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dustofthedailylife · 2 years ago

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Inked Farewells

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Pairing: Alhaitham, Childe, Kaeya x (gn!) Reader

Summary: They get killed and someone else gives you the letter they left you.

Tags: Angst/No Comfort, Major Character Death (they die - no su!cide!), mentions of blood

A/N: Fun fact, I actually made myself straight-up cry with the Alhaitham part when I wrote it ;_;

ALHAITHAM

It was already late in the day and through the thick gray clouds, that had been hanging over the sky all day already, you could faintly make out the setting sun. For some unknown reason, you had been in quite an anxious mood all day so you just tried to stay busy to keep your mind occupied.

Just as you were about to sit down to read, someone rang your doorbell and asked for your attention.

You expected it to be Alhaitham, considering how late it had already gotten. It was already way later than he’d usually come home from work. They must have kept him quite busy at the Akademiya today.

With a smile pulling at the corners of your lips you hurried to the door. But the person you found standing in front of it wasn’t Alhaitham.

The picture that painted itself in front of your eyes instead was something you never wished to see. A pang in your chest ignited all the nerves in your body simultaneously and filled you with dread.

Kaveh stood before you, his whole body trembling as he clutched an envelope tightly to his chest. His eyes were filled with a myriad of emotions, none of which were good. Tears threatened to spill from the corners of his eyes and his once-white shirt was now stained in a deep shade of crimson, along with his blood-soaked hands.

He helplessly scanned your face with a quivering bottom lip. Desperately searching your face for the words he wanted to express as if they were written there. But there was no need for him to say anything.

“He-” Kaveh began, choking on his own words and desperately holding back his own tears. “He wanted you t-to have this.”

With shaking hands, he handed you the envelope. The paper was equally stained with dried blood. Your name was written on it in an awfully familiar handwriting. Even and well-formed letters adorned the piece of paper. As you gazed at it in disbelief, your eyes began to fill with tears causing the letters to blur and become indistinguishable from one another.

“What happened?” You whispered, as you looked up at Kaveh, who harshly bit his lip as a silent tear streamed down his cheek. Deep down you already knew the answer, but you needed to hear it. To confirm it was the cold, hard truth.

“We were out on an expedition and–” Kaveh began before inhaling and exhaling shakily. “Suddenly we were surrounded by enemies –, I don’t remember what happened but there were so many… he sent me to get help while he fought alone, and I did but–” he paused as he swallowed thickly. “When I returned all the enemies were dead, but he– he had died as well.”

“This was the only thing he was holding in his hands. I believe he wrote it before he–” Kaveh pointed at the envelope in your hands before choking on his words once more with a quiet whimper.

You shook your head in denial, feeling how your bottom lip started to quiver and your chest became tighter. At that moment, as your knees gave away, and you dropped to the cold stone floor, all you could hear was your own heartbeat loudly thumping in your head and your own thoughts reciting a silent mantra over and over again.

No. No no no, this can’t be real.

A wave of unbelievable grief washed over you, numbing your senses as you let out an anguished and pained scream.

You clutched the envelope to your chest in despair hoping that the big, warm hands of Alhaitham would finally wake you from this nightmare. But you never woke, nor would you ever.

Because this wasn’t a dream. This was reality.

And the hands you longed for the most would never touch you again. The eyes you wanted to look at you were forever shut. And the voice you wished to hear had fallen silent for all eternity.

All you had left of him was the blood-stained letter you were holding in your hands at this very moment.

Between sobs, you shakily took it out of the envelope and started reading. Every word pierced your heart like dull knives, knowing it would be the last ones Alhaitham would ever address to you.

And the day he died, a part of you died with him.

To my Little Sprout, you always hated that nickname. However, I could never get enough of your reaction whenever I called you that. The way you always crinkled your nose and pouted always made my heart swell. It’s an image I have on my mind as of writing this right now as well. Anyway, as you know, I was never one for flowery words, so if you receive this letter, I’m dead. Please don’t blame Kaveh for my death. There was nothing he could have done to help or prevent it. I’ve lived a wonderful life and I have you to thank for that. You made every day worth living for and all I want to do with my remaining time now is address my last words to you. I die knowing I’ve been loved by you. That alone is more than I could have ever wished for. I want you to be happy and know that you made me the luckiest man alive. Albi*. Please live a happy and peaceful life. I know you can. You’ve always been stronger than me. I love you. I always did and always will. Forever Yours Alhaitham

(*) "albi" translates to "my heart" in Arabic.

CHILDE

It was a cold and stormy day in Snezhnaya and a few snowflakes had begun to fall. The clouds were hanging low and colored the entire sky in a dirty gray hue. Not an unusual thing at this time of year.

You were waiting at home for Ajax to return from his mission. He didn’t mention where exactly he went. He just said it was a short business trip and assured you that he would be back by the end of the week.

It was now Sunday and you had spent the day getting everything ready for his return including buying ingredients for his favorite dish. You got everything prepared and all you needed to do now was wait for him to get here.

As you were lost in thought the sound of the doorbell cut through your thoughts and you excitedly hurried to the door, almost knocking a chair over on the way.

Expecting Ajax you donned the widest smile you could possibly muster before opening the door.

However, spotting who was actually standing in front of the door made goosebumps erupt on your skin and the cold air that wafted in from outside wasn’t the cause of it. A tall white-haired man with a long expensive looking coat stood in front of your door. The right half of his face was entirely covered by a black and blue mask.

You were certain you had seen him before and soon recognized him as some government official who directly answered to the Tsaritsa herself. You couldn’t think of a reason why he would show up at your doorstep all of a sudden. Perhaps he had mistaken your house for someone else’s?

“Good evening.” He spoke in a low, bassy voice.

“Good evening, sir. How may I help?” You asked reluctantly.

He asked for your name, grabbing into his coat in search of something causing you to be even more on your guard, than you had already been. Kept a close eye on the area where his hand disappeared into his coat.

A gush of icy wind suddenly blew in your direction, pricking at your skin and causing you to shiver. Hugging your arms around your chest you watched how a few snowflakes got caught in the stranger’s hair.

He brought forth a blue envelope and looked at you with unwavering scrutiny. His presence was making you increasingly uneasy and as of now you still clue as to what he wanted. What was sure by now though, was that he definitely had the intention to ring your doorbell.

“Do you want to come in, sir?” you carefully inquired, stepping aside to gesture him in.

“No need. I don’t intend to stay for long.”

He glared down at the envelope in his hands before he redirected his gaze back at you with a still stern expression.

“Did he ever mention to you what his occupation was?” The stranger suddenly asked.

“N-no, never. He’s actually supposed to come home soon. So if you need anything from him I could –”

"No need.” He interrupted, pressing his lips together into a thin line, glancing at the envelope once more, before finally handing it to you.

He nodded once before turning around on his heel and walking away. He looked over his shoulder one final time before leaving your property, offering a brief “I’m sorry for your loss.” before disappearing into the snowstorm.

The howling of the wind, the rustling of snow falling to the ground, and the pounding of your own heartbeat were the only things audible.

Your eyes fixated on the letter bearing your name written in the familiar penmanship of your boyfriend.

A sinking feeling settled in the pit of your stomach, knowing deep down that this would be the last thing you would ever receive from him. These were his final words to you. Never again would he walk through this door with that warm, cheerful smile of his or wrap his arms lovingly around you from behind.

Never in your life had you felt so alone and lost as you did at this moment. Engulfed by a sense of desolation and hopelessness you dropped to your knees. Screaming out in anguish at the top of your lungs as tears streamed down your face was the last thing you actively remembered doing. The desolate, snowy landscape of your homeland muffled your agony and swallowed it whole, offering you no solace. No one was able to hear it. No one but you. Alone.

My Love, there is something about me I had kept a secret all these years in order to keep you safe. Because the last thing I would ever wish for is bringing harm upon you. I will spare you the details of my occupation now as well for the same reason. But I just want you to know that I wasn’t just some ordinary toy seller. My occupation regularly involved dangerous missions. And if you receive this letter, it means one of these missions has successfully done its job. I will no longer be coming come to you, love. Please, do not look into the details of my passing. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. I love you so much it physically hurts and the only thing I regret is no longer being able to come home to you. Please live a happy and fulfilling life. Do me this favor. In Love Ajax

KAEYA

As you were making your way back home from work, a member of the Knights of Favonius called out your name. With his hand raised and entirely breathless from the chase, he relayed a message from Jean herself - he informed you that she urgently wished to speak with you at the Headquarters.

Naturally, you wondered what the Knights could possibly want from you, so you promptly headed to the Knights of Favonius Headquarters after a brief stop at your home to change your clothes and set your bag down.

Weirdly enough Kaeya wasn't home yet either. You assumed he must be at the meeting as well and that was probably the reason you were being called to the Headquarters in the first place.

To your surprise, when you arrived at the Headquarters there seemed to be a huge turmoil in front of the building and many people were shouting something. But you couldn’t quite make out what all the ruckus was about.

You caught sight of Jean at the top of the stairs as you got closer. The moment her eyes met yours a knot of anxiety twisted inside of your chest. Her facial expression was unlike anything you had ever seen and made all your neck hairs stand on end.

With a nod she motioned for you to follow her into her office. You wordlessly complied, slowly making your way through the crowd. All eyes were fixed on you and you couldn’t help but feel even more uneasy than you already had prior.

What in Celestia had happened here and how exactly were you involved in all this? You weren’t a Knight of Favonius after all.

Jean shut the door behind you and almost immediately asked you to sit down. Her furrowed eyebrows and her solemn expression further increased the unease you felt.

You slowly sunk down onto the chair in front of her desk, your eyes nervously fixed on her. You weren’t sure what you were doing here and why Kaeya wasn’t here either. You had expected to find him here since he hadn’t been at home either.

Jean was standing in front of one of the bookshelves in the room with her back facing you and her arms crossed over her chest and looking like she was ringing for words.

“Are we waiting for Kaeya?” you inquired seeing as she didn’t make any moves to start talking on her own any time soon.

“Kaeya won’t come,” she replied curtly with a low voice, grabbing an envelope from the shelf in front of her.

“What do you mean?” You asked in confusion.

“What I mean is…” Jean inhaled and exhaled deeply before turning around to face you. Her eyes looked puffy and red. Tears glistened in their corners that she quickly tried to blink away to put her brave face back on. “Kaeya won’t come, because… because he won’t come back at all.”

A single tear rolled down Jean’s cheek and even though she wiped it away quickly, but it was too late. You saw. As you looked at her it was beginning to dawn on you what she was getting at. You understood what all the ruckus in front of the headquarter was about, why everyone fell silent when you passed them, and why the courier had been so eager to find you. And also – why Kaeya hadn’t been home yet.

You slumped further into the chair, your eyes widened in shock, your hand covering your open mouth. You felt like you were about to pass out and Jean seemed to sense it. She softly called out your name and walked over to you, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder.

“We found this letter addressed to you on his desk,” she explained, placing the letter in your hand with a sad smile. “The Abyss Order, they –”

“Please, Jean. I-I don’t want to know.” You quickly raised your hand in order to shut her up. You didn’t want to know how it happened. Your heart weighed heavy enough knowing it did. And just knowing that they found this letter on his desk meant he knew it was about to happen.

Why did he never speak to you about it?

With trembling hands, you broke the seal on the back of the envelope to take the letter out that was written in his beautiful penmanship. You could tell by just looking at it that he had taken his time to address these last words to you.

And through broken sobs and with tears streaming down your face you started reading.

To my precious snowflake, Jean will probably be giving you this letter, tell her I’m sorry for burdening her with that. I’m addressing this letter to you because I know what you’re going to think. Why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t he talk to me? The answer is simple, my love. I knew this day would come sooner or later and I didn’t want to burden you, scare you or make you unhappy if I told you about it. I didn’t wish to taint what we had with this and instead just enjoy every minute I was allowed to spend with you to the fullest. Hey, don’t miss me too much, okay? But who am I kidding? Of course, you will. It’s me after all. Thank you for allowing me into your heart and giving my lost soul a place to call home. You are the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I will forever love you. In Love Kaeya

Do not repost, copy, translate or edit - © dustofthedailylife || reblogs, comments, and asks about Genshin or my fics are always greatly appreciated and motivate me! Maple dividers are mine - do not copy.

#genshin impact #astronetwrk #genshin fanfic #genshin x reader #alhaitham x reader #childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #kaeya x reader #genshin drabbles #genshin angst #genshin scenarios #genshin headcanons #genshin imagines #genshin x female reader #genshin x gn reader #🍁 dust writes

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simp999 · 2 years ago

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A New Home Ch. 10

Various Splatoon Manga x Skilled! Isekai'd! Reader

Wc: 1k

Back to the start! Previous Next

You stretch your arms above your head, relishing in the comfort of waking up in an actual bed. You take a look around your new room, spotting the new posters, figures, merch and a cyan squid plushie with a gas mask on it sitting on your desk. You haven’t been living with your team for long, but there are already lots of papers scattered about over the desk, clothing on the floor, and some video games stacked on the desk that make it feel like home. You slip your top on and try to remember what’s supposed to happen next in the story. You’re not sure when Team Blue is supposed to battle Team Purple again, but it should be very soon. You’ve already been sure to be in the square as often as possible for the past day, watching out for them. Today you had to come up with another excuse, but it was getting too hard to come up with anything rational. You take a seat on the couch with a bowl of cereal in hand, and you try to come up with something. The silence doesn’t last long when Leo runs into the room, mostly directing his attention at Tasha.

“Skull’s in the plaza! An influencer got a picture of him today, look!”

You take a quick peek and see the back of the head of an inkling with blue ink that appears to be wearing pilot goggles, along with a blurry shot of Skull. It does look like it was taken today for sure. You tell everyone to get their stuff ready to go out, under the guise that Skull’s someone you look up to or whatever. Well, you’re not wrong, you do look up to him. And you are a fan, just in a different way than most.

You pick up the manual from your desk and shove it in your bag before shrugging it over your shoulder and picking up your weapon. The rest of your team is already at the door waiting for you. You throw your footwear on and you’re out the door. It looks like you made it just in time, catching the last bits of the conversation between Goggles and Skull. You’re glad you live close to the plaza. Moray Towers, huh? This battle was interesting, you’re looking forward to seeing Skull show a little more emotion. He did go through some quick character development, going from a big, scary unbeatable S+ rank player to a lovable dork with a hopeless sense of direction.

You’re already making your way toward Moray Towers before your team even catches what’s going on. They follow behind you, wondering why you wanted to come to the plaza if you didn’t even want to see Skull. The four of you get comfortable, setting your weapons down, and you pull out your pencil and manual. The battle begins shortly and you quickly take point-form notes on how Skull’s team battles. A few seconds in and he’s already got the whole Blue Team down. You’re still unsure of how Goggles was seriously able to defeat a team with so much skill, but you remember that it’s all about main character powers. The Squid Sisters are heard over the loudspeakers, announcing Skull’s quad kill, and call it Skull’s Territory.

“Hey, Tasha’s territory sounds cooler, don’tchya think?” Leo wants to up the mood, but he doesn’t realize that you’re perfectly content with Skull winning. Too bad it doesn’t last long.

‘Oh, here comes Skull’s Kraken!’ You lean forward in your seat, never having seen it up close before. You always splatted your opponents right before they could use it, or you would simply splat them so much that they had no time to fill their special gauges. You only got to see them in Splatoon or videos you saw online. Even though you had no real references, you could tell that Skull’s kraken form was bigger than most. Maybe around 1.5x the size if you were to guess. You take a look to the side to see Tasha completely focused on the battle with a smile on her face. She sure is a big fan, huh? Then you remember how rude he was in the beginning of the manga, catching his “Weaklings are such boring opponents,” line. He’ll warm up soon.

Team Blue does their usual shenanigans and the purple team is dumb enough to be grouped together. That seems to be a constant issue between the S4 members, you find. Team Blue finally uses their singular brain cell and uses the inkzooka on Skull, effectively making him back down. Aviators and the rest of the team are nearly back in the center, ready to fight again. You’re disappointed that not one of them stays back for Skull to super jump to to save time. It’s too late now though, since Goggles managed to face Skull at the top of the tower.

“Show him Goggles, your new special move…!” You notice Leo’s head turn to behind you quickly, recognizing that voice.

Rider wasn’t saying it loudly, mostly just to himself, but Leo gave away your position right then and there. Rider looks down at Leo, who has the biggest, dorkiest smile on his face.

“Oh my cod, it’s Rider!” Okay, you’re glad that he got to meet one of his idols but you don’t wanna be caught up in this, not right now! You keep your focus trained on the battle, but Leo makes it hard to do so when he grabs your shoulders, shaking you in excitement. Tasha gives him a side-eye, you know it’s not meant to be in a bad way, that’s just how she is. You can see Milo bounce his knee up and down, clearly excited to see Rider too, but not wanting to scare him off with his excessive amounts of talking.

You finally half-heartedly turn to face the Yellow-Green inkling, trying to show the least amount of interest as possible.

‘I’m just a random fan, is all. Nothing special. It’s not like he’ll recognize me-’

“It’s you again.”

It wasn’t a question.

He was confident in what he said. He didn’t sound interested in you more than anyone else, but this proves that someone from the manga knows you.

Next Part

Apr.30.23

#fanfic #x reader #splatoon manga #splatoon manga x reader #splatoon #splatoon 2 #splatoon 3 #splatoon manga rider #splatoon manga skull #splatoon skull x reader #splatoon rider x reader #splatoon manga skull x reader

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dearcraziness · 1 year ago

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Chapter 1.

It was quiet, not a sound was heard in the whole studio. However, there will be lots of funny noises, as usual. The rooms and corridor were not very brightly lit, but this didn't prevent Bendy and his friends from having very interesting time together. The surroundings seemed dark and gloomy. It was only in the interior of the rooms, nothing more. If a stranger had entered and seen the gray-yellow walls, the dull wooden floor, they would certainly have thought that they were in the most depressing place in the world, which was far from the truth. The creatures living here, called "ink creatures" or "monsters", had a great time every day, enjoying singing songs or drawing pictures. Often the word "monster" causes negative impressions, for example, fear or contempt. But black and white cartoon characters were created as such, and they chose kindness and sincerity instead of rage and urge to destroy. They didn't want to create chaos at all, because they knew that they already had the most important in their whole existence - each other. Nevertheless, terrible things were meant to appear... People who have drawn the characters and brought them to life have done terrible things...

One fine day, Bendy discovered something new in the recording studio. In general, the imp found reasons to have fun every day. He was constantly illuminated by new grandiose plans and ideas, which he shared with Boris and Lara. Today was no exception.

"Guys, let's go quickly!" he exclaimed with impatience. "I have to show you something!"

"I hope I didn't wake up at five o'clock in the morning in vain." Boris remarked sleepily.

"Don't even doubt it!" Bendy confirmed. - You will definitely like it!"

They went down the wide wooden steps. The friends approached the vocal room, isolated from the rest of the room by the additional wall. This is where friends used to record their voices.

"Here, take a look," showed Bendy. "The device located opposite the microphone can not only record sounds, but also add different effects! For example, I can record a song in reverse form or make a montage, and also remake our tracks or combine them together."

"So you woke us up to show what you were going to do?" mechanic emphasized the penultimate verb.

"Exactly." Bendy confirmed, ignoring his friend's reproach.

"Oh, it would be great to hear the sound of one of our songs in reverse," Laura said. "Quite an interesting device."

"Have you also noticed what an amazing range for creativity it expands?" the musician smiled. "We'll definitely experiment with the sound overlays."

"What I'm more interested in is how did all this come before us?" the girl asked quietly.

"If it appeared, then it was necessary for someone. Why guess?" Boris asked. "I'm much more concerned about where my gloves are. I'm going to look for them."

Then he left the recording studio, looking under each chair and pulling gears and tools out of boxes - what if the loss is there?

"Hmm, aren't they on the table in his room?" Lara thought.

Bendy chuckled.

"Let him remember. He'll find them anyway." he smiled.

The girl smiled back at him.

"You know, Bendy, I have to tell you something..."

Bendy froze.

"I think I wanted to tell you something too..." he said and immediately blushed.

"Remember when I said I didn't have my own songs? Actually, I've written a couple of tunes, but I can't show them yet. I hope you'll understand..."

Bendy immediately came to his senses.

"Oh, of course, you can keep your creative ideas secret and share them only when you feel ready! Just know that I will support any of your endeavors." he replied good-naturedly.

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. Well, see you soon then..."

"See you at lunch..."

Before leaving the room, Lara turned around and smiled at the young man. Bendy waved after her.

Mixed feelings of joy, sadness, embarrassment, and dreaminess crowded into his heart. But he knew one thing for sure - there was a lot of good events ahead of them... After all, their world is especially noticeably sparkling with magic and miracles.

#bendy and the ink machine

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queenjess-official · 2 years ago

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I was just flipping through this old journal and came across an entry titled "From Nothing To Everything." When I wrote that I was in a turbulent place.

I had let go of a long term relationship a year before and found myself in a similar situation with someone new. It was like we skipped over all the good parts of a new relationship and landed directly in the shit storm that comes just before a breakup.

I had been here before, I told myself. I recognized the same patterns in this new person as I did in my old relationship: lack of self awareness, codependency, control issues, and insecurity. But I was no longer drawn to those patterns like a moth to a flame. I recognized his behaviors for what they were and felt nothing but the strong desire to get the fuck out.

But I was on the verge of being trapped financially - again. He had all the resources and I had nothing, nothing but my car and my kitchen job. And so again, I felt the pull of safety and comfort. Maybe I could sacrifice myself again, life would be a whole lot easier if I did.

But then I remembered the scream.

It started as a soft nagging deep in my solar plexus when I was in my old relationship. The more I let his needs and sense of reality dictate my own, the more I did what I thought I should do instead of what I actually wanted to do, the louder that nagging feeling got until it became a scream that I had to fight down with every ounce of my being.

Every time it started to surface I wanted to throw the nice porcelain dishes across the living room and watch them shatter into pieces on the new hardwood floors. I remembered that scream and I couldn't go back, so this time I left.

It felt like a very profound moment for me, it was a big step because I hadn't been able to make that decision in my old relationship, before I let the scream grow inside me. This time I was choosing not to give it a place to grow.

So in the middle of January in Colorado, I left. I got in my car which was also my home and I worked my kitchen job and I put one foot in front of the other to rebuild my life. But this time it was fully mine, no one else's to dictate.

Into The Void Empty Handed

When I left I heard this phrase, into the void empty handed. It felt scary to be in the unknown, but also exciting and empowering to willingly step into the void.

Shortly after this, my two good friends and I got impromptu hand tattoos of an arrow to represent our warrior woman energy. As we put our hands together to take a picture of our fresh ink, I realized I had stepped into the void, not quite empty handed. I had good friends and a new found ability to assess relationships and walk away when they dont feel supportive. In that moment I was so grateful for those two things.

Fast forward to now

It's now April and I wouldn't say I've come to everything from nothing, I'm still a lot closer to nothing than everything. However, this magical thing happened when I said no to a relationship that didn't feel good, a new, better one came along. I found someone who has done the same work as me, who is on my same level of self awareness, who feels good, really good. It feels different than any relationship I've been in before, but that's also because now I am different too.

I'm working towards finding work that feels sustainable, working towards growing my business, and taking baby steps towards abundance. I am working towards a life that is truly my own.

Sometimes we have to just let go of everything and step into the void.

~ Trust, my darlings, is the name of the game ✨

#life journey #personal narrative #relationship #trust the process #self healing #self awakening #self awareness #autobiography #vulnerability #faithoverfear #perserverance #authencity

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inkskinned · 3 years ago

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she trails one finger down my cheek, sighing. "I'm gonna miss you."

i roll my eyes, lying back against her uncolored bedspread, watching the room settle into the correct form. she always gets like this, right before an Assignment. she takes our Roles a little bit too seriously. my brain is already sloshing with the pacing of the Narrative - a little stilted, a little distant. I'd been in Close Third in the last one, and more poetic. her hands make shadow puppets on the bright pink walls; the room shifts and become covered in art; shifts and become covered in band posters. then back to pink.

she'd been my Best Friend Forever since kindergarten, usually. the oldest we'd ever met each other was in middle school, but that Assignment had been pretty bleak anyway, and she'd only been in-and-out of the picture. I'd barely seen her. i loved her, usually, from the moment i met her - she usually had done something Charming in some way, solidifying our bond for the Audience.

"you're gonna be fine," i tell her. "we'll be back here in no time."

she sighs and curls up next to me, turning so our noses almost touch. she smells familiar, like drying ink. then she smells like mint and mown grass. then she smells like herself, for a second, before she's back to peppermint. "well, you're gonna be fine," she says. "The Main Character always is."

"this again." i roll my eyes a second time. this Assignment feels like it is heavy in the eye-rolling. i had told her before: i'm jealous of her Role just like she's jealous of mine. the Best Friend Forever gets to be quirky, spunky, cute. she always has a personality like a firecracker - even if sometimes that firecracker had a harsh edge to it. in most Assignments, she'd run around, starting - or getting me out of - loads of trouble. she gets to have grand adventures without too much Character Development, which is always painful for me and kind of annoying. she is always Assigned cool interests and hobbies, whereas i can feel my singular Driving Interest crystalizing in my bloodstream. "i think this time i'm Interested in yearbook. Gag me." I mime choking, she wrinkles her little lopsided nose in a giggle.

"you just hate it from stuff that's leftover from your last Assignment, though." she looks up at the ceiling. "you'll be actually Interested soon. in this one i'm gonna have a secret thing about fashion magazines. now that is gag-me."

"remember when you were like, so -"

"like so into porcelain dolls?"

"and i was like, Interested in -"

"you were deep in the paint of effing biology." she wrinkles her nose again, like a little mouse, and i realize i love this new face, the way i love all of her faces. i like this tic she has. sometimes her tics are supposed-to-be-ugly; i love them every time anyway. she's my Best Friend Forever, I can't not love whatever she is. she bites her lip. "oh gosh. i'm already talking like the Assignment. that's quick."

"sounds Young Adult. I haven't been able to swear in, like, a millennia." i don't usually get to swear though, regardless of Audience, since swearing is a Best Friend Forever thing. although sometimes i would be Assigned to just-swear if it was a big-deal kind of moment, and those Assignments were fun. the words would pop out of my mouth like a soap bubble, big and afraid of themselves. and my Best Friend Forever would always look at me, shocked and awestruck.

i loved when she looked at me like that. it wasn't in every Assignment, but it was always so gratifying to be in her eye like that. to be seen, the way a Best Friend Forever sees you.

she takes my hand gently. she's usually a little bit bigger than me, but in this one, she's smaller than average. slim. we're probably going to have a Big Fight about jealousy - whenever she's slimmer, the Audience needs to know she's also Insecure about it. Usually it's the other way around - I'm slimmer, and Insecure that i don't have her curves. in those, she's always "better with boys." until, at least...

like she reads my mind, she sighs again. "I know. i just hate the part where you meet Him."

i'm not startled by how on-the-same-page (ha! maybe i'm Funny in this one) we are. she's my Forever person. the Him changes a lot, but she is a delicate constant. she knows me - even when i'm not-me. or not this me. whatever. "i mean, it might be different this time."

she sits up. i sit up too, disoriented by the strange violence of the action. she pushes the heel of her palm into her cheekbone. "it sucks, you know?"

i can tell by how she wrinkles her nose that she is understating it. i've known her Forever, after all.

nose wrinkle. "we're always the most dynamic and interesting part. you and i, and how we grow up together, and how we interact, and how we try to get over the same things. i know we have a lot of Big Fights, but we always end back up together at the end."

it's a sore subject. i betray her a lot for Him. i can't help it. "i know, but maybe this time - i mean, it's not always ..."

her eyes flash while she turns to me. "you just, like, get caught up in Him. every time. and i have to, like, watch you leave."

"i don't always leave." i feel pouty, suspicious that she is right. it is a Main Character thing to be Right in The End, not a Best Friend Forever thing. i don't always do it the Right Way, but I always end up back here, apologizing to her. she always ends up being okay with it, because i'm always Right.

"you do always leave. and it doesn't make any effing sense, because He never makes sense like we do, you know, like... you both are never - like, your Development with Him, is never like, actually...." she moves her hands around in the air as if trying to find the term, but gives up. "the Audience even thinks it."

I hold my breath at her blasphemy. "don't bring the Audience into -"

she grabs at the roots of her hair. "i'm right, though. you meet Him, and because you are a girl, and you are the Main Character, you love Him, and you forget about me." her hands drop to her lap and her thin shoulders pull forward as if she has been suddenly deflated. the anger all seeping out around her. she's usually not able to stay angry at me long - loving me is her Role.

the air feels heavy between us. thick of something unwritten. i don't know the rules of this one. in the space between Assignments, she can be a little wild. her Role doesn't sink her as deep into the Assignment - she has wiggle room where i don't.

i try to tease her, nudging her with my shoulder. "i didn't realize you had a jealous Assignment this time."

she looks up at me. biting the inside of her cheek. i can see her jaw working against the muscle. "i'm always jealous," she whispers.

"that's natural," i assure her. "it's a Best Friend Forever thing. I'm always jealous, too, just a little. you know that."

"it's because we actually see each other. because we actually know each other. because we're made for each other." she doesn't drop my eyes. her hands take mine again, warm and soft. again, that feeling that she is a familiar love - a long love, a deep love - comes sloshing up inside me. i was made to love her, and i was also made to betray her. in order for the Character Development to work, i have to love her hard, so it hurts when i choose Him. she has to love me hard, too. "it's..." she breathes deep, as if through a choke. i wonder how much longer before we'll be in the Assignment, and unable to talk like this. it can't be much longer at all. "it's just stupid. every time, you see Him, and for no reason, he's just better and you leave and -"

"you know i don't want to hurt you, though!" it's an old argument. i feel the pattern of it, glad to be back on script. "you know i never -"

"you just see Him, and it's like magic, and it doesn't mater that He makes no sense - "

"it's about growing up! it's about Character Development! it's not about you, you know that, i love you, i just always Love Him, and -"

"and i am jealous -" she grabs my face, desperate, her voice thick. the room around us starts to shift, and i can tell by how it is pulling itself together that it's solidifying into the Assignment. someone is writing us into a space. her words are garbled for a second, and i feel the hair on the back of my neck rise as she fights the Assignment.

"we're gonna be okay," i promise, "i'll love you the whole time, you know that, even if -"

when she kisses me, something happens in the pit of my stomach. i've been Kissed many times, by many Hims. it is sometimes electric, dizzying, powerful. it is sometimes cataclysmic. it is sometimes rushed, hurried, overwhelming - sometimes harsh, dominant. i have been Kissed until i saw stars, and Kissed perfect.

this is not that. i don't have words for this. i have no narrative. there is only her, and only me, and no story, her hands on my cheeks. i realize, in the seconds we have - she's crying.

then i am on her bed again, which is pink and purple patchwork, and she is across the room, lying on the floor, kicking her heels up while she reads a magazine lazily. we've known each other from preschool, when she punched someone for stealing my candy. we both got detention - who knew preschoolers could get detention - and we'd be inseparable ever since. she listens to loud music but loves fashion magazines; and i love her.

she's saying something, but my old phone pings, lying on top of the Yearbook editing i'm doing. i look down, frozen. she asks me something, but i can't hear her, staring at the notification on my screen. i don't even notice her getting up to investigate.

her hair tickles my cheek while she reads the phone over my shoulder.

she grins. "oh my gosh." she says. "you got invited to the party, holy guacamole. do you know who's gonna be there? baby, you need to go."

i know i need to. after all, after a little complaining, i am going to go. we will try on all her clothes first. and while i'm there, i'll be a Main Character, and not-quit-fit-in.

and while i'm there, i'm going meet Him. and it will be Magical. for some reason, there are tears pricking at the side of my eyes, even though i have no idea why. this story is funny, and light, and amusing.

she grabs my hand, and she is warm, and familiar, and i feel Insecure that she's so thin. i feel Insecure - and - something - a memory, or a -

"come on," she says, and, for a second, something in her eyes is deeply sad, and the time between us feels like fraying satin.

but then she breaks out into a grin. "i know just what to dress you in. i can't wait. you're gonna meet Him."

#sorry mobile users #this does have a read more but tumblr succcksss #short story #fiction #spilled ink #prose #me: im gonna write a funny post about like #how fucked up straight media is #me: hang on what if i spend 2 hours writing THIS inSTEAD

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mercy-burning · 3 years ago

Text

Fake Fiancée - Part 3

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Summary: Reader and Spencer write letters back and forth, both of them slowly starting to fall in deeper. Category: Smut (18+) Content Warnings: Strong language, sexual themes, masturbation (male and female), sexting, face sitting Word Count: 6.3k

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4

MASTERLIST

NOTE: Hello!! Sorry this has been so long in the making, but for a while my inspiration for this story absolutely disappeared, and then I tried to think of how to bridge the previous chapters to the final one with absolutely no luck. And then I re-read Part 2 and got stuck on the letter, thus this chapter was born! I didn’t want to drag this miniseries out any longer than 4 parts, and the letter format combined with other inner monologuing and description really allowed me to do that in an interesting way that hopefully doesn’t feel rushed!

It was so much fun and very refreshing to write. I hope you like how it turned out!

Thank you all for being so patient while I get my shit together 😅 Love you guys! Enjoy 🥰

***

We've been sending letters back and forth for about a month now.

If I'm being honest, it took me about two weeks to decide whether or not I actually wanted to send one back, but could you blame me?

Here was this guy I couldn't stop thinking about after a one-night stand, only for him to catch me—months later at the same exact bar we'd met in—flirting with his friend. And then after our sexual encounter that night, all the things we said, the connection I thought we had, all of it...

He left it all behind the next morning, only to send me a letter in the mail.

I was pissed.

Sure, it was a nice letter, but the fact that he'd reduced what we had down to a piece of paper and scribbled ink had made me angrier than I cared to admit.

In retrospect, I may have overreacted.

Over time I started re-reading his words, and the more I thought about it all, the more I started to regret my anger. And more than anything, I just wanted to see him again. I couldn't stay mad at him, not when all I could picture was his pouty face and nervous hands. His sunbeam of a smile peeked through the clouds of my anger here and there, and the longer it settled, the more it bathed me in a warm light that should have made me happy. But all it did was make me long for him.

Once I'd actually started writing that first letter back, I wondered why I hadn't jumped on the opportunity in the first place. I mean, after all the cliché shit we'd experienced in our short relationship thus far, adding love letters to the mix was just as perfect as you could get, right?

Spencer,

I'm sorry it's taken me this long to finally write you back. Truthfully I wasn't sure I wanted to write you at all, but your letter kept drawing me back in. I couldn't stop re-reading it, imagining you sitting down somewhere and contemplating every word as you wrote them down. I wondered if you'd thrown out hundreds of pieces of paper after messing up when you could have just as well typed out a letter without wasting them.

And then by that point, all I could think about was just you.

I always pictured what your living room looks like, or your kitchen table, or your office, or wherever you sit down to write. I wondered if you looked like one of those hopeless writers in the movies that have a scruffy face, coffee stains on their white tee shirts, and messy hair that hasn't been washed in days due to lack of inspiration.

But in the end, the image that won out over all the others was just you as I remember.

I'm not going to lie, that image most of the time was your body above mine while I held my hand to your throat, but for the sake of romance I guess I should probably tell you what it was every other time— the outfit you were wearing the first time we met.

When I think of you, I think of your hand nervously clutching that beer bottle for dear life and the other one occasionally pushing your glasses up your nose. I think of your eyes every time they'd look away from me, probably to keep yourself from staring too long.

But the thing that always gets me the most is your smile— even when it comes in little flashes, after you've said something you probably thought was lame. You covered it up with that perfect smile.

I've dreamt of that smile nearly every night since I met you, and I wouldn't be opposed to seeing it in person again.

I'd love to meet you for dinner some time.

But since you did manage to "more or less abandon me twice now", I think it's only fair that you make it up to me first.

Make the next letter a good one, and we'll see what happens.

Yours, Y/N

P.S. I hope my handwriting is as pretty as you hoped. I'd hate to disappoint.

***

Y/N,

I'm incredibly grateful that you've given me a chance to redeem myself. Every night since I last saw you has also been spent wondering what your house looks like on the inside... What you looked like reading my letter (perhaps at your kitchen table?)

And this might sound silly, but I've also wondered what your bedroom looks like. You may be laughing at me, because I've been in your bedroom, but in my defense I was a bit preoccupied to really take notice of my surroundings— I was simply surrounded by you.

But since I've been to your home, I figured it was only fair that I invite you to mine, possibly for dinner. I don't know how to cook much— in fact I'm pretty awful at making anything that's not a can of Spaghetti-Os... But one of my co-workers is an excellent chef, and with a recipe from him and some practice under my belt, I'm sure I can pull it off.

But by "some" practice, I mean probably weeks or months of practice. So hopefully that gives you ample time to mull it over.

Perhaps in the meantime we can get to know each other through our letters. And who's to say, it might spare us the awkward "getting to know each other" stage of a first date. Though, pretty much every stage of every date is awkward for me, so it might not help at all.

Regardless, I'm very much looking forward to hearing from you again.

I do get called away for work quite often, however. So I apologize in advance if I can't get back to you as soon as I'd like.

But in any instance, you're still welcome to text message or call me. I know it isn't as romantic or personal as handwritten letters, but it's certainly practical.

Yours, Spencer.

P.S. Your handwriting is just as beautiful as I'd imagined it would be. And you could never disappoint me.

That being said, if you somehow decide that this letter wasn't up to your standards and reject my offer, I may just find myself in the deepest despair imaginable.

***

I was definitely way too in my head about this.

It was just a text. Sure, it was a risky text to send, but I had no doubt in my mind that it would be fine in the end.

So why was my stomach churning just thinking about sending it?

Some might have chalked it up to my fat ol' crush on Spencer, but I knew it ran deeper. It had to do at least a little with my history with Patrick... The man stood me up and sent divorce papers to my place of work rather than to my face... And as much as I liked to think I was completely over it, we'd been together for years, and it really did a number on me.

I didn't want to ruin this new thing with Spencer so badly that I was overthinking everything.

So even though I could see his face opening the text, my heart doing jumps at the mere thought of it, a bigger part of me worried that it would be a step too far in the wrong direction. I didn't want him to think I was only in this for... sexual reasons. Which, don't get me wrong, have been pretty damn great so far, but I really did want to get to know him and see where this went.

In the end I decided to hold off. I settled for something a little lighter.

Spencer,

Don't feel too bad about your cooking skills. I've been through my fair share of burnt frozen pizzas to know how you're feeling. So the fact that you've given yourself the opportunity to practice and learn a recipe just for me is extremely romantic, and I appreciate the thought.

I won't stop you from following through, though I'm telling you now that no amount of slaving away in the kitchen will make me change my mind about you. We could probably eat stale crackers on the floor and I'd still find you utterly fascinating.

Maybe that's a bit too extreme, but I hope you get my point.

Anyway, I'd love to come over for dinner some time. Whenever you think you're ready to show me those improved cooking skills, you just let me know and I'll happily make my way over.

In the meantime, I'm thinking of sending more with my letters. I don't want to give away too much, but I will say that I'm very crafty. And don't feel like you need to send anything in return, though I'll let you know if I ever change my mind.

Yours,

Y/N

***

In the bottom right corner of the letter, right next to her signature, was a red lipstick stain in the shape of... well, her lips. It was common sense to know that they were hers and no one else's, not just a stamp or a drawing, and rather her actual lip stain... But even without it, I would have been able to tell by their shape.

Was that pathetic?

I could hear her, picture her in front of me, hovering above me with red-painted lips in the shape of a smirk, visibly cooing as she called me names... I could feel the ghost of her fingertips trailing up my throat and tilting my chin up to look at her as she rocked her hips teasingly into mine...

The whine I let out truly was pathetic.

You pathetic, needy little thing, I could hear her say...

My hands clutched the paper so tightly I thought I'd tear it, but it didn't matter when all I could see while staring at it was her luscious, red lips... Her voice was right there in my ear, like she was really beside me, watching me...

Oh, God, what would she do if she saw me right now? Staring at her lipstick stained paper and subconsciously grinding down into my chair...

You pathetic, needy little thing...

My hips jolted with a small, broken shout of her name, and in no time the front of my pants were flooded with warmth. I felt her eyes burning into me from the void, sparking to life with amusement as her voice crept into the deep corners of my brain and whispered praises to me.

Ohh, what a good little whore... Getting off to the thought of me... That's it, sweet boy... Come for me...

By now my eyes had squeezed shut and the letter was crumpled in my hand, the other reaching down to add much-appreciated burning friction to my crotch as I rode out my orgasm. My whole body tensed and shuddered at every sensation, from Y/N's image behind my eyes to the sweet warmth that pooled in my underwear and soaked through onto my hand.

Holy mother of—

The next time I saw her, I was screwed. I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face. I'd surely go red the second I laid eyes on her, and she'd know right away what I was thinking and feeling.

Simply put, it scared and excited me at the same time.

She'd utterly and thoroughly wrecked me, and if she didn't already know it, she certainly would soon.

Y/N,

I'm not sure what you intend to send in addition to your letters, but if it's anything near the sentiment of your lip stain, then you might have to refrain in favor of my poor, fragile heart.

See, it aches for you. It's bad enough I think of you always, but the moment I saw the shape of your lips on that letter, my heart almost shot straight out of my chest. Maybe it was the familiar shape of your lips or the implications of its place next to your name, signed after the word 'yours', that sent me into a tailspin, but whatever the case...

I'm pretty sure I've completely fallen under your spell.

I suppose I should also tell you that my heart wasn't the only part of my body that came to life at your added signature. I assure you, it took no time at all for me to come undone at the thought of your lips pressing gently against the paper, imagining that they were instead pressing to my skin... I didn't even have to touch myself, really. It just happened. Because of you and you alone.

I hope that wasn't too forward, but I felt it necessary that you know just how much of an effect you have on me.

If I could see you again in a millisecond, it wouldn't be soon enough.

That being said, I am determined to spend as much time as possible to perfect this dish for our dinner. Because you deserve nothing but the best, even if you insist that you could settle for less.

It's the least I can do.

Yours, Spencer.

And a week and a half later, when I didn't get a letter back on time, I was sure I'd messed up for good.

My mind was racing a mile a minute, yelling at myself for even thinking for a second of being that detailed in a letter without any consent. Sure, she'd taken it a step up by signing off her letter with a kiss, but I'd been absolutely idiotic in telling her that I got off to it.

I was honestly well and truly prepared to show up at her house with a big bouquet of flowers and an apology so wordy and probably too long for anyone's liking, in hopes that she'd forgive me for making this huge mistake.

Thankfully, though, it wasn't needed.

My phone chimed as I was pacing, my lip near bloody with how hard I'd been chewing at it, and I saw an unknown number attached to a text message and photo attachment.

The photo wouldn't load (I would have to plug it into my laptop and transfer the image there to see it— a fact which always irked Penelope to the core), but with the sentences I saw above the file, I almost knew exactly what I'd find when I had the means to see it.

There. Now we're even... Who says text messages can't be romantic and personal? XXX, Y/N

I felt like Bambi as I scrambled to my laptop three rooms over, stumbling over weak legs with my phone clutched tightly in my hand. My heart raced faster than it ever had as I started everything up and retrieved the right cord for my phone. With a few shakes and stumbles here and there, I briefly entertained the idea of upgrading my phone.

I probably would have left the apartment to do it immediately after seeing her photo attachment, but the moment it loaded up on my screen, my brain and body lost all ability to function properly.

A familiar burn coursed through the lower half of my body and tightened my chest at the sight of her, open and exposed and... wet.

My laptop screen was completely taken over by the image of Y/N's pussy, visibly glistening and aroused. A manicured hand—her hand— was in frame as well, middle finger resting snugly between the supple skin of her wet lips.

The fact that I only tasted her once felt downright cruel.

I tried to imagine it again— my face buried between the softness of her thighs. As much as I wanted to lay her down and indulge myself as long as possible, taking all the time in the world to slowly devour her and truly explore her for myself, what ran through my mind then was something more in the vein of our dynamic thus far.

My mind wandered, specifically to a place where I was the one laying down as she sat down directly onto my face and gave me what she thought I deserved. My hands were tied to the bed, maybe handcuffed. All I knew was that I couldn't touch her, and it bothered me. So I whined, and every time the sound left my mouth, she would let up, lifting further out of reach and causing me to instinctively reach my head up to chase her.

You greedy little slut... Take what I give you...

Desperately seeking her approval, I told her I'd be good and rejoiced when she lowered herself down to me again, allowing me to me completely wrapped up in her once more. My tongue lapped and lapped, gathering as much of her as I could before she'd inevitably leave again.

But she never did.

Somehow I kept my quiet, even though it was extremely difficult, and ate her out like my life depended on it. She glided smoothly over my face, coating more than just my lips in her arousal, and it thrilled me to my very core.

Every time I breathed in I could smell her, every time she groaned out my name my stomach fluttered, and it wasn't long before she was clutching my hair, shaking above me while I drank her in and repressed my whines.

My hips were uncontrollable though, bucking up into nothing and begging for any type of stimulation.

But then suddenly it was there— Her hand, firmly wrapping around my dick and gliding over it beautifully with a slickness that she must have transferred from her pussy. I could still taste her as I cried out her name, her movements quickening with every second until—

I didn't even realize I was actually alone until my eyes opened, cum coating my hand, my heartbeat heavy and loud, and the laptop screen in front of me a shade darker signaling a long period of inactivity.

I'd done it again...

And now we most certainly were not even.

I glanced over at my phone—plugged into the laptop—and then down at my lap, and my stomach knotted as my next move rang clear as day.

***

I woke up the next morning to texts from Spencer, and my heart picked up speed, a gentle warmth blooming through my chest at the sight.

I thought maybe he'd thank me for the photo I'd sent. Maybe he'd return it with an influx of messages along the lines of Oh my god, Holy fuck I miss you, and the like.

But what I wasn't expecting was to see a photo in return, of his hand that I'd dreamt of nearly nightly, wrapped firmly around his cock and all of it completely covered in cum.

Below the photo were three messages in a row, and each one gave me more butterflies than the last.

Sorry for low quality. No smartphone.

Also sorry we're not even anymore.

But I'm not sorry I did it- you're too perfect to resist.

***

Dearest Y/N,

I'm sorry you haven't gotten a letter from me in a while. And I know we've kept in touch through texting and calling while I was swamped at work, though now that I have some time off, I'd love to write you again. As much as I enjoy our virtual conversations, I still find sending letters to be my preferred method of communication (only second to speaking with you in person, that is).

Which brings me to the main point I'm trying to make.

I want to see you again. In person. I'm not completely confident in my cooking ability yet, but if you wouldn't mind the potential of it tasting awful, I'd love to have you over. I promise you nothing but the best, and I know that's a high promise, especially considering I probably haven't sold you on the meal, but it's true.

I'd do anything to please you.

And I really do mean 'anything', I hope you understand that.

Yours, Spencer.

***

The thought of seeing him in person again after so long made my hands way shakier than I would have liked. It made no sense the longer I thought about it, because it was obvious that we liked each other, and seeing each other in person wouldn't be a problem. Because it'd never been a problem before.

It irked me.

Still, I knocked on his door and physically shook out my hands, praying I could keep my cool when he finally opened the door.

But I should have known better.

One second I was staring at a large plank of wood, and the next I was staring into frantic eyes, golden and sparkling just as I remembered, but with an added glimmer of fear that matched the shakiness of my hands.

I don't know how long we stood there, just staring at each other, but the longer we did, the more we relaxed. His fear was gone, and the shaking in my hands turned into a dull hum that longed to reach out for him.

Still, I refrained, settling on a simple, "Hey, pen pal..."

By the way he looked at me, silent as ever, I started to wonder if that was a stupid thing to lead with. So I opened my mouth to apologize, to say anything else, but he beat me to it.

"Y/N... I... H—Hi, you look... incredible."

"O—Oh, thanks... Thank you, yeah, I um... figured I should... dress up a little. I know we're not going out anywhere, but I thought it might be nice."

He doesn't need to know that, Y/N, stop talking!

I gave him a small smile and a nervous laugh in an attempt to stop myself, hating how I was so nervous around him.

Spencer didn't seem to mind, though. He let me in and closed the door behind me as I quickly glanced around his apartment. It was littered with greens and browns, books everywhere, and I'd never felt more at home.

"Is it, uh... What you expected?"

"Hmm?" I turned to meet him, his soft voice pulling me from my wandering eyes.

"My apartment."

"Oh! Yeah, it's very you... I love it."

The compliment had his cheeks turning pink, and there was nothing I wanted to do more than kiss them over and over again.

And just like that, once again we were caught just staring at each other. I didn't know what he was thinking, and honestly, I didn't know what I was thinking either. All I knew in that moment was that Spencer Reid was standing right in front of me, close enough to touch, and I wanted to give in.

I was so wrapped up in the idea of feeling him that I almost didn't hear him speak. I wouldn't have heard him at all had it not been for his lips moving.

"I'm sorry, I haven't started dinner yet..."

"That's okay," I reassured. Or, at least I tried to. Really, though, I think it sounded more like I was uninterested in what he was saying, my voice flat and lifeless as I continued to stare at him.

Suddenly we were closer, and I had to look up higher to see his face, butterflies swarming in my stomach at the way he looked down at me.

"You're sure?"

"Mhm."

"I can start it now if you're getting hungry."

Food isn't what I'm hungry for, is what I thought. I almost said it, too, because he was even closer now, his hands coming out to touch mine. If they were humming before, they were certainly blaring with life now, growing hot under his light touch. And it took everything I had not to look down, because it had been too damn long since I'd seen his hands in person, and I wanted them on me immediately.

He could tell, too. He could sense my urgency, feel the longing radiating off my presence, and I knew this because I could feel his, too. His eyes practically dared me to say what I was thinking, and so I did.

"Don't you dare."

It was hard to tell who moved in first, but it really didn't matter.

I was here, in his apartment, feeling his lips glide over mine with reckless abandon, and that's all that mattered.

His hands gripped my waist so tightly I would have thought he was trying to hold me in place, to make sure I wasn't ever going to leave his sight again. And if that was the case, I would have let him hold me there forever.

My hands, meanwhile, clutched at his hair, forcing myself closer and closer to him with every sharp tug. I reveled in the way he whined into my mouth with every little thing I did, whether it was a tug of the hair or a roll forward of the hips, or even a swipe of my tongue over his.

He was putty in my hands yet again, and just like every time before, it turned me into a fucking goner.

Being with Spencer wasn't like anything I'd ever known. And the only other thing I'd known was Patrick. He didn't want me, not really, and even though he was good to me in the beginning, it was never like this.

I didn't come over to his apartment with shaking hands. I didn't send him fucking love letters almost weekly, and I certainly didn't get kissed like this...

Spencer was drunk on me, and I wasn't any sober myself.

"That picture you sent me..." I mumbled over his lips, still keeping myself as close as I could while I got out what I needed to say. "Where did you take that?"

We kissed for a few more seconds, unable to stay apart, before he answered, his voice just as breathy and brimming with desperation as mine. "My office. Just down the hall."

I kissed him again, hard, and then pulled back to look him in the eyes. They widened when I said, "Show me."

He dragged me through the apartment on rushed legs, and I almost laughed at the urgency, only stopped by the realization that I was just as urgent. It occurred to me that perhaps my laughing at his urgency might just be a slight turn on for him, given our history with my playful degradation, but still I pulled back— Tonight felt... different.

It didn't feel like we were headed in the direction of me calling him my dirty little whore throughout the night, and it was something I was more than okay with. In fact, I welcomed it, excited to see where this new night would take us.

We ended up in his office, which remained more or less the same aesthetic as the rest of his place. In the middle sat a small desk with a laptop and some papers scattered about on it, accompanied by a tall floor lamp and a rolling desk chair.

"Where were you exactly?" I mused, gripping his hand tightly and buzzing at the way his fingers flexed against my own.

"In the chair... I pulled the photo up on my laptop."

"Right. No smartphone."

Spencer hummed in confirmation before dragging me along to the chair, and I fucking giggled as he plopped down and practically pulled me right on top of him, the chair rolling back a foot or two. I went down for a bright, messy kiss that ended with his hands clutching my ass over my skirt and my own cradling his face.

His growing bulge nudged right up into my inner thigh, and I groaned lightly in his mouth, my fingers dragging softly down his jaw and neck until I reached his shoulders.

"What were you thinking about?"

He raised his eyebrow, and I rocked my hips forward with a sly grin, hoping to get my point across. "When you were looking at my picture, in this very chair, what were you thinking about?"

Seeing his eyelids stutter and his tongue dart out at my movements sent a rush through me, and I moved my hips once more to emphasize my urgency.

"I... I thought about you... riding my face. You tied my hands..."

"Oh?" I sighed, rocking forward again and humming into his neck. "Well, that can definitely be arranged if you want it bad enough..."

"Please, Y/N, yes... Please..."

The need dripping from every syllable made it near impossible to breathe, and I was suddenly very inclined to give him everything he wanted. With or without the begging.

So I reluctantly peeled away from him and stood up on weak legs. Staring at Spencer as he sat there, leaning back in the chair with disheveled hair and obvious desire in his eyes, made it all the better when I took my panties off from under my skirt and motioned for him to come forward. "On your knees?"

I would have demanded it in any other situation, but I was feeling a bit more sweet this time around.

And he seemed grateful for it, sliding the chair back further and getting down in front of me. I reached out and played with his hair, trying my hardest to commit his beautiful face to memory. I wanted it burned there for the rest of time.

"Hands?"

Spencer offered his hands to me, and I hummed happily, doing my best to tie his hands together with a makeshift knot from my panties. It wasn't really tight or secure, but it was enough for him to whine as he set them in his lap.

He watched intently as I dropped my skirt—a bit redundant now, but I thought it'd be a nice way to get him more excited. Plus I wanted to see his face (or at lease what I could see of it while it was buried between my legs).

I stepped forward then, looking down at him with a smile while my hands reached out to comb through his hair. "You ready?"

"Uh huh."

The look in his eyes right before I came forward and hovered over his face almost made my come on the spot.

But as fun as that would have been, I was glad for the way my body held off and settled for a beautiful, burning increase of pleasure that dragged out the longer he swiped his tongue through my folds. Actually, I forgot for a moment that I was supposed to be moving, riding his face like he'd thought about.

I willed my eyes open and clutched Spencer's soft locks of hair beneath me, gently rolling my hips and grinding down further on his face. The groan he let out not only felt good against my skin, but it sounded like pure bliss, eliciting a small whimper of my own as I tightened my grip in his hair and rocked faster.

"God, I missed having your mouth on me, baby... You're... so good..."

The longer I spoke the more breathless I became, not because the words didn't come easily, but because I truly believed them to be true.

Spencer really was so fucking good, his tongue the most delicate, divine object of the universe as it drew out every ounce of delight from my body. I may have been the one above him, calling the shots and directing him where and how to please me, but he was the one who clung to my soul like static and politely guided me towards damnation.

I wasn't even sure of my surroundings to tell you the truth. As my body tensed and took me through one of the most blinding pleasures I'd experienced in weeks, My eyes were squeezed so tightly it's like I saw the universe. All I knew was Spencer's lips sucking my clit and my hands deeply rooted in his hair as I shouted incoherently, stars swirling around behind my eyelids.

Truly, for all I knew, we could have been in space. It wouldn't have made any difference.

But eventually it came to be too much. I was reaching a limit I didn't want to get to so quickly, and so I flashed my eyes open and tried to adjust to this brand new atmosphere, unweaving my fingers through pretty brown waves of hair and stepping back to assess the situation.

What I found was the most beautiful man I'd ever known, panting like he'd just ran a marathon and yet harboring the most intense joy and desire a person could hold. He was on his knees, bound hands writhing in his lap as he awaited further instruction and licked up as much of myself on his face as he could before I stopped him.

Under normal circumstances, I would have wanted to absolutely ruin him. That adoring, desperate look in his eye would have spurred me to more devious endeavors, but all I wanted in this moment was to make sure he was satisfied. I wanted to take care of him, to let him know that I longed to make him feel as worshipped and adored as he'd made me feel.

I got down to Spencer's level, quickly removing the fabric from his wrists and hauling him to his feet, where he now towered over me, still waiting for words to address and instruct him.

Instead, I leaned up with soft hands upon his cheeks and pulled him down to meet my lips in a kiss that changed the tone entirely. It was erotic still, of course, what with my arousal infiltrating my taste buds and eliciting a soft sigh from the both of us, but our urgency manifested in sweeter ways... Softer lips, gentle touches of the face, and an exchanging of breath that was so smooth and seamless it felt like we were floating on air.

I was finding it hard to breathe again, but it wasn't an issue in the slightest. In fact, there was nowhere else I'd rather have been than right there, kissing Spencer Reid like we had all the time in the world.

When the breathlessness was a little too much to bear, we pulled away, though only leaving just enough space to breathe. Our lips stayed briefly connected while we caught up, and his hands found their way to the sides of my face. The way they practically engulfed my whole head brought a brief smile to my lips as I finally gave him the words he was looking for.

"I'm so glad I met you," I whispered.

"Funny, I was just thinking the same thing."

We kissed each other again, naturally and with so much ease that I wondered how I had ever lived without him.

And then, as my hands slid gently down his chest, I felt it.

Something that felt very much like a ring attached to a necklace sat right where his heartbeat resided, and I knew exactly which ring it was.

"W—" I pulled back and circled the shape of it with my finger through the shirt, then looked up at him. "Is that what I think it is?"

Spencer looked briefly panicked, pulling away a little and fishing down the front of his shirt for the chain. "Oh... Um, yeah. I, um... I forgot to take it off, I'm sorry. I..."

"You... kept it?"

I observed the diamond as it laid flat on my palm, still attached to the chain and around his neck. Honestly, after all this time I figured he'd never found it or gotten rid of it, seeing as he never brought it up. And yet there it was, glittering in the palm of my hand as my other one presses firmly against Spencer's rapidly beating heart.

"Y—Yeah... It um... It was really the only physical thing I had to remember you—Well, at least until we started sending letters... And I guess I just... W—Wearing it has become such a habit that I forgot to take it off."

"You never take it off?"

I could tell he was nervous, and rightfully so given I wasn't really letting on how I was feeling about the whole thing.

Still, he answered my short question in such a small whisper I'd have thought he was trying not to get in trouble.

"No."

"Why?"

My words certainly weren't helping ease his anxieties, so I remained close, dropping the ring and focusing rather on his eyes. I softened the look in my own and glided my hands down to hold his. His fingers flexed against mine, squeezing them for dear life as he sighed out in relief and flashed me a soft smile.

"Because... I wanted you close to my heart."

With a smile that mirrored his eyes, full of enchantment and pure adoration for the person in front of me, I didn't use my brain and instead focused on what my heart was telling me, consequences be damned.

"I think I might love you..."

Spencer squeezed my hands tighter, that relief spreading out to all his features and brightening that beautiful smile.

"Funny... I was just thinking the same thing."

Our lips met once more, and I swear it was like nothing bad was ever going to happen for the rest of time.

I'd never felt that way. Not once with Patrick did my heart feel settled into place, even during the great parts of our relationship.

And now here I was, with a man who sent me love letters and kept every physical reminder of my existence, who kissed me like I was the most precious thing in the world and slowly mended my wounded heart.

He held me close the whole way to his bedroom and never let me go until the morning. Though, even then his arms outstretched towards me and his fingers flexed, needing to grab onto any part of me that he could find.

And as I was sure I always would, I welcomed him with open arms.

***

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#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid smut #spencer reid x reader smut #criminal minds #criminal minds smut #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid fanfiction

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circus4apsycho8 · 3 years ago

Text

debacle rewritten. | chapter i

Pairing: Gaster x Reader

Summary: Things changed when you were the first Special Agent to ever be partnered with a monster. History was made the day you shook hands with W.D. Gaster, the reclusive Royal Scientist of King Asgore. Despite his coarse exterior, the two of you grow to be a good team.

When a national threat emerges, you two are the first to be assigned to its investigation. It's a complex mystery - foreign to you in that it involves the use of magic to thwart evidence analysis. With your partner by your side, the two of you learn to navigate this new territory together.

Warnings: This fic will eventually contain large amounts of blood and gore. PTSD will be mentioned. Explicit language. Eventual smut.

A/N: Hello all! I just want to quickly establish a few things.

So, I got the opportunity to actually visit an FBI field office over the summer, and that's the inspiration for this story. I'd like to point out that the field office here and people on this branch are all fictional. I did my best to keep everything modern and realistic, but that will probably slip in some areas for the sake of the story.

Secondly, no political comments, please. I hear enough of it IRL and don't want it leaking here.

I think that's about all for now. I hope you enjoy! (Sorry the intro is so long, it's the last time it'll be this long!)

...

This is it.

A lengthy sigh escapes your lips as you straighten the cuffs of your suit for what must be the millionth time today. Nervousness bubbles within your stomach as you fiddle with your hands. The only noise present is the ticking of the clock mounted on the wall behind you. The chair you’re seated in fails to aid in your relaxation as your eyes flit about the office, eagerly awaiting the arrival of someone. Anyone at this rate. You aren’t sure how much longer you can just sit here.

A few moments pass before your anxiety grows too great for you to remain sitting. You stand, rubbing your face as you take a moment to breathe. Panicking won’t help anything. You have to give yourself credit, too – out of all your coworkers, your boss selected you to be the first human ever to be partnered with a monster for a federally-assigned task. This is a historic moment marking the unification of human and monsterkind alike ever since they escaped the Undergroud. As a result, you’re here – about to be partnered with one of King Asgore’s most trusted scientists.

Why me?

Your thoughts are interrupted when you hear the door swinging open with a slight creak. You immediately turn to see who has joined you.

There stands your boss, Special Agent in Charge Warner Boothe. He’s a man in his thirties with hair done up more neatly than normal. You swallow, ceasing your fidgeting as you face him.

“Hey,” he greets, a taut smile on his face. You can tell he’s nervous too, which simultaneously comforts and scares you.

“Hi,” you reply. “Is it time?”

“Just about. I came here a bit early because I wanted to talk to you.” He steps inside, closing the door gently. He adjusts his tie as he faces you. “Look, I’m not going to lie. There are a lot of people out there. Paparazzi, reporters, news cast, security…it’s a lot. More than what we’ve dealt with in the past. It’s intimidating as hell, but you’re going to be great. Just be yourself.”

You grasp your forehead, sucking in a deep breath. “I’m…I’m about to be on national news. That thought alone is scarier than any job I’ve worked before.”

How are things going to change after this?

Warner chuckles, patting your shoulder. “In the time that I’ve known you, you’ve navigated even the most complex of challenges with a level mind and clear conscious. That’s part of the reason I chose you for this. You’re going to be fine. It’s just a matter of believing that yourself.”

You exhale shakily, nodding. Yeah. They’re just people who want to see what’s going on. And yeah, they may be broadcasting it for the whole nation to see…but hey. It’s a historic day, and you’re here for it firsthand.

“Okay. Thank you. I think I’m ready now.”

Warner smiles. “Good. I’ll show you where you’ll be waiting until I give the cue, which will just be me announcing your name towards the end of my spiel.”

“Noted.”

With that, you follow him out of the waiting room. The place is relatively empty, which makes sense considering the event today. King Asgore is here, along with Queen Toriel. They would be making a speech alongside your boss, presenting you and your new partner.

Eventually, you make it to the hallway leading outside to the patio, where you hear muffled voices. The door has been propped open by a weight. You step to the side, nodding at Warner as he smiles and exits.

You close your eyes for a moment, trying to gather yourself. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay. You repeat that over and over as you stare at the carpeted floor and dim hall. Pictures of previous Special Agents in Charge line the wall, and a lounging sofa has been pushed against the wall you’re leaning against. You can’t bring yourself to sit again, though. You’re far too jittery now.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we are ready to start,” comes a familiar voice. You recognize it as King Asgore’s.

You hear Warner’s voice come on next: “I agree. First of all, allow us to officially welcome everyone to the Ebott Field Office. Today is a landmark event that will further aid in the advancement of human and monster unification.”

“We have decided it is time we merge our resources, manpower, and intelligence in order to create a safer nation,” Asgore adds.

“And in doing so, we are creating a partnership. A very special partnership, at that – the first official monster-human team.”

“The formation of this team signifies the Federal Bureau of Investigaton’s alliance with monsterkind.”

“And it is now I introduce the Special Agent selected for this opportunity…” Warner says your name, which almost makes you lightheaded for some reason. Even so, you narrow your stare before taking a deep breath and stepping outside.

It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust to the sun’s brightness, but soon you see both Warner and Asgore smiling at you kindly. Asgore is dressed in golden armor, donning his massive trident. Despite his large stature, you can see the kindness embedded within his stare.

The crowd applauds, so you smile and do your best to relax as you step towards the center, where two podiums stand side-by-side. You wait behind it with your hands folded in front of you, noting that there is a pen on top of both podiums.

“And it is now I introduce the Royal Scientist selected for this opportunity… Mister W.D. Gaster.”

The audience applauds again as a tall skeleton walks out. He’s much more graceful than you are, and by the looks of it, way prettier.

He’s dressed in a white, long-sleeved button up covered by a pinstriped waistcoat colored black and grey. He dons a pair of matching black trousers and tie to complete the look. Two scars run in opposite vertical directions from his…eye sockets? In any case, there’s a pair of white pinpoints there too. And they seem to be focused on you.

Gaster stops when he’s directly in front of his podium, remaining silent as your superiors continue their speech.

“With the signing of the agreement, we mark the first partnership between the FBI and monsterkind,” Warner says as another Special Agent hands him the agreement. He signs one line before handing it to Asgore, who signs another line. He proceeds to give it to Gaster to sign. You watch as he signs his name with a few elegant flicks of his wrist before sliding the paper to your podium.

On this day:

September 5th, 20XX

An alliance was established between the FBI and King Asgore.

Signed,

Warner Boothe

Asgore Dreemurr

W.D. Gaster

And there, you sign your name, heart racing as you watch the ink form your name. Wow. This…this really is huge. You will yourself not to shake as you set the paper down, turning to Gaster with a determined stare.

Your mind seems to be on autopilot as you slowly raise your arm, offering your hand. He studies your gaze for a moment before smiling smally and encasing your hand in his, firmly shaking it.

That small gesture elicits a cheer and a round of applause from everyone around you. You smile, picking up the paper before handing it to Warner and looking out at the crowd one last time before you’re escorted back inside.

I think this is where I’m meant to be.

#undertale #undertale x reader #reader insert #gaster x reader #series

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annie-mit-ie · 3 years ago

Text

Glimpses: Part 15 (Kathryn Hahn x Fem!Reader)

Part 1 // previous chapter <<< >>> next chapter

Summary: The Aftermath.

Word Count: 1.6k

A/N: hello there! hope this makes up for all the drama I caused 😅 also, if the formatting is off: excuse me, this was written AND POSTED entirely on my phone. Have fun!!!

Tag List: @danvers97 @zafirosreverie @srtamercurio @wanatag @pulledbythestars17 @plantowl @spacehahn @sarahp-stan @agentbrownierso @our-blood-is-our-ink @fruityhahn

_____________________________________________________________________________

“NO! No no no no.” Kathryn paces up and down in her hotel room. “HOW DID THEY KNOW?”

Jennifer, who is sitting on the couch, computer in her hands, looks at Agnes, who is leaning against the wall. “I’m so sorry, Kathryn.”

“This is a disaster!” She looks devastated.

“Actually, it’s press and any press is good press. PLUS, Jeffrey is a good catch.” Jennifer scans another article.

Kathryn paces towards her, takes the computer out of her hands and sits down on the couch herself as Jennifer gets up to give her some space. Leaning back into the pillows, the actress looks like a mess. A grey tank top falls loosely of her shoulders and her unbrushed hair frames her face that is in painful distress. She puts the computer down on the tiny desk next to the couch and reads an article discussing if Jeffrey and her are Hollywood’s new favorite couple.

The article promises an update and as she clicks on the link provided, she looks at very private pictures taken of herself in her hotel room. Someone must have added the numbers up and figured out where she was staying to stalk and observe her through the window that she, stupidly, didn’t close right away last night. A short series of pictures shows her in front of the window, Jeffrey behind her. Him right in front of her as he leans in for a kiss. Another one of her getting undressed. Another one of him in just his underwear during a photo shoot for another project.

Stressed and in disbelief, she doesn’t even finish reading the captions and quickly sits up again to smack the device closed. Shaking her head, she stares at the floor.

“Kathryn? Are you okay?” Agnes asks cautiously.

——-

“Honey? Are you okay?” Alex asks as you continuously stare at your screen with empty eyes.

You continue staring. “Y/N! You worry me.”

Alex sits down again and places the phone next to her so you look like you are sitting righty with her on the couch. She has been trying to calm you down ever since she got up this morning. Right as she read the first article, she knew the situation was bad.

“Hey… it’ll all make sense in the end. She wouldn’t do that. You know that! You know the press!” Alex really tries and you appreciate it, yet, right now, it’s hard for you to show your gratitude.

“Hm…” you hum and nod with empty eyes.

Ever since you’ve read the article, you have been waiting for Kathryn to reach out. She must have seen it. Jennifer must have seen it. Maybe they all did and it’s the truth and that’s why no one is saying anything.

Alex looks at you again. “It’s probably rumors! You know how it works.” More than ever before, she wishes she could simply wrap you you up in a long and loving hug and make you feel better. Sometimes, it’s hard for her to believe that you’ve been friends for as long as you have and the actress you are bonding about had more physical contact with you than she did. What a story to tell.

“I know,” you say, but the pictures keep being projected inside your head, “but the pictures. These… the pictures! His hands, the hotel, her not talking to me. It all just adds up.”

Alex sighs. You do, too. You both sit in silence.

———-

Still staring at the floor, Kathryn tenses. “Oh my god.”

The other woman stare at her with raised eyebrows.

“Y/N!! I was thinking about the press and all and totally forgot.. she must have read it! OH GOD. She… she…”

“You should probably call her…” Agnes nods.

Jennifer shakes her head. “Not now. You’re way too emotional over all of this. We should organize the press first. Write a statement if you really want to. But really, it isn’t that big of a deal.”

Agnes turns around harshly and faces Jennifer with a stern look on her face. “Excuse me, can you please be her friend again for a minute?” she points at Kathryn, “does she look like it’s not that big of a deal?”

They both face Kathryn again, who has gotten up to get dressed. Without another word, she walks past her friends and employees and storms out of the door, on her way to discuss the matter with Jeffrey.

Meanwhile, Jennifer decides to take matters into her own hands, since Kathryn seems to be way too distressed to hold a serious conversation today. Rumors about her client being with someone aren’t exactly new, but pictures taken of private situations are unacceptable. Without consulting Kathryn again, she decides to publish the statement right away to help her friend.

——-

It’s been two days since the incident and Kathryn hasn’t contacted you yet. Heartbroken, you got updated on the story as her team released a statement declaring that Kathryn wants to keep her privacy and asks for the pictures to be removed off of the internet.

You wish she would’ve called you, or at least texted, but little did you know that she got into a fight with Jeffrey as his team called the pictures good press for him and decided to not do anything about it. Following that, Jennifer took Kathryn’s phone away so that the actress could fully concentrate on the project for the rest of the week of shooting. A rule written into the contract by Kathryn herself, as she is aware she gets carried away from time to time.

Right as she has her phone back, she runs for an empty space and tries to call you. It’s the early afternoon and you are in an online class as your phone starts ringing. Reading her name, your heart drops to the floor. All the stress adds up and gets combined with the anger you feel inside of you. You take the call.

Her face fills the screen and her eyes widen as she sees the state you are in. “Honey, I’m so sorry.”

There is a moment of silence. A moment of silence where a storm is raging inside you. “NO. No. You don’t get to be like that. You don’t get to break my heart and then come back apologizing, asking me to pretend nothing happened!” Kathryn’s mouths is slightly agape and her even widen even more. She listens. “I gave you my heart, Kathryn! My time. Do you really think I’m whoring around? Staying with older woman to play round just like that? Is that what you think I am? A toy?”

You are enraged and the words keep coming and you want to call her names and scream, hold onto her and look into her eyes. But you can’t. You can’t and that’s why your words are turning into a waterfall of emotions and you yell at her as she doesn’t have a chance to react in any way.

“I can’t believe myself,” you shake your head. “I offer myself to you and there you are. Going out and sleeping with a man. A MAN. Excuse me for not having a career. Excuse me for not having a six pack like your new friend does. What the fuck, Kathryn. What the actual fuck.”

Kathryn realizes you saw the pictures. Of course you did. She raises her hand to give you a signal that she wants to talk. Your mouth, ready to rant again, closes and you look at her.

She takes a breath. “It isn’t true.”

“It…. Isn’t?” You squint your eyes.

“It isn’t.”

————

2 days ago

————

“Come and spend the night with me.”

Kathryn swirls around. “WHAT?”

Before she can help herself, she finds herself pinned against a table that is close to the window. Jeffreys face is only inches away as he slowly starts to lean in.

“STOP.” She says and tries to lean back.

Obviously confused, Jeffrey looks at her. “I thought we had a great night. What’s the problem, sweetheart? Don’t you miss having with… other people?” He smiles.

Kathryn shakes her head. “I’m… I’m seeing someone, Jeffrey. I’m sorry if this came across wrong but tonight wasn’t a date.”

He distances himself from her, utter disbelief plastered across his face. “Oh no.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not a problem. I just… I can’t. You’re a great man, but, no.”

He is still putting space in between them, looking at her with worried eyes. “Kathryn, I would’ve never. I thought you were flirting. I thought you sent signs. God, I am sorry for coming this close to you.. I… I’m just gonna leave, alright? Okay! Good night, Kathryn.”

“JEFF!” She calls for him before he can close the door. “You’re a good looking man. I bet lots of woman would kill to be me right now, but please, ask. Don’t just assume. Yeah?”

He nods and with that he leaves her room. As the door falls into its lock, Kathryn undresses her blazer and shirt and remembers to close the curtains before stripping completely to hop into the shower.

—————-

“It isn’t…..” you repeat.

“No. And I would never do that to you.” She looks at you with sad eyes. “And I can’t believe you would think I do.”

You look at each other for a moment and the sad smile on her face breaks your heart once again.

“I would never….” She repeats, whispering quietly, but loud enough for you to notice. “I would never, because….”

She stops and looks up to lock eyes with you. You are both crying and your heartbeat skips a few beats and you think you might actually pass out any second.

“I would never because I am falling. For you. I would never because I think I am in love with you.”

#kathryn hahn #kathryn hahn x reader #kathryn hahn fan fiction #kathryn hahn x you #kathryn hahn fanfiction #glimpses #groupie #groupie au

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tundrainafrica · 3 years ago

Text

Title: Copycat

Summary:

""Shitty four eyes and clean freak? Would you know what those words mean?" The teacher asked.

Hange and Levi exchanged knowing glances. A parent teacher conference wasn't at all the right place to explain nicknames. Really though, when would it ever be the appropriate time to explain them?"

Levi and Hange learn the hard way that children like to imitate.

Link: AO3

Notes: This has been on my WIPs for a while and I have a few other prompts for domestic verse pieces so will probably focus on them first hehe. Anyway, feedback is very much appreciated!

“Levi Ackerman and Hange Zoe…”

The teacher was looking through what could have been the class list. No, it definitely was a class list. They were in a parent teacher meeting, what else could it be.

With the way she was holding it though, it was difficult for Levi to sneak a peek at its contents. Eventually, he gave up and let his mind wander, his eyes soon followed. He spared a glance at Hange to see she had cocked her head just a little bit to the side. She was definitely as curious if not more curious about the contents of the piles of paper.

The teacher, Ms. Wilde had a smile on her face and it had been that way since Luke had started school. Her expression then wasn't too far from her usual smile but her eyes were too wide, her mouth too flat of a line especially when she bit her lips. And when she ran her eyes over documents, she seemed…. Stiff.

Uncomfortable? DIsturbed maybe? Levi was expecting the worst.

“Commander Hange Zoe and Retired Captain Levi Ackerman…” Ms. Wilde corrected, clearing her throat.

“No need for any formalities. I mean you have been taking care of our son…” Hange held one hand out for a hand shake, obviously trying to ease the tension in the room.

“Yes, he’s a pleasant kid,” Ms. Wilde added, nodding her head. The discomfort on her face still did not waver.

He is a pleasant kid. Levi was with that kid 24/7. He brought the kid to school and back home, he cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner and he taught him all chores possible at the ripe age of two. Levi was almost certain that along with it, he had taught the kid basic manners.

Levi had to admit though, he himself wasn’t the most diplomatic either. The kid though was glaringly much nicer than Levi was and on top of that, he had picked up some of his other quirks from Hange. The boy didn’t have to be exceptional though. At the least, Luke should have been a functioning member of the kindergarten.

Not enough to make a teacher squirm as she spoke about him. Right?

Most days… And as Levi reflected on it, he started to dig deeper into the past few years, the almost negligible cracks in between their routine. Was there anything he failed to teach Luke? Hange could have been asking the same thing, she looked at Levi questioningly.

Ms. Wilde cleared her throat and in her own way, she had broken some of the residual tension. “Apologies… I’ve been stalling.” She turned to Hange. “Commander Zoe…”

“Retired… Commander Zoe,” Hange corrected.

Was Hange stalling? Or just deliberately looking for a way to alleviate whatever tension had blanketed the room. Hange’s own corrections though were only delaying the inevitable, stretching the tension for longer than necessary.

“I wanted to talk to you about your son," Ms. Wilde started.

No shit. “Go on….” Levi said softly, not loud enough for her maybe. He subtly moved his hands in some signal to continue, as if that could have been communication enough.

Ms. Wilde stared for a bit longer and when Levi squinted, focusing on the paper underneath, he could tell it was a drawing, the crayon ink, visible from just behind the paper. She then put that same crayon art on the top of that stack of papers. “Shitty four eyes… and Clean freak?”

The words sounded strange from anybody else’s mouth, particularly a teacher who had attempted to say it with so professional of a tone and with emphasis on syllables and on words which made it sound unintelligible to anyone less familiar.

“Excuse me?” Hange asked. She had said those words a little too fast. With Levi thinking the same thing though, it had sounded clear enough.

Ms. Wilde flipped the paper open and down on the table.

There were two stick drawings, one with glasses and brown hair, definitely Hange and one with an apron and a bandana over his head and an unimpressed look on his face. That second one was definitely Levi.

Just below it, a caption which Levi had to squint twice to read

Shut tea for ice clean freek. It was straight out gibberish.

Ms. Wilde preempted it. “Would you know what this means?” She looked back up at them expectantly. “Your son… he tried to explain it to me and he said, you two would say… Shut tea for ice and clean freek.” She had said it with unexpected emphasis on some syllables and it was starting to sound like a glaringly familiar cluster of phrases.

Enough for Levi to freeze in his seat and start to dig for some sense in his speculations.

“Don’t get me wrong… Your child being able to spell at this age… It’s admirable, remarkable really,” Ms. Wilde continued. Was she consoling them or admiring them? With that soft and gentle of a voice, it was difficult to tell.

If Levi hadn’t been too busy trying to make sense of that last phrase maybe he would have at least attempted to read through her body language. The teacher had already presented a problem though and naturally, he found himself attempting to get to the bottom of that initial issue.

Luke had Hange’s brain. With Levi on top of that child most of the day, he was perfectly aware of what Luke would usually be playing with. He had gifted Luke letter tiles and had played with him multiple times, at Hange's suggestion of 'something more educational.'

He could have sworn the other times Hange had gotten off work and had played with those tiles with him before dinner, she had been teaching him herself. Although, some words were strange and unfamiliar, she never thought him any of those words. Never.

Levi looked back up at the teacher, forcing himself to meet her eyes. What was the best thing to say?

These are our nicknames. Nope. Should they be divulging something so personal in a professional meeting?

Maybe he could break that awkwardness by complimenting Luke’s work. For a three year old, Luke did a good job with the coloring. Or maybe Levi was just hyperaware about his dad status and somehow everything their little human made seemed almost surreal, almost beautiful even if it was just a bunch of stick figures.

Hange held the drawing between her fingers, her eyes wide with what looked to be the same wonder Levi was holding in. “We’ve been teaching him how to read,” Hange said. “Read and write.”

“But, would you know what ‘shut tea for ice’ means?” The teacher asked.

“Levi here… He really likes tea,” Hange said calmly. “And he likes it with ice.”

“What about clean freak?”

“He cleans with me a lot…” Levi said.

The teacher sighed. “Apologies for the misunderstanding but those words…” She leaned over, cupping her mouth, to soften to a whisper just for the three of them. “It sounds pretty vulgar to me. If you could talk to your son about it, so he could stop calling the other kids names… That would be very much appreciated.”

“Wait, our son, he’s calling people names?”

The teacher shrugged. “I heard him talking to one of the kids just recently… He kept calling her ‘shut tea for eyes.’ and just the other day, when we were cleaning up the locker… then he called her a cleen freek.” She sighed. “It might be just my imagination but it sounds to me like bullying if you know what I mean?”

“Bullying? How?” Hange asked. The knowing look in her face betrayed such a question.

“Well you see, Sarah wears glasses and she likes keeping her cubbyhole neat so… I can’t help but think he might actually be saying….”

“Shitty four eyes?” Levi repeated it again, with a familiar manner, all the emphasis on the right tones. He could almost taste the sweet venom that laced it every other time he said it before.

“And clean freak?” Hange repeated.

The teacher put her hands up in defense. “But that might just be my wild imagination. If ‘shut tea for ice’ is really code in your family, maybe you could spend some time explaining to your son what it actually sounds like?”

***

Shut tea for ice.

Levi could have been in denial. The first plan of action as soon as he got home was to open and close the cupboard a few times over and stare at the box of tea bags every single time. He was deep in thought, still trying to come up with any other reason for those words to roll so easily out of his son’s mouth.

“You want me to make dinner?” Hange called out from the living room.

Levi instinctively turned behind him and towards the voice, craning his neck to look past the kitchen counter. Hange was sitting cross legged on the floor, a toddler Luke right next to her.

The letter tiles Hange had scattered on the floor were an eye sore.

An eyesore which Levi tolerated. After all, Hange had done amazingly at making Luke one of the smarter toddlers in his class.

Experiment… Titan… Omnivore...Carnivore… Whether the child needed to know how to spell those words at that young of an age, Levi wasn’t too certain. At least if ever the classes shifted to topics on history or science, Luke would have the upper hand.

Or so, that was what Levi consoled himself with as he looked back at the cupboard, trying to erase that picture of a mess in the living room. His own experiences with playing with those blocks had been teaching Luke words like clean, broom, breakfast, lunch, dinner. For a second, he wondered which Luke enjoyed more.

“I’ll make it,” Levi said. “You’re at work most days. I’d rather you spent your free time bonding with Luke.”

Hange didn’t respond and the next few minutes passed with the clacking of the wooden letter tiles on the floor. And then an exchange which Levi felt almost compelled to insert himself in.

“When the creature eats both vegetables and meat…” Hange started.

“Omnivore,” Luke answered.

“And meat only?”

“Carnivore.” He had learned to repeat those words clearly very quickly. Levi had to note as he tipped the tea, Luke had always learned to pronounce the more complex words within a few repeats.

The inquisitiveness and the natural genius came from Hange for sure. And Hange was only nurturing them. Soon, the conversation shifted to animals, and then to titans and why the fuck was she talking about her goddamn experiments?

Even when half listening, Levi never understood what the hell that one experiment after capturing the titan and burning through its hair actually did but Hange was suddenly talking about follicles, roots and some catalytic reaction.

Would Luke know what a catalytic reaction is? Levi attempted to answer it for himself by first asking, what the hell a catalytic reaction was. Whatever slate that had appeared in his mind remained blank and he asked another question. Should a child really be learning those words?

“And you know what a dinosaur looks like?” Hange asked.

“Dinosaur!”

A rustle of papers. Hange muttered something about a pencil.

Found one! Then the sound of scribbling on paper.

Levi was only starting to boil the soup, when whatever conversation on whether dinosaurs were omnivores or carnivores slipped one ear and out the other.

The padding of socks on the carpeted floor, Hange’s hums and just Luke’s high pitched voice lisping at some words, saying lines which could have started with Rs or Ws were faint and Levi found himself passing the time just listening to them as he stirred the soup.

He bent over, pulling out the tray of baked chicken from the oven. “Hange,” he called out.

Hange took a second longer than necessary to respond. “Hm?”

“Set the table,” Levi said. “It’s almost dinner time.”

No response. No clicking of plates, no slamming of utensils on the table.

“Hange?” Levi asked.

“Wait, just this last page,’ Hange said louder.

Levi closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Hange was murmuring, words Levi couldn’t make sense of. And the lisping words, the mispronounced Rs and Ws and garbled syllables were telling. Luke was reading something out loud.

“That’s right! So, the plants eat through photosynthesis," Hange said.

“Hange, set the table,” Levi said.

Hange sighed in response. There were footsteps then the clack of plates.

Levi soon confirmed for himself that Hange had stood up, tiptoed and pulled a serving plate and a bowl from the upper cupboard. He transferred the roast chicken and the soup onto the plates. While it cooled, he took the bread basket and dropped it on the table, raising one eye at the view in front of him.

“Hange,” Levi said, louder this time.

Hange was back in the living room, cross legged once again, an open picture book in front of her. Luke had shifted to half lying down position, stomach down on the floor, propped up by the elbows.

“Are dinosaurs real?” Lukei asked.

Hange nodded. “They were alive a long time ago,” she said.

“Hey, you two. I said, let’s eat.” Levi found himself looking away as he noticed Luke’s mouth twist into a pout.

Hange sighed in disappointment. “Alright Luke, let’s stand up.” She carefully pulled her son up and guided him back to the table. She moved sluggishly towards the dining room table and it looked very much like Levi had virtually twisted her arm just to get her up.

To make things clear though, he didn’t. There were more pressing things at that moment than making sure the food he worked so hard on was eaten. Levi stared at them then back at the scattered letter tiles on the floor. Then back at Hange again.

The years might have just made it easier for Hange to pick up the silent question just with a few glances. “We’re gonna go back after we eat,” she answered,

“And you’re fine leaving a mess like that there,” Levi said. “What if someone trips on that?”

“Well, we won’t. Luke and I know that it’s there and you can just watch where you’re going right?”

“It’s still a hazard,” Levi argued.

“A negligible hazard.”

“Can’t you just clean it up then bring it out again later?”

“It takes time,” Hange answered nonchalantly as she walked past Levi.

For a retired commander with a full-time job rebuilding Paradis, time felt like a luxury more than disposable income did and Levi had only ever silently acknowledged that. The moment he looked back, he realized there wasn’t much he could have argued about. Hange guided Luke to his chair, and she started to pour the soup into his bowl.

Levi sat next to Hange and served Hange first then himself, a pressing distraction, long enough for Levi to need not look back at the mess on the floor.

“Luke, chickens look a little bit like dinosaurs,” Hange said.

Levi rolled his eyes. Most of their meals usually ended up as a science lesson.

Luke seemed to be enjoying it though. He clapped his hands excitedly. “We’re eating dinosaurs?”

In response to that, Levi shoveled more of the soup into his mouth, enough to give any excuse not to speak up. That wasn’t his conversation. It was Hange’s and Luke’s.

“Technically yes,” Hange said.

What the fuck is she researching this time? Hange did too many jobs at once that Levi never could catch up to her theory or vernacular wise.

“Like the book! The dinosaur looked like the book!” Luke said excitedly.

“Yes! You remember!” Hange mirrored that same excitement.

“Are dinosaurs like titans?”

“Technically no… They can be the same size... “

“Are titans omnivores?”

Hange hummed. She dropped her spoon and put one finger to her chin, a very climactic sequence of motions that could have meant she had something interesting to say. To the disappointment of everyone in the family, she returned the question with one word. “Maybe.”

They don’t eat. Levi added to himself silently.

“Do titans poo?” Luke pressed.

Hange opened her mouth to speak. “They don’t…”

And Levi only had a split second to note the glimmer in her eyes, then the wonder that could have come from reminiscing nights worth of experiments. Then the familiar excitement and passion he had seen so many times before in the barracks over tea.

Oh no. He looked back at the soup, a mixture of beans and tomatoes, the green of the vegetables sticking out at very strategic places.

What the fuck.

And Hange’s tirade only continued, and naturally Levi’s mind made sense of the words having had too many direct experiences with titans to last a lifetime. If he looked at his own soup from the right angle, with the right vegetable bits in the right places and the right lighting from just above them, he realized it looked just like vomit.

He was in a frustrating position, hungry but with no more appetite. He pushed himself up. “You two just keep talking. I’m gonna clean up.”

Hange stood up. “Wait, Levi where you going?”

Everything was just suddenly pissing Levi off at that moment. “I’m cleaning up your fucking mess.”

“That’s not a mess!” Hange retorted, an incredulous look on her face.

“I told you, just bring it out after if you wanna play again!” Levi bent over, and started to mix the blocks amongst one another. Words like carnivore, omnivore, photosynthesis, follicle suddenly mixed among one another. The tiles were suddenly gibberish, letter soup. And the more he mixed, the worse it became.

It became easier to put them into the basket.

“We were planning to go back to it after dinner. You didn’t have to clean it up,” Hange chided.

“Well, you two might step on it,” Levi said.

“Really?” Hange raised one eyebrow. “You can’t watch where you’re going?”

“Listen Hange, I’m the one who cleans this house ninety percent--- hell, a hundred percent of the time. I decide what messes we can leave around.”

“Well, it takes a kid a while to pick up the words, we were supposed to practice reading.”

“Hange a three year old does not need to know what photosynthesis means.”

“Three and a half,” Hange clarified. “A child his age does not need to live in an immaculate environment.” Clean. Hange definitely meant clean. The way she had said the word ‘immaculate,' the fact that she had chosen such a heavenly word, an almost self righteous sounding word felt almost mocking. “Why do you have to be such a clean freak about this?”

“Why do you have to be such a nerd about this. He’ll learn how to read big words at his own fucking time,” Levi said. He noted the way Hange had put one hand to her chest, seeming scandalized at whatever insinuation Levi had brought up.

When he was dealing with the someone who couldn’t bat an eye at hygiene and clutter, who suddenly thought the pursuit of knowledge was a must have for a poor four year old, Levi wasn’t feeling too guilty at offending her, at least not too much. He opened his mouth, only intending to let it out as a release born from quiet anger. And during moments of heightened emotions, sometimes he lost a little control, and sometimes, he’d fall back to very familiar habits.

Shitty four eyes.

Hange could have heard it, but they had said it so many times before, that she didn’t open her mouth to speak. He couldn’t be too sure either that he had said it out loud.

“Daddy? You want tea with ice?”

Levi only realized then, when the silence broke and a young Luke went in between them a mug in hand.

No hot water, no tea bag. A look of confusion on Luke’s face. ‘Daddy, shut tea for ice?” The words were stilted, the syllables garbled against one another.

Levi and Hange had both looked at Luke with the same surprised look, surprised but very very understanding of the current situation.

***

Shitty four eyes.

Luke didn’t have a potty mouth. Or at least, he wasn’t supposed to.

Levi was with Luke the most among everyone. The heavy responsibility of 'main provider' on his back, he found himself thinking back to every single ‘alone time,’ the two of them had since Luke had been old enough to talk. It had been a year at least since Luke had started to seem more like a companion than a responsibility. When Levi looked back at it though, he thought the moments to be countless and consequently, he had found it difficult to point out the exact point in time where Luke had thought it a good idea to blurt out the words ‘shitty four eyes.’

Coming up with no conclusion, he desperately grasped for a glimmer of an explanation. “Luke’s a nice kid, he wouldn’t call people names,”

“I don’t doubt that,” Hange responded, seeming not at all bothered by the chain of events.

“Hey, we’re still gonna have to explain that to Luke?”

“You tried a while ago, right?” Hange asked “What did Luke say?”

“He just kept repeating it… Shut tea for ice. Shut tea for ice.” Levi whispered in response, letting it get softer and softer on his tongue. It had been just an hour before they had put their son to bed. The conference, the incident just a while ago suddenly had self conscious about how loud they were talking and how close the bedroom door was to the living room. He turned to the sofa and sat a few more feet away from the door, as if that could have done anything to make their conversation more private.

“So Levi, what do you think that means?” Hange asked. She had moved next to him, as if she understood Levi’s intention with switching seats.

“He didn’t seem hostile,” Levi said.

“So he doesn’t think what he’s saying is bad right?”

“He called you shitty four eyes too.” Levi turned to Hange.

“And shitty four eyes has never been an insult to me. You’ve been calling him that since before,” Hange said.

“So what do you suggest?” Levi asked.

Hange was in deep thought for a second, one hand to her chin. She turned to the phone on the kitchen counter. “Calling someone more experienced maybe.”

***

Historia had a child, a good few years past the terrible twos and threes. Naturally, she seemed almost nonchalant about that problem.

“Imitation,” Hange said so confidently, yet so abruptly that morning as she sipped her coffee. She turned to Levi and grinned in the same exact way she would have dropped a research-backed theory many years ago when she was still a titan researcher.

“Titans used to imitate right?” Levi said. Mentioning the magic word ‘titans’ could be enough to pull any good ideas out of her.

“Yes, I know,” Hange said matter-of-factly. “And titans and humans are a little different… It would be easier to have a peaceful conversation with titans. Luke understands me almost perfectly. And you too. I think we can talk to him first about why using nicknames is bad.”

“You think a three year old can understand a convoluted explanation by Hange Zoe?”

“Three and a half,” Hange clarified again. If he can tell omnivores and carnivores apart, I’m sure he can tell the difference between calling people names and respecting people right?” She propped her mug on the dining room table and looked expectantly at Levi.

Levi averted his gaze. “Hange, do you think a three and a half year old will get it?” He dropped the tea bag into the mug and watched as the darker liquid consumed the water, touching the rims of the mug. He walked back to the dining table, settling himself on the chair right in front of Hange.

Hange chuckled. “Worth a try right?”

“Daddy! Shoes!” Luke was painfully demanding. And of all moments, it had been then that Levi noticed that Luke had picked up some of their attitude.

Right. Although Luke could easily get ready for school himself, tying shoes was still something Levi had been in the process of teaching him. “I’ll just help him tie his shoes first.”

“I’ll go ahead.” Hange gulped the last few drops of coffee. “Gonna be late for work. You think you can handle this?”

“Talk to Luke right?” Levi asked. “About the importance of respect?” He had put emphasis on those last three words, as if to hint to Hange that introducing such an abstract idea to a three year old seemed like not so good of an idea.

“Worth a try right?” Hange responded as she stood up and slung her back over her shoulder.

“And if it doesn’t work?” Levi pressed.

By then, Hange was already closer to the door than the dining table, far from hearing range of Levi’s naturally soft voice. Levi felt it pointless to say it louder, especially since by then, Hange had already slammed the door behind her.

And he had bigger fish to deal with, like a frustrated son, who had knotted the laces of his shoes enough times that Levi struggled to find the tips. “Luke… Why… Did you do it like this?” Levi had to resist the sweet temptation of inserting a ‘fuck’ somewhere on that question. After all, it wasn’t Luke’s fault he was just a three year old who was still learning the ropes.

The process of unknotting a very tight knot though was painful, frustrating enough for Levi to sit down crosslegged in front of his son. It was taking longer than a few seconds, enough to have a conversation.

“Luke… The school told me about ‘shut tea for ice’”Levi started and when he started to pull at the top most knot, he felt some sort of release with it, some extra reserves of patience he could easily tap at.

“Shitty four eyes! Clean Freak!” Luke responded happily.

When Levi looked up and met his son’s eyes, he couldn’t help but be somewhat bothered by the knowing and confident look. “You shouldn’t call people names Luke.” He put one finger right in front of Luke’s face.

Was that how to tell a kid off? Levi had been working with Luke long enough though to know, Luke didn’t understand what he was saying. Or maybe he didn’t understand what Levi meant.

What would Hange say? When Levi reflected on that though, the only thing he could salvage were her rants on photosynthesis and titan experiments. If their son understood those, he should understand a lecture on respect right?

“No.” One word Levi had learned as a parent. “No calling people names,” he added, his voice softer that time.

Luke pouted.

Levi had a soft spot for his son’s pout and consequently, he did what any sane parent would have done in that situation. He stared at the clock. Fifteen minutes before class starts. He stood up and took his son by the hand. “Come on Luke, let’s go to school.”

On the way to school, he allowed himself another session for self reflection. Imitation huh? Levi thought to himself. He had to admit, he may have called Hange ‘shitty four eyes’ more often than not and in return, he may have brushed off a few ‘clean freaks’ from Hange as well.

They could try to wean Luke out of it right or at least find out why Luke had been using it at school? He could leave that to Hange though, and maybe consult a bit with their teacher.

Levi took a deep breath, a loud one, particularly when they passed through one of the less saturated parts of town on the way to school. He was sure he had enough reserves at his already scarce social battery to deal with asking advice from teachers.

***

Same advice as Historia.

Children were master imitators. And whether a three year old (or a three and a half year old according to Hange) would understand such an abstract concept as respect, that was one thing they weren’t sure of.

So when dealing with a toddler, play with their imitator side, not this belief that they might actually understand an abstract concept.

Levi had repeated those same words to Hange. By that evening though, he had forgotten half of it, and he had hoped that was the message she got.

“So, we should change how we talk to each other then…” Hange leaned back on the sofa. “But when do you think Luke heard us say it?”

Levi shrugged. “When do you say it?”

In return, Hange shrugged and let out a short laugh. “To be honest, I don’t remember calling you a clean freak either.”

“When we fight?” Levi suggested.

“Or when we don’t?” Hange put her hands up. “Anyway, the important thing is, he hears us say it. That kid won’t get shitty four eyes or clean freak out of anywhere. So we watch ourselves okay? No using bad words in front of our son.”

“That’s easy.” Levi narrowed his eyes at Hange and sat back on the sofa. “I’ve been doing that ever since Luke was born.”

***

With a little more self-introspection and blatant awareness of his surroundings, Levi started to realize it wasn’t as easy as he had expected it to be. He had stopped himself enough times that his throat had been sore from the many times he concealed his own penchant for vulgarity with a dry cough.

“Luke, make sure to put your bag back in the room,” Levi said from the kitchen as he pulled an apple from the fruit basket. It was just like every other day before, pick Luke up, prepare an afternoon snack. Very routine, very predictable and the only thing that made it a challenge had been the heavy awareness that Levi did curse on a regular basis.

Or maybe just the fact that he had to watch himself, had him very very heavy, as if every move had to be cold and calculated.H e was a little more careful than usual with cutting the apple. And he was terribly terribly slow. By the time, he turned back to the kitchen counter, sliced apples arranged neatly on the plate, Luke had already settled on the seat in front of him, looking expectantly at the plate on Levi’s hands.

How long he had been there? Levi didn’t want to ask. “Are you hungry?” he asked instead.

Luke nodded. It was a stupid question, but at least his son was too young to judge his ineloquence.

He dropped the pile of apples in front of him and made himself comfortable on the seat next to his son. “After this, you wanna play with the tiles?” Levi offered.

But never freak. Levi told himself as even the prospect of teaching his kid was starting to weigh on him.

“Let’s play with the tiles!” Luke clapped one hand on the table, and he shoved one of the apples into his mouth.

“Okay, I’ll bring it out later,” Levi said. He took one apple from the plate and started to munch on it, only interrupted by the sound of the phone ringing a few seconds later.

Most days, the phone ringing was a nuisance, peppered with conversations with salesmen, customer service. Having grown up with a place with no phone, but too many scams, it was only natural that Levi would detect the opportunity for scams in that new fangled piece of technology.

There was one voice which always made the process of using the phone though, bearable, if not pleasurable.

“Levi! What’s for dinner tonight?”

“Four eyes, you’re out from work early.”

There was a pause, a pregnant and awkward pause. Then Hange spoke up. “Is Luke with you?”

The silence and that one question spoke for him. Levi spun around to see Luke, staring right at him. “Four eyes… Shitty...Four eyes?” The young boy repeated. It sounded rehearsed the first time around, then confident the second time.

There was a lot he had to teach the kid.

“Just take out food for dinner. Luke and I will have a long talk,” Levi said.

***

Levi’s mind was a blank slate. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing though.

Whatever he was supposed to say to lecture Luke on proper respect lasted at the most, a few seconds in his muddled brain. It went into one ear and quickly out the other.

Somewhere along the way, Levi had given up. He had mentioned words like ‘respect,’ ‘not nice.’ When he didn’t even believe half of what he had spewing out of his mouth, he ended up unable to blame Luke for wearing such a blank expression.

Would Hange have done a better job at teaching Luke? Maybe.

Levi had never been the most diplomatic person, having sat at the sidelines every time Hange had been negotiating trade contracts and war treaties. Besides, he didn’t believe it completely necessary either to teach children not to curse.

There were bigger fish to fry, like rebuilding a war torn country, eradicating poverty and starvation, income inequality and terrorism.

Having lived like a soldier his whole life, dealing with something so mundane as a teacher’s request to teach his child not to curse, seemed almost mundanely unnecessary.

When his son was insulting other children, when a teacher was telling his son off for it, Levi didn’t necessarily find it horrifying. School rules were school rules though and their new society made compliance for three year olds a big issue. Maybe he could leave that educating to Hange though, and just focus maybe on teaching the young boy how to read.

He rearranged the letters and a few times, he gave free rein to his son to form words himself.

There were easy words like ‘dog,’ ‘cat,’ and ‘cow.’ Although Levi had been surprised that Luke had independently put together more complex words like ‘broom’ and ‘clean,’ he started to accept anyway, that it was only natural that the young boy would know them. After all, Hange had been teaching him more complex words like ‘photosynthesis,’ ‘omnivore’ and ‘carnivore.’

Luke had been spelling all those words on his own while Levi watched silently. And when Levi started to scramble the pieces again, just to watch what his son would create, he started to notice some pattern.

Shut

“Shut!” Luke screamed. He didn’t completely open his mouth though, and it started to sound more like another cursed word. Levi wasn’t going to mention that though.

“Shut…” Levi explained. Like ‘Shut up.’ ‘Shut up’ wasn’t the most diplomatic expression and it was probably better not to teach his son that at such a young age. “Like shut the door,” Levi added a second later. He mimed the act of slamming a door closed, suddenly self conscious of how rude it probably would be to slam a door. Was Luke going to start slamming doors if he made his movements too forceful?

Ice

“Ice!” Luke read aloud.

“Ice…” Levi paused for a second, racking his brain for the best way to explain it without having to go for the refrigerator and risk making a mess on their matted living room floor. “The cold thing…”

Four

“Four!”

“The number,” Technically there were two words ‘four’ and ‘for.’ What do you call those filler words? How do you define the word for? Levi realized then, there were only too many ways he could explain what words like ‘for,’ ‘to,’ were used for. He could just leave that to the school to explain.

Tea

“Tea!”

“Te---”

“Daddy likes tea!” Luke started. His face fell. “Right?”

In shock, Levi didn’t even notice he had frozen still, his hand dropping the tile. He nodded. “Yeah I like tea.” He allowed himself a tight lipped grin as he adjusted the letters just to make his son’s final product a little neater. “I really like tea.”

“Shitty four eyes?” His son said again, his excitable tone from a while ago unwavering.

That’s a bad word. Levi wanted to say. That’s disrespectful. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything else though. After all, his son was a bundle of innocence, a bundle of excitement. Did Luke even know what the hell he had been saying?

Levi was pathetic. He was weakshit. And he couldn’t even bring himself to disciplining his child on something he personally didn’t even believe in. He continued to reflect on it as he rearranged the letters again. Then he further wallowed in whatever guilt settled in him as he stood up and walked towards the kitchen. As he prepared dinner, then washed the dishes.

When Hange came home, he at least had been ready enough to speak. “I think he’s too young to understand,” Levi said.

“Well a three and a half year old would have a hard time understanding abstract ideas right?”

“Says the parent who’s teaching a three year old science.”

Hange pouted. “Science is not an abstract concept.”

“That’s not the point,” Levi said firmly. He knew if he didn’t interrupt Hange there, she probably would have gone on another tirade. “Do you have any ideas? On how to deal with this?”

“I have one,” Hange said. “I was talking to Historia just today, and some other parents…” She propped her chin on the palm of her hand. “Have you considered… Aside from just laying off, the shitty four eyes first? And I’ll lay off the clean freak? I mean, the kids apparently, at this age, they like to imitate and if we just be more careful about what we’re saying and try to say something nicer, more positive as nicknames. He should stop right?”

“We’ve been calling each other for years,” Levi commented.

“But, not in public right?” Hange said. “You never really said it during meetings.”

“Well those were meetings.”

“Think of this as a meeting, except this time, our son is probably listening to us every single time.” She frowned, wrinkled her nose and looked behind her. Just on the other side of the wall was Luke’s bedroom. It was late at night and he probably was asleep.

But with their conversations and Luke's tendency to pick things up, it only proved that the walls may have been too thin and their son may have been very observant.

Levi raised his eyebrows. “So you’re saying…”

Hange nodded. No clean freak. No shitty four eyes. AT ALL. She spelled out those nicknames slowly and carefully, just so their son wouldn't’ pick the words up, taking in the small possibility that he was awake.

Levi sighed. “Fine.” He wasn’t fine. Their home was supposed to be their private space. Luke would be a sponge for information but a stranger to logic and abstract concepts for the next two years.

Letting go of such an intimate habit born through years in the survey corps just to please the teachers and to make it easier for their son fit in, seemed almost unfair. He sought solace at least in Hange’s forced grin. She didn’t want to do it either.

We suffer together. Levi thought to himself. With a quick glance at her, Levi was sure Hange understood. Making it an issue of pride and misery made it all together a more bearable challenge.

***

It was bearable at least. And it took a little more careful introspection to pick up those few moments he had called Hange 'shitty four eyes' or ‘four eyes’ and he started to realize, it had been more difficult to point out than his own abrasive choice of words and his own vulgarity.

Shitty four eyes after all, never seemed like a string of curse words or insults. It was a pet name, so invisibly embedded in conversations that Levi felt strangely incomplete not peppering his dialogue with it.

Hange seemed to struggle as well. Clean freak. She used to say. She had started to replace it with something more diplomatic. “You really like cleaning huh?” A few syllables longer but it felt terribly, terribly unnatural. And Hange always accompanied it with the widest and most cringe inducing grin.

Every single time, Levi would look away, to stop himself from laughing or grimacing, one of those. Hange must have been doing the same though.

Shitty four eyes.

He had replaced ‘shitty four eyes’ with the closest thing he could come up with. It had taken some strict observation from other couples to pick up the best one. “Yes honey, I really love cleaning,” Levi admitted. He put enough emphasis on the pet name, hoping that would at least teach their child about proper pet naming conventions, the importance of ‘not cursing’ and just conventional diplomacy.

Hange was only making it harder to take the challenge seriously, a sardonic grin constantly plastered on her face. Every single time, he had called her honey, she looked away and cleared her throat, or let out a wracked cough, a good disguise for what he guessed had been a laugh.

A shoddy disguise but somehow, it seemed to work. Luke would watch them every time, his stare far from blank. He had on the same face he made every single time he would form those words with the blocks. Luke was deep in thought. “Shitty four eyes! Clean freak!” He said a second later.

Luke would then repeat that many few times over dinner or breakfast.

Imitation. Levi would tell himself, will himself to ignore Luke’s words. As painfully uncharacteristic as it was. Levi would trod on with his mission. “Honey, you want more bread?” Levi tried to make that one word seem as sweet as it sounded. He never got the practice though, so he wondered if he ever had the innate ability to make any words sound sweet.

“Thank you honey,” Hange responded, her grin much wider. A split second later, she looked away, seeming ashamed with herself.

Levi couldn’t blame Hange. It was a painful rendition, her tone seemed very much rehearsed. And when it was common knowledge between them that she was naturally more eloquent than he was, Levi found himself wondering how bad he sounded.

As long as Luke learns. Levi willed himself to swallow whatever embarrassment and stifling sensation came with the slow and excruciating weaning process from very intimate habits.

Luke eventually picked it up. “Ho...ney?” he repeated as his eyes darted between his two parents.

Yes. Honey. Levi nodded.

Luke’s face fell, his expression shifted from something curious, then something confused. Ending with something that could have been a hint of crestfallenness.

Levi couldn’t be too sure though. The boy looked down at his food and Levi couldn’t bring himself to crane his neck and sneak a glance to confirm it. The drooping shoulders of his son was enough to get his stomach turning though.

How long would it take for him to get used to it? Three weeks? Months? Eventually Luke should get used to it… Right?

It was one of those rare days where Hange had decided to work from home. Her piles of paperwork took up more than half their dining table and food would seem more like a hazard than a necessity.

When Hange was only present during weekends, Levi at the least, tolerated it.

On one condition, he was allowed to straighten out the almost two foot tall pile everytime he passed by the dining room in between household chores. When Hange was deep into hundreds of pages worth of reports though, she didn’t look like she minded Levi’s silent interruptions.

“What time are you picking Luke up from school?” Hange asked.

Levi looked at the clock. “He gets out of school at two today,” he answered. It was eleven, and half his mind was already looking into planning lunch.

“Okay,” Hange said, her focus fell back to the paperwork.

It wasn’t anything new, even on weekends or any other day Hange was home, Levi did most of the cooking and cleaning. Hange’s presence did manage to take some of the load off household management off of his shoulders.

Answering the phone was no exception.

Most days, Levi was capable of doing it on his own. When the vegetables were boiling on a pot, the pasta heating in the oven just below it, Hange offered to answer the phone.

“Zoe residence… Speaking…” Hange had always been better at answering the phone anyway. “Luke?”

Levi’s ears perked up at that. He lowered the heat of the stove, as if that would have done anything to make the conversation clear.

“What? Why? No… We’re not.” Hange’s voice was racked with surprise. “....You’re right. We’ll get there soon… We can leave now… We’re not too busy….”

Hange? Not busy? Levi had turned off the stove. Lunch never was the most urgent thing. “You’re going to school?”

“It’s about Luke.”

No shit. “I can tell that much from the conversation,” Levi said. “What happened?”

“He just started crying apparently…” Hange said.

Levi sensed the urgency in the speed at which she pulled her coat over her and retied her hair. “Crying over?” Levi pressed. Luke rarely cried and just that thought had Levi’s heart pounding.

“When the teachers were explaining… Luke was crying about… his parents… About us?”

“Your son said, you two ‘’didn’t love each other anymore’” the headmaster explained. It had been just them in the office but with the way the headmaster had explained it, it looked like she could have been quoting Luke word per word.

Levi surreptitiously flashed Hange a look of confusion, a glance just to see if she knew anything.

She seemed as lost as he was. “Can we talk to our son?” Hange asked.

“Before that, I just wanted to discuss the family situation first… See if we could do anything to support Luke through this?”

“Through what?”

“Through your ‘separation?’”

Levi turned to Hange, his eyes wide. We’re separating?

Hange furrowed her brows at him, an incredulous look. She turned abruptly back at the principal. “Who told you we’re separating?”

“Your son said you two have been fighting a lot. And he seemed very affected...”

“Fighting?” Levi asked. Are we?

No we aren’t. Hange’s expression said it all. “If there’s any misunderstanding, we can explain it to Luke ourselves.”

“You have to understand. We have our students welfare in mind. If we believe that your son is being raised in an unsuitable environment…”

“Excuse me?” Hange put one hand to her chest. Her tone was slipping to something with more emotion than any attempt at compromise.

“Just let us talk to our son,” Levi said. The echo of his own voice sounded unfamiliar in that small voice, especially since Hange had done the talking the whole time.

“We’ve been hearing as well about the vulgarities your son has been spouting...” the headmaster said.

“Yes, we’ve been working on it,” Levi said firmly, with every intention to interrupt the old lady.

“I’d like first some verbal commitment from both of you at least to work on this? We treat every child here like part of the family. With the case on Luke’s word usage and his suddenly bursting into tears in school… It looks like his home environment might not be ideal.”

“Can you let us talk to our son please?” Levi said. He turned to Hange. The brunette had fallen silent yet she seemed very much deep in thought.

“Could you please explain though from your end the debacle about the ‘shitty four eyes’ and the ‘clean freak?”

“We’re working on it,” Levi repeated. Somehow, it was getting harder and harder to sit still.

The condescending look in the woman’s face, the accusing glare wasn’t making it any easier. “But have you been working hard on it? Can I ask what is causing you to employ such vulgarity in your own home, in an environment for children?”

Since when did schools in Paradis get this vigilant about children’s home lives? It was a welcome change at least but Levi was in no mood to ponder the benefits of such an arrangement. “With all due respect ma’am, that’s none of your goddamn business.”

Levi could have just made it worse. And Hange said so herself, in between a stifled grin and a stifled chuckle.

If his own treatment of the very snobby principal could have done anything to convince the whole school that they were shitty parents. He was confident at least, Luke would defend them.

I mean a three year old should be capable of defending their parents right?

A three and a half year old. Hange’s words echoed in his head. If the ‘half year’ of living did anything to make Luke anymore aware of what exactly was going on, he prayed it did work.

Whether it was because he was three and a half or he was merely three, he seemed to have understood. A flash of recognition as they locked eyes along the hallways, Luke still let go of the Ms. Wilde's hand and ran towards them.

By some instinctive need to prove something maybe, Levi clutched Hange’s hand. She gripped back.

Luke seemed to have noticed it. “No fighting?”

“Fighting? Who said we’re fighting?” Hange bent down and patted her son on the head with her free hand.

A wide grin on his face, Luke turned to Hange. “Shitty four eyes.” Then to Levi. “Clean freak.”

Levi bent down, right next to Hange. “Yes, this is my shitty four eyes,” Levi said as he put one hand on Hange’s head, pulling her close.

“And this is my clean freak,” Hange pointed a finger to her left, towards Levi.

Something felt natural and intimate and something tasted sweeter than honey when he was saying those words again, words he had kept nill for months.

The grin in Luke’s face only made the release all the sweeter. “Shitty four eyes and clean freak!” Soon, he was running back to the teacher that had called out to him. He still had a few more hours of school.

“I guess we’ve been pretty careless about the nicknames huh?” Hange whispered wryly. “He’s probably just too young to understand what ‘shitty’ or what ‘freak’ could imply in any other situation.”

Levi stared ahead, at the young boy who was talking to the teacher in whatever childish babble the three year old could manage. “You know, the nicknames never felt like an insult to me.”

“I mean, we have been using them since we’ve met right? It just slips off our tongue every now and then,” Hange said as she let out a soft chuckle.

Every now and then. No a lot more often, than every now and then. To the point that Levi never felt it when it happened. Yet the absence of such words were painfully glaring.

“What are we going to do now about Luke’s language?” Levi averted his gaze, perfectly aware that if Luke had learned anything, it had probably been from his father.

“Have you ever taught him what the words ‘shitty’ or ‘freak’ meant?”

“Never,” Levi said.

“Then maybe we don’t have to think too much about it?” Hange suggested.

But it continued to nag. After all, the teachers continued to stare, probably whispering. Levi and Hange spent the last few hours before school ended just sitting by the courtyard of the school and they had more than enough evidence by then to be sure, teachers were talking.

When the bell rang, they found themselves attempting to brush away whispers and glares from the teacher, instead focusing on the hallways which were starting to fill with toddlers and kids.

And eventually, they found Luke, next to him a young girl in pig tails, with glasses. She wore a blouse and a skirt without a single crease on them. “This is my shitty four eyes… And my Clean freak!” Luke said. The girl next to him waved her hand, a wide grin on her face, not at all fazed by the words ‘shitty’ or ‘freak.’

Levi exchanged a knowing glance with Hange. No other words were shared between them but somehow they both understood. Maybe adults were just overthinking that very simple thing called language.

#levihan #levihan fanfiction #fanfic

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fluffi · 4 years ago

Text

MY DETENTION BUDDY :: JAY

pairing: jay x gn!reader genre: fluff, badboy!jay, highschool!au, friends-enemies-lovers!au word count: 2k event: for @lovesick-net and (early) jay day 200421 <3 author’s note: simple little one-shot for jay’s birthday (i wont be uploading anything for his actual birthday). i had to speedrun this fic because i kept changing the plot and this hasnt been proofread twice (unlike my other fics) T-T i hope it’ll still work out. warnings: (reader makes one bad decision)

Ring...ring...ring...ring..ring…

Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring

Ringringringringiringringringring.

RIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRRI-SLAM!

The alarm clock stopped its boisterous wailing

10 more minutes. I don’t have to style my hair today.

Thirty minutes passed.

RIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRI- SLAM!

Ugh. I’ll just miss assembly.

RIRIRIIRRIRIRI-

This time, the ringing stopped before he could slam his hand over the alarm clock.

“Jongseong, do you not have school today?” Jay could only make out a bush of black that stood above him as he sat up, dazed and drowsy.

“Yeah, I do. I’m about to get ready. Why?”

“It’s 9 am! You should be at school! At this point, you don’t even have to go anymore.” His mother huffed in disappointment.

It was an exaggeration, but she had a point. School started at eight in the morning. It was already an hour later but he was still sitting in bed.

“I’ll get ready now. 10 minutes. Good to go.” He shooed his mom away, already running to the bathroom to wash up.

“I’m leaving now Jay. You know darn well that I have an important meeting today and I can’t miss it just for you to not get a tardy. Heck, you’re already late! You’re-”

“Mom! I can’t walk to school! It takes too long.” Jay whined as he brushed his teeth, his muffled voice interrupting his mother’s speech.

“Young man, stop interrupting me. I told you a week ago about today’s event and it’s not my fault that my oldest son can’t take care of himself. You’re going to have to take another mode of transport, you’re old enough to deal with this yourself!” With that, his mother stormed out of his room, her feet obnoxiously thumping on the floor.

“I’m also your only son...” Jay muttered.

Of all days, why did she have to have her meeting today? Monthly evaluations aren’t that important. Dangit, I should’ve been taught how to drive. Jay returned to his rapid multitasking, grabbing his school uniform while washing his face. He didn’t even look twice,

After taking the quickest shower he had ever taken in his entire life and shoving all of his essential (what he determined as essential, at least) belongings into his bag, he opened to door and dashed outside only to be met with…

Rain.

Rain everywhere. Drenching the front yard’s perfectly tended flower garden and creating heaps of watery mud. It was pouring at 9.15 am. There was thunder and occasional flashes of light zooming through the clouds. The city was in shambles.

Not like, shamble, shambles. It was shambles in Jay’s opinion as he groaned and stomped his way through the rain.

Screw school. Screw this stupid rain, screw my alarm clock, screw this-

“Dude, why are you running in the rain? You’re soaked. Are you heading to school?” A pink-haired boy in a red Ferrari shouted from across the street.

Jay sighed in relief, immediately running across the road to said Ferrari. “Choi Yeonjun. You are a life-saver. Could I get a ride real quick? I’ll pay back for engine fees and for soaking the inside of your Ferrari with rainwater.”

“Hop right in, and don’t worry about returning. Let’s have some fun with this baby.” Yeonjun smirked and revved the engine, swerving past cars and buildings like it was a little RPG game.

At this rate, I’ll make it to school in no time.

“Dude, I’m so sorry. I guess you have to walk.”

Just as he thought things were taking a better turn, Yeonjun decides to show off his new driving skills and zooms through roads at a rapid speed, so fast that he crashed the car by a tree. It was a miracle that both of them didn’t get hurt but as far as Jay was concerned, he could worry about that some other time. This was just slowing him down on his long and tedious journey towards his form of hell.

On the bright side, the rain had stopped and the sunshine was back as if nothing had happened.

“I’ll get going to school.” Jay internally groaned and started sprinting in the direction of his school.

“Hey, at least I helped you get closer to school! Didn’t I?” Yeonjun shouted from behind and coyly smiled.

Such a boastful punk, Jay thought. “Whatever, bro!” He turned back and gave his older friend a quick wave before dashing off.

“Park Jongseong! You’re late...again.”

“I’m aware.” Jay didn’t spare his English teacher an eye and slung his backpack over the chair, about to take a seat.

“Stop giving me attitude, I’m your teacher.Why are you tardy for the fourth time this month?”

“Alarm clock.”

“Alarm clock what? Are you afraid to speak up? I don’t see you acting like this in the hallways.”

Jay looked down at his feet and sighed before side-eyeing his teacher. “Overslept, okay? Sir if you could just let me off the hook you would be able to proceed with your Shakespeare nonsense.”

The entire class snickered. It was no secret that Jay loathed Mr. Jung, the English teacher. Who didn’t? Mr. Jung treated every student in school like they were incapable toddlers and it was a wonder that anyone would dare to stand up to his stupid remarks. Jay’s carefree attitude towards his horrible teachers was one of the reasons why he earned so many fangirls.

Not like you were one, of course. You watched as he pulled his chair out and sat next to you out of the three other vacant seats at the back of the class.

Mr. Jung rolled his eyes and continued writing on the blackboard. “Also, Jongseong,” he added, “you’re wearing your school shirt the wrong way round. See you in detention for your tardiness.”

A few of the girls in a few seats in front of him whispered rapidly, although whispering didn’t stop Jay from finding out about their gossip.

“Lol! So much for being the bad boy of our grade. He looks like a wreck today.”

“I know right? I wonder what the other fangirls will think of this. Should we send the pictures to the fan club?”

The second girl giggled. “Yeah, duh. Name it jay-park-wreck-images.”

So much for my reputation. Jay could only roll his eyes as he pulled out his supplies, ignoring the camera clicks coming from the seats in front of him.

“Oh, yay. At least I’ll have a detention buddy now.”

Jay eyed you up and down like your statement was some sort of monstrosity. “Detention? You, detention? Pfft.” He laughed.

“Yeah, Jay. Me, detention. Why are you so happy about it? Glad to be stuck with another girl?”

“What, no-no. You just...don’t seem like the type to be in detention. How’d you get it?”

“This..may be kind of embarrassing, but...” You turned to the side and Jay gasped.

On the sleeve of your uniform was a...rabbit? It wasn’t too obvious as to what the marker doodle was but it was apparent that you had intentionally spent time to draw on it.

“Look, I was bored in assembly this morning and found a spare marker in my pocket! Don’t judge, we all know how bad assembly can be.” You blurted just as Jay was about to ask why you had done what you did.

“You could’ve just drawn on your hand or done something else with the marker.” Jay sighed and shook his head at your dumb decision.

“I was out of my mind, okay? Ugh, Assembly always drives me nuts. I got called out for for the horrendous ink bleed when Mr. Jung saw as I walked into the classroom. He said it ‘didn’t follow school guidelines’.”

“For once, I agree with Mr. Jung. It was a stupid choice, you know? If you didn’t draw on your uniform then you wouldn’t have to go to detention now.”

“Jay Park, the bad boy of school, is telling me to be a rule abider. Biggest twist of the century.” You rolled your eyes.

Jay frowned and turned back at you, losing that little spark in his eyes that he once kept. “I’m not a bad boy you know? I just don’t like the system in place here.”

“As if anyone is going to believe that. Go hang out with another girl of yours. I’m not here to be your toy.”

“People like you are the reason why everyone thinks I’m a bad person. I thought you were different, you know?”

You had been preoccupied with taking notes for class, but now you looked at him with squinted eyes. “Well, I am different. Different as In someone who doesn’t fall for your useless charms. Go suck up to your fangirls or something.”

Jay rolled his eyes and scooted away from you. He thought he had been lucky to meet you, but he guessed not.

You always do this, you idiot. You were so close to making a new friend.

You put your hands in your head and side-eyed Jay, who seemed to be struggling as Mr. Jung blurted out an entire unit’s summary.

The boy hadn’t brought any stationery and was definitely on the wrong page of the textbook. You figured that he was this disheveled from his absolute lack of planning but you still felt bad.

His hair was a mess, it was still damp from the rain before. If only you could help him style it…

Why do I want to touch his hair? That’s weird and gross.

You were so occupied with thinking about Jay that you realized that he was still struggling in class.

Maybe you could make things better.

“I’m sorry.”

Jay was struggling to find the page you guys were on for class when a pencil blocked his view.

“What do you want?” He said as he tried to look past your pencil swinging.

“It’s a pencil for you since I realized that your table is practically empty and you’re going to need something to take notes with for later. Also, it’s page 153, not 53.” You leaned over to help him flip the pages.

“Oh, that makes so much more sense. I was wondering why we were relearning unit 3 when finals aren’t even near yet.”

You raised your eyebrows, looking up at a relieved Jay. “So you do pay attention in class.”

“Of course I do! I’m a student. You should stop using that stereotype on me.” Jay frowned and a tinge of disappointment shadowed his face.

“Right, I know. I’m sorry. I’m trying to work on it, it’s rumors and assumptions that have built up over the past few years and I understand that it shouldn’t get in the way of our friendship.”

“Friendship? We have a friendship?” Jay chuckled and cocked an eyebrow up, teasing you.

Maybe it was that eyebrow slit or the weird tension that was building up between the both of you. You felt your face heat up. “I mean- yeah, friendship. Are we not friends?”

“I don’t know, hun. I thought we were something more.”

“Um...best...friends?”

It was perfect timing as the bell rang and you immediately started packing things into your bag, eyes glued to the clock instead of the amused boy next to you.

Jay laughed, running his hands through his blonde locks and watching as you started running out of class, your eyes occasionally looking back at him to see if he was still staring at you.

“See you in detention!” He called, drawing the attention of your classmates.

Jay Park needs to learn how to shut his mouth. Everyone was now staring at you and you were flustered, embarrassed, shocked, and confused. The weird mix of emotions were driving you nuts. All you could muster was a little nod and you dashed out of there as fast as you could.

“Today we’re going to learn about Murphy’s Law. It is where anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”

“But everything that can work, will work.” Jay raised his hand and added, sparing a glance at you jotting notes in the back of the classroom, oblivious to his reference towards you.

“You’re right Jay. Murphy’s Law works both ways. Reversing it is considered part of science…”

Today morning was a storm (figuratively and literally) and everything seemed to be going wrong for Jay. Murphy’s Law prevails. but there’s always a rainbow after the storm. You were his rainbow and his lucky charm.

2021 © fluffi

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btsxmalereaders · 4 years ago

Text

Valentine's Special Prompt Game

Prompt: Blind date / Set up by friends.

Pairing: Jeon Jungkook x Male Reader

Word Count: 1,2k

Genre: Fluff

Masterlist

"I promise he's really nice!"

"Of course he is." You sarcastically say after rolling your eyes. "I've been told that tons of times before. I won't fall for your promises this time."

Jimin groans and takes a seat in front of you, bending over a little, wanting your attention on him as he starts to speak again.

"I know you've had bad dates befo-"

"Bad dates?!" You gasp, finally daring to look at him in the eye. "Do I have to remind you how the last guy I went out with spent the whole night crying over his ex boyfriend?"

Jimin inevitably chuckles at the remembrance of how you came back earlier to the apartment with a infuriating expression on your face, swearing you would never agree again to go on a blind date; especially a one set up by him.

"Okay, I take the whole responsibility of that. I should have know that! I thought he changed, though."

"Whatever. I'm not going on another date."

Jimin lifts his hands up in surrender, "Okay, but could you please hear about him? He's the nicest guy I've met, and he's willing to have a date after being single for a long time."

You think about it for a moment before nodding, making your friend smile. "Great! So, his name is Jeon Jungkook, he's 2 years younger than us, and I think you've seen him before. Remember when you came to the dance studio to pick me up to grab lunch? Last month."

"Oh, the tall guy with tattoos?" There's a hint of interest in your tone that makes Jimin giggle. He nods as an answer. "Okay... keep talking."

Convincing you to make you go on that date was easier than Jimin thought it'd be.

"Are you sure you gave me the right adress?"

"Yeah, I did. You're already there?" Jimin speaks on the other line.

"It's a thrift store."

"I know, don't you think it's a great idea for a first date?"

"I don't know if you are fooling around but right now it isn't the time to do so!"

Jimin wholeheartedly laughs, "Trust me. You'll love it."

"I see him coming. If it ends up being terrible I'll physically hurt you."

"Sure thing. Have fun!" And he ends the call.

Jungkook introduces himself with a shy smile on his face. You're finally able to look at him with detail; the black ink decorating his skin of his arms and hands, his big sparkling doe eyes, his marvelous smile and pink tinted cheeks. Jimin was right, he is really charming.

"By the look in your eyes I'm guessing Jimin didn't tell you what is all this about, right?"

"I don't! So, mind telling me what are we going to do?"

Jungkook smiles softly at you, "He has told me you're very competitive, is that right?"

"Oh my god, please tell me he didn't tell you about the chicken wings incident."

"No, but now I'm interested on that." He lets out a laugh, which makes you feel instantly flustered. "Actually, I am very competitive myself, too. And I can see you too have a great sense of fashion, so... We're making outfits for each other today! The winner gets to choose the place we're having dinner after this."

"I love it, but how do we know who's the winner?"

"Jimin, of course."

"Right, I should have know."

Jungkook extends his hand for you to grab it. "Shall we go inside, then?"

You gladly take it, first taking a look in all the hallways of the store before starting to pick clothes.

As you do it, you start a simple and carefree conversation about yourselves and your interests. Turns out you two have a lot in common and that makes you wonder how come Jimin never told you about him. So far you think he is really nice and easygoing.

You get to try some of the clothes you keep gathering, sharing your thoughts about it and complimenting each other, which keeps you two smiling the whole time. After some jokes, laughter and pictures taken together, you are on your final looks and decide to send the pics to Jimin, who deliberates that Jungkook is the winner.

"Not gonna lie, I love what you chose for me. I am definitely gonna experiment with this style from now on." Jungkook admits as you two exit the store, still wearing the outfit you end up buying.

"I am glad you like it, it suits you! And you just made me look thousands times more stylish. My closet and I are forever grateful."

Jungkook chuckles and grabs your hand again and starts walking on an unknown direction. "I know a great place over here."

"Awesome, I don't think I've been here before. You live near here?"

"No, but with the dance crew we used to hang out nearby really often."

That leads to another chill conversation in which you get to know each other a little bit more. He was right about the place, since you think it's really nice and casual, which makes the atmosphere comfortable for you two.

The night goes perfectly, and you really think that Jungkook is someone you would definitely have a second date with. Maybe, if things work out, have something more formal.

When's time to leave, Jungkook offers to pay for you, to which you immediately reject.

"Oh no, let me pay for it!"

"I insist, I'll pay for you!"

You laugh at his stubbornness and the way he wrinkles his nose, but that gives you an idea; the perfect excuse: "How about this, we split the bill and you pay on the second date."

Jungkook blushes and nods. "Only if you pay on the third one, though."

With a big smile you answer, "Gladly."

Later you are in front of your apartment, staring at each other with nervous smiles and fidgeting fingers.

"I had so much fun today," He starts. "Actually, this has been the best date I've ever had. For real."

"Me too! Honestly, I didn't know how much I needed to do this. I am so glad it turned out this way." You agree. "It's so nice to meet someone so easygoing and nice like you."

You two exchange phone numbers and share a hug, in which Jungkook takes the opportunity to leave a kiss on your cheek, making you blush.

"See you soon?" He shyly asks.

"Of course," You reply and wave your hand. "Goodnight, Jungkook."

Once you get to your floor and enter the apartment, Jimin is already waiting anxiously for you, looking at you with curiosity.

"So?! How did it go?!"

You plop down on the sofa right next to him and give him a tight hug, "Have I ever told you how much I love you?"

Jimin laughs, "I told you. Aren't I the best friend you've ever had?"

"An angel sent from above."

After you tell him all about your date and get ready to go to bed, your phone buzzes a couple of times. You unlock it to see the messages are from Jungkook.

I really had a great time today, and I actually didn't thank you for it

So thank you!

I am really looking forward meeting you again

Goodnight, _____ :)

He attached some of the pictures he took of you and the ones you took in front of the big mirror on that thrift store, and you couldn't believe your luck.

Agreeing on going to this date was the best decision you've ever made.

#kpop x male reader #bts x male reader #bts male reader #jungkook x male reader #kpop male reader #kpop x reader #kpop imagines #drabbles #requested #jeon jungkook #bts imagines #valentine's drabbles #kpop fluff

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bqstqnbruin · 4 years ago

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I hate it when you’re not around, and the fact that you didn’t call

OK so here we are with the penultimate part! BIG MASSIVE THANK YOU to the absolute loves of my life @pucksnsticksnhockeyboys and @fratboytj for helping me write this because I am a dumpster fire of a human and this would still be unfinished had it not been for them 💛💛💛

Hope you like it!

Read the whole series: I hate the way you talk to me and the way you cut your hair // I hate the way you drive my car // I hate it when you stare // I hate your big dumb combat boots and the way you read my mind // I hate you so much it makes me sick, it even makes me rhyme // I hate the way you’re always right // I hate it when you lie // I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry // I hate it when you’re not around, and the fact that you didn’t call // But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you, not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all

---------

“This right here is our issue!”

“I don’t care. You need to leave.”

---------------

You and Evelina were leaving for Los Angeles the next day, the presentation not quite done yet as your boss bombarded both of you with texts asking for updates while you were just trying to relax at home after what had been a stressful week of work. The two of you had turned into gremlins as soon as you came home, hair tied back, sweatshirts on, hoods up, facing each other while sitting cross-legged on your living room floor, typing faster than you probably needed to every time your boss sent a new suggestion.

“Does he really think adding in a transition between these two slides is going to do anything? Like, there are no other animations in the entire presentation, why these two slides?” you huff, pushing the fly-away hair out of your face as you look to Evelina, hunched over her laptop with her computer screen illuminating her face.

Your phones continue buzzing as you try to put the finishing touches on your laptops. “Whatever this man is smoking, I need some to deal with him,” Evelina mutters. You look up from your computer, questioning the statement that just came out of her mouth. “What?” she asks, “Don’t act like you wouldn’t, too.”

“I’m texting him and telling him we’re going to stop for the night and talk with him in person about it tomorrow at the airport and on plane,” you tell her, setting your computer down next to you. You lay down on the floor, stretching your body out with your hands over your head, your toes pointed, groaning so loud you practically scream as your phone lays silently next to you.

“Have you heard from Matthew?” Evelina asks, breaking the silence that was normally broken by texts from him.

You shake your head, sitting up again. “Not a word.”

“Have you tried to talk to him?”

You take in a deep breath, closing your eyes as you pick up your laptop again. “Nope. Nothing posted on our stories on Instagram or Snapchat in a week, no texts, no calls, no Facetimes, our streak gone on Snap. We’re both radio silent,” you start, trying to fight back the tears that you knew were coming. This was for the best, maybe. You didn’t need to be preoccupied with the idea of liking someone that was just going to hurt you. He was only meant to be your friend. Your best friend.

“I’m sorry, babe,” she says, turning her head. A small piece of paper under your couch catches her eye, stretching to see what it was. “What is this? ‘For Ev and Hg’ Who’s Hg?”

“I think that’s me,” you say, reaching for the card, Matthew’s messy writing scrawled across the small paper. It must have fallen off the box that had the jerseys in it, you figure.

“That’s not right,” she says, pulling a laugh from you.

“Matthew calls me that: Hg is the chemical symbol for mercury, coming from hydrargyrum, the Latinized form of the Greek word hydrargyros, which means water-silver. Mercury stops oxygen from reaching the brain and it drives you crazy. He’s saying that I drive him crazy,” you explain, a sad smile on your face as you play with the card, curling the corners of it slightly just so you had something to do.

“That is surprisingly smart and cute for him,” Evelina gushes, a sudden wave of sadness washing over her. “I think this is my fault,” she admits.

“What?”

“Matthew not talking to you. Matthew knowing about the list.” You stare at her, not sure what to say. What was she talking about? “I told him about it the night you started it.”

“What the fuck?” you scream, “That’s the reason we had this whole fight in the first place. That’s why we aren’t talking right now. Ev, you ruined my friendship with Matthew!”

“You’ll get through it,” she tries to reassure you, unable to look at you. “Couples fight all the time.”

“We were not a couple!” you yell, standing up. “And now, because of you, we never will be.”

“Is that what you wanted?” she yells back, getting up with you as if you were about to start physically fighting. “Do you want to be a couple? Or do you just want him to be your friend? I don’t care anymore, but until you figure out what the fuck you want, you can’t fix this.”

You look down at your feet, wiggling your toes in the socks you had on. “You’re right,” you admit to her, trying to stay as calm as you could. “But why did you have to tell him about that list? What do you think it’s like to find out that someone you care about has been keeping something like this from you?” You stand there quietly for a minute, neither of you sure what to say to the other. “I’m going to go to my room,” you say, finally breaking the silence, “Just, don’t bother me for a little bit, ok?” You don’t let her answer, picking up your computer from the floor and retreating to your room to lock yourself in for the time being.

Evelina sits down on the floor, trying to figure out what she can do. This was her fault. Or was it yours? She had suggested the list, but you were the one who went along with it. She made the bet, but you wouldn’t drop it. She wanted you to be with Matthew, but you have been fighting it no matter what everyone else tells you.

She shakes her head, picking up her computer, a reminder from her calendar coming up in the top corner: Flames @ Kings, 7:00 p.m. Friday. Staples Center. With all this bullshit, would you even still want to go to the game? Evelina pulls up her phone, hearing loud music coming from your room, thankful that you wouldn’t be able to hear her conversation.

“I can see on her Spotify that she’s playing the playlist we entitled “depressed bitch” when she broke up with her last boyfriend and I can’t stand to see her like this. Why did you have to bring up the list?” Evelina barks into her phone.

“Why did you have to have Y/N start the list in the first place?” Matthew’s voice comes through on the other end. “With no list, then we wouldn’t be in this fucked up mess in the first place. You’re the reason I’m not talking to her.”

She knew he was taking his anger out on her. And he’s right, as much as she hated to admit it. “I know it’s my fault,” she says, begrudgingly, “which is why I’m trying to fix this. She cried for five hours after you left last week. She did not sleep for two days and I think the only reason she did was because our boss is an exhausting jackass. It’s because of you and me, and she’s made her peace with me as far as I can tell. I need you back in the picture.”

“Why?”

“Matthew,” Evelina groans, hating that she had to explain her reasoning to him, “you’re good for her. You’re good to her. You listen to her. You hear her. From the moment you met her, you were absolutely infatuated with her.”

“Yeah.”

“So why haven’t you talked to her in a week?”

She hears him let out a deep sigh, swearing she could hear him sniffle as if he were crying. “Because I’m in love with her. I love Y/N. And I know that the more I try to pull her back to me, the harder she’s going to push away.”

“Why do you love her?” Evelina asks, grabbing her computer, an idea popping into her head as she balances her phone between her shoulder and her ear, pulling up a blank document.

He scoffs, starting, “Her way of relaxing herself is by ranting about obscure facts that no sane person would actually care enough to read, let alone commit to memory. And she absolutely lights up when she tells you this stuff. She has this, this soft smile that still somehow reaches her eyes when she’s talking. At the end of her rant she makes that face where she scrunches her nose because she thinks it’s embarrassing that she just spewed all those facts to you.”

“Keep going,” Evelina instructs him, her fingers flying over her keyboard as he talks.

“Are you typing?”

“I’m working on...work. Keep going, I’m listening,” she says fast, hoping that he wouldn’t question her.

“I like how she dresses, and I know you think she doesn’t have good style but hear me out: she dresses how she’s comfortable. She doesn’t dress up often because it’s not something she wants to do so it’s not something she does do. But, fuck, when I see her dressed up in the slightest, she looks beautiful. She looks great in anything she wears.”

Evelina couldn’t help but smile as she continued to type, not even needing to egg Matthew on to keep spilling his guts to her, his voice getting more confident with everything he listed. “Have you ever noticed how she doesn’t hold a pen correctly? What was it, her grandmother taught her to write outside of school so when she went to school and already knew her teachers saw that so they didn’t focus on her and catch that she was holding it wrong? So now she’s constantly playing with it to distract herself from that fact, which makes no sense, but whatever. And she has ink all over her hands all the time because she keeps twirling it between her fingers and dropping it.”

“She’ll joke that it’s ‘abstract art.’” Evelina cuts in, both of them laughing.

“Come on, even you love that. She’s so stubborn. Once she gets any idea in her head, she won’t give it up because she knows she’s right. It drives me crazy.”

“Mercury,” Evelina mutters.

“What was that?”

“We found the card that you wrote with the jerseys,” she explains, peeling her shoulder away from her face and holding the phone with her hand for a moment, “You call her Mercury because she drives you crazy.”

Matthew stays silent for a moment, forgetting that you were supposed to see him in Los Angeles against the Kings that Friday. “Are you still coming to that?”

“You mean is she still coming with me?” He doesn’t answer again, leaving Evelina to fill the empty space in the conversation. “I’m going to try to get her there. I want her there. And I know she wants to be there, too.”

“I remember the night we met,” Matthew says, changing subjects, not wanting to think about the possibility of not seeing you at that game, “it was just a normal night out with the guys and then two girls who we hadn’t seen before walked in. And normally we wouldn’t think anything of it, but,” he exhales, “I don’t know. The entire energy of the bar changed. All of us felt it. And then the two of you walked up to us. You were fucking annoying,” he jokes, earning a scoff from Evelina.

“Watch yourself Tkachuk, don’t make me mad right now.”

Rolling his eyes, even though he knew she couldn't see him, he continues, “The guys loved you immediately, it was like you had known them for years the way you fit in. But then there was Y/N. She’s your exact opposite: you were this loud force of nature but she was quiet. There was just something about her that I had to get to know her. I knew she was different around people she’s comfortable with and I just had to be one of those people. Couldn’t even tell you why.”

Matthew keeps talking, Evelina typing as he keeps telling her about his feelings. In a lull in your music, you can hear her laugh from your room, thinking to yourself that you were glad at least one of you was having fun with whatever it was they were doing. You finally sit up, having been sprawled on your back on your bed staring at your ceiling trying to think of something, anything that wasn’t Matthew. You look around your room, trying to ground yourself from the pain you felt from not hearing from him, not wanting to reach out to him to begin with. You see your computer on your dresser, forgetting that you put it there once you got to your room, getting up to put something on from Hulu.

Out of the corner of your eye, in the reflection of your mirror, you see a black sleeve sticking out from the rest of the clothing that was hanging on the back of your door. You put your computer on your desk, flipping through the clothing to see what it was. You pull it off whatever hanger it was on, a wool winter pea coat, definitely not yours.

Because it was Matthew’s. When you first met him, you were so comfortable around each other. You could go over his place with ease, not feeling awkward when you fell asleep on his shoulder while watching a movie, feeling completely normal when you woke up the next morning and used his bathroom as if it were your own, eventually keeping some stuff there for when you did stay over, no matter how little use it served you the night after the charity event.

He was the same at your place. He has stuff around your room everywhere, you never really blinking an eye at the pair of his sweatpants and the tshirt that were somewhere in your drawers for when he slept over. Not even a year ago, he left in the sweatshirt, the coat he wore the night before left on the couch without you realizing it, making its home on the back of your door only to get shuffled right up against the wood as you hung more and more clothing in front of it.

You walk over to your bed, not taking your eyes off the coat. You sit down on your bed, hearing some sort of jingling sound from somewhere in the coat. Digging through the pockets, you can feel something metal in the front right one, a piece of paper poorly folded around it. Should you be going through the pockets of someone else's coat?

Who cared at this point? You take out the contents of the pocket: a key and a receipt. Your heart was racing, having a feeling about what both of these things meant. The receipt was dated the night you went out to the bar when you moved to Calgary, the night you met Matthew and the rest of the boys. Matthew’s name was on the bottom signaling that it was his, a few drinks circled by who you assumed was him.

Those were the drinks he bought for you that night, the drinks he would always ask you if you wanted befor you could get a word in first, ‘vodka sour = lemon,’ and something else you couldn’t quite make out written on the side. The next time you were out with them, a vodka sour was the drink he bought you because you told him you liked lemon but hadn’t found a drink that you liked with it in it. That was the drink he bought you the night of the charity event.

On the back of the receipt, again in Matthew’s handwriting, ‘my home is your home, Y/N.’ In your hand was a key, with a lemon charm hanging off of it.

It was a key to his apartment.

You couldn’t begin to fathom the emotions that washed over you in that moment, knowing that he was going to give you his key, probably before you even thought of giving him one for your place. Fuck, you didn’t even give him one, Evelina did. You didn’t even think about it, and there he was, a key for you, planned out, thoughtful, meaningful. You felt like crying because of sweet it was.

You pick up your phone, pulling up Matthew’s contact to call him. Your finger hovers over the button. All you had to do was press the button, and you would talk to him for the first time in a week. Before you can tell yourself no, you hit the button, a picture of the two of you coming up on your screen, ‘Matthew, calling,’ rolling over your phone in bold white text.

You didn’t even know what you were going to say, holding the phone to your ear. Actually, you knew what you wanted to say, hearing the phone ring, and ring, and ring. It wouldn’t stop ringing.

It was a sign. One that you shouldn’t be calling him, hanging up immediately and blocking his number so that he can’t try to call you back. If you were meant to be with him, then he would have answered when you wanted to talk to him most. He would have called you first.

Every emotion you felt turned into anger. You wanted him to call you. You wanted him to be there for you, because if this were happening with another guy, Matthew would be the one sitting there on the bed with you talking you down when this hypothetical man didn’t answer.

“Mother fucker!” you scream, throwing the key against your door, letting it drop to the ground, wishing it was smashed.

Evelina hears you, hoping that the conversation with Matthew would end soon so that she can go check on you when he says, “What about how she’s always so quick with her chirps? I have never met someone who’s so fast with a comeback. She’s better than any guy in the NHL. Better than anyone,” Matthew says, still on the phone with Evelina, his voice getting quiet. “Better than anyone,” he repeats himself.

“I’ve known Y/N’s last two boyfriends and between her and Thomas recounting the high school boyfriend, I feel like I knew the third,” she says, partially regretting bringing up Thomas’s name, “You really love her?”

“Haven’t I said that already?” he snaps.

“Yes, but I want you to say it again. She is my best friend and has had plenty of people say that they are in love with her. You’re the first one she’s been in love with back, though.”

Matthew’s breath hitches at those words. If Evelina was saying it about you, then it had to be true he figured. “Of course I do.”

“Ok,” is all Evelina can say, leaving the two of them in silence for a few seconds.

“Uh, bye, I guess,” Matthew says, hoping the awkward silence that fell between them would end.

“I’ll text you later about something. Bye,” Evelina hangs up the phone, letting out a long sigh before getting off the floor. Wandering to your room, she knocks on your door, waiting for any sign of life from you to tell her she could come in. “What is this?” she asks after stepping on the key, handing it back to you, plopping herself down on your bed..

“Matthew was going to give me a key to his apartment,” you tell her, waving it around in the air.

“When?” You shrug, honestly not sure how long ago the coat was left there, not sure how long it had been in his pocket in the first place. “I need to ask you something,” she says.

Not really paying attention, that stupid key in your hand, you answer her anyway, “What?”

“Do you like him?”

“Him who?”

Evelina rolls her eyes at you, telling you who even though she really didn’t need to. “Matthew.”

“Of course I do. He’s my best friend besides you.”

“Do you love him?”

“Why hasn’t he called?” you ask, quietly, her instead.

Evelina sighs, “He probably wants to give you space,” she tells you, even though she knows the real answer. “He just wants you to go to him when you’re ready. You know he would never push you to do something you don’t want to.”

The two of you sit there in silence for a moment, neither of you sure what to say. Would Matthew want you to reach out first? If he did, why didn’t he answer the phone just now? “Y/N,” Evelina presses, you knowing that she wanted you to respond to the question you intentionally left unanswered.

You pick up the receipt that was beside you, the key still in your hand, wondering how he could have thought yo give you the key before you even thought about it yourself. And why did he never give it to you? “Ev. I said no. He’s just like Thomas. He loves me and I don’t feel the same way, and I’ve lost him just like I lost Thomas,” you insist.

“You didn’t lose him,” she tries to reassure you. “This is going to work out.”

“How do you know that, Ev? He means everything to me. You and him are the two people outside of my family that I care the most about. What does it say about our friendship that we get into some stupid fight and now we don’t talk for a week?”

“Y/N,” she lets out a small laugh, “He loves you.”

You shake your head, swallowing hard as you turn the key over in your hand for what felt like the thousandth time. “If he did he would be here right now. He would have called, he would have done something to show me that he cared about me.”

“Y/N,” she tries.

“No, Ev. Can we just drop it?” you beg, reaching over to your nightstand and throwing the key and receipt in the drawer. “We have to work on our presentation, we leave tomorrow, and we still need to finish packing.”

The rest of the night was spent by the two of you not saying more than monosyllabic sentences to each other while you worked on the finishing touches of your presentation, packing the last of what you needed for the trip and triing to get your mind off Matthew. You zip your bag up, satisfied that you were finished when you see the jersey Matthew gave you sitting there on your floor, in a pile of other clothing you meant to put away.

You pick it up, like you did the jacket that was now sitting on the couch, a note laying on top of it for Evelina to give it back to Matthew. Sighing, you fold up the jersey, leaving your room to go put it with the coat. You didn’t want it. You had no need for it. All you could do was let it go.

You couldn’t sleep the night, any time you closed your eyes and managed to doze off, Matthew’s image flashed through your mind. Every single memory you had with him seemed to be manifesting themselves in your dreams, unable to shake him no matter what you did.The nights you spent together on the couch watching whatever was on TV, teaching him to make your favorite cookies, even though he burned them to a crisp no matter how many times he would check the oven, the two of you going Christmas shopping for your families, buying each other the dumbest gifts you could find to see who you laugh harder. Not a single bad memory came up, besides the last time you saw him. Was everything with Matthew actually that perfect? Or were you blocking things out?

Your alarm goes off but you were already awake for it, groaning loudly prompting Evelina to come running to your room. “Are you ok?” she asks in a panic. “Babe, did you sleep at all last night?”

You didn’t even want to know how awful you looked, just hoping that you would be able to cover it up with makeup and get some semblance of sleep while on the plane even if it were only a three hour flight. “Maybe an hour?” you guess, even though you were sure that was an over exaggeration. “Whatever. We have to go get ready.” You get out of your bed and storm to the bathroom, closing the door before Evelina could even say anything.

You looked like you had been hit by a truck, hating how you came across as you stared at yourself in the mirror. Your eyes were red, the bags underneath them so rich in color they could probably be designer, your skin discolored like you were sick. You would need makeup and a miracle to fix yourself at this point.

“Y/N?” Evelina says, opening the door without you inviting her in. “I found the coat and jersey.” You make eye contact with her through the mirror, pursing your lips and nodding as you get back to putting on your makeup. “You really don’t want them?” You shake your head, swallowing hard. If you kept them, then they would tempt you to go back to him. Getting rid of them was the only thing you could do. “I put them in my room for now, ok?” You nod again, still not saying a word.

“I’m worried about you,” Evelina says. “Even with those other guys you’ve broken up with, they have never left you this broken.”

“I’m over it. I’m just tired.”

“We both know you’re lying about this. You know how you feel. You know that you’re in love with him, you always have been.”

You put your makeup down on the counter, staring at the powder in it’s container. “I can’t say it.”

Evelina takes a step back. “What?” she asks, surprised by your response.

“Thomas said he loved me, and that was it. The friendship was over and we haven’t seen him in years. If I say it to Matthew, if I admit it at all, then it’s going to be done. It already is done and I never said it.”

Evelina could feel her heart breaking, trying everything she could not to start crying in front of you, worrying that it would set you off as well. “You know that’s not true.”

“I do in my head, but not in my heart,” you say, letting out a laugh, “That sounds like something from a stupid Hallmark movie.” Evelina lets out a small laugh with you as you continue. “Can we just drop it this weekend? We just have to get through this conference. And get through a weekend with our boss.”

“Ok. I’m gonna go finish getting ready, then,” Evelina says, backing out of the bathroom.

By the time both of you are finished getting ready, your boss had texted you that you needed to be outside waiting for him in the next ten minutes when they pulled up with the car that all of you were taking. “Ok, last check. Boarding passes?” you start your list.

“Mine is the front pocket of my bag, yours are in the folder you have with your computer.”

“Passport?”

“Same places as the boarding passes for both of us.”

“Computers?”

“Side pocket of your bag, middle of my bag.”

“Chargers?”

“Somewhere in my bag I have a phone charger and a computer charger for both of us.”

You keep going through the long list, both of you knowing where the other kept everything. You freeze when you get to the last thing on the list, written in Evelina’s hand writing instead of your own. “Jerseys.”

“I have mine. Yours is in my room.”

“Good,” you say, almost completely forgetting about the game. You shake your head as if to physically shake the thought of Matthew from your mind. “Got your keys?” you ask Evelina, her waving them in your face as you grab yours, too. “Let’s go then.”

The two of you lug your stuff towards the door, opening it and ready to leave when you see him there. “Matthew?” you say, surprised to see him standing in your doorway, a bouquet of flowers in hand, a guilty expression on his face as he looked like he hadn’t slept for days. “What are you doing here?” you ask in shock, feeling your heart start to race.

“Can we talk?” he asks quietly, debating on stepping into your apartment or not.

“No. We’re leaving for the airport now, we don’t have time,” you tell him, trying to move past him.

“Come on, we need to talk,” he insists, putting his arm against the frame of your door to stop you from moving past him.

“Why should I listen to you?” you ask, looking up at him.

“Because I love you.”

#matthew tkachuk #matthew tkachuk imagine #calgary flames #calgary flames imagine #flames #flames imagines #nhl #nhl imagines #hockey #hockey imagines

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definitelynotshouting · 4 years ago

Text

tma discord made a joke about martin bringing jon's stuff to his flat post s3 for safekeeping, so ofc i had to make it sad. enjoy the marto angst!!

~~~

He doesn’t mean to open up Jon’s yearbook, in the same way he doesn’t mean to pick up all of Jon’s things from his flat, or tell Jon's landlord that he’s the next of kin, smile stretched too tight over trembling his lips. He doesn’t mean to garner the old woman’s sympathy, either, but he receives it anyway in the form of a half-hearted pat to the shoulder as her brows crumple together-- like it's her first time trying on the expression.

“Terribly sorry for your loss,” she murmurs, eyes downcast. Proper respect for the dead, and all. Martin doesn’t bother correcting her-- it’s true, isn’t it? Dead is dead, and maybe Jon wasn’t his, but--

But he could’ve been. Martin had been so sure, just before the Unknowing. They could’ve been something.

Not that it matters anymore.

Martin reaches deep for his inner well of strength and patience, and cobbles together another fixed smile. “Thanks.”

“Right proper tenant, he was,” she continues, brows furrowing further. “Didn’t see him for a while, mind you, but I--”

She stops with such abruptness that Martin’s ears ring. At some indeterminate point his facial muscles had started moving of their own accord, freezing in a series of strained, rigid lines.

Whatever Jon’s landlord sees in them, it unnerves her. “I. Um. That is-- ah… you, you take all the time you need.” She fumbles another pat to his shoulder, before fleeing out the way she came. Jon's front door shuts with finality; the click reverberates through his head long after the sound dissipates.

Alone at last, Martin’s polite grimace slips.

It’s so cold here. Jon has curtains over the blinds-- thick, dark things, meant to block out everything from sunlight to prying eyes. Martin chokes on a hysterical laugh; there’s on the nose, and then there’s on the nose, and it’s so pathetically not-funny that he has to cover his face with his hands, biting down on the hiccups that keep tearing out of him.

There’s more, of course. Jon was-- was, god-- a living person, and it’s astonishing just how much people accumulate over the years. The procession of cheap tchotchkes lining the mantle surprises him, the mountain of books less so. Tapes, mugs, and discarded take-out receipts litter every surface of the sitting room; endearing, if circumstances were different. And when Martin moves further into the flat, he discovers a stack of cardboard boxes in the corner of Jon’s bedroom, still filled with whatever contents Jon had been too busy to unload.

The utter normalcy of it punches a gaping hole in the center of Martin’s chest. Deep, vicious grief pours out of it, claws at the tatters of his heart with oily, ink-stained fingers. Martin’s next breath takes the form of a rattling inhale-- just a week ago, Jon had walked these floors. Had pulled things out of those dusty boxes. Had, had, had. Things he’ll never do again. That’s the important part.

“Right," Martin tries, but his voice strangles, falls harsh and reedy in the dusty flat. Wrong. He cringes; silence is what reigns here, thick and impenetrable as stone.

The thought floats up unbidden: This isn’t a place. This is a tomb.

It knocks his knees out from under him. “No, nono--” Martin claps a hand over his mouth too late, stifling the sob that trips from his throat. The vice around his chest squeezes; he can’t breathe around the pressure, lungs fluttering for air. This-- and, god, Tim too-- it’s too much. The wall between himself and the emotions he's been holding back shatters, pooling onto the floor in a storm of frenzied weeping.

When he comes back to himself, he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, propped up against one of the boxes. “Alright,” Martin croaks at it. Anything for a distraction-- at least these won't need packing up. “Let’s, uh. Let’s see what-- l-let’s see what we’ve got, yeah?”

The box’s flaps are arranged in a square, overlapping so they can hold themselves shut without tape. Martin digs a finger under one of them, prying it loose-- the others unfold without encouragement, blooming outward like a flower.

Strictly speaking, it doesn’t hold anything special. Just Oxford paraphernalia: Jon's folded dress robe, a leather-bound folder containing his degree, the black square cap with its equally black tassel. And a book. Slim, resting on top of everything else, the imprint of Jon’s fingers lingering against its glossy cover.

Martin thumbs its corner without thinking, his other fingers curling to hover over each print. They’re too big, blocking out the whorls of Jon’s fingers; Martin sniffs, wipes his nose on the back of his sleeve as fresh tears dribble down his cheeks.

He doesn’t mean to open the book. But somewhere in the haze of tears, his thumb slips beneath the cover, lifts it, and he finds himself staring at the inside cover of a yearbook.

“Oh.” Breathed out on the softest exhale, gently ruffling the pages. Martin sucks in another quick breath, but this one doesn’t hurt so much. His own curiosity overshadows the grief for a few precious moments; Martin sinks into it, flipping each page with that curious detachment that comes after a long crying jag.

None of the names and faces are familiar-- and why would they be? Martin never went to uni, much less Oxford. Each stranger’s features slide away when his eyes move on to the next. These are people he'll never meet; people whose lives are, with any luck, untouched by the horrors that have dominated his own.

Martin skips over the entire S section. Best not to risk it.

After the parade of portraits are other pictures, professional candids of student organizations at work, social clubs meeting up after class, interviews with some of the students. Standard fare, really. Everything drifts past without actually sticking, the accompanying text blurring as he skims over it.

He flips to a new page at random, and freezes.

That’s Jon. Younger, yes, face unlined, without a grey hair in sight-- but undeniably Jon. The picture is as crisp as the rest of them, catching the bronze highlights in Jon’s skin, the delicate bones of his wrist as he gesticulates on a stage. Theater Club, Martin reads. Bold, underlined. He reads it again, some itching, crawling thing at the back of his mind suddenly desperate to drink in this new information. Theater Club.

He’s so young. Locked in time, frozen on the page. For once he resembles his age; his posture is looser here, eyes trained on someone off camera. The hint of a smile poises on his lips, softening the jagged cut of his cheekbones with a dash of warmth.

Martin stares. He shouldn’t be looking at this-- it’s private, something Jon must’ve come back to many times, judging by the fingerprints. But in his mind’s eye, he can’t help but compare this picture to the last time he saw Jon: ashen, unmoving, and lifeless under tons of whirring machinery.

They don’t match up. One is vivacious, thrumming with energy. And the other is--

Is--

A drop splashes against the page, wrinkling Jon's image. It’s joined by another, then a third-- hot tears carving the skin of his cheeks, dripping from his chin onto the paper.

Did Jon ever know how numbered those happier days were? Could a part of him sense, back then, how long he had until his life cut short? The tragedy of this image, its bittersweetness, sends a bone-deep ache rippling inside of him. He’d give anything to go back in time and warn this Jon away from the Institute. Christ, he’d do anything right now just to have him back.

When the sob comes, it comes from deep in the core of him. Shreds something vital on its way out; Martin chokes on a great, heaving cry, breath punching from his lungs.

He doesn’t bother putting the book back. Just hugs it tight to his chest, clutching it with the same desperation that a drowning man would a life preserver. “I’m sorry,” he sobs, folding to press his forehead against the cover. “I’m so, so sorry.”

The Jon inside the yearbook, with his fond smile and glittering eyes, never responds.

#jonmartin #martin blackwood #tma #the magnus archives #angst #grief #canonical character (sorta) death #heehoo i cleaned this up a lot from the doc i gave the discord server #lmk if there are formatting issues im doing this on mobile rn #my fics #txt

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apixrl · 3 years ago

Text

SINCERELY, YOURS.

hanta sero x fem!reader

WARNING(S): none

word count: 3.0k

song: sincerely, yours // nohidea

note(s): i just think that he'd be the perfect hubby tbh (EDIT: I'M SO DUMB I POSTED W/O TAGS PFAHAHHA)

Hanta finally managed to force open the door to the log cabin that had long been awaiting your arrival, the wooden structure welcoming the approaching warmth and laughter of the newly wedded couple. The ravenette smirked joyously and let out a triumphant 'hoorah', your laughter only adding to the display of ego on his face.

"And you said I'd drop you," Hanta mocked your earlier words, looking down at you with that very same smirk. If not for your arms wrapped around his neck and entire weight held in his arms, you most likely would have pushed his face away by the cheek. To avoid that shit-eating, joking smirk that rarely left his dumb and lovable face. The face you fell for so undoubtedly swift and heavy.

"I didn't say you would I said you may drop me," Was your response. "It's not every day we walk through so much snow!"

"Hush now, that was nothing to me," Hanta lifted the arm that supported your back, planting his lips on your forehead in a sweet welcoming kiss. Your lips curled in approval, accepting the gesture as Hanta used his foot to close the door behind you both, driving away the cold breeze from outside as warmth replaced it. "Now would you look at this place!"

Heeding Hanta's words, your eyes averted from his addicting gaze to the bonnie log cabin interior set out before you two. From left to right the cabin maintained an earthy theme, consistent in wooden textures excluding that of the supple beige sofas in the centre of the room. They were accompanied with ripening red cushions, as well as a few other pieces of furniture containing the same colour to maintain an advertising aesthetic no doubt. Lengthy beams stretched from one end of the walls to the other, set out in rows. The deepest wall (opposite to the entrance) was made mostly out of glass and onlooking a gorgeous snowy forest scene, small golden lights lit up outside to only add to the aura already presented. Built-up by red bricks and extending up toward the ceiling was a great open fireplace, already sparked alight and sensing a contrasting warmth to the bitter cold outdoors. In the corner of the room were a set of stairs most likely directing themselves off to the bedroom, though you and Hanta were so taken by the bottom floor's interior neither of you even processed there were more rooms to see.

"Wow... this place is gorgeous!" You said through a whisper, face lighting up at the sight. Never had you thought a place could be so beautifully arranged and so beautiful in general, and the two of you had this place to yourselves for an entire two weeks... it made you feel like the luckiest person alive! That you were really, as you'd just tied the knot the love of your life and were starting an entirely new journey with him. From the very moment you'd both uttered 'I do' in front of all your friends and family - the paths you lead became one that you would waltz down together.

"So you like it then?" Hanta asked, ebony eyes trailing away from the open fire and down to your own E/C irises. His smirk slowly transitioned to an endearing grin upon seeing your face of wonder, heart skipping a beat as your gaze met his and your expression mirrored.

"Of course! It's just how I imagined it - even more stunning than the pictures online," Your hand grazed Hanta's gloved one, though the barricade of wool and cotton did nothing to prevent the love and desire sent through the tips of your fingers. The ravenette admired your beauty in that lingering stare shared between you, exhaling a content sigh. You never failed to astound him with your beauty, the way your eyes glowed whenever you looked at him. How your hair fell perfectly into place no matter the circumstance (even on your worst of hair days you somehow managed to make it work). Not to mention your smile and laugh - those specific factors alone making Hanta fall for you over and over and exceeding limits of love and admiration he didn't even think he possessed.

Just before Hanta was to fall into daydream you shook him out his thoughts, the shifting of weight in his arms struck him to shake out of it, realising that you were attempting to shuffle out his arms in order to stand. So he let you down, grip loosening and reluctantly allowing you to step away.

"I'm glad," He quickly uttered, his hand lifting to his head to remove the woolly hat resting there. Then he proceeded to unbutton his winter coat as did you, the pair of you making light work of it due to the excitement of exploring your temporary home.

"So our suitcases are already here?" You asked Hanta, straightening out your knitted turtleneck jumper which was a soft pink shade. Usually something you wouldn't wear, but it was well-suited for the weather and didn't irritate your skin. So you took advantage of the purchase. From your left Hanta hummed softly, turning towards you once he was done hanging his coat on the rack. He too had a turtleneck on, but his donned a collect of abstract patterns and stuck to more neutral colours than yours.

"Yep, they should be upstairs," Hanta replied, running a hand through his hair as he looked over at you. He shifted over to your side, hugging you from behind with a mischievous chuckle. "But we can unpack tomorrow,"

"I like the idea of that, I just wanna snuggle," You responded with a giggle, leaning back into your husband's hold. After a few seconds Hanta stepped forwards, forcing your feet to follow suit. The ravenette guided you both to the nearest sofa, where he messily fell back against the ruby red cushions and you alongside him.

"That's because you procrastinate more than you've ever been willing to admit," Hanta turned you over so you sat atop his middle, hands settled on your hips like they were structured to hold them. There was a smirk on his face as you rolled your eyes at his last comment.

"I procrastinate because you distract me," You corrected, poking his chest with a prominent finger.

"Ah well, what can I say? I'm just that pretty aren't I?" He replied, laughing joyously. You couldn't help but echo with your own form of a chuckle, shaking your head as the smile on your face sent Hanta all kinds of elated emotions through his veins.

"You're not wrong there, Tiger," You grinned ear to ear, staring lovingly in his direction. Words weren't enough to express how much you loved him, your mind struggling to form sentences most of the time with just how much he took your breath away. In truth, you would have allowed yourself to remain gazing into Hanta's eyes the entire night. But you were due to catch sight of an envelope on the coffee table next to you both, drawing your attention away from him as fast as it came. The item too out of the ordinary to ignore. Peculiarly you leaned over to grab it, tilting your head at the item.

"What's that?"

"I don't know," Was your answer. Your fingers proceeded to slit open the top, discovering a smaller, folded piece of paper inside. Curiously you opened it up, voice filling the room as you discovered golden ink was printed on one side and intended to read it out.

" Dear Mr and Mrs Sero,

We are beyond pleased that you chose to stay with us for your honeymoon. Have a wonderful and splendid time at the start of your journey together and we wish you nothing but happiness and joy during your stay.

Kindest regards,

[resort/name] "

"Mr and Mrs Sero," Hanta repeated with a thoughtful stare to the wooden beams above. "I'm still not used to hearing that and we've already been married a week," A smile formed on his lips, releasing a chuckle from the depths of his chest. Almost like he couldn't believe the words he had just uttered. Tilting your head, you pondered on what he meant.

"How do you mean?" You didn't receive an answer straight away, the man you called your husband gently sighed, almost with the case of the lovesick. Somewhere during the exhale Hanta's eyes fell from the beamed ceiling and onto you, gratitude threaded in his expression as he stared at you.

"I just don't know how I got so lucky to marry someone like you," His hand extended to cup your cheek, cradling the slightly chilled part of your face (thanks to the cold air and wind from outside) as his thumb stroked the surface of your skin. Your eyes widened, all too used to the gesture but rarely ever prepared for it whenever Hanta committed to it. You smiled, nuzzling into his warm hold as your eyes closed.

"Me too," You hummed, sighing out yourself as your heart fluttered higher and higher with each passing second. A short silence ensued, ending as you abruptly let out a little laugh. It caught Hanta's attention, his head cosying into the cushion behind him as his brows raised.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about the night you proposed. That's all," Another laugh escaped, humour striking you as you recalled how it had played out. From the manner your lover rolled his eyes, he clearly still hadn't emotionally recovered from it.

"That stupid fire pit," He groaned, eyes closing in annoyance. "I can't believe I let it ruin the moment,"

"I don't think that was the fire's intention, Hants,"

Despite being blatantly confident and bold, when it came to more... intimacy-related things, Hanta Sero's expertise dwindled dangerously. It had taken him months of knowing you to actually ask you out on a date, and when you finally got together? Well, it took him four years before he began to think about popping the question - three months more to actually pop it. Whilst you did say yes once he got down on one knee on the balcony of your holiday home for your fourth anniversary together, the events that proceeded after were what truly traumatised the poor ravenette.

Your holiday was spent somewhere in the Caribbean at a beachside residence that locals rented out for tourists. You and Hanta had always been big on travelling, hence your honeymoon location being such an unconventional place. Or as far as you knew, you didn't have an exact number on how many honeymoons were spent in remote mountain ranges surrounded by blustering winds and snow. It was a nice change of pace to the intense heats nearer the Equator.

During that vacation in particular though, that was the year Hanta finally decided to propose. After a long day on the beach, swimming in the ocean and feeling the sand between your toes as evening approached, you watched the sunset on the balcony of the second floor, neighbouring your bedroom. To set the mood the firepit in the centre had been lit, creating a stunning orange glow in Hanta's eyes as he held you close to his chest.

You noticed he was quite fidgety in his seat, wondering what was wrong with your lover as he gripped his knee tight. Like he was uncomfortable or nervous. Like he needed to get something off of his chest. It was only when you pointed out your concern and his odd behaviour that Hanta managed to shift his stance. Moving from his stiff position to wobbling on one knee, then came the heartfelt speech that gave you a sense of where he was going. A subtle reach into his pocket and before you knew it, you were shouting yes into the night sky and your eyes foggy with tears of complete and utter joy.

Hanta placed the ring on your finger, the realisation hitting him at that moment that you and he were engaged. His excitement got the better of him, the male sweeping you in his arms and swinging you around as he babbled sweet nothings into your ear. The speed wavered his balance, his leg knocking into the table holding a bottle of wine he had ordered specifically for the occasion. Much to both of your bad luck, it all collapsed against the firepit and tipped it over - and one can only imagine what happened next. A rather chaotic ruckus erupted between you as Hanta grabbed you by the waist and flung you both out of the building via the balcony to ensure your safety. Then he 'thwipped' straight back up to the fire and frantically searched for the fire extinguisher to put it out, all whilst you sat on the sandy ground outside, frozen to how drastically the mood had changed.

Luckily the fire didn't spread too far. If not for Hanta's efficiency in dealing with it upfront, it could have spread to the bedroom and the rest of the house. It did not, however, the most damage being the balcony sofas that were scorched no thanks to their wooden frame and white cushioning.

Despite having just been engaged, there wasn't much you and Hanta could do to celebrate. So the night ended with you and he falling to slumber in the early hours of the morning, too exhausted after dealing with the owners' wrath after the slight mishap of nearly setting their building ablaze.

"At least you didn't burn the entire house down," You tried after a few seconds of quiet, earning a scoff on Hanta's part as he ran a hand through his hair.

"It felt like it when I called the owner's to tell them what happened," Hanta answered, softly frowning at the shrieking yells he heard during that call ringing their way through his mind again. Long after he'd shut them out based on the humiliation of being on the receiving end. You giggled, recalling how you were able to hear them despite the phone not being on speaker.

"I'm surprised they let us stay for the rest of the week,"

"That's because I paid the money for the damage caused within six hours of them demanding it," Hanta reminded you, dragging his hands down his face as he groaned out. Probably expelling his inner cringe at his foolishness that night. "Times like that make me relieved I'm a top ten pro, helps out with emergencies a great fucking deal,"

"Are you sure that didn't play any part in their generosity? That you're a top ten pro?"

"No way," He said and sat up to meet your height, hands looping to cradle the small of your back. He held back continuing to briefly peck you on the lips. "The bill they gave me was the complete opposite of generous,"

"How much was it again?" You asked, memory not serving you the answer. The ebony-haired male leaned forwards to kiss you again before he moved his lips up to your ear. His voice became a whisper, telling the sum in Yen which made your eyes widen in astonishment.

"Wow," Was your instinctive reply, Hanta scoffing a laugh in agreement based on your tone of surprise. It was there he nuzzled into your neck, inhaling through his nose to catch a whiff of your scent. The aroma acting as a sedative to wipe the memory from his mind permanently. All he wished to remember of that night was the way your face lit up as he asked you to take his hand in marriage. How your tears formed and how your lips uttered the words he had oh, so desperately wanted to hear after months and months of worry of being rejected.

And look at you both now; husband and wife and on your honeymoon. Holding each other as close as close can be with no doubt or hesitancy in your minds at all. Why he had worried so much was something he would never be able to figure out. As looking back, all of it felt like the easiest thing he had ever had to do.

Due to that, Hanta smiled into your neck. The change could have been missed, but you were far too attentive to not notice. The feeling of his cheeks shaping his smile made you smile as well, your arms wrapping around Hanta's neck in a desperate need to pull him closer. Your fingers ghosted the back of his neck, tickling the hairs that attached with care like no other. You rested your chin on his head, eyes closed gently in comfort. In response, Hanta hummed lowly, hands starting to rub up and down your back like he was giving you a massage.

Silence passed, the two of you simply enjoying the other's company and the intimate moment you had welded together. The proximity created a warmth that could fight any cold, the fireplace behind you both unneeded to fight the swirling snow outside. Your eyes peaked open as the faint crackle of the fire nearby caught your attention. You watched the flames dance for a second or so before you plucked up the confidence to speak.

"Just... let's not set fire to this place. Alright?" You mused, holding your breath as you waited for Hanta's response. Luckily he didn't dismiss it, actually finding the comment quite funny. He voiced a blurt of a laugh, head shaking as much as he could make it whilst it buried into the depths of your neck. Hanta's mouth opened to make his reply, quickly hushing up again to return to the peaceful silence of before, not at all ready to let it go just yet.

"Agreed,"

#bnha x reader #x reader #fluff #mha x reader #anime x reader #boku no hero x reader #my hero academia x reader #hanta sero x you #hanta sero x y/n #hanta sero x reader #hanta sero #sero x reader #bnha sero hanta #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #sero fluff #hanta sero fluff

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