled mirthlessly. “Now your turn. Go ahead, tell me something about me. Something negative.”

“Something negative about you?” Hunham asked in fake-shock.

“Sure,” Angus shrugged. “Just one thing.”

Hunham rolled his eyes. “Just one?” He paused for a moment, thinking about his answer, and he turned to look at you. “Anything to add, Miss?”

You kept your mouth shut and shook your head quickly. “Nothing nice, anyway,” you said softly.

“I concur,” Hunham said, and he cranked up the Nova.

The rest of the ride back to Barton was quiet, listening to the wind whistling through the open window as nothing was said, and words were only finally exchanged as you and Angus parted at the doorway to your separate infirmary rooms. Hunham’s room was off down an adjacent hallway, and you had already heard the door shut by the time you spoke.

“Oh,” you started, tugging at the bottom of the maroon sweater. “Here, sorry, I forgot—”

“S’fine,” Angus said. “Don’t worry about it.”

You nodded slowly. “I’ll run it through the wash and get it back to you,” you said, and Angus shook his head.

“Keep it,” he said. “Looks better on you than it does on me.”

“O-Oh,” you stuttered. “I mean, i-it looks pretty, um, expensive, are you sure you don’t—”

“I’m sure,” Angus nodded. He looked down at his feet for a moment, and he softly added, “Thanks for taking care of me today.”

You shrugged. “No big,” you said.

“Big to me,” Angus mumbled. “I’ve never had a girl— or anyone, really— um… Make me feel like that.”

“Like what?” you asked.

“Cared for,” Angus said. “Cared about. I was, umm, so nervous in there that I thought I was gonna shit and die. But you… You were so gentle, and so nice, it really helped me.”

“S’what I’m here for,” you said. “See you tomorrow, Ang.”

“Wait!” Angus said quickly as you put your hand on the doorknob to your room. “Can I, umm… Can I give you a hug?”

You wrinkled your eyebrows in confusion but nodded all the same, and you stepped closer to him. His good arm wrapped around your middle, a little slow and stiff, like he had never even touched a girl before, let alone hugged one, and your arms went around his neck, holding him tight. He took a deep breath and settled his cheek against your temple, letting himself enjoy it, and your heartbeat picked up.

You weren’t sure why, but you had a sneaky feeling that Angus had motives behind the embrace. Was he going to try to kiss you? A kiss was just a kiss, it didn’t mean that much in the grand scheme of things, but it would be your first kiss ever. Did you want Angus to be that for you? For the rest of your life, your first kiss would be with Angus Tully, some kid you went to boarding school with who was an asshole ninety-eight percent of the time and a genuine sweetheart the other two percent. Was two percent nice and caring enough, though?

“Ang,” you whispered, stepping just a touch away from him to see his face. The lights in the hallway were half-turned off, only every other fluorescent bulb lit, and it left you and Angus in a slightly darker alcove of the hallway, and the dim light made shadows play on Angus’s thin face. His eyes looked half-lidded, like he was sleepy, but you could feel his heartbeat and heavy pulse— he was wide awake. “How’d you get that scar?” you asked softly, letting your fingers go to his lips and lightly trace his scarred and puffy upper lip.

“Got beat up a few years ago,” Angus told you. “Busted my lip.”

“Ang,” you sighed in a hushed tone. “You’ve gotta stop giving people reasons to beat your ass.”

Angus chuckled. “I can’t really help it…” he said, and trailed off for a moment, then added, “B-Babe.”

“Are you nervous?” you whispered. “There’s no reason to be.”

“V’just…” Angus started. “I’ve never…”

“Me neither,” you reminded him. “But I want it to be you.”

Silently, Angus shifted forwards, pressing his body fully against yours again, his arm going tight around your waist, and he helped you rise up on your toes to fully reach him. Then, before you could even think about what you were doing, you leaned into him and, your eyes slipping closed, touched your lips to his. His lips were warm and soft, and his fingers itched in the back of your shirt. You really had no idea what you were doing, but it felt right, and you tilted your head a bit as Angus put force behind his kiss and held you even tighter.

You felt lightheaded as you slowly pulled out of the kiss, touching your forehead against Angus’s and sighing. A smile slowly slipped across your lips, and a laugh escaped while your fingers tangled in the curls at the very bottom of his neck. “Um, thanks,” you whispered.

“I’ve been wanting to do that all day… Since this morning, y’know…” Angus admitted. “I just, um, didn’t wanna do it in front of Hunham.”

“I understand,” you told him. “Thanks, Ang.”

“Are you okay, by the way?” Angus asked. “You got really… I don’t know. Upset. Back with those guys.”

“Oh,” you mumbled. “Y-Yeah, just, um… That guy was in Nam, and after the stress of the rest of the day, kinda just seeing that and remembering was…”

“Fuck,” Angus sighed. “I’m really sorry. I should’ve stood up for you.”

You shook your head. “That’s not your job,” you told him.

“Well, yeah, it’s not,” Angus started. “But that doesn’t mean that I can’t stop it.”

You bit your bottom lip as you thought, and you mumbled, “Sure. Alright. Umm, I’ll see you in the morning, Ang.”

“One more for the road?” Angus asked, and you rolled your eyes at his little cocky smile.

“I’m not even ten feet away from you for the rest of the night,” you chuckled. “Some road there.”

“But there’s a wall,” Angus whined softly. “I’m also trying to act cool here, and ask for another kiss without asking—”

You leaned up and gave him one more kiss, quicker and less emotional than the first time, but Angus still locked eyes with you and badly contained a smile when you parted, just like before. “I’m trying to not, umm…” he started, looking back down at your feet. “Not get ahead of myself here, but um… No, we can-we can talk about that tomorrow.”

“Talk about what?” you asked, but Angus shook his head.

“Nothing,” he said quickly. “We’ll... Tomorrow. Get some sleep, okay?”

Even though you were confused by his trepidation, you agreed anyway. “You too,” you told him. “If your shoulder starts to hurt, just… Let me know. I’ll see if I can help.”

“Sure,” Angus nodded. He hesitated to step away into his own room for a moment, and he leaned in and kissed your forehead before scurrying away, like he was afraid of the consequences.

You went into your own room and closed the door, taking a deep breath. You had kissed Angus. You weren’t sure if you were more excited about it being Angus or just the kiss itself happening, but you felt giddy and you bit your cheek as you smiled. Carefully, you went about undressing from the day, slipping into pajama pants and doubling up on socks, and your fingers brushed down the front of the sweater. It was soft, wool, and the stitching on the cuffs and around the bottom and neck proved it to be more expensive than anything you could ever dream of.

Angus told you to keep it. Were you like those girls who wore their boyfriend’s jackets now? The girls at Central wore their boyfriends’ varsity jackets when it got cold, the ones with their names across the backs, showing everyone who they were dating. You had never really cared too much about the varsity jackets, but, then again, there had never really been anyone that you would have considered even trying to wear their jacket. First, you’d have to figure out if Angus was even your boyfriend before you started to get all giddy about having one.

Was that what he wanted to ask, but held off for tomorrow? Did he want to ask you to be his girlfriend? It was exciting, but you understood why he had chickened out of asking you then and there. You would be his first girlfriend, and that was intimidating. Maybe he didn’t want to be your boyfriend, and just wanted to be able to hug you and kiss you whenever he wanted.

Your mind began to race. Angus wanted to kiss you, but what else did he want? Did he want to have sex? Did he even care about that? Had he even thought that far out yet? Certainly, he had. He was a boy after all— boys’ brains are made up of 50% sex and 50% violence. Maybe you were just overthinking it. It was entirely possible that Angus didn’t even want to be your boyfriend, and just got caught up in the moment and kissed you.

Your head hurt from being too analytical, and you slipped into bed and pulled the blankets to your chest. Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, you and Angus could talk about everything you wanted. Maybe, you thought with a sleepy smile. Your Christmas present would be a boyfriend.

#angus tully #angus tully x reader #dominic sessa #dominic sessa x reader #the holdovers

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celestie0 · 8 months ago

Note

kickoff! reader who is stalking gojos page and accidentally likes one of his oldest posts. she panics and turns off her phone, without unliking it.

kickoff!gojo who is re reading your guys instagram messages and you text him while he’s doing this. he scrambles to come up with a reason as to why he read your message instantly

kickoff! reader who tries to watch soccer games to understand what’s happening. she probably yells offsides at everything. gojo can only smile at her and offer to help her out

kickoff! gojo who takes a picture of your silhouette in front of those statues you meet up at during the sunset (without your knowledge) and makes it his lock screen. you ask him about it but he just pretends that it’s a soccer goal and the sunset behind it.

kickoff! reader who finds herself thinking of satoru way too much. will see basically anything and be reminded of him. “oh a pair of sunglasses? gojo would like those” “hm, they started selling a strawberry tea? gojo would drink that”

kickoff! gojo who loves the sims. unironically makes a sim version of him and reader. tbh he probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, he just starts thinking about reader and starts adding her features. thinks it’s funny to make them have “fun time”

kickoff! reader who is looking through the game pictures she takes and finds herself staring at gojo. doesn’t even realize she’s doing it until mina walks in on her. think peter parker and gwen stacy

kickoff!gojo who has a full “project m’bappe” for your future kids. starts the kids off with a soccer plush and it leads to them being absolute powerhouses in toddler leagues

kickoff! reader who used to play soccer as a kid. threw a tantrum in the middle of a game because she decided she hated it. only started to like it again because of gojo

kickoff! gojo who keeps a printed out picture of the two of you in his wallet. Suguru took it at the frat party when gojo kissed you. around you is blurry and flashing lights, in the middle of the chaos is gojos lips pressed against yours. His hand is holding your waist, you’re slightly on your tippy toes to reach him. He sometimes zones off when paying because the picture catches his eye

BABE……..WHEN I TELL YOU IM BLUSHING N SQUEALING N KICKING MY FEET SM RN…..UHHH I THINK U MIGHT HAVE TO JUST TAKE OVER WRITING THE SERIES FOR ME??? bc i went thru sm emotions reading these pls 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

ok first of all tysm for thinking of these and sending them to me???? i genuinely cannot believe youve made headcanons for my fic that’s so surreal n i will forever remember this 😭😭

BUT ALSO THESE ARE SO ACCURATE PLS and all the little details omg it means sm that youve noticed all these lil thinfs throughout the fic n their relationship n i cld cry rn 😭😭

pls excuse me for addressing each n every one of these bc im so excited by them i fear this ask will be long so i’m adding a keep reading loool

sobsosbsosbsbsossbb the headcanons ab their digital fuckups LMAOO omg reader is 100% the type to be stalking him at 3am even tho she swears shes not even THAT down bad for him n then she loses all feeling in her face when she realizes she liked a post from when he was like in high school or sumn🧍🏻‍♀️there’s no coming back from that LMFAOO but i feel like gojo wldnt even notice it bc he probs gets a lot of notifs so she’s safe this time around 😭😭 BUT YOURE ALSO SO RIGHT AB HIM REREADING MESSAGES N THEN GETTING SPOOKED WHEN HE REALIZES SHE SAW THAT HE READ IT RIGHT AWAY LMAO i feel like he’d pull something like “uhhhh i was just about to trxt you, that’s why” and she’s like “🤨 this is the fifth time that’s allegedly happened”

aww reader trying to understand soccer for him 😭 thats so cute bahah also i made another headcanon recently from another anon who mentioned gojo streaming the world cup hehe it’d be so cute if reader shows up to the frat game nights in the jersey of the team that gojo’s rooting for bc she’s just trying to be a supportive girlfriend n she gets excited watching the game but she’s actually got no clue what tf is going on 💀 but gojo adores her for it so thats ok

the lockscreeennn that’s so cute 😭 also i love the idea of reader being his muse too :”) like he doesn’t know much about photography but bc of her he’s like kinda curious about it now so he’s always taking pictures of her w his phone while she’s not looking :”) i imagine his camera roll is just a bunch of candids of her while she’s dissociating off into the distance or something 🤣 n he’s like “wow so pretty im so good at this”

OK BUT READER IS ME THINKING AB GOJO EVERYWHERE I GO LMAOO no but srs that one made heart skip a beat bc how sweeettt is that 😭 i think that is a true mark of love where u think of someone everywhere you go :”) for gojo, i imagine that anytime he sees anything scenic or colorful or something like blooms of flowers or a nice sky he thinks of how she wld probably really love to take pics of it n he gets sad she’s not there to do so

okk im down for sims boyfriend gojo 🤣 and wdym by fun time omg 😭 pls dont tell me it’s possible to make people BONK on sims. ive seen a lot of tiktoks recently about how they added gojo to stardew valley n ppl have been marrying him lmfaoo i wonder if gojo wld try to marry her in sims 💀 cant tell if thats cute or creepy PLS tbh i’d probs be like “aww babe”🧍🏻‍♀️

and YES AB THE ONE WHERE SHE STARES AT GOJO’s PICS THATS PRACTICALLY CANON, also, there was supposed to be a scene exactly like that in ch8 where mina walks in on her staring at the pics she was editing for her professor 😭😭 so ur 100% right on. i just bet he looks so handsome in those photos cuz he’s concentrated n sweaty n probs looks really determined n in his element tbf i’d be starinf at those pics too LOL

YOURE SO RIGHT HAHA he’d make sure their kids are soccer prodigies 😭😭 startin them YOUNG. reader’s like “dont u think they’ve practiced enough today…they’re supposed to go to that birthday party at noon” and he’s like “THE GRIND NEVER STOPS😤🔥” 💀💀 unironically the type of dad that wakes his kids up at 5am on summer break to take em to soccer bootcamp or sumn 😭😭 ok but he knows theyre just kids n lets them have fun haha obviously but he just has high expectations for them lmaoo

im so tender to the idea of reader having played soccer in her youuuuthh how cute wld it be if she unknowingly also had a crush on gojo back when they were kids (maybe there was some sort of co-ed game they played ONCE when their elementary schools organized it n she was like omg who’s that boy over theree n it’s just 8 y/o gojo who’s got all the 2nd grade girlies swooning even back then 🤣) but in adulthood she probably doesnt rememebr that at all haha OMGGGG I NEED TO MAKE THIS CANON BC HOW ADORABLE WOULD IT BE IF GOJO’s MOM HAD TAKEN A PICTURE OF THE GAME BACK THEN N U CAN SEE LITTLE GOJO N LITTLE READER ARE IN THE SAME PHOTO im gonna sob???? im so inspired by these rn??? anon??? can i fr hug u through the screen???

omggg ok im deceased im dead ab the PICTURE IN HIS WALLET. THAT IS SO HUSBAND CODED and adorabke asf i just might melt rn 😭 him getting distarcted while paying kakskddjhd also i can imagine him having a picture in his wallet of her in her cap n gown on n stoles n everything during graduation or something bc it reminds him of their college days :”) n when he’s playing away games during national league he’s always looking at it when he’s away from home bc he misses her

also i feel like suguru might’ve taken the photo as a polaroid 🤔 now i headcanon that kickoff reader also has a polaroid camera bc why wouldnt she lmfaoo 🤣 but just imagine the polaroid relationship wall LOL its so corny but i wld want them to make one together 😩💕

screaming. crying. feeling so inspired rn. cheesing. cheeks r hurting. love u sm anon srs if you have more i will gobble them up like a turkey. LOVE YOU <333

#I MEAN JUST HOW FUCKINF SWEET ARE MY READERS I CANT RN #😭😭😭#kickoff #asks #anon

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thelightsandtheroses · 5 months ago

Text

6. baby, if your love is in trouble

Frankie Morales x female reader | let's get lost chapter 6

Summary: You and Frankie aren’t together anymore but you’re in a good place. However, spending a week together for your mutual friends’ wedding on a luxury resort might challenge that slightly and realising you’re still in love with your ex is a sure-fire recipe for disaster … Tropes: it was always you, getting back with the ex, beach!Frankie (you know *that* photoshoot) miscommunication, only one bed, good parent Frankie Chapter Warnings: 18+ MDNI, mentions of alcohol, some difficult conversations and some kissing(you’ll have to keep reading to know which order that is), allusions to TF canon events, brief discussions or references to addiction recovery, lolabee typical flangst. Word Count: 4.4k Notes: The next chapter is the last full one (there may be an epilogue) so we are very close to the end now. Thank you so much for all your patience and love with this fic, I cannot tell you how much it means to me. Also this chapter is dedicated to @undercoverpena because her art for this fic (and our chat about it afterwards) really reminded me why I love this fic and helped get me out of a little block I had, even if she made me cry (in a good way, honest) - ily jo!

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Time is strange on vacation. The time leading up to it drags, every second feels like an hour, every hour feels like a day. It’s exhausting and draining which only makes you need the break more. Time seems to pass normally - well, almost normally - at the start of a vacation. It's usually somewhere around day two, when the post travel fatigue finally abates, that time changes again. It goes too fast, so just as you finally start to feel relaxed, it’s almost over.

You know the end is coming. Soon Benny and Lia’s wedding will be over, soon you’ll be on a flight home and then you and Frankie will go your separate ways. Back to an empty house that’s haunted by what could have been, to a job that you don’t know if you love, to a life you feel like is existence when it could be so much more.

You don’t want to leave here, not when you and Frankie feel so unresolved.

There are memories of the day before in every inch of this hotel room. The bed that Frankie took you apart so expertly on, the bathroom counter he kissed you against in a way that makes kissing feel like a small world. You remember it was good before, but not like that.

Love.

You still love Frankie. It’s not an easy epiphany; it’s messy and painful and raw. That’s love though. It’s a dangerous yet fragile emotion.

You love Frankie. Did you ever truly stop? When you hated him, when you were furious and your relationship was nothing but scorched earth, it was always more from heartbreak than hatred.

There’s part of you that wants to scream triumphantly, to run into his arms and declare it to the world. It wants to live in this vacation bubble fantasy forever.

You’re a parent though and Clara changes everything. You both need her to have stability in her world, to be able to have her parents as a strong foundation. You’re sensible and scarred and oh so reliable now.

Love isn’t pragmatic, it’s wild.

This morning you questioned if it was enough, if the love could be enough between the two of you to repair those wounds and fill between the holes of your breakup, of Will’s wedding, of the lost trust and bitterness on every side.

“You look serious,” Lia says, a nervous expression covering her face as she sips her drink.

You blink, shaking your head like it can shake away the gremlins in your mind. “Sorry, I was a million miles away.”

The sun warms your skin as you look out at the bright blue around you. Sparking, azure contrasts with the bright white of the catamaran. There’s music playing softly by the bar, light chatter around you and a sense of peacefulness.

“How are you feeling? Are you ready for tomorrow?” you ask, focusing on Lia - definitely not Frankie.

No, you’re definitely not paying attention to Frankie who is just in your eyeline and is wearing a suitably loud shirt that’s completely unbuttoned, allowing a peek of his tanned skin, the faint hints of hair below his navel racing down to -

You jolt at the sudden reminder of what you were doing just a couple of hours ago. The feeling of his skin against yours, the weight of his body that was so welcome. He looks relaxed though, a bottle of soda in his hand, head tilted back as he laughs.

Is it just you who’s panicking? No, no, you don’t think it is. You notice how he looks away just for a moment, the way his free hand is tapping against his leg nervously, the feeling that if you look away maybe he’ll steal a glance at you too.

You hear your name and look back at Lia, even more guilt rising. This, this is exactly what you wanted to avoid.

“Did you and Frankie have an argument?”

“What?”

“Well, you seem out of it and I caught you looking at him just now and … I thought things were better?” You hear the unspoken words ‘please don’t ruin this, please don’t ruin my wedding too’.

“We’re fine,” you say, “Good. It’s all good.”

“I know it must be awkward sharing with him, but you’ve nearly made it through the whole break!”

“Honestly, Lia, we’re fine. Good. Yeah, it’s not a thing.”

“I just - I’m very intuitive, I can feel tension when you two look at each other.” It’s the other type of tension, you think. The type of tension when just a few hours ago he was inside of you, where he was tracing kisses along your jawline. It’s the type of tension that only happens when after that you panic and make everything worse.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Frankie and I are -”

“Fine?” Lia squeezes your arm. “Just, just don’t let it fester.”

You want to tell her everything, you desperately crave her advice. You want to sip a cocktail and giggle with her about what happened, have her console your panic. This vacation isn’t about you though. It’s for her, for her and Benny. So your anxieties and secrets will have to fester, it’s the only way.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Nothing … relax Santi.”

“I’m not fucking relaxed when …” Santi says something you can’t hear. You shift nervously, aware that you’ve walked into something you shouldn’t be hearing. You just needed a break for a moment and you had no idea they were here though. You just wanted to get another drink.

“I was there, I remember.”

“Just, she’s not gonna ….” You need to get closer so you can hear more.

You edge just a little closer, feeling the condensation around the soda bottle as you lean just a little more so you can make out their words. You feel guilty but it’s a chance to finally understand where Frankie is in all this, especially after what’s happened today. It’s probably wrong to admit, but this feels like a litmus test of where this all could possibly end up, if there really is hope.

“She’s the mother of my child, Santi, she’s the person I love.” Frankie is so firm, so quietly assertive and matter of fact about this it takes your breath away.

He loves you. He still loves you and for the first time, maybe it does feel like enough. The warmth surges through your body and you smile to yourself.

“Love?” Santi spits. “After Will’s wedding? After that breakup? You might forget it was my sofa you crashed on, but I saw it all, Frankie.” And there’s the reality crush you were waiting for.

“I was high, I was high and it was a shit night for everyone and I’m sorry about that. It’s the past though. You’ve all gotta stop talking about it, stop waiting for her to react. It’s not right, Santi, not for her and not for me.”

“It’s not you, it’s-”

“She’s on eggshells, and so am I. We’re so scared of being the ones who wreck another - you have no idea what’s in her head. The pressure -” You watch how Frankie runs a hand through his hair, how he leans against the wall of the cabin.

He gets it, you think, he actually understands what’s happening for you and how you feel.

“Must be a lot for you.”

“Not just me, like I said.”

“Okay, I hear you.”

“Good.”

“You know, the way you’re being, it’s like you’re …” Santi pauses and looks at Frankie seriously “Frankie, oh shit. Oh shit. You two fucked?”

You freeze - how has Santi worked it out? Will everyone else now? The tension twists your stomach into knots. Is it that obvious?

“Don’t, Santi.”

“I warned you, I freaking told you that sharing a room was a bad idea.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever..”

“So, what now? Are you getting back together?”

“I don’t know. It’s not just up to me, right? It’s not that simple. Besides, it only happened today - it’s not been, we haven’t even had a chance to figure it out yet.“

“Oh, you slut, Frankie,” Santi teases affectionately. “So, I don’t even know what to say, bro. But you say you love her; she looks at you like … I don’t know. Sounds like you’re overcomplicating it. Isn’t it that simple?”

“There’s Clara - I can’t bring her down, bro, I just can’t be that fucking guy.” You watch as Frankie wipes his eyes roughly and wish you were closer to him so you could squeeze his arm and reassure him. You hadn’t realised he was worried about the same thing as you.

You hear your name being called and immediately cringe as Frankie looks around, a slightly startled expression on his face. Santi doesn’t say anything but he squeezes Frankie’s shoulders as he walks away.

He sees you standing there and just shakes his head a little - it’s not angry, it’s almost affectionate in fact. “You two are gonna be the fucking death of me, I swear,” he says in a whisper.

You don’t reply, you just wait because you know Frankie’s going to find you in a moment..

“How much of that did you hear?” Frankie asks when he spots you. He runs one hand in his hair and leans slightly against the door jamb. His eyes are downcast, avoiding you and you want to see them, to know what he’s thinking.

“Nothing.” It’s a terrible lie, the sort of tone Clara uses when she sneaks cookies or candy.

He says your name, draws it out teasingly as he cups your face to meet his eyes. He’s so warm, radiating body heat and ease. Comfort. It’s a pleasant warmth that eases your knotted stomach.

“I may have heard something about you being a slut,” you tease,” “And that maybe you’re worried about messing it all up too.”

“You didn’t know that?”

“I have been having my own existential crisis if you hadn’t noticed!”

“Yeah, your brain whirs pretty loud when those happen.”

“I’m always whirring,” you say.

He pulls you closer, one hand resting casually on your hip and he’s close enough you can smell the sea-salt on his skin, the slight ghost of his cologne and suncream too. You look at the hand on your skin, follow every detail of it up until you meet you his eyes. You catalogue every detail on the way; a mix of freckles, sun-stained skin and muscle, the stubble that just hours ago was on you, memories of it against your thighs intrude your soliloquy.

”I - I didn’t mean to make things awkward with you and Santi. I didn’t realise he … he had such a problem, with us, I mean. With me.”

“He doesn’t. Not really,” Frankie says softly, “How would Lia initially react? Santi is the one I went to after we broke up and maybe - maybe it’s hard for him to look at some of the triggers for back then. It’s not an excuse, I was - you know I relapsed before Clara, but it wasn’t bad then, it wasn’t as bad. It was just a few times and I was in meetings and dealing with it and then - then well, you remember what happened.”

“Oh.” You remember Frankie’s ashen face when he returned from Colombia. You’d been furious with him - exhausted from sleepless nights with Clara and an aching, terrifying fear that you were going about your life when Frankie was lying dead somewhere. It had been a catalyst for your relationships end, of course, but what it really did was light a spark for Frankie’s addiction. You wondered for a long time if Frankie ever came back to you or if he’d died like Tom, just in a less invisible way.

He’s back now though. He’s here.

He’s here.

You lean into him, kissing him lightly on the lips. A confirmation of the moment, of the feeling between the two of you. A reminder that you’re here too.

“I love you too,” you whisper.

“You heard that? I - if you want the truth, I never stopped. I’m not sure I could ever stop being in love with you,” Frankie admits.

“I’m scared of this, of what happens if it goes wrong again.”

“Then at least we tried, right? At least we know, because this limbo isn’t right either, baby. I think - I think we can do it this time. I’m clean and I don’t want to go to back, not when it risks Clara, not when it risks you. I don’t like the me back then.”

“I definitely got a lot wrong too.”

“We’ve got this.”

Frankie pulls you tightly against him, one hand entwined in yours as meets your lips again briefly.

“You and me?” you say, more as a question than a statement.

“You and me,” he repeats.

“We tell them after the wedding, we’re not taking over another wedding, Frankie.”

“That works for me.”

He kisses you again, deepening the kiss, as the two of you pour all the words you want to say but that get stuck in your throat into this moment. He spins you against the wall of the boat, moves his hand down from your shoulder to your chest, to the edge of your swimsuit and although he’s barely touching you, it immediately sends heat and shivers to your stomach. Frankie’s always had an effect on you, always been able to tease those sounds and crescendos of pleasure that seemed so far away before.

There’s something about his smile when he notices the effect he has on you. The hint of surprise in his eyes combine with a steely confidence, a slight cockiness that he is the one causing this, that you’re responding to him.

He moans into your mouth as you pull him closer against you yet, wanting to move somewhere else, somewhere you can be alone.

You stumble slightly and Frankie grabs your arm, places the other on the wall to steady yourselves. A tangle of limbs and the two of you smile. His phone falls out of his pocket, the sound echoing around you.

“Shit,” he says quietly.

You both spring apart and look around nervously. Close, so close. You wait for the voices, for one of your friends to call you or worse, to come over.

“We should -”

“Yeah, yeah. Uh - we should.”

You lean back against the wall and shut your eyes, willing your heart rate to slow down, letting the adrenaline burn off.

She’s the person I love.

Maybe, just maybe you were wrong earlier. Perhaps love is enough.

The rehearsal dinner is an informal affair. Lia and Benny deliberately opted for an earlier dinner time so that Clara could be part of it and have already said they’re eschewing as much of the formality for the rehearsal as they can.

It’s considerate and thoughtful and you’re so glad you’ve been able to make this wedding trip work as a family vacation too.

Of course, in practice, scheduling the dinner for just a couple of hours after getting back from the boat trip is far more stressful than they may have anticipated. Especially with a toddler.

“I wanted to stay in kids club,” she cries to Frankie, face screwed up with tears and arms folded.

“I know, baby, but you’ll get to go after the wedding.”

“Tomorrow?”

“No, tomorrow’s Uncle Benny and Aunt Lia’s wedding.”

“This isn’t fair,” she cries, “we were making puppets!”

Frankie looks up at you helplessly. You’re half-dressed, your dress unzipped and no-makeup yet, your hair still damp from the shower.

“Clara, we need to get ready for dinner now,” he says steadily.

“Daddy’s right, Clara, it’s time.”

“No.”

“Clara,” Frankie says, a hint of firmness slowly coming through in his voice. He looks exhausted but he’s meeting your daughter’s eyes, trying to gently assert that she needs to get moving. “It’s time to get ready now. You will get to go to the kids’ club again, but not right now. Now, we’re going to dinner and when we get back, you can watch one episode of your show before bed, okay?”

”Okay.” Clara had clearly forgotten she’d already negotiated that episode of her show earlier in the morning.

Frankie smiles at you as Clara toddles over to you, ready to comply.

“Need a hand?” he asks, pointing at the zip.

“Sure.”

Your eyes watch Clara carefully choosing between two pairs of shoes as Frankie comes up behind you, touches the back of your shoulder before he glides the zip up and gently kisses the side of your neck.

“Frankie.”

“She’s not looking,” he says in a low voice, “and that fucking dress always destroys me.”

You smile, “I know.”

“Why, are you planning to seduce me?”

”Maybe, haven’t decided yet. Play your cards right and perhaps you’ll see….”

Frankie laughs, low and with genuine happiness. He claps his hands together lightly as he moves over to Clara.

”C’mon, princesa, let’s get this show on the road.”

The dinner was a success and now everyone is milling around the bar, enjoying the sunset and each fleeting moment of this vacation.

Clara's on Frankie's hip as he talks to Will and Benny, one of his arms on Benny's shoulder as they all laugh.

You could get used to this again.

You're still at the table, having spent most of the dinner talking with Lia who is now working the rest of the party.

You take a sip of the dregs of your drink and shut your eyes, letting the moment sink in.

There's the sound of a chair being pulled next to you.

You open your eyes to see Sophie sititng next to you. She's wearing a stunning dress that seems to match the sunset and her makeup is immaculate as ever. You don't feel self conscious though, don't feel the usually creeping doubts rising.

You feel a little different actually. Maybe it's relaxing, maybe it's the vacation, maybe it's hope.

Sophie looks at you carefully and lowers her wine glass. “I know you are a good friend to Lia and that you care about Benny.”

“Of course.”

She leans closer to you, a subtle hint of alcohol and fruity cocktails radiating around her. “I also know that despite what you say, you and Frankie - you aren’t over. You still want to be with him. Everyone knows he’s not over you. I’ve seen your face this week.”

“What are you saying Soph?”

“If you two want to figure things out, to see if there’s something still there, then you guys do that. You’re both adults.”

“I’m sensing a but here.”

“I love you both. I do. It’s just you and Frankie are like storms. You’re beautiful and powerful and sometimes a little inspiring too. You endure and you survive, but you leave wreckage in your wake. Wreckage and destruction no-one wants on their wedding day. Trust me. I lived it with you that day.”

You burn with shame as her words land. The memories of Sophie and Will’s wedding feel like an albatross around your neck, something that can never be forgotten or erased.

You’re sick of it - it makes you think your friends will never truly support you and Frankie reconciling, despite Sophia’s words. If they’ll always be watching, guarded and waiting for the chaos or storm, then how can you and Frankie ever relax.

“What are you saying?” you ask in a low voice.

“I’m saying that this is Benny and Lia’s moment. I’m saying that I can’t - I can’t sit by and watch them go through what I - what we … you know what I’m saying. Not while you and Frankie are in a vacation bubble that isn’t - it isn’t real,”

“Things are different. We’re both different. Frankie’s clean now too.”

“I know, and I can’t pretend I know how it felt for you that day, or the ones that led up to it. I know you’ve been through a lot too. I just - Benny’s like my little brother and I know Will can’t say this to you, but we’re all worried. So, I’m going to be the bad guy, but it’s out of love, I promise. I promise. I love you both so much, and I love Benny and Lia too.”

“It wouldn’t be like that. It wouldn’t - that was a - we hit rock bottom, but it wouldn’t happen again.”

“You can’t know that,” Sophie says simply, “So I am begging you, please don’t pull us all back into that storm. Think of Clara.”

The final punch meets its target.

You feel deflated, completely and utterly deflated. You avert your gaze to the paved stones beneath your feet, blink back tears.

In a way, Sophie’s right. You can never know it won’t happen again, that’s love though, right? You have known for years that they saw you and Frankie’s demise as wreckage they were pulled into, that you two became the problem friends as you both lashed out after the breakup, trying to retain control of the uncontrollable in the only way you knew how. You knew this deep down.

It hurts though. It is agonising to realise that every one of your anxieties and fears here was correct, that your friends still treat you with kid gloves, that you and Frankie will always be the problem couple. Even if you get back together, even if it’s perfect, everyone will be waiting for the storm to hit.

“Oh no, I’ve overstepped, I’m sorry. I - I - I’ve drunk too much. Ignore me. Wine makes me funky,” Sophie says, looking panicked.

If it’s a fight, if love is truly a battle, then you need people in your corner. You need to know that the people you love are rooting for you as well, that there is a support network. You require someone to encourage the two of you as things get tough, as you do battle against your anxieties, Frankie’s demons and anything else life throws at you and to know they won’t judge either of you.

It’s clear now that your friends are not in your corner though. Instead, they view you and Frankie as adversaries, not allies, and they’re always waiting cautiously for the next round of hits to land.

How do you try again if no one else really wants you to? If they all think the worst?

You ruined Sophie’s wedding. What on earth makes you think you deserve a happy ending with Frankie after that?

You needed Sophi’s buy-in, you needed her support. You hadn’t realised that until now, but it’s clear. You knew it the moment Sophie started speaking to you. There’s an anxious and scared version of you that requires your friends’ validation, their support that trying all over again is a good thing, that it won’t fuck up your daughter, or your friendships all over again.

Without this, you’re at sea without a buoy, without a lighthouse. You’re floundering in the dark in a lifejacket and rapidly realising hope alone won’t get you to land.

“I need to go,” you say, brushing Sophie’s hand of your arm and heading down towards the beach.

You walk across the sand nervously. You’re hoping the sea will have answers, will calm you down. The sound of waves lapping in and out is like someone soothing you, saying it’s going to be okay.

You sit down rest your head against your knees. You just need a minute, to let it out.

So you do, you finally let yourself break.

Several minutes later, you hear footsteps behind you and a concerned voice saying your name,

You look over to see Frankie. His top three buttons are unbuttoned and his brow is furrowed as he takes in your general demeanour.

“Where’s Clara?” you sniffle.

“Lia’s taking her back to our room, and we’ll meet her there. She also said she needs an early night with the wedding tomorrow. Hey, hey what’s - what’s wrong?”

“I think we’ve made a terrible mistake, Frankie, I’m so sorry,” you manage to say before you burst into tears. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

Frankie pales, sinking next to you. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t think any of our friends want us to get back together - how can they all be wrong?”

“Santi isn’t all our friends. I told you he’s projecting his own shit.”

“It’s not just Santi!”

“Who said something? What the fuck did they say? This is our relationship, okay? It’s not theirs. They don’t have a say.”

“When we ruined their wedding, they do.”

“So, it’s Will or Sophie. What did they say? I’m going to fucking -”

“And storm into the rehearsal dinner and prove their point, yell at Sophie? Cause a scene and have tonight go down as yet another of our disasters?”

“You’re crying. Sophie had no right to -”

“I’ve had wine, it’s fine. It’s just hot and I’m worried about going home and - I’m fine. It’s fine.”

“It’s not.”

“It’s a reality check. I hadn’t realised. I thought they’d be happy for us, but perhaps they can’t be.”

“They’ll see,” he says desperately, “we’ll show them it’s real. That it’s different this time.”

“Frankie, I need to know, what happens when we go back?” you ask.

He sits down beside you and takes your hand. “I want to say something smooth, talk you through how I’m going to woo you, and I am going to woo you, tell you that it’s all going to be great.”

“Good start.”

“I can’t promise that though, not right now. Not knowing what you’ve just said. I want to think our friends will be happy for us, but they might not be. Or they might be cautious. It’s us though, it’s you and me. I know that this vacation has reminded me of how much I lost, how much I want every day back with you and Clara.”

“If our friends aren’t supporting us, how do we even carry on? What do we do? Do we cut everyone we love -”

“No.”

“So what then, Frankie?” You barely recognise your voice between your sobs and the way it’s so shrill, so desperate. You had finally made peace with your decision, finally thought that maybe this was all going to be okay. That there was a future outside of this vacation bubble.

Frankie is silent for a moment. You feel how he’s rubbing your back, soothing you as you purge your emotions.

“You forgave me, right?” he says softly after a moment.

“What?”

“For the relapse, for the mess I put us all through, for not talking to you. It took time, it took months, but you did, right?”

You nod.

“Maybe it’s like that for them. And if it’s not, we’ll show ‘em either way. I just - I’ve only just got you back. Please, don’t go anywhere yet. We won’t tell them, not until we’re home, until we’re sure. That way it can’t affect us, can’t bring us down when we’re trying. Don’t give up on us because of Sophie’s drunken idiocy. Please.” He pulls you tighter to him, one arm wrapped around and the other hand reaching to wipe away tears on the side closest to him. His hands are warm, radiating comfort and peace as you feel so adrift.

Maybe he’s the rock, maybe he’s the buoy. Perhaps that is what you are to each other as well?

You laugh, an ugly half-sobbing sound. “Okay, okay, I won’t. I promise.”

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flwoie · 1 year ago

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꒰ TEASER ꒱ WHY I LOVE YOU — WANG YIXIANG

─────── ❛ I USED TO BE A COLD GUY BUT NOW I WORRY ABOUT YOU ALL THE TIME ❜

IN WHICH YOU AND NICHOLAS ARE THE ROMCOMEDIC RELIEF SIDE CHARACTERS IN A SITCOM

SUMMARY. New school year means new people. Lucky for you, you befriended a new girl who moved here from the other side of the world. What you didn't expect was that she happened to befriend your old friend group from junior high—accidentally reviving it. Not only did your friend group come back, but you pining on Nicholas did, who just happens to be a part of that group of friends.

STARRING. friend! nicholas x f! reader

GENRE. romcom, friends to idiots to lovers, very very SMALL angst, 2000s disney sitcom au, highschool au, mutual pining, hates everyone but you trope, inspo by svt’s mansae, set in 2000s japan, more will be stated in full fic

CONTAINS. 14+, profanities, nicholas is a truant, a smoker and he’s kinda a hypocrite in the full fic, more will be stated in full fic

TEASER WORD COUNT. 361 | EST. WORD COUNT 5k-10k

SONA SPEAKING. hi guys don’t mind me just posting this cause it’s clogging up my drafts 🥸

S1, EP2, SCENE 15 — ❝THE STARS THAT LEAD US THROUGH THE DARKEST MOMENTS OF LIFE ARE OUR FRIENDS❞

As you pushed the button on the ATM, you waited until it dispensed five ¥1,000 banknotes. You just came back from the flower arrangement club, and it being two hours was a waste of time as they were differentiating types of flowers, which wore you out and left you starving. Luckily, there was a food stand a few blocks away, so you quickly made an errand to the bank to withdraw a few bills. You grabbed the banknotes and left the bank, heading to where the food stand was.

After what seemed like half an hour of walking and attempting to find the food stand, you finally found it, a few meters away from you. You can already smell the warm seafood, making you more famished. Going up to the vendor, he greets you as you look at the choices.

“Just one tempura skewer, please!” The vendor grabs a skewer and hands it to you. Before you could give him the money, someone had already beat you to it.

“Make those two, please,” he requests as the vendor takes it from him. Looking up, Nicholas beams as you two walk away from the stand, heading to a bench.

"Thanks; you didn’t have to pay for me, though,” you assured me as you sat down. You notice the small bouquet he placed on the floor. “What’s with the flowers?” you ask.

“Oh, that? They were for my date, but she ditched me for some other guy,” he says.

You scoffed, “Her loss, you deserve someone willing to spend time with you."

He grins at your words, looking down at his skewer, and mutters a ‘thanks’ before he asks, “What are you doing out here?”

“Flower arrangement club. It was so boring that I got hungry,” you say, proceeding to bite into a tempura.

“Shit, that was today?”

“You’re in the club?” He nods. “That’s funny; I thought you were the type to join a sports club.”

“Hey, I think arranging flowers is a therapeutic hobby!” he deflected. You chuckle and notice that he hasn’t taken a bite of his food.

“Sure it is—now eat what you paid for,” you added, reminding him.

&team masterlist

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dixons-sunshine · 7 months ago

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Shopping Spree, Hangout Dreams AU Headcannons: Part Three | Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Word count: 861.

A/n: So I've made it a habit recently to post a fic every one-two days, but I was extremely busy today, so I didn't have time to start working on any of my other requests. I still wanted to post something, though, so here's a part three to my personal headcannons for the SSHD AU that nobody asked for. This is mostly set in the future but before the outbreak. I hope y'all like these! If you wanna see more, let me know.

➳༻❀✿❀༺➳

★ After graduating high school, you went to college to get a degree in teaching.

★ Daryl didn't go to college, however. He felt like more school was unnecessary for him, but he encouraged you to do it since he knew you wanted to become a teacher.

★ Daryl managed to land a job as an apprentice of sorts to a mechanic and got a second job as a bouncer after a while, and used some (most of it but he didn't tell you that) of the money to help pay for your tuition and textbooks.

★ You had your suspicions about it, and got a job of your own to help pay for everything. However, Daryl shot down any talks of you getting a second job, claiming that one job was already hard enough added on top of college.

★ The two of you rented a crappy, worn down apartment until you graduated and landed a full-time teaching job at a kindergarten near Atlanta, and you and Daryl finally managed to upgrade to a decent apartment.

★ Once the two of you had settled down and had gotten hitched at the courthouse, you invited your mother over for a housewarming of sorts.

★ She definitely tore into you both for eloping, but in the end, she was ultimately happy for the two of you.

★ She started teasingly calling you Mrs Dixon at every opportunity, and playfully threatening Daryl that if he ever broke your heart, she'd kill him.

★ She was a decade too late for that talk, however, so Daryl paid it no mind whatsoever.

★ Your mom was practically your best friend, so when she died three years later due to cancer, you were devastated.

★ You regretted not having a proper wedding like your mom had wanted you to have, but Daryl assured you that she didn't hate you for it.

★ Daryl was also heartbroken. He couldn't believe that the sweet woman who had basically taken him in was dead.

★ It was a hard couple of months after that, but Daryl refrained from falling into old habits and distancing himself to deal with his emotions alone. He reminded himself that you were a team and that you needed him more than ever at that moment. He couldn't pull away at a time like that.

★ Things got better with time. With the both of you taking the time to properly grieve and mourn, it got easier. The sadness when you thought of her death never fully vanquished, but with time, you were feeling better, visiting her grave whenever you had the chance.

★ When you and Daryl moved from the trailer park all those years ago, he didn't tell anyone from his family where he was going.

★ He didn't even tell his father. He just packed his bags with his things and silently disappeared from the trailer.

★ Merle didn't know about it, either. Daryl loved his brother but he knew what a dick he was and what he involved himself in, and he didn't want that in his new life with you. He wanted to start fresh, wipe the slate clean.

★ It was a couple of months before the outbreak when you and Daryl saw Merle again. You were walking around, doing grocery shopping, when you bumped into him.

★ Merle was immensely surprised when he noted the wedding rings on both of your fingers, and demanded to know why he wasn't invited to the wedding.

★ However, he guessed he shouldn't have been surprised when Daryl bitterly spat out that there wasn't a wedding and that you eloped. If he knew anything about Daryl, it's that he doesn't do big, fancy events.

★ About a month before the outbreak, you started feeling nauseous and more tired than usual. A total of three pregnancy tests confirmed that the reason for that wasn't because you were ill, but because you had a life growing inside of you.

★ Daryl was surprised to find out you were pregnant. Neither of you planned the pregnancy and it was extremely unexpected.

★ However, you both decided to keep the baby.

★ Daryl was scared of what parenthood had in store for him. He didn't want to end up like his father or be even worse than him.

★ It took for you to gently talk him through his fears for him to start calming down.

★ After he was calmed down, he allowed himself to feel happy. The two of you were in a stable environment with enough money between the both of you to accommodate a baby, so he felt himself relax.

★ That didn't last long, because soon the two of you would hear about the dead rising and see the news reports that warn you to evacuate immediately.

©dixons-sunshine 2024. I do not give permission for my works to be copied, modified, adapted or translated to any other site or platform without evidence of my given consent.

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rainforestakiie · 3 months ago

Text

hi! i am back with part 02 of Promised Soul! i had to split it, so there will be part 03 and that will be posted soon! maybe even later tonight?

i do hope you like it! it is loosely based on aztec and mayan mythology, and Japanese folklore.

ahhh! i really love this!

this is an adamapple fic placed in the omegaverse.

Promised Soul (Omegaverse Mythology AU) = Part 01. Part 02. Part 03. Part 04.

A full week had passed since his encounter with Lilith, and Adam had become a ghost in his own flat, refusing to leave the cocoon of blankets and pillows he’d built on his bed. He had wrapped himself so tightly in the comfort nest that it felt like a fragile sanctuary against the world outside. He didn’t care if he grew thinner from not eating; the gnawing emptiness inside him was far more consuming. He was just so... tired. Tired of everything, tired of trying to pretend he mattered to anyone.

Lilith had been his only friend, the one person he thought might see something special in him. But that hope had been shattered. The pain of it was a dull, constant ache, like a wound that wouldn’t heal. Adam’s eyes misted over at the mere thought of her. Lilith didn’t care about him, not even a little. She saw him as nothing more than the dirt that clung to the statues of Quetzalcoatl, not even worth the effort to brush off. He wasn’t worth anything. He’d left Eden hoping to find something, someone, but after a year of checking the empty letterbox for messages from his clan, he’d finally stopped looking. It was the same hollow pain twisting in his chest, a reminder that he was truly alone.

If even Lilith didn’t want him, what hope did he have of finding a mate? The realization crushed him, and he buried his face in the blankets, curling up tightly as his tears spilled over, tracing paths down his grey cheeks. It was so cruel—his skin didn’t even redden or blotch from crying. He just felt sore and clammy, the emotional storm leaving no visible marks, as if the world refused to acknowledge his suffering.

Adam hiccuped, digging his knuckles into his eyes as if he could rub away the burning sadness. Why? Why hadn’t he burned? Why didn’t he undergo the ash-fall like every other baby Phoenix? Why didn’t he rise in flames, reborn anew? Why was he so different? Why didn’t anyone care?

His sobs grew louder, more desperate, as he pressed his face into his knees until it hurt. He hated it. Hated himself. Hated this life that had betrayed him at every turn.

“I hate myself so much,” he whispered between ragged sobs. “I hate being me. Why couldn’t I have been something else? I’d have been happy as a bloody Imp!”

His cries deepened, his breath coming in harsh, uneven gasps as the sobs shook his frail body. Snot clogged his nose, and a dull cramp began to form from lying in the same position for so long. With a groan, Adam finally dragged himself out of the nest, his back and legs cracking as he shakily stood. He swayed on his feet, his arms instinctively reaching out to steady himself, but he stumbled forward, catching himself against the small, grimy window.

Adam grunted, his nose bumping against the cold glass. He rubbed it absently before peeling himself away from the wall, just as a flash of light caught his eye. His brows furrowed as he saw another burst of green and purple light flickering in the distance, though the filth on the window made it hard to see. Twisting his fingers around the rusty window handle, he forced it open with a screech that echoed through the quiet room. The warm, dry air hit his face immediately, a sign of the approaching return of their god and the blood sacrifices that would follow.

Ignoring the screeching hinges, Adam pushed the window as far open as it would go and stretched onto his tiptoes to get a better view of the city. Everything seemed normal, the city’s lights twinkling in the distance, and the people below going about their business. He groaned deeply, resting his arms on the windowsill and laying his chin on top. The night sky was empty, not a single star to break the oppressive darkness. It was sad how warm it was despite the hour; the nights had always been cold before.

His eyes grew heavy, his long lashes fluttering as he began to doze off, the exhaustion finally pulling him under. But just as he drifted into uneasy sleep, a sudden flash of light jolted him awake. His heart raced as he glanced around frantically, his eyes locking onto the tip of Quetzalcoatl’s temple. A string of silent lightning struck it, sending ripples of green, red, and blue through the sky.

Adam’s breath hitched, his skin prickling as every hair on his body stood on end. He leaned forward, trying to see if anyone else had noticed the strange lightning, but the creatures below continued with their lives, oblivious. Trolls played a game of stones, completely unaware of the unnatural phenomenon unfolding above them.

“What?” Adam whispered, his voice trembling.

His eyes flicked between the trolls and the temple, but none of them seemed to see the lightning. Blinking rapidly in confusion, Adam turned back to the temple just in time to see another flash—pink, purple, and gold this time—illuminating the sky and casting misty clouds in its wake.

Then he saw it. His breath caught in his throat as the shape of a serpent formed from the mist, a massive creature with six enormous wings, arching over the temple like a guardian from a forgotten age. The serpent seemed to stretch ten times the size of the city, a divine being made of light and shadow. But as quickly as it appeared, it was gone, leaving nothing behind, not even a trace of the misty clouds.

Adam’s heart thundered in his chest, his fingers trembling with an urgent need to move. A powerful force seemed to pull at him, yanking him towards the temple with an intensity that made his knees buckle. A wetness began to pool within him, and for a moment, he feared he might collapse.

He had to go. The urge was overwhelming, a compulsion that left no room for doubt. He had always felt drawn to the temple, always found a strange fascination in the statues of Quetzalcoatl, but this was different. This was terrifying, overwhelming—and completely irresistible.

Without another thought, Adam backed away from the window, his heart pounding in his chest as the flicker of a flame stirred within him, small but growing, as if awakened by the divine presence he had just witnessed.

He had to go to the temple.

Now.

Nothing else mattered.

Adam had no choice. He simply couldn’t resist it. The fire within his chest, like a Phoenix reborn, had ignited into a fierce, magnetic pull that tugged at his very soul. It felt as if an unseen force had cast a line and hook into his heart, reeling him in like one of the lesser Cetus-fishers snaring a catch from the abyss. His feet shuffled forward, then back, as though he were caught in the sway of hypnotic waves that rolled through him, relentless and undeniable.

He clenched his eyes shut, trying to banish the compulsion, but it was no use. With a sudden, sharp turn, he surrendered to the pull, despite the absurdity of his situation. Clad only in flimsy black pyjamas and an oversized blue sweater, barefoot and utterly unprepared, Adam was clearly not in his right mind. The one rational thought that should have sent him racing back to his flat, to burrow himself in the safety of his cocoon, seemed to have been smothered by the overwhelming force tugging him onward.

The Jorōgumo.

The Jorōgumo women of Pentagram City, ever-vigilant, always prowled the temple grounds, ready to ensnare any creature foolish enough to trespass into their sacrificial domain. Those who were caught faced a fate too horrific to fully comprehend—some strung up with their insides spilling out, others torn limb from limb, and many more cocooned in slick to be fed to the Jorōgumo’s ravenous younglings. It was a death beyond nightmares, a terrible way to end.

And yet, here Adam was, his mind fogged with the weight of invisible feathers, lured from the sanctuary of his apartment by an unseen, seductive force. He had lived in that building since he was eighteen, ever since he had fled from Eden, and now something was leading him astray, gently but irresistibly drawing him out into the night. He stumbled down the streets, clumsily bumping into other creatures, his eyes wide and glassy, his face ghostly pale. It was as if he were trapped in a trance, drifting helplessly through the twisting, labyrinthine streets of the inner city, lost in the grip of something far beyond his control.

Adam stumbled forward, his shoulder colliding hard against a towering Alpha Goblin. A deep grunt escaped the creature as he struggled to regain his footing, his large, fish-like lips curling into a menacing sneer that revealed rows of jagged teeth.

"Oi!" the Goblin snarled, swiftly closing the distance between them and seizing Adam's arm with a vice-like grip. He yanked him back forcefully, causing Adam to nearly topple into his slimy, pungent chest. "Are you blind or somethin'? You ran into me! Apologize!"

A small, distressed whimper slipped from Adam's lips as his glazed eyes darted around the cluttered street. Torn newspapers danced in the cold breeze, and a collage of tattered flyers clung desperately to the dilapidated grey and red walls surrounding them. Above, the seedy neon lights of a nightclub sign flickered erratically, casting eerie red and blue shadows across the grimy pavement.

"Hello! Are you even listening to me?" the Goblin barked, shaking Adam roughly like a rag doll. "You bump into me and just go silent? Where's your manners?"

Adam's mouth opened and closed soundlessly, words failing him as an overwhelming sense of wrongness crawled beneath his skin. The Goblin's touch felt invasive, unnatural, and every instinct within him screamed to break free and continue toward the temple that beckoned him with an unseen, irresistible force.

Squinting up at the grotesque figure, Adam took in the Goblin's unnaturally long limbs that dangled almost to his ankles, the sagging folds of his sallow skin, and the oversized, bulbous head that seemed too heavy for his frail body. His feet were enormous and misshapen, adding to his unsettling appearance.

"What's the matter? You deaf?" the Goblin snapped impatiently. "Say you're sorry!"

Adam's vacant stare bore into the Goblin, an unsettling intensity that made the creature shift uneasily. The Goblin's bravado faltered as he leaned back, his beady eyes narrowing with recognition.

"Wait a minute... I know you," he muttered, a sly grin creeping across his slimy lips. "You're that unburned Phoenix Omega, aren't you? Couldn't even rebirth properly, huh?" His gaze swept over Adam with contempt. "You certainly don't look like much of a Phoenix. Not desirable at all."

A cold chill sliced through Adam's core, the words striking a tender, wounded place within him. He had always known he was different, lacking the fiery brilliance and allure of other Phoenix Omegas.

Before he could process his actions, a sharp retort burst from his lips. "Well, you're not exactly a sight for sore eyes yourself, princess!"

The Goblin's eyes widened in astonishment before narrowing into slits of rage. He puffed out his chest, releasing a thick, musky scent meant to assert dominance and force submission. The air grew heavy and oppressive, laden with the stench of swamp and decay that made Adam's stomach churn and his eyes water.

"How dare you speak to me like that!" the Goblin croaked, his voice bubbling with fury. "I'm an Alpha, and you're just an Omega! Know your place and show some respect, especially after your rudeness!"

As the noxious pheromones assaulted his senses, Adam's face contorted in disgust, his nostrils flaring as he fought the urge to gag. Seeing the Goblin lunge toward him once more, Adam acted on pure instinct. He twisted free from the clammy grasp and delivered a swift, powerful kick squarely into the Goblin's chest.

A sharp crack echoed through the night as the blow sent the unsuspecting Alpha stumbling backward. He tripped over his own cumbersome feet and crashed into a heap of overflowing trash bins, the metallic clatter resonating down the deserted street. A loose lid toppled onto his head, rendering him unconscious amid the scattered refuse.

Breathless and wide-eyed, Adam stared at the fallen Goblin in disbelief, a tremor running through his entire body. His heart pounded against his ribs as he frantically glanced around, relief washing over him when he realized no one had witnessed the altercation.

"Thank Quetzalcoatl," he murmured under his breath, a sense of urgency rekindling within him.

As if on cue, a gentle, unseen presence brushed over him, tenderly guiding his gaze back toward the direction of the temple. The ethereal pull intensified, enveloping him in a comforting yet insistent embrace that urged him forward.

Without wasting another moment, Adam turned on his heel and broke into a swift stride, his bare feet carrying him swiftly through the labyrinthine streets. The allure of the temple beckoned stronger than ever, its mysterious call weaving through the night and drawing him inexorably toward whatever destiny awaited.

It took what felt like an eternity for Adam to reach the outskirts of the city, every step a new form of agony as his feet throbbed with pain, likely bruised from the relentless journey. By the time he reached the first carved statue of their God, Quetzalcoatl, his heart was hammering in his chest, the thunderous pulse reverberating in his ears. His face flushed with heat, his body aflame, and his chest seared with the effort of breathing. He bent over, hands clutching his knees as he gasped desperately for air, each breath a struggle. His eyes screwed shut, and beads of sweat traced their way down his temples, dripping off his chin.

Damn it. He had never run like that before. Adam wasn’t one for running these days—or ever, really. Since he had failed to undergo the transformation that all Phoenixes underwent, he had let his once-fit body go, seeing no reason to maintain it. He wasn’t overweight, not by ordinary standards, but in a Phoenix clan, where physical perfection was expected, he was considered almost obese. His frame was softer now—plump around the stomach and chest, his thighs thick, though his arms and legs remained thin. He was still smaller than Lilith, barely reaching her shoulders, but the comparison stung.

As he inhaled sharply, the frigid night air filling his lungs, Adam froze. A sudden, icy terror gripped him, chilling him to the bone. His entire body stiffened, and he felt as though frost was about to etch itself across his ashen skin. The distant sound of the warrior Jorōgumo on patrol echoed through the night, a reminder of the ever-present danger. He swallowed hard, forcing himself to straighten up, and shuffled into the shadowed recess of the statue of Quetzalcoatl, his breath shallow as he watched the darkness for any sign of movement.

Then, he saw it. A monstrous silhouette with eight spindly legs skittered into view, its form a twisted shadow against the inky blackness of the night. The creature’s attention seemed elsewhere, and it veered off to the left, where Adam heard the unmistakable, blood-curdling screams of rule breakers caught in its path. The air was suddenly filled with the harsh, shrill cries of more Jorōgumos, followed by the desperate footsteps of two fleeing figures.

But they didn’t get far.

With a terrifying swiftness, something white shot out from the darkness, ensnaring them by the ankles. In an instant, they were yanked to the ground and dragged away, their screams abruptly cut off as they were pulled back toward the sacrificial grounds from which they had foolishly tried to escape.

Adam slapped both hands over his mouth, stifling his own cry of horror. His eyes were wide, unblinking, and they burned with the strain of holding back tears. The muffled voices of the Jorōgumos grew louder, closer, before mercifully fading away, taking their prey with them. Adam trembled violently, his body refusing to obey his mind’s commands to stay calm. He squeezed his eyes shut, praying he wouldn’t witness anything more horrific, though the darkness had already hidden much of the grisly scene from view.

He knew the Jorōgumos were deadly, sadistic creatures, but they operated within the rules of the city, giving generous warnings to those who strayed too close to their domain. They wouldn’t devour you unless you crossed the line of Quetzalcoatl, or unless they found you… appealing. Yet, knowing their cruelty in theory was one thing—hearing it play out in the darkness around him was another.

"Dear Quetzalcoatl," Adam whispered, his voice trembling as he tilted his head toward the statue, "please watch over me and keep the Jorōgumos away."

He realized with a jolt that this was the closest he had ever been to the statue, a sacred relic he had never dared to touch. The proximity made his hair stand on end, an almost electric sensation coursing through him. He could reach out and feel the stone if he wanted to, the carved feathers of the Serpent God’s wing shimmering faintly in the dim light, almost as if they were beckoning him.

But he didn’t dare move, not yet. The night was still thick with danger, and Adam knew that every second counted as he clung to the shadows, praying to remain unseen.

Adam rubbed his hands down the oversized sweater that seemed to swallow him whole, his gaze fixed on the ancient statue of Quetzalcoatl. His eyes, wide with a mix of awe and trepidation, wandered over the countless other statues lining the walls, separating the sacrificial grounds from the rest of the world.

These statues were relics of a forgotten era, their origins shrouded in the mists of time. To touch them was forbidden, a transgression that could cost someone their hand—or their life. Beyond the city walls, replicas stood in their place, mere shadows of the originals, and while the public could freely touch those, the true creations were strictly off-limits. Adam had always been captivated by the originals, drawn to their eerie beauty, yet each time he visited, he was never alone. Lilith was always there, her presence like a shadow, her watchful eyes warning him whenever he ventured too close.

Adam's first encounter with the city at eighteen had been like a dream—or perhaps a curse. The moment he crossed the threshold, he had been irresistibly drawn to one of the replica statues in the town centre. His hands, as if possessed, traced the carved feathers, feeling every groove and ridge of the stone. Quetzalcoatl was not just a god; he was the very essence of their existence, his legend woven into the fabric of their lives—paintings, stories, plays, movies, and even children's toys all bore his image.

Yet, as Adam stood before the original statue now, something dark and powerful stirred within him, a force that both thrilled and terrified him. He was so close, yet paralyzed, his knees buckling beneath him, his hands trembling as they clutched at his chest. The dry grass beneath his feet felt cold, lifeless, as a shiver crept down his spine. The half-dragon, half-bird face of Quetzalcoatl loomed just beyond the wing, its stone eyes boring into his soul.

"Ah..." The sound escaped Adam's lips, barely a whisper, as he found himself bowing low before the serpent god. It was as if the true God’s gaze had fallen upon him, weighing down on his very being. "N-No disrespect, your highness, I..."

His voice trailed off as his eyes locked onto the stone face of Quetzalcoatl once more. A slow blink, a nervous bite of his lower lip, and his thoughts turned to the ancient deals and contracts forged in blood. The contracts were dark, their terms etched in sacrificial blood, yet they had borne fruit. Quetzalcoatl had provided—food, water, shelter, everything his people needed to survive and live in peace. But the price was always the same: blood.

Adam blinked again, the world around him narrowing to the palm of his grey-ash hand. He stretched out his fingers, tracing the lines of his flesh, and let out a soft, wordless hum. His eyes darted around until they found a sharp rock on the ground. With deliberate slowness, he picked it up, pressing its jagged edge into his palm. The pain was brief, a sting that brought forth tiny pearls of blood.

He winced, watching the blood pool in his hand before he extended it, pressing the crimson-stained palm into the earth before Quetzalcoatl's face. For a few agonizing minutes, he held it there, the ground seeming to drink in his offering.

Then, with a deep breath, Adam crawled forward, slipping beneath the statue’s head, crossing into the forbidden grounds where no one else dared to tread. The air there was different, thicker, as if the weight of centuries pressed down upon him. But for Adam, it was as if he had finally crossed the threshold into a world where his darkest desires could no longer be denied.

The moment Adam crossed into the ancient, forbidden sacrificial grounds of Quetzalcoatl, a feverish heat washed over him, prickling his skin like a thousand tiny needles. No one had ever dared to breach this sacred space and lived to tell the tale. What fate awaited him if he were caught? He didn’t know, but retreat was no longer an option. He had already transgressed the unyielding laws of the city. With his knees pressed into the parched grass, his fingers twitched with a mixture of fear and excitement as he took in the sight that few had ever seen and lived to describe.

The reality of the grounds far exceeded the sterile depictions in textbooks and museums. The towering pillars were colossal, dwarfing the illustrations he had studied. The stone slabs were thicker, etched with intricate details that the public had never been privy to. The ground beneath him was polished to a sheen, a black stone pathway winding like a serpent up to the temple. Golden and grey steps, made of perfectly polished stone, climbed toward the heavens, leading to a pinnacle too high for Adam to discern its carvings.

Glancing down at the cut on his hand, Adam was startled to see that the wound had already begun to heal. The main gash had sealed shut, leaving no trace of blood, as though the very air within these grounds possessed some ancient magic. Swallowing hard, he brushed his thumb over the now-healing cut, marvelling at the rapid recovery. It would be fully healed in a week, perhaps even sooner.

"Whoa..." he breathed, the word slipping from his lips in awe.

Carefully, Adam rose to his feet. His legs trembled beneath him, and he twisted his hands into the fabric of his blue sweater, fingers toying with the frayed edges of his sleeves. His heart pounded so violently in his chest that it seemed it might burst, but he forced himself to take a tentative step forward, lifting his bare foot from the dry grass to the waxy, polished floor. The warmth beneath his foot surprised him—not uncomfortably hot, but a soothing, inviting warmth that made him long to curl up and bask in it.

The pillars loomed above him, their surfaces adorned with intricate carvings that seemed to tell forgotten stories. Some connected overhead, forming a latticework ceiling, while others stood solitary, reaching skyward. As Adam continued along the waxen ground, his steps brought him to the edge of the black stone pathway.

He paused there, staring down at the midnight-hued stone, so polished that his reflection stared back at him. Tiny white crystals were embedded within the stone, twinkling like stars in the night sky. They were too beautiful to tread upon, so Adam chose to walk alongside the path instead, his hands clasped tightly together as his fingers fidgeted nervously. Occasionally, his gaze drifted to the almost-healed cut on his palm.

As he ventured deeper into the grounds, Adam discovered thousands of golden and red archways standing sentinel along the sides of the star-studded pathway. Each archway framed a platform with an altar at its centre, a gaping hole in the ground beneath it. When he reached the first altar, Adam’s breath caught in his throat.

The altar bore a stone headrest at its top—unmistakably a sacrificial platform. Anxiety gnawed at him, urging him to hurry past. His feet carried him swiftly toward the temple, almost of their own accord, driven by a mixture of dread and compulsion. The ominous allure of the temple beckoned him closer, pulling him into its ancient embrace, where the line between fear and fascination blurred into something dangerously intoxicating.

Adam had barely lifted his foot an inch when something silver snaked around his ankle. His breath hitched, confusion flickering in his eyes, but before he could react, he was yanked violently upside down, dangling from the stone archway he had been about to pass beneath. A surge of anger ignited within him, frustration bubbling up like a storm as he twisted, kicking at the sticky webbing that held him fast.

"Adam, what the fuck are you doing?" Lilith’s voice hissed from below, her tone sharp and laced with urgency.

She skidded to a halt beneath him, her back arched and her chest heaving as though she had sprinted to catch him. Her form was unsettling, her body twisted in an unnatural way. Beyond the human legs that supported her, two long, gold and black-striped spider legs jutted out from her torso, a stark reminder of her true nature. Her long, golden hair, usually flowing like a waterfall, now appeared cropped and uneven, and a dark, ominous mark marred her cheek.

"Put me down," Adam growled, his voice low and simmering with defiance, even as he struggled futilely against the webbing that suspended him. He knew that if he managed to break free, he would fall and likely snap his neck, but desperation fuelled his anger.

"Now, Lilith."

The Jorōgumo sneered, her long, sharp fangs snapping menacingly in the air beneath him. "You’ve gone too far this time, Adam. Way too fucking far. Do you have any idea what you've done? What I just had to do? To my own sister, no less?"

"Oh, shut up," Adam shot back, his voice a snarling growl as he wriggled more violently. "You don’t know anything! I need to go. It’s calling me, and I can’t ignore it. I need to go."

Lilith’s eyebrow arched sceptically, her expression darkening. But before she could respond, the ominous sound of approaching Jorōgumo warriors filled the air, a chorus of clicks and hisses that made Lilith stiffen. Her icy-blue eyes widened in alarm, and without a word, she darted up the stone archway, her long, hairy spider legs carrying her effortlessly upward. She quickly used two of her legs to secure Adam to the underside of the archway, cocooning herself over him like a protective, yet terrifying, shield.

"Lilith—"

"Shut up," she hissed, her hand clamping over his mouth, silencing him instantly.

The sound of the Jorōgumo warriors grew closer, a deadly symphony of predator and prey. Lilith remained tense, her body rigid with fear and anxiety, listening intently as her sisters and cousins passed by, their presence a looming threat. Only when they had moved on did she exhale a deep, shaky breath of relief.

"Thank Quetzalcoatl," she muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes in exasperation. "Even the Jorōgumo aren’t allowed to venture into the sacrificial grounds."

Adam tried to speak, but his words were muffled beneath her hand. Lilith’s glare intensified as she pressed down harder, her fangs bared in a silent warning.

"Hold still," she whispered harshly.

She began untangling the web from around Adam’s body, carefully lowering them both to the ground by a single, slicken thread. But the moment their feet touched the earth, Adam made a break for it. Lilith, however, was quicker, swinging one of her spider legs in a swift arc that knocked him off his feet.

"The fuck is wrong with you?" she spat, her voice a low, dangerous growl. "Do you want me to eat you that badly?"

With a fierce shove, she pinned him to the ground, her spider leg pressing into his back with unsettling force. "How fucking stupid can you be? Did you really think no one would smell you passing the wall? Ridiculous! We’re trained hunters, Adam—it’s our responsibility to find and destroy traitors of Pentagram City."

Lilith pressed down harder, her eight spider eyes snapping open, their gaze cold and unforgiving. "Even my sisters aren’t allowed to pass the statues into these grounds. Do you have any idea what kind of shit I just had to pull to keep you alive? My sister saw you, Adam—she was going to fucking behead you. I had to rip her abdomen out to stop her from grabbing you back at the statue, and now, I’ve betrayed my own clan."

Adam thrashed beneath Lilith’s crushing weight. "I never asked you to save me," he spat back.

"But I did it anyway," she hissed, flipping him over with ease. As Adam tried to rise, Lilith was faster, slamming her human foot down on his chest, pinning him once more. "I’ve crossed into the sacrificial grounds, and if I’m caught, I’ll be killed too."

"I never asked you—"

"But I did it anyway," Lilith cut him off, her voice sharp and unyielding. "Again and again, I’ve let you get away with shit. I’ve let you get closer to the statues of Quetzalcoatl than anyone else would dare. My siblings say I’m too soft because I keep letting you do things that should’ve cost you your hands."

Adam glared up at her, his cheeks flushed with frustration. His defiance burned bright in his eyes, especially as Lilith bent down, her face mere inches from his.

"So, I’m only asking you once," she said, her voice low and dangerous, "What the fuck are you doing?"

The two childhood friends stared at one another, the tension between them palpable. The aggression that had gripped Adam moments before ebbed away, replaced by a strange emptiness. Once, the thought of Lilith showing interest in him would have ignited a thrill, but now, he felt nothing. Instead, a calmness settled over him, and his dry lips pressed together as his gaze drifted toward the temple, lost in thought.

What was he doing? Why had he come all this way, breaking the law of Pentagram City? He could lose his life for this reckless act—he might have already, if not for Lilith’s intervention.

“Well?” Lilith spat; her voice sharp as a blade.

Adam blinked, his thoughts snapping back to the present. He frowned. “I saw him.”

“Saw who?” Lilith’s eyes narrowed further, suspicion darkening her gaze.

“Quetzalcoatl,” Adam replied, his voice firm and resolute.

Lilith snorted, rolling her eyes in disbelief. “No, you didn’t.”

“I did too,” Adam insisted, stubbornness edging his words. “I saw him above his temple, silhouetted in the misty clouds. There were these... these colorful lightning bolts striking the top of the temple.”

“There was no such thing, Adam,” Lilith retorted, her voice stern. “I’ve been here all night. There was no lightning, and certainly no appearance of our god. You did not see him.”

Adam’s frown deepened, his face contorting in a way that seemed almost unnatural. “I did. He’s calling me. He’s pulling me to the temple.”

“Were you sleeping?” Lilith asked, her head tilting to the side, her voice softening with concern. “You must have been dreaming.”

“No.” Adam shook his head furiously, then thrust his cut hand up toward the Jorōgumo. “I offered him my blood for entry, and he accepted. Look, see? I literally cut my hand barely an hour ago, and it shouldn’t be healed like this already!”

Lilith squinted, scrutinizing the nearly healed wound stretched across Adam’s palm. She sighed deeply, her sharp-nailed fingers curling roughly around his wrist as she yanked it closer to her face. The cut looked old, as if it had been there for weeks or even months. But then she caught the scent—fresh blood, potent and undeniable, seeping from the seemingly healed skin. It was a scent that could only come from a fresh, still-bleeding wound.

Lilith recoiled in bewilderment; her eyes wide with shock as she blinked down at him. Adam sat up, rubbing his chest with a pout, seemingly oblivious to the strangeness of what she had just experienced. Her senses screamed that his hand was still bleeding, yet her eyes insisted otherwise.

Had Adam really seen Quetzalcoatl? The thought gnawed at her. She had always noticed the peculiar glint in Adam’s grey eyes whenever he looked at a statue or painting of their god, but she had dismissed it as a childish fascination, the kind all younglings shared.

“And what do you intend to do?” she asked, suspicion lacing her tone.

Adam glanced up at her wearily, his lips curling into a crooked smile. “…Climb the temple.”

“What? Are you insane?” Lilith hissed, planting her hands on the round, protruding spider-like abdomen she bore. “Nobody, absolutely nobody, is allowed to touch the temple. Not even the elders are permitted to climb those stairs. You’ve lost your mind.”

Adam pouted deeply as he climbed to his feet, dusting off his legs. “I know the risk, and I’m not asking for permission. I’ve already asked Quetzalcoatl himself, and he’s granted it.”

“You don’t know that,” Lilith snapped coldly. “Even if your wound was accepted as an offering, that could mean anything. You could step on the first stair and be struck by lightning.”

Undeterred, Adam turned toward the large golden steps, humming thoughtfully. “They don’t look that hard.”

“Adam, are you even listening to yourself?” Lilith groaned, rubbing her temples in exasperation. “You’re going to get yourself killed. Just go home, now, while you still can. We’ll both pretend this never happened and pray for Quetzalcoatl’s mercy.”

“No.” Adam’s voice was firm, his gaze unwavering as he met hers with a dry look. “I’m not going back. I came here for a reason, and I need to go up there, to the crown of the temple.”

Lilith threw her hands up in frustration. “But why?”

“I don’t know why,” Adam replied without hesitation, “but it is Quetzalcoatl’s will. And I’m more afraid of what will happen if I ignore him.”

Lilith groaned again, shaking her head in disbelief. Her nose crinkled, and her brow twitched as she crossed her arms tightly over her chest. Her spider legs twitched anxiously, tapping the waxy ground as if searching for stability.

“You know, I don’t need you to come with me,” Adam said carefully, his tone softer. “I’m not your responsibility. You made that perfectly clear last week.”

Lilith blinked at him, as if she couldn’t believe what she had just heard. “Adam—”

But Adam ignored her, turning to make his way toward the temple once more. Just as he began to walk, Lilith grabbed him by the elbow, pulling him back with surprising force.

“Are you sure about this?” she hissed; her voice dangerously low. “If you’re caught, you’ll be killed. Not even I can save you.”

Adam glanced at her hand, then carefully removed it. “With my whole heart.”

After a long, tense silence, Lilith finally gave a sharp nod, her eyes hard as stone. She began to back away, her voice cold and cutting as she addressed Adam.

“Typically, I don’t wish luck to fools on reckless quests, but... best of luck.”

Adam blinked, taken aback by her icy demeanour. “…Thanks… I think?” he replied, his tone unsure, caught between confusion and gratitude.

Lilith's expression remained unchanged, her face an unreadable mask, devoid of even a flicker of warmth. Without another word, she turned from him and shot off, her spider legs striking the waxy ground with an awkward, almost clumsy rhythm as she vanished into the shadows.

Adam stood there, awkwardly watching her retreat, the air around him heavy with the lingering tension.

#fanfic #hazbin hotel #lucifer x adam #adamsapple #au #guitarduck #fanficiton #mythology #aztec mythology #promised souls #japanese folklore #lilith

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